CHAPTER XXIII.
“THE TIMES ARE OUT OF JOINT.”
Never since the Burgomaster’s daughter returned from Freiburg, had the old house in the Munster Gasse seemed so dull and sombre as in these last days. A shadow had somehow settled upon it, and even the dining-hall, always the very sanctum of snugness, had come to be oppressively gloomy.
It was odd too, for the fire on the wide hearth burned and crackled as briskly as heretofore, the board was laden heavily as ever with good fare, and sparkled with ruby and golden tinted wines; and if folks have dainty food and warmth, what more can they possibly want to make life happy? Then Sabina’s cat Mitte purred and dozed away her precious life beside the fire, just as ever she had done since kittenhood had become to her as a foolish dream, and the old clock’s eyes goggled, and it ticked away at its eternal song, and the young house-mistress still plied her needle in the window corner. Truly she had given up singing the sweet old songs she used to sing, and her virginal stood, polished indeed, but idle and mute as the voice of the little mistress, and,—well, there is no doubt that very trifling matters greatly influence the atmosphere of daily life, and possibly it was the absence of Sabina’s happy voice which occasioned this palpable dreariness. Ever since Cousin Radegund had slipped in to pay Sabina that nocturnal visit, the child had grown so preternaturally grave and silent, walking about the house with slow noiseless footfall, and an air as serious as the demurest Anabaptist maiden in all Strassburg. Indeed, Niklaus almost began to fear she might have become infected with some one or other of the heretic notions flying about; but he soon dispossessed himself of that fancy, because his daughter was, if anything, more regular than ever in her visits to the Saint Laurence chapel. And at last, the utterly nonplussed Burgomaster asked Sabina point blank what ailed her, and Sabina said, “Nothing, Väterle; what put such fancies into your head?” in such admirably simulated tones of gaiety that Niklaus could say no more.
He was, however, not one whit better satisfied. Something, he felt persuaded, was out of joint, and he would have given his best diamond to set it right, even had it been only for his own selfish sake. It was so appallingly dull of an evening now for one thing. The Professor Dasipodius had, for instance, not looked in—oh, for quite these ten days past, and the Burgomaster missed his chats horribly. One thing, however, Niklaus argued from these dull facts, and that was that any foolish notions Sabina and Conrad Dasipodius might have had about each other had come to nothing, because when he had hinted they might do as they liked, the two perverse creatures had just turned off at a tangent, and chosen to stand aloof ever since. Oh, he had noticed it all. He did not wear his head in a bag, whatever people might think, and however certain wiseheads had blamed him for not playing the stern parent and forbidding any communication between them, if he was against the match—if he was, which indeed he had come to be not so sure about. In any case, he was no friend to curbing reins—let young creatures have their heads a bit, and then they would soon find their senses, as no doubt these two had done, and found out—before it was too late—Heaven be thanked, that they were not made to run in a couple. Had he been obdurate, then of course they would have made martyrs of themselves, and his life would have been rendered a burden to him by red eyes and ceaseless sighings, and the knowledge of being privately regarded as a monster—but now nothing of this sort could be laid to his charge. That was one comfort. But it was not all sufficing. The fact of the change in Sabina remained, and sorely it fretted him. Could it be the weather perhaps? Ay, ay. The weather it must be, of course. Such grey leaden sky, such snarling biting east winds, making handsome women look plain, and ordinary ones atrociously ugly, were not within living memory; and Sabina had so shivered that day when they had been out together and met Conrad Dasipodius. Detestable, nasty, cold-catching weather! Why, his own twinges might have taught him how it all was. As if any lady was ever cheerful yet with a wretched east wind howling! Would it amuse the poor little thing now if he were to invite her Cousin Radegund to come and stay a few days with her? That was a happy thought, and he opened it up to Sabina; but she said, and just the least bit snappishly too, that it wouldn’t amuse her at all; and that she didn’t want to be amused, and she would amuse herself very well indeed—and then she turned deadly pale, and some penitent tears welled up into her eyes as she stole a glance at the Burgomaster’s perplexed and troubled face, and she went on to tell him that he was a dear, and better than a million Radegunds. And still the old man was not satisfied; for those paling looks reminded him of that strange swooning fit of hers, and he threatened to call in Dr. Bruno Wolkenberg, and then Sabina grew downright fierce, and vowed that Dr. Wolkenberg might come and he might go, but that she would not see him, if there was the faintest idea of his setting foot professionally on her account inside the door.
Niklaus was, however, equal to the occasion, and after cunningly allowing a day or two to pass over, he invited the doctor to supper. To this Sabina dared offer no opposition, for Bruno being almost as great a favourite with the Burgomaster as the Professor Dasipodius himself, was frequently their guest, and on this occasion deferred other engagements to accept the invitation, and watched Sabina more closely than she ever guessed. And when he went away, he tried to comfort the distressed old man, saying that indeed Mistress Sabina did look a little pale, but it was best, in his opinion, not to worry her; and that with the warm spring days perhaps—no doubt indeed, the Lily would revive and be all herself again. Such weather as they were having would try a horse’s constitution. And then Niklaus said something not at all polite about the weather, and hoped Bruno was right, which was precisely what the doctor himself hoped, but he felt the hope to be rather a forlorn one, and his heart bled for the girl.
In the few moments tête-à-tête he was able to snatch with Sabina, he had striven to say something comforting to her, but he felt awkward and diffident, and blundered wretchedly over his words. Sabina had, however, smiled in her own gentle way, and murmured with quivering lips something about Bruno’s goodness, and that she should never forget all that he had done, and all he had tried to do for her; and then Bruno had stammered and bungled worse than ever, and said “that of all the perverse worlds he had ever known, this one seemed the worst, and in short there never was such an aggravating world as it was, and the more you tried to make things go straight and comfortable, the more they went crooked, and—and——”; and then he took to rumpling up his hair, and staring into the fire in his old dazed perplexed sort of way, and a few minutes after Niklaus came in, and no more could be said, which was after all quite as well perhaps, seeing it was impossible to say the right thing; and he might have foundered upon some remark so entirely wrong, that he would never have ceased repenting he had given it tongue.
Never had Bruno found himself on the horns of such a dilemma as this. Here on the one side the small breach between himself and his best friend had widened, because that friend believed he had betrayed his confidence—and this too, perhaps, for the second time—whereas Bruno was altogether guiltless.
From the bottom of his heart the surgeon loved truth; and when Sabina had gone to him, and demanded of him confirmation of that which she had not chosen to accept from Radegund alone, Bruno felt there was no alternative for him but to admit the truth. There had been no need to tell it. Sabina had simply required of him a yes or no. When she had come to him that night, and he had carried the half-fainting girl into his laboratory, and was tending her back to consciousness, he, guessing with a sort of shrinking dread at what the nature of her errand to him was, had sternly told himself that no power on earth, and certainly not this weak hysterical girl, should wring from him any admissions. The paroxysm, however, of distress and surprise at her unexpected encounter with Dasipodius past, Bruno found it was no weak hysterical girl he had to gain an easy victory over, but a grave calm woman; very pale and sad looking truly, but full of resolute earnestness; and simply, with no taint of heroics, she told the surgeon how all Conrad’s happiness and future welfare hung on the question she had come to ask him being honestly answered, and then she said: “Is Conrad Dasipodius blind? Yes or no?”
At first Bruno had striven to evade it, by saying that such a question should be put only to Dasipodius himself; but Sabina met this objection in her own way. “Do you think then, Dr. Wolkenberg,” she said, “that out of a piece of mean curiosity I should risk what I have risked in coming here to-night? Must I tell you that it is for his sake, that I will not ask him this question?”
Bruno was silent. Only the outworks of his barricade were as yet damaged.
“Answer me, Dr. Bruno,” she went on. “Have not I a right to know the truth?”
Still Bruno made no answer.
“Conrad Dasipodius is your friend, is he not?”
“Yes,” bluntly replied Bruno.
“You love him?”
“Ay,” murmured the surgeon; “from my soul I do.”
“So do I,” said Sabina, the red blood mantling over her white face. “Now will you believe me? Now will you tell me?”
And Bruno did believe, and no longer withheld from her the deplorable truth. He was not a little puzzled to think how she had come by her suspicion, and made several attempts in his turn to win from her some enlightenment on that score; but Sabina shrank from betraying Radegund to the man who made his idol of her, and she parried the questioning womanfully.
“I thought so, Dr. Bruno,” she said, “because I thought so.” And the surgeon admiringly credited her perceptive powers.
To his educated, professional insight, it had seemed marvellous that people had not long ago detected the truth. The mathematician’s eyes were clear and well opened it is true, but they wore the indescribable dull luminosity which marks the terrible disease. He could only attribute the undeniable fact that it had not been generally discovered to the abnormal beauty and magnificent conformation of the brow and temples, and the length of the shading lashes, which lent seeming expression and vitality to what was in actual truth dead. But what less interested folks had failed to mark, Sabina’s loving solicitude had taught her, and it raised her incredibly in the doctor’s estimation. Hitherto he had held her to be a charming, simple-minded little maiden, who would doubtless prove herself a very agreeable distraction and plaything for his friend when he should cast aside his professional cares; and he did not think, take things for all in all, that Dasipodius had chosen unwisely, but now as he looked at her and listened to the quiet earnest voice, it seemed to him that whoever placed his fate in this girl’s keeping, would never have to repent of what he had done. “She is to be his wife,” argued Bruno to himself; and already in her heart she is wife to him now; and to love and be loved again in such fashion as that, seemed to him a blessed thing indeed, and would make one proof against every other adversity under the sun.
To such devotion as he believed to be Sabina’s, he found that he dared not so much as whisper of conditions of secrecy; it would have been insult to tell her to keep her discovery to herself, and he only said to her as she drew her hood about her face again, and fastened her cloak: “You know how much for Conrad’s good or evil future rests upon this matter, Mistress Sabina. But you are to be trusted.”
And giving him her hand in farewell, she said, “I am to be trusted, Bruno Wolkenberg”.
Then declining all escort, she had found her way home alone. Yet here not a week gone, and Sabina had betrayed her trust! She must have done so. What a truism that a secret between three is no secret. Wolkenberg felt himself a traitorous fool now. What should he say to her for this she had done? He pondered on that question till his brain grew sick; and then when he came to the Munster-gasse, and saw the girl’s sad patient face, he said nothing at all to her; but he said to himself when he was outside in the street again, as he had said to Dasipodius, “I could swear she loves him—still. And there is some devilry at the bottom of this.”