Regina, or the Sins of the Fathers Part 14

"Why didn't you say all this before?" Boleslav stammered forth. "Why, oh why have you let it come to my standing here before you--like a--like a--Ha! ha! ha! _If you spit in my face, I must put up with it!_"

"You need not reproach yourself on our account," Engelbert replied.

"You have quite enough to bear without that. But now that we have discharged our duty--without grumbling, you must admit--I can only ask you, on behalf of myself and my comrades, to release us from our oath, as we release you from yours. Of course we cannot compel you against your wish, but all I can say is, that if you don't choose to do it, we must leave home and kindred, and wander forth into the world, lest people----"

"Stop!" cried Boleslav, feeling as if more would kill him. "Your desire is fulfilled. I now wish it as earnestly as you do. Of a truth I should deserve my disgrace, were I ever to ask another favour of you.... I will not even insult you by saying 'Many thanks' for the service you have just rendered me. May G.o.d reward you, and may He forgive you for having put me in my present position; rather would I have thrown the corpse into the river and myself after it; let us say no more. Perhaps you will allow me to a.s.sist in putting the horses in, as there is nothing else I can do for you?"

"I am sorry," Engelbert said, his voice quivering with emotion; "it pains us deeply. We are as fond of you yourself as we have ever been--but, you see----"

"I see all, dear Engelbert; no excuses are necessary."

"Well then, we wish you farewell."

"Farewell!"

The horses were put in. All were in readiness to start. Staring vacantly before him, Boleslav leant against the wall. Engelbert turned and took a last look at him from the box-seat.

"And don't forget Regina!" he said. "That is to say, if she escapes with her life. It is to her, not to us, you are indebted."

"Very well," answered Boleslav, not taking in the meaning of what had been said to him.

"Adieu!"

"Adieu, and _bon voyage_!"

The drivers cracked their whips; in another moment the heavy wheels had thundered over the loose flooring of the drawbridge. Like silver-girt phantoms the coaches disappeared in the misty moonlight.

He was alone--more alone than any outcast in G.o.d's wide world. What should he do?

He began wearily to drag his footsteps up the incline. The brambles that tangled the ground wound round his ankles. A firefly made a zigzag thread of flame in front of him. From the top of the hill the great, weird, dark ma.s.ses of the Castle ruins looked down on him, as if threatening to fall on him and bury him beneath their debris. Through the yawning window-cas.e.m.e.nts the moon shone, giving them the appearance of huge ghostly eyes. He roamed absently past the towers, a sudden exhaustion weighing like lead upon his limbs. If only he could fall asleep and never wake again.

He tried to remember what it was his friend had called out to him from the coach at parting. He racked and racked his brains, but his memory failed him.

The gra.s.s plot, where he had first found the half-wild girl, lay before him brightly illumined by the moon. The spot where she had begun to dig the grave stood out in uncanny blackness from the rest of the shining turf.

If only he had shovelled the corpse into it and gone on his way, perhaps somewhere at the other end of the world some sort of happiness might still have been in store for him.

But now it was too late. Now all he could do was to endure--to complete the work of defiance begun to-day under such gloomy circ.u.mstances.

Desolate and alone till the end. Never to feel again the clasp of a friendly hand, never to look with trust and affection into any human face, since the doughty comrades he had so firmly believed in had recoiled from him shuddering.

And had not the beloved shrunk from him too in horror? It seemed clear now for the first time why she had avoided him and hidden herself.

He was cut adrift from all the joys and sorrows that form a common bond between the hearts of men--cut adrift from love, hope, compa.s.sion, from everything but ignominy and hate.

With his face buried in his hands, he staggered over the lawn in the direction of the gardener's cottage, when his foot struck against something round and soft that lay across the path. It was the figure of a woman, lying with her head buried in the dry leaves and her limbs outstretched. Regina--positively it was Regina!

"What are you doing here? Get up."

There was not a sound or a movement. Where had he seen her last? Ah! to be sure; under the churchyard gateway, screening him from the gun that was pointed at his brain. That ghastly moment came back to him with all its terrors. For his sake she had flung herself on the murderer; for his sake risked her life. And how had he rewarded her? He had pushed carelessly past her; consigned her to the mercy of the murderous, bloodthirsty crew who were greedy to take her life, without a shadow of a thought of how he might save her troubling him for an instant. Even if she were the most abandoned creature on the face of the earth, she had not deserved such dastardly treatment at his hands. Certainly she had not.

"Regina, wake up."

He bent over her and raised her, but her head fell back lifeless among the bushes. There was blood on his fingers from touching her. Her hair was damp and matted.

Was she dead? No; it must not, could not be. Sacrificed for him; that would mean adding original guilt to the sin he had inherited, and the idea of owing so much to such a degraded creature, was in the last degree humiliating. She must at least live till he had paid her. He tore open her chemise with a rough, eager hand, and laid his ear on the cool, rounded breast.

G.o.d be praised! Her heart was still beating. And as he raised her once more, she slowly opened her great eyes and looked round her vacantly.

As if shocked at being caught holding her thus, he let her head slip out of his arms.

She moaned slightly as she sank back, for the swaying briars hurt her.

Then regaining consciousness, she lifted herself on her elbow and gazed at him in dumb inquiry.

"Get up, Regina," he said.

The sound of his voice made her tremble. She tried to struggle on to her feet, but fell back helplessly.

"Let me lie where I am," she begged, with a timid, imploring glance.

"Stand up. I will help you."

"Must I go?" she asked, evading the proffered support. Grief and anxiety were depicted on her blood-stained, beautiful face.

"You would rather stay with me?"

"Ah, _Herr_, how can you ask?"

"But you'll have a bad time of it if you do."

"Oh, no, _Herr_. The _gnadiger Herr_ used to whip me every day. I am quite accustomed to it."

"But somewhere else they would treat you better."

"Somewhere else?" New consternation showed itself on her features.

"Good G.o.d! A woman like you, who is willing and hard-working, and has such strong limbs, is sure----"

She shook her head violently. "I shouldn't go far, _Herr_. If you hunt me away, I shall only lie down in a ditch and starve to death."

A softer look came into his eyes. No matter how bad, stupid, and corrupt she might be, she was the only human being in the wide world who clung to him. Why should he drive her from his threshold, when he himself was despised, ostracised, and a social outcast? Were they not both under the ban of the same misfortune?

CHAPTER VIII

The next few days proved how little he was in a position to live on his own estate without her services. He was far more dependent on her than she on him. Helpless as a shipwrecked mariner on a desert island, he stole about the ancestral grounds. Though the mines and wolfs'-traps no longer dogged his steps, finding his way among the chaos of smoked and tumbling walls made him giddy, and decay had altered everything so much, that the landmarks of his childish memories afforded him no a.s.sistance. Even the park, where once he had known every tree and bush, through long years of neglect, had become such a wilderness that at every step he nearly lost himself in it.

When the first flush of his defiance and despair had subsided, the question arose, "What was he to do next?" It was a problem that pressed for solution, as the miserable rations of bread and meat in the cellars were running out.