Barbarossa and Other Tales Part 12

Frau Helena made no reply, but taking the light out of her hand, left the room with face rigidly set, as though no worse thing could happen to her. She was a sternly virtuous woman, a proud woman, who had always felt too much self-respect to condescend to a lie. Now she had degraded herself in her own estimation and in the presence of her child, and this for the sake of a stranger who had no other claim to such a sacrifice than that of having adjured her by her deepest grief.

The door through which she had pa.s.sed remained half open, and Lisabethli could hear with what slow and heavy steps she went up the stairs, and how often she rested on the way, as though needing to gather breath and courage for the painful entrance into her lost son's room, which she had not visited for years.

"He is in a swoon," said old Valentin, meeting her on the threshold. "I have bound up his wounds, but as I was putting a clean shirt on him he fell lifeless from under my hands. I will fetch some cold water: there is no danger--it is only faintness from loss of blood."

He hurried down stairs, and the lady entered the room.

There lay the stranger on the bed, his eyes closed, his mouth half open from pain, and showing his white teeth. His light hair still dripping with blood and rain, was pushed back from his pale brow. His cap and silken doublet lay on the ground, as well as the blood-soaked shirt which the old servant had replaced by a clean one. Frau Helena trembled all over when she saw this stranger clothed in the fine linen she herself had spun for her son, and marked with his initials. That she might avoid seeing anything else in the room, she fixed her eyes on the young face that in spite of its deadly pallor had a boyish, harmless, good-natured expression. She saw at once from his clothing that he was the son of respectable parents, and the tone in which he had implored her to save him, still rung pathetically in her ears. A motherly feeling overcame her, and great tears rolled down her faded face.

Then the old servant returned with a pitcher of cold water, and prepared to wash the temples of the unconscious youth. "Leave that to me," said his mistress, taking the sponge out of his hand. "Bring the best vinegar out of the side-board, and a flask of our old wine. When he comes to himself he will need a cordial." Then she washed the blood out of his hair, and held the ice-cold sponge to his lips. This brought him round: he opened his eyes, and on seeing the n.o.ble lady who had saved him bending over his couch, he tried to sit up and speak to her.

But she gently constrained him to lie down again, and to let her go on with her ministrations. "I am better already," he gasped out, while he took hold of her hand to carry it to his lips. "O how much you are doing for me! And you do not know me, and must think ill of me. Let me just tell you how it all came about."

"Not another word to-night," interposed the lady, gently laying her hand on his lips. "You have lost too much blood to exert yourself safely. I leave you in the care of my old servant who will sit up with you. I hope that you will get some sleep, and to-morrow be on the way to recovery. Good night."

She left the room without casting a look around at any of the things that evoked such bitter memories. But as soon as she found herself in the dark lobby, she leant her head against the wall, and sobbed in secret. This burst of grief lasted but a few minutes, then she raised her head again, and with her usual lofty bearing went down to her daughter. "Valentin thinks that there is no danger," she said. "Let us go to our rest."

"Mother," asked the girl, "do you believe that he is a murderer? There is something about him that seems as if he would not hurt the meanest thing that lives, let alone a fellow creature."

"Yet on the other hand how did he get to that tavern on the island?"

said the mother, as if speaking to herself.

"Because he was a stranger," hastily broke in the daughter. "He does not speak the German of Switzerland. Did you not notice that, mother dear?"

"It is useless to theorise about it," abruptly replied Frau Amthor.

"Come to bed, child, the storm has pa.s.sed over."

And so after the daughter had read the evening prayers, they went to their rest. But it was long after midnight before either of them closed an eye. Lisabethli kept constantly seeing before her the true-hearted terror-stricken gaze of the stranger, when he appealed to her to help to soften her mother's heart, the blood on his forehead, the red feather in his cap, while the scream of the woman who threw herself between the combatants on the bridge, still sounded in her ears. Frau Helena for her part was listening anxiously to what went on overhead.

For the room where the wounded man lay was immediately above her chamber, and she thought of all the nights she had lain awake till morning expecting the return of Andreas from his orgies, and how when at length she heard his unsteady step, she used to turn on her pillow, not to sleep, but to shed bitter tears. Now everything was silent enough, only from time to time Valentin gave a short cough. The poor lady sat up in bed, and tried to pray; "Oh Lord G.o.d," so ran her prayer; "let him in foreign lands meet a mother to stand by him in all time of need; and if no one will have pity on him, let him find his way back to his own mother, that I may not die before I have once more held his hand in mine."

The morning was just breaking pale and cloudy through the small round panes, when Frau Helena left her room, and hastily dressed herself.

"Sleep another hour," said she to Lisabethli, who at once bestirred herself too. "I will just go upstairs, and see how our guest is faring."

The girl, however, had no wish for further rest. Very quietly she too rose and dressed, and crept on tip-toe after her mother. On the stair she met Donate carrying a small tray. "He has not made much of his breakfast," said the faithful old servant. "Fearfully weak he still is, and his hand shakes so if he tries to hold the spoon. But for the rest a very fine handsome creature, and I would rather bite my tongue out than betray him."

The young girl made no reply, but went on to the top of the staircase.

Once there, as the door had been left ajar, she could see the stranger lying in bed, but raising his head a little to greet Frau Helena, who was bending over him and enquiring how he had slept.

"I really hardly know, n.o.ble lady," answered the youth. "My faithful watcher there will be better able to tell you whether I was quiet or talked nonsense and threw my hands and feet about. But I dreamed a great deal, and such lovely dreams--nothing in them of blood or wounds.

And this morning when I came to myself it gave me a sudden stab in the heart to think how I must have alarmed you last night, and that you do not even know to whom you have been so unspeakably kind. Nay,"

continued he, seizing hold of her hand on seeing that she was again going to impose silence, "I will not let you go, even though it should be better for me to remain four-and-twenty hours without speaking. It makes me wild to lie here and let that good Samaritan, and yourself above all, feel that you are wasting your time and trouble upon a fellow who better deserves to lie on the straw of a hospital amongst brawlers and swashbucklers whom the beadle picks up half-dead on the streets. I owe my present plight to my greenness and presumption, having always held that with a good conscience and good courage, n.o.body need fear to face the devil. My father has often enough shaken his head at me warningly and said, 'Touch not pitch if thou wilt keep clean hands; and don't mix with wolves if thou dost not mean to howl with them.' And when I left Augsburg how my mother charged me only to enter respectable houses and keep good company! The egg, however, thought itself wiser than the hen. For you see, n.o.ble lady, I am naturally a restless sort of a fellow, and beautiful as my native town is, and cheerful too at times, I found it too confined, and wanted to see the world, Switzerland more especially, because I had heard so much of it from my father. He served his apprenticeship here in Berne in the house of the rich master-clothier, Aufdembuhel, whom you doubtless know.

Afterwards he settled in Augsburg, and married my mother and set up a great fabric of his own; and yet he has always thought fondly of Berne, so that when I told him my wish to visit it he made no objection. I almost think he had some idea of a daughter-in-law from that house, which suited my notions too, for I have grown to the age of five-and-twenty in Augsburg, and all the blue and brown, eyes there have left me scathless. And so for about a fortnight I rode southward in highest spirits, and crossed the beautiful Lake of Constance in a boat, and last evening when it was getting rather late I came through the gates by the bear-pits, thinking no evil; but I did not like to come down at once upon Herr Aufdembuhel, bag and baggage as they say, so put up my horse at the 'Stork,' and then set out strolling about the town to take a general survey of it, as I always do on first getting to any new place. Yesterday, however, it was unfortunate that I did not first of all have a meal at the inn. For owing to the long ride and great sultriness while the storm was gathering, I suddenly became intolerably thirsty, and felt that I should turn to tinder unless I could get a draught of wine. I was looking about me, therefore, for a tavern, just as I pa.s.sed the one on the island where I heard music and dancing going on, and I asked a well-dressed burgher whether one could get tolerable wine there. 'The wine was good enough,' he said, 'much better than the company. If he were to judge me by my dress he should say I should not find people of my own cla.s.s there.' 'I would go into a stable full of cows and goats,' I laughingly replied, 'if I could find red wine in one of the milk-pails.' And there I left my worthy, standing, looking rather anxiously after me, and crossed the bridge to the tavern.

"When I opened the door, however, I saw that my friend had not cautioned me for nothing, and that in a stable with brute beasts I should have found better manners and customs than there. Whether it be a haunt of thieves I cannot say, but most of the people looked to me as if they had narrowly escaped the gallows, or were on the high way thither, men and women both, and when I entered they nudged each other with surprise. But I who did not like to show the white feather, and held that a stranger might safely do what an inhabitant of the place could not, boldly seated myself in a corner, and ordered a measure of wine. And as I kept quiet, they seemed to be getting used to me, at least most of them had either drunk themselves stupid, or else were taken up with their female companions. Amongst the last cla.s.s, was one better dressed, and with hair neater than the others, but a bold hussy like the rest. She neither danced nor sang, nor seemed to care for drink. She sat on the knee of a tall strong man, whose clothes looked as if they had originally been good, but were now stained with rain and wine. His face too might once have been handsome, before he got the red scar across his forehead, or his red eyelids and straggling beard. I could not help watching the pair--he throwing down the dice disdainfully, as though good or bad luck were all the same to him, and when he won giving a push to the girl to collect the money, whereupon she would take a long dagger that lay on the table, and with the bare blade just sweep the coins to one side as if they were so much dirt.

Neither of them spoke a word, while their partners--rough young churls with red faces and gla.s.sy eyes--cursed freely in Spanish and French, and struck the table with their clenched fists. The girl seemed at length to tire of the game, and looking round her with a yawn, chanced to spy me out for the first time, for when I entered she was dozing on the man's shoulder. I suppose my dress took her fancy, or the ring on my finger; suffice it to say that she began to cast meaning glances at me, and to make signs with her hand behind her lover's back, which I neither understood nor attended to, but gulped down my wine the more quickly that I might slip away, when all of a sudden she sprang from the knee of the gloomy gambler, and seated herself on the bench beside me as if intending to sleep, but in reality she kept ogling me all the time. The man with the scar seemed aware of something wrong, for he loudly called to her in French to come back at once, but she pretended to be asleep, and not to hear him. At that he started up in a rage and bade me go my ways at once--said he had seen me making signals to the girl, and luring her from his lap. I who was inwardly furious at his brutality, put on a careless semblance, and said that no one had a right to bid me leave, that I was interfering with n.o.body, and paying for my wine like the rest. At that he grew frantic, dragged the girl from the bench, and called out to the host to know why he did not keep his house clear of suspicious characters who only came to spy, called me all sorts of opprobrious names, and when the girl took my part, seized hold of my doublet, and tore my collar. I saw now pretty plainly what I had brought upon myself, for all the rest of the gamblers joined in the outcry, and the landlord, who got his livelihood through men of that cla.s.s, and did not want decent customers, rudely told me that I was out of place in a house like his where people knew their manners.

'Very good,' I said, 'I will no longer disturb you.' I threw my money on the table and moved away. But as I was opening the door, the girl suddenly clung to me and begged me to take her with me for a walk, as she was sick of the company. '_Allez-vous-en_,' cried I. '_Je ne veux pas de vous_,' and what else of bad French I could muster. Just then the storm began, and the uproar within got worse and worse, for the lover wanted to tear her away, and the others screamed and stormed, and she clung to me like a wild cat to a tree, and I could not help thinking in my anger and vexation, 'What if thy good mother saw thee?'

Then came so dazzling a flash, that even those rude beings were quieted for a moment, the music stopped, and the landlady put up a sort of prayer. I took advantage of this interval to shake off my troublesome fair one, and slip out of the house. But while I was on the bridge, thanking G.o.d for having got off with only a black eye, the whole of them rushed out upon me with drawn blades, and had they not been half-drunk, my last hour would inevitably have struck! The French girl too came to my aid, and when she saw her lover--the man with the scar--drive his dagger into my shoulder, she yelled like a maniac, pushed me against the railing, and covered me with her own body.

Meanwhile, seeing my life was at stake, I drew out my short sword, and laid about me so l.u.s.tily, that all fell back with the exception of my chief foe who was maddened with jealousy and wine. He actually ran in upon my sword, gave a roar like a bull, and then fell speechless on his face. Instantly all was so still one only heard the thunder and the rush of the river. But then came two flashes and showed us the train-band marching towards the island. 'Get him into the boat,' said one of the fellows to another. 'He is already in,' was the reply; 'the best way were to throw him into the river.' Meanwhile they had caught hold of the whimpering girl, and were pushing her off by the shoulders.

'_Allons, depechez-vous_,' she cried. '_Voila les gendarmes! On nous attrapera tous._' And then there was such a rush along the narrow bridge that no one took any notice of me, and under cover of the darkness and pelting rain I made my escape. The rest, you know, n.o.ble lady. And now just picture to yourself my fate if Heaven had not touched your heart, if you had refused me your protection. Indelible disgrace must have attached to me as a brawler, if not as a murderer; found in a disreputable house; no worthy man to bear witness to my innocence, and Herr Aufdembuhel, instead of writing word to my father that he rejoiced to renew their old friendship by welcoming his son, would but have come to see me in prison, and have shaken his head incredulously over my self-justification, whereas I read in your eyes that you do not hold me an empty liar, but feel compa.s.sion for my reckless youth, and will not withdraw your hand from me."

After this impetuous narrative, which evidently excited him much, the youth sank back on his pillows with a deep sigh, and closed his eyelids. "Be of good cheer," said Frau Helena, her black eyes moist with tears. "You shall want for nothing under my roof, and since I have had you laid in this bed, I should look upon you as my son, even if everything about you did not a.s.sure me that I might give credence to your words. Valentin thinks that in about a week you may be able to rise. Till then I shall only ask one thing from you, to be a tractable patient, and not through impatience or anxiety to r.e.t.a.r.d your recovery.

If you wish, as you cannot move your arm, I will write word to your mother how you are, and that she need fear no danger for you."

"Oh, my gracious hostess," cried the youth, catching hold of the sleeve of her dress and pressing it to his lips; "you are indeed like a mother to me, for you offer of your own accord what I scarcely dared ask. And yet I know what a favour you will be conferring upon my dear mother.

For indeed both parents are now sitting anxiously together like two birds in a nest whose young one has just taken his first flight, and I had promised to send them tidings as soon as I reached my journey's end. But now, if you are good enough to write to Frau Martina Brucker, Augsburg, will you make light of my hurt and keep back from her the way I got it, until I can send her a circ.u.mstantial account. For she is very easily frightened, and as I am her only child, she has always taken as much care of me as though I were a girl, and hitherto I have tried to give her as little uneasiness as possible. If she were to know what a sc.r.a.pe her Kurt got into on the very first night of his arrival at Berne, she would not have an hour's peace until she could get him out of this dangerous atmosphere. But you will see at once what to do.

You will know perfectly what to say to a mother so as to comfort even more than alarm her."

He grew so pale while uttering these last words, that Valentin hurried to the bed-side with a cordial, and gave his mistress plainly to understand that her interview had been too long. So after a few further directions, she crept softly out on tip-toe, and in the lobby came upon Lisabethli.

"You have been listening?" said she sternly.

"Dearest mother, forgive me," returned her child. "I could not help it.

I needs must know how it all happened. G.o.d be praised and thanked--I was right--he is innocent."

"Come down, child, you have nothing to do up here. Should any one call I am engaged. I must sit down at once and write to his mother."

But nevertheless a visitor came whom neither Donate could send away, nor Lisabethli receive alone. It was no other than the chief sergeant, the greatest man in the town next to the mayor, and distantly related to Frau Helena. He came on the part of the Town Council to apologise for the intrusion of the previous night, and also to say that the disorders on the island should now be effectually put a stop to by the closing of the tavern, which had long been a thorn in the side of the civic authorities. As to the savage doings of yesterday evening, a mystery lay over them which up to the present hour no one had been able to penetrate. Both combatants had disappeared as completely as though the earth had swallowed them up, their b.l.o.o.d.y traces had been washed away by the heavy rain, and nothing was known of their names or their antecedents. Only a boat usually fastened to the bridge had been found two or three miles from the town keel uppermost, and the landlord of the Stork stated that a horse had been left in his stable last evening, whose rider had never made his appearance since.

During this communication Frau Helena had often changed colour, but did not utter a syllable which could have betrayed her secret knowledge, nay, she was even careful not to speak a word of any kind, as it must needs have been at least indirectly untrue. As soon as she was alone again, she wrote to Frau Martina Brucker in Augsburg, judiciously keeping back all that might have made her uneasy as to her son's conduct, and concluding by a cordially expressed promise to nurse him as a real mother might, since she--this she added with silent tears--was not so favoured by Heaven as to have her own son under her roof.

This letter she herself took in the afternoon to the post, accompanied by her daughter, without whom, indeed, she seldom left the house.

Neither of them said a word about their hidden guest, and yet neither thought of anything else. So it was in the evening too when they silently sat at their spinning wheels. It was only when Donate came in at a late hour to announce that the fever was higher, the patient unable to sleep, and delirious, calling constantly for his mother, and wanting to get up and ride off homewards, that they held a council as to whether it was any longer possible or justifiable not to call in a chirurgeon, but trust to the skill and experience of old Valentin, who had served half his time as apprentice to a leech before Herr Amthor took him into his service. At last Frau Helena went up herself to inspect the wound. There was nothing in its aspect to alarm, and the old man a.s.sured her that the rambling, Donate had been frightened by, merely resulted from the full-bloodedness of youth, and that in four-and-twenty hours all danger would be perfectly over. Frau Helena knew that her faithful servant was accustomed to weigh his words before he spoke positively. She stood for a while by the side of the feverish sufferer, who did not know her, but when he felt the touch of her hand called her "mother," and then with a sudden brightness in his face began to talk to her in a tone of affectionate confidence, telling her she was not to suppose he had set his heart on Herr Aufdembuhel's daughter--that she knew he would never marry unless he found some one like her. Then he would break out into French, as if violently remonstrating with the bold girl of the tavern, telling her not to hang about his neck, since though she might stain his doublet with wine, she could not ogle the ring off his finger--and all sorts of delirious fancies. To all which the judicious matron listened attentively, for she well knew men, and was silently touched by the evidence thus afforded of a good and innocent nature. She felt her motherly partiality for the young stranger grow hour by hour, till she was almost angry that this youth should a.s.sert a claim to a place in her heart, long entirely filled by sorrow for her lost one.

The night was again restless, and so was the day. But just as Valentin had foretold, on the third night came a refreshing sleep, and when Frau Helena paid her morning visit to her guest, he looked at her with clear intelligent eyes, and even tried to move his wounded arm, which was still helpless, but going on as well as possible. The lady shook her head lovingly at him, and bade him not play any pranks, or fancy himself well before the time, and the youth, although in the highest spirits, gravely a.s.sured her that he would be pa.s.sive as an unweaned child. But that very evening, as mother and daughter were sitting in their saloon by candlelight, and Lisabethli practising some foreign tune upon the spinett, there came a knock at the door, and in answer to a somewhat nervous "Come in,"--for the ladies were not accustomed to such late visitors--their young guest appeared leaning on the arm of Valentin, who by silent shrugs, gave them to understand that this was no doing of his, and that he washed his hands of the consequences of such imprudence. Kurt, however, over whose pale cheeks a flush of pleasure pa.s.sed at this escape from the sick room, gaily and gracefully bent his knee before the grave matron, and prayed her forgiveness for having ventured once more to stand on his own feet contrary to her command. He only wanted to wish his benefactress good-night, and to thank the young lady too, whom he had not seen since that terrible evening, for the trouble she had taken in making lint and sewing bandages together. It was impossible to resist his lively cordial manner: and even Lisabethli, who had been more startled by his unexpected appearance on this occasion than on the first, soon regained her natural ease and replied playfully and intelligently to his friendly talk. At a signal from her mother she brought in a tray of fruit and pastry, and their guest who had fasted for some days (first, however, asking and obtaining leave from Valentin), was soon biting with his white teeth into the juicy early pears.

"n.o.ble lady," he said, "I cannot describe to you how pleasant it is to me to find myself at this table. When I first saw your lights shine from the terrace below, and directed my fugitive steps. .h.i.ther, how little I dreamed that I should ever sit here safely and happily, and that you would be so very kind to me! You must know that I am a thoroughly spoilt child, and on my journey here, much as I enjoyed the freedom and novelty of it, yet in the wretched hostelries, spite of good food and fiery wine, I used to long for the clean tablecloth laid by our maid at home for our simple fare. I never ventured to sleep in any of their beds without spreading my cloak over the sheets. Now here I find everything just as it is at my own mother's--only better appointed--and that there I have to be son and daughter in one, while here I sit merely on sufferance, because, as my old friend tells me, your son is on his travels, while a daughter is left to you such as my mother has long vainly wished for."

At these words the old servant slipped away, for this reference to the absent son distressed him, but Lisabethli came to her mother's rescue.

"Often," she playfully observed, "did people wish themselves a cross, and if her mother would be candid, she would admit that she not seldom found herself desiring better companionship than that of a silly little daughter, her head full of freaks and fancies, who strummed on the spinet half the day through, roasted the meat too brown, and made the soup too light, and cost more than she was worth in ribands and tuckers." At this the mother with a faint smile, observed that the picture was certainly like, though somewhat darkly shaded; but that even were it a correct one, each must accept the punishment Heaven adjudged him. And so saying her face grew very sad, for she thought that in her case this was but too true. The young people, however, paid no attention, but went on chatting in the liveliest manner, and becoming so thoroughly at home with each other that they felt like old acquaintances; and when Lisabethli had risen from her instrument after playing three or four national airs to their guest, the minster tower struck twelve before any of them knew that they had been more than an hour together.

There is little to record about the following days and evenings, except that both the young people, and even the mother, daily thought the time longer until--the house-door being barred and bolted--they were able to receive their guest in safety, and chat half the night away in the cheerful, well-lit sitting-room. They seemed to fall into this state of things as if it always had been and must always continue, and the very fact of having a secret to keep and a peril to avert, gave to these innocent meetings an excitement and a charm against which even Frau Helena herself was not quite proof. She was wise enough, however, to foresee that there was another danger besides that of the discovery of her hidden guest and of her own untruth. Lisabethli, who until the present time had very seldom, and only for short periods, been in the company of young men, had already spent eleven days under the same roof with this stranger; and if, since she had fathomed his candid and upright nature, the mother had learnt to love him, was it not expecting too much to suppose the daughter blind to all his gifts and virtues?

He, indeed, confidential and friendly as he was, appeared to have taken good care of his own heart, and in all the unchecked playfulness of their talk throughout the long evenings, not a word escaped his lips that sounded other than brotherly in its tone. But if it were really so, if this bird of pa.s.sage had no thought of nest-building, it would be all the worse for the child, and a mother's duty was to put an end to it at once. She blamed her own weakness and inability to remind her guest (who was really now quite able to travel) of the journey he no longer seemed anxious to take. She felt how much she should miss him, when she had him no longer to expend her motherly care upon, and no more heard his frank loving voice call her "lady-mother," or even vie with her little daughter in devising pet names for her. Then, too, she had a sense of the ungraciousness and unfitness of hastening a guest's departure. And so she was glad and sorry both, when a letter arrived from Augsburg, written by his parents, who at its close enjoined their son not to trespa.s.s too long upon the hospitality of the n.o.ble lady to whom he owed his life, but to set out as soon as ever his wound was healed and journey homewards; as so only could his anxious mother be fully convinced that he was really out of danger, and that the punishment of his recklessness had been on this occasion a lenient one.

When young Kurt had read out this letter to his two friends, not a word was spoken by any of the three for a long time, and afterwards the talk turned only on grave or indifferent subjects. For the sense of this being their last evening was heavy upon the hearts of all, though none chose to confess it. After midnight--when he had left them--mother and daughter went on sitting up, pretending to have something to do, for neither felt able to sleep. Then Lisabethli left the room to give some last directions to Donate. On her return she held a sheet of paper in her hand, and her face was as white as the paper.

"Dear mother," she stammered out, "Donate has just given me this. It is from _him_. Will you read it."

"Read it yourself," said her mother, "there can be no harm in it."

"Oh mother," whispered the girl, "I cannot see to read it. There is a cloud before my eyes--I know that it is a farewell!"