Read Ebook: The Initials: A Story of Modern Life by Tautphoeus Jemima Montgomery Baroness

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Ebook has 4152 lines and 185714 words, and 84 pages

"So I imagined--probably her mother or her sister walked with her."

"Her mother was not there, and her brother-in-law would not allow her sister to walk by moonlight."

"What a barbarian he must have been! Who, then, could have been her companion? It could hardly have been her father?"

Crescenz laughed outright. "Oh, no; had it been her father, Lina would not have been sent back to school again. They said she had done all sorts of wild things at home; that her head was full of nonsense, and she must be cured."

"And was she cured?"

"In fact, the affair with Theodor was merely a flirtation," observed Hamilton.

"I don't know what that means," she answered, looking inquiringly in his face; "it is an English word, I suppose."

"Quite English," said Hamilton, laughing; "but your friend seems to have understood the meaning perfectly."

"And yet she did not take any lessons in English," said Crescenz, thoughtfully; "but I remember her saying to me at school that, if she could not marry Theodor, she would go into a nunnery! And then to be satisfied with ugly old Dr. Berger?"

"You would not have acted so?" inquired Hamilton.

But no answering smile played round her coral lips. Crescenz seemed to be metamorphosed. No sooner had her feet touched the ground than one glided gently behind the other, and a profound curtsy, such as very young ladies are taught to make by a dancing-master, was performed to his infinite astonishment; a few neat and appropriate words of thanks were added, which, had they not been accompanied by a burning blush, he would have considered the most consummate piece of acting he had ever witnessed. Hamilton bit his lip, and coloured deeply, as he mechanically followed the landlady through a side-door into the monastery.

He was conducted up a back staircase to a long corridor, at the end of which was a small passage leading into a tolerably large, cheerful room, to his great disappointment not bearing any perceptible marks of antiquity. On expressing some surprise, he was told that the monastery had been twice almost burnt to the ground, and that only some parts of the original building remained. His room was the most modern of all, and had been the apartment of the abbot before the secularisation.

"Have you many people staying here at present?" asked Hamilton.

"Not many; several left this morning, but we expect others next week."

"And the names of those who are still here?" asked Hamilton in considerable alarm.

"Still here," repeated the landlady; but at this instant the sounds of wheels and horses' hoofs made Hamilton rush to one of the windows. A small open carriage and its dust-covered occupant attracted his attention so completely that, without waiting for an answer to his former question, he added, "Who is that?"

"Ah, the Herr Baron!" cried the landlady, looking out of the window, and then quickly leaving the room.

The traveller started up in the carriage and looked around him. He was dressed in a sort of loose shooting-jacket of gray cloth, which completely concealed his figure; and his dark-green felt hat was slouched over his face, leaving little visible excepting the mustache, surmounted by a well-formed aquiline nose. "Is no one here?" he cried, exhibiting some very unequivocal signs of impatience; and a servant in plain livery came at full speed, followed by half a dozen men and women, who were soon all employed unpacking the carriage. Carpet-bag, meerschaum pipes of different forms and dimensions, newspapers, cigar-cases, boots, powder-horn, umbrella, double-barrelled gun, sketch-book, a very old pistol, a very new rifle, and some rolls of bread, followed each other in odd confusion. Some one at a window not distant from Hamilton laughed heartily; the traveller looked up, laughed also, and flourished his hat in the air. "What a dusty figure!" exclaimed the invisible. "Have you brought no trophy? No venison for our landlady?"

Another laugh from the window made him seize his rifle, and jestingly point it upwards--it was, however, directly thrown aside, while he half-apologetically exclaimed, "It cannot go off, I assure you. Look here, it is not even loaded," and he grasped the ramrod to prove his assertion; but some unexpected impediment in the barrel caused him to grow suddenly red--he raised the offending weapon as if with the intention of firing it off, but after a hasty glance towards the window, he gave it to one of the bystanders, requesting him to draw out the charge, and then ran quickly into the house.

In the meantime, Hamilton's coachman had brought up his luggage, and a chambermaid waited to know whether or not he intended to sup below stairs. Supper would be in the little room through which he had passed on his entrance, as there were too few people for the saloon. Perhaps he wished to sup in his own room?

"I know--I know," cried Hamilton, nodding his head.

"Who do you say?" said Hamilton, suddenly recollecting A. Z.

"Can they speak English?"

"Oh, no doubt; and French, too, quite perfectly; they speak a great many languages."

"They are not, however, invalids? That is, they are not here on account of the baths?"

"No; I believe they came to meet some friends whom they intended to have visited. I heard the Count's servants saying that their house, or the Baron's, was full of masons and painters."

"But the old Countess does take baths," continued the chambermaid, "and finds great benefit from them, too. The Count is a favourer of Preissnitz and the Water Cure; and when he does not go to Graefenberg, all places are alike to him where water is good and in abundance."

"And his daughter?" asked Hamilton, now convinced that he had found A. Z.

"Her having what?"

"Sweated! The Count sent his bed and tubs here the day before he came, and his servant Pepperl must tie him up every morning."

"You never heard of mademoiselle's being tied up by Pepperl?" asked Hamilton, gravely.

"I believe she never had the rheumatism; but one day, when she had a headache, I saw her sitting with her feet in a tub of cold water, and wet towels around her head."

Some one just then knocked gently at the door. "Come in!" cried Hamilton, and, to his no small surprise, Crescenz appeared in the doorway. She blushed, and so did he, and then he blushed because he had blushed; and to conceal his annoyance he had assumed a cold, haughty manner, and waited for her to speak. She stammered something about a reticule and pocket-handkerchief, as, with the assistance of the chambermaid, she moved his carpet-bag, and shook his cloak in every possible direction. Nothing was to be found, and she was just about to leave the room when Hamilton perceived the lost property under his dressing-case. As he restored it, and held the door open for her to pass, he took advantage of the opportunity, and returned her former curtsy with an obeisance so profound that it amounted to mockery; and as such she felt it, too, for the colour mounted through the roots of her hair, suffusing with deep red both neck and ears as she bent down her head, and hurried out of the room, followed by the chambermaid. Hamilton was so shocked at his rudeness that he felt greatly inclined to run after her and apologise; and had she been alone he would certainly have done so, for it directly occurred to him that she had come herself to seek her handkerchief in order to have an opportunity of explaining to him the cause of her sudden and extraordinary change of manner. This made him still more repent of his puerile conduct, and wish he had spoken to her. He looked out of the window to see if he were likely to meet her should he perambulate the much-talked-of cloister, but instead of the rising moon, angry thunderclouds were rapidly converting the remaining twilight into darkest night. His hopes of a romantic interview and explanation were at an end; there was no chance of moonlight, and the acquaintance was much too new to think of a meeting in thunder and lightning! The supper-table seemed a more eligible place, and, spurred both by contrition and hunger, he determined to repair to it with all possible expedition.

On leaving the small passage conducting to his room, he entered the long corridor which he had traversed with the landlady; on turning, however, as he thought, to the staircase by which he had ascended, he suddenly found himself in a small but lofty chapel. It was too dark to see distinctly the decorations of the altar, but it seemed as if gilding had not been spared; two small adjoining apartments he next examined, and then completely forgetting whether he had entered from the right or left hand, he walked inquisitively forward until a broad gloomy passage brought him to a corridor, which he instinctively felt to be the place where on moonlight nights one might perchance be disposed to romance. The doors opposite to him, placed close to each other, had probably belonged to cells; over each was a black-looking picture, portraits of the abbots, the faces and hands looking most ghastly in their indistinctness. A broad staircase was near, but fearing to lose his way completely, he contented himself for the present with reconnoitring the garden and a lake from a sort of lobby window. Woods and mountains were in the distance, but every moment becoming less distinct; the oppressive calm had been succeeded by a wild wind which bent the trees in all directions, and ruffled the surface of the water. Interested in the approaching thunder-storm, he stood at the window until his revery was interrupted by the sound of footsteps, voices, and the clapping of doors. He turned quickly from the window, walked to the end of the corridor, turned to the left, and entered a very narrow passage looking into a small quadrangular court, which seemed once to have been a garden; it still possessed a few trees, a fountain, and a luxuriant growth of rank grass. He mounted a flight of stone steps, which brought him into the organ loft, whence he had a full view of the monastery church. The lamp which hung suspended before the altar threw fitful gleams of light on the objects in its immediate vicinity--all the rest was in shadow; behind the organ was a sort of vaulted, unfinished room, containing nothing but a most clumsy apparatus for filling the bellows. Just as he was about to leave this uninteresting place, two persons entered the adjoining loft; recognising the voice of his travelling companion, and perceiving she was accompanied by her sister, he commenced a precipitate retreat by another entrance than that next the organ; in his haste, however, he entangled his foot in the rope communicating with the belfry, so that his slightest movement might alarm the whole household. While endeavouring, as well as the darkness would permit, to extricate himself, he was compelled to become auditor to a conversation certainly not intended for his ears.

"And you don't think him at all good-looking?" asked Crescenz.

"I cannot say that his appearance particularly pleased me, but you know I only saw him eating his dinner; he seemed, however, to have an uncommonly good opinion of himself!"

"Dear Crescenz! I have no doubt that he was agreeable, as you say so; and I agree with you in thinking him very civil, and all that sort of thing, but you cannot force me to think him handsome."

"I did not say that I thought him handsome," cried Crescenz, deprecatingly.

"Oh, I might have foreseen," cried Crescenz, interrupting her sister, "I might have foreseen that he would find no favour in your eyes, as he is not an officer with a long sword clattering at his side."

Hamilton's blush of annoyance was concealed by the darkness.

"Prejudiced! Not in the least. I do not think him particularly handsome, that's all!"

"Well, you know I told you we talked a great deal during our journey, and--and a--in short, just as we reached Seon he said something about meeting me in the corridor by moonlight."

"Just what I should have expected from him!" cried the other, angrily. "How presuming on so short an acquaintance?"

"He is an Englishman," said Crescenz, apologetically; "and certainly did not mean anything wrong, for his manner did not change in the least when he saw mamma, while I was so dreadfully afraid that she might observe--Oh! Hildegarde! What is that? Did you not hear something moving?"

"I think I did; let us listen." A pause ensued. "It's only the thunder-storm, and"--taking a long breath--"the ticking of the great clock."

"How like someone breathing heavily," exclaimed Crescenz, anxiously.

"And how dark it is! We can hardly find our way out," said Hildegarde.

Hamilton did not venture to move; they were so near him that he heard the hands feeling the way on the wall close to where he stood. One reached the narrow passage in safety, the other stumbled on the stairs; and, as Hamilton unconsciously made a movement to assist her, the lightning, which had once or twice enabled him to distinguish their figures, now rendered him for a moment visible. It was in vain he again drew back into his hiding-place. With a cry of terror, Crescenz raised herself from the ground, and rushed into her sister's arms, exclaiming, "I have seen him! I have seen him! He is here!"

"What! Who is here?"

"The Englishman! the Englishman!"

"Impossible! How can you be so foolish? Come, come, let us leave this place."

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