Etelka's Vow. A novel

Front matter

BY THE SAME AUTHOR On the Way Through AND OTHER TALES By DOROTHEA GERARD Crown 8v_, 6s. ' Miss Gerard's vivacious style and clever sketches of society at an Austrian spa are so delightful in themselves as to make her plot of secondary interest. . . The minor tales are admirable. . . The last ofthe batch, " Two Wedding Gowns," takes us to the steppes of the Russian Poland. It is a good example of the ease with which Miss Gerard combines sprightliness with pathos. We fancythat there are few women who will not shed a silent tear over the fate of poor Yellaand her wedding-gowns ; and few men who will not feel ashamed of the reason why they were wasted.' — Times. CHEAP EDITION OF Orthodox By DOROTHEA GERARD Cloth, 3s 6d. 'We have in this writer an able exponent of character ; the racial distinctions of the Polish Jews are exceedingly curious and interest ing, and they are very well illustrated in this story.

It is a romantic story, told with a touch of cheerful cynicism that is by no means un attractive.'— Daily Chronicle. A Queen of Curds and Cream By DOROTHEA GERARD 3 Vols., Crown Bvo. Jusl out. Eden. Remington & Co . London and Sydney. & ttflbel BV DOROTHEA GERARD A uthor of ' A Queen »f Curds and Cream! ' On the Way Through,' ' Orthodox,' etc., etc. EDEN, REMINGTON & CO., PUBLISHERS LONDON AND SYDNEY 1892 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Chapter I

The April day had been wet and dark, but in the Extra Zimmer of the ' Erzherzog Leopold' the blinds were pulled down and the gas turned up, and for the present, the drops were trickling down the window panes, unheeded and unheard. The Extra Zimmer was a very moderate-sized apart ment, with a smoke - stained, low - vaulted ceiling, but with spotless damask and irre proachable salt-cellars on each of the four tables, which were all the space admitted of. Two of these tables stood in the deep window embrasures, and in one of these recesses, a party of some half-dozen men A were having their supper, or rather were letting it grow cold over the point they were discussing. So eager was the argument, that the youthful couple who had taken place at the table directly under the gas, as well as the one man who had the second window embrasure all to himself, could not well avoid hearing every word of what was spoken.

The solitary occupant of the window em brasure looked in age nearer forty than thirty.- He was a thin man with something military in the carriage of his square shoulders, a lean brown face, tanned it would seem by many suns, a brown beard with a dash of red in it, and singularly steady blue grey eyes, which accorded strangely with that dark face, and whose colour seemed to suggest that the complexion had originally been fairer. The hand too with which he held the evening paper was gaunt and dark, scarcely the hand of an idler or a stay-at home. When the voices beside him began to rise, he leisurely turned his head and threw a glance towards the next table, then calmly returned to the perusal of his paper, or, at any rate, continued to hold it before his face. One or two of the men over there were known to him by sight ; that black-haired youth was a rising painter, that elderly grey beard was a sculptor of some renown.

The others were probably likewise followers of Art, in some shape or other — except, to be sure, that bald gentleman with the beaming smile and the gold-rimmed spectacles, whom he knew to be director of a flourishing bank — for the ' Erzherzog Leopold! had long been a favourite resort of the artistic world of Vienna. ' Say what you like, he can't feel very different from a murderer ! ' had been the words which first distinctly struck the ear of the solitary newspaper reader. There had been a duel fought on the day before between two officers of a cavalry regiment then stationed in Vienna. One of the two lieutenants had expired immediately afterwards, stretched on the sawdust of the riding school where the rencontre had taken place. It was this event which had tran spired into publicity, and which was now being discussed. ' A murderer ! ' exclaimed the black-haired painter hotly, ' maybe he is a murderer according to the dictionary, but what would he be if he had refused to fight ?

You forget that the man has a uniform to his back, and that the army has laws of its own.' ' And yet the days of the duel are numbered,' remarked his neighbour very deliberately. ' We are on the highroad to following the English in that respect.' ' The English have fish's blood,' retorted another. ' No, they have not got fish's blood,' said the grey-bearded sculptor gravely, ' but they do thoroughly whatever they do. It is because the English took their duels too seriously that duelling died out in England. If ever it dies out with us it will be because we take our duels too lightly. With us they are becoming mere caricatures.' 'And Lieutenant Heller?' ' An unfortunate accident. Accidents will happen, you know, even in the course of the best regulated duels. Lieutenant Heller, I will stake my soul, had no more thought of dying when he entered the riding school than he had of turning somersaults.

Nobody has now-a-days. The central idea on which all honest duelling turns : " One of us two must remain on the spot, and only one of us two must go home again," has long since been lost sight of.' ' As far as unfortunate accidents go,' remarked a man on the other side of the table, who had been employed in digging out a pattern in the salt with the point of his knife, ' show me a duel that is not more or less of an accident. What is the object of the whole code of duelling laws but to reduce the duel to a game os chance ? Why is a fencing master forbidden to fight with rapiers, just as a notoriously good shot is not allowed pistols ? Why have we to fire at a word of command ? Why, just in order to give the man with the better aim or the better nerves as little advantage as possible over the other.' ' Why not draw lots at once, then ? ' ' In American duels they do draw lots.

One or two of the men laughed. ' The American duel ? Is there such a thing as an American duel ? I always took it to be a fairy-tale.' ' I have never known of one within my personal experience,' said the sculptor,' but the thing undoubtedly exists.' The young couple who sat at the table under the gas had grown tired of listening to the discussion and were whispering with their heads together. The man in the second window embrasure seemed likewise to be engrossed by his evening paper, but a close observer might have noted two things about him ; firstly, that he had his eyes still fixed on the same column that he had been en gaged on ten minutes ago, secondly, that his cigar had gone out. ' Would one of the gentlemen kindly ex plain to me the difference between a Euro pean and an American duel ? ' asked the bald headed bank-director with the gold-rimmed spectacles, who, up to this point, had been beaming silently upon each speaker in turn.

He was a comparative stranger in the circle, having been enticed into the ' Erzherzog Leopold', by the black-haired painter from whom he had bought a picture that morning. It was explained to him that an American duel consists simply of the drawing of lots as to which of two men shall, within a given time and on his word of honour, shoot himself. And then?' asked the director. And then that is all.' ' And do you mean that there are no seconds, no appointment, no meeting ? ' ' Nothing at all except a black pellet and a white one.' The director's apple-cheeked face beamed more broadly than ever. ' How beautifully simple ! ' he murmured approvingly. ' If ever I fight a duel it shall certainly be an American one.' A laughing clamour arose around the table. ' These opinions are beginning to verge upon premeditated manslaughter,' remarked one. ' Laugh if you like,' said the director good-humouredly. ' I would much rather have no duels in the world, but if a thing has to be done, why not do it in a business-like, rather than in an unbusiness-like way ?

This gentleman here says that the central idea of duelling is : " One of us two must die." This other gentleman declares that dex terity is made to play as small and chance as great as possible a part in the rencontre. Granted these two points, is it not much simpler to draw lots than to go through all the fussy, though possibly romantic prelim inaries of an ordinary duel ? I knew that American waterproofs and American type writers were the best of their kind, but I had never heard of an American duel. Oh, it is simply perfect ! ' The dispute was rising higher again when a belated arrival entered the room. Passing by the table where the solitary individual sat in the window embrasure he glanced to wards him. Nothing so warm as welcome was written on that man's sun-tanned face, and yet there was some awkwardness in passing so close without speaking. ' When did you come back, Riiden ? ' asked the new arrival, standing still. ' Only yesterday ; but I am off again to morrow.' ' A pleasant trip, I hope — Italy ?

Spain ?' ' No, only Hungary. It's Marianopol I'm bound for. There was a village burnt to the ground somewhere in the neighbourhood the other day.' ' Oh ; quite a short affair, I suppose ? ' ' That depends. Should I find the country a profitable one, I have been given carte blanche to fill my portfolio with puszta sketches and gipsy types. Such things often come in well as stop-gaps when there is a dearth of sensationalism.' ' Oh, I see ; well a pleasant journey and good evening,' and with a hasty bow the speaker hurried on to join his friends, seeling that he had done all that civility could re quire of him. Riiden beckoned to the waiter and settled his score. As he took down his hat from the peg he could still hear the director's voice : ' Nothing but a black pellet and a white one ; how beautifully simple !

Oh, there can be no doubt that the Americans are the first business nation in the world ! ' It was not more than five minutes' walk from the ' Erzherzog Leopold' to Riiden's lodging. Having groped his way to the table he struck a light. The space was long, narrow and plainly furnished. A large, un painted, deal table was covered with a litter of drawing materials ; on the floor there lay an open portmanteau. Without even stopping to take off his overcoat, Ruden went straight to an old-fashioned wooden trunk that stood in a corner. This he unlocked, and, having fumbled about for a few minutes, he took out a shabby leather note-book which he carried to the table. Here he sat down and, by the light of the one candle, began to turn over the pages, as though in search of something. Presently he had found it : ' Gdza Paloghy — before midnight on fuly 2,ist, 1875.' It stood there quite plainly ; there could be no mistake about it.

And this, certainly, was the year 1875, — no mistake there either, and this was April, — less than four months to the date here entered. Time travels, as suredly, at a giddy rate ; was it actually ten whole years since he had quarrelled with Geza ? With his head in his hand, his overcoat thrown open across his chest and the candle flame flickering in the draught — for he had forgotten to close the door — Riiden fell into a train of reminiscences.

Chapter II

Viktor Ruden's father had been a small government official in a provincial town of upper Austria. Early in life he had married an excessively pretty and excessively light minded concert singer, who — her voice be ginning to fail her — had, in a fit of tem porary despair, accepted him, and whose subsequent conduct proved that she never ceased to regret her folly. By the time their only child Viktor was two years old, matters had come to such a pass, that, despite Herr Ruden's meekness and long suffering, a separation was inevitable, and both parties being Lutherans, a divorce was shortly after, without much difficulty ob tained. Viktor's childhood had been spent between his two parents, moving from his father to his mother, from his mother back again to his father, conscious all the time, that each heaved a sigh of relief when he had been passed on to the other.

He had no tragic hardships to undergo ; it was only that he was entirely superfluous. Neither of his parents was unkind to him, and neither of them wanted him. By the time he was ten years old, his father, who had married again shortly after his divorce, had a young family in which he was entirely wrapped up. Viktor himself had at first been conscious of a certain interest in his little half-brothers, but the second Frau Riiden, honest soul, sedulously preserved her children from any close contact with the son of ' that woman.' There were contrasts between his father's and his mother's household, which began to puzzle Viktor almost as soon as he had reached the age of reason. ' How is it that the same woman who cooks the soup also brings it into the room ? ' he once inquired at table, 'while my Mamma has one woman to cook it and one to bring it in ? ' And another time he startled and horrified Frau Riiden, by assuring her that her black silk dress was not to be compared to that of his Mamma, who besides had a pink-striped, and a blue-spotted silk.

Naturally Viktor preferred the times spent with his mother, where there was amuse ment in the shape of visits to theatres and circuses, and where there were pleasant and even profitable acquaintances. There was, for instance, that agreeable old gentleman with the Prince's coronets on his studs, evidently a steady visitor, and one who never failed to fill his pockets with the most superior quality of chocolate creams. Then, when Viktor was a little older, there was a certain naval captain whom he was con stantly stumbling on in his mother's drawing room, and who, though he did not seem to know anything about chocolate creams, knew a great deal about carving boats out of stray wood-chips, and sailing them in the tub that was set to catch the rain water. Camilla regularly received her son with rapturous delight, and spent at least a week in planning garments for him which would harmonise with her latest toilettes.

How ever it seldom took her more than a week to discover that though a pretty boy to lead by the hand is sometimes an effective, he is oftener apt to be an inconvenient appendage, and he was handed back again to his father with the least possible delay. It would have been hard to say when the first misgivings dawned in his mind. The truth did not come upon him with a flash, but he awoke one day to feel convinced, not only that his mother was a worthless woman, but that he had been familiar with this thought for long. One of the most painful discoveries to Viktor was that he could not hate his mother. When at the age of seventeen he entered a military college the parting was a relief, but at the same time a very real pang. In the ordinary course of things Viktor should have begun his military studies at least two years earlier, but what education he had received had been too spasmodic and frag mentary to allow of this.

From the day of his entrance Viktor's playtime was over. He understood this perfectly. ' If I fail in the examination I fail in life,' he said to himself, on the very first day of his college life. ' It is not likely that fate has got a second chance in store for me.' He was two classes behind any other boy of his age, but by dint of a peculiarly dogged application, and with the help of many hard hours spent, book in hand, during playtime, deep in the cellars or high in the garrets, he succeeded in regaining, at least to some extent, the ground which in his early childhood he had lost. Yet it was not until he had completed his twenty-fourth year that Viktor obtained the golden porte-e'pde in a hussar regiment. The great victory was now gained, but the path before him, though clear, was un commonly steep.

There was only one other officer in the regiment besides himself who lived on his pay alone, or rather who did not live on it, as his creditors knew to their cost. But Viktor had decided that he was not going to make debts. Rather than that he would confine himself to the bare neces saries of life. He bought a spirit lamp and an egg-boiler, and while his comrades were supping sociably and noisily at the inn, Viktor was boiling two eggs for his supper at home. Anybody who chanced to look in at eight o'clock could be eye-witness of the scene, for he made no mysteries. Pre cisely because he suspected himself of a desire to conceal his poverty he became all the more ostentatious in displaying it. Viktor and his little economies had come to be accepted as facts in the regiments, and whatever may have been the jokes passed upon him, they were passed strictly in private, for, although he had no very pro nounced friendships — for that he was too reserved, too mistrustful, and already too embittered — yet there prevailed among his comrades the opinion that this slightly gloomy and so unyouthful young man was not one to be lightly offended.

He had completed his second year of lieutenancy when young Paloghy entered the regiment. Paloghy was six years younger than himself, a light-hearted boy of twenty, the only son of a wealthy Hungarian noble man, a regular spoilt child of Fortune, the very embodiment of all that had been denied to Viktor. Whether it was some un conscious seeling of irritation against one so much luckier than himself, or whether it was that Paloghy in pure thoughtlessness (for there was no ill-nature in the man) let his tongue run rather too freely in mockery of Viktor's spirit-lamp artd egg-boiler, certain it is that Ruden's dogged calmness gave way for once, and that for the hot words that passed there was only one possible remedy. They had neither of them fought before, and both regarded the matter with that tragic earnestness which a first duel seldom fails to evoke.

Riiden, in particular, be longed to that order of men, becoming daily more rare, who consider that a duel, in order not to be ridiculous, must be deadly. ' If he wants merely to do a little cutting and slash ing,' he explained to Paloghy's seconds, ' he must fight with someone else.' ' I'm his man,' said Paloghy, whose Southern blood was up. They were both still at an age when it appears that nothing short of death can wipe out a stain. That night Viktor sat up late writing to his father. ' By the time this reaches your hands,' he wrote, ' I may as likely as not be a burden lifted from off your mind. Whether it be I or Geza Paloghy who falls, remember that it has been a fair fight, and that it would be unjust in you to cherish any feelings of bitterness towards my adversary — unless in deed it be gratitude you feel towards him.' When Viktor had sealed the letter, he considered for a little, and ended by carrying it down to the post-box himself.

On his return to his room, he was much surprised to find a man pacing the floor. He was more surprised still to recognise his adversary of next day. Paloghy was resplendent in his bluest Attila and his shiniest dancing-boots ; his cloak hung loosely from his shoulders, leav ing visible a perfect blaze of paper cotillion decorations, which fair fingers had pinned there within the last hour, for this was the night of a great ball in the neighbourhood, and the young Hungarian never missed the chance of a social triumph. ' I have come to you with a proposition,' he said, standing still as Riiden entered, ' but I will only make it if you first give me your word of honour that you believe me to be no coward.' Viktor gave his word as required, in some astonishment. ' I have come straight from Leuchten stein,' went on Paloghy, a streak of vivid colour gleaming on his cheek. ' The music was particularly good to-day, the lights par ticularly well distributed, the floor better polished than I ever remember it.

It is nonsense to say that life is not worth living. I think it was while they were striking up the ' Blue Danube ' that it came over me with a rush. Is it not, after all, a pity that one of us two should have to say good-bye to it to-morrow ? ' Viktor, without a clue to his meaning, stared in chilly silence. ' Never fear ! ' laughed Paloghy with some what strained gaiety. ' On the main point our opinions coincide exactly ; my proposi tion affects a matter of detail.' And then he made his proposition which was to turn the duel into an American duel, and further, to fix the date of the accom plishment for that day ten years. Honour would be as brilliantly cleared this way as the other, but with the differ ence that even he who drew the black pellet, would yet taste his youth to its very dregs.

Viktor's first idea as he listened to the proposal was that he need not have been in such a hurry about confiding in his father, the second was a perfectly genuine feeling of relief, for though he had not the same reasons for regretting his life that Paloghy had for regretting his, yet he was not conscious of any suicidal yearnings. The American duel was agreed on, and that same night the black and the white pellets were called into service, the black falling to Paloghy's share, who, according to the agreement noted in Viktor's notebook, pledged his honour to shoot himself that day ten years. The altercation with Paloghy had been the first occasion on which Viktor's self control had given way ; about a year and a half later the same thing happened once more. The first break-down of his forced calmness might very easily have cost him his life, the second did actually cost him his career.

It was on a certain lovely spring day that, on his return from the drilling-ground, he found waiting in his room a lady in fashion able, though slightly tawdry attire, thickly veiled in blue gauze, with a corded trunk by her side and pearl-grey gloves on her hands. Camilla's story was quickly sobbed out, indeed the mere uplifting of the blue gauze veil told more than any words could have done. Though in her forty-seventh year she had preserved her looks till quite lately, with that marvellous perfection of smoothness which is one of the advantages attaching to a goodnaturedly frivolous disposition. An epidemic of small-pox had brought her her fate ; eight weeks ago she had caught the infection, and the whole hollow ruin had come straight to the ground. Viktor required no further explanation of his mother's appearance in Donnerstadt.

Aban doned by her last lingering slaves, her maternal affection had suddenly revived. It was not possible for her to live without affection in some shape ; since the other sort was no longer available there was nothing for it but to fall jback on her role of mother. Viktor saw it all at a glance, even while he stood there with the pearl-grey gloved hands clasped enthusiastically round his neck. He saw his future, at that moment, or at least he guessed at it distantly. His position had been painful enough up to now, dating from this day it became insupportable. Camilla took up her abode at Donnerstadt. The son was not again to be free of the mother on this side of the grave. If anything tempered his despair it was the reflection that for Donnerstadt she was an entire stranger. But even this hope was not to last.

She had not been three months in the place when the keen eyes of Major Gunz, who had newly entered the regiment, piercing the thickness of the blue gauze veil, recognised behind it an old acquaintance, and one with whom — as the vulgar saying is — he had long had an account to settle. It had all happened years ago, of course, but the Major's memory was tenacious, and, stumbling thus unexpectedly upon the piteous wreck of his once so haughty mistress, he found himself unable to forego some of the sweets of revenge. Viktor's self control had been strained more than once to the utmost before it entirely gave way. He had forced himself to answer steadily when the Major, with a peculiarly odious sneer, had inquired across the supper-table whether Madame Riiden did not find Donnerstadt a very dull place to waste her days in ?

And though his fingers often closed unconsciously as he listened, he persistently ignored the would-be delicate, yet painfully flat jokes directed at the blue gauze veil, of which the Major delighted to keep up a running thread. It was a day towards the end of that same summer that was destined to be fatal to Viktor. The troops were being drilled for the field-mass which is always celebrated on August 1 8th, the birth-day of the Emperor Franz Josef. Among the group of spec tators who had taken up their position on an earth-bank at the edge of the parade ground, Viktor, to his annoyance, had spied the flutter of a blue gauze veil, and so had Major Gunz. It was during one of the pauses in the drill, while the men were standing at ease and the officers chatting in groups, that the Major gave reins to his very objection able style of wit.

It may have been the extra publicity that put Viktor off his balance. Passion broke its bounds for once. His face was ghastly with the pallor of fury as with hand raised and clenched he made a rapid step forward. The next instant the blow would have fallen had not one of his com rades knocked up his arm. The blow never fell, but his fate had been sealed in that one moment. The lengthened and systematic provoca tion which had culminated in the act of violence was, indeed, an open secret, but the act of violence could not, on that account, go unpunished. It was decided that, as the blow had not actually fallen, it would be pos sible to hush up the matter, but only by the instant disappearance of both parties. Both the Major and Viktor were practically com pelled to resign their commissions. It was in this way only that the honour of the regiment might yet be saved.

Viktor was twenty-seven years old now. It was too late therefore, to enter on any profession which would require further study. and he had no capital to start him in a business. He went to Vienna, taking his mother with him, and, since it was absolutely necessary that he should do something for his livelihood, began to go out as daily tutor, giving lessons of reading, writing and arith metic to backward boys preparing for school. It so happened that one of his pupils was the son of an enterprising editor who had lately started an illustrated weekly. After a time Herr Weinwurm's experienced eye was caught by the rough-and-ready, but singu larly expressive sketches with which his son's blotting paper was scribbled over, for Viktor possessed a marked though quite uncultivated talent for drawing.

An investigation followed, which resulted in Viktor being offered a position on the staff of the Welt Bilder on condition of his going through a six months' training. Herr Weinwurm could have had a choice of illustrators, ready-trained, but he was possessed of that rare thing, the in stinct of his craft, and he had read the future of the Welt Bilder in those angular and somewhat harsh lines which decorated his son's blotting paper. Since that time Viktor had lived chiefly on travels, his wandering existence being guided by what ever chance seemed to promise an oppor tune field of illustration for Herr Wein wurm's paper. By dint of a fierce applica tion, almost as much as by virtue of his peculiar talent, he rose rapidly in his profes sion, fighting hard for each step, but yet contin ually rising, and had the satisfaction of being able to support his mother in a small home.