Barbarossa and Other Tales Part 13

"Give it me," said Frau Helena. "He asks you," she said, after a pause, "whether you have any objection to his applying to me for my consent to give you to him. He does this in writing because if you do not love him, which he fears is but too likely, as you have always seemed so cheerful and unconcerned--he would prefer not to see you again, but to set out without any leave-taking, and take his unhappy heart as far as possible from hence."

The girl did not answer, and her mother too was silent. Suddenly Frau Helena felt her child's arms around her neck, her tears on her cheek, while her soft little mouth whispered in her ear. "I should have died, dearest mother, if he had not loved me." Then her mother took her upon her knee as she had not done since she was a child, pressed her closely to her heart, and said with trembling voice, "G.o.d bless you, my good children: you have to make up to me for much."

That night no one closed an eye till morning, when they s.n.a.t.c.hed an hour or two, and the daughter, who woke first, glad as she was that her mother should have more rest, could yet hardly wait patiently until she rose and went to return an answer to the young lover's letter.

When Frau Helena went upstairs, she found her guest--who had like herself only closed his eyes a short time before--fast asleep, and so she sat by his bedside contemplating the good innocent countenance that beamed with hope and happiness even in its sleep. But as still he did not wake, she called him by his name. At that he started, and in his confusion could find no words, especially as he did not know what she would say to his letter. But though her face remained grave, her words at once gave him comfort and confidence. "Dear son," said she, "you must not remain here any longer. After what you have written to my child, it would not be fitting that I should persuade you to go on accepting our well-meant though poor hospitality. As soon as you are ready to set out we must part, and Valentin will let you out at the garden door, from whence you must make your way to the 'Stork,' and there get your horse, explaining your long absence in the most credible way you can. And further I must insist that you do not before your departure say a word to my daughter that might not be spoken to a stranger. She loves you dearly, and I may truly say that I could wish nothing more than to have so worthy a son, since my own son," and here she sighed from the depths of her heart, "is alas! lost to me, as I shall tell you later. But I do not choose your parents to think that after nursing you here we have taken advantage of your grat.i.tude to procure a husband for my daughter; and you yourself, when you go off and mix with the world again, may wonder at the especial charm you found in my simple child, when she was your only companion. Therefore you must part without one binding word on either side, and thus my child, too, will have time to examine her young heart, and to find out whether compa.s.sion and the interest of an adventure may not have produced an illusory belief that you are her Heaven-appointed bridegroom. If when you have spoken to your parents and obtained their consent you are still of the same mind as now, you can let us know by letter or in person, and G.o.d will then give his blessing if this marriage be really made in Heaven. And now, dear son, I leave you, and shall expect you at breakfast, for you shall not leave my house fasting and unrefreshed, although I must still impose abstinence upon your yearning heart."

She rose and pressed a mother's kiss on the brow of the youth, who had listened in speechless rapture. But if he drew from this token of affection any hope that she would not be so stern as to prevent him pressing his loved maiden to his heart once at least before they parted, he did not know the strong character of this mother, in whose nature severity and tenderness were strangely blended. The farewell had to take place exactly in the manner prescribed, and if Lisabethli had not in reaching out her hand given him a look that was one long confession of the deepest love and fidelity, he might have gone away, not in joyous hope, but in uncertainty as to whether or not he had found a heart that was his for life and death. He left a ring on the table of his room, wrapped in paper, with just one line to the mother.

"Will you keep this token for me till you allow me to offer it to your child." As to Valentin and Donate, he rewarded their care so liberally that in their amazement they came to tell Frau Helena that Herr Kurt must surely have made some mistake. But when they saw the traces of tears in Lisabethli's eyes, they silently went their way, and began to put many things together.

This was about noon, when most persons were at home, and Kurt could go through Frau Amthor's garden-gate with least risk of being observed.

Some hours pa.s.sed by without the mother and daughter opening their lips even to speak on indifferent subjects. They were more occupied with each other than ever, and showed it in a hundred little loving ways, only they hardly dared to allow their eyes to meet, for each had a secret to keep. When the day got cooler, the mother was just going to invite her child, who was walking alone in the garden, to put on her hat and take a turn with her through the town, when Valentin suddenly appeared with an anxious visage, and hastily announced that the chief sergeant, who had paid his mistress a visit twelve days before, now requested to know whether she was at home. He had something, he said, of importance and urgency to communicate. Frau Helena--whose first idea was some fresh imprudence on the part of Kurt--had just time to make a sign to Valentin, enjoining silence towards Lisabethli, when in came the stately dignitary, looking far more solemn and mysterious than he had done on the former occasion, and requesting a private interview.

After she had led him into a small study, where he took his seat facing her, coughed several times, and re-arranging the tags on his dress, he began in evident embarra.s.sment to address her as follows:--

"I need not to premise, worthy Frau Amthor, how not only your family and house, but also your own character are held in honour by every person, public or private, in our good town, and your virtues, as well at the name and memory of your departed husband, looked up to as a Christian example. It is, therefore, the universal wish to keep sorrow far from you, and to offer you whatever consolation lies within human power for such trial as Heaven has appointed. It will not have escaped you that all as by common consent have long avoided touching the wound that your son's conduct has inflicted, and I indeed as your friend and relative, should have been especially bound never to name your lost Andreas in your presence, if my official duty had not required me so to do. Will you, therefore, not render my painful duty still harder to me by suppression or evasion, but openly tell me what accounts of your son you have lately had, and where you have reason to believe him now to be?"

"If you ask me thus earnestly," replied the mother, without betraying either in look or tone how fast her heart was beating; "I must, alas!

return you for answer, that it will be four years next All Saints'

since I saw my unhappy son for the last time, and that since then I have had no manner of communication from him. But now let me enquire what leads you and the rest of the Town-Council to make such enquiries about the absent one who--whatever his offences may be--has at least not given his native town any cause for complaint for a s.p.a.ce of nine years?"

The sergeant coughed again, and resumed after a pause, during which he was evidently in search of the most appropriate words possible. "Hear me out patiently, my worthy friend and relative, and do not be startled if my communication should sound strange and alarming. Up to the present time it is only a surmise which may--G.o.d grant it!--prove to be entirely unfounded. You remember the night on which the train-band intruded upon you, and the disorderly conduct on the island, respecting which I waited upon you the following day, bearing the apologies of the Council. The tavern which caused you so much annoyance, was closed at once, and the scene of much nightly misdemeanour removed. Neither since that night had any trace of the chief offenders been found, so that I began to suspect the watchmen must have been bewildered with new wine, and seen phantoms. But last evening, just as we were breaking up, a young female was brought before us, who had gone to the s.e.xton of St.

Ursula to request him to give private burial to a corpse then in her room, since she feared--the fatal wound having been received in a brawl--that she might else as a stranger in the place be held in some way amenable to the law. The little money the girl possessed--she seemed to be no better than a French courtesan, and could scarcely put ten German words together--she had offered the s.e.xton as a bribe for secrecy, but when he, as his duty was, gave information of the death, and took her with him to the Court, she seemed inspired with sudden courage, and being thoroughly cross-examined by us, was yet able to establish her innocence in this tragic matter. The dead man, who had been her lover and brought her with him from Lyons, had on the night of the storm picked a quarrel on the island with an unknown youth, and had been stabbed by the latter during a struggle on the bridge. When the train-band was seen approaching, she had just had time with the help of two of their travelling companions, to get the unconscious man into a boat, and to bring him to the obscure inn where they had arrived on the previous day. The two other men seeing that there was nothing more to be made, got themselves out of the sc.r.a.pe, but she had faithfully tended the wounded man by night and day, and persuaded the host that he was getting better, and would if secrecy were maintained reward him liberally by-and-by. It was only when he had drawn his last breath that she thought of herself with any anxiety, for during his illness she had been obliged to spend all the money he had won at play, and the few ornaments she had, she had sold to a Jew in hopes of getting him quietly buried. As to her future maintenance, however, she continued with brazen a.s.surance, she should have no fear, as she was young and--thank G.o.d!--not ugly, if only she were acquitted by us, and could get to a country where people understood her. The dead man had, indeed, treated her liberally as regarded dress, food, and presents, but she had not had much pleasure with him, for he was of a sulky temper, and not a thorough Frenchman, spite of his name. She rather thought he must have been an Alsatian. He called himself Laporte, had travelled through many lands, had served in the Dutch army, and was not fond of speaking about his past. The idea of travelling in Switzerland occurred to him when he had exhausted all his means. She had never found out whether he had a treasure buried in this country, or friends who were in any way bound to him, and at whose door he had only to knock in order to be set on his legs again. This was the simple truth, and more she did not herself know, and therefore could not tell us, even if she were put to the torture.

"After this declaration of Fleurette,--which was the female's name--the mayor ordered that the body should be moved from the inn (where as yet the death had not transpired) to the hospital, and last night it was borne upon a bier into the dead house, and a protocol was made previous to the interment of the stranger--as such--close to the churchyard wall. The foreign hussy was meanwhile confined for a season in the tower of the hospital. When we betook ourselves this morning to the dead house, and the inspector had given us his report, namely, that the wound had been dealt by a German sword between the fourth and fifth ribs, and that it was a marvel such a wound had been so long survived--there came a judicial investigation of the clothes and few effects found, the result of which in no way contradicted, but rather confirmed, the young woman's statement. We found that in his commission as officer in the Dutch army, he was entered as a Monsieur Laporte or De la Porte; there were no other papers. The clerk had indeed already finished the protocol, when the surgeon called our attention to a seal-ring on the dead man's clenched left hand. It was a thick gold ring of curious make, with a blood-red cornelian, and it was impossible to get it off. But as I chanced--being fond of antiques--to bend down closer with a candle in order to examine the style of it, I saw to my surprise and horror, that it was exactly--but you must not be alarmed, it may as I said be merely accidental--_exactly_ I repeat, like the family arms of the Amthors, two beams supporting a cornice with an open door in the middle and a star above. The candle shook in my hand, all the more that at the same moment I saw in the pale bearded face, which had at first seemed to me that of a perfect stranger, an expression--I pray you, my good cousin, to forgive me if I pain you--an expression such as I had seen on the dead face of my excellent and honoured friend, your late husband, when on the day of his burial I stood for the last time beside his open coffin."

The worthy man, having got so far in his narrative, made a pause, during which he did not venture to look at the matron opposite him, though indeed he could but poorly estimate the amount of the woe that hung over her. He had no idea that the fate of both children might depend on whether the stranger proved to be her own son or not.

"Be comforted, my beloved friend," he at length resumed, wiping away the cold drops from his brow. "I have taken upon myself not to say a word of this discovery to any one but the mayor, whom you know to be an honourable man heartily devoted to your family. I asked him whether this melancholy supposition had not better be buried in our hearts. It is not probable, but yet it is possible, that a branch of the Amthors may have migrated to foreign lands, there changed their name to Laporte or De la Porte for the sake of convenience, retaining, however, the family arms. As to that look in the dead face, which is a good deal disfigured by a deep scar, I said nothing about it to him, as he had declared he saw no likeness whatever to Andreas, whom he remembered to have often met nine or ten years ago. Nevertheless he was of opinion that so singular a coincidence ought not to remain a secret to you. If indeed, contrary to all probability, it should prove to be your poor son who has met with so tragical an end, no one would deny a mother the bitter consolation of blessing to its eternal rest, the head she had carried beneath her heart. Again, as regards official formalities, it is unfitting that we should satisfy ourselves with the declaration of a vagabond female, when we have the most convincing witness at hand; for it may prove desirable hereafter, with regard to future demises, inheritances, and the like, to have some certain knowledge to go upon.

Therefore I determined to come to you, to lay the whole case before you, and persuade you, if I can, to pay a visit to the hospital--as secretly as you will--in order to prevent all useless suspense or suspicion."

So saying he rose and went to the window to give Frau Helena time to collect herself and come to a decision. A quarter of an hour pa.s.sed away, during which nothing was audible in the small room but the ticking of the great clock--a wedding present from Lisabethli's grandfather to his daughter-in-law, bearing on its metal face the family arms of the Amthors. Out of doors, too, all was still--nothing to be heard but the cawing of a flight of rooks wending their way over the terrace, or the m.u.f.fled thud of an over-ripe apple on the gra.s.s.

At length the lady rose and approached her old and tried friend, who met her rigid gaze with an expression of sorrowful sympathy. "I thank you," she said, "for having come to me, and performed this painful duty with so much consideration. Say to the highly respected mayor that I shall find myself at about nine o'clock at the side-door of the hospital, and should wish to be met there by some trustworthy person, and this painful step concealed from all who might be likely to talk of it. The rest I leave in G.o.d's hand--He will order it aright."

"I shall be there myself to meet you," replied the sergeant. "May our Lord G.o.d strengthen your heart, and your frame, and grant us the fulfilment of our hope that this may prove merely an accidental coincidence!"

"Amen!" said Frau Helena in a hollow voice, in which was no hope whatever.

Thereupon her visitor left her. As soon as she was alone she sank down on her knees in the place where she had been standing, and waves of anguish closed over her mother's heart.

It was already getting dusk, when her daughter's voice speaking in the garden to old Donate, roused the mourner from her trance. Soon after Lisabethli entered, and found her mother sitting at her desk, as though evening had overtaken her at her accounts and letters.

"Dearest mother," said the girl, "he has sent me another letter--a boy brought it to Donate; he wrote it as soon as he had got beyond the gates, because you said he might write when far away. Will you read it?

He says that I am to be as sure of his truth as of your love, and that nothing can ever part us but death."

She held the letter out to her mother, but the latter did not take it.

"Leave me alone, awhile, child," she replied. "I have got something to think over."

The girl went away, happy to keep her treasure all to herself. The mother remained an hour longer in the darkening room, absorbed in darkest thoughts, through which pierced not one heavenly ray. She never for a moment doubted that the ring on the finger of the dead man, was the same that she had placed on the finger of her Andreas the first time that he went to Holy Communion. As to any accident which had transferred this ring to the hand of some one else, she never entertained the idea. He who lay in the dead house of the hospital with that sword-thrust in his breast was none other than her much-loved, much-wept son. And he who had killed this son--in self-defence it is true--was one to whom she had promised her daughter, who would probably return in a few weeks as a happy bridegroom to the desolate house, and with laughing face carry off her daughter, so that through him she should be bereaved of both her children. She hated him at that moment, she cursed the hour in which he entered her house, cursed her own tongue that had promised him protection and ratified that promise with a falsehood, when saving him from his pursuers. And yet the next moment her heart recalled that curse, for in her mind's eye she saw again the candid face of the innocent fugitive, heard his clear tones, remembered her own words when she vowed to be a mother to him, and her daughter's voice when she came to her on the previous evening with her letter, and said, "I should have died, dearest mother, had he not loved me." She knew her child, and that these words were not lightly spoken. She felt, moreover, what she owed to this child, who had been for years defrauded of her due share of maternal love. Would she not have cause of bitter complaint against a brother who, after years of long wild wandering, had only returned to his country to bring fresh misery on his mother's head, and to destroy the whole happiness of his sister's life? "No,"

said the stronghearted woman, "it must not be. No one is guilty here but I. I am the real cause of his miserable end, I with my foolish indulgence and subservience from excess of love! No one shall suffer--ought to suffer, but I. I shall not have any joy in the son whom G.o.d seemed to have given me to replace my lost one; my other child will go away, and I shall be left solitary, with only my own misery--misery purchased by a double falsehood!"

She sank again into gloomy brooding, till the minster clock struck nine. Then she started, and gathering together all the strength of a desolate soul, she called to Lisabethli to bring her her coif, as she had a necessary errand that took her out. The girl wondered at her going so late, but did not like to ask any questions, having indeed in her early days too many experiences of unusual proceedings on her mother's part to dwell much upon this wonder, especially now she had such happy thoughts of her own. But old Valentin could not refrain from enquiring whether he might not light the lantern and accompany his mistress. She shook her head in silence, doubled her veil over her face, and left the house.

It was no great distance to the hospital, but she often felt as though she should never be able to reach it. "O Lord G.o.d!" she inwardly prayed, "take me away from earth! It is too much--Thou visitest Thy servant too severely!" And yet something too seemed to draw her onwards to the place where she should behold for the last time the long yearned after face of her lost son!

When she reached the site of the old pest-house, with its handsome chapel, a man dressed in black drew near and whispered her name. It was, she knew, her friend the chief sergeant, but they did not exchange words, and he led her through the side-door, which he unlocked, into the interior of the building. They entered a dimly-lighted hall, where the hospital attendant on duty had fallen asleep on a bench. Their footsteps wakened him, but at a signal from the sergeant he remained where he was, while the former lighted another taper, and preceded the lady. They went up some steps, and through a long pa.s.sage to a kind of cellar-door which stood half open. "If you prefer to go in alone," said he, "take the taper. I will wait for you in the pa.s.sage."

She bowed a.s.sent in silence, took the tin sconce into her hand, and entered the chamber of the dead.

It was a low stone-roofed room, with bare walls blackened by smoke and time, and entirely devoid of furniture. In its midst stood the coffin, roughly made, and stuffed with nothing but half mouldy straw. In it rested the corpse, beneath a grey pall, scarcely long enough to cover the tall frame of the dead, who had been laid down in the clothes he wore in life. At the lady's entrance two rats who had been gnawing at his boots, jumped out of the straw into their holes. She did not notice them. Her eyes were fixed upon the head of the coffin, where the pall just showed a high white forehead with a deep scar down to the very eyebrows. She placed the taper in a niche of the wall, and with her remnant of strength approached to raise the pall. One glance at the rigid face furrowed by the conflict of life and of death--and she sank down beside the coffin.

Yet it was no swoon that mercifully shrouded her senses. It was only that her legs would no longer support her; her mind was fully awake, and her heart felt all its old wounds open, and begin to bleed and burn afresh. She had fallen on her knees, her hands folded, her eyes fixed on the pale face of her dead son, averted as it seemed from her in indifference, in almost anger, and upturned to the black arch of the roof. Oh! she would have given her life, the last poor remnant of her days on earth, if those eyes could but have opened once more for one farewell look, if those discoloured lips could once--only once--have called her "mother!"

The sergeant who was waiting in the pa.s.sage, was under the impression that he heard a groan proceed from the chamber of the dead. What it meant he did not know. If indeed it were her son he would not disturb the mortal anguish of the mother. Suddenly he heard her steps approach the door, and saw her coming out, the light in her hand, her head erect as if no shock had bowed her down, her eyes strained and strange, but meeting his.

"I have kept you waiting," she said, "which was unnecessary. One glance is sufficient to reveal the truth to a mother: but it has shaken me. I had to rest a little."

"So it is not he!" cried her faithful friend. "G.o.d be praised!"

"To all Eternity!" said she. "Let us go. The place is ghastly."

She went on hastily with the taper, and steadily descended the steps.

In the hall where the watcher sat, she put down the taper on the table, and her hand no longer trembled.

"You will see," said the sergeant to the sleepy official, "that to-morrow, not later than five, the s.e.xton comes and bears the body to its rest."

"The grave is already dug, sir," was the reply, "near the place where a year ago Hans Frisdolin, the parricide was laid."

"Not so," returned the sergeant, "he shall have no dishonourable burial, only as a stranger he must lie next to the wall. His French girl has offered to pay the s.e.xton. You can remind her, Killian."

"What I wanted to ask," the man broke in, "is whether the foreign lady may have wine, and also a roast pigeon for which she longs. She will pay for it, she says, and indeed she is a very good little thing, and a pair of foreigners have been to pay her a visit in the tower and spent three hours there. The warder turned them away at night, but the lady was sadly put out, and she sent the warder to ask whether I would not pay her a visit, for she found the time hang heavy."

"She must conform to the regulations," growled the sergeant. "To-morrow she will be free, and then she can recommence her G.o.dless trade, as she too surely will so soon as she is beyond our jurisdiction. Good-night, Killian."

He turned to Frau Helena, who had gone to the door of the hall, and there in deep shadow leant against the wall. While he led her out, and on the way to her house, whither he accompanied her, he kept railing against the dissolute creature, who might well have the unfortunate dead on her conscience instead of throwing out baits for fresh victims before the earth had closed over the last. He protested it removed a stone from his heart to know that this Laporte was no Amthor, and he hoped that the real Andreas might yet live to make up to his mother for all that she had so christianly endured. The Council, however, was truly indebted to the worthy matron for having given herself the trouble of this late walk.

And so saying he took leave of the silent lady, and wished her a night of refreshing sleep.

That wish was most certainly not realised. A storm arose that filled the night with such wild uproar, that it seemed as if the very earth trembled. In the room which had once been that of Andreas, a window-shutter had been blown open, and now kept beating and flapping against the wall. Lisabethli, who had fallen asleep, woke up in terror at the sound. She saw her mother leave the room without a light, and heard her go upstairs, and there was an end to that source of disturbance as she fastened the shutter again. The young girl waited awhile for her return, but fell asleep before it, and indeed she would have waited in vain. For Frau Helena remained in the dark room above, as though it were more tolerable to her to listen to the storm than to the breathing of her child, who, in her happy dreams spoke of her Kurt, and called him loving names.

About dawn the wind went down, and in its place came a cold rain which got heavier and heavier, and at length veiled town and river in a grey mist. The s.e.xton who, with two companions to help him, had by five o'clock dug a grave by the churchyard wall, and lowered a rudely-made coffin into it, was quicker than ever over his work, and the coffin rested slantingly in the shallow pit. Then, since the clergyman who was to have blessed it, omitted his duty in consequence of the terrible weather, the man of the spade himself said a Paternoster for the poor soul, and hastily shovelled in the coa.r.s.e clods, leaving the rest to be finished by his companions. He was about to hasten home and catch a short morning-nap in his warm room, when he noticed a female figure kneeling by a head-stone not far from the new grave, her head, covered by a black veil, resting against the stone. That stone had long been deserted, the family of the one who slept there having removed to another country. What could the lady be doing there? As, however, she remained quite still, and spite of the rain seemed absorbed in her devotions, he did not venture to disturb her. For an instant it flashed across him that it might be the foreign hussy who had paid for the grave of the murdered man, but he heard afterwards that she had slept till a late hour, and had, indeed, only awaked when the beadle came to march her out of the town.

A few days later there reached him from an unknown source, a considerable sum of money, which purported to be payment for a forgotten burial. He for his part gave himself no thought about the matter, and pocketed the unexpected windfall as though it had dropped from the sky.