The report, which Frank brought back after due examination, was not precisely of a consoling nature. The wheel was so much injured that it was clearly impossible to move the carriage on even a hundred paces in that state. Both the men looked at their master helplessly.
"I am afraid, under these circ.u.mstances, we must give up the intended visits," said Arthur coolly, turning to his wife. "By the time Frank has gone back to the house and brought us back another carriage it will be too late to drive as far as the town."
"I am afraid so too. There is nothing to be done then but to get out and turn back."
"Get out?" said Arthur in amazement "Do you think of going back on foot?"
"Do you think of sitting in this carriage until Frank has returned with another?"
Arthur appeared to have entertained the idea; he would probably have preferred to wait two hours, stretched in his comfortable corner where he was sheltered from wind and weather, than to undertake a pedestrian tour through the cold wet woods. Eugenie noticed this, and her lips curled disdainfully.
"As for me, I prefer going back on foot to waiting in that wearisome useless manner. Frank will go with me, he must return any way. You will no doubt remain in the carriage. I would not take upon myself the responsibility of giving you cold for the world."
That which the misadventure had not had power to do, was effected by the overt irony of these words. Arthur was roused out of his corner. He got up, pushed open the door, and next minute was standing on the step, offering his hand to help her alight. Eugenie hesitated.
"I beg of you, Arthur" ...
"I beg of you not to make a scene before the servants and to show them that you prefer the footman"s escort to mine. Allow me."
She gave an imperceptible little shrug; there was no choice for her, however, but to accept the proffered hand; the coachman and Frank were, in truth, standing close by. She got out, and Arthur turned to the two men.
"I will see your mistress home. You must contrive to get the empty carriage to some farm where it can stay for the present, and follow us as quickly as possible with the horses."
The men took off their hats and prepared to carry out the instructions they had received. Under the circ.u.mstances it was really the only thing to be done. With a slight gesture Eugenie declined her husband"s offered arm.
"I think we can hardly walk here as on a promenade," said she, evading it. "We must each look to ourselves and make our own way as best we can."
She attempted this indeed, but only to sink at the very first step into the soft slippery mud; taking refuge on the other side of the road, she found herself suddenly in water an inch deep which splashed under her feet. She stood still in it helpless. The road had not looked so bad to her from the carriage.
"Here, at any rate, we shall never get on," said Arthur, who had tried a like experiment with the like result. "We must go back through the woods."
"Without knowing our way? we should lose ourselves."
"Hardly that. I remember when I was a child there used to be a path which led right through the wood, over the heights and down into the valley. We must try and find it."
Eugenie still lingered, but the evidently impracticable state of the main road, half flooded and full of ruts, left her no alternative. She followed her husband who had already turned off to the left, and a few minutes later they were in the midst of the dusky green and thickly planted pine trees.
Now at least it was possible to advance over the roots and moss-covered ground, nay, it would even have been easy to feet trained to such exercise. To a lady and gentleman accustomed to the smooth floor of a drawing-room, having carriages and riding horses at their disposal for every excursion, and whose pedestrian feats were limited to a turn round the park when the weather proved unusually fine, this path offered difficulties enough--and then the foggy tempestuous weather to boot! It had left off raining certainly, but everything about them was dripping wet, and the clouds threatened a fresh shower at any moment.
Several miles from home, in the midst of the woods, straying like a pair of adventurers trusting to chance, without conveyance or servants, without the smallest protection from wind or rain, Herr Arthur Berkow and his high-born wife were in a situation so extraordinary as to seem almost desperate.
But the lady had already accepted the inevitable with characteristic resolution. The first ten steps had shown her how impossible it would be to save her light silk dress and white bernous, so she abandoned them to the mercy of the wet moss and dripping trees, and walked bravely on. Her attire was ill-suited to such wanderings on foot, and utterly incapable of affording her any protection from the inclemency of the weather. She wrapped herself more closely in the thin cashmere, and shivered in spite of herself as the cold wind met her.
Her husband noticed this and stopped. Although they had started in a close carriage, he had, in his effeminate way, thrown a cloak round him which covered him completely. He took it off in silence, and would have put it round his wife"s shoulders, but she moved aside with prompt decision.
"Thank you, I do not want it."
"But you are chilly."
"Not at all. I am not so sensitive to the weather as you are."
Without saying another word Arthur took the cloak back, but instead of folding it about him again, he threw it negligently on one arm and walked on at her side, clad only in his light dress suit. Eugenie struggled against a feeling of rising anger. She hardly knew herself why this conduct vexed her so much, but she would far rather have seen him wrap himself carefully in the despised cloak and so take care of his precious health, than witness this reckless exposure of himself to wind and weather. It was for her, and her alone, to show a quiet, well-considered acquiescence in the decrees of Fate.
It was incomprehensible to her that her husband should for once lay claim to the same right, that he, who had been alarmed at the very idea of this journey home on foot, should appear now hardly to feel its inconveniences, while she was already more than half repenting of her resolve. A gust of wind tore his hat off and blew it down a steep bank where it could not possibly be reached. Arthur looked calmly after the fugitive and tossed his long brown hair back with an almost defiant movement. His feet sank deep into the wet moss at every step, and yet his gait had never seemed to Eugenie so firm, so elastic, as now. As they advanced into the forest, his languid air gradually vanished, his eyes brightened as they glanced sharply round in quest of the wished-for path. The dark damp woods seemed to have a re-animating power over him, in such deep draughts did he drink in the bracing pine-scented air, so briskly did he lead his wife along under the whispering trees. All at once he stopped and cried triumphantly,
"There, that is the way!"
Before them there was indeed a narrow footpath which ran straight through the forest, and, at some distance farther on, seemed to decline gently. Eugenie looked at it in surprise. She had not believed that her husband would prove a sure guide, and had quite made up her mind to losing their way completely.
"You seem very familiar with the country," said she, as she entered the path at his side.
He smiled, but the smile was less for her than for the place he found himself in; he looked round, scanning it on all sides with interest.
"I have not forgotten my old friends the woods yet, though it is long, very long, since we have seen each other."
Eugenie raised her head in astonishment. She had never heard such a tone in his voice; there was deep strongly-repressed feeling in it.
"Are you so fond of the woods?" she asked, involuntarily keeping up a conversation which would probably else have lapsed into the usual silence. "Why have you pa.s.sed a whole month then without once setting foot in them?"
Arthur did not answer. He was gazing dreamily down at the green depths shrouded in mist.
"Why?" said he at last, sadly. "I don"t know. Perhaps because I was too lazy. One loses everything in that city of yours, even one"s taste for solitude in the woods."
"In that city of mine? I thought you were brought up there as well as I."
"Certainly, but with this difference, that my life ended when my so-called bringing up began. All that was really worth living for I left behind me when I entered those walls, for the joyous sunny years of my early boyhood were the only ones worth having."
He spoke in a tone half bitter, half resentful. But in Eugenie"s mind the old angry feeling blazed up hotly again. How dared he speak as if he had ever had anything to give up? What did he know of sacrifice, of renunciation? For her, indeed, childhood and happiness might truly be said to have come to an end together. As her father"s confidant, early initiated into all the family affairs, she had made acquaintance on her first entrance into life with that graduated scale of care, humiliation, and despair, with that bitter school of sorrow, which had steeled her character, but had also robbed her of all the joys of youth. How different had been her husband"s position, how different all his past life! And yet he spoke as if he had known unhappiness!
Arthur seemed to read these thoughts in her face, as he turned to hold back a drooping branch which would have brushed against her.
"You think I, of all people, have no right to complain? It may be so.
At any rate I have always been told that my existence is a most enviable one. But I a.s.sure you a life like mine is sometimes desperately void and wretched. When fortune heaps all her gifts before a man, he just treads them under foot, because he does not know what use to make of them. The life is so empty and miserable that one would gladly escape in the end from this gilded felicity they vaunt so loudly, and rush out of it anywhere--anywhere, even into the midst of storm and tempest!"
Eugenie"s dark eyes were fixed in speechless astonishment on his face.
He flushed suddenly, remembering perhaps that he had been guilty of an unpardonable mistake; he had betrayed some feeling in his wife"s presence. The young man frowned and cast a reproachful angry glance at the forest which had thus led him astray. Next minute he resumed his old indifferent manner.
"Just now we have more storm and tempest than we care about," said he negligently, going on in front so as completely to turn his back on her. "It is blowing a gale up there on the hills. We shall have to wait until the worst is over; we cannot go down at present."
And truly the storm met them with such force, as they issued from the wood, that they had some trouble to keep their footing. It was plainly out of the question to go on now, for at this spot the road grew steep and led straight down into the valley; they would have been in danger of being caught up by the wind and hurled bodily into the depths below.
There was therefore nothing for it but to wait here under the shelter of the trees until the hurricane should subside.
They stood under a mighty pine-tree which reared itself high aloft on the very verge of the forest. The storm roared and rustled in its great green arms, as it stretched them protectingly over its younger and weaker fellows, and swayed them groaning up and down every now and then in spite of their strength, but the giant, whitish-grey trunk, offered shelter and support to Eugenie, who stood leaning against it. Two persons might have found room there in case of need, but they would have been placed in the closest proximity to each other, and it was this consideration, no doubt, which induced Arthur to remain standing some paces off. He was but very imperfectly sheltered, and the raindrops, acc.u.mulated on the branches from the last shower, poured down plentifully upon him as the wind moved them to and fro; his hair was blown about and the drops chased each other over his uncovered brow, still he made no attempt to change his place.
"Would you ... would you not rather come here?" asked Eugenie, hesitating and squeezing herself to one side, so as to make room for him on the only dry spot.
"Thank you. I do not wish to inconvenience you."
"Put the cloak on then, at least." This time it sounded almost like an entreaty. "You will be quite wet through."