A Bride of the Plains Part 18

To-day was the vigil of St. Michael and All Angels, there would be vespers at half-past four, and the bride and bridegroom should certainly find the time to go to church for half an hour and thank the good G.o.d for all His gifts.

The company soon made ready to go after that. Everyone there intended to go to church, and in the meanwhile the gipsies would have the remnants of the feast, after which they would instal themselves in the big barn and dancing could begin by about six.

Bride and bridegroom stood side by side, close to the door, as the guests filed out both singly and in pairs, and as they did so they shook each one by the hand, wished them good health after the repast, and begged their company for the dancing presently and the wedding feast on the morrow. Once more the invalid father, hoisted up on the shoulders of the same st.u.r.dy lads, led the procession out of the schoolhouse, then followed all the guests, helter-skelter, young men and maids, old men and matrons.

The wide petticoats got in the way, the men were over bold in squeezing the girls' waists in the general scramble, there was a deal of laughing and plenty of shouting as hot, perspiring hands were held out one by one to Elsa and to Bela, and voices, hoa.r.s.e with merriment, proffered the traditional "_Egessegire!_" (your very good health!), and then, like so many birds let out of a cage, streamed out of the narrow door into the sunlit street.

Andor had acquitted himself of the same duty, and Elsa's cool little hand had rested for a few seconds longer than was necessary in his own brown one. She had murmured the necessary words of invitation for the ceremonies on the morrow, and he was still standing in the doorway when Klara Goldstein was about to take her leave.

Klara had stayed very ostentatiously to the last, just as if she were the most intimate friend or an actual member of the family; she had stood beside Bela during the general exodus, her small, dark head, crowned with the gorgeous picture hat, held a little on one side, her two gloved hands resting upon the handle of her parasol, her foot in its dainty shoe impatiently tapping the ground.

As the crowd pa.s.sed by, scrambling in their excitement, starched petticoats crumpled, many a white shirt stained with wine, hot, perspiring and panting, a contemptuous smile lingered round her thin lips, and from time to time she made a remark to Bela--always in German, so that the village folk could not understand. But Andor, who had learned more than his native Hungarian during his wanderings abroad, heard these sneering remarks, and hated the girl for speaking them, and Bela for the loud laugh with which he greeted each sally.

Now she held out her small, thin hand to Elsa.

"Your good health, my dear Elsa!" she said indifferently.

After an obvious moment of hesitation, Elsa put her toil-worn, shapely little hand into the gloved one for an instant and quickly withdrew it again. There was a second or two of silence. Klara did not move: she was obviously waiting for the invitation which had been extended to everyone else.

A little nervously she began toying with her parasol.

"The gla.s.s is going up; you will have fine weather for your wedding to-morrow," she said more pointedly.

"I hope so," said Elsa softly.

Another awkward pause. Andor, who stood in the doorway watching the little scene, saw that Bela was digging his teeth into his underlip, and that his one eye had a sinister gleam in it as it wandered from one girl to the other.

"May the devil! . . ." began Klara roughly, whose temper quickly got the better of her airs and graces. "What kind of flea has bitten your bride, Bela, I should like to know?"

"Flea?" said Bela with an oath, which he did not even attempt to suppress. "Flea? No kind of a flea, I hope. . . . Look here, my dove,"

he added, turning to Elsa suddenly, "you seem to be forgetting your duties--have you gone to sleep these last five minutes?--or can't you see that Klara is waiting."

"I can see that Klara is waiting," replied Elsa calmly, "but I don't know what she can be waiting for."

She was as white as the linen of her shift, and little beads of sweat stood out at the roots of her hair. Andor, whose love for her made him clear-sighted and keen, saw the look of obstinacy which had crept round her mouth--the sudden obstinacy of the meek, which nothing can move. He alone could see what this sudden obstinacy meant to her, whose natural instincts were those of duty and of obedience. She suffered terribly at this moment, both mentally and physically; the moisture of her forehead showed that she suffered.

But she had nerved herself up for this ordeal: the crushed worm was turning on the cruel foot that had trodden it for so long. She did not mean to give way, even though she had fully weighed in the balance all that she would have to pay in the future for this one moment of rebellion.

Parents first and husbands afterwards are masterful tyrants in this part of the world; the woman's place is to obey; the Oriental conception of man's supremacy still reigns paramount, especially in the country. Elsa knew all this, and was ready for the chastis.e.m.e.nt--either moral, mental or even physical--which would surely overtake her, if not to-day, then certainly after to-morrow.

"You don't know what Klara is waiting for?" asked Bela, with an evil sneer; "why, my dove, you must be dreaming. Klara won't come to our church, of course, but she would like to come to the ball presently, and to-morrow to our wedding feast."

A second or perhaps less went by while Elsa pa.s.sed her tongue over her parched lips; then she said slowly:

"Since Klara does not go to our church, Bela, I don't think that she can possibly want to come to our wedding feast."

Bela swore a loud and angry oath, and Andor, who was closely watching each player in this moving little drama, saw that Klara's olive skin had taken on a greenish hue, and that her gloved hands fastened almost convulsively over the handle of her parasol.

"But I tell you . . ." began Bela, who was now livid with rage, and turned with a menacing gesture upon his fiancee, "I tell you that . . ."

Already Andor had interposed; he, too, was pale and menacing, but he did not raise his voice nor did he swear, he only asked very quietly:

"What will you tell your fiancee, man? Come! What is it that you want to tell her on the eve of her wedding day?"

"What's that to you?" retorted Bela.

In this land where tempers run high, and blood courses hotly through the veins, a quarrel swiftly begun like this more often than not ends in tragedy. On Andor's face, in his menacing eyes, was writ the determination to kill if need be; in that of Bela there was the vicious snarl of an infuriated dog. Klara Goldstein was far too shrewd and prudent to allow her name to be mixed up in this kind of quarrel. Her reputation in the village was not an altogether unblemished one; by a scandal such as would result from a fight between these two men and for such a cause she might hopelessly jeopardize her chances in life, even with her own people.

Her own common sense, too, of which she had a goodly share, told her at the same time that the game was not worth the candle: the satisfaction of being asked to the most important wedding in the village, and there queening it with her fashionable clothes and with the bridegroom's undivided attention over a lot of stupid village folk, would not really compensate her for the scandal that was evidently brewing in the minds of Andor and of Elsa.

So she preferred for the nonce to play the part of outraged innocence, a part which she further emphasized by the display of easy-going kindliness. She placed one of her daintily-gloved hands on Bela's arm, she threw him a look of understanding and of indulgence, she cast a provoking glance on Andor and one of good-humoured contempt on Elsa, then she said lightly:

"Never mind, Bela! I can see that our little Elsa is a trifle nervy to-day; she does me more honour than I deserve by resenting your great kindness to me. But bless you, my good Bela! I don't mind. I am used to jealousies: the petty ones of my own s.e.x are quite endurable; it is when you men are jealous that we poor women often have to suffer. Leopold Hirsch, who is courting me, you know, is so madly jealous at times. He scarce can bear anyone to look at me. As if I could help not being plain, eh?"

Then she turned with a smile to Elsa.

"I don't think, my dear," she said dryly, "that you are treating Bela quite fairly. He won't let you suffer from his jealousies; why should you annoy him with yours?"

Another glance through her long, dark lashes on both the men, and Klara Goldstein turned to go. But before she could take a step toward the door, Bela's masterful hand was on her wrist.

"What are you doing?" he asked roughly.

"Going, my good Bela," she replied airily, "going. What else can I do? I am not wanted here now, or later at your feast; but there are plenty in this village and around it who will make me welcome, and their company will be more pleasing to me, I a.s.sure you, than that of your friends. We thought of having some tarok[5] this evening. Leopold will be with us, and the young Count is coming. He loves a gamble, and is most amusing when he is in the mood. So I am going where I shall be most welcome, you see."

[Footnote 5: A game of cards--the source of much gambling in that part of Europe.]

She tried to disengage her wrist, but he was holding her with a tight, nervous grip.

"You are not going to do anything of the sort," he muttered hoa.r.s.ely; "she is daft, I tell you. Stay here, can't you?"

"Not I," she retorted, with a laugh. "Enough of your friends' company, my good Bela, is as good as a feast. Look at Elsa's face! And Andor's!

He is ready to eat me, and she to freeze the marrow in my bones. So farewell, my dear man; if you want any more of my company," she added pointedly, "you know where to get it."

She had succeeded in freeing her wrist, and the next moment was standing under the lintel of the door, the afternoon sun shining full upon her clinging gown, her waving feathers and the gew-gaws which hung round her neck. For a moment she stood still, blinking in the glare, her hands, which trembled a little from the emotion of the past little scene, fumbled with her parasol.

Bela turned like a snarling beast upon his fiancee.

"Ask her to stop," he cried savagely. "Ask her to stop, I tell you!"

"Keep your temper, my good Bela," said Klara over her shoulder to him, with a laugh; "and don't trouble about me. I am used to tantrums at home. Leo is a terror when he has a jealous fit, but it's nothing to me, I a.s.sure you! His rage leaves me quite cold."

"But this sort of nonsense does not leave me cold," retorted Bela, who by now was in a pa.s.sion of fury; "it makes my blood boil, I tell you.

What I've said, I've said, and I'm not going to let any woman set her will up against mine, least of all the woman who is going to be my wife.

Whether you go or stay, Klara, is your affair, but Elsa will d.a.m.n well have to ask you to stay, as I told her to do; she'll have to do as I tell her, or . . ."

"Or what, Bela?" interposed Andor quietly.

Bela threw him a dark and sullen look, like an infuriated bull that pauses just before it is ready to charge.