Midst the Wild Carpathians Part 9

Meanwhile Beldi introduced Kucsuk to his wife, and he was not a little delighted to find that she recollected the Pasha's wife as one of her girlish friends, whom she looked forward to see again with sincere joy and some curiosity.

After the lapse of some hours the carriage rumbled noisily into the well-paved courtyard. Feriz Beg escorted it on horseback.

Lady Beldi hastened down the steps to meet the Pasha's wife as she stepped out of the coach, and received her with a cry of joy--"What!

Catharine! Do you still know me?"

The lady immediately recognized her youthful playfellow, and the two friends rushed into each other's arms, kissed again and again, and said of course the sweetest things to each other--"Why, darling, you are more handsome than ever!"--"And you, dear! What a stately woman you have grown!" etc., etc., etc.

"Look, this is my son," said Catharine, pointing to Feriz Beg, who, after dismounting, had hastened with childlike tenderness to help his mother out of her coach.

"Oh, what a little darling!" cried Lady Beldi, quite enchanted, and covering the rosy-cheeked child with kisses.

If only she had known that this child was a child no longer, but a general!

"And I've got children too!" continued Lady Beldi, with maternal emulation. "You shall see them! Does your son speak Hungarian?"

"Hungarian!" cried Catharine, almost offended; "what! the child of an Hungarian mother, and not speak Hungarian! How can you ask such a question?"

"So much the better," said Lady Beldi, "the children will become friends all the more quickly. From henceforth you belong to the family. Our husbands have settled all that already, and we shall be so delighted!"

The amiable and sprightly housewife then embraced her friend once more, took Feriz Beg by the hand, and led them both into the family circle, chatting merrily all the time, and asking and answering a thousand questions.

A cheerful fire was sparkling in the chimney of the ladies' cabinet.

Large flowered-silk curtains darkened the walls. On a little ivory table ticked a gorgeous clock, ablaze with rubies and chrysoprases. Sofas covered in cornflower-blue velvet offered you a luxurious repose. On a round table in the centre of the room, from which an embroidered Persian tapestry fell in rich folds to the ground, stood a heavy candelabrum of ma.s.sive silver, representing a siren holding on high a taper in each of her outstretched hands.

In front of the fine white marble chimney-piece were Dame Beldi's children. The elder, Sophia, a tall, slight, bashful-looking beauty of some fourteen summers, was bustling about the fire. She still wore her hair as children do, thrown back in two long, large plaits which reached almost to her heels. This girl was afterwards Paul Wesselenyi's consort.

The second child, a little girl of about four, was kneeling at the feet of her elder sister, and throwing dried flowers into the fire. She went by the name of _Aranka_, which in Hungarian means "little goldy," for she carried her name on her locks, which flowed over her round little shoulders in light golden waves. Her vivacious features, sparkling eyes, and tiny hands are never still, and now too she is mischievously teasing and thwarting her elder sister, laughing aloud with artless glee whenever Sophia, naturally without succeeding in the least, tries to be very angry.

On hearing footsteps and voices at the door, both children spring up hastily. The elder one, perceiving strangers, tries to smooth the creases out of her dress, while Aranka rushes uproariously to her mother, embraces her knees, and looks up at her with her plump little smiling face.

"These are my children," said Lady Beldi with inward satisfaction.

Catharine embraced the elder girl, who shyly presented her forehead to be kissed.

"And here's your cousin, little Feriz. You must kiss him too!" said Lady Beldi, pus.h.i.+ng together the bashful children, who scarcely dared to press the tips of their lips together. Sophia immediately afterwards blushed right up to the ears, and rushed out of the room. Nothing would induce her to show herself again that evening.

"Oh, you shamefaced mimosa!" cried Lady Beldi, laughing loudly. "Why, Aranka is braver than you. Eh, my little girl? You're not afraid to kiss Cousin Feriz, are you?"

The little thing looked up at the boy and drew back, clinging fast all the time to her mother's skirts, but never once removing her large, dark-blue eyes from Feriz, who knelt down, took the little girl in his arms, and gave her a hearty kiss on her round, rosy cheeks.

Having gone safely through this ordeal, Aranka was quite at home with her new acquaintance. She bade the Turkish cousin sit him down on a stool by the fire, and, laying her head on his lap, began asking him questions about everything he wore, from the hilt of his scimitar to the plume in his turban--absolutely nothing escaped her curiosity.

"Let the children play!" cried Lady Beldi merrily, as with high good-humour she led her friend out upon the balcony, from whence they could survey the whole Tatrang valley now floating in the bright moonlight.

Here the two women--while the men were engaged with serious matters, and the children were playing--here the two women entered into one of those long confidential chats which young ladies find so charming when they are by themselves, especially when they have as much to ask and answer as these two had.

Kucsuk Pasha's wife was a middling-sized, powerfully-built woman. Her well-rounded bosom and broad shoulders were shown off by her tight-fitting kaftan, which was fastened round the waist by a girdle of gold thread, and reached somewhat lower down than is usual with the dresses of Turkish ladies, just permitting a glance at her wide, flowing, red silk pantaloons and her dainty little yellow slippers. Her face, if a trifle too stern and hard, was yet most lovely; her full and florid complexion betokened a somewhat choleric temperament; her thick, coal-black eyebrows had almost grown together, and her gaze was burning in its intensity.

Lady Beldi made her sit down by her side, took her familiarly by the hand, and playfully asked--

"Your husband then has no other wife but you?"

Catharine laughed, and replied with just a shade of impatience--

"I suppose, now, you fancy that an Hungarian woman has only to wed a Turk to instantly become his slave? You have no idea how dearly my husband loves me."

"I am sure of it, Catharine. But recollect that my question related to what has long been customary among you."

"Among us! My dear, I am not a Turkish woman!"

"What then?"

"A Christian, just as you are. We were married by a Calvinist minister, the Rev. Martin Biro, now an exile in Constantinople, and for whom my husband, out of grat.i.tude, has built a church where the Hungarians and Transylvanians who dwell there may attend divine service."

"Really! Then your husband does not persecute the Christians?"

"Certainly not. He believes that every religion is good, as leading to heaven, but that his own faith is the best, as opening the gate of the very highest heaven. Moreover, my husband has a very good heart, and is much more enlightened than most of his fellows."

"But why have you not tried to convert him to the Christian religion?"

"Why should I? Because our poets regularly conclude their love-romances in which a Turk falls in love with a Christian girl, by bringing him to baptism and dressing him in a mente instead of a kaftan? Here, however, you have one of those romances of real life, in which a woman follows her spouse and sacrifices everything for him."

"No doubt you are right, Catharine; but you must let me get used to the idea that a Christian, let alone an Hungarian, girl may wed a Turk."

"And listen, dear Lady Beldi: surely G.o.d would have imputed less merit to me, if I had converted my husband to our faith, instead of leaving him in the faith wherein he was born? As a Christian renegade he would have occupied but a humble place in our little church; while as one of the most influential of the Pashas, he has made the fate of all the Christians in Turkey so tolerable, that the Christian subjects of other states flock over to us as to a land of promise. Often, when he has received his share of the spoils of battle, he has handed me a long list with the names of those of my enslaved countrymen whom he has ransomed at a great price. He has expended immense treasures in this way. And believe me, love, the perusal of such a list gives me more pleasure than the sight of the most beautiful oriental pearls which my husband might easily have purchased with the amount, and it has raised him higher in my estimation than if he had learnt the whole Psalter by heart. And he is not the man to break the word he has once given, whether it be to G.o.d or to his fellow-man. If he were capable of abjuring his religion, I could believe no longer in his love, for then he would cease to be him whom I have always known; he would cease to be the man who, when once he has said a thing, always abides by it, never goes back from, and is to be moved neither by the terrors of death nor the tears of a woman."

Lady Beldi embraced her friend, and kissed her glowing cheeks.

"You are right, my good Catharine! 'Tis our prejudices that prevent us from rising higher than everyday thoughts. It is true. Love also has her faith, her religion. But how about your country? Have you never thought of that?"

Catharine rose with proud self-satisfaction from her seat, and pressed her friend's hand.

"Let this convince you that I indeed love my country. I am about to sacrifice for it the lives of my husband and my son, whom perhaps I now behold for the last time."

Lady Beldi's face plainly showed that she did not quite grasp the meaning of these words, and Catharine was about to explain them to her, when a servant announced that the gentlemen had long been awaiting them in the dining-room.

Lady Beldi thereupon gave her arm to her friend and led her into the dining-room. The children had already become such close friends that Aranka allowed Feriz Beg to carry her in to dinner, playing all the time with childish coquetry with the diamond clasp of his agraffe.

The lady of the house a.s.signed to every one his place. Catharine took the upper end of the table. On her right sat the Pasha, on her left the hostess. The host took his place at the lower end of the table. Feriz and Aranka sat side by side. Opposite Feriz was an empty place, the shy Sophia's, whom nothing could induce to come to dinner.

Catharine seeing that a large wine-jug was placed in front of her husband, quickly seized it in order to exchange it for a cut-gla.s.s caraffe full of pure, sparkling spring water. Lady Beldi remarked the action, and glanced mischievously at her embarra.s.sed friend.

"He never drinks wine," said Catharine apologetically. "It is not good for him. He is of a somewhat excitable nature."

Kucsuk smiled and lifted Catharine's hand to his lips.

"Why gloss over the truth? Why not say straight out that I do not drink wine because the Koran forbids it, because I am a Mussulman?"