Sunrise by William Black (online e book reader TXT) 📖

courage, her hope, her frank friendship with those who would help?

He was impatient with the veteran Waters this morning; and Waters was himself fractious, and inclined to resent sarcasm. He had just heard from Buckinghamshire that his substitute had, for some reason or other, intrusted the keys of the wine-cellar to one of the house-maids; and that that industrious person had seized the opportunity to tilt up all the port-wine she could lay her hands on in order to polish the bottles with a duster.

"Well," said his master, "I suppose she collected the cobwebs and sold them to a wine-merchant: they would be invaluable."

Waters said nothing, but resolved to have a word with the young woman when he went down.

The morning was fine; in any case, Brand could not have borne the distress of waiting in all day, on the chance of her reply coming. He had to be moving. He walked up to Lisle Street, and saw Reitzei, on the pretext of talking about Kirski.

"Lind will be back in a week," said the pallid-faced smart young man. "He writes with great satisfaction, which always means something in his case. I should not wonder if he and his daughter went to live in the States."

"Oh, indeed," said Brand, coldly; but the words made his heart tremble.

"Yes. And if you would only go through the remaining degrees, you might take his place--who knows?"

"Who knows, indeed?" said Brand. "But I don't covet the honor."

There was something in his tone which made the other look up.

"I mean the responsibility," he said, quickly.

"You see," observed Reitzei, leaning back in his chair, "one must admit you are having rather hard lines. Your work is invaluable to us--Lind is most proud of it--but it is tedious and difficult, eh? Now if they were to give you something like the Syrian business--"

"What is that?"

"Oh, only one of the many duties the Society has undertaken," said Reitzei, carelessly. "Not that I approve because the people are Christians; it is because they are numerically weak; and the Mahommedans treat them shamefully. There is no one knows about it; no one to make a row about it; and the Government won't let the poor wretches import arms to defend themselves. Very well: very well, messieurs! But your Government allow the importation of guns for sport. Ha! and then, if one can find money, and an ingenious English firm to make rifle-barrels to fit into the sporting-gun stock can you conceive any greater fun than smuggling these barrels into the country? My dear fellow, it is glorious: we could have five hundred volunteers! But at the same time I say your work is more valuable to us. No one but an Englishman could do it. Every one knows of your success."

Brand thanked Reitzei for his good opinion, and rather absently took up his hat and left. Instinctively he made his way westward. He was sure to see her, at a distance, taking this morning stroll of hers: might he not guess something from her face as to what her reply would be? She could not have written so soon; she would take time to consider; even a refusal would, he knew, be gently worded.

In any case, he would see her; and if her answer gave no hope, it would be the last time on which he would follow that graceful figure from afar with his eyes, and wonder to himself what the low and musical voice was saying to Anneli. And as he walked on, he grew more and more downhearted. It was a certainty that, out of all those friends of her father's some one must have dreamed of possessing this beautiful prize for his own.

When, after not much waiting, he saw Natalie and Anneli cross into the Park, he had so reasoned himself into despair that he was not surprised--at least he tried to convince himself that he was not surprised--to perceive that the former was accompanied by a stranger, the little German maid-servant walking not quite with them, and yet not altogether behind them. He could almost have expected this; and yet his eyes seemed hot, and he had some difficulty in trying to make out who this might be. And at this great distance he could only gather that he was foreign in appearance, and that he wore a peaked cap in place of a hat.

He dared not follow them now; and he was about to turn away when he saw Natalie's new companion motion to her to sit down on one of the seats. He sat down, too; and he took her hand, and held it in his. What then?

This man looking on from a distance, with a bitter heart, had no thought against her. Was it not natural for so beautiful a girl to have a lover? But that this fellow--this foreigner--should degrade her by treating her as if she were a nursery-maid flirting with one of the soldiers from the barracks down there, this filled him with bitterness and hatred. He turned and walked away with a firm step. He had no ill thoughts of her, whatever message she might send him. At the worst, she had been generous to him; she had filled his life with love and hope; she had given him a future. If this dream were shattered, at least he could turn elsewhere, and say, "Labor, be thou my good."

Meanwhile, of this stranger? He had indeed taken Natalie Lind's hand in his, and Natalie let it remain there without hesitation.

"My little daughter," said he to her in Italian, "I could have recognized you by your hands. You have the hands of your mother: no one in the world had more beautiful hands than she had. And now I will tell you about her, if you promise not to cry any more."

It was Calabressa who spoke.


CHAPTER XVII.


CALABRESSA.

When Calabressa called at the house in Curzon Street he was at once admitted; Natalie recognizing the name as that of one of her father's old friends. Calabressa had got himself up very smartly, to produce an impression on the little Natalushka whom he expected to see. His military-looking coat was tightly buttoned; he had burnished up the gold braid of his cap; and as he now ascended the stairs he gathered the ends of his mustache out of his yellow-white beard and curled them round and round his fingers and pulled them out straight. He had already assumed a pleasant smile.

But when he entered the shaded drawing-room, and beheld this figure before him, all the dancing-master's manner instantly fled from him. He seemed thunderstruck; he shrunk back a little; his cap fell to the floor; he could not utter a word.

"Excuse me--excuse me, mademoiselle," he gasped out at length, in his odd French. "Ah, it is like a ghost--like other years come back--"

He stared at her.

"I am very pleased to see you, sir," said she to him, gently, in Italian.

"Her voice also--her voice also!" he exclaimed, almost to himself, in the same tongue. "Signorina, you will forgive me--but--when one sees an old friend--you are so like--ah, so like--"

"You are speaking of my mother?" the girl said, with her eyes cast down. "I have been told that I was like her. You knew her, signore?"

Calabressa pulled himself together somewhat. He picked up his cap; he assumed a more business-like air.

"Oh yes, signorina, I knew her," he said, with an apparent carelessness, but he was regarding her all the same. "Yes, I knew her well. We were friends long before she married. What, are you surprised that I am so old? Do you know that I can remember you when you were a very little thing--at Dunkirk it was--and what a valiant young lady you were, and you would go to fight the Russians all by yourself! And you--you do not remember your mother?"

"I cannot tell," she said, sadly. "They say it is impossible, and yet I seem to remember one who loved me, and my grief when I asked for her and found she would never come back--or else that is only my recollection of what I was told by others. But what of that? I know where she is now: she is my constant companion. I know she loved me; I know she is always regarding me; I talk to her, so that I am never quite alone; at night I pray to her, as if she were a saint--"

She turned aside somewhat; her eyes were full of tears. Calabressa said quickly,

"Ah, signorina, why recall what is so sad? It is so useless. Allons donc! shall I tell you of my surprise when I saw you first? A ghost--that is nothing! It is true, your father warned me. He said, 'The little Natalushka is a woman now.' But how could one believe it?"

She had recovered her composure; she begged him to be seated.

"Bien! One forgets. Then my old mother--my dear young lady, even I, old as I am, have a mother--what does she do but draw a prize in the Austro-Hungarian lottery--a huge prize--enough to demoralize one for life--five thousand florins. More remarkable still, the money is paid. Not so remarkable, my good mother declares she will give half of it to an undutiful son, who has never done very well with money in this world. We come to the denouement quickly. 'What,' said I, 'shall I do with my new-found liberty and my new-found money? To the devil with banks! I will be off and away to the land of fogs to see my little friend Natalushka, and ask her what she thinks of the Russians now.' And the result? My little daughter, you have given me such a fright that I can feel my hands still trembling."

"I am very sorry," said she, with a smile. This gay manner of his had driven away her sad memories. It seemed quite natural to her that he should address her as "My little daughter."

"But where are the fogs? It is a paradise that I have reached--the air clear and soft, the gardens beautiful. This morning I said to myself, 'I will go early. Perhaps the little Natalushka will be going out for a walk; perhaps we will go together.' No, signorina," said he, with a mock-heroic bow, "it was not with the intention of buying you toys. But was I not right? Do I not perceive by your costume that you were about to go out?"

"That is nothing, signore," said she. "It would be very strange if I could not give up my morning walk for an old friend of my father's."

"An contraire, you shall not give up your walk," said he, with great courtesy. "We will go together; and then you will tell me about your father."

She accepted this invitation without the slightest scruple. It did not occur to her--as it would naturally have occurred, to most English girls--that she would rather not go walking in Hyde Park with a person who looked remarkably like the leader of a German band.

But Calabressa had known her mother.

"Ah, signore," said she, when they had got into the outer air, "I shall be so grateful to you if you will tell me about my mother. My father will not speak of her; I dare not awaken his grief again; he must have suffered much. You will tell me about her."

"My little daughter, your father is wise. Why awaken old sorrows? You must not spoil