Through Night to Light Part 40

"I hardly know what to believe," replied Oswald, unconsciously a.s.suming the same hurried and secret tone.

"Then Mrs. Jager has not told you yet?"

"What?"

"I made her believe I had a commission to ask you if you would accept a place in the house of some friends of mine; of course, there is not a word of truth in it. I only came----"

A glance from her bright eyes and a quiver of the charming mouth filled quite eloquently the pause which the young lady made in her speech.

Oswald was still unable to adapt himself at once to the situation. He had expected Helen, he found Emily--Emily, whose enchanting, coquettish beauty reminded him so forcibly of some of the most delightful and yet most painful scenes in the confused drama of his life--Emily, whom he had intended to meet with a tragic resolve of resignation! And now he was expected of a sudden to play the part of a lover! He felt a very decided conviction that he must give the young lady some answer or other, but the varied sensations which he experienced overcame him so entirely that he in vain sought for words.

"Why did you not call, as you promised the other day?" continued Emily, somewhat disheartened by this silence of her knight, in the tone of a spoilt child who cannot get the toy she desires, and who therefore is on the point of breaking into tears. "Is it right not to comply with the request--the harmless request--of a lady, and thus compel her to take a step which she can hardly excuse to herself, much less to the judgment of the world?"

Oswald stepped back unconsciously, and replied in a half serious half ironical tone: "It seems, madame, to be my fate to embarra.s.s you always by my plebeian want of knightly gallantry."

He had hardly uttered these words when he would have given a world to take them back. Emily's lovely face, which had until now beamed with rosy smiles, became deadly pale. Her large eyes grew still larger and rigid, like the eyes of one who has to suffer an intense physical or mental pain; her pale lips trembled convulsively, as if she wished to say something and could not find the strength to do so. Her whole body trembled, and she grasped the back of a chair. He had not meant to wound her so deeply. Oswald was ashamed of his cruelty, especially as he was by no means so much in earnest with the Catonic severity which he had displayed. He went up to Emily; he seized her hand and held it, although she made a feeble effort to draw it away; he conjured her in pa.s.sionate words to forgive him; he swore he repented of what he had said; his heart was sick, his head confused, his lips often said what his head and his heart did not wish to be said; she ought to give him time to recover and to justify himself before his own heart and before her.

Emily's pain seemed to be somewhat soothed by these words, and perhaps still more by the tone of deep feeling in which they were uttered. She had seated herself in the chair on the back of which her little hand was still trembling; her tears began to flow abundantly; she permitted Oswald, who was bending over her, to kiss her hand while he continued to implore her forgiveness for his insanity--as he called it--in low words, which became every moment more pa.s.sionate and more tender. Her sobs subsided, like the sobbing of a little girl who feels at last that the doll which she was refused is laid in her arms amid kisses and caresses. Both Oswald and Emily seemed to have entirely forgotten that they were in a strange house, where the very next moment might prepare for them most serious embarra.s.sment, and they were fortunate indeed that an unexpected and most ludicrous accident recalled them to their ordinary prudence, which they had completely lost in the intoxicating joy of the first blending of heart and heart.

Suddenly a cry--a yell--was heard in the adjoining room, and Oswald and Emily started in horror, both thinking almost instinctively that the poetess was wrapped in flames, and on the point of death. The first glance as they drew aside the curtain taught them, however, that the poetess was not in any danger of her life, and as they approached more closely they saw what had happened. Primula had given herself up so completely to the admiration of a successful stanza which had received at the last moment and by the insertion of an indescribably pathetic epithet a most marvellous additional charm, that she had committed a mistake, such as will happen to great minds, and to them most easily of all. She had intended to take up the sand-box, and she had taken the inkstand and poured its copious contents to the last drop over her ma.n.u.script, and thence in a black cascade over the whole breadth of her yellow-silk dress! And there she was standing now--the cruelly ill-treated sufferer--silent after the first anguish had forced her to utter that cry raising her sadly inked hands and her watery blue eyes overflowing with tears to the ceiling, as if she wished to call upon father Apollo himself to be a witness of the terrible fate that had befallen one of his most favored children. Oswald and Emily could hardly restrain their laughter; but all their efforts to preserve their composure became useless in an instant, when the poetess in tragic grief pressed both her hands upon her face, and a moment afterwards stood before them covered with terrible paint, like the wildest warrior of the wildest tribe of Indians.

"Do not laugh, my friends," said the offended lady, with gentle voice; "it does not become the friends of persecuted genius to belong to that sad world which loves to blacken----"

Emily, who was always quite as ready to laugh immoderately as to weep bitterly, could not resist any longer. She threw herself into an arm-chair and laughed till her eyes filled with tears.

"Baroness Cloten!" said Primula, with dignity, "I must say that your manner has something very offensive for delicately-strung minds like mine;" then turning to Oswald, in the tone of Caesar dying: "Oswald, I have not deserved this!" and she turned to leave the room.

"Dearest, best Mrs. Jager," cried Emily, rising and stepping in her way; "I beg a thousand, thousand pardons; but, pray, see yourself if it is possible for any one to keep from laughing!"

And she pushed Primula gently towards the pier-gla.s.s, before which the poetess was in the habit of seeking inspiration from her own muse-like appearance. But now it was the work of a moment to look, to utter a piercing cry, as if she had beheld a gorgon-head, and then, without further warning, to fall fainting into Oswald's arms, who was fortunately standing behind her.

"Pray ring for the maid," said Oswald, carrying the poor lady to the sofa.

Upon Emily's furious ringing Primula's maid appeared at once, but the poetess had recovered so far as to be able to open her eyes partly and to say with feeble voice to Oswald and Emily: "I thank you, my friends!

You had a right to laugh, _du sublime au ridicule il n'y a qu'un pas_.

But now leave me! Leave an unfortunate being, forced to bear her terrible fate in silence and solitude. Not a word! Not a word! Leave me!"

What was to be done? They had to obey a request made in such positive terms. Five minutes afterwards Emily and Oswald had been shown down the stairs by sleepy Lebrecht and were standing in the street.

"_Mais, mon Dieu!_" said Emily; "I never thought of it! I have ordered my carriage an hour later!"

"Then there will be nothing left for you but to accept my arm and to walk home on foot."

Emily gave her arm to Oswald, and thus they walked for some time in silence side by side.

It was a very dark, still evening. The autumn winds had bared the trees completely, and were resting now they had done their work. Winter was standing at the gate, but was delaying yet a little while before he knocked with his frozen hand. The streets were exceedingly dark, as the lamps had not been lighted for astronomical reasons. It was, therefore, but natural that Emily was hanging more closely on the arm of Oswald, who seemed to know the way perfectly well.

"Do you know where we live?" she asked.

"In Southtown, I think?" It was the same suburb in which Miss Bear's boarding-school was situated.

"Yes. It is a long way!"

"All the better!"

A gentle pressure of her round arm rewarded Oswald for the compliment.

They had reached the town gate, walking rapidly but saying little to each other. As soon as they were outside the town they began to walk more slowly, as if by concert. Oswald felt that the young beauty who hung on his arm was in his power--that it depended on him to make her happy--in her sense of the word, at least. The virtuous impulse which he had felt just now, and which had been produced partly by the pride of self-respect, had long since pa.s.sed away. Emily's coquettish charms, whose power he had already once felt overwhelming in the window-niche at Barnewitz, had not failed to have their effect upon his wavering but extremely susceptible nature; and if he even thought at that moment of the greater beauty of Helen, and of what he called his true love, for which he had sacrificed so much--alas! so much!--this served after all only to make the sweetness of a stolen and half-forbidden pa.s.sion all the more intoxicating.

"Are you still angry, Emily?" he said, with the most insinuating tone of his sweet, deep voice.

"I--and angry?" replied Emily, and she came up closer and closer to her companion; "can we be angry where we would love, love always, love inexpressibly, and----"

"And what, sweetest?"

"Perhaps be loved a little in return!"

The words sounded so childlike, good, and true, that Oswald could not understand how he had ever been able to reject the love of this most charming creature.

"And yet," he said, "you were once angry with me; and you had cause! I swear it by that heaven which was then looking down upon us with its golden stars! How shall I make amends, oh sweet one! for what--oh! I cannot bear to think of that night at the ball at Grenwitz!"

"Really!" replied Emily, merrily; "oh, then it is all right again. Then I will not be sorry for anything that has happened since."

"For what has happened since! _What_ has happened?"

"How can you ask? Am I not Baroness Cloten? And why am I that? Only because you would none of my love! Oh, Oswald, I cannot tell you what a tumult there was in my heart that night after I had left you. My heart was breaking; I could have cried aloud; I could have thrown myself down on the ground; I could have died. And yet I sent Cloten to my aunt to ask her for my hand. How could I do it? You do not know women, if you ask that. Cloten, or any one; I did not care who, at that moment I had only the one thought--to be avenged on you by making myself as wretched as I possibly could, so that you should have my unhappiness on your conscience, and I might be able to say to you one of these days: You would have it so."

"This 'one of these days' has come sooner than you probably expected. I would cheerfully give many years of my life--I would willingly die on the spot--if I could by so doing make you free again; as free as you were when we met for the first time at Barnewitz."

"What could I do with my freedom if I were to lose you?" replied Emily, tenderly and teasingly. "No, no, Oswald; ten thousand times rather just as it is now. If you will love me a little----"

"Can you doubt it?"

"Perhaps--but never mind; only a little, and I am satisfied. I can bear being called Baroness Cloten; I can bear your loving another----"

"Another!"

"Yes, sir, another; who certainly is very beautiful, but as proud as beautiful; and who, you may rest a.s.sured, would not hesitate to sacrifice her love to her pride, if she can ever love really, which I doubt. Oh, Oswald, I wish you had seen her last night! I know people call me coquettish, and I may be so when I have a chance of making a fool of a man; but then I do it merrily, and not by casting down my eyes prudishly, as Helen does. I can tell you I was angry with her last night for your sake. I thought: there is the poor man dying for love for you; and here are you, the lady of his heart, and you allow yourself to be courted to your heart's content, and by whom? By the essence of all foolish conceit that was ever put into a handsome uniform; by the king of all ball-heroes in varnished boots and well-fitting kid-gloves; by the fas.h.i.+on-model of our young dandies, who try in vain to imitate him in the way he holds his head and snarls out his _Non Ma'am, oui Ma'moiselle!_"

"And who is this hero?" asked Oswald, laughing, in a way which did not sound quite natural.

"A Prince Waldenberg--Waldenberg-Malikowsky-Letbus."

"Is he not a dark-haired man, as long as his name, with a face like a melancholy bulldog?"

"That's the man. Handsome, he is not; witty, he is not; good, he is probably also not exactly; but what does it matter? The prospect of becoming Princess Waldenberg-Malikowsky-Letbus, and to be the owner of a few hundred thousand souls--the prince is a Russian--covers the heartlessness of the future husband with a pleasant veil, and one can gracefully drop the dark silken lashes and smile."

While Emily was thus acting upon the principle that in war and in love all means are fair, and invoked the demon of jealousy to come to her aid, they had come quite near to Miss Bear's house, as their way lay in that direction. Emily paused and started, for suddenly a gigantic figure, wrapped in a large cloak, detached itself from the dark shadow of the poplar-trees at the garden-gate, where it had probably been standing for some time, and pa.s.sed them slowly.

"_Quand on parle du loup_," said Emily; "if it had been less dark we would have had an interesting encounter."