Then she pulled aside the bed-curtains, and on the bed was lying a little girl about eleven years of age.
"This is Wenceslaus Kvatopil"s daughter. Poor things! let us leave them alone!"
For at least a minute I felt as if some magic power were whirling me round and round the globe with it from the North Pole to the Equator, and back again.
How I got out of that room into the other I really cannot say. Before me continually were the faces of that large-eyed, timid-looking woman and the little girl.
I heard the sound of weeping behind me.
It was Bessy. She had hidden her face in her hands, and was sobbing.
"Oh, how I loved that man! How good, how perfect I thought him! I fancied him a model man! Even now I cannot accuse him. It was not his fault, but mine alone. His sin is my crime. Oh, what folly! Let us speak of the situation seriously. You know now, I suppose, why I wanted to see you. I wished to ask your advice."
I sat down beside her.
Bessy dried her eyes, and then began to speak quite soberly.
"The whole world judges me wrongly. They fancy I am full of levity. But if anything pains me, the pain lasts a long, long time. Since _he_ went away I have been nowhere, and seen n.o.body. If any of my old acquaintances came to see me, I told them that the whole place was topsy-turvy, and there was not even a chair to sit down upon. My servant had orders to say to every one who called--_with one exception_--that I was not visible. Who was this exception? Yourself! She could easily guess whom I meant, and if she didn"t guess it, it didn"t much matter.
When _he_ had to go away so suddenly, he was in a very tender mood. He wanted to make me swear that I would not be faithless while he was away. He even brought me a crucifix for the purpose, and when he saw that I laughed at him, he besought me, if I really must deceive him, at least not to bestow my favours upon the first ragam.u.f.fin that turned up; nay, he even took the trouble to indicate a worthy man to me, of whom he could not be jealous; whereupon I told him, very seriously, that the man he meant was capable of _killing_ anybody who stood in the way of _his_ love, but was altogether incapable of _filching_ love from anybody else!"
(At this my face grew very red indeed.)
"Then he suddenly a.s.sumed a mystic mood, he knew my weak side. He said: "If you deceive me for the sake of any other man, at that same moment I shall die. Day and night I stand where death is meted out every instant, and the moment a kiss from your lips touches the lips of another man, at that self-same moment, I say, the bullet which is lying in wait for me will fly straight to my heart!" A horrible saying! It would not let me sleep, and rose up before me in my dreams. When one or other of my lady friends came to visit me and we fell a-chatting and began to laugh and joke, a sort of cold shiver would suddenly run all down my body. While I am smiling, I thought, perhaps he is dying a death of torments beneath the horses" hoofs. Every savoury morsel sticks in my throat when I think--perhaps he is now suffering hunger and thirst; and when the blast shakes my windows, I think--now he is standing defenceless amidst the tempest and freezing. And I unable to protect him!
"In short, this threat of his made me quite a somnambulist. At last I denied myself even to my lady friends. I became quite morbid. I fancied I had no right to be gay. Ten times a day I went to the crucifix by which he had wished me to swear and knelt down before it to pray. I made all sorts of vows provided he were preserved and brought back safely to me. And yet I am a Calvinist! But that crucifix was _his_. He remained faithful to it through all his change of faith. In fact, I was in a fair way of becoming a Pietist. I began to think a life of virtue very beautiful. I should very much have liked to see you now and again, if only to show you that I could be just as moral as you. I would have praised your wife to you, and you would have returned the compliment by praising my husband. This would have been my ambition."
It was the cook who interrupted this burst of feeling.
"Shall I bring in the stew, madame?"
"Yes, bring it in, if it is ready."
Then she turned to me to explain the circ.u.mstances of the case.
"I have to let these ladies have their food cooked separately, for Magyar dishes would make them mortally ill. That is why I don"t lay the table for three. _Your_ favourite dishes would be death to these Germans."
The cook now brought in the stewed chicken.
Bessy tasted it first with a little spoon to see if it were salted enough, and also to see whether the cook had put parsley in it by mistake, for the doctor who was attending the little girl had forbidden every sort of seasoning ingredients in her food. Then she herself sliced up a roll of the best white bread for the little girl, poured some water for her into a gla.s.s, and warmed it a little by holding it tightly for a while between the palms of her hands instead of popping a live coal into it, as thoughtful mothers often do for their sick children. For the mother of the child, however, she had a bottle of Pilsener beer uncorked, and sent to her.
Only when they had dined was our dinner served.
Meanwhile, we did not resume our interrupted conversation; the servant was constantly pa.s.sing in and out, and we could not speak before her.
Then, after that, when we sat down to dinner (and a bitter meal it was to me) the thread of our conversation was broken as often as the cook came in with a new dish or to change a plate, and all that time she played the part of the amiable hostess, inviting me to fall to in good old Hungarian style.
"One morning," she said, "while I was doing my hair, my servant came and told me that a shabby-looking woman was outside, with a biggish girl, making inquiries about the lieutenant. I went out to them into the kitchen. I saw before me a blonde, blue-eyed woman, of about the same age as myself, and clinging to her arm was a lanky slip of a growing girl about ten or eleven years of age. In the woman"s hand was a travelling-bag and an umbrella. She was in bourgeois costume, without the fashionable crinoline, and on her head was a simple felt cap; her girl was dressed in just the same way. They both wore their hair quite smooth and combed back from the forehead.
"The woman wished me good-day in German.
"I asked her what she wanted.
"The woman replied that she wanted her husband, Mr. Wenceslaus Kvatopil.
""The lieutenant?"
""When he left me he was only a lieutenant."
"I quickly caught her by the hand and led her out of the kitchen into the saloon. My servant, fortunately, did not understand German.
"I led them right into my bedroom. I invited them both to be seated.
""Ah, that will do us good," said the woman, "for we have come a long way. We have come here from Cracow."
""Surely not on foot?"
""On foot all the way. We couldn"t afford to come by rail."
"Just fancy! The very thought is terrible! To come on foot all those hundred miles. .h.i.ther from Cracow with a growing girl! Can one"s imagination realize such a thing?
""Are you the wife of Lieutenant Wenceslaus Kvatopil?" I inquired of the woman.
""I am, and this is his daughter, Marianna."
"And by way of proving her a.s.sertion she drew from her travelling-bag her marriage lines, extracted from the registers of the cathedral of Cracow, to wit:--"Bridegroom: Wenceslaus Kvatopil, Sub-Lieutenant in the *** Dragoons. Bride: Anna Dunkircher. Witnesses: Babolescky, Colonel, and Kolmarscky, shopkeeper. Officiating clergyman: Stanislaus Lubousky.
Dated, Feb. 16th, 1846."
"Then she showed me the baptismal certificate of the daughter.
"Marianna, born in lawful wedlock, June 19th, 1846. Father: Sub-Lieutenant Wenceslaus Kvatopil. Mother: Anna Dunkircher. Officiating clergyman: Stanislaus Lubousky. G.o.dparents: the above-mentioned marriage-witnesses."
"A marriage contract, duly attested, was also among the doc.u.ments."
All at once Bessy burst out laughing.
The cook came in and brought the soup.
"Ha! ha! ha! Do you know why, according to Ollendorf, the Captain weeps?"
"Because the Englishman has no bread."
"Look, Susy, you"ve forgotten to give my guardian some bread! Give him a crusty bit, he likes that!"
The servant apologised, but said that she didn"t think the soup required bread.
It was excellent soup, made of cream and eggs and rice and finely-chopped chicken. Bessy filled my plate with it.
"Thank you, that will be enough."
When the servant went out we resumed our conversation. And here, I may remark, by the way, that there is no more pleasant _tete-a-tete_ in the world than that which is interrupted every ten minutes or so by the incursions of the servants.