The First Violin Part 62

"Yes," said I, "I would."

To say that I found life dull, even in Skernford, at that time would be untrue. Miss Hallam was a furious partisan of the French, and I dared not mention the war to her, but I took in the "Daily News" from my private funds, and read it in my bedroom every night with dimmed eyes, fast-coming breath, and beating heart. I knew--knew well, that Eugen must be fighting--unless he were dead. And I knew, too, by some intuition founded, I suppose, on many small negative evidences unheeded at the time, that he would fight, not like the other men who were battling for the sake of hearth and home, and sheer love and pride for the Fatherland, but as one who has no home and no Fatherland, as one who seeks a grave, not as one who combats a wrong.

Stella saw the pile of newspapers in my room, and asked me how I could read those dreary accounts of battles and bombardments. Beyond these poor newspapers I had, during the sixteen months that I was at home, but scant tidings from without. I had implored Clara Steinmann to write me now and then, and tell me the news of Elberthal, but her penmanship was of the most modest and retiring description, and she was, too, so desperately excited about Karl as to be able to think scarce of anything else. Karl belonged to a Landwehr regiment which had not yet been called out, but to which that frightful contingency might happen any day; and what should she, Clara, do in that case? She told me no news; she lamented over the possibility of Karl's being summoned upon active service. It was, she said, _grausam, schrecklich_! It made her almost faint to write about it, and yet she did compose four whole pages in that condition. The barrack, she informed me, was turned into a hospital, and she and "Tante" both worked hard. There was much work--dreadful work to do--such poor groaning fellows to nurse!

"_Herrgott!_" cried poor little Clara, "I did not know that the world was such a dreadful place!" Everything was so dear, so frightfully dear, and Karl--that was the burden of her song--might have to go into battle any day.

Also through the public papers I learned that Adelaide and Sir Peter Le Marchant were divided forever. As to what happened afterward I was for some time in uncertainty, longing most intensely to know, not daring to speak of it. Adelaide's name was the signal for a cold stare from Stella, and angry, indignant expostulation from Miss Hallam. To me it was a sorrowful spell which I carried in my heart of hearts.

One day I saw in a German musical periodical which I took in, this announcement: "Herr Musik-direktor Max von Francius in ---- has lately published a new symphony in B minor. The productions of this gifted composer are slowly but most surely making the mark which they deserve to leave in the musical history of our nation; he has, we believe, left ---- for ---- for a few weeks to join his lady (_seine Gemahlin_), who is one of the most active and valuable hospitable nurses of that town, now, alas! little else than a hospital."

This paragraph set my heart beating wildly. Adelaide was then the wife of von Francius. My heart yearned from my solitude toward them both. Why did not they write? They knew how I loved them. Adelaide could not suppose that I looked upon her deed with the eyes of the world at large--with the eyes of Stella or Miss Hallam. Had I not grieved with her? Had I not seen the dreadful struggle? Had I not proved the n.o.bility of von Francius? On an impulse I seized pen and paper, and wrote to Adelaide, addressing my letter under cover to her husband at the town in which he was musik-direktor; to him I also wrote--only a few words--"Is your pupil forgotten by her master? he has never been forgotten by her."

At last the answer came. On the part of Adelaide it was short:

"DEAR MAY,--I have had no time till now to answer your letter. I can not reply to all your questions. You ask whether I repent what I have done. I repent my whole life. If I am happy--how can I be happy? I am busy now, and have many calls upon my time. My husband is very good: he never interposes between me and my work. Shall I ever come to England again?--never."

"Yours, "A. von F."

No request to write again! No inquiry after friends or relations! This letter showed me that whatever I might feel to her--however my heart might beat and long, how warm soever the love I bore her, yet that Adelaide was now apart from me--divided in every thought. It was a cruel letter, but in my pain I could not see that it had not been cruelly intended. Her nature had changed. But behind this pain lay comfort. On the back of the same sheet as that on which Adelaide's curt epistle was written, were some lines in the hand I knew well.

"LIEBE MAI"--they said--"Forgive your master, who can never forget you, nor ever cease to love you. You suffer. I know it; I read it in those short, constrained lines, so unlike your spontaneous words and frank smile. My dear child, remember the storms that are beating on every side--over our country, in on our hearts. Once I asked you to sing for me some time: you promised. When the war is over I shall remind you of your promise. At present, believe me, silence is best.

"Your old music-master, "M. v. F."

Gall and honey, roses and thistles, a dagger at the heart and a caress upon the lips; such seemed to me the characters of the two letters on the same sheet which I held in my hand. Adelaide made my heart ache; von Francius made tears stream from my eyes. I reproached myself for having doubted him, but oh, I treasured the proof that he was true! It was the one tangible link between me, reality, and hard facts, and the misty yet beloved life I had quitted. My heart was full to overflowing; I must tell some one--I must speak to some one.

Once again I tried to talk to Stella about Adelaide, but she gazed at me in that straight, strange way, and said coldly that she preferred not to speak of "that." I could not speak to Miss Hallam about it. Alone in the broad meadows, beside the noiseless river, I sometimes whispered to myself that I was not forgotten, and tried to console myself with the feeling that what von Francius promised he did--I should touch his hand, hear his voice again--and Adelaide's. For the rest, I had to lock the whole affair--my grief and my love, my longing and my anxiety, fast within my own breast, and did so.

It was a long lesson--a hard one; it was conned with bitter tears, wept long and alone in the darkness; it was a sorrow which lay down and rose up with me. It taught (or rather practiced me until I became expert in them) certain things in which I had been deficient; reticence, self-reliance, a quicker ability to decide in emergencies. It certainly made me feel old and sad, and Miss Hallam often said that Stella and I were "as quiet as nuns."

Stella had the power which I so ardently coveted: she was a first-rate instrumentalist. The only topic she and I had in common was the music I had heard and taken part in. To anything concerning that she would listen for hours.

Meanwhile the war rolled on, and Paris capitulated, and peace was declared. The spring pa.s.sed and Germany laughed in glee, and bleeding France roused herself to look with a haggard eye around her; what she saw, we all know--desolation, and mourning, and woe. And summer glided by, and autumn came, and I did not write either to Adelaide or von Francius. I had a firm faith in him--and absolute trust. I felt I was not forgotten.

In less than a year after my return to England, Miss Hallam died. The day before her death she called me to her, and said words which moved me very much.

"May, I am an eccentric old woman, and lest you should be in any doubt upon the subject of my feelings toward you, I wish to tell you that my life has been more satisfactory to me ever since I knew you."

"That is much more praise than I deserve, Miss Hallam."

"No, it isn't. I like both you and Stella. Three months ago I made a codicil to my will by which I endeavored to express that liking. It is nothing very brilliant, but I fancy it will suit the views of both of you."

Utterly astounded, I stammered out some incoherent words.

"There, don't thank me," said she. "If I were not sure that I shall die to-morrow--or thereabouts, I should put my plan into execution at once, but I shall not be alive at the end of the week."

Her words proved true. Grim, sardonic, and cynical to the last, she died quietly, gladly closing her eyes which had so long been sightless. She was sixty-five years old, and had lived alone since she was five-and-twenty.

The codicil to her will, which she had spoken of with so much composure, left three hundred pounds to Stella and me. She wished a portion of it to be devoted to our instruction in music, vocal and instrumental, at any German conservatorium we might select. She preferred that of L----.

Until we were of age, our parents or guardians saw to the dispensing of the money, after that it was our own--half belonging to each of us; we might either unite our funds or use them separately as we choose.

It need scarcely be said that we both chose that course which she indicated. Stella's joy was deep and intense--mine had an unavoidable sorrow mingled with it. At the end of September, 18--, we departed for Germany, and before going to L---- it was agreed that we should pay a visit at Elberthal, to my friend Dr. Mittendorf.

It was a gusty September night, with wind dashing angrily about and showers of rain flying before the gale, on which I once again set foot in Elberthal--the place I had thought never more to see.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

"Freude trinken alle Wesen An den Brusten der Natur; Alle Guten, alle Bosen Folgen ihrer Rosenspur."

I felt a deep rapture in being once more in that land where my love, if he did not live, slept. But I forbear to dwell on that rapture, much as it influenced me. It waxes tedious when put into words--loses color and flavor, like a pressed flower.

I was at first bitterly disappointed to find that Stella and I were only to have a few days at Elberthal. Dr. Mittendorf no longer lived there; but only had his official residence in the town, going every week-end to his country house, or "Schloss," as he ambitiously called it, at Lahnburg, a four-hours' railway journey from Elberthal.

Frau Mittendorf, who had been at Elberthal on a visit, was to take Stella and me with her to Lahnburg on the Tuesday morning after our arrival, which was on Friday evening.

The good doctor's schloss, an erection built like the contrivances of the White Knight in "Through the Looking-gla.s.s," on "a plan of his own invention," had been his pet hobby for years, and now that it was finished, he invited every invitable person to come and stay at it.

It was not likely that he would excuse a person for whom he had so much regard as he professed for me from the honor, and I was fain to conceal the fact that I would much rather have remained in Elberthal, and make up my mind to endure as well as I could the prospect of being buried in the country with Frau Mittendorf and her children.

It was Sunday afternoon. An equinoctial gale was raging, or rather had been raging all day. It had rained incessantly, and the wind had howled.

The skies were cloud-laden, the wind was furious. The Rhine was so swollen that the streets in the lower part of the town sloping to the river were under water, and the people going about in boats.

But I was tired of the house; the heated rooms stifled me. I was weary of Frau Mittendorf's society, and thoroughly dissatisfied with my own.

About five in the afternoon I went to the window and looked out. I perceived a strip of pale, watery blue through a rift in the storm-laden clouds, and I chose to see that, and that only, ignoring the wind-lashed trees of the allee; the leaves, wet, and sodden and sere, hurrying panic-stricken before the gale, ignoring, too, the low wail promising a coming hurricane, which sighed and soughed beneath the wind's shrill scream.

There was a temporary calm, and I bethought myself that I would go to church--not to the Protestant church attended by the English clique--heaven forbid! but to my favorite haunt, the Jesuiten Kirche.

It was just the hour at which the service would be going on. I asked Stella in a low voice if she would not like to come; she declined with a look of pity at me, so, notifying my intention to Frau Mittendorf, and mildly but firmly leaving the room before she could utter any remonstrance, I rushed upstairs, clothed myself in my winter mantle, threw a shawl over my arm, and set out.

The air was raw, but fresh, life-giving and invigorating. The smell of the stove, which clung to me still, was quickly dissipated by it. I wrapped my shawl around me, turned down a side street, and was soon in the heart of the old part of the town, where all Roman Catholic churches were, the quarter lying near the river and wharves and bridge of boats.

I liked to go to the Jesuiten Kirche, and placing myself in the background, kneel as others knelt, and, without taking part in the service, think my own thoughts and pray my own prayers.

Here none of the sheep looked wolfish at you unless you kept to a particular pen, for the privilege of sitting in which you paid so many marks _per quartal_ to a respectable functionary who came to collect them. Here the men came and knelt down, cap in hand, and the women seemed really to be praying, and aware of what they were praying for, not looking over their prayer-books at each other's clothes.

I entered the church. Within the building it was already almost dark. A reddish light burned in a great glittering censer, which swung gently to and fro in the chancel.

There were many people in the church, kneeling in groups and rows, and all occupied with their prayers. I, too, knelt down, and presently as the rest sat up I sat up too. A sad-looking monk had ascended the pulpit, and was beginning to preach. His face was thin, hollow, and ascetic-looking; his eyes blazed bright from deep, sunken sockets. His cowl came almost up to his ears. I could dimly see the white cord round his waist as he began to preach, at first in a low and feeble voice, which gradually waxed into power.

He was in earnest--whether right or wrong, he was in earnest. I listened with the others to what he said. He preached the beauties of renunciation, and during his discourse quoted the very words which had so often haunted me--_Entbehren sollst du! sollst entbehren!_