Sunrise, William Black [the best books of all time .txt] 📗

chair, his eyes gazing aimlessly at the window. But whenever anyone spoke of Natalie, or whenever he himself had to speak of her, a quite new expression came into his face; the brows lifted, the eyes were gentle. "What does she say? Why, nothing. Lind requested me neither to see her nor write to her; and I thought that reasonable until I should have heard what he had to say to me. There is a message I got half an hour ago--not from her."

He handed to Lord Evelyn the anonymous scroll that he had received from the old German.

"Poor old Calabressa!" he said. "Those Italians are always very fond of little mysteries. But how he must have loved that woman?"

"Natalie's mother?"

"Yes," said the other, absently. "I wonder he has never gone to see his sweetheart of former years."

"What do you mean?"

Brand started. It was not necessary that Lord Evelyn should in the mean time be intrusted with that secret.

"He told me that when he saw Natalie it was to him like a vision from the dead; she was so like her mother. But I must be off, Evelyn; I have to meet Molyneux at two. So that is your advice," he said, as he went to the door--"that I should comply with Lind's demand; or--to put it another way--succumb to his threat?"

"It is not my advice at all--quite the contrary. I say, if you have any doubt or distrust--if you cannot make the sacrifice without perfect faith and satisfaction to yourself--do not think of it."

"And go to America?"

"I cannot believe that any such compulsory alternative exists. But about Natalie, surely you will send her a message; Lind cannot object to that?"

"I will send her no message; I will go to her," the other said, firmly. "I believe Lind wishes me not to see her. Within the duties demanded of me by the Society, his wishes are to me commands; elsewhere and otherwise neither his wishes nor his commands do I value more than a lucifer-match. Is that plain enough, Evelyn?"

And so he went away, forgetting all the sage counsel Calabressa had given him; thinking rather of the kindly, thoughtful, mysterious little message the old man had left behind him, and of the beautiful caged bird that sighed and wept because she thought she was forgotten. She should not think that long!


CHAPTER XXVI.


A PROMISE.

This was a dark time indeed for Natalie Lind--left entirely by herself, ignorant of what was happening around her, and haunted by vague alarms. But the girl was too proud to show to any one how much she suffered. On the contrary, she reasoned and remonstrated with herself; and forced herself to assume an attitude of something more than resignation, of resolution. If it was necessary that her father should be obeyed, that her lover should maintain this cruel silence, even that he and she should have the wide Atlantic separate them forever, she would not repine. It was not for her who had so often appealed to others to shrink from sacrifice herself. And if this strange new hope that had filled her heart for a time had to be finally abandoned, what of that? What mattered a single life? She had the larger hope; there was another and greater future for her to think about; and she could cherish the thought that she at least had done nothing to imperil or diminish the work to which so many of her friends had given their lives.

But silence is hard to bear. Ever since the scene with her father, a certain undeclared estrangement had prevailed between these two; and no reference whatsoever had been made to George Brand. Her lover had sent her no message--no word of encouragement, of assurance, or sympathy. Even Calabressa had gone. There remained to her only the portrait that Calabressa had given her; and in the solitude of her own room many a time she sat and gazed at the beautiful face with some dim, wondering belief that she was looking at her other self, and that she could read in the features some portion of her own experiences, her own joys and sorrows. For surely those soft, dark, liquid eyes must have loved and been beloved? And had they too filled with gladness when a certain step had been heard coming near? and they looked up with trust and pride and tenderness, and filled with tears again in absence, when only the memory of loving words remained? She recalled many a time what Calabressa had said to her--"My child, may Heaven keep you as true and brave as your mother was, and send you more happiness." Her mother, then, had not been happy? But she was brave, Calabressa had said: when she loved a man, would she not show herself worthy of her love?

This was all very well; but in spite of her reasoning and her forced courage, and her self-possession in the presence of others, Natalie had got into the habit of crying in the quietude of her own room, to the great distress of the little Anneli, who had surprised her once or twice. And the rosy-cheeked German maid guessed pretty accurately what had happened; and wondered very much at the conduct of English lovers, who allowed their sweethearts to pine and fret in solitude without sending them letters or coming to see them. But on this particular afternoon Anneli opened the door, in answer to a summons, and found outside a club commissionaire whom she had seen once or twice before; and when he gave her a letter, addressed in a handwriting which she recognized, and ask for an answer, she was as much agitated as if it had come from her own sweetheart in Gorlitz. She snatched it from the man, as if she feared he would take it back. She flew with it up-stairs, breathless. She forgot to knock at the door.

"Oh, Fraulein, it is a letter!" said she, in great excitement, "and there is to be an answer--"

Then she hesitated. But the good-sense of the child told her she ought to go.

"I will wait outside, Fraulein. Will you ring when you have written the answer?"

When Natalie opened the letter she was outwardly quite calm--a little pale, perhaps; but as she read it her heart beat fast. And it was her heart that instantly dictated the answer to this brief and simple appeal:

"My Natalie,--It is your father's wish that I should not see you. Is it your wish also? There is something I would like to say to you."

It was her heart that answered. She rose directly. She never thought twice, or even once, about any wish, or menace, or possible consequence. She went straight to her desk, and with a shaking hand wrote these lines:

"My Own,--Come to me now, at any time--when you please. Am I not yours?

Natalie."

Despite herself, she had to pause, to steady her hand--and because her heart was beating so fast that she felt choked--before she could properly address the envelope. Then she carried the letter to Anneli, who she knew was waiting outside. That done, she shut herself in again, to give herself time to think, though in truth she could scarcely think at all. For all sorts of emotions were struggling for the mastery of her--joy and a proud resolve distinctly predominant. It was done, and she would abide by it. She was not given to fear.

But she tried hard to think. At last her lover was coming to her; he would ask her what she was prepared to do: what would she answer?

Then, again, the joy of the thought that she was about to see him drove every other consideration out of her mind. How soon might he be here? Hurriedly she went to a jar of flowers on the table, chose some scarlet geraniums, and turned to a mirror. Her haste did not avail much, for her fingers were still trembling: but that was the color he had said, on one occasion, suited her best. She had not been wearing flowers in her hair of late.

From time to time, for a second or so, some thought of her father intervened. But then her father had only enjoined her to dismiss forever the hope of her marrying the man to whom she had given her heart and her life: that could not prevent her loving him, and seeing him, and telling him that her love was his. She wished the geraniums were less rose-red and more scarlet in hue. It was the scarlet he had approved of--that evening that he and she the little Polish lady had dined together.

She had not long to wait. With a quick, intense consciousness she heard the hansom drive up, and the rapid knock that followed; her heart throbbed through the seconds of silence; then she knew that he was ascending the stair; then it seemed to her as if the life would go out of her altogether. But when he flung the door open and came toward her; when he caught her two hands in his--one hand in each hand--and held them tight; when, in a silence that neither cared to break, he gazed into her rapidly moistening eyes--then the full tide of joy and courage returned to her heart, and she was proud that she had sent him that answer. For some seconds--to be remembered during a life time--they regarded each other in silence; then he released her hands, and began to put back the hair from her forehead as if he would see more clearly into the troubled deeps of her eyes; and then, somehow--perhaps to hide her crying--she buried her face in his breast, and his arms were around her, and she was sobbing out all the story of her waiting and her despair.

"What!" said he, cheerfully, to calm and reassure her, "the brave Natalie to be frightened like that!"

"I was alone," she murmured. "I had no one to speak to; and I could not understand. Oh, my love, my love, you do not know what you are to me!"

He kissed her; her cheeks were wet.

"Natalie," said he in a low voice, "don't forget this: we may be separated--that is possible--I don't know; but if we live fifty years apart from each other--if you never hear one word more from me or of me--be sure of this, that I am thinking of you always, and loving you, as I do at this moment when my arms are around you. Will you remember that? Will you believe that--always?"

"I could not think otherwise," she answered. "But now that you are with me--that I can hear you speak to me--" And at this point her voice failed her altogether; and he could only draw her closer to him, and soothe and caress her, and stroke the raven-black hair that had never before thrilled his fingers with its soft, strange touch.

"Perhaps," she said at last, in a broken and hesitating voice, "you will blame me for having said what I have said. I have had no girl-companions; scarcely any woman to tell me what I should do and say. But--but I thought you were going to America--I thought I should never see you again--I was lonely and miserable; and when I saw you again, how could I help saying I was glad? How could I help saying that, and more?--for I never knew it till now. Oh, my love, do you know that you have become the whole world to me? When you are away from me, I would