"If you will swear," he insisted.
"Yes, yes, I will swear," she cried eagerly now, for indeed a heavy load had been lifted off her heart, and her natural buoyancy of temperament was already rea.s.serting its sway over her terrors and agony of mind.
"What do you want me to say?"
"Swear by Almighty G.o.d," he said earnestly, "to leave Eros Bela alone, never to flirt with him or do anything to cause Elsa the slightest unhappiness."
"I swear it by Almighty G.o.d," she said solemnly, "and you need not be afraid," she added slowly; "I will not break my oath."
"No! I am not afraid that you will, for if you do . . . Well! we won"t talk about that," he continued more lightly. "I suppose there isn"t much time to be lost."
"No, no, there isn"t," she urged, "and don"t make straight for the main road; go up the village first and then back through the fields; Leopold might suspect something--one never knows."
"All right, Klara, I"ll do my best. We can but pray that I shall find my lord at home, in which case I can be back in twenty minutes. I"ll pick up a friend or even two when I return, as then we can all walk into the tap-room together. It won"t be so conspicuous as if I came in alone.
What is the time now?" he asked.
She went to the part.i.tion door, opened it and peeped into her father"s room.
"Just ten minutes to nine," she said; "father will have gone by the time you come back."
"That"ll be as well, won"t it?" he concluded, as he finally turned to go. "If you are not in the tap-room when I come back, what shall I do with the key?"
She pointed to a small bra.s.s tray which stood on the table in among the litter of bottles, gla.s.ses, mugs and tobacco-jars.
"Just on there," she said, "then if I come into the room later, I can see it there at a glance; and oh! what a relief it will be!"
The colour had come back to her cheeks. Indeed, she felt marvellously cheerful now and rea.s.sured. She knew that Andor would fulfil his share of the bargain, and the heavy cloud of trouble and of terror would be permanently lifted from her within the next half-hour.
In her usual, light-hearted, frivolous way she blew a kiss to Andor. But the young man, without looking again on her, had already opened the door, and the next moment he had gone out into the dark night on his errand of friendship.
CHAPTER XXII
"I go where I shall be more welcome."
In the meanwhile, in the barn time had been flying along on the wings of enjoyment. Ever since six o"clock, when vespers were well over and the gipsies had struck up the first csardas, merry feet had been tripping it almost incessantly.
It is amazing what a capacity the young Hungarian peasant--man or woman--has for footing the national dance. With intervals of singing and of gossiping these young folk in the barn had been going on for over three hours.
And they were not even beginning to get tired. To the Hungarian peasants, be it remembered, the csardas is not merely a dance, though they enjoy the movement, of course, the exhilaration and the excitement of the music, just as all healthy young animals would enjoy gambolling on a meadow; there is a deeper meaning to these children of the plains in the sweet, sad strains of their songs and in the mazes and intricacies of their dance.
They put their whole life, their entire sentiment for country and sweetheart, in the music and in the dance, and the music and the dance give outward expression to their feelings, speak in the language of poetry which they feel well enough, but which their untutored tongue cannot frame.
A Hungarian peasant in sorrow or distress will probably, like his Western prototype, seek to drown his grief in drink; far be it from his chronicler"s mind to suggest that his sentiments are more elevated than those of the peasantry of other nations, or his morality more sound. He will get drunk, too, like men of other nations, but he will do it to the accompaniment of music. The gipsy band must be there, when he is in trouble or in joy--one or two fiddles, perhaps a clarionet, always a czimbalom--just these few instruments to play his favourite songs. They don"t ease his sorrow, but they help to soothe it by bringing tears to his eyes and softening the bitterness of his grief.
And in joy he will invariably dance; when he is in love he will dance, for the csardas helps him to explain to the girl whom he loves exactly what he feels for her. And she understands. One csardas will reveal to a Hungarian village maid the state of her lover"s heart far more clearly than do all the whisperings behind hedges in more civilized lands.
It was in the csardas five years ago that Elsa had learned from Andor how much he loved her; it was during the mazes of the dance that she was able to overcome her shyness and tell him mutely that she loved him in return.
And now it was in the csardas that she was bidding farewell to-day to her girlhood and to the companions of her youth; to Jeno and Moritz, who had loved her ardently and hopelessly these past two years, and who must henceforth become to her mere friends. It was in the turns and the twirls, with the wild music marking step, that she conveyed all that there was in her simple heart of regret for the past and cheerful antic.i.p.ation for the future.
Elsa was a perfect dancer; it was a joy to have her for a partner, and she was indefatigable this afternoon. It seemed as if living fire was in her blood, her cheeks glowed, her eyes shone like dark-blue stars; she gave herself neither rest nor respite. Determined to enjoy every minute of the day, she had forcibly put behind her the sorrowful incidents of the afternoon. She would not remember and she would not think.
Andor was not here, and as the spirit of music and of dancing crept more and more into her brain, she almost got to the stage of believing that his appearance to-day had only been a dream. Nor would she look to see if Eros Bela were here.
She knew that he had gone off soon after dancing began. He had slipped away quietly, and at first no one had noticed his absence. He had always professed a lofty contempt for gipsy music and for the csardas, a contempt which has of late come into fashion in Hungary among the upper cla.s.ses, and has unfortunately been aped by those whose so-called education has only succeeded in obliterating the fine national spirit of the past without having the power to graft more modern Western culture into this Oriental race.
Eros Bela belonged to this same supercilious set, and had made many enemies by his sarcastic denunciations of things that were almost thought sacred in Marosfalva. It was therefore quite an understood thing that the moment a csardas was struck up, Eros Bela at once went to seek amus.e.m.e.nt elsewhere.
Of course to-day was a very different occasion to the more usual village entertainments. To-day he should have thought of nothing but his fiancee"s pleasure. She was over-fond of dancing, and looked a picture when she danced. It was clearly a bridegroom"s duty, under these circ.u.mstances, to stand by and watch his fiancee with all the admiration that should be filling his heart.
After the wedding, if he disapproved of the csardas, why of course he could forbid his wife to dance it, and there would be an end of the matter. To-day he was still the groom, the servant of his fiancee--to-morrow only would he become her master.
But everyone was so intent upon enjoyment that a long time went by before gossip occupied itself exclusively with Eros Bela"s absence from his pre-nuptial feast. When once it began it raged with unusual bitterness. The scandal during the banquet was being repeated now. Bela was obviously sitting in the tap-room of the inn, flirting with the Jewess, when he should have been in attendance on his bride.
Elsa could not help but hear the comments that were being made by all the mothers and fathers and older people who were not dancing, and who, therefore, had plenty of leisure for talk. All the proprieties were being outraged--so it was declared--and Elsa, who might have married so well at one time, was indeed now an object of pity.
She hated to hear all this talk, and felt hideously ashamed that people should be pitying her. Vainly did she try to get some measure of comfort from her mother. Kapus Irma, irritated by the looks of commiseration which were being levelled at her daughter, dubbed the latter a fool for not having the sense to know how to keep her bridegroom by her side.
It was past eight o"clock before Bela put in an appearance at all.
A csardas was in full swing. The compact group of dancers was crowded round the musicians" platform, for the csardas can only be properly danced under the very bow--as it were--of the gipsy leader. The barn looked gaily lighted up with oil-lamps swinging down from the rafters above, and it had been most splendidly decorated for the occasion with festoons of paper flowers and tri-colour flags. Petticoats and ribbons were flying, little feet in red leather boots were kicking up clouds of dust.
There was no moon to-night, the sky was heavy with clouds, so the village street had been very dark. Eros Bela blinked as he entered the barn, so dazzling did the picture present itself to his gaze.
And there was such an atmosphere of merriment and of animation about the place that instinctively Bela"s thoughts flew back to the dismal and dingy little tap-room whence he had just come, with a few drunken fellows sprawling in corners and Leopold Hirsch"s ugly face leering out of the shadows.
Here everyone was gay and good-tempered. The gipsies sc.r.a.ped their fiddles till one would have thought their arms would break, the young people danced, the men shouted and sang. It was a pandemonium of giddiness and music and laughter.
And Bela, as he blinked and looked upon the scene, remembered that he had paid for it all. He had paid for the hire of the barn, the music and the lighting; he had paid for the lavish supper which would be served presently. And as he had had more silvorium to drink in the tap-room than was altogether good for the clearness of his brain, he fell to thinking that he ought now to be received and welcomed with all the deference which his lavishness deserved. He thought that the young people should have left off dancing when he appeared, and should have greeted him, as they would undoubtedly have greeted my lord the Count, had the latter deigned to come.
And what, after all, was my lord on such an occasion in comparison with the donor of the feast?
Even Elsa--though she must, of course, have seen him--did not stop in her senseless gyrations. She was dancing with Barna Moritz--the mayor"s youngest son and a splendid dancer--and the two young people went on twirling and twisting and flirting and laughing just as if he--the real host--had not been there.
Enraged at all this indifference, this want of recognition of his dignity, he elbowed his way through the dense group of spectators which formed a phalanx round the dancers. The wide and voluminous petticoats of the women formed a veritable hedge through which he had to scramble and to push. As the people recognized him they gave him pleasant greetings, for the Hungarian peasant is by nature kindly and something of an opportunist; there was no occasion to quarrel openly with Eros Bela, who was rich and influential.
But he paid no heed either to the greetings or to the whispered comments that followed in their wake. He just felt that he was the master of this place, and he meant everyone else to know and acknowledge this fact. So he strode up to the czigany and ordered them peremptorily to draw this interminable csardas to an end; it had lasted quite long enough, he said, and the girls looked a sight with their crimson, perspiring faces; he was not going to have such vulgar goings-on at any of his wedding feasts.
The gipsy leader never thought of disobeying, of course; it was the _tekintetes ur_ (honoured gentleman) who was paying them for their work, and they had to do as they were told.
Despite loud protests from the dancers, the csardas was brought to a lovely and whirling close. Panting, hot and beaming, the dancers now mingled with the rest of the throng, and a pandemonium of laughter and chatter soon filled the barn from end to end.
Elsa, in accordance with the custom which holds sway even at village dances, was even now turning to walk away with her partner, whose duty it was to conduct her to her mother"s side. She felt wrathful with Bela--as wrathful, at least, as so gentle a creature could be. She was ashamed of his behaviour, ashamed for herself as well as for him, and she didn"t want to speak with him just now.
But he, still feeling dictatorial and despotic, had not yet finished a.s.serting his authority. He called to her loudly and peremptorily: