Each time he returned and left the noisy train and the smart modern railway station behind him, to plunge into the silent forest, he felt more strongly that his real sympathies all lay between Greifenstein and Sigmundskron, and that his visits to the world were only disturbing dreams. They must be renewed from time to time, at ever-increasing intervals, but the real peace of his life awaited him in his home. He, too, like Hilda, was a child of the woods, and felt that the trees, the foaming streams and the changeless crags were all parts of himself, to lose which would be like forfeiting a limb of his body or a sense of his intelligence. The baroness need not have been afraid lest he should wander about the world to forget Sigmundskron or Hilda. Nature had made him constant, and circumstances had made him happy in his own place.
And so for years the lives of all these persons had run on, until the time was approaching when Greif and Hilda were to be married, and great changes were to be made at Sigmundskron. Greif had come home for the last time but one, and his next return would be final. During months and years the baroness and her daughter had been slowly preparing for the great event. The most unheard-of economies had been imagined and carried out in the attempt to give Hilda a little outfit for her wedding, just enough to hide the desperate poverty in which they had lived. Many a long winter’s evening had the two ladies spun the fine flax by the smouldering fire; many a long day had Hilda and Berbel spent at the primitive loom in the sunny room of the south tower; through many a summer’s noon had the long breadths of fine linen lain bleaching on the clean grey stone of the ramparts, watered by the faithful servant’s careful hand. Endless had been the thought expended before cutting into each piece of the precious material; endless the labour lavished upon the fine embroideries by Hilda herself, upon the minute stitching by her brave-hearted mother. But the work had progressed well, and the finished garments that lay amidst bundles of sweet-smelling dried herbs in the great old press would have done credit to the spinning and weaving and handiwork of skilled craftsmen. It was fortunate that there had been time for it all, else Hilda would have made but a poor figure on the great day.
As for Berbel she believed that the forest itself had helped them, when she saw all that had been accomplished and remembered how she had bought the flax pound by pound at the market. Though a great share in the joint success was due to her own patient industry, the result seemed so fine as compared with the humble beginnings that she was much inclined to thank the Heinzelmannchen and their ‘brownies’ for the most part of it all. The baroness thanked Providence, and Hilda thought it was all due to her love for Greif. Perhaps they were all three right, and possibly each shared in some measure the views of the other two. At least so far as the gnomes are concerned, most people who have lived long in forests and solitary places have discovered that their work, if they like it, is performed with a rapidity and skill which is marvellous in their own eyes, and if you do not call the little gentleman who comes at night and helps you by the name of Rubezahl, you may call him the Spirit of Peace. But as long as you receive him kindly and give him his due it matters very little how you christen him, for he is an affectionate spirit and loves those who love him for himself, and does their work for them, or makes them think he does, which, in fact, is just the same.
Unfortunately there are other spirits as busy as he in the world, and he has a way of taking himself off at the slightest alarm, which is often very distressing to those who love him; and some of those other spirits had chosen for their abode the Castle of Greifenstein and for their companions the persons who dwelt there. The unforeseen plays a very great part in our lives; for if it did not, we should most of us know exactly what to do at the right moment, and should consequently approach perfection at an unnatural rate. While Greif and his father were slowly ascending the hill towards their home, while Frau von Greifenstein was looking at herself in her mirror and wondering whether she had not thrown away her youth after all, while Berbel was weaving and Hilda embroidering and the old baroness stitching steadily along the folded linen — while all these people were thus quietly and peaceably engaged, an event was brewing which was destined to produce some very remarkable results. And lest the justification of ordinary possibility should be required by the sceptical hereafter, I will at once state that the greater part of what follows is a matter of history, well known to many living persons; and that in writing it down I wish it to be understood that I am submitting to the judgment of humanity a strange case which actually occurred within this century, rather than constructing from my own imagination a mere romance for the delectation of such as will take the trouble to read it.
CHAPTER III
‘OH! IS IT not too delightful to see my dear, dear cousins!’ screamed Frau von Greifenstein, throwing herself into the arms of the pale and quiet baroness. ‘And dear Hilda, too! Ach, ist es nicht herzig! Is it not too sweet!’
She was wonderfully arrayed in an exceedingly youthful costume, short enough to display her thin, elderly ankles, and adorned with many flying ribbands and furbelows. An impossibly high garden hat crowned her faded head, allowing certain rather unattached-looking ringlets of colourless blonde hair to stray about her cheeks. She made one think of a butterfly, no longer young, but attempting to keep up the illusions of spring. Hilda and her mother smiled and returned the salutation in their quiet way.
‘And how have you been at Sigmundskron?’ continued the sprightly lady. ‘Do you know? It would be my dream to live at Sigmundskron! So romantic, so solitary, so deliciously poetic! It is no wonder that you look like Cinderella and the fairy godmother! I am sure they both lived at Sigmundskron — and Greif will be the Prince Charmant with his Puss in Boots — quite a Lohengrin in fact — dear me! I am afraid I am mixing them up — those old German myths are so confusing, and I am quite beside myself with the joy of seeing you!’
Greifenstein stood looking on, not a muscle of his face betraying the slightest emotion at his wife’s incoherent speech. But Greif had turned away and appeared to be examining one of the guns that stood in a rack against the wall. The meeting had taken place in the great hall, and he was glad that there was something to look at, for he did not know whether he was most amused by his mother’s chatter, or ashamed of the ridiculous figure she made. The impression was certainly a painful one, and he had not attained to his father’s grim indifference, for he was not obliged to assist daily at such scenes. He could not help comparing Hilda’s mother with his own, and he inwardly determined that when he was married he would take up his abode at Sigmundskron during the greater part of the year.
Hilda looked at her hostess and wondered whether all women of the world were like Frau von Greifenstein. The situation did not last long, however, and half an hour later she found herself sitting beside Greif on a block of stone by the ruined Hunger-Thurm.
‘At last!’ exclaimed Greif, with a sigh of satisfaction. ‘Is there anything so tiresome as the sight of affectionate greetings?’
‘Greif—’ Hilda paused, as though reconsidering the question she was about to ask.
‘Yes — what is it, sweetheart?’
‘When we are married, I must love your mother, must I not?’
‘Oh yes — no doubt,’ answered the young man with a puzzled expression. ‘At least, I suppose you must try.’
‘But I mean, if I do not love her as much as my own mother, will it be very wrong?’
‘No, not so much, of course.’
‘Do you love her, Greif?’
‘Oh yes,’ replied Greif cheerfully. ‘Not as I love you—’
‘Or your father?’
‘That is different, a man feels more sympathy for his father, because he is a man.’
‘But I am not a man—’
‘No, and you are not my mother either. That is again different, you see.’
‘Greif — you do not love your mother at all!’ exclaimed Hilda, turning her bright eyes to his. But he looked away and his face grew grave.
‘Please do not say th
at to me, dear,’ he answered quietly. ‘Let us talk of other things.’
‘Does it pain you? I am sorry. I asked you because — well, I wanted to know if it was exactly my duty — because — you see, I do not think I ever could, quite, as I ought to. You are not angry?’
‘No, darling. I quite understand. It will be enough if you behave to her as you do now. Besides, I was going to propose something, if your mother will agree to it. When we are married, we might live at Sigmundskron.’
‘Oh! Greif, are you in earnest?’
‘Yes. Why not?’
‘You do not know what a place it is!’ exclaimed Hilda with an uneasy laugh. She had visions of her husband discovering the utter desolation of the old castle, but at the same time she felt a sudden wild desire to see it all restored and furnished and kept up as it should be.
‘Yes, I know. But there are many reasons why I should like it. Of course it has gone to ruin, more or less, and there would be something to be done.’
‘Something!’ cried Hilda. ‘Everything! The great rooms are perfectly desolate, no furniture, hardly any glass in the windows. We are so poor, Greif!’
‘But I can put panes into the frames and get some furniture. We need not have so much at first.’
‘But you will have to get everything, everything. You are used to so much here.’
‘I should not need much if I had you,’ answered Greif looking at her, as the colour rose in his own face.
‘I do not know. Perhaps not.’
‘I should be happy with you in a woodman’s hut,’ said Greif earnestly.
‘Perhaps,’ replied Hilda a little doubtfully.
‘There is no “perhaps.” I am quite sure of it.’
‘How can you be sure?’ asked the young girl turning suddenly and laying her hands upon his arm. ‘Did not your father say the same — no, forgive me! I will not speak of that. Oh Greif! What is love — really — the meaning of it, the true spirit of it? Why does it sometimes last and sometimes — not? Are all men so different one from another, and women too? Is it not like religion, that when you once believe you always believe? I have thought about it so much, and I cannot understand it. And yet I know I love you. Why can I not understand what I feel? Is it very foolish of me? Am I less clever than other girls?’
‘No, indeed!’ Greif drew her to him, and kissed her cheek. Her colour never changed. With innocent simplicity she turned her face and kissed him in return.
‘Then why is it?’ she asked. ‘And none of my books tell me what it means, though I have read them all. Can you not tell me, you who know so much? What is the use of all your studies and your universities, if you cannot tell me what it is I feel, what love is?’
‘Does love need explanation? What does the meaning matter, when one has it?’
‘Ah, you may say that of anything. Would the air be sweeter, if I knew what it was? Would the storm be louder, or grander, or more angry, if I knew what made it? And besides, I do know, for I have learned about storms in my books. But it is not the same thing. Love is not part of nature, I am sure. It is a part of the soul. But then, why should it sometimes change? The soul does not change, for it is eternal.’
‘But true love does not change either—’
‘And yet people seem to think it is true, until it changes,’ argued Hilda. ‘There must be something by which one can tell whether it is true or not.’
‘One must not be too logical with love, any more than with religion.’
‘Religion? Why, that is the most logical thing we know anything about!’
‘And yet people have differed very much in their opinions of it,’ said Greif with a smile.
‘Is it not logical that good people should go to heaven and bad people to hell?’ inquired Hilda calmly. ‘Religion would be illogical if it taught that sinners should all be saved and saints burnt in everlasting fire. How can you say it is not logical?’
‘It certainly cannot be said if one takes your view,’ Greif answered, laughing. ‘But then, if you look at love in the same way, you get the same result. People who love each other are happy and people who quarrel are not.’
‘Yes; but then, love does not only consist in not quarrelling.’
‘Nor religion in not being a sinner — but I am not sure—’ Greif interrupted himself. ‘Perhaps that is just what religion means.’
‘Then why cannot love mean something quite as simple?’
‘It seems simple enough to me. So long as we are everything to each other we shall understand it quite enough.’
‘Just so long—’
‘And that means for ever.’
‘How do you know, unless you have some knowledge by which you can tell whether your love is true or not?’
‘Why not yours, sweetheart?’
‘Oh! I know myself well enough. I shall never change. But you — you might—’
‘Do you not believe me?’
‘Yes, I suppose so. But it always comes to that in the end, whenever we talk about it, and I am never any nearer to knowing what love is, after all!’
The young girl rested her chin upon her hand and looked wistfully through the trees, as though she wished and half expected that some wise fairy would come flitting through the shadow and the patches of sunshine to tell her the meaning of her love, of her life, of all she felt, of all she did not feel. She read in books that maidens blushed when the man they loved spoke to them, that their hearts beat fast and that their hands grew cold — simple expressions out of simple and almost childish tales. But none of these things happened to her. Why should they? Had she not expected to meet Greif that day? Why should she feel surprise, or fear, or whatever it was, that made the hearts of maidens in fiction behave so oddly? He was very handsome, as he sat there glancing sideways at her, and she could see him distinctly, though she seemed to be looking at the trees. But that was no reason why she should turn red and pale, and tremble as though she had done something very wrong. It was all quite right, and quite sanctioned. She had nothing to say to Greif, nothing to think about him, that her mother might not have heard or known.
‘I am no nearer to knowing,’ she repeated after a long interval of silence.
‘And I am no nearer to the wish to know,’ answered Greif, clasping his brown hands over his knee and gazing at her from under the brim of his straw hat. ‘You are a strange girl, Hilda,’ he added presently, and something in his face showed that her singularity pleased him and satisfied his pride.
‘Am I? Then why do you like me? Or do you like me because I am strange?’
‘I wish I were a poet,’ observed Greif instead of answering her. ‘I would write such things about you as have never been written about any woman. However, I suppose you would never read my verses.’
‘Oh yes!’ laughed Hilda. ‘Especially if mamma told me that they belonged to the “best German epoch.” But I should not like them—’
‘You do not like poetry in general, I believe.’
‘It always seems to me a very unnatural way of expressing oneself,’ answered Hilda thoughtfully. ‘Why should a man go out of his way to put what he wants to say into a certain shape? What necessity is there for putting in a word more than is needed, or for pinching oneself so as to cut one out that would be useful for the sense, just because by doing that you can make everything fit a certain mould and sound mechanical — ta ra tatatata ta tum tum! “Ich weiss nicht was soll es bedeuten” and all the rest of it. There is something wrong. That poem is very sad and romantic in idea, and yet you always sing it when you are particularly happy.’
‘Most people do,’ said Greif, smiling at the truth of the observation.
‘Then what is there in poetry? Does “I love you” sound sweeter if it is followed by a mechanical “ta ra ta ra ta tum” of words quite unnecessary to the thought, and which you only hear because they jingle after you, as your spurs do, when you have been riding and are on foot, at every step you take?’
‘Schlagend!’ laughed
Greif. ‘An annihilating argument! I will never think of writing verses any more, I promise you.’
‘No. Don’t,’ answered Hilda emphatically. ‘Unless you feel that you cannot love me in plain language — in prose,’ she added, with a glance of her sparkling eyes.
‘Verse would be better than nothing, then?’
‘Than nothing — anything would be better than that.’
Greif fell to wondering whether her serious tone meant all that he understood by it, and he asked himself whether her calm, passionless affection were really what he in his heart called love. She felt no emotion, like his own. She could pronounce the words ‘I love’ again and again without a tremor of the voice or a change in the even shading of her radiant colour. It was possible that she only thought of him as a brother, as a part of the world she lived in, as something dearer than her mother because nearer to her own age. It was possible that if she had been in the world she might have seen some man whose mere presence could make her feel all she had never felt. It was conceivable that she should have fallen into this sisterly sort of affection in the absence of any person who might have awakened her real sensibilities. Greif’s masculine nature was not satisfied, for it craved a more active response, as a lad watches for the widening ripples when he has dropped a pebble into a placid pool. An irresistible desire to know the truth overcame Greif.
‘Are you quite sure of yourself, sweetheart?’ he asked softly.
‘Of what?’
‘That you really love me. Do you know—’
Before he could finish the question Hilda was looking into his face, with an expression he had never seen before. He stopped short, surprised at the effect of his own words. Hilda was very angry, perhaps for the first time in her whole life. The brightness of her eyes almost startled him, and there was a slight contraction of the brows that gave her features a look of amazing power. Greif even fancied that, for once, her cheek was a shade paler than usual.
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 324