"Moon, moon, will you tell him that I"ve got his letter, and that I"ve read it twenty times-a hundred times over, and yet he doesn"t say a word about coming home? Will you ask him when he is coming back to me-and tell him to come quick, quick, for the days are getting wearier and wearier? Couldn"t you come down for a little minute, and whisper to me, and tell me what he has been doing all this time, and what he is looking like, and what he is saying to you just now? Couldn"t you give me a little glimpse of him, instead of keeping him to yourself, and staring down as if you didn"t see anything at all? And you might as well tell him that I shall begin and hate Miss Brunel if he doesn"t come back soon-and I"ll play the "Coulin" all day to myself when I"m alone, and be as miserable and wretched as ever I please. But here is a kiss for him anyway: and you wouldn"t be so cruel as not to give him that!"
And Dove, having completed her orisons, went downstairs, with a smile on her sweet face-perhaps not thinking that the nightly staring at the moon, as the reader may perhaps suspect, had somewhat affected her brain. And she found Mr. Bexley more brilliant and eloquent than ever in his exposition of certain spiritual experiences; and she was in such a mood of half-hysteric delight and happiness that she could have put her arm round Mr. Anerley"s neck, and begged him, for her sake, to be a little, just a little, more orthodox. As it was, he had promised to go inside the church next Sunday; and his wife was very happy.
CHAPTER XV.
SCHoN-ROHTRAUT.
Do you know the ballad of "Schon-Rohtraut"-the king"s daughter who would neither spin nor sew, but who fished, and hunted, and rode on horseback through the woods, with her father"s page for her only companion? Was there any wonder that the youth grew sad, and inwardly cried to himself-
"O da.s.s ich doch ein Konigssohn war, Rohtraut, Schon-Rohtraut lieb" ich so sehr.
Schweig stille, mein Herze!"
One day they rested themselves under a great oak, and the merry Schon-Rohtraut laughed aloud at her woe-stricken page, and cried-
"Why do you look at me so longingly? If you have the heart to do it, come and kiss me, then!"
Whereupon the lad, with a terrible inward tremor, probably, went up and kissed Schon-Rohtraut"s laughing lips. And they two rode quite silently home; but the page joyously said to himself, "I do not care now whether she were to be made Empress to-day; for all the leaves in the forest know that I have kissed Schon-Rohtraut"s mouth."
There are many of us whose chief consolation it is to know that we have kissed Schon-Rohtraut"s mouth. The middle-aged man, getting a trifle grey above the ears, sits by the fire of a winter evening, and thinks of his own particular Schon-Rohtraut.
"I did not marry her; but I loved her in the long-bygone time, and that is enough for me. I had my "liberal education." If I had married her, perhaps I should not be loving her now; and all my tender memories of her, and of that pleasant time, would have disappeared. But now no one can dispossess me of the triumphant consciousness that it was my good fortune to have kissed Schon-Rohtraut"s mouth."
There is much sympathy abroad upon this matter; and I think we men never get nearer to each other than when we talk, after our wives have gone upstairs to bed, of our lost loves.
This was partly what Will Anerley said to himself as the little party sate under the white awning of the _Konig Wilhelm_, and slowly steamed up the yellow-green waters of the Rhine. Not without a tremor of conscience he said it; for he had a vague impression that he had been wantonly cruel to Dove. In the first moments of remorse after awaking to a sense of his present position, he had said-
"There remains but one thing to be done. I will at once return to England, and see Annie Brunel no more."
But a man approaching thirty has taught himself to believe that he has great fort.i.tude, especially where the tenderer emotions are concerned; and his next reflection was-
"My sudden departure will only be a revelation to her, and happily she knows nothing about it. Besides, have I not sufficient strength of mind to spend a few days in the pleasant society of this young girl, without committing myself? The mischief is done, and I must suffer for my carelessness; but--"
But he would go on to Schonstein all the same, whither the two ladies had also consented to go. He did not deceive himself when he submitted to his own conscience this theory. He knew there was no danger of his disturbing Miss Brunel"s peace of mind, and he knew that Dove would have no further injustice done her. It was he who was to suffer. His thoughtlessness had permitted the growth of a hopeless pa.s.sion: it would never be known to her who had inspired it, nor to her whom it had dispossessed. He only should carry about with him the scourge; and he was not without a hope that time and travel would for once accommodate themselves to an absurd superst.i.tion, and cure him of an unfortunate love.
For the rest, he was almost glad that he had mentally kissed Schon-Rohtraut"s mouth. The consciousness of this pa.s.sionate and hopeless attachment was in itself a pure and elevated feeling-a maiden delight which had no earthly element mixed with it. It was so different from the kindly, affectionate interest he took in Dove-so different from that familiar liking which made him think nothing of kissing the young girl in an easy fraternal way. To think of kissing Annie Brunel! The page could only look wonderingly and longingly at his beautiful mistress, at her pretty lips and nut-white teeth, and say, "Schweig"
stille, mein Herze!"
Quite a.s.sured of his own strength of will, he did not seek for a moment to withdraw himself from her, or raise any subtle barrier between them.
In fact, he mockingly explained to himself, that as compensation for the pain which he would afterwards have to suffer, he would now sup to the full the delicious enjoyment of her society. He would study as much as he chose the fine artistic head, the beautiful, warm, Italian colour of her face, and her charming figure; and he would gaze his fill into the deep-grey eyes, which were always brightened up by an antic.i.p.atory kindliness when he approached. He remarked, however, that he had never seen them intensified by that pa.s.sionate glow which he had observed on the stage-the emotional earnestness which belonged to what she called her "real life;" there was in the eyes merely a pleased satisfaction and good nature.
"When shall we get away from the Rhine?" she asked, as they were sailing past the black Loreleiberg.
"To-night," said the Count, "we shall stop at Mayence, and go on by rail to Freiburg to-morrow. Then we shall be away from the line of the tourists."
This was an extraordinary piece of generosity and concession on the part of Count Schonstein; for there was scarcely anything he loved more dearly on earth than to linger about the well-known routes, and figure as a German Count before the c.o.c.kney-tourists who crowded the railway stations and _tables d"hote_.
"I am so glad," said Miss Brunel. "I cannot bear to be among those people. I feel as if I were a parlourmaid sitting in a carriage with her master and mistress, and fancying that she was being stared at for her impertinence by every pa.s.ser-by. Don"t tell me it is absurd, Mr.
Anerley; for I know it is absurd. But I cannot help feeling so all the same. When anybody stares at me, I say to myself, "Well, perhaps you"ve paid five shillings to stare at me in the theatre, and you think, of course, you have the same right here.""
Will was very vexed to hear her speak so, partly because he knew that no reasoning would cure her of this cruel impression, and partly because he knew that she had some ground for speaking as she did. Continually, along that insufferably c.o.c.kney route, he had seen her stared at and ogled by lank youths from Oxford Street or Mincing Lane, who had got a holiday from counter or desk, and had hoisted a good deal of bunting to celebrate the occasion-bright green ties, striped collars, handkerchiefs marked with Adelina Patti"s portrait, white sun hats with scarlet bands, yellow dust-coats and skin gloves. In the intervals between their descents to the cabin, where they drank cognac in preference to "that beastly sour wine," they would sit at a little distance, suck fiercely at their cheap cigars, and stare at the young actress as they were accustomed to stare at the baboons in the Zoological Gardens, or at the Royal Family, or at their favourite barmaid. Then would follow confidential communications to Tom or "Arry that she was very like "Miss Trebelli," and another head or tails for another "go" of brandy.
"If these creatures were to get to heaven," said Anerley to the Count, in a moment of jealous spleen, "they would ask their nearest way to the Holborn Casino."
It was partly this semi-Bohemian feeling which drew the young artiste towards Count Schonstein and Will Anerley, and allowed her to relish the society of people "out of the profession." Of the personal history of the Count she had got to know something; and while she tolerated his self-sufficiency, and admired his apparent good-nature and even temper, she almost sympathised with him in his att.i.tude towards society. It was the same people whom she had been taught to distrust, who were in league against the poor Count. They would not permit him to mix in their society, because, like herself, he was an adventurer, a person whose position was not secured to him by an ancient royal grant. Will she looked upon in another fashion.
"You have been so much abroad, and mixed with so many people, that you seem not to belong to England. There is nothing English about you-nothing of vanity, and self-importance, and suspicion of outsiders."
But against this praise, as against the whole tone of her mind on the subject, he had uttered many a serious protest.
"You blame us English with the impertinences of a few boys out for a holiday. You have heard stories of actors and actresses having received injuries from persons out of the profession; and you necessarily think there must be a mutual antagonism between the cla.s.ses."
"I don"t think anything about it," she used to say; "I only know what my impression is, however it has been taught me. And I know that there is no sympathy between me and the people whom I try to amuse, and that they despise me and my calling. I don"t blame them for it; but how can you expect me to like them? I don"t say they are narrow-minded, or prejudiced; but I know that an English lady would not sit down to dinner with an actress, that an English mother would think her son lost if he married an actress; and that a girl in good society who marries an actor is thought to have done something equivalent to running away with her father"s footman."
These were the bitter precepts which the Marchioness of Knottingley had left with her daughter; and they had been instilled into the girl at a time when beliefs become part of our flesh and blood.
"There are ignorant and ill-educated women who think so," said Will, calmly; "but you do an injustice to women of education, and good taste, and intelligent sympathies, when you suppose that every one--"
"Let us take your own mother," said Annie Brunel, hastily. "Would she be anxious, supposing she knew me, to introduce me to the rest of her acquaintances? Would she ask me to visit her? Would she be willing that I should be a companion to that pretty little Dove?"
"I think I have answered all these questions before," said Will. "I tell you I can"t answer for all the women of England; but for those of them whom I respect I can answer, and my mother is one of them. Has she not already allowed Dove to make your acquaintance?"
"Because I was a curiosity, and she was allowed to come and look at me in my cage," said the actress, with that cruel smile on her lips.
"Miss Brunel," said Will, simply and frankly, "you are exhibiting far more prejudice than you will find in the women you speak about. And I don"t know whether you will forgive my saying that it seems a pity one of your years should already possess such suspicions and opinions of other people--"
Wherewith she looked him straight in the face, with a clear searching glance of those big and honest eyes of hers, which would have made a less disinterested advocate falter.
"Are you telling me what you believe to be true?" she said.
"Could I have any object in deceiving you?"
"You believe that your mother, a carefully pious and correct lady, who has lived all her life in the country, would dare to avow that she knew an actress?"
"She would be proud to avow it."
"Would she take me to church with her, and give me a seat in her pew, before all her neighbours?"
"Certainly she would."
"And what would they think?"
"Perhaps the parish clerk"s wife," said Will, with a mental glance at Mrs. Bexley, "and the vet."s wife, and a few women of similar extraction or education, might be shocked; but the educated and intelligent of them would only be envious of my mother. Wherever you go, you will find people who believe in witches, and the eternal d.a.m.nation of unconverted n.i.g.g.e.rs, and the divine right of the nearest squire; but you don"t suppose that we are all partial idiots? And even these people, if you went into the St. Mary-Kirby Church, would only have to look at you--"