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Sunrise, a novel by William Black |
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Chapter 34. An Encounter |
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_ CHAPTER XXXIV. AN ENCOUNTER This was an October morning, in the waning of the year; and yet so bright and clear and fresh was it, even in the middle of London, that one could have imagined the spring had returned. The world was full of a soft diffused light, from the pale clouds sailing across the blue to the sheets of silver widening out on the broad bosom of the Thames; but here and there the sun caught some shining surface--the lip of a marble fountain, the glass of a lamp on the Embankment, or the harness of some merchant-prince's horses prancing into town--and these were sharp jewel-like gleams amidst the vague general radiance. The air was sweet and clear; the white steam blown from the engines on Hungerford Bridge showed that the wind was westerly. Two lovers walked below, in the Embankment gardens, probably listening but little to the murmur of the great city around them. Surely the spring had come again, and youth and love and hope! The solitary occupant of this chamber that overlooked the gardens and the shining river did not stay to ask why his heart should be so full of gladness, why this beautiful morning should yield him so much delight. He was thinking chiefly that on such a morning Natalie would be abroad soon; she loved the sunlight and the sweet air. It was far too fine a morning, indeed, to spend in a museum, even with all Madame Potecki's treasures spread out before one. So, instead of going to South Kensington, he went straight up to Curzon Street. Early as he was, he was not too early, for he was leisurely walking along the pavement when, ahead of him, he saw Natalie and her little maid come forth and set out westward. He allowed them to reach the park gates; then he overtook them. Anneli fell a little way behind. Now, whether it was the brightness of the morning had raised her spirits, or that she had been reasoning herself into a more courageous frame of mind, it was soon very clear that Natalie was not at all so anxious and embarrassed as she had shown herself the day before when they parted. "There was no letter from you this morning," she said, with a smile, though she did not look up into his face. "Then I have offered myself to you, and am refused?" "How could I write?" he said. "I tried once or twice, and then I saw I must wait until I could tell you face to face all that I think of your bravery and your goodness. And now that I see you Natalie, it is not a bit better: I can't tell you; I am so happy to be near you, to be beside you, and hear your voice, that I don't think I can say anything at all." "I am refused, then?" said she, shyly. "Refused!" he exclaimed. "There are some things one cannot refuse--like the sunshine. But do you know what a terrible sacrifice you are making?" "It is you, then, who are making no sacrifice at all," she said, reproachfully. "What do I sacrifice more than every girl must sacrifice when she marries? England is not my home as it is your home; we have lived everywhere; I have no childhood's friends to leave, as many a girl has." "Your father--" "After a little while my father will scarcely miss me; he is too busy." But presently she added, "If you had remained in England I should never have been your wife." "Why?" he said with some surprise. "I should never have married against my father's wishes," she said, thoughtfully. "No. My promise to you was that I would be your wife, or the wife of no one. I would have kept that promise. But as long as we could have seen each other, and been with each other from time to time, I don't think I could have married against my father's wish. Now it is quite different. Your going to America has changed it all. Ah, my dear friend, you don't know what I suffered one or two nights before I could decide what was right for me to do!" "I can guess," he said, in a low voice, in answer to that brief sigh of hers. Then she grew more cheerful in manner. "But that is all over; and now, am I accepted? I think you are like Naomi: it was only when she saw that Ruth was very determined to go with her that she left off protesting. And I am to consider America as my future home? Well, at all events, one will be able to breathe freely there. It is not a country weighed down with standing armies and conscriptions and fortifications. How could one live in a town like Coblentz, or Metz, or Brest? The poor wretches marching this way and marching that--you watch them from your hotel window--the young men and the middle-aged men--and you know that they would rather be away at their farms, or in their factories, or saw-pits, or engine-houses, working for their wives and children--" "Natalie," said he, "you are only half a woman: you don't care about military glory." "It is the most mean, the most cruel and contemptible thing under the sun!" she said, passionately. "What is the quality that makes a great hero--a great general--nowadays? Courage? Not a bit. It is callousness!--an absolute indifference to the slaughtering of human lives! You sit in your tent--you sit on horseback--miles away from the fighting; and if the poor wretches are being destroyed here or there in too great quantities, if they are ridden down by the horses and torn to pieces by the mitrailleuses, 'Oh, clap on another thousand or two: the place must be taken at all risks.' Yes, indeed; but not much risk to you! For if you fail--if all the thousands of men have been hurled against the stone and lead only to be thrown back crushed and murdered--why, you have fought with great courage--_you_, the great general, sitting in your saddle miles away; it is _you_ who have shown extraordinary courage!--but numbers were against you: and if you win, you have shown still greater courage; and the audacity of the movement was so and so; and your dogged persistence was so and so; and you get another star for your breast; and all the world sings your praises. And who is to court-martial a great hero for reckless waste of human life? Who is to tell him that he is a cruel-hearted coward? Who is to take him to the fields he has saturated with blood, and compel him to count the corpses; or to take him to the homesteads he has ruined throughout the land, and ask the women and sons and the daughters what they think of this marvellous courage? Oh no; he is away back in the capital--there is a triumphal procession; all we want now is another war-tax--for the peasant must pay with his money as well as with his blood--and another levy of the young men to be taken and killed!" This was always a sore point with Natalie; and he did not seek to check her enthusiasm with any commonplace and obvious criticisms. When she got into one of these moods of proud indignation, which was not seldom, he loved her all the more. There was something in the ring of her voice that touched him to the heart. Such noble, quick, generous sympathy seemed to him far too beautiful and rare a thing to be met by argument and analysis. When he heard that pathetic tremulousness in her voice, he was ready to believe anything. When he looked at the proud lips and the moistened eyes, what cause that had won such eloquent advocacy would he not have espoused? "Ah, well, Natalie," said he, "some day the mass of the people of the earth will be brought to see that all that can be put a stop to, if they so choose. They have the power: _Zahlen regieren die Welt_; and how can one be better employed than in spreading abroad knowledge, and showing the poorer people of the earth how the world might be governed if they would only ally themselves together? It would be more easy to persuade them if we had all of us your voice and your enthusiasm." "Mine?" she said. "A woman's talking is not likely to be of much use. But," she added, rather hesitatingly, "at least--she can give her sympathy--and her love--to those who are doing the real work." "And I am going to earn yours, Natalie," said he, cheerfully, "to such a degree as you have never dreamed of, when you and I together are away in the new world. And that reminds me now you must not be frightened; but there is a little difficulty. Of course you thought of nothing, when you wrote those lines, but of doing a kindness; that was like you; your heart speaks quickly. Well--" He himself seemed somewhat embarrassed. "You see, Natalie, there would be no difficulty at all if you and I could get married within the next few days." Her eyes were cast down, and she was silent. "You don't think it possible you could get your father to consent?" he said, but without much hope. "Oh no, I think not; I fear not," she said, in a low voice. "Then you see, Natalie," he continued--and he spoke quite lightly, as if it was merely an affair of a moment--"there would be this little awkwardness: you are not of age; unless you get your father's consent, you cannot marry until you are twenty-one. It is not a long time--" "I did not think of it," she said, very hurriedly, and even breathlessly. "I only thought it--it seemed hard you should go away alone--and I considered myself already your wife--and I said, 'What ought I to do?' And now--now you will tell me what to do. I do not know--I have no one to ask." "Do you think," said he, after a pause, "that you would forget me, if you were to remain two years in England while I was in America?" She regarded him for a moment with those large, true eyes of hers; and she did not answer in words. "There is another way; but--it is asking too much," he said. "What is it?" she said, calmly. "I was thinking," he said, with some hesitation, "that if I could bribe Madame Potecki to leave her music-lessons--and take charge of you--and bring you to America--and you and she might live there until you are twenty-one--but I see it is impossible. It is too selfish. I should not have thought of it. What are two years, Natalie?" The girl answered nothing; she was thinking deeply. When she next spoke, it was about Lord Evelyn, and of the probability of his crossing to the States, and remaining there for a year or two; and she wanted to know more about the great country beyond the seas, and what was Philadelphia like. Well, it was not to be expected that these two, so busy with their own affairs, were likely to notice much that was passing around them, as the forenoon sped rapidly away, and Natalie had to think of getting home again. But the little German maid servant was not so engrossed. She was letting her clear, observant blue eyes stray from the pretty young ladies riding in the Row to the people walking under the trees, and from them again to the banks of the Serpentine, where the dogs were barking at the ducks. In doing so she happened to look a little bit behind her; then suddenly she started, and said to herself, '_Herr Je!_' But the little maid had her wits about her. She pretended to have seen nothing. Gradually, however, she lessened the distance between herself and her young mistress; then, when she was quite up to her, and walking abreast with her, she said, in a low, quick voice. "Fraulein! Fraulein!" "What is it, Anneli?" George Brand was listening too. He wondered that the girl seemed so excited, and yet spoke low, and kept her eyes fixed on the ground. "Ah, do not look round, Fraulein!" said she, in the same hurried way. "Do not look round! But it is the lady who gave you the locket. She is walking by the lake. She is watching you." Natalie did not look round. She turned to her companion, and said, without any agitation whatever, "Do you remember, dearest? I showed you the locket, and told you about my mysterious visitor. Now Anneli says she is walking by the side of the lake. I may go and speak to her, may I not? Because it was so wicked of Calabressa to say some one had stolen the locket, and wished to restore it after many years. I never had any such locket." She was talking quite carelessly; it was Brand himself who was most perturbed. He knew well who that stranger must be, if Anneli's sharp eyes had not deceived her. "No, Natalie," he said, quickly, "you must not go and speak to her; and do not look round, either. Perhaps she does not wish to be seen: perhaps she would go away. Leave it to me, my darling; I will find out all about her for you." "But it is very strange," said the girl. "I shall begin to be afraid of this emissary of Santa Claus if she continues to be so mysterious; and I do not like mystery: I think, dearest, I must go and speak to her. She can not mean me any harm. She has brought me flowers again and again on my birthday, if it is the same. She gave me the little locket I showed you. Why may not I stop and speak to her?" "Not now, my darling," he said, putting his hand on her arm. "Let me find out about her first." "And how are you going to do that? In a few minutes, perhaps, she goes away; and when will you see her again? It is many months since Anneli saw her last; and Anneli sees everything and everybody." "We will cross the bridge," said he, in a low voice, for he knew not how near the stranger might be, "and walk on to Park Lane. Anneli must tell us how far she follows. If she turns aside anywhere I will bid you good-bye and see where she goes. Do you understand, Natalie?" She certainly did not understand why he should speak so seriously about it. "And I am to be marched like a prisoner? I may not turn my head?" She began to be amused. He scarcely knew what to say to her. At last he said, earnestly, "Natalie, it is of great importance to you that I should see this lady--that I should try to see her. Do as I bid you, my dearest." "Then you know who she is?" said Natalie, promptly. "I have a suspicion, at all events; and--and--something may happen--that you will be glad of." "What, more mysterious presents?" the girl said, lightly; "more messages from Santa Claus?" He could not answer her. The consciousness that this might be indeed Natalie's mother who was so near to them; the fear of the possible consequences of any sudden disclosure; the thought that this opportunity might escape him, and he leaving in a few days for America: all these things whirled through his brain in rapid and painful succession. But there was soon to be an end of them. Natalie, still obediently following his instructions, and yet inclined to make light of the whole thing, and himself arrived at the gates of the park; Anneli, as formerly, being somewhat behind. Receiving no intimation from her, they crossed the road to the corner of Great Stanhope Street. But they had not proceeded far when Anneli said, "Ah, Fraulein, the lady is gone! You may look after her now. See!" That was enough for George Brand. He had no difficulty in making out the dark figure that Anneli indicated; and he was in no great hurry, for he feared the stranger might discover that she was being followed. But he breathed more freely when he had bidden good-bye to Natalie, and seen her set out for home. He leisurely walked up Park Lane, keeping an eye from time to time on the figure in black, but not paying too strict attention, lest she should turn suddenly and observe him. In this way he followed her up to Oxford Street; and there, in the more crowded thoroughfare, he lessened the distance between them considerably. He also watched more closely now, and with a strange interest. From the graceful carriage, the beautiful figure, he was almost convinced that that, indeed, was Natalie's mother; and he began to wonder what he would say to her--how he would justify his interference. The stranger stopped at a door next a shop in the Edgware Road; knocked, waited, and was admitted. Then the door was shut again. It was obviously a private lodging-house. He took a half-crown in his hand to bribe the maid-servant, and walked boldly up to the door and knocked. It was not a maid-servant who answered, however; it was a man who looked something like an English butler, and yet there was a foreign touch about his dress--probably, Brand thought, the landlord. Brand pulled out a card-case, and pretended to have some difficulty in getting a card from it. "The lady who came in just now--" he said, still looking at the cards. "Madame Berezolyi? Yes, sir." His heart jumped. But he calmly took out a pencil, and wrote on one of the cards, in French, "_One who knows your daughter would like to see you_." "Will you be so kind as to take up that card to Madame Berezolyi? I think she will see me. I will wait here till you come down." The man returned in a couple of minutes. "Madame Berezolyi will be pleased to see you, sir; will you step this way?" _ |
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