A PROMISE.
This was a dark time indeed for Natalie Lind--left entirely by herself,
ignorant of what was happening around her, and haunted by vague alarms.
But the girl was too proud to show to any one how much she suffered. On
the contrary, she reasoned and remonstrated with herself; and forced
herself to assume an attitude of something more than resignation, of
resolution. If it was necessary that her father should be obeyed, that
her lover should maintain this cruel silence, even that he and she
should have the wide Atlantic separate them forever, she would not
repine. It was not for her who had so often appealed to others to shrink
from sacrifice herself. And if this strange new hope that had filled her
heart for a time had to be finally abandoned, what of that? What
mattered a single life? She had the larger hope; there was another and
greater future for her to think about; and she could cherish the thought
that she at least had done nothing to imperil or diminish the work to
which so many of her friends had given their lives.
But silence is hard to bear. Ever since the scene with her father, a
certain undeclared estrangement had prevailed between these two; and no
reference whatsoever had been made to George Brand. Her lover had sent
her no message--no word of encouragement, of assurance, or sympathy.
Even Calabressa had gone. There remained to her only the portrait that
Calabressa had given her; and in the solitude of her own room many a
time she sat and gazed at the beautiful face with some dim, wondering
belief that she was looking at her other self, and that she could read
in the features some portion of her own experiences, her own joys and
sorrows. For surely those soft, dark, liquid eyes must have loved and
been beloved? And had they too filled with gladness when a certain step
had been heard coming near? and they looked up with trust and pride and
tenderness, and filled with tears again in absence, when only the memory
of loving words remained? She recalled many a time what Calabressa had
said to her--"My child, may Heaven keep you as true and brave as your
mother was, and send you more happiness." Her mother, then, had not been
happy? But she was brave, Calabressa had said: when she loved a man,
would she not show herself worthy of her love?
This was all very well; but in spite of her reasoning and her forced
courage, and her self-possession in the presence of others, Natalie had
got into the habit of crying in the quietude of her own room, to the
great distress of the little Anneli, who had surprised her once or
twice. And the rosy-cheeked German maid guessed pretty accurately what
had happened; and wondered very much at the conduct of English lovers,
who allowed their sweethearts to pine and fret in solitude without
sending them letters or coming to see them. But on this particular
afternoon Anneli opened the door, in answer to a summons, and found
outside a club commissionaire whom she had seen once or twice before;
and when he gave her a letter, addressed in a handwriting which she
recognized, and ask for an answer, she was as much agitated as if it had
come from her own sweetheart in Gorlitz. She snatched it from the man,
as if she feared he would take it back. She flew with it up-stairs,
breathless. She forgot to knock at the door.
"Oh, Fraulein, it is a letter!" said she, in great excitement, "and
there is to be an answer--"
Then she hesitated. But the good-sense of the child told her she ought
to go.
"I will wait outside, Fraulein. Will you ring when you have written the
answer?"
When Natalie opened the letter she was outwardly quite calm--a little
pale, perhaps; but as she read it her heart beat fast. And it was her
heart that instantly dictated the answer to this brief and simple
appeal:
"My Natalie,--It is your father's wish that I should not see you. Is it
your wish also? There is something I would like to say to you."
It was her heart that answered. She rose directly. She never thought
twice, or even once, about any wish, or menace, or possible consequence.
She went straight to her desk, and with a shaking hand wrote these
lines:
"My Own,--Come to me now, at any time--when you please. Am I not yours?
Natalie."
Despite herself, she had to pause, to steady her hand--and because her
heart was beating so fast that she felt choked--before she could
properly address the envelope. Then she carried the letter to Anneli,
who she knew was waiting outside. That done, she shut herself in again,
to give herself time to think, though in truth she could scarcely think
at all. For all sorts of emotions were struggling for the mastery of
her--joy and a proud resolve distinctly predominant. It was done, and
she would abide by it. She was not given to fear.
But she tried hard to think. At last her lover was coming to her; he
would ask her what she was prepared to do: what would she answer?
Then, again, the joy of the thought that she was about to see him drove
every other consideration out of her mind. How soon might he be here?
Hurriedly she went to a jar of flowers on the table, chose some scarlet
geraniums, and turned to a mirror. Her haste did not avail much, for her
fingers were still trembling: but that was the color he had said, on one
occasion, suited her best. She had not been wearing flowers in her hair
of late.
From time to time, for a second or so, some thought of her father
intervened. But then her father had only enjoined her to dismiss forever
the hope of her marrying the man to whom she had given her heart and
her life: that could not prevent her loving him, and seeing him, and
telling him that her love was his. She wished the geraniums were less
rose-red and more scarlet in hue. It was the scarlet he had approved
of--that evening that he and she the little Polish lady had dined
together.
She had not long to wait. With a quick, intense consciousness she heard
the hansom drive up, and the rapid knock that followed; her heart
throbbed through the seconds of silence; then she knew that he was
ascending the stair; then it seemed to her as if the life would go out
of her altogether. But when he flung the door open and came toward her;
when he caught her two hands in his--one hand in each hand--and held
them tight; when, in a silence that neither cared to break, he gazed
into her rapidly moistening eyes--then the full tide of joy and courage
returned to her heart, and she was proud that she had sent him that
answer. For some seconds--to be remembered during a life time--they
regarded each other in silence; then he released her hands, and began to
put back the hair from her forehead as if he would see more clearly into
the troubled deeps of her eyes; and then, somehow--perhaps to hide her
crying--she buried her face in his breast, and his arms were around her,
and she was sobbing out all the story of her waiting and her despair.
"What!" said he, cheerfully, to calm and reassure her, "the brave
Natalie to be frightened like that!"
"I was alone," she murmured. "I had no one to speak to; and I could not
understand. Oh, my love, my love, you do not know what you are to me!"
He kissed her; her cheeks were wet.
"Natalie," said he in a low voice, "don't forget this: we may be
separated--that is possible--I don't know; but if we live fifty years
apart from each other--if you never hear one word more from me or of
me--be sure of this, that I am thinking of you always, and loving you,
as I do at this moment when my arms are around you. Will you remember
that? Will you believe that--always?"
"I could not think otherwise," she answered. "But now that you are with
me--that I can hear you speak to me--" And at this point her voice
failed her altogether; and he could only draw her closer to him, and
soothe and caress her, and stroke the raven-black hair that had never
before thrilled his fingers with its soft, strange touch.
"Perhaps," she said at last, in a broken and hesitating voice, "you will
blame me for having said what I have said. I have had no
girl-companions; scarcely any woman to tell me what I should do and say.
But--but I thought you were going to America--I thought I should never
see you again--I was lonely and miserable; and when I saw you again, how
could I help saying I was glad? How could I help saying that, and
more?--for I never knew it till now. Oh, my love, do you know that you
have become the whole world to me? When you are away from me, I would
rather die than live!"
"Natalie--my life!"
"I must say that to you--once--that you may understand--if we should
never see each other again. And now--"
She gently released herself from his embrace, and went and sat down by
the table. He took a chair near her and held her hand. She would not
look up, for her eyes were still wet with tears.
"And now," she said, making a great effort to regain her self-control,
"you must tell me about yourself. A woman may have her feelings and
fancies, and cry over them when she is afraid or alone; that is nothing;
it is the way of the world. It is a man's fate that is of importance."
"You must not talk like that, Natalie," said he gravely. "Our fate is
one. Without you, I don't value my life more than this bit of
geranium-leaf; with you, life would be worth having."
"And you must not talk like that either," she said. "Your life is
valuable to others. Ah, my dear friend, that is what I have been trying
to console myself with of late. I said, 'Well, if he goes away and does
not see me again, will he not be freer? He has a great work to do; he
may have to go away from England for many years; why should he be
encumbered with a wife?"
"It was your father, I presume, who made those suggestions to you?" said
Brand, regarding her.
"Yes; papa said something like that," she answered, quite innocently.
"That is what would naturally occur to him; his work has always the
first place in his thoughts. And with you, too; is it not so?"
"No."
She looked up quickly.
"I will be quite frank with you, Natalie. You have the first place in my
thoughts; I hope you ever will have, while I am a living man. But cannot
I give the Society all the work that is in me equally well, whether I
love you or whether I don't, whether you become my wife or whether you
do not? I have no doubt your father has been talking to you as he has
been talking to me."
She placed her disengaged hand on the top of his, and said, gently,
"My father perhaps does not quite understand you; perhaps he is too
anxious. I, for one, am not anxious--about _that_. Do you know how I
trust you, my dearest of friends? Sometimes I have said to myself, 'I
will ask him for a pledge. I will say to him that he must promise, that
he must swear to me, that whatever happens as between him and me,
nothing, nothing, nothing in all the world will induce him to give up
what he has undertaken;' but then again I have said to myself, 'No, I
can trust him for that.'"
"I think you may, Natalie," said he, rather absently. "And yet what
could have led me to join such a movement but your own noble spirit--the
glamour of your voice--the thanks of your eyes? You put madness into my
blood with your singing."
"Do you call it madness?" she said, with a faint flush in the pale olive
face. "Is it not rather kindness--is it not justice to others--the
desire to help--something that the angels in heaven must feel when they
look down and see what a great misery there is in the world?"
"I think you are an angel yourself, Natalie," said he, quite simply,
"and that you have come down and got among a lot of people who don't
treat you too well. However, we must come to the present moment. You
spoke of America; now what do you know about that?"
The abrupt question startled her. She had been so overjoyed to see
him--her whole soul was so buoyant and radiant with happiness--that she
had quite forgotten or dismissed the vague fears that had been of late
besetting her. But she proceeded to tell him, with a little hesitation
here and there, and with a considerable smoothing down of phrases, what
her father had said to her. She tried to make it appear quite
reasonable. And all she prayed for was that, if he were sent to America,
if they had to part for many years, or forever, she should be permitted
to say good-bye to him.
"We are not parted yet," said Brand, briefly.
The fact was, he had just got a new key to the situation. So that threat
about America could serve a double purpose? He was now more than ever
convinced that Ferdinand Lind was merely playing off and on with him
until this money question should be settled; and that he had been
resolved all the time that his daughter should not marry. He was
beginning to understand.
"Natalie," said he, slowly, "I told you I had something to say to you.
You know your father wrote to me in the North, asking me neither to see
you nor write to you until some matter between him and me was settled.
Well, I respected his wish until I should know what the thing was. Now
that I do know, it seems to me that you are as much concerned as any
one; and that it is not reasonable, it is not possible, I should refrain
from seeing you and consulting you."
"No one shall prevent your seeing me, when it is your wish," said the
girl, in a low voice.
"This, then, is the point: you know enough about the Society to
understand, and there is no particular secret. Your father wishes me to
enter the higher grade of officers, under the Council; and the first
condition is that one surrenders up every farthing of one's property."
"Yes?"
He stared at her. Her "Yes?"--with its affectionate interest and its
absolute absence of surprise--was almost the exact equivalent of Lord
Evelyn's "Well?"
"Perhaps you would advise me to consent?" he said, almost in the way of
a challenge.
"Ah, no," she said, with a smile. "It is not for me to advise on such
things. What you decide for yourself, that will be right."
"But you don't understand, my darling. Supposing I were ambitious of
getting higher office, which I am not; supposing I were myself willing
to sell my property to swell the funds of the Society--and I don't think
I should be willing in any case--do you think I would part with what
ought to belong to my wife--to you, Natalie? Do you think I would have
you marry a beggar--one dependent on the indulgence of people unknown to
him?"
And now there was a look of real alarm on the girl's face.
"Ah!" she said, quickly. "Is not that what my father feared? You are
thinking of me when you should think of others. Already I--I--interfere
with your duty; I tempt you--"
"My darling, be calm, be reasonable. There is no duty in the matter;
your father acknowledges that himself. It is a proposal I am free to
accept or reject, as I please; and now I promise you that, as you won't
give me any advice, I shall decide without thinking of you at all. Will
that satisfy you?"
She remained silent for a second or two, and then she said
thoughtfully,
"Perhaps you could decide just as if there were no possibility of my
ever being your wife?"
"To please you, I will assume that too."
Then she said, after a bit,
"One word more, dearest; you must grant me this--that I may always be
able to think of it when I am alone and far from you, and be able to
reassure myself: it is the promise I thought I could do so well without.
Now you will give it me?"
"What promise?"
"That whatever happens to you or to me, whatever my father demands of
me, and wherever you may have to go, you will never withdraw from what
you have undertaken."
He met the earnest, pleading look of those beautiful eyes without
flinching. His heart was light enough, so far as such a promise was
concerned. Heavier oaths than that lay on him.
"That is simple enough, Natalie," said he. "I promise you distinctly
that nothing shall cause me to swerve from my allegiance to the Society;
I will give absolute and implicit obedience, and the best of such work
as I can do. But they must not ask me to forget my Natalie."
She rose, still holding his hand, and stood by him, so that he could not
quite see her face. Then she said, in a very low voice indeed,
"Dearest, may I give you a ring?--you do not wear one at all--"
"But surely, Natalie, it is for me to choose a ring for you?"
"Ah, it is not that I mean," she said, quickly, and with her face
flushing. "It is a ring that will remind you of the promise you have
given me to-day--when we may not be able to see each other."