LOST.
Damped and disconcerted by the sudden hopelessness of his regard for
Mary Wellwood on learning that she was betrothed to another, the
young baron--after leaving cards subsequent to the night of the
ball--did not visit the villa so frequently as had been his wont; but
the society there was so pleasant and attractive, that he began to
drop in during the afternoons and evenings for a little music and
singing, in both of which, like most foreigners, he could bear his
part very well.
That Ellinor had undergone some grief--he knew not precisely what it
was--he was perfectly aware, but her story was not one on which Mrs.
Deroubigne cared to enlighten him fully. He could also see that she
wore black or sombre dresses, with suites of jet ornaments, for
Ellinor felt that to do so was at least all that she might indulge
in, as a proper tribute to the memory of one who had loved her well.
The sisters were to have been photographed in their sixteenth century
ball costumes for the delectation of Colville; but this frivolity
they abandoned after hearing of Robert Wodrow's catastrophe.
Ellinor often recalled the night of that brilliant festivity, when
she had waltzed and promenaded to and fro as one in a dream of
delight, and spoke in a hushed tone as if she feared to waken from it
to a real and commonplace life, for never before had she been in so
gay and glittering a paradise; but now that was all over--gone like a
dissolving view, and she could but think of the poor heart that had
loved her so well and so fondly now lying cold and stiff in the
waters of the Cabul river.
Mrs. Deroubigne knew of Robert Wodrow only by name. Thus her natural
equanimity on the subject of his fate, combined with her social
qualities and equally natural brightness, helped much to calm, even
to soothe, the equally natural grief, and also perhaps the remorse of
Ellinor, who, of course, became in time composed and consoled over
the inevitable, though she was still too terrified or too much pained
to write to his parents--a task which she relegated to Mary.
And in her quiet and subdued grief, most generous, unvaryingly kind
and sympathetic was young Rolandsburg, though he knew not quite the
cause from which it sprang; and charmed by her sadness, softness, and
beauty, finding that the elder sister was lost to him, it seemed to
Mrs. Deroubigne that he was already turning his attention to the
younger.
Ellinor had--as she said to Mary--wept her eyes out for poor Bob
Wodrow; and thus, after a time, the elasticity of her volatile nature
began to reassert itself, to the delight of the baron.
Nature, we are told, abhors a vacuum; so did the heart of the
handsome young Uhlan; hence he adopted a new _rôle_ in his bearing to
Ellinor, all the more easily and all the more readily that he had not
committed himself with Mary.
Blooming as the German girls are, Ellinor's softer beauty was a new
experience to him; she was like a tea-rose, a sea-shell, a
wonderfully delicate and tinted bit of feminine nature, and as
before, he first made Mrs. Deroubigne his confidant.
'Ah, madame!' said he, clasping his hands melodramatically, while
drooping his head on one side till it nearly touched his gilt
shoulderstrap, 'I suppose she could not understand anyone dying of
love--of love of her?'
'I think not,' replied Mrs. Deroubigne, laughing excessively at this
leading remark when remembering that he had been in the mood of
'dying for love' of Mary but some weeks before.
Yet he was a pleasant, handsome fellow, with so much _bonhommie_
about him that it was impossible not to be pleased with him, all the
more that the iron cross on his breast showed that he had comported
himself gallantly in the field.
'The Fraulein Ellinor is very cold and very calm,' said he; 'she can
take a man's heart--take all his love and give him none in return.'
'It is not so,' replied Mrs. Deroubigne.
'How, madame, then?'
'You do not know her story; but why should I recur to it?'
'Her story--she has had, then, an _affaire du coeur_?'
'One at least, certainly,' said Mrs. Deroubigne, laughing again at
the baron's expression of face and tone of pique.
'Der Teufel! One at least? How sad it is to think of a young lady
having a story! And this--or these--render her indifferent to me?'
'Perhaps,' replied Mrs. Deroubigne, who, much as she liked the young
Prussian, did not wish to flatter his hopes, but he was not the less
resolved to put the matter to the issue.
Calling one afternoon when Mrs. Deroubigne and Mary had driven into
Hamburg, he intercepted Ellinor in the garden, with her little
camp-stool, easel, and colour-box, about to go forth and sketch; and
though he had but a few minutes to spare, as his horse was at the
gate to take him back to barracks, he resolved to utilise them.
Shaded from the declining sun by a broad garden-hat, he thought
Ellinor's face never looked so charming before. Her eyes were
peculiarly her greatest beauty; they were of the clearest and most
luminous hazel--not very dark, and sweetly trustful and
straightforward in expression; but they drooped now and sought the
flower-beds, for something she read in those of young Rolandsburg
told her what was coming.
In the physical nature of some people who love keenly there is a
mysterious sympathy that draws them together, and the baron, thinking
that she was inspired by that now, put out his hand to touch hers,
but she withdrew it.
This was not encouraging, but he drew nearer her half-averted ear,
and whispered bluntly enough, but tremulously, nevertheless,
'This is a great joy finding you alone--alone, that I may tell you
what I have been longing--dying to tell you for weeks past--that I
love you, Ellinor, and you only!'
In his foreign accent and half-broken English, the avowal sounded
very pretty and simple, but did not touch Ellinor much, though she
trembled and grew pale, for no woman can have such things said to her
and remain quite unmoved.
'Love _me_--how strange!' said she, scarcely knowing what to say.
'To you it may seem so,' he continued, slowly and earnestly; 'for I
know or suspect that you cherish some dead--some mysterious memory,
and that you cannot or may not care for me as I wish you to do; but
that does not prevent me from loving you, and you may never
understand, even dimly, how much I do love you, and I can keep this
secret untold no longer.'
'I respect you much, baron,' replied Ellinor, for his declaration was
more formal than impetuous; 'but mere talking to me will not make me
love you in return. I feel quite confused--most unhappy to hear all
this; and we shall have to go away from Altona.'
'Go from Altona?'
'Yes.'
'I only tell you because I can not control--can not help myself,'
said he, humbly and sadly, and not without an emotion of pique at the
ill-luck of his second venture.
'I thank you, baron, but it cannot be,' said Ellinor, shaking her
pretty head decidedly.
'You cannot--love me.'
'No--not as you wish.'
'Well,' said he, after a pause, during which he had been eyeing her
downcast face with an expression of disappointment and chagrin, 'be
it so; but I trust you will pardon any unpleasantness my perhaps
abrupt avowal has occasioned you; and I also trust that in the future
you will always view me as your friend--as one who will ever be ready
and eager to hold out the hand of a brother to you, Miss Ellinor.
Even with that conviction I shall be happy,' he added, with a voice
that certainly broke a little with emotion.
She now gave her hand frankly, and he pressed it kindly, and then,
proceeding to fill with tobacco his consolatory meerschaum pipe (that
dangled at his button-hole) prior to riding back to the Dammthor
Wall, he said, with a sigh,
'Ach--I will get over this, no doubt!'
'As you must have got over others, no doubt,' said Ellinor, laughing
now, but piqued by his philosophy, and to see that he could so calmly
canvass the prospect of ceasing to care for her already. But what
does it matter? Robert Wodrow had loved her as no man had ever loved
her, and what had been _his_ reward?
'Now leave me, please, baron,' she said, a little bluntly; 'the tide
is far out, and I wish to sketch the creek and villa from yonder bank
of dry sand ere the sun sets.'
'I must go--for parade awaits me; but must I recur to this dear
subject no more?'
'Yes--no more,' said Ellinor, with decision, yet with a smile
nevertheless.
The baron felt that all was over when he saw that smile; indeed, when
with Ellinor, he always felt that he was in the presence of some
feeling deeper than he could fathom; and, bowing low, he turned sadly
away. Then in a few minutes the clatter of his horse's hoofs was
heard as he cantered off towards the Millernthor, and so ended
another little romance in Ellinor's life--at least, she thought so.
And the baron knew that now never again could they enjoy each other's
society as they had done so innocently till that afternoon.
Proceeding over the firm dry sand left by the far retreating tide,
she selected a point upon a rough pebble-covered knoll, a quarter of
a mile from the little wooded creek, set her sketching-block upon her
tiny easel, and, seating herself upon a little camp-stool, proceeded,
with her back to the setting sun, to outline the creek, with the
trees, the garden, and sandy beach in foreground, and the villa in
the middle distance.
She was very full of her work, to have it as a souvenir of Altona,
but it proceeded very, very slowly; she was too full of the late
episode to do much with her pencil--much successfully at least, and
paused ever and anon to sink into deep thought over the past, the
present, and the future.
When Mary and Mrs. Deroubigne returned home to a late dinner, Ellinor
was not to be seen, she was not in the villa, and she was not in the
garden, nor in the adjacent shrubberies, so the house-bell was rung
for her in vain; and to Mrs. Deroubigne, Ellinor, always dreamy,
delicate, and in temperament excitable, had been somewhat of a
responsibility, more than her sister Mary.
Dinner was served up, but remained on the table untasted, while
search after search was made without avail, and sunset was at hand.
She had last been seen in the garden, with Baron Rolandsburg, with
her drawing materials and apparatus, going forth to sketch.
With the baron!
'Could she have eloped with him?' thought Mary, while her heart
sank--recalling Ellinor's former folly--the folly she had been on the
brink of committing with Sir Redmond Sleath.
Oh, that was very unlikely! Ellinor was a changed girl, and less
confiding, and the young baron was too confident in himself, his
position, wealth, and resources to love mystery or mischief when
neither were needed.
A presentiment of evil--an emotion that she could not have
explained--came over Mary's mind. Vainly she sought to settle her
thoughts to some fixity of purpose. A vague terror seized her, and
she could scarcely even think.
She remembered when Ellinor was ill how the tolling of the Passing
Bell in the adjacent church appalled her with the dread that she was
about to lose her--her only relation in the world; and had she lost
her now?
'Was she going far to sketch?' Mrs. Deroubigne suddenly inquired of
her now scared domestics.
'No, madame! Only to the sands beside the river, when the tide was
out.'
'The tide!' exclaimed Mrs. Deroubigne; and, accompanied by Mary, she
rushed to the foot of the garden, to find the creek full and the Elbe
at flood tide and more.
'My God--oh, what can have happened?' exclaimed Mrs. Deroubigne, who
was aware of a periodical event of which Mary knew nothing.
It was this. When the wind is from the west, and especially if
violent, the waters of the Elbe become swollen to such a degree that
the canals of Hamburg overflow their banks, the cellars, magazines
and all channels, become gorged and inundated--that, in fact, the
tide suddenly rises, sometimes to the height of twenty feet, with a
rapidity that is alike dangerous and terrible. So the gorged tide,
swollen by the incoming waves of the German Sea, was rolling inshore
now, and Ellinor had been on the sands--the temporary dry sands, to
sketch!
A wild waste of water was rolling and boiling there now, and where
was she?
'Ellinor--oh, Ellinor!' cried Mary, again and again, in a voice of
agony; but, save the sough of the waves, there was no response.
Soaked to pulp her sketch-book was found at the foot of the creek
washed inshore, and, if other evidence of a tragedy was wanting,
something was seen floating in the oozy waves about ten yards distant.
Jack, the terrier--that dog which had such amazing facility for
getting into canine troubles--sprang in, and yapping and yelping laid
that something at the feet of his mistress, who recognised at once
her sister's garden-hat; and a low cry of despair escaped Mary as she
turned it over in her trembling hands, and painfully and vividly it
brought before her the face, figure, and whole individuality of the
lost one.
A torrent of tears escaped Mrs. Deroubigne, but Mary seemed to have
lost the power to shed one.
Even as the angry waves came rolling into the creek, so did wave
after wave of sorrow seem to be coming upon her again, dark and sharp
as ever.
'Oh, Lord--how long--how long!' she wailed in her heart.
She stretched out her hands as if clutching the air for support, she
swayed a little, and then, her strength failing her, she would have
fallen on her pallid face had not Mrs. Deroubigne caught her fast in
her motherly arms.
Night drew on and day came again without a trace of the lost one,
dead or alive.
Baron Rolandsburg, who was appalled by a catastrophe so sudden and
unforeseen, corroborated the story that she had gone on the stretch
of dry sand to sketch, and no doubt remained till the sudden tide had
overtaken and overwhelmed her!
He now made himself invaluable in his exertions for intelligence.
Rewards were offered to boatmen and river-pilots, and in the
_Hamburger Nachrichten_ and other journals 'for her remains' (how
horrible did this sound), but unknown to Mary, who was for several
days and nights all but unconscious. He also put himself into
communication with their _Herrshaften_ (their Excellencies) the four
Burgomasters and four Syndics, and the Gendermerie, but all in vain.
Other traces of Ellinor than those which the hungry waves had washed
to Mary's feet were never found!
The latter was now a prey to two emotions, when a time came that she
could consider calmly. One was an intense longing to get away from
Altona as a place which had now become hateful to her, as the scene
of so much sadness; and the other was an affectionate repugnance to
leave it, until her sister's fate was made certain, and her remains
found.
But the latter might have been washed out to sea, and never--never
might be heard of more.
The inexorable had to be accepted, but we fear that poor Mary
Wellwood could not do so with the calmness of a disciple of
Epictitus, the stoic.