The Laughing Mill and Other Stories Part 17

"'Well, you're a pretty determined wooer,' said he. 'I can't give my consent to the match, because--well, because I cannot; but if you won't take No for an answer, nor profit by the warning I hereby give you, I'll tell you what I will do. I will allow you yourself to discover and acknowledge the causes which make your marriage with Kate impossible.

You must not blame me if the discovery gives you pain, and the acknowledgment causes you mortification. I have given you fair warning.

And I will only add, sir, that the pain and mortification won't be all on your side. I could not give you a stronger pledge of my friendship and liking for you than in thus letting you find out what has. .h.i.therto been hidden from all the world. And I only demand one condition--that you promise, when you have made your discovery, and left us, never to mention to any human being what our secret was.'

"'I give that promise with pleasure. As to my leaving you of my own free will, that is--begging your pardon--impossible and absurd.'

"He laughed again, and shot another of his startling looks at me. 'Very well, young sir, I've nothing more to say. Come with us to the farmhouse to-morrow; there's plenty of room there, and they are used to being accommodating. Stay with us until you're satisfied, and then--don't forget your promise!'

"He rose as he finished speaking, and flung away the remains of his cigar.

"'Good-night!' he said, holding out his large well-shaped hand.

"'Good-night! and thanks for your confidence, which you will never regret, Mr. Birchmore.'

"'Qui vivra, verra!' was all his answer, as he walked away, with his hands in his coat-pockets and his singular short steps. He was an enigma sure enough, and yet my belief in him was as intuitive and inalienable as in Kate herself. His mysterious hints and warnings were powerless to disturb me: I trusted in the ability of us three combined to overthrow any antagonist. I sat late beneath the trees, smoking, and brooding over my pa.s.sion, as young men will, and ever and anon glancing up at a certain window, behind the lamp-illumined curtain of which I had reason to suppose my darling was. Was she thinking of me now? Even as I asked myself this, and gazed upwards, a shadow fell upon the curtain; it was pushed aside, and the window was swung back on its hinges.

"With a throb of the heart I sprang to my feet and wafted a kiss from my finger-tips towards the face that peeped out upon me. Stay! was it Kate's face after all? The arms and shoulders now appeared, and the form leant upon the window-sill. A lucifer-match flashed, and I had the pleasure of beholding the sinister visage of Mr. Slurk lit up by a sulphurous gleam, as he leisurely lit his pipe and stared down at me.

"'Schone gute Nacht, Herr Gainsborough!'

VI.

"We made a late start the next morning, and did not reach the farmhouse before four o'clock. I had little opportunity of speaking to Kate on the way; in fact, the presence of Slurk, who sat on the box of the vehicle, and once in a while threw a glance at us over his shoulder, irritated me to such a degree that more tender sentiments were temporarily pushed into the background. Kate herself, though she attempted to appear cheerful, betrayed signs of inward anxiety and nervousness; while Mr.

Birchmore conversed with a volubility and discursiveness greater than I had ever remarked in him before.

"The farmhouse stood quite alone, on an unfrequented by-road, in a little angle of the hills. It was not exactly a picturesque building, with its four walls covered with rough plaster and pierced with dozens of small windows, and its enormous red-tiled roof, with those quaint narrow apertures, like half-opened eyes, disclosing a single pane of gla.s.s, which do duty as dormers. It stood flush with the road, as German houses are fond of doing; but behind was a large enclosed farmyard, roughly paved with round stones and well walled in. The front door, though rather pretentiously painted and ornamented, with some religious versicle or other written up on the lintel, was not used as a means of entrance or exit. It was, as I afterwards discovered, not only locked and bolted, but actually screwed up on the inside; and the only way of getting into the house was by a side door opening into the courtyard. As the courtyard itself was provided with a heavy gate, you will see that the farmhouse, close to the road though it was, was by no means so easy of ingress or egress as it appeared, supposing, of course, that it was the humour of the inmates to declare a state of siege. I mention these particulars merely by the way: they are common to three houses out of five in this region.

"The Birchmores' luggage had, it appeared, already been carried over from the hotel; but a man, in rough peasant's costume, who announced himself as the master of the house, now came out to take charge of my trunk. I was, or fancied myself (as you may have noticed), a quick judge of faces, and this peasant's face failed to commend itself to me. It was at once heavy and gloomy, while a scar at one corner of his mouth caused that feature to twist itself into a perfunctory grimace, grotesquely at variance with his normal expression. In person he was much above the common size, and to judge by the ease with which he slung my heavy trunk over his shoulder, he must have been as strong as Augustus the Stark himself, whose brazen statue domineers over the market-place in Dresden.

"'Guten Morgen, Herr Rudolph!' said Slurk, hailing this giant affably.

The two seemed to be on some sort of terms of comradeship, having, perhaps, struck up an acquaintance during the previous negotiations for lodgings. I must say they looked to me to be a not ill-matched pair.

"We alighted, and were welcomed in with surly courtesy by Herr Rudolph.

Kate, confessing to a headache, went at once to her room, whence she did not again emerge; Slurk disappeared into the kitchen regions with the landlord; Mr. Birchmore presently went out for a stroll before dinner: and I, finding myself thrown temporarily on my own resources, decided to make a virtue of my loneliness by writing some letters which had been long owing. I accordingly groped my way up the darksome stone staircase, and so along an eccentric pa.s.sage to my room.

"I did not know then, nor could I, even now, accurately describe the arrangement of rooms in that farmhouse. There were at least three separate pa.s.sages, not running at right angles to one another, but seeming to wander about irregularly, now and then turning awkward corners, descending or ascending short flights of steps, or eddying into a little _cul-de-sac_, with, perhaps, only a closet door at the end of it. The consequence was, it was nearly impossible to say whose room adjoined whose. It might be a long distance from one to another, measured along the pa.s.sage, and yet they might actually be separated only by the thickness of a wall. Where the farmer and his family slept I know not, but I have reason to believe that all our party, including Slurk, were accommodated upon the same floor.

"On opening the door of my room, I found someone already there. This person was a comely young woman, the farmer's daughter evidently, busy in the benevolent occupation of putting things in order. She had moved my trunk beneath the window, she had put fresh water in the ewer, she had straightened out the slips of drugget on the rough-board floor, she had placed some flowers in the window, and she was now engaged in tucking a clean sheet on the bed. I said she was comely; on second looks she was better than that. She was positively pretty, with the innocent blonde prettiness of some German peasant-girls. Her fair hair, smoothed compactly over her small head, and wound up in a funny little pug behind, possessed a faint golden l.u.s.tre; her eyes were of as pure and serene a blue as any I ever looked upon; her smooth cheeks, slightly browned by much sunshine which had rested on them, were tinged with healthful bloom; her mouth might have been smaller, but the full lips were well-shaped, and there were white even teeth behind them. Her figure, like that of most Saxon peasant-girls of her age, was robust and vigorous; she wore a simple bodice and skirt, and her feet and legs were bare. Altogether I thought her a very agreeable apparition.

"'Good-morning, honoured Herr Gainsborough,' she said gravely, in German, as I entered.

"'Good-morning, pretty maiden,' returned I gallantly. 'You seem to know my name, though I don't know yours: what is it?'

"'I am called Christina--Christina Rudolph. It is some time that I have known Herr Gainsborough's name,' she added.

"'Really! how comes that?' I asked, by no means displeased.

"'The honoured Herr has been kind to a relation of mine--a very near relation,' replied Christina, with the same gravity.

"'Have I? I'm glad to hear it! Was she as pretty as thou?' inquired I, venturing upon the familiar form of address.

"She blushed, and answered: 'It was not a woman--it was my brother.'

"'Oh, thy brother! And where did I meet thy brother?'

"'In Paris, Herr Gainsborough.'

"'In Paris! Rudolph! What, art thou the sister of Heinrich Rudolph, who lives in the Latin Quarter, and is considered the cleverest jeweller in the city?'

"'Yes, honoured Herr,' returned Christina, smiling for the first time, and showing her pretty teeth and a dimple on either cheek. 'My brother Heinrich cut and arranged the diamonds in the parure of the honoured Herr's mother.'

"'So he did, Christina, and he did it better than anyone except him could have done it. And so thou art really his sister! How did he tell thee of me?'

"'He wrote to me while you were still in Paris, and described the pretty stones, and told how Herr Gainsborough used to come and sit with him, and see him work, and talk a great deal with him.'

"'Yes, he was well worth talking with! And I remember now that he said he was born in this neighbourhood, and that he had a sister and a father living here. It was stupid of me not to have thought of that when I heard your name. Well, Christina, I'm afraid I wasn't of much use to him after all. I tried to get him customers, but I knew very few people in Paris; and the only person I did succeed in introducing to him--by the way! it was this gentleman who is with me now.'

"'Herr Birchmore; yes, my brother spoke also of him,' said Christina, her gravity returning. 'But he did not speak of the young lady, or of the servant.'

"'No, I believe they weren't with him at the time. I only met them myself since I came to Schandau.'

"'The young lady is Herr Birchmore's--wife?'

"'His wife? Dear heavens, no! His daughter, of course, Christina.'

"Christina said nothing, being occupied in neatly smoothing out the pillow, and laying the wadded counterpane over the sheet.

"'Will Herr Gainsborough stay with us long?' she asked, after a pause.

"'As long as Herr Birchmore does, I suppose,' said I carelessly.

"'And Herr Birchmore's daughter?' subjoined Christina, with a twinkle of mischief so demure that I could hardly be sure whether she meant it or not.

"'Thou art as clever as thy brother, Christina,' I laughed, colouring a little too however, I daresay, 'It is true I have not known them long, but--but people see a good deal of one another in travelling together.'

"'I have heard it said that travelling makes people acquainted with----'

she paused, and looked down thoughtfully at her bare feet. Presently she lifted her blue eyes straight to mine and asked:

"'Herr Gainsborough has his diamonds with him?'

"'Undoubtedly! They are never away from me.'

"'In going about this place, the Herr should be cautious. Some of these hills and valleys are very lonely. There are spots, not far from here, where no one goes for sometimes many months.'

"'Well, I'll be very careful, Christinchen,' I rejoined laughing, and in truth not a little amused at the care my friends took of me. 'But thou must remember that no one in Germany, except Herr Birchmore, and his daughter, and thyself, knows that any such diamonds as these are in existence--much less that they are in my pocket!'

"Christina raised her finger to her lips, as if to caution me to speak lower. 'There is at least one other who knows--the man Slurk!' she said.