THE BLACK JEWELRY
It was during this time that Henrietta cherished the bizarre illusion
that it was her vocation to cultivate the acquaintance of the honest but
homely peasantry living around, in whose lowly circles a widowed
protestant pastor's wife and a worn-out old miner were the principal
personages. Her husband laughed good-humouredly at her vagaries, as he
called them: "She is only a child," he cried, "let her play and cut out
dolls' clothes for those who want them! When she has grown up, she will
very soon look out for other diversions." "My dear child," he would
sometimes say to her, "do exactly as you like. I only beg of you one
thing: whenever you are tired of these innocent, well-meaning illusions
and return to rough, prosaic, brutal reality; whenever you feel yourself
deceived or wounded by those whom you may have implicitly trusted, pray
recollect that you have a natural protector, a real friend--your
husband!"
Thus it was that Hátszegi spoke to his child-wife on the rare occasions
when they met together.
It was only rarely, for they saw nothing of each other for the greater
part of the day. During the so-called honey-moon the husband and wife
had scarcely spent half an hour a day in each other's company.
On one occasion the pastor went to Déva, and when he returned he had a
lot to tell her ladyship of a fine young fellow, Szilard by name, who
held the office of magistrate at Lippá. His other name he had forgotten,
but Henrietta easily guessed it. Mr. Szilard had been very polite to
him, the parson added, and had joyfully listened to all he had to tell
him about Hidvár and its mistress; but when the priest had pressed him
to pay a visit to that part of the country to see and admire its rare
natural beauties, the young man had replied: "Anywhere in the world but
there." What possible objection could he have against the district?
This piece of news gave Henrietta plenty to think about for days and
nights together. So Szilard had not remained at Pest; he had followed
her to the utmost confines of the realm; they were now quite close to
each other and yet he would not see her. He seeks her out and avoids her
at the same time. What a romantic dreamer!
And yet there was nothing romantic in it after all. Szilard had come to
Arad county on a visit to Mr. Sipos's relations; he had been elected a
magistrate there, and he did not approach Hidvár because he had no
desire to run after a former sweetheart who was now another man's wife.
As for Henrietta she had long ago earned from her husband's friends the
name of the "little nun," the "little eremite" because nothing could
entice her from her seclusion. If only they had known her thoughts!
One day, however, she surprised her husband by expressing a wish to go
to the Charity Ball at a neighbouring mining town; it was for raising
funds to build up again a burnt-down village.
Hátszegi, always courteous, bowed and consented.
Henrietta had made up her mind to go as simply dressed as possible. She
wanted to be modest and humble, as it befitted a woman who, rich
herself, envied everyone who was poor. While she was still in the midst
of her preparations, she received through the post (Margari went to the
nearest post-office once a week) a little sealed packet which, to judge
from the postmark, must have been posted at Lippá. Before breaking it
open, she locked herself in her room, like one about to commit a capital
offence, and three times examined the seals which guarded it before she
ventured to open it. The seal bore the impress not of a crest or an
initial letter as usual, but of a single star. There could be no doubt
whatever now as to who the sender was.
Then, very cautiously, she broke the seals and opened with a beating
heart the lid of the box. Inside was a little morocco casket.
With a tremulous hand she opened it, and found inside it a pair of
earrings and a brooch. Both earrings and brooch were of oxydized silver,
dark blue in colour passing insensibly into black. The pendants of the
earrings were in the shape of little fishes hanging upon little hooks
and with mobile little scales, which at the slightest movement made them
seem alive. Each of them had a pair of very tiny but very brilliant
diamond eyes. The brooch on the other hand represented a butterfly, also
with two sparkling diamond eyes; one of them was blue, a rare colour for
a diamond.
Henrietta was indeed pleasantly surprised.
There was not a line of writing along with them, but was there any
necessity for it? How simple, how nice it all was! How well he must know
her taste who had selected it! Her husband could never have hit upon
such an idea.
What should she say to her husband if he should notice them? But why
should she show them to anybody? She would not even put them on till the
last moment, just before she started on her journey. All day long she
was as happy as a child who is going to its first party; even in her
husband's presence she could not control her delight.
But Hátszegi never enquired why she was so joyous. On the day before the
entertainment he went with his wife to the town in question, where he
owned, not the castle, it is true, but a comfortable mansion of
considerable extent, whose first floor was rented by a mining engineer
and his family. These worthy people felt highly honoured at receiving
the baron and his lady beneath their roof. They gave their distinguished
guests their best rooms which looked out upon the street, and retired
themselves to the back of the house. The mining engineer had a pretty
young wife, with whom Henrietta immediately made friends. Ladies love
the close companionship of their own sex best whenever something
entirely different is occupying their thoughts.
On the morning of the great day the big-wigs of the little town hastened
to pay their respects to the great lady who had arrived in their midst,
and whose reputation for benevolence had spread far and wide. Amongst
them was an aged woman whose hands and head were continually shaking,
and who almost collapsed with terror every time anybody accosted her
unexpectedly. She was the widow of a Unitarian pastor, well to do,
people said, and a large mining proprietor. Her nervous affection was
due to a painful episode in her life. One night Fatia Negra and his band
had broken into her house and played havoc there, and ever since she had
been tremulous and easily terror-stricken. The old woman was delighted
to see Henrietta, whom she called the guardian angel of the county, and
she would not be content till she had seized Henrietta's little hands in
her own trembling ones and raised them painfully to her lips.
At last the joyous evening arrived. Henrietta put on a very simple
ball-dress, compared with which the dress of the mining engineer's wife
was really luxurious. The black ornaments well became her attire, but
the engineer's wife was astounded at the simplicity of the great lady's
costume. She had now only one anxious moment to go through, the moment
when her husband first saw the new ornaments. But this moment sped away
without any catastrophe, although with much of heart throbbing. Hátszegi
observed the jewels in the ears and round the neck of his bride and paid
her the compliment of saying that they contrasted admirably with the
snowy whiteness of her alabaster neck.
So no ill came of it after all.
When the time came, the baron's carriage drove up to the door and the
ladies entered it. The baron himself was to come afterwards with the
mining engineer when the empty carriage returned. In the meantime the
baroness was entrusted to the care of the mining engineer's wife, who
was one of the notabilities of the little town.
The ball was to take place in the large room of the chief inn of the
place, and the baroness, on entering it, was surrounded by a crowd of
admirers. The young wife felt that she was being made much of. She felt
in the midst of all this homage and devotion as if she had been lifted
up to Heaven, and her heart was full of gratitude. If he be here (and he
_must_ be here somewhere, hiding in the crowd, no doubt, in order not to
excite attention) then he will be able to see from his hiding-place how
pale the face of his old love is from sorrow--and yet how radiant
because of the honour now shown to her.
But Szilard did not see her face at that moment. He was far away, never
dreaming that anybody still thought of him. A surprise of quite another
sort awaited Henrietta.
After she had twice walked round the room--there was a pause just then
between two dances--she perceived sitting on a corner seat the old lady
already alluded to, whose head and hands were always shaking so, and
hastened up to her as to an old acquaintance.
The old pastor's wife, perceiving Henrietta, rose at first from her seat
in order to meet her half way, but the next moment she fell back
horror-stricken, at the same time stretching out both hands in front of
her with widely-outspread fingers as if to ward her off. Henrietta,
unable to explain this odd gesture, remained rooted to the spot with
astonishment.
The old lady, still continuing to stretch out her trembling hands, now
advanced towards her with tottering footsteps indeed, yet with flaming
eyes. Everyone regarded the two women with amazement. There was a dead
silence, and in the midst of this astonishment, in the midst of this
silence, the old woman shrieked with a voice full of horror that turned
everybody's blood cold: "Madame!--those jewels--on your neck--that black
butterfly--'tis the very same--which on that fearful night--that
accursed Fatia Negra--tore from my neck--those black earrings which he
tore from my ears--one eye of the butterfly is a blue diamond!"
Henrietta felt as if the floor were slipping away from beneath her feet.
She was wearing stolen jewels on her neck, and their former owner had
recognized them!
She heard a hissing and a murmuring all around her. She gazed about her,
possibly for a protector, and she perceived that she was standing alone
in the midst of the room and that everyone recoiled from her, even her
companion, and all eyes were fixed upon her. She had a feeling of being
branded with red-hot irons as she stood there, dishonoured and
unprotected in the midst of so many strangers, and over against her a
terrible accuser who had the horrible right to ask her: "Madame, where
did you get those stolen jewels?"--and she had nought to say to such a
question.
At that moment a manly voice, which she at once recognized, rang out
close beside her.
"Madame, give me your arm!--I bought those jewels for you at Paris. I
will be responsible for them."
It was her husband. And with that, he strode up to his wife, seized her
hand and, casting a glance at the surrounding throng, cried in a
threatening voice to those closest to him: "Whoever dares to cast a
disrespectful glance upon my wife, will have to reckon with me. Make
room there!"
Henrietta saw how the crowd made way, how everyone stepped aside at
this word of command; she saw even the shaking widow sit down somewhere;
but then everything began to grow black before her eyes and she sank
swooning into the arms of the man whom, hitherto, she had hated so much,
and who in this most awful moment had been her sole deliverer! When she
came to again, she found herself in the carriage. Her husband had not
stayed a single instant longer in that town, but was conveying her,
though it was now night time, straight to Hidvár.
It is not very advisable to travel in pitch-black darkness along
mountain roads. Henrietta could gather from the slow jolting of the
coach that they were proceeding very cautiously. She opened the window
and peeped out. She then saw her husband walking along by the side of
the coach with a lantern in his hand picking his way. The coachman was
sitting on the box and the heyduke was close to the carriage in order to
steady it over the more difficult places.
A voice within her reproached her for hating this man so long--how could
she have done it? He had always been delicacy itself towards her, he had
never demanded anything of her, and no doubt the reason why he had held
back from his young wife for a time was because he would not importune
her with his presence--her who had now learnt to recognize him as her
sole protector!
After a vast amount of jolting and tumbling about, they got at last on
to a regular road again. Here the baron halted the coach and looked
inside it. When he saw that Henrietta was awake, he asked her if she
wanted anything, and whether she would allow him to sit down beside her.
Henrietta had resolved to tell her husband everything at the very first
question, everything, even to her most secret enthusiasms; nay, even
that which God alone could read in her heart. But Hátszegi gave her no
opportunity of doing so.
"My dear Henrietta," said he, "don't imagine for a moment that I shall
trouble my head as to how you came into possession of that mysterious
jewelry, or why you should have chosen them out of all your bijous to
wear on this particular evening. I have charged myself with all the
responsibility in the matter. I could not think of anything more
appropriate to say at the moment. Only one thing I beg of you: tell me
no lies. Act as if you had received the jewelry from me. I will so
arrange the matter that nothing more will be heard about it. Such things
may happen to anybody. The only awkwardness about the business is that
the things were recognized in such a public place, and that the former
possessor of the ornaments is so extremely nervous. Don't be afraid!
Give me your hand! Why do you tremble so? I'll guarantee that there
shall be no unpleasant consequences for you. In case, however, you did
not receive this jewelry from your dear grandfather, I ought, I think,
to write to the good old man and put his mind at ease by letting him
know that I gave it you, as goodness only knows what Rumour may whisper
in his ear."
Could any man have asked his wife for a confession more tenderly?
"Shall I write to him?"
"Yes, write," said Henrietta, and with that she fell upon her husband's
bosom and began to sob bitterly--and a husband's breast is no bad place
for a wife's flowing tears.
Henrietta was forced to confess to herself that her husband, at least so
far as she was concerned, was a man of noble and tender sentiments. From
henceforth she began to regard him through a glass of quite another
colour; she began to believe that the faults she had noticed in him were
only the usual bad habits of his sex, and began to discover all sorts of
hidden good qualities in him. She began to love her husband.
When early next morning the carriage stood in the courtyard of Hidvár.
Henrietta awoke in her husband's arms: there she had been sleeping for a
long time. When she looked round and encountered Hátszegi's bright manly
glances it almost seemed to her as if the dreadful scene of the night
before was a mere dream, from which it was a joy to awake. When her
husband kissed her hand before departing for his own room, Henrietta
pressed _his_ hand in return and gave him a grateful smile.
But what then was the key to this horrible mystery? Who could have hit
upon the idea of sending this jewelry? There was not a gleam of light to
go by. An enigma closed the way to every elucidation, and this enigma
was--Fatia Negra. How did the jewelry get out of his hands into
Henrietta's? What was the motive for such a transfer? And who was the
man himself? This thought gave Henrietta no rest.
Why could they not seize this famous robber? First of all, she kept on
asking her husband about it, and he replied that the whole story about
Fatia Negra was only a Wallachian fable. It was true that robberies were
committed by men who regularly wore black masks, but it was never one
and the same man who was guilty of these misdeeds. Nevertheless the name
had won a sort of nimbus of notoriety among the common people, many had
made use of it as well as of the mask attaching to it, and though it was
an undeniable fact that Fatia Negra had been caught and hanged more than
once, yet he still continued to live and go about. The popular mythology
had immortalized him.
The parson, however, had quite a different opinion of the matter; he
seemed to be more particularly informed. Although he opined Fatia Negra
wandered through every corner of the kingdom, his abiding nest was in
this district; he had a sweetheart here to whom he appeared
periodically.
"Why don't they seize him then?" asked Henrietta.
"Because a part of the common folks holds with him, and the other part
thinks he is in league with the devil."
"I would set a high price on his head and give it to whomsoever caught
him."
"Oh, my lady, the various counties have done that scores of times, and
now and then a young fellow braver than the rest has tried to catch him;
but they have all of them ended by losing their own heads instead of
getting his."
"Never mind, I will not be satisfied till that man is in my power. Ah,
the robber-chieftain little imagines what an enemy he has raised up
against him in me, when he put this terrible riddle into my heart. And
it is a riddle I mean to solve, too."
The priest shook his head as if he would have said: "Strong men have
given up the task, what can a weak woman do?"
Henrietta told her husband not a word of all this, and the chatter about
the black jewelry gradually died a natural death. Hátszegi sent back her
property to the widow and told her where she could find the vendor--in
Paris. We can readily imagine that she did not go all the way to Paris
to make enquiries, being quite content with getting back her stolen
property.
This incident made such an impression on Henrietta that she avoided all
those circles in which she had been so ruthlessly exposed to insult. A
blush of shame and anger suffused her face whenever she thought of it.
She also abandoned all her work of benevolence among the people. She
began to think that her husband was right after all when he said, as he
did continually: "Let the gentry stick to the gentry, and the poor to
the poor!" In fact she was now inclined to think him right in
everything; the easiest thing a wife can do, she said to herself, is to
trust her husband implicitly. Henceforth Henrietta adopted another mode
of life; her motto now was: "Whatever my husband chooses, for at home he
is my lord!"
So the halls of Hidvár overflowed with guests again, and balls,
_soirées_, and picnics followed each other in quick succession. The
young wife learnt to know the gentry and magnates of Transylvania face
to face, and it was no wonder if she quickly accommodated herself to her
new surroundings and began to be reconciled to her fate. She felt like
one who, after seeing a landscape by moonlight and thinking it highly
crude, sees it again by the light of day and finds it quite different.
And now the autumn came, the season when men prepare and congregate
together for dangerous hunting expeditions. Bears and boars are now the
only topics. For a week beforehand the women cannot get a word out of
the gentlemen, they herd together in the armoury and talk of nothing but
guns and dogs, firing each other by recounting their past exploits,
making bets, and playing at cards. The ladies at such times are shelved
altogether.
During the actual hunting season the men are not to be seen for whole
weeks at a time, but off they go to the woods and stalk or lurk for
their prey in the midst of water and ice, and the ladies think it
nothing extraordinary if their husbands or lovers, as the case may be,
come back, or are carried back, drenched with rain, invisible for mud,
with their garments torn to shreds and their limbs mangled; for after
all it is the only manly diversion--the only diversion really fit for a
gentleman.
When the bear-hunting began, that heroic cripple, Squire Gerzson, also
appeared with Count Kengyelesy and numerous other familiar faces from
distant counties, who had all met together on the day after Henrietta's
wedding, and who regularly made Hidvár their autumn trysting-place.
Count Kengyelesy did not bring his wife with him: the little rogue on
her husband's departure declared that she was ill and remained
behind--_verbum sap_!
Henrietta was very much occupied by the duties of hospitality. She took
a pride in anticipating the wants of all her guests, and at the evening
_soirées_ she played the part of hostess with becoming _aplomb_.
One day the gentlemen with their beaters, rangers, dogs, and carts, had
all gone off to the forest as usual, and Henrietta was left alone in the
castle with Clementina, Margari, and the domestics. As for Margari, he
would not have gone to the woods for all the bears in the world.
Clementina, solemnly cackling gossip as usual, imparted to Henrietta
that the night before, when the gentlemen played at cards, the luck had
run dead against Hátszegi: Count Kengyelesy had won back from him the
whole of the Kengyelesy estate. "Thank God!" sighed Henrietta at this
glad intelligence. This was one of the things that had weighed down her
heart like a nightmare, one of the partition-walls, so to speak, which
had hitherto separated her from her husband. This, at any rate, had now
disappeared.
Clementina went on to say that my lord baron had not cared a straw for
this loss; nay, he had laughed and said that it only showed how lucky he
was in love. Henrietta applied the saying to herself and began to be
quite proud of it.
The count, however, pursued Clementina, had said that he durst not
rejoice in his winnings or that accursed Fatia Negra might rob him of
them again on the highroad as he had done once before.
A cold shudder ran through Henrietta's limbs at that accursed name. That
Fatia Negra! She had already begun to forget him. And thus old memories
began to revive, and at last her excited imagination began to fancy that
there was some sort of connecting link between Szilard and Fatia Negra,
between the dearest and the most terrible of beings! What if her
rejected lover had avenged himself by publicly shaming her! It was with
such anxieties as these that the young wife went to sleep in her lonely
chamber.
Early next day she received a visit from the priest.
All the time the army of guests was going in and out of the castle
gates, he never came near the place, but now he hastened to exchange a
few words with the lady of the house. And Henrietta was very glad that
he had come.
"I bring you news of Fatia Negra and of other things also," said the
priest, as soon as he was alone with the lady.
Henrietta was instantly all attention.
"Yesterday the famous butterwoman who dwells at Dupe Piatra came to open
her soul to me in a very difficult matter. This woman, as the whole
country-side knows, is a famous quack and a preparer of such specifics
as it is unlawful for one man to give to another. Formerly she was
visited by multitudes of people suffering from every sort of
ill--especially girls. More than once she has paid dearly for her
quackery, for the county authorities apprehended her for poisoning, and
clapped her into jail for some years. Since then she has grown more
cautious and does not care about seeing everyone in her lonely little
forest hut, especially since I impressed upon her severely what a heavy
load she was burdening her conscience with by turning the secret healing
forces which Nature had implanted in the herbs of the field, to the
destruction of ignorant humanity. Yesterday, then, this woman came to
me (and it is a very rare thing to see her among men) and informed me
that last night Fatia Negra had visited her."
Henrietta shuddered all over. So he was as near as that!
"The medicine-woman said that the mask requested her to prepare poison
for him that would be sure to kill. She said she would not as she had no
wish to fall again into the hands of the county authorities. He promised
her money, he showed her a lot of ducats. She told him it wouldn't do.
Then he drew forth a pistol, pressed the barrel to her temples, and
threatened instantly to blow her brains out if she did not comply with
his request. 'Very well,' said she, 'fire away: I would rather be shot
than hanged.' Perceiving he could do nothing with her by threats, he
fell to entreating, and said it was not a man he wanted to poison but a
wild beast. 'What sort of a beast do you want to kill?' she asked him.
'That is no business of yours,' said he. 'But it is my business,' she
replied, 'for the poison that a wolf or a savage dog will eat, a bear
will not even sniff at, and what makes one beast ill, on that will
another beast thrive.' 'Then you must know that it is a bear.'--'Swear
that you do not want the venom for a human being.' Fatia Negra swore
with all sorts of subterranean oaths that it was really for a bear that
he wanted the poison. The medicine-woman thereupon prepared for him a
mortal concoction capable of killing the most vigorous beast in the
world; then she kneaded honey-cakes, a delicacy to which bears are very
partial as everyone knows, and mixed it well into them. Fatia Negra gave
her ten ducats for the poison, but the old woman's conscience would not
allow her to rest, and the next day she brought the ducats to me for the
church's needs, as she put it,--and would I help her to relieve her soul
of the heavy burden which oppressed it. And what now if Fatia Negra,
contrary to his oath, were to make use of this poison against his
fellow-men?"
"That would be horrible," said Henrietta apprehensively.
"I don't think he will," said the priest; "the poison is really meant
for a beast."
"I suppose he wants to kill some animal who is a domestic guardian, in
order that he may rob a rich man's house."
"No. He wants to kill a faithful animal in order that he may steal a
poor man's only treasure--his wife."
"How so?"
"Listen, my lady, and I will tell you. After this had happened, Juon
Tare's wife, Mariora, came to me at an unusual hour. Generally she only
comes on a Sunday for prayers. What she said to me was not so much a
confession made to a priest as a confidence reposed in a friend; I am
therefore not committing sacrilege by retailing it to another person.
That young woman is exposed to temptation."
"What! in the midst of the forest?"
"Yes, in the midst of the forest, where, for weeks at a stretch, the
herdsman hears no other human voice than his own thrown back to him by
the echoes. The seducer in this case is Fatia Negra."
"Then he must dwell hard by."
"None knows his abiding dwelling, but his temporary resting places among
the high Alps are these herdsmen's lonely huts. For this reason he lives
in good fellowship with the mountain goatherds, does them no harm,
brings presents for them and their wives, pays handsomely for every bit
of bread, and thus makes it pretty sure that they will never betray him.
The place where Juon Tare's wife dwells is called the ice valley. They
call it so because it is here that the first ice of the winter appears;
as early as mid-September the stream is fringed with it. There, by the
side of the stream, stands a little wooden hut, one of whose walls
reposes on the ascending rock behind it. Here dwells the fair Mariora
all alone. And yet I am wrong to say alone, for three of them dwell
together there--herself, a little one-year-old child, and a tame bear.
Her husband she sometimes does not see for a week at a time, especially
in the autumn and winter when the freshly fallen snow has obliterated
the pastures. At such times the goatherd encamps on the summit of the
mountains and nourishes his kids by felling with his axe a growing
beech-tree, on which the little creatures fall and gnaw off the juicy
buds. Whenever a snowstorm overtakes him, the herdsman drives the goats
into a glen, and lest the snow should bury them all by the morning while
they sleep, he drives them continually up and down, thus making them
trample down the falling flakes. Meanwhile Mariora sits at home and
spins the wool from which she makes her own and her husband's clothes,
or she pounds maize into meal in a stone mortar for household needs,
playing at intervals with her child."
"And an evil hand would destroy their simple joys!"
"Hitherto the goatherd and his wife feared nothing. It is good to be in
those solitudes. God dwells very near to them there. Then, too, Juon
Tare is a strong man; no evil beast can harm him. Nor has he any fear of
robbers. What can they deprive him of? Mariora is in a good place out of
the reach of snow-storms. If a savage beast or a vagabond were to try to
harm her, there is Ursu, the bear, with the terrible jaws,--he would
tear them to pieces. So your ladyship will perceive that Juon Tare's
castle is provided with a very strong guardian against thieves and wild
beasts--but who can guard it against the wily and the insinuating? Fatia
Negra is a guest of longstanding at the hut in the ice valley, and never
goes thither empty handed. He brought the woman pearls and coral which
she innocently hung about her person. How was she to know whether such
trinkets were worth thousands or whether they could be bought in a
pedler's booth for a few pence? She fancies it is but the thank-offering
of a grateful guest. But now her eyes have been opened to the fact that
these gifts _are_ costly, very costly,--for the Black Mask demanded a
price for them which all the treasures in the world could not outweigh,
a price, the bare mention of which caused her to shut the door in his
face. And when he, unable to obtain his desire by fair words, attempted
to gain his object by force, a single cry for help from the woman caused
Fatia Negra to feel Ursu's paws on his shoulders and so he knows that
this lonely woman is right well defended. Only at Mariora's command did
the bear release Black Mask who, attacked from behind, was unable to
defend himself. Burning with rage, he quitted the hut and said,
meaningly to the woman: 'You shall be mine nevertheless!' Mariora came
to me next day, full of despair, telling me the whole story, and asking
me whether she ought to tell her husband. I advised her to keep the
secret in her own bosom and to close her door against Fatia Negra. Oh, I
know the fellow! It is good to guard against him but it is not advisable
to scratch him. He is no ordinary man. And now putting together all this
with the confession of the Dupe Piatra milk-woman, I have a strong
suspicion that Fatia Negra wants to poison the herdsman's bear."
"I will not allow it," interrupted the baroness emphatically.
"We shall scarcely be able to prevent it, my lady, for how can we warn
the dwellers in the mountain hut of their danger? It is of no use
sending a letter for they cannot read. We cannot entrust the secret to
anyone, for no living soul in these parts would dare to convey any
message to the disadvantage of the mysterious Fatia Negra. I myself dare
not do it. I too am afraid of him. I am sure that if he found it out,
and he is sure to do so, my days would be numbered."
"Yet I know someone who will take this message to the hut of Juon Tare."
"Not your ladyship, I hope?"
"No. Even if I knew my way among these mountains I would not venture to
expose myself to the perils of such a journey after my last experience;
since then I have grown timid and nervous. But I know of one who will
hasten to take it, who will not be afraid, and who will show no mercy to
him before whom everyone else trembles."
The priest did not guess to whom Henrietta alluded, yet he himself had
once told her ladyship that Black Mask had a sweetheart to whom he had
been married, not before a priest indeed, but in the sight of Heaven,
and that this woman was very jealous and very brave. "But I beg of your
ladyship," the priest had said on that occasion, "to leave my name out
of the transaction if you repeat this secret, for otherwise, people will
hear one fine morning that the worthy pastor of Hidvár has been found in
his room with a split skull."
Scarcely had the priest quitted the castle than Henrietta had the horses
put to the carriage, took Clementina with her in order to avoid all
suspicion, and drove to Tökefalu. There, in front of the house of rich
old Onucz she stopped and descended. The Wallachian Nabob was much
pleased to have the honour of entertaining so distinguished a guest, and
immediately spread his table and loaded it with preserves, honey, and
fresh cheese. Clementina, who had a good appetite, remained with their
host and made ready to talk scandal of her mistress and insinuate that
the baroness wanted to get some money without her husband's knowledge,
whilst Henrietta locked herself up with Anicza in the latter's bedroom
and talked with her concerning things which had no relationship whatever
with money.