They negotiated about the fruit with Therese--the usual system of barter. Frau Therese wanted as usual to have grain in exchange, but the peddlers would not give her as much as before. They said wheat had become very dear. The corn-merchants of Komorn had made large purchases and driven up the prices; they ground it themselves, and sent it over the seas. Therese would not believe this--it was only gossip of the fruit-hawkers; but Timar paid great attention to it. That was his idea; what had come of it since then? Now he had no more rest for thinking of business and the cares of property. This news was to him what the bugle call is to an old soldier, who at the sound wishes himself back in the battle-field, even from the arms of his beloved.
The islanders thought it quite natural that Michael should make preparations to leave them. His business called him; and then he would return the following spring. Noemi only begged him not to throw away the clothes she had spun and woven for him, and which he had worn while with her. He will preserve them like a jewel.
And then he must often think of his poor Noemi. To that he could not answer in words.
He bribed the fruit-women to stay a day longer. And all that day he did nothing but visit, arm in arm with Noemi, all the places which had been witnesses of his tranquil happiness; here he plucked from a tree, and there from a flowery cl.u.s.ter, some leaflet to keep as a memorial. On every leaf and petal whole romances were written which only two people could read.
The last day pa.s.sed so quickly! The boatmen wanted to leave in the evening, so as to row while it was cool. Michael must say farewell.
Noemi was sensible, and did not cry; she knew he would return, and was more occupied in making provision to fill his knapsack.
"It will be dark when you get to the other side," she said, with tender anxiety. "Have you any arms?"
"No. No one will hurt me."
"But yet--here is a pistol in your haversack," said Noemi, and drew it out; and then her check paled, for she recognized Theodor"s pistol, with which he had often, when he came to the island, bragged and threatened that he would shoot Almira. "This is _his_ weapon!" Timar was struck by the expression of her face.
"When you left here," said the girl, who was all excitement, "he watched for you on the other side, and shot at you with this pistol."
"What makes you think such a thing?"
"I heard two shots, and then yours. So it was this pistol that you took from him?" Timar was surprised that love can see what the eye can not reach. He could not tell a lie. "Did you kill him?" asked the girl.
"No."
"What has become of him?"
"You need fear him no longer. He is gone to Brazil; a hemisphere lies between us and him."
"I wish there were only three feet of earth between us!" cried Noemi, impetuously, seizing Michael"s hand.
Michael looked in her face surprised. "You! you! with such murderous thoughts--you, who can not bear to see a chicken killed, who can not bring yourself to tread on a spider or to stick a b.u.t.terfly on a pin!"
"But any one who would tear you from me, I could kill, were he a man, a devil, or an angel--!"
And she pressed the dearly beloved man to her breast in a pa.s.sionate embrace. He trembled and glowed.
On reaching the other side, Michael again visited the fisherman"s hut.
Two things occupied his mind: the slender figure among the evening mists on the flower-crowned rock, waving to him its tender farewells; and then that other figure conjured up by his imagination as it looks at home in Komorn. Well, he will have time to picture this image to himself on the long journey from the Lower Danube up to Komorn.
When the old fisherman saw Michael, he began to sigh (fishing-folk do not swear). "Just think, my lord, some rascal of a thief has stolen your boat during the floods: he broke into the hut and carried off the oars.
What thieves there are in the world, to be sure!"
It did Timar good that at last some one should call him a thief to his face; that was what he was--and if he had stolen nothing more than a boat! "We must not condemn the man," said he to the fisherman. "Who knows what danger he was in, or how much he needed a boat. We will get another. But now, my friend, we will get into your boat and try to arrive at the ferry to-night."
The fisherman was persuaded by a promise of liberal payment to undertake this, and by daylight they had reached the ferry where the ships generally took in their cargo. There were post-carriages at the inn on the bank, of which Timar engaged one to take him to Levetinczy. He thought he would there receive reports from the agent of what had pa.s.sed during the last five months, so that when he got home to Komorn nothing new or surprising should greet him.
There was a one-storied residence on the estate at Levetinczy. In one wing lived the steward and his wife, while the other was given up to Timar. A staircase from this wing led to the park, and by this means he could gain access to the room which he had chosen as an office. Michael must pay attention to the trivial details if he wished to carry out his wearisome deceit consistently. He has been absent for five months, and has, of course, been a long way; but that hardly agrees with his arrival without luggage. In his knapsack there is only the suit of striped linen made for him by Noemi, for the suit in which he had gone to the island was intended for the cold season, and that, by now, was torn and worn out; his boots were patched. It would be difficult to account for his appearance. If he could get through the garden and by the outside steps into his office, the key of which he carries with him, he could there change his clothes quickly, get out his trunk, and when to all appearances he looked as though just come from a long journey, he could call in the steward.
All began well. Timar arrived without being seen, by the garden steps, at the door of his office.
But when he was going to open it with his private key, he made the disquieting discovery that another key was already in the lock. Some one was in the room! But his papers and ledgers were all there, and no one had any business inside. Who could the intruder be? He pulled the door open angrily and went in, and now it was his turn to be startled.
At his writing-table sat the last person he expected to find there. It was Timea. Before her lay the great ledger, in which she was at work.
A storm of mingled feelings burst over Michael--alarm because the first person he met after his secret journey was his own wife, pleasure at finding her alone, and astonishment that this woman was at work here.
Timea raised her eyes in surprise when she saw Michael enter; then hastening toward him, she offered him her hand in silence. This white face was still an unsolved enigma to her husband. He could not read in it whether she knew all--whether she guessed something or not. What lay under this cold indifference? restrained contempt or concealed love? Or was the whole only the indolence of a lymphatic race? He had nothing to say to Timea.
His wife seemed not to remark that his clothes were torn--women can see without looking. "I am glad you have come," said she gently. "I expected you any day. You will find your clothes in the next room; when you have dressed, will you please come back here? I shall have finished by that time." And then she put her pen in her mouth.
Michael kissed Timea"s hand. The pen between her teeth did not invite him to kiss her lips. He went into the adjoining room; there he found a basin of water, a clean shirt, and his clothes and house-shoes as at home. As Timea could not know the day of his arrival, he must take for granted that she had made ready for him every day--and who knows for how long? But how comes this woman here, and what is she doing? He dressed quickly, hiding his cast-off clothes in a corner of his wardrobe. Some one might ask him what caused these holes in the coat-sleeves, which are quite through at the elbows. And this linen suit with the colored embroidery, would not a woman"s eye decipher something from it?--women understand the mysteries of needle-work. He must hide the clothes. He and the soap had hard work to wash his hands clean. Would he not be asked what he had done to make them so black and h.o.r.n.y?
When he was ready he went back to the office, where Timea was waiting for him at the door, and putting her hand on his arm, said, "Let us go to breakfast."
From the office they pa.s.sed through the dressing-room to get to the dining-room. Another surprise awaited Michael there; the round table was laid with three places--for whom were they intended? Timea made a signal, and through one door came the servant, through the other Athalie. The third place was for her.
On Athalie"s face an unconcealed anger shone when she saw Timar. "Ah, Herr von Levetinczy, you have come home at last! It was a kind thought of yours to write to your wife, "Take my keys and books, and be so good, dear wife, as to do all my work for me," and then to leave us five months without news of your whereabouts."
"Athalie!" said Timea, sternly.
Michael sat down in silence at his place, which he recognized by his own silver drinking-cup. He had been daily awaited here, and the table laid for him. Athalie said no more, but whenever she looked at Timar he could read her vexation in her eyes. This was a satisfactory sign.
When they rose from table Timea asked her husband to go with her to the office. Michael began to think what he could invent when she should ask him about his journey. But she never referred to it even remotely. She placed two chairs at the desk, and laid her hand on the open day-book.
"Here, sir, is the account of your business since the time when you gave over its direction to me."
"Have you carried it on yourself?"
"I understood that you desired me to do so. I found by your papers that you had undertaken a new and wholesale enterprise--the export of Hungarian flour. I saw that here not only your money, but also your credit and your mercantile honor, were at stake, and that on the good result of this affair hung the foundation of an important branch of trade. I did not understand this business, but I thought that it depended more on conscientious and faithful stewardship than on knowledge of affairs. I trusted this to no third person. Directly I received your letter I started for Levetinczy, and took, as you desired, the conduct of business into my own hands. I studied book-keeping and learned to deal with figures. I think you will find everything in order--the books and the cash balance." Timar looked with admiration at this woman, who knew how to apply the millions pa.s.sing through her hands with such calm good sense, to their right object, to receive and expend moneys, and with a skillful hand to withdraw endangered funds; and who knew even more than that. "Fortune has favored us this year," continued Timea, "and made up for my inexperience. The five months" income amounted to five hundred thousand gulden. This sum has not lain idle.
Taking advantage of the powers intrusted to me, I have made investments."
What sort of investments are they likely to be which occur to a woman?
"Your first experiment with the export of flour succeeded entirely.
Hungarian flour became at one stroke an article in request for the South American markets. So your agents write from Rio Janeiro, where all with one accord praise the ability and uprightness of your chief agent, Theodor Krisstyan." Timar thought to himself, "Even when I do evil good comes of it, and the greatest folly I commit turns into wisdom--when will this end?" "After receiving this intelligence I began to consider what you would have done. One must seize an opportunity and occupy with all speed the newly opened markets. I hired immediately many mills, chartered more ships, had them laden, and at this moment a new cargo is on its way to South America, which will defy compet.i.tion."
Michael was astonished. In this woman there was more courage than in any man. Another woman would have locked up the money that it might not run away, and this one ventures to carry on her husband"s enterprise, only in tenfold measure. "I thought you would have acted thus," said Timea.
"Yes, indeed," muttered Timar.
"My expectations, moreover, were justified by the fact that, as soon as we threw ourselves more openly into this undertaking, a whole herd of compet.i.tors appeared, who are grinding away for dear life, and packing off their good in barrels to America. But this need not cause you any anxiety--we shall beat them all. Not one of them knows the secret of the superiority of the Hungarian flour."
"How is that?"
"If one of them asked his wife, perhaps she would have known--that is how I discovered it. Among all the samples of American wheat, I can find none as heavy as ours. We must, therefore, make flour of our heaviest kinds, so as to carry off the prize from the Americans. I selected our heaviest grain; our rivals here use lighter corn, and they will find their mistake, while we shall maintain our position."