A Bride of the Plains

Overhead there was flapping of wings – a flight of rooks cut through the air and there were magpies in their trail.

"Three for a wedding," said Andor with a forced laugh, trying to break the spell which – much against his will – seemed to have been suddenly cast over his happy spirits.

"One for sorrow, more like," retorted Klara.

"No, no, come!" he rejoined; "you must not look at it like that. There is always some happiness to be got out of married life. You are not very happy in your old home – you will like to have one of your own – a wedding is only the prelude to better things."

"That depends on the wedding, my friend," she sneered; "this one will be a finish, not a prelude – the naughty child, well whipped, sent out of mischief's way."

"I am sorry, Klara, that you feel it so strongly," he said more kindly.

"Yes," she retorted. "I dare say, my good man, you are sorry enough for me now, but you might have thought of all that, you know, before you played me that dirty trick."

"What do you mean?" he broke in quickly.

"Just what I say," she replied, "and no more. A dirty, abominable trick, I call it, and I cannot even show you up before the village – I could not even speak of you to the police officers. Oh, yes!" she continued more and more vehemently, as a flood of wrath and of resentment and a burning desire for getting even with Fate seemed literally to sweep her off her mental balance and cause her to lose complete control of her tongue, "oh, yes! my fine gentleman! you can go and court Elsa now, and whisper sweet love-words in her ears – you two turtle-doves are the edification of the entire village now – and presently you will get married and live happy ever afterwards. But what I want to ask you, my friend," she added, and she took a step or two nearer to him, until her hot and angry breath struck him in the face and he was forced to draw himself back, away from that seething cauldron of resentment and of vengeance which was raging before him now, "what I want to ask you is have you ever thought of me?"

"Thought of you, Klara?" he said quietly, even as he felt, more than saw, that Elsa too had drawn back a little – a step or two further away from Klara, but a step or two also further away from him. "Thought of you?" he reiterated, seeing that Klara did not reply immediately, and that just for one brief moment – it was a mere flash – a look of irresolution had crept into her eyes, "why should I be thinking about you?"

"Why, indeed?" she said with a wrathful sneer. "What hurt had I done to you, Andor, that is what I want to know. I was always friendly to you. I had never done you any wrong – nor did I do Elsa any wrong – any wrong, I mean, that mattered," she continued, talking more loudly and more volubly because Andor was making desperate efforts to stop and interrupt her. "Béla would only have run after another woman if I had turned my back on him. And then when you asked me to leave him alone, I promised, didn't I? What you asked me to do I promised… And I meant to keep my promise to you, and you knew it.. and yet you rounded on me like that.."

"Silence, Klara," he cried at the top of his voice as he shook the girl roughly by the shoulder.

But she paid no heed to him – she was determined to be heard, determined to have her say. All the bitterness in her had been bottled up for weeks. She meant to meet Andor face to face before she was packed off as the submissive wife of a hated husband – the naughty child, whipped and sent out of the way – she meant to throw all the pent-up bitterness within her, straight into his face – and meant to do it when Elsa was nigh. For days and days she had watched for an opportunity; but her father had kept her a prisoner in the house, besides which she had no great desire to affront the sneering looks of village gossips. But this evening was her opportunity. For this she had waited, and now she meant to take it, and no power on earth, force or violence would prevent her from pouring out the full phial of her venomous wrath.

"I will not be silent," she shrieked, "I will not! You did round on me like a cur – you sneak – you double-faced devil.."

"Will you be silent!" he hissed through his teeth, his face deadly pale now with a passion of wrath at least as fierce as hers.

But now Elsa's quiet voice interposed between these two tempestuous souls.

"No!" she said firmly, "Klara shall not be silent, Andor. Let go her arm and let her speak. I want to hear what she has to say."

"She is trying to come between you and me, Elsa," said Andor, who was trying to keep his violent rage in check. "She tried to come between you and Béla, and chose an ugly method to get at what she wanted. She hates you.. why I don't know, but she does hate you, and she always tries to do you harm. Don't listen to her, I tell you. Why! just look at her now!.. the girl is half mad."

"Mad?" broke in Klara, as with a jerky movement of her shoulders she disengaged herself from Andor's rough grasp. "I dare say I am mad. And so would you be," she added, turning suddenly to Elsa, "so would you be, if all in one night you were to lose everything you cared for in the world – your freedom – the consideration of your friends – the man who some day would have made you a good husband – everything, everything – and all because of that sneaking, double-faced coward."

"If you don't hold your tongue." cried Andor menacingly.

"You will kill me, won't you?" she sneered. "One murder more or less on your conscience won't hurt you any more, will it, my friend? You will kill me, eh? Then you'll have two of us to your reckoning by and by, me and Béla!"

"Béla!" the cry, which sounded like a protest – hot, indignant, defensive – came from Elsa. She was paler than either of the others, and her glowing, inquiring eyes were fixed upon Klara with the look of an untamed creature ready to defend and to protect the thing that it holds dear.

"Don't listen to her, Elsa," pleaded Andor in a voice rendered hoarse with an overwhelming apprehension.

He felt as if his happiness, his life, the whole of this living, breathing world were slipping away from him – as if he had suddenly woke up from a beautiful, peaceful dream and found himself on the edge of a precipice and unable, in this sudden rude awakening, to keep a foothold upon the shifting sands. There was a mist before his eyes – a mist which seemed to envelop Elsa more and more, making her slim, exquisite figure appear more dim, blurring the outline of her gold-crowned head, getting more and more dense until even her blue eyes had disappeared away from him – away – snatched from his grasp – wafted away by that mist to the distant land beyond the low-lying horizon.

Something in the agony of his appeal, something in the pathos of Elsa's defiant attitude must have struck a more gentle cord in the Jewess' heart. The tears gathered in her eyes – tears of self-pity at the misery which she seemed to be strewing all round her with a free hand.

"I don't think that I really meant to tell you, Elsa," she said more quietly, "not lately, at any rate. Oh, I dare say at first I did mean to hurt you – but a month has gone by and I was beginning to forget. People used to say of me that I was a good sort – it was the hurt that he did me that seems to have made a devil of me… And then – just now when I saw the other folk coming home in the procession and noticed that you and Andor weren't among them, I guessed that you would be walking back together arm-in-arm – and that the whole world would be smiling on you both, while I was eating out my heart in misery."

She was speaking with apparent calm now, in a dull and monotonous voice, her eyes fixed upon the distant line of the horizon, where the glowing sun had at last sunk to rest. The brilliant orange and blood-red of the sky had yielded to a colder crimson tint – it, too, was now slowly turning to grey.

Elsa stood silent, listening, and Andor no longer tried to force Klara to silence. What was the good? Fate had spoken through her lips – God's wrath, perhaps, had willed it so. For the first time in all these weeks he realized that perhaps he had committed a deadly sin, and that he had had no right to reckon on happiness coming to him, because of it. He stood there, dazed, letting the Jewess have her way. What did it matter how much more she said? Perhaps, on the whole, it was best that Elsa should learn the whole truth now.

And Klara continued to speak in listless, apathetic tones, letting her tongue run on as if she had lost control over what she said, and as if a higher Fate was forcing her to speak against her will.

"I suppose," she said thoughtfully, "that some kind of devil did get into my bones then. I wandered out into the stubble, and I saw you together coming from the distance. The sunlight was full upon you, and long before you saw me I saw your faces quite distinctly. There was so much joy, so much happiness in you both, that I seemed to see it shining out of your eyes. And I was so broken and so wretched that I couldn't bear to see Andor so happy with the girl who rightly belonged to Béla – the wretched man whom he himself had sent to his death."

"Whom he himself had sent to his death?" broke in Elsa quietly. "What do you mean, Klara?"

"I mean that it was young Count Feri who was to have come to see me that night. Father being away, he wanted to come and have a little chat and a bit of supper with me. There was no harm in that, was there? He didn't care to be seen walking in at the front door – as there's always such a lot of gossip in this village – so he asked me for the back-door key, and I gave it to him."

"Well?"

"Leopold missed the key later on, and guessed I had given it to Count Feri. He was mad with jealousy and threatened to kill anyone who dared come sneaking in round the back way. He wouldn't let me out of his sight – and threatened to strangle me if I attempted to go and get the key back from Count Feri. I was nearly crazy with fear. Wouldn't you have been," she added defiantly, "if you had a madman to deal with and no one near to protect you?"

"Perhaps," replied Elsa, under her breath.

"Then Andor came into the tap-room. With soft words and insinuating promises he got me to tell him what had happened. I didn't want to at first – I mistrusted him because of what had happened at the banquet – I knew that he hated me because of you."

"It is not true," broke in Andor involuntarily.

"Let her tell her story her own way," rejoined Elsa, with the same strange quiet which seemed now to envelop her soul.

"There's nothing more to tell," retorted Klara. "Nothing, at any rate, that you haven't guessed already. I told Andor all about Count Feri and the key, and how terrified I was that Leopold would do some deadly mischief. He offered to go to the castle and get the key away from the young Count."

"Well?"

"Well! Andor was in love with you, wasn't he?" she continued, speaking once more with vehemence; "he wanted you, didn't he? And he hated Béla having you. He hated me, too, of course. So he got the key away from Count Feri, and later on, after you had followed Béla almost to the tap-room and you had some words with him just outside.. you remember?"

"Yes."

"Andor had the key in his pocket then – and he gave it to Béla.."

There was silence for awhile now – that silence which falls upon the plain during the first hour after sunset – and which falls upon human creatures when destiny has spoken her last word. In the village far away the worshippers had gone back into the church, all sound of chanting and praying had died away behind its walls; there was no flight of birds overhead, nor call of waterfowl from the bank of the stream, the autumn breeze had gone to rest with the sun, the leaves of acacias and willows lay still, and even the turbulent waters of the Maros seemed momentarily hushed.

"Is that true, Andor?"

It was Elsa's voice that spoke, but the voice sounded muffled and dull, as if it came from far away or from out the depths of the earth. Then, as Andor made no reply, but gazed on Elsa in mute and passionate appeal, like a man who is drowning would gaze on the shore which he cannot reach, Klara said slowly:

"Oh! it's true enough. You cannot deny it, can you, Andor? You wanted your revenge on me, and you wanted to be rid of Béla – you wanted Elsa for yourself, but you didn't care one brass fillér what would become of me after that. You left me without a thought, lonely and unprotected, knowing that a madman was prowling outside, ready to kill me or any man who came along. You gave Béla that key, didn't you?.. and told him nothing about Leopold – and you didn't care what became of me, so long as you got rid of Béla and could have Elsa for yourself."

"And now you have had your say, Klara," said Andor, breaking with a mighty effort the spell of silence which had held him all this while; "you have made all the mischief that you wanted to make. Suppose you leave us alone now.. Elsa and me.. alone with the misery which you have created for us."

Then, as for a moment she didn't move, but looked on him through narrowed lids and with a sneer, half of pity and half of triumph, he continued with a sudden outburst of fierceness:

"Well! you have had your say!.. Why don't you go?"

Klara shrugged her shoulders and said more lightly:

"Oh, very well, my friend, I'll go… Good-bye, Elsa," she added, with sudden earnestness. "I don't suppose that you want to shake hands with me – and I dare say it's no use asking you to think kindly of me – but I wish you would try and believe that I am sorry I lost myself as I did. I don't think that I ever would have told you if I hadn't seen him looking so happy and so complacent after the horrible, dirty trick which he played me. People used to say that I had a good heart, but, by the Almighty, I declare that I seem to have lost my head lately. That's what I say, Elsa. It's all very well, but what about me? What had I done? – and now, look at my life! But don't you fret about him or any other man. Take my word for it, men are not worth it."

And having said that she turned on her heel and slowly walked away, leaving behind her an ocean of desolation. She walked away – with a slow, swinging stride, one hand on her hip, her head thrown back.

For a long time her darkly-clad figure was silhouetted against the evening sky, a speck of blackness upon the immensity around. Elsa watched her go, watched that tiny black speck which, like the locust which at times devastates the plains, had left behind it an irreparable trail of misery.

CHAPTER XXXII

"The land beyond the sunset."

And now the shadows of evening were slowly invading the plains. The autumn wind, lulled for a time to rest with the setting of the sun, had sprung up in angry gusts, lashing up clouds from the southwest and sending them to tear along and efface the last vestige of the evening crimson glow.

Elsa and Andor had both remained quite still after Klara left them; yet Elsa – like all simple creatures who feel acutely – was longing to run and let the far horizon, the distant unknown land, wrap and enfold her while she thought things out for herself, for indeed this real world – the world of men and women, of passions and hatred and love – was nothing but a huge and cruel puzzle. She longed for solitude – the solitude which the plains can offer in such absolute completeness – because her heart was heavy and she felt that if she were all alone she might ease the weight on her heart in a comforting flow of tears.

But this would not have been kind to Andor. She could not leave him now, when he looked so broken down with sorrow and misery and doubt. So, after a little while, when she felt that if she spoke her voice would be quite steady, she said gently:

"It is not all true, is it, Andor?"

She could not – she would not believe it all true – not in the way that Klara had put it before her, with all its horrible details of callousness and cowardice. For more years than she could remember she had loved and trusted Andor – she had known his simple, loyal nature, his kind and gentle ways – a few spiteful words from a jealous woman were not likely to tear down in a moment the solid edifice of her affection and her confidence. True! his silence had told her something that was a bitter truth; his passionate rage against Klara had been like a cruel stab right into her heart – but even then she wanted the confirmation which could only come from his own lips – and for this she waited when she asked him, quite simply, altogether trustingly:

"It is not true, is it?"

Nor did it occur to Andor to lie to her about it all; the thought of denial never for one moment entered his head. The fatalism peculiar to this Oriental race made the man scorn to shield himself behind a lie. Béla was now for ever silent; the young Count would scorn to speak! His own protestations in the ear of this loving, simple-minded girl, against the accusations of a woman of the despised race – jealous, bitter, avowedly half-crazy – needed only to be uttered in order to be whole-heartedly believed. But even the temptation to pursue such a course never assailed his soul. With the limitless sky above him, the vast immensity of the plains stretching out unbroken far away, with the land under his feet and the scent of the maize-stubble in his nostrils, he was too proud of himself as a man to stoop to such a lie.

So when Elsa spoke to him and asked him that one straight and firm question, he raised his head and looked straight into her tear-dimmed eyes.

"What, Elsa?" he asked quietly.

"That you let Béla go to his death – just like that – as Klara said.. that is not all true, is it?"

And as she returned his look – fearlessly and trustfully – she knew that the question which she had thus put to him was really an affirmation of what she felt must be the truth. But already Andor had raised his voice in hot and passionate protest.

"He was a brute to you, Elsa," he affirmed with all the strength of his manhood, the power of his love, which, in spite of all, would not believe in its own misery; "he would have made you wretchedly unhappy.. he."

"You did do it, then?" she broke in quietly.

"I did it because of you, Elsa," he cried, and his own firm voice was now half-choked with sobs. "He made you unhappy even though you were not yet bound to him by marriage. Once you were his wife he would have made you miserable.. he would have bullied you.. beaten you, perhaps. I heard him out under the verandah speaking to you like the sneering brute that he was… And then he kissed you.. and I.. But even then I didn't give him the key… Klara lied when she said that. I didn't urge him to take it, even – I did not speak about the key. It was lying on the table where I had put it – he took it up – I did not give it him."

"But you let him take it. You knew that he meant to visit Klara, and that Leopold was on the watch outside. Yet you let him go.."

"I let him go… I was nearly mad then with rage at the way he had treated you all day… His taking that key was a last insult put upon you on the eve of your wedding day… The thought of it got into my blood like fire, when I saw his cruel leer and heard his sneers… Later on, I thought better of it.. calmer thoughts had got into my brain.. reason, sober sense… I had gone back to the presbytery, and meant to go to bed – I went out, I swear it by God that I went out prepared to warn him, to help him if I could. The whole village was deserted, it was the hour of supper at the barn. I heard the church clock strike the half-hour after ten. I worked my way round to the back of Goldstein's house and in the yard I saw Béla lying – dead."

"And you might have raised a finger to save him at first.. and you didn't do it."

"Not at first.. and after that it was too late.."

"You have done a big, big wrong, Andor," she said slowly.

"Wrong?" he cried, whilst once more the old spirit of defiance fired him – the burning love in him, the wrath at seeing her unhappy. "Wrong? Because I did not prevent one miserable brute being put out of the way of doing further harm? By the living God, Elsa, I do not believe that it was wrong. I didn't send him to his death, I did not see or speak to Leopold Hirsch, I merely let Fate or God Himself work His way with him. I did not say a word to him that might have induced him to take that key. He picked it up from the table, and every evil thought came into his head then and there. He didn't even care about Klara and a silly, swaggering flirtation with her, he only wanted to insult you, to shame you, to show you that he was the master – and meant to have his way in all things… And this he did because – bar his pride in your beauty – he really hated you and meant to treat you ill. He meant to harm you, Elsa – my own dear dove.. my angel from heaven.. for whom I would have died, and would die to-day, if my death could bring you happiness… I let him go and Leopold Hirsch killed him.. if he had lived, he would have made your life one long misery… Was it my fault that Leopold Hirsch killed him? – killed him at the moment when he was trying to do you as great harm as he could? By God, Elsa, I swear that I don't believe it was my fault.. it was the will of God – God would not punish me for not interfering with His will… Why, it wouldn't be justice, Elsa.. it wouldn't be justice."

His voice broke in one agonized sob. He had put all his heart, all his feelings into that passionate appeal. He did not believe that he had done wrong, he had not on his soul the sense of the brand of Cain. Rough, untutored, a son of the soil, he saw no harm in sweeping out of the way a noisome creature who spreads evil and misery. And Elsa's was also a simple and untutored soul, even though in her calmer temperament the wilder passions of men had found no echo. True and steadfast in love, her mind was too simple to grasp at sophistry, to argue about right or wrong; her feelings were her guide, and even while Andor – burning with love and impatience – argued and clung desperately to his own point of view, she felt only the desire to comfort and to succour – above all, to love – she was just a girl – Andor's sweetheart and not his judge. God alone was that! God would punish if He so desired – indeed, He had punished already, for never had such sorrow descended in Andor's heart before, of that she felt quite sure.

He became quite calm after awhile. Even his passion seemed to have died down under the weight of this immense sorrow.

And the peace which comes from the plains when they are wrapped in the darkness of the night descended on the humble peasant-girl's soul; she saw things as they really were, not as men's turbulent desires would have them be – above all, not as a woman's idealism would picture them.

She no longer had the desire to run away – and if the distant, unknown land was to wrap and enfold her out of the ken of this real, cruel world, then it should enfold her and Andor together, and her love would wrap him and comfort him too.

So now – when he had finished speaking, when his fervent appeal to God and to her had died down on his quivering lips – she came close up to him and placed her small, cool hand upon his arm.

"Andor," she said gently; and her voice shook and was almost undistinguishable from the sweet, soft sounds that filled the limitless plain. "I am only an ignorant peasant-girl – you and I are only like children, of course, beside the clever people who can argue about such things. But this I do know, that there is no sin in the world so great but it can be blotted out and forgiven. You may have done a big, big, wrong, Andor – or perhaps you are not much to blame.. I don't know how that is.. Pater Bonifácius will tell you, no doubt, when next you make your confession to him… But I am too ignorant to understand.. the plains have taught me all I know.. and.. and.. I shall always love you, Andor.. and not judge what you have done… God will do that… I can only love you… That is all!"

Her voice died away in the soughing of the wind. For a moment or two he stood beside her – not daring to speak – or to move – or to take that cool, little white hand in his and kiss it – for now she seemed to him more pure than she had ever been – almost holy – like a saint – hallowed by the perfect selflessness of her love.

And as he stood beside her – with head bent and throat choked with sobs of infinite happiness – the darkness of the night fell wholly upon the plain. Nothing around but just this darkness, filled with all the sounds of hidden, pulsating life; overhead the clouds chased one another ceaselessly and restlessly, and from far away the dull murmur of the water came as a faint and rumbling echo.