Pretty Michal Part 28

So little did she recognize Michal.

Then Pirka took her bundle on her back and went off with Michal and Valentine to show them the way to Bartfa, while Simplex stayed behind with the kopanitschar's wife, so that in case the headsman's a.s.sistants should stop there for a drink on their way back from Eperies, he might give them an earful of lies. And that is really what he did do. Simplex actually saw and spoke to Henry himself, and made him believe that he, Simplex, had stood close to the burning house, and seen and heard the two women shrieking for help behind a window; but no one could get at them, and the whole tower in which they were had been burnt to the ground. Henry Catsrider, therefore, might be quite sure that he had become an orphan and a widower on the same day.

At Bartfa, meanwhile, Pirka got Michal a place in a respectable shopkeeper's family, where they willingly took her in because she was so very plain. It was a sort of guarantee that no one would attempt to court her, and thereby deprive them of a useful servant.

Yet even this maid only kept her place for three days, for on the evening of the fourth day, they caught her talking in a gateway with a farm laborer from over the way, who had only come to Bartfa a few days before. The guilty pair were immediately seized; for the people of Bartfa, who took good care never to fall into their own mouse traps, were immensely delighted whenever they could catch strangers in them. So both man and maid were committed to jail, and taken next day before the clergyman, when they were married in due form and then discharged. In the marriage certificate handed to them on their departure, Valentine Kalondai's name stood there right enough, but Michal was therein described as Milly Barbara.

Neither of them reflected, at the time, that this was a false certificate; all that they then thought about was that they at last belonged to each other.

Barbara Pirka had kept very quiet till after the wedding was over, and then Valentine gave her all the money he had about him (some hundred and fifty ducats or so), only keeping enough to buy victuals for his wife and himself on their way home. Then he said to Pirka:

"Now we are going to Transylvania, but you had better go to Poland, for here you might be called to account for the valuables in your possession."

Pirka laughed.

"I am going, I am going, and I will not stop till I get to Poland. I know that you are very fond of me, children; yet for all that you would like to see two foreign lands lying between me and you."

And at that time two foreign lands really did lie between Transylvania and Poland. The chroniclers called them Hungary and Turkey.

CHAPTER XXVI.

The mummery receives its due punishment; nevertheless, Mercy and Compa.s.sion come to the mummer's aid, and deliver her out of all her troubles.

When Valentine got home to Ka.s.sa, he introduced his beloved Milly to his mother with these words:

"My dear lady mother! you used to say that if she whom I love were even a poor serving maid, you would not consider her origin too curiously, but if only she had a good heart, would accept her as your daughter-in-law. Well! See now, I've brought you my beloved wife, and here she is!"

Milly's face, we may add, was still terribly disfigured by the freckles which the wolf's milk flower juice had eaten into her skin.

Good Dame Sarah smote her hands together.

"Well, my dear son! I'll only say that if this was the young person for whose sake you could desert your mother, and rather endure the Turkish slavery than renounce her and play her false--then, I say you are as immovable as Mount Sion itself; and if you can really love this young person so very much she must have within her hundreds of good qualities."

"And so indeed she has," returned Valentine, and he there and then kissed Milly's freckled face. What cared he though the whole world thought his wife ugly, so long as he knew that she was beautiful?

In the very first week of their acquaintance, Dame Sarah severely tested her daughter-in-law in every possible way, and discovered that she was an angel from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet. She was dutiful, obedient, not fastidious in her work, brisk, cleanly, early to rise and late to bed, sweet-tempered, a great stopper-at-home, modest, and shamefaced. And Dame Sarah had made up her mind to be very strict with her; to find fault with everything she did; and scold and chide her on every possible occasion. But this scolding and chiding was heavenly music to poor Milly's ears, compared with what she had been obliged to endure at that other house, so that the only effect of Dame Sarah's fiercest anger on Milly was to make her kiss her mother-in-law's hands and thank her for the scolding with tears of grat.i.tude. It was equally true, indeed, that it was extremely difficult for Dame Sarah to be really angry. Her face was so round that no wrinkling of her forehead could make it look angular, and her voice was so soft that even her chiding seemed like friendly coaxing. Milly had never known a mother. It had always been the wish of her heart to find a mother in her husband's house. And now she had found what she had wished for; and her soul was satisfied.

When Valentine brought Milly home, she possessed nothing in the world but the clothes on her back. Dame Sarah chided her daughter-in-law again and again because of her bad and scanty attire. Then she bought her woolen stuff for a suit of clothes, cut out the pattern herself, and threw it to Milly, that she might make herself a dress by next Sunday, with which to go to church and show herself among respectable people.

And Michal had to pretend that she did not understand a word of what her mother-in-law explained to her. She who had manufactured the most recondite tarts and cakes at home, and had been far famed as a model housewife, now listened in silence while her mother-in-law told her how a simple soup was made! She dared not even betray her knowledge of needlework and millinery. She dared not say that she could st.i.tch beautifully, and even weave lace. She who was so clever with her fingers now st.i.tched so clumsily that Dame Sarah had to take half her work to pieces again. She held her needle so awkwardly, and her st.i.tches were so irregular, and full of knots and crinkles, that when she tried on her Sunday dress, which had cost her so much trouble, it was found to be a perfectly absurd misfit.

In front it was too long, and behind it was too short; where it ought to have fitted tightly it bulged out, and _vice versa_.

And yet this dress pleased her.

And, stranger still, her husband liked her in it too.

The town of Ka.s.sa had a lot to say about the lady whom Valentine had brought home as his wife.

"Ah, well! such a treasure was quite worth the trouble which Squire Valentine took to discover it!"

"But, at least, she is of very distinguished parentage: her father was lord-lieutenant of the sheep!"

"Such a beauty has not been seen in Ka.s.sa for many a long day!"

"And all that is as nothing compared with her riches. Why, when she climbs up a nut tree to hang out the clothes, she leaves nothing behind her that she can call her own!"

Everyone looked forward to the day when Dame Sarah would present her daughter-in-law to her acquaintances, the notabilities of Ka.s.sa.

And what would they have said if they only could have seen her in a dress of her own making!

The anxiously awaited Sunday dawned at last. In the early morning, however, a sergeant came and tapped at Valentine's window, awoke him from his slumbers, and told him that his captain, Count Hommonai, commanded him to mount his horse at once, and ride into the market place fully armed.

Valentine was still a soldier, a corporal in fact. Obey he must. He therefore took leave of his mother and his wife, armed himself, and was at his post at the appointed time. Thence, without showing the slightest regard for the sacredness of the Sabbath, the captain marched off his troops straightway, for tidings had come that a host of Turks had penetrated as far as Naggy Ida, burning all the hamlets in their way. Count Hommonai, therefore, did not take very long to reflect, but quickly collected two hundred hors.e.m.e.n, and set out from Ka.s.sa to chastise the Turkish marauders.

Thus it was that Milly or Michal was left entirely in charge of Dame Sarah.

Early in the morning the young lady put on the new dress that was so admirably adapted to spoil her pretty figure altogether. Then she prepared to go to church.

When she was quite ready, Dame Sarah said to her: "Take off that dress, you shall not go to church in that, but in another."

And with that she opened her lofty wardrobe and took out her own beautiful silk dress which she had worn in her younger days, her bodice embroidered with gold flowers, her ap.r.o.n fringed with broad lace, her costly cambric pocket-handkerchief, and gave them all to her daughter-in-law, and while she laced the bodice on to Michal's slim waist, she said, with great self-complacency: "I was just as slim myself, dear, in the first years of my marriage. In those days this was my gala costume, I've never worn it since."

Then she put her beautiful gold-laced coif on Michal's head, and praised at the same time her daughter-in-law's lovely hair. That, at any rate, was a thing of beauty, let her face be never so ugly.

Then she took her gorgeously attired daughter-in-law along with her, first of all thrusting into her right hand the best bound prayer book with a posy in it. How Michal's silk dress rustled as she walked along the streets!

The young wife was perfectly happy, not so much because she actually wore the silk dress, as because Valentine's mother thought her worthy to wear it.

Yet her happiness was only to last till she got to church.

The old cathedral of Ka.s.sa had again fallen into the hands of the Protestants, and they now held divine service in it. The first row of pews was a.s.signed to the wives of eminent burgesses who had held office in the town. Among them sat Dame Sarah, for her late husband had been sheriff, and she herself was a rich woman.

In the corner pew sat the wife of old Furmender. With her pointed nose and large gray coif, she resembled a guinea fowl, and when she spoke the resemblance was more striking than ever. Beside her sat her maiden daughter, and next to her there was room for a dozen more at the very least.

When Dame Sarah and pretty Michal came to the pew Dame Furmender rose from her place and let Dame Sarah pa.s.s in, but when Michal tried to follow her, Dame Furmender sat back in her place again, thrust her elbows on to the desk in front, and would not let Michal pa.s.s.

"Servants must sit in the back seats," said she.

"That is the wife of my son Valentine," cried Dame Sarah, much hurt.

"He too is nothing but an expelled student and a common soldier,"

replied Dame Furmender, who excelled at repartee.

At this Michal burst into tears.