The First Violin Part 74

I sat still, and now that the deed was done, gave myself up, with my usual enlightenment and discretion, to fears and apprehensions. The terrible look and tone of Graf von Rothenfels returned to my mind in full force. Clearly it was just the most dangerous thing in the world for Eugen to do--to put in an appearance at the present time. But another glance at Sigmund somewhat rea.s.sured me. In wondering whether girl had ever before been placed in such a bizarre situation as mine, darkness overtook me.

Sigmund moved restlessly and moaned, stretching out little hot hands, and saying "Father!" I caught those hands to my lips, and knew that I had done right.

CHAPTER XL.

VINDICATED.

It was a wild night. Driving clouds kept hiding and revealing the stormy-looking moon. I was out-of-doors. I could not remain in the house; it had felt too small for me, but now nature felt too large. I dimly saw the huge pile of the schloss defined against the gray light; sometimes when the moon unveiled herself it started out clear, and black, and grim. I saw a light in a corner window--that was Sigmund's room; and another in a room below--that was the Graf's study, and there the terrible man sat. I heard the wind moan among the trees, heard the great dogs baying from the kennels; from an open window came rich, low, mellow sounds. Old Brunken was in the music-room, playing to himself upon the violoncello. That was a movement from the "Grand Septuor"--the second movement, which is, if one may use such an expression, painfully beautiful. I bethought myself of the woods which lay hidden from me, the vast avenues, the lonely tanks, the grotesques statues, and that terrible figure with its arms cast upward, at the end of the long walk, and I s.h.i.+vered faintly.

I was some short distance down the princ.i.p.al avenue, and dared not go any further. A sudden dread of the loneliness and the night-voices came upon me; my heart beating thickly, I turned to go back to the house. I would try to comfort poor Countess Hildegarde in her watching and her fears.

But there is a step near me. Some one comes up the avenue, with foot that knows its windings, its turns and twists, its ups and downs.

"Eugen!" I said, tremulously.

A sudden pause--a stop; then he said with a kind of laugh:

"Witchcraft--Zauberei!" and was going on.

But now I knew his whereabouts, and coming up to him, touched his arm.

"This, however, is reality!" he exclaimed, infolding me and kissing me as he hurried on. "May, how is he?"

"Just the same," said I, clinging to him. "Oh, thank Heaven that you are come!"

"I drove to the gates, and sent the fellow away. But what art thou doing alone at the Ghost's Corner on a stormy night?"

We were still walking fast toward the schloss. My heart was beating fast, half with fear of what was impending, half with intensity of joy at hearing his voice again, and knowing what that last letter had told me.

As we emerged upon the great terrace before the house Eugen made one (the only one) momentary pause, pressed my arm, and bit his lips. I knew the meaning of it all. Then we pa.s.sed quickly on. We met no one in the great stone hall--no one on the stairway or along the pa.s.sages--straight he held his way, and I with him.

We entered the room. Eugen's eyes leaped swiftly to his child's face. I saw him pa.s.s his hand over his mouth. I withdrew my hand from his arm and stood aside, feeling a tremulous thankfulness that he was here, and that that restless plaining would at last be hushed in satisfaction.

A delusion! The face over which my lover bent did not brighten; nor the eyes recognize him. The child did not know the father for whom he had yearned out his little heart--he did not hear the half-frantic words spoken by that father as he flung himself upon him, kissing him, beseeching him, conjuring him with every foolish word of fondness that he could think of, to speak, answer, look up once again.

Then fear, terror overcame the man--for the first time I saw him look pale with apprehension.

"Not this cup--not this!" muttered he. "_Gott im Himmel!_ anything short of this--I will give him up--leave him--anything--only let him live!"

He had flung himself, unnerved, trembling, upon a chair by the bedside--his face buried in his hands. I saw the sweat stand upon his brow--I could do nothing to help--nothing but wish despairingly that some blessed miracle would reverse the condition of the child and me--lay me low in death upon that bed--place him safe and sound in his father's arms.

Is it not hard, you father of many children, to lose one of them? Do you not grudge Death his prize? But this man had but the one; the love between them was such a love as one meets perhaps once in a life-time.

The child's life had been a mourning to him, the father's a burden, ever since they had parted.

I felt it strange that I should be trying to comfort him, and yet it was so; it was his brow that leaned on my shoulder; it was he who was faint with anguish, so that he could scarce see or speak--his hand that was cold and nerveless. It was I who said:

"Do not despair, I hope still."

"If he is dying," said Eugen, "he shall die in my arms."

With which, as if the idea were a dreary kind of comfort, he started up, folded Sigmund in a shawl, and lifted him out of bed, infolding him in his arms, and pillowing his head upon his breast.

It was a terrible moment, yet, as I clung to his arm, and with him looked into our darling's face, I felt that von Francius' words, spoken long ago to my sister, contained a deep truth. This joy, so like a sorrow--would I have parted with it? A thousand times, no!

Whether the motion and movement roused him, or whether that were the crisis of some change, I knew not. Sigmund's eyes opened. He bent them upon the face above him, and after a pause of reflection, said, in a voice whose utter satisfaction pa.s.sed anything I had ever heard: "My own father!" released a pair of little wasted arms from his covering, and clasped them round Eugen's neck, putting his face close to his, and kissing him as if no number of kisses could ever satisfy him.

Upon this scene, as Eugen stood in the middle of the room, his head bent down, a smile upon his face which no ultimate griefs could for the moment quench, there entered the countess.

Her greeting after six years of absence, separation, belief in his dishonesty, was a strange one. She came quickly forward, laid her hand on his arm, and said:

"Eugen, it is dreadfully infectious! Don't kiss the child in that way, or you will take the fever and be laid up too."

He looked up, and at his look a shock pa.s.sed across her face; with pallid cheeks and parted lips she gazed at him speechless.

His mind, too, seemed to bridge the gulf--it was in a strange tone that he answered:

"Ah, Hildegarde! What does it matter what becomes of me? Leave me this!"

"No, not that, Eugen," said I, going up to him, and I suppose something in my eyes moved him, for he gave the child into my arms in silence.

The countess had stood looking at him. She strove for silence; sought tremulously after coldness, but in vain.

"Eugen--" She came nearer, and looked more closely at him. "_Herrgott!_ how you are altered! What a meeting! I--can it be six years ago--and now--oh!" Her voice broke into a very wail. "We loved you--why did you deceive us?"

My heart stood still. Would he stand this test? It was the hardest he had had. Grafin Hildegarde had been--was dear to him. That he was dear to her, intensely dear, that love for him was intwined about her very heart-strings, stood confessed now. "Why did you deceive us?" It sounded more like, "Tell us we may trust you; make us happy again!" One word from him, and the poor sad lady would have banished from her heart the long-staying, unwelcome guest--belief in his falseness, and closed it away from her forever.

He was spared the dreadful necessity of answering her. A timid summons from her maid at the door told her the count wanted to speak to her, and she left us quickly.

Sigmund did not die; he recovered, and lives now. But with that I am not at present concerned.

It was the afternoon following that never-to-be-forgotten night. I had left Eugen watching beside Sigmund, who was sleeping, his hand jealously holding two of his father's fingers.

I intended to call at Frau Mittendorf's door to say that I could not yet return there, and when I came back, said Eugen, he would have something to tell me; he was going to speak with his brother--to tell him that we should be married, "and to speak about Sigmund," he added, decisively.

"I will not risk such a thing as this again. If you had not been here he might have died without my knowing it. I feel myself absolved from all obligation to let him remain. My child's happiness shall not be further sacrificed."

With this understanding I left him. I went toward the countess's room, to speak to her, and tell her of Sigmund before I went out. I heard voices ere I entered the room, and when I entered it I stood still, and a sickly apprehension clutched my very heart. There stood my evil genius--the _boser Geist_ of my lover's fate--Anna Sartorius. And the count and countess were present, apparently waiting for her to begin to speak.

"You are here," said the Grafin to me. "I was just about to send for you. This lady says she knows you."

"She does," said I, hesitatingly.

Anna looked at me. There was gravity in her face, and the usual cynical smile in her eyes.