Regina, or the Sins of the Fathers Part 32

"Then you are worthy of your father. And as I once cursed him, I curse you to-day, you and this woman together. You shall be like Cain, whom the Lord banished from His sight.... You shall be a fugitive and an outcast on the earth, and your home shall lie in ruins for evermore.

There you shall abide with this woman.... Now go! Make room for them there! and who lifts a hand against either of them or lays a finger on them shall be cursed, as they are cursed."

Boleslav uttered a sound that broke discordantly on the solemn silence--

"Come!" he said, and took Regina's hand in his; "let the old man curse, it seems to be his trade;" but he felt a cold s.h.i.+ver run through him.

He saw a lane open which reached to the door, in the densely-packed tap-room. Hand in hand he and Regina walked down it.

No one laughed, no one sneered, no one stirred. A superst.i.tious awe seemed to have struck the onlookers dumb. The breath of the winter evening met their faces with an icy tooth. Had some one spread the news of what had happened within, among the crowd that waited outside, or had they divined it by instinct? Here too was profound silence; here too a path was made for them, which they followed, bending their footsteps riverwards with bowed heads.

CHAPTER XIV

The glow in the evening sky faded. A violet vapour hung about the bare tracery of the tree-tops, and showers of sparkling crystals rained from the branches.

Boleslav ground the snow under his heel. His breath curled in front of him in slender columns. The keen frosty air was balm to his fevered face. He had sent Regina on before, and was trying to regain calmness and presence of mind in solitary wandering, for his brain boiled like a witch's caldron.

The curse stood out intangibly in his ruminations; it was like the bogey that little children people the darkness with. He saw it everywhere; it haunted him. How well his father's old enemy had availed himself of the opportunity of doing what probably he had long connived at, putting the son under the same ban as the father.

But it was a terrible reflection to think he might have deserved that curse. As it was, he had not merited it; a thousand times no! What the veteran priest in his dark suspicion had alluded to as an accomplished brutal fact, had really only swept his soul with phantom wings. Now that his conscience was awakened to the danger of the situation, the danger itself was over. After all, he ought to be indebted to the pastor for showing him the yawning precipice that lay at his unwary feet.

"Think no more of it," he said to himself; "I am the master, she the servant, and I should be an accursed----"

He stopped. Was he not already accursed? Then he laughed at his foolish fears. It was childish to mind. Bah! he was too susceptible. At all events, this day should be the beginning of a new epoch in his relations with the outer world. The possession of the iron cross was a proof that he was not dishonoured or outside the pale of law and justice. With it he might, if he had the courage, outwit the knavish tricks of his personal enemies, and appeal to the a.s.sistance of the Courts. If the judge of the district had chosen to condone the fire by ignoring it, he might in his turn light a fire that would send forth such a blaze that the very holes where the incendiaries skulked would be illuminated. But it would involve dragging his father's dealings also into the fierce light of day. Could he dare to disturb the peace of the dead, like a body-s.n.a.t.c.her, and blazon forth the shame of his house in the face of all the world?

His mouth became distorted with the defiance that inwardly consumed him. He felt for the moment as if deliberate self-destruction were a mere joke. Why should he hold back; stop at anything? Was he not under a curse? A bitter laugh rose in his throat. He could not forget that curse!

Then he went into the house. Regina was laying the table for supper.

She had mended her jacket, and smoothed out her hair with water. Her face was as calm as if nothing in the least out of the way had happened; only a scratch on her throat, testified to the hours of peril she had lately lived through.

With affected severity he asked, "What induced you, Regina, to be so silly as to come near the inn?"

She measured him with a shy glance. "I beg your pardon, _Herr_," she said, with a graceful bend of her neck. "I found your letter, and I saw everything swimming green and yellow before my eyes, it made me feel so queer. I hardly knew what I was about. I thought perhaps I could help to set you free."

"Stupid child!" he said, and laughed; but a feeling rose within him that had to be forcibly repressed.

"Bring the wine," he ordered, as he sat down to the table.

"Which kind, _Herr_?"

"The best. It is high festival and holiday to-day!"

She looked at him in surprise, and went.

"Fetch a gla.s.s for yourself," he said, as she uncorked the grey cobwebby bottle.

"Oh, please, _Herr_, I'd rather not. It's too strong."

"Nonsense! you will get used to it."

"Perhaps, _Herr_."

He poured out the wine. The dark-gold fluid foamed sparkling into the slender-stemmed emerald rummers, which, perishable as they were, had been saved from the ruins.

"Clink!" he said.

The gla.s.ses as they came in contact produced music like m.u.f.fled bells.

"The curse of a priest has to-day coupled me with her," he thought, and his eyes sought hers and probed their depths. "How extraordinary! how monstrous!" This woman was to be part of his existence, the old man had said. This woman--why, oh, why this one?

"A curse is a sanction," he meditated further. "Something that never happened, and never would have happened, through him has been substantiated and vouched for before Heaven as if it were an established fact."

And again his thoughts began to encroach stealthily on that forbidden ground, in whose insurmountable barriers the preacher's words themselves had quarried access. "You are master," he repeated the formula over and over to himself, "she the servant;" and then he added, "What is more, she is your slave, and so let it be."

One course of action seemed clear enough at the moment, and that was that progress must be made immediately with his work of retaliation. He bade Regina remove the dishes and bring another bottle of wine. Then he fetched his writing materials and motioned her to sit down in the place she had occupied on Christmas evening. With shy delight she obeyed, for since that night she had spent her evenings till bed-time alone in the vestibule.

"I'm going to ask you, Regina," he began, "to answer very briefly, and to the point, several questions!"

She started, then whispered, "Yes, _Herr_."

"Drink, and that will make you more talkative."

She struggled to do as he desired, but to-day the effect the wine had upon her was to make her more nervous and reserved, instead of less so.

"To go back to the night in which you led the French across the Cats'

Bridge. Was there any one on the premises who knew of the expedition?"

"No, _Herr_."

"How did it get wind in the village then?"

She cast down her eyes. "I believe through me, _Herr_," she stammered.

"To whom did you confide the information?"

"To my father."

"How, and when?"

"He used to come to the Castle secretly from time to time to get money from me, and if I hadn't any to give him he pinched and beat me."

"Why did you not call out for help?"

"Because it was at night, _Herr_; and if he had been found there they would have flogged him."