Night had fallen ere they approached the castle, the first view of which was singularly striking. The party had gradually sunk into silence, the road for miles had wound through a dense forest, with no other light than that flung over the road by the lamps of the carriage, and the torches which the out-riders carried before them, forming strange and fantastic outlines. The red light played over the drooping boughs of the forest trees; the flickering rays only illumined the outside, and all beyond was impenetrable obscurity: from the depths of that thick darkness came forth wild sighs and sounds; the mournful murmur of the pine leaves, the creaking of the branches as they swayed heavily in the wind; these, mingled with the hoarse cry of the night-birds. Sometimes disturbed from his gloomy perch, the dusk wings of the owl flapped across the road, and his hooting disturbed the sad low music of the night; it was neither time nor place for gay converse: the whole party felt the subduing influence, and leant back in deep thought. Suddenly they cleared the wood, and the carriage paused for a moment that they might catch the first view of the castle of Lindorf; visible for miles around,—there it stood in the centre of a vast plain, on the summit of a high hill, with not a single rise to intercept, or a single object to distract the view. It rose in bold relief against the deep blue sky, with the large round moon shining directly behind it;—even at that distance you could mark the square towers and the indented battlements, while the mass of the building itself seemed immense. The sky, of that intense purple which marks a slight frost, was covered with floating clouds, and on the further edge, sheltered in their shadow, were scattered a few pale stars; but the broadway of heaven was flooded by moonlight; no longer shut out by the thick forest,—her rays silvered whatever they touched, and the long grass of the plain looked like undulating water, so thickly did the crisped dew lie upon it, and so clearly did the moonshine glitter through the frosted moisture. Ernest gazed upon the dark and distant castle with an emotion for which he could not himself have accounted; he remembered it not—and yet it seemed strangely familiar. The moonlight clothed it like a garment, and the old towers shone like silver; but even while they gazed, the brightness was departing.—One mass of vapour flowed in after another like the dark tide coming in upon the shore; a black ridge rose above the castle; it darkened—it widened—its edges grew luminous as they approached the moon: gradually half her disk was hidden by them. ‘Is it an omen?’ asked Ernest of his own thoughts. Even as he asked the question, the black clouds swept over the moon, and entire darkness covered the whole scene. ‘Drive on,’ cried Ernest, impatiently; and the horses set off at full gallop, but even the exhilaration of rapid motion failed to drive away the weight that had fallen upon his heart. He could not divest himself of the idea that the castle was in some way connected with his destiny,—and that such destiny was ill-fated. When at length they arrived, and drove slowly up the steep ascent as the old gate creaked on its hinges to receive them, and they alighted in the hall of black carved oak, he felt a cold shudder come over him. Again he asked himself—‘Is it an omen?’ and the voice of his inward spirit answered ‘Yes!’
A fortnight passed away, and one fête succeeded to another. At first Pauline clung to her cousin’s side,—she wandered with him in the antique gardens, and would leave the dancers to gaze with him from the terrace which overlooked the vast plain below. Gradually she gave more and more into the pleasures around her; and the mornings were devoted to her young companions, and the evening saw her the gayest, as well as the loveliest of the assembled circle. This was a relief to Ernest—it left him more at liberty to indulge his own solitary pursuits, and to feed on the visionary melancholy, which was half thought—and half feeling. He was wrong, however, in the conclusion that he drew from the change in his cousin; he merely supposed that she was attracted by the amusements so natural to her age; he knew not that even that fair young brow had already learnt the bitter task of dissembling. He knew not that often did that bright young head lay down in weariness and sorrow on a pillow wet with frequent tears. Love only rightly interprets love. Pauline saw that her cousin had only for her the calm and gentle tenderness of a brother;—they had been brought up together, and there was nothing in the pretty and playful child, that had grown up beside him, to excite his imagination. But she—she loved him with all that poetry which is only to be found in a woman’s first affection; it is the early colour that the rose-bud opens to the south wind,—the warmth that morning breathes upon a cloud whose blush reddens, but returns not. Pure, shy, sensitive, tender, and unreal; it is the most ethereal, yet most lasting feeling life can know. The influence of a woman’s first love is felt on her whole after-existence: never can she dream such dream again. For a woman there is no second-love—youth, hope, belief, are all given to her first attachment; if unrequited, the heart becomes its own Prometheus,* creative, ideal, but with the vulture preying upon it for ever.—If deceived, the whole poetry of life is gone; the very essence of poetry is belief, and how can she, whose sweet eager credulity has once learnt the bitter truth—that its reliance was in vain, how can she ever believe again?
Pauline learnt to know Ernest’s heart by her own, and she felt the difference. Night after night she left the ball-room in all the false flutter of that excitement whose fever destroys the heart which it animates. But once in her own room, the colour left her cheek, and the light, her eye; she flung herself down, with a burst of tears, long and painfully repressed, while she thought that Ernest had not entered the hall throughout the evening. He, in the meanwhile, saw her seemingly happy and amused—and gave more and more into his pursuits; he would spend days in the old forest adjoining, till the midnight stars shone through the darkling branches like the eyes of a spirit, awakening all that was most ethereal in his nature. Hours too were past on the winding and lovely river—lost in those vague but impassioned reveries which fade, and for ever, amid the sterner realities of life. The dreaming boyhood prepares for adventurous man; we first fancy, then feel, and, at last, act and think. He delighted too in rambling through the ancient castle—filled with the memory of other days: not a face in the picture gallery but he conjured up its history, and he loved to assign to each some one of the spacious chambers for the site of their adventures. Many of the rooms in the left wing were all but deserted,—and one afternoon, while wandering carelessly along, he found his way into a chamber that had apparently not been opened for years; he was struck with the beauty of some richly wrought oak panels. While leaning against one of them he chanced to touch a hidden spring; the panel flew open—and discovered a narrow flight of winding stairs. To kindle a phosphorous match, to light a small wax taper, was the work of a moment; and he began to descend the staircase:—childishly eager to discover something—he did not much care what, so long as it was a discovery. It wound to a much greater distance than he had supposed, and, at last, ended at a sort of low arch—the door of which was heavily barred inside. With great difficulty he succeeded in unfastening it; at last it yielded to his efforts, and he opened it. It opened inwards—and even then, though he perceived the open air, he could scarcely make his way through the matted ivy, and the thickly grown shrubs that extended beyond. The moment he arrived beyond their shade he found himself in a portion of the castle grounds which he had never seen before; it was a lovely little garden of small extent, girdled in by lofty walls and tall trees—but a fairy land in miniature as far as it extended. The hues of autumn were now upon the boughs—but the evergreens shone with untiring verdure; and various late flowers appeared in that gorgeous colouring which belongs to the last season of earth’s fertility. He wound through a narrow path of green and purple,—for the carefully trained grapes hung in arches overhead, with fruit as rich as those of the eastern garden discovered by Aladdin. Ernest was enchanted with his discovery, and hurried on, when his attention was caught by the sound of singing; it was a female voice of the most touching sweetness. The words were inarticulate, but the air, an old German melody, was exquisitely marked. Ernest followed whither t
he voice led—he paused amid some laurel trees, and a scene like a picture presented itself to his astonished gaze; it was a bright open grass plot—a very rendezvous for every stray sunbeam,—and in the middle glittered and danced a little fountain which threw up its silvery jets in the air, and then fell over large shells, stones, and rugged pieces of granite, which formed a sort of basin; a number of creeping plants were around it, and one or two lilies grew as if carved in ivory. Seated on one of the huge stones scattered around—singing a low sweet air, or rather humming it, for the words were inaudible, was a female figure. Ernest could see only a very pretty back—an exquisitely shaped head bending forward, and a profusion of black hair hanging down in plaits—the ends somewhat fancifully fastened with a scarlet flower.
Ernest felt that he was an intruder, but he did—as all other young men would have done—remain rooted to the spot. He knew the melody that she was singing to the music of the plashing fountain; he had not heard it for years, but now it came freshly back to his memory haunted with a thousand vague fancies: suddenly the low sweet singing ceased; the maiden rose hastily from her seat, and, turning round, showed the exact likeness of his favourite picture—the Beatrice Cenci. There was not the peculiar head-gear,—for the hair was simply parted back; but everything else was exact in resemblance. There was the same low white forehead, the same black arched eyebrow, the same Grecian outline of face, the same small and scornful lip. She looked towards him, and there were the same large, dark, and melancholy eyes. Surprise made Ernest both speechless and motionless—not so the lovely stranger; she bounded towards him with something between the spring of the startled fawn, and the confidence of an eager child.
‘I knew some one would come at last to free me from my weary captivity,’ exclaimed she, in one of those thrilling voices which have a magic beyond even their music; ‘you are not a prisoner too?’ asked she, seeing the bewildered expression of Ernest’s countenance.
‘A prisoner! No,’ said he, too much astonished to know what he was saying, and taking one of the small and delicate hands which were extended so imploringly towards him.
‘You will save me—help me, will you not?’ asked the girl; ‘they have kept me here many years, and I long to go into the beautiful world that lies beyond these high walls. I sometimes wish I were a bird, and then I would spread my wings on the free air, and fly away, and be so happy. But you will take me with you, will you not?’ whispered she, looking up in his face with the sweet and impatient look of a pleading child. ‘You look very kind—I may trust you, may I not?’
‘With my life I will answer to that trust,’ cried young Hermanstadt; ‘but who are you,—who keeps you here?’
‘My uncle, the Baron von Lindorf,’ muttered she, in a low frightened voice. ‘They tell me that there is a castle, and vassals, and gold, that should be mine, and that is why he keeps me here. He is very cruel!’
‘Good God!’ cried Ernest, ‘come this moment with me—and in his usurped place—before his own guests—I will force him to do you right.’
‘No, no,’ replied the captive, her lip whitening, and the pupils of her large eyes dilating with sudden terror. ‘No, let us fly,—you do not know how cruel he is, and how strong. Let us only get beyond these high walls. How did you get in?’
‘I found by chance a long, concealed passage.’
‘And you can come again? Ah! now I shall not mind being a prisoner. You will come and talk to me—and not tell me to be quiet, like old Clotilde, or frown upon me like Heinrich?’
‘You shall not stay here—come with me this moment. I will protect you from them all!’
‘No,’ replied the captive, ‘not now; you do not know my uncle’s power—he would kill us both; we must escape without his knowing it. Do you think you can manage it in a few days?’
‘Certainly! but the sooner the better.’
‘What is your name?’ interrupted the prisoner.
‘Ernest von Hermanstadt.’
‘They call me Minna. I used to have another name, but it is so long ago that I have forgotten it; I have grown so much since I was here. I could not reach those flowers when I came here first;—my pretty flowers, and my singing fountain—I shall be sorry to leave you! You never scold Minna; but it is a brave world yonder—you will take me into it, Ernest?’ asked she; and again those sweet eyes were raised beseechingly to his.
‘Come with me now—I will pledge my life for your safety!’
‘No, come to-morrow—can you—without being seen? To-morrow morning, when those clouds are reddening, and the waters of the fountain are rosy with their shadows? I always come here then, I love the fresh air of the morning.’
At this moment a shrill voice in the distance was heard calling—‘Minna, Minna.’ Ernest would have pressed forward, when the maiden caught his arm, trembling from head to foot. ‘Go, go,’ whispered she, then, clasping her little hands with an air of passionate entreaty, she added:—‘I expect you to-morrow at sunrise’; and before he could answer, she had darted away. Once she looked back, but it was to wave her hand in token that he should depart. Ernest lingered for a moment, and then hurried back to the hidden passage; he carefully effaced all traces of his progress—and drew the ivy after him when he entered the arched door, that he barred; and then hurriedly sought his own chamber, which he left no more that night. This was an act of too frequent occurrence, on his part, to excite the least surprise; and the supposed student was left undisturbed,—for, for him there was as little study as rest. That sweet face floated before his eyes, that low melodious voice haunted his ear—and the name of Minna lingered upon his lip. ‘Now,’ thought he, ‘I understand the cause of my uncle’s gloom and abstraction; no marvel that he has no heart for gaiety with such a crime pressing upon it. I faintly remember hearing that his brother had fallen in some campaign that they fought together;—doubtless, with his last breath he commended his orphan girl to one bound by blood to protect her. How has that dying trust been violated; how has that child been oppressed! Made a prisoner—debarred all the social enjoyments of her age—deprived of rank and birthright, immured in solitude and ignorance. Great God! can such cruelty exist among the creatures thou hast made? but retribution, sooner or later, overtakes the guilty. Poor Pauline! how will her gentle and affectionate nature be grieved to hear this thing of the father she idolises; it must be kept from her. Wealth, what a subtle tempter thou art! Even my uncle—the man I deemed so noble, so generous, so full of high feeling, and knightly qualities; even he has for thy sake played traitor to the dead, and broken every sacred tie of duty and of affection! I will think no more of it.’ This resolve was easily executed; for the image of Minna excluded every other thought. Her beauty, her grace, her childishness had captivated Ernest’s imagination; fate, too, had set her stamp upon the fiery passion to which he utterly abandoned himself. ‘How strangely,’ murmured he to himself, as, thrown in the deep window-seat, he gazed out upon the silent night—‘are the links knitted together, which time unravels! The picture my boyhood discovered, and which so haunted my youth, has it not now fulfilled its mission? The chance likeness has led to the predestined result. I feel it,—Minna has been predestined to be my bride. Fate, in filling my heart with her face, from the earliest years kept it free from all those passing fancies which would have detracted from the intense devotion of my present love. How wonderfully have we met! Minna—sweet Minna, life owes you much happiness; will it not be my delicious task to pay the debt?’
The night passed in one long, but happy reverie; and the light sleep into which Ernest fell at last was soon broken by the anxiety, which visited even his dreams, to catch the first crimson break of morning. He started from his bed—and the dark clouds in the east were beginning to redden; he hurried to the deserted suite of rooms—down the winding staircase, and in a few moments found himself again in the little garden. Cautiously he entered the vine-covered alley, and paused for a moment amid the thick shelter of the laurels; with a glance he drank in th
e beauty of the scene; the feeling of the painter and the poet—and Ernest had the imagination of both—overpowered, during an instant, the feeling of the lover. Huge bodies of vapour—a storm in each—were hurrying over a sky, dashed alike with the hues of the tempest and the morning; some of the vapours were of inky blackness, others spread like a scroll of royal purple; some undulated with the light struggling through, others were of transparent whiteness; but those upon the east were of a deep crimson—and the round, red sun had just mounted above an enormous old cedar. Red hues were cast upon everything; even the lilies blushed, and the waters of the little fountain were like melted rubies: on the same stone which she had occupied the previous day sat Minna, but her head was now turned towards the spot where she had last seen Ernest. A movement amid the boughs caught her quick ear; she started from her seat upon the granite, and Ernest was at her feet. Shy, silent, with her long eyelashes drooping upon her flushed cheek; there was a sweet consciousness about her—even more fascinating than her yesterday’s childish confidence. Ernest led her to her place, and knelt beside her; he had no words but those of love; he had a thousand plans for the future ready on his tongue; he could only speak of the present. ‘Yes, Minna; may I not call you so, though I am jealous of the very air bearing away the music of that name? I have loved you for years: not a feature in that beautiful face but has been long graven in my soul. I will show you your picture, sweet one, when you come home with me. Will you come to my home?’
The Vampyre and Other Tales of the Macabre Page 23
