The Undying Past Part 19

Leo could not be in doubt. While the pastor almost shrieked forth these last words till they echoed shrilly through the church, his small rolling eyes were fixed piercingly, and angrily, upon him.

What did it mean?

Was there another person in the world who knew? Could the secret have found its way from the grave where it lay buried, to pop out of this old man's brain?

"But I threw myself on the ground and tore my hair," he continued, with fresh zeal, and caught at his thin locks with both hands. "'Woe, woe,'

I cried. 'Thou hast shamed and degraded thy kingly office, thou hast rebelled against the Lord's commands. A fire from Heaven shall consume thee. Thy memory shall be wiped from off the face of the earth which thou hast polluted with thy l.u.s.ts.' Thus I cried, and a shudder shook the sinful body of the king."

At the same instant Leo felt a sensation of hot and cold water running down his neck.

"Too absurd," he thought, grasping the rough ledge of the pew. "Can an old sot like this give me qualms of conscience?"

"'What art thou raving about, stupid priest?' the king made reply. 'Do you think my conscience will suffer qualms through you?'"

Leo started. To the exact words the preacher seemed to have divined his thoughts.

"And he took hold of his bottle of wine to throw it at my head. But the majesty of the Lord fell on me, His poor servant, so that my aspect was terrible and filled him with fear. His pride fell away, and he stuttered forth, quite downcast, 'What shall I do to become once more the dear child of my dear Lord G.o.d?' 'It shall so come to pa.s.s,' said I, 'if thou repentest. Thou shalt moan and beat thy breast in sackcloth and ashes, because of thy fault, for it stinks before heaven. So speaketh the Lord thy G.o.d.'"

Leo looked down. The man above him was half prophet, half mountebank, but he was right. The deed stank before Heaven. No jesting could alter the fact.

"And the king grew angry, and called Bathsheba to him, who stood shaking in his presence. 'Get thee gone, thou temptress, for I am sick of thee. It was for thy sake that I went astray into the path of sin, and can no more be redeemed therefrom by Heavenly Grace. Thou canst marry another man, and no more come in my sight.' And Bathsheba, who was very beautiful, and from crown to heel a courtesan, began to weep and wail and cover her face. But I came between them and I said, 'Cast her not out, for she is the companion of thy sin. Thou shalt repent for her as thou repentest for thyself. Thou shalt not part from her, so that thy sin shall never be forgotten. Only in that way canst thou conciliate the Lord G.o.d who is eternally to be praised. Amen.'"

"When will this come to an end?" thought Leo, and cast a defiant glance of inquiry up at the pulpit to meet the pastor's eyes, which flamed like swords beneath his grizzled brows.

"Then a great longing came over the heart of the king. He sank on his knees and cried, 'Lord, Lord, hearken unto me in my wretchedness.' But the Lord heard him not, and His wrath was written on the heavens in letters of fire; and in a voice of thunder He cried down on the earth in His wrath, so that the mountains shook, and the water-floods dried up between their banks. And the king besought me, saying, 'Nathan, Nathan, help me pray to the Lord G.o.d of Sabaoth, so that He turneth His wrath away from me, and no more visiteth it on my head.' ... Thereupon I sank on my knees, and prayed also. 'Lord, Lord, I have ever loved him; as a little lad, he crouched between my knees to hear Thy Holy Word, for the first time, from my lips. He was truthful and frank--and his laugh was like a peal of bells. Thy sunshine lay on his curls, so that he was the heart's idol of all who looked on him. Lord, Lord, star-light was in his eyes, and innocence in his white soul---- He promised to be a great light as Thy appointed ruler of the people, when Thou didst anoint him, as Thy representative on earth, with the sacred oil of the kingdom of Israel.'"

Leo stared down at the ground. He could no longer endure his old tutor's fiery glance. The red tiles of the floor flashed before his eyes like lakes of blood.

Not a sound broke the stillness in the crowded little church. The grim power of this biblical eloquence stirred and affected all, even the most simple-minded. On the dull, weather-beaten faces of the peasants and labourers there was a look of intense and painful excitement. It was as if every one felt that G.o.d, through the mouth of His minister, was in this hour pa.s.sing judgment on a sinner.

But no! how could they feel this? Why, even in the souls of those sitting nearest to the judged man no suspicion had dawned as to whom the thunderbolts were being hurled at. Grandmamma gazed up in uncomprehending calm at the foaming zealot; Hertha measured him, her head uplifted boldly, with disapproving eyes; Elly cast a gentle timid glance from time to time at the parsonage pew, whence Kurt Brenckenberg ogled her as much as the sacred place and the presence of the august preacher in the pulpit would permit.

Johanna had flung herself on the ha.s.sock, and kept her face hidden in her hands. She continued kneeling, or rather prostrating herself there, motionless, save for the convulsive tremour which now, and again shook her tall frame, as if she were suppressing a secret sob.

The old pastor, also, had thrown himself on his knees. In fervid wrestling he flung up his hands towards Heaven, and tears streamed over his swollen face. In a voice half strangled by weeping he continued:--

"'Hast Thou not seen him on horseback. Lord, Lord, my G.o.d, riding in magnificence at the head of Thy troops, as he went forth to fight the Amalekites, the helmet on his head flashing with gold and jewels, the sword that he wielded for the greatness of Thy kingdom like lightning in his hand---- Thou hast heard him playing on the harp, sweetly singing to Thy praise and glory. Thou hast heard how he sang and played on harp and psalter, to bring home the Ark of the Covenant, to build Thee a house of splendour, of ivory wrought about with precious stones.

Hast Thou forgotten the good he hath done unto his tribe and the people he hath reigned over? How wisely he filled the offices of state, and rejoiced before Thee, O Lord. For the sake of the love Thou bore for him, for the sake of the love he bears towards us, I, in the dust, beseech Thee, O G.o.d, to pardon him. I will neither eat nor drink, and I will go bareheaded at midday, and will walk with my naked soles on red-hot bricks, till Thou hast bowed Thine ear to my pet.i.tion, and renewed Thy covenant with David, Thy servant and my master.'"

He ceased, and wiped the tears which were rolling into his mouth. Here and there from the benches came a moan. One old woman whimpered, as if she were being p.r.i.c.ked by spears. Sobbing was general throughout the congregation. Kurt Brenckenberg looked round on the display of emotion, smiling and shrugging his shoulders, then made eyes at Elly. Meanwhile, the moment had come for grandmamma to produce her smelling-bottle. Only five minutes afterwards she was fast asleep.

Leo sat cowering in his seat. He felt as if a heavy cold stone rested on his head, so that his neck involuntarily bent under the burden. His breast seemed to contract. He fumbled nervously with the white waistcoat which still gleamed as immaculately fresh as in the early morning sunshine, but to his distorted vision there were now daubs of yellow dirt upon it. He felt as if he must defend himself, or, at any rate, speak to some human being. So he bent down to Elly and whispered, with a faint smile--

"The old fellow makes it warm for us with his curses."

Elly looked at him for a moment with big, vacant eyes, and then turned to her hymn-book again.

The pastor resumed his pet.i.tion. His exhortations became more and more fervid, his voice more and more broken with tears, and the whole time his eyes never left Leo's face.

Even if it had not been so perfectly natural on this occasion for the dependent parson to refer in his discourse to the powerful Church patron and landowner, there could have been no manner of doubt for whom his sermon of vengeance and penitence was intended. But outwardly, at least, Leo was on his guard against betraying the horrid suspicion which long since had become a certainty in his heart.

The words of the peasant orator, like waves of flame, rolled over him, rising and falling with deadening regularity, till at last they filled and oppressed his brain. Yet he still fought with all his might to master the tormenting thoughts rising within him, to trample them down with brutal scorn. But it was in vain. The pictures of his vanished youth, which his whilom tutor skilfully interwove with his scriptural phantasies, were too forcibly driven home for his relaxed soul to resist them.

And then suddenly he started, as if a whip had lashed him. The word "Jonathan" descended from overhead, uttered in a tone that was alike caressing and threatening.

He knew why the old pastor leaned his bulky form far over the edge of the pulpit, as if he would have delighted to fly at the unrepentant sinner's throat, knew well why his fat fingers pointed at him, why the plump, bull throat twisted and craned in demoniacal contortions.

The zealot had now played his last trump, and would have liked to strengthen the effect with the power of his fists. But this he dared not do.

Jonathan! The mere mention of that name had been sufficient to conjure up before Leo's mental eye the vision of his friend in the _role_ of an accusing angel. He gazed at him with his luminous eyes--he, the betrayed and deceived--and, between the thunder claps of the Brenckenberg lungs, his voice, sad and low, asked perpetually--

"Why hast thou done this thing?"

Then was heard a cry from a woman's mouth, a half-stifled gurgle of fear.

Johanna had fainted. Enveloped in her heavy, black veil, she lay, a motionless heap, on the red tiles in the shadow of the pew.

XI

The drive home was silent and depressing, and so was the midday meal which followed.

Leo wrestled in his mind with conjectures and resolves. It seemed certain that some connection existed between Johanna and the old pastor's denunciatory sermon. To-day the mystery must be cleared up. It was an obligation that he owed his house.

As usual, the eldest sister did not appear at table. So, at dessert, he sent Hertha to ask if she would see him. Hertha brought back word that mamma did not feel quite equal to receiving him then, but in an hour's time she hoped that she might be well enough.

Without waiting till grace was said, he rose and strode into the garden, which lay gasping in the blazing noonday heat. The roses languished on their stems; the lazy, slime-covered carps sunned themselves on the surface of the pond. A draught of hot air came from the fallen pyramid, whose cracked gold letters, commemorating the heroic deeds of a Sellentine ancestor, caught the sun like panes of gla.s.s.

"_He_ had to get himself out of many a tight corner," Leo thought, and resolved that he would let no furious priest bully him in future. The dull, oppressive weight in his head dispersed; once more his plucky, defiant humour bubbled up.

He looked at the clock. Half an hour--just time in which to smoke a cigar. He threw himself on a bench full in the baking sun, and let the blue clouds curl about him, enjoying the warm thrill which trickled along his limbs.

But still Johanna's image, blurred by tears, would not vanish. He had of old regarded her with a kind of proud respect, and had always esteemed it as a happy privilege when she had made him the confidant of her strange, introspective thoughts. And though he had delighted to hold up to ridicule the extravagant enthusiasm with which Ulrich, in his gymnasium days, had raved about the serious playmate, in his heart he too had thought her the most sublime of female creatures. And the day after the ceremony in the Temple of Friendship, when he and Ulrich had taken their vow to be friends for life, they had secretly rowed Johanna over to the Island, that she, as a kind of priestess, might sanctify what to them was more sacred than anything else in the world.

He let these pictures of an intimate brother-and-sister affection pa.s.s before him, half-awake, half-dreaming, till three jangling strokes from the castle tower roused him into a sitting position.

Johanna's apartments were on the first floor, close to the desolate drawing-room suite. No one answered his knocks and he walked in. A big bare room met his eye. It was in semi-darkness, owing to the closed shutters, and polished tables and stiff chairs were apparently arranged at regular intervals along the walls, on which hung, as large as life, pictures of scriptural subjects and black-letter alphabets. An atmosphere of poverty and dirt, that abominable "poor-people's odour"

so offensive to aristocratic nostrils, lingered in this room even on Sundays, and met him pungently as he entered it. This, then, was the widely known "ragged-school," which turned Halewitz day by day into a "kindergarten" inst.i.tution for the poor. The room was empty; but through an opening in the folds of the part.i.tion he saw his sister in the next apartment, leaning, almost lying, back with closed eyes in an armchair. Quivering, bluish shafts of light zigzagged across the dusky floor. One of these fell on her sunken face, and brightly illumined the red-gold hair which she generally wore hidden under her black widow's veil.

He stood still and looked at her contemplatively. He studied the hollows on the haggard cheeks, the crow's-feet at the relaxed corners of the mouth, and that hard straight line running from chin to throat, the autumnal sign which no art can eradicate.

A shiver ran through him. What must her life have been since, as the young bride of a gay cavalier, she went out into the world, that she should have come back a faded wreck at little more than thirty years of age to bury herself alive in this living grave--a mere sister of charity, with no interest outside the wretched scrofulous children of the peasantry?

He pulled the _portiere_ aside. A curious scent of heliotrope and strong hartshorn was wafted towards him.

She had not heard his footstep till now, and slowly opened her tired eyes, which, directly she saw who it was, took on that fixed clairvoyant expression that had made them so terrible to him.