"Oh! do not tell me of that I am in no laughing mood, and I would not like to hear of it What did he say of the Hunyadi affair?"
"Nothing, or next to nothing. He offered me letters of introduction to Count Hunyadi; but beyond that there was no mention of him."
She arose as I said this, and walked slowly up and down the room. I saw she was deep in thought, and was careful not to disturb or distract her. At last she opened a writing-desk, and took out a roll of papers fastened by a tape.
"These," said she, "you will take with you, and carefully read over.
They are the records of a transaction that is now involving us in great trouble, and which may prove more than trouble. M. Marsac has been induced--how, we shall not stop to inquire--to contract for the purchase of an extensive wood belonging to Graf Hunyadi; the price, half a million of francs. We delayed to ratify an agreement of such moment, until more fully a.s.sured of the value of the timber; and while we deliberated on the choice of the person to send down to Hungary, we have received from our correspondent at Vienna certain bills for acceptance in payment of this purchase. You follow me, don"t you?"
"Yes. As I understand it, the bargain was a.s.sumed to be ratified?"
"Just so."
She paused; and, after a slight struggle with herself, went on,--
"The contract, legally drawn up and complete in every way, _was_ signed; not, however, by my father, but by my brother. You have heard, perhaps, that I have a brother. Bad companionship and a yielding disposition have led him into evil, and for some years we have not seen him. Much misfortune has befallen him; but none greater, perhaps, than his meeting with Marsac; for, though Adolf has done many things, he would not have gone thus far without the promptings of this bad man."
"Was it his own name he wrote?" asked I.
"No; it was my father"s," and she faltered at the word; and as she spoke it, her head fell heavily forward, and she covered her face with her hands.
She rallied, however, quickly, and went on. "We now know that the timber is not worth one-fourth of this large sum. Baron Elias himself has seen it, and declares that we have been duped or--worse. He insists that we rescind the contract, or accept all its consequences. The one is hopeless,--the other ruin. Meanwhile, the Baron suspends farther relations with us, and heavy acceptances of ours will soon press for payment. I must not go into this," said she, hurriedly. "You are very young to charge with such a mission; but I have great faith in your loyalty. You will not wrong our trust?"
"That I will not."
"You will go to Graf Hunyadi, and speak with him. If he be--as many of his countrymen are--a man of high and generous feeling, he will not bring ruin upon us, when our only alternative would be to denounce our own. You are very young; but you have habits of the world and society.
Nay,--I am not seeking to learn a secret; but you know enough to make you companionable and acceptable, where any others in our employ would be inadmissible. At all events, you will soon see the sort of man we have to deal with, and you will report to me at once."
"I am not to tell him how this signature has been obtained?" asked I, awaiting the reply.
"That would be to denounce the contract at once," cried she, as though this thought had for the first time struck her. "You know the penalty of a forgery here. It is the galleys for life. He must be saved at all events. Don"t you see," cried she, eagerly, "I can give you no instructions. I have none to give. When I say I trust you,--I have told you all."
"Has Herr Ignaz not said how he would wish me to act?"
"My father knows nothing of it all! Nothing. You have seen him, and you know how little he is able now to cope with a difficulty. The very sense that his faculties are not what they were overcomes him, even to tears."
Up to this she had spoken with a calm firmness that had lent a touch of almost sternness to her manner, but at the mention of her poor father"s condition, her courage gave way, and she turned away and hid her face, but her convulsed shoulders showed how her emotion was overcoming her.
I went towards her, and took her hand in both my own. She left it to me while I kissed it again and again.
"Oh, Sara," I whispered rather than spoke, "if you knew how devoted I am to you, if you knew how willingly I would give my very life for you, you would not think yourself friendless at this hour. Your trust in me has made me forget how lonely I am, and how humble,--to forget all that separates us, even to telling that I love you. Give me one word--only one--of hope; or if not that, let your dear hand but close on mine, and I am yours forever."
She never spoke, however, and her cold fingers returned no pressure to mine.
"I love you; I love you!" I muttered, as I covered her hand with kisses.
"There! Do you not hear?" cried she, suddenly. "My father is calling me."
"Sara, Sara! Where is Sara?" cried the old man, in a weak, reedy voice.
"I am coming, dear father," said she. "Good-bye, Digby; remember that I trust you!"
[Ill.u.s.tration: 612]
She waved me a farewell, and, with a faint, sad smile, she moved away.
As she reached the door, however, she turned, and, with a look of kindly meaning, said, "Trust you in all things."
I sprang forward to clasp her to my heart; but the door closed on her, and I was alone.
CHAPTER XXV. "ON THE ROAD" IN CROATIA
I pa.s.sed half the night that followed in writing to my mother. It was a very long epistle, but, in my fear lest, like so many others, it should not ever reach her, it was less expansive and candid than I could have wished. Sara"s name did not occur throughout, and yet it was Sara"s image was before me as I wrote, and to connect my mother in interest for Sara was my uppermost thought. Without touching on details that might awaken pain, I told how I had been driven to attempt something for my own support, and had not failed.
"I am still," I wrote, "where I started, but in so far a different position that I am now well looked on and trusted, and at this moment about to set out on a mission of importance. If I should succeed in doing what I am charged with, it will go far to secure my future, and then, dearest mother, I will go over to fetch you, for I will no longer live without you."
I pictured the place I was living in, and its climate, as attractively as I was able, and said, what I verily believed, that I hoped never to leave it. Of my father I did not venture to speak; but I invited her, if the course of our correspondence should prove a.s.sured, to tell me freely all about her present condition, and where and how she was.
"You will see, dear mother," said I, in conclusion, "that I write in all the constraint of one who is not sure who may read him. Of the accident by which the address I now give this letter reached me, I will tell when I write again. Meanwhile, though I shall not be here to receive it at once, write to me, to the care of Hodnig and Oppovich, and add, "to be forwarded.""
I enclosed a little photograph of the town, as seen from the bay, and though ill done and out of drawing, it still conveyed some notion of the pretty spot with its mountain framework.
I had it in my head to write another letter, and, indeed, made about a dozen attempts to begin it. It was to Pauline. Nothing but very boyishness could have ever conceived such a project, but I thought--it was very simple of me!--I thought I owed it to her, and to my own loyalty, to declare that my heart had wandered from its first allegiance, and fixed its devotion on another. I believed--I was young enough to believe it--that I had won her affections, and I felt it would be dishonorable in me to deceive her as to my own. I suppose I was essaying a task that would have puzzled a more consummate tactician than myself, for certainly nothing could be more palpable than my failures; and though I tried, with all the ingenuity I possessed, to show that in my altered fortunes I could no longer presume to retain any hold on her affections, somehow it would creep out that my heart had opened to a sentiment far deeper and more enthralling than that love which began in a polka and ended at the railway.
I must own I am now grateful to my stupidity and ineptness, which saved me from committing this great blunder, though at the time I mourned over my incapacity, and bewailed the dulness that destroyed every attempt I made to express myself gracefully. I abandoned the task at length in despair, and set to work to pack up for my journey. I was to start at daybreak for Agram, where some business would detain me a couple of days. Thence I was to proceed to a small frontier town in Hungary, called Ostovich, on the Drave, where we owned a forest of oak scrub, and which I was empowered to sell, if an advantageous offer could be had.
If such should not be forthcoming, my instructions were to see what water-power existed in the neighborhood to work saw-mills, and to report fully on the price of labor, and the means of conveyance to the coast.
If I mention these details, even pa.s.singly, it is but to show the sort of work that was intrusted to me, and how naturally my pride was touched at feeling how great and important were the interests confided to my judgment. In my own esteem, at least, I was somebody. This sentiment, felt in the freshness of youth, is never equalled by anything one experiences of triumph in after life, for none of our later successes come upon hearts joyous in the day-spring of existence, hopeful of all things, and, above all, hearts that have not been jarred by envy and made discordant by ungenerous rivalry.
There was an especial charm, too, in the thought that my life was no every-day common-place existence, but a strange series of ups and downs, changes and vicissitudes, calling for continual watchfulness, and no small amount of energy; in a word, I was a hero to myself, and it is wonderful what a degree of interest can be imparted to life simply by that delusion. My business at Agram was soon despatched. No news of the precarious condition of our "house" had reached this place, and I was treated with all the consideration due to the confidential agent of a great firm. I pa.s.sed an evening in the society of the town, and was closely questioned whether Carl Bettmeyer had got over his pa.s.sion for the Fraulein Sara; or was she showing any disposition to look more favorably on his addresses. What fortune Oppovich could give his daughter, and what sort of marriage he aspired to for her, were all discussed. There was one point, however, all were agreed upon, that nothing could be done without the consent of the "Baron," as they distinctively called the great financier of Paris, whose sway, it appeared, extended not only to questions of trade and; money, but to every relation of domestic life.
"They say," cried one, "that the Baron likes Bettmeyer, and has thrown some good things in his way of late."
"He gave him a share in that new dock contract at Pola."
"And he means to give him the directorship of the Viecovar line, if it ever be made."
"He "ll give him Sara Oppovich for a wife," said a third, "and that"s a better speculation than them all. Two millions of florins at least."
"She"s the richest heiress in Croatia."
"And does n"t she know it!" exclaimed another. "The last time I was up at Fiume, old Ignaz apologized for not presenting me to her, by saying, "Yesterday was her reception day; if you are here next Wednesday, I "ll introduce you.""
"I thought it was only the n.o.bles had the custom of reception days?"
"Wealth is n.o.bility nowadays; and if Ignaz Oppovich was not a Jew, he might have the best blood of Austria for a son-in-law."
The discussion soon waxed warm as to whether Jews did or did not aspire to marriage with Christians of rank, the majority opining to believe that they placed t.i.tle and station above even riches, and that no people had such an intense appreciation of the value of condition as the Hebrew.