Cyrilla, a tale

Preface

. HIS novel was originally founded upon facts, which culminated in the chapters that formed the conclusion of the first edition of the work. At the recommendation of judicious friends, who considered these facts detrimental to the fiction, all reference to them has been omitted in the present edition, and it is to be hoped that the change will be considered an improve ment. Munich, Sept. C Y R I L L A. CHAPTER' I. UNDREDS of English travellers pass through Salzburg every summer — many of them having previously gone over a considerable portion of this earth's periphery in that silent business-like manner which, on the continent of Europe, is supposed to be peculiar to their nation ; not a few, after having arrived at the melancholy conviction, that they have already seen too much to be surprised or particularly pleased by any country left for them to explore.

Yet the feelings must be blunted in an unusual degree, if that most beautifully situated town make no lasting impression on the mind, when seen in all the glory of an unclouded summer's day. The range of mountains that form the horizon, and from which the snow seldom altogether disappears, is near enough to realize in a few hours the dreams of the most imaginative pedestrian, in gigantic rocks, thundering torrents, dark lakes, and narrow secluded valleys. Mountains, too, are the natural fortifications of the town itself, the solid rock forming a part in the construction of many of the houses, whde forest trees grow luxuriantly among the crags above their roofs. Is CYRILLA. Salzburg in summer, and Salzburg in winter, present, however, very different aspects. The surrounding scenery is unfit for enjoyment ; we perceive that the streets are narrow, the houses high, that the mountains diminish the hours of light and sunshine, and seem in their monotonous whiteness like shrouded giants about to encircle us in their frozen arms.

The beautiful marble fountain in the Dom Platz is covered up with wooden planks to defend it from the frost ; the exotic plants that luxuriated at all the windows have been withdrawn ; deep snow lies on the ground, not, however, wet and slippery as we know it in England, but dry, hard, crisp, and crystallized ; and a stranger might watch with interest the various kinds of sledges, from those on which the loaded waggon slides gratingly, its team of horses well furnished with sonorous bells, to the lighter vehicles that, gliding noiselessly along, convey the fruit and vegetables to market, the fur-capped chddren to school, or the capacious basket of a laundress to its destination. The mixture of monks and military is also a peculiarity that strikes immediately. With the former we have nothing to do, with the latter somewhat — that is, if the reader wdl consent to retrograde some twenty years in imagination, and spend a winter day in Salzburg towards the end of the year 18 .

Crossing the bridge over the Salzach at an early hour in the morning, a turn to the left will lead into a narrow street not far distant from the palace of Mirabel, containing several large massively built houses : over the gateway of one of them a well-known coat of arms hewn in stone is conspicuous, the coronet and savage upon it being, it is true, rather weather-beaten and in some places defective, but, like the tattered colours of a regiment that has seen service, the increase of these defects only serve to add to its value in the estimation of its possessors. This house was built by Rudolph Baron von Walden auf Waldenburg in the seventeenth century, and since repaired, altered, and enlarged, by his successors at different periods ; which interesting facts were recorded on CYRILLA. 3 stones inserted in the walls, that no subsequent yellow, green, or whitewashing of the mansion had ever been suffered to conceal or deface.

It was asserted, with every appearance of probability, that the buildings used as stables had been erected by the Romans, and that perhaps treasure, certainly antiquities, might be found, if judicious and determined search were made in the yard and its vicinity. The Waldens had been an incredulous generation with respect to hidden treasures, and cared for no antiquities, excepting those that immediately concerned their family. It was curious that the first who, roused by curiosity or avarice, had rummaged the family archives for information on the subject, should be deprived in a rather arbitrary manner of his inheritance. Unconscious of the value attached to the house by his only son, Baron Walden had bestowed it on his daughter Olga, as an additional gift the day she had prudently married her cousin, Gottfried von Adlerkron Windhorst, instead of a penniless soldier of fortune to whom she had long been attached.

When afterwards, surprised and dismayed at the boundless wrath of his son, Baron Walden would willingly have re-purchased his gift at almost any price, nothing could induce Olga to resign a house which, even on her wedding-day, she calmly thought would make a desirable widow-residence for herself hereafter ; a house in which the stones spoke more distinctly of the noble race of Walden, than even the excavated tunnel-entrance to the town of its pious architect. A quarrel had naturally ensued between the brother and sister, followed by such intense hatred on the part of the former, that years afterwards, on his death bed at Waldenburg, he had complained of his unjust disin heritance with all the bitterness of a freshly received injury, rejoiced that his sister was childless, and then enjoined his young son Conrad to purchase the house of his aunt, if she could ever by any means be induced to part with it.

In the meantime, the Baroness, as she had anticipated, became a widow, and in the course of time took up her CYRILLA. 4 abode in the " Walden Haus," as it was called. The faint formal epistolary effort made by her brother's son after his father's decease to commence a correspondence, had proved quite fruitless ; she informed him, in a few cold un sympathizing lines, that, " having received the intelligence of her brother's death, she would not refer to the terms on which they had lived, but considered it her duty to inform him now, if he were not already aware of the circumstance, that she had adopted her nephew, Rupert von Adlerkron, and intended to make him, in accordance with the wishes of her late husband, heir to all she possessed." The tone or purport of the letter, perhaps both, prevented any further attempt at conciliation or communication, and the Baroness turned with renewed interest towards Rupert, the last scion of the house of Adlerkron.

As the son of her husband's eldest brother and her own sister, he was doubly her nephew, also, in consequence of former intermarriages in their famdies, her cousin ; to this mixture of relationships she had often alluded, but latterly they had all been sunk in the name of adopted son, and she had for many years made it her chief occupation to amass wealth, hoping with it to purchase that affection and devotion from him, which she had failed to secure by less expensive means at an earlier period. Some other rela tions had lately begun to occupy her thoughts ; they were the children of her husband's youngest brother Carl ; but their having been already left a considerable sum of money by her husband, and a bequest of as much more should they marry with her consent, had hitherto caused her to regard them with an undisguised anger and dislike, that nothing but a feeling of daily increasing loneliness could overcome.

To this was now added a matrimonial plan for one of them, which had suddenly but completely taken possession of her mind ; and this plan with its consequences influenced in so remarkable a manner the whole family, that the Baroness, as the projector of it, must be considered worthy of more attention than so little interesting a person would otherwise deserve, or than perhaps wdl be quite agreeable to the reader. CYRILLA. 5 Let us mount the time-worn stone staircase on the morning our tale commences, and on the first floor we shall meet her walking towards the smad room in which she generally breakfasted. There was an air of stern yet faded grandeur about the interior of the residence, which accorded well with the appearance of the mistress of it ; her very dress of fuedle-morte coloured silk seemed to be of the same date as the sun-bleached red curtains of the ante-room.

Such was not however the case : an experienced female eye would have pronounced the scanty morning wrapper to be at least of this century, whereas the furniture and its arrange ment but too evidently bore the stamp of a foregoing — not the gorgeous rococo or renaissance, but the stiff insipid style of the Revolution, with all its inelegant angles and so-called antique forms. The effect produced by this furniture in the massive antiquated budding was not unlike that of the Baroness' own dress, as it clung to her full figure, which, not above the middle height, inclined very considerably to a degree of fleshiness that might almost be termed corpulency ; the smallness of both hands and feet denoted that the proportions had once been finer, and more appropriate to the very handsome face which had successfully braved the wear and tear of an execrable temper and nine-and-forty years.

Her dark brow contracted, and an expression of vehement impatience burst from her lips, as, through the negligently closed door of the stove, the bright flames of an unusually large fire met her eyes. She stooped, was for a moment lost in the capacious mouth of the stove, and having then and there ascertained that more wood was being burned than was permitted, she called angrdy to a footman evidently attempting an escape, and asked in a very loud voice, who had dared to waste her wood in that extravagant manner. " I don't know, madam, but I will ask Ursula," he re plied, turning towards a housemaid, who at no great distance was busy at her usual morning work of deluging the uncarpeted corridors, and mopping them dry again, very much in the manner in which the decks of a man-of-war are swabbed.

She allowed him to repeat the question of CYRILLA. which she had heard every word, and then answered saucily, " Baron Adlerkron desired me to make a good fire ; he says he is frozen in this house — that he has never been warm since he came into it." The Baroness did not wait to hear the softened repeti tion of these words, but hastily entered the room, and saw the person who had caused the unnecessary waste of fuel drawing the breakfast-table to the two arm-chairs which he had already placed close to the stove. He was a very tall young man, with fair hair curling thickly round a high white forehead, large light blue eyes, a well-propor tioned nose, and a mouth half concealed by mnstachios of unusual length, and hair stdl fairer than the " Hyperian curls " that graced his head. He had probably heard what had been said, for he half laughed, as he looked up for a moment to say " Good morning, aunt," and then again seized the table, unheedful of the clattering cups and tall tottering coffeepot, and continued to drag it to wards him.

His aunt laid her hand on his arm, exclaiming, " Not so close to the stove, Rupert, pray — I shall be suffocated!" He stopped, drew forward a screen, and then, having ensconced himself in a chair, began to eat his breakfast in silence. " I wish," began his aunt after a pause — " I wish you would consent to remain here one day longer — only one day ! Your cousins must arrive this evening ; I cannot conceive what has delayed them so long." " It is not difficult to account for the delay," he answered carelessly ; " a journey from Italy is not easdy made in such weather as this ! " "But they left Italy six weeks ago, and have been staying in Meran ; a most unnecessary expense, I must say, for people in their circumstances." " I thought you said my aunt Sophy had been ill ? " " Oh, not more than she always is — one might almost think that her former mode of life, wandering about after your uncle's regiment, must have been beneficial to her health, notwithstanding all the discomforts to which it CYRILLA. 7 subjected her ; for since he died, and she has been able to live quietly, she has never been well."

"Perhaps grief" . . . began Rupert. " Ah, bah ! — she did not care for him most probably more than I did for your uncle Gottfried, — perhaps not as much ; yet you see how I have got over his death, which is even more recent." Rupert leaned back in his chair, folded his arms, and looked up to the ceding. " Whde," she continued, " I don't mean to say that they lived unhappdy together, they got on as well as the generality of people, I believe ; but you know he had been desperately wounded several times before she married him, and from the time his jaw was shattered, he was perfectly hideous ; besides, she was his second wife, and was such a contrast to the first, that I don't imagine he could have cared much for her, at least we all supposed so. It was your uncle Gottfried and I who arranged the marriage, you know."

" My uncle Gottfried!" said Rupert, with evident sur prise ; " I should have thought that money-making was more in his line than match-making." " Why, yes ; but we were so afraid that Carl would again make a fool of himself, that we were glad to find any one at all eligible disposed to take him. Your aunt Sophy's fortune was small, but the connexion was very desirable, and crippled as he was, after so many campaigns, he had no right to expect either youth or beauty." " So brave a soldier had a right to expect much," observed Rupert. " Well, I don't deny his bravery ; but he had faults of the most unpardonable description — he was careless — thoughtless to a degree where money was concerned. You don't know how often your uncle Gottfried had to assist him!" Rupert knew more about the matter than she did ; but he did not say so.

" It was the only thing we ever seriously quarrelled about, for I always thought and said, that when people incurred debts they should pay them." CYRILLA. Still Rupert was sdent, and she continued, " You have no idea what wild habits your uncle Carl contracted during the war ; he quite forgot his station in life, and from the time he married that painter's daughter, Signora Nina, as they called her, he lived almost exclusively among artists, and actors, and authors, and such people." "He led a very jolly life for several years," said Rupert. " Every one says his wife was an angel, and with such a chdd as Melanie must have been " " Melanie would have been totally spoiled if her mother had not died," cried his aunt pettishly. " Fortunately your uncle Carl, attended to our advice, and sent her off to school before he married again.

The other two girls have been brought up very differently." " I know they have," said Rupert, laughing ; "my aunt Sophy's drawing-room was a perfect school-room. I have a painful recollection of seeing my little cousin Cyrilla perched on a high stool before a pianoforte, playing some dreadful exercises for the left hand, while the tears streamed over her baby face, and she occasionally wiped them away with her long fair curls." " So you remember Cyrilla?" cried his aunt quickly. " As much as a mere boy can remember a mei-e child ; I recollect her shoes particularly well." "Her shoes !" " Yes, she used to wear little bronze-coloured shoes, with pink sandals ; and once, after she had performed some graceful sort of pantomime with a scarf, I saw her father place her on a table before him and kiss them.

I thought at the time I should like vastly to have just such a little chdd of my own, bronze-coloured shoes and pink sandals inclusive." " Nonsense, Rupert ! You could not have been more than ten or twelve years old at that time." " And yet I perfectly recollect indulging most innocently in the wish to be a father," said Rupert, holding a newspaper before his face to conceal a smde. His aunt half laughed, fidgeted on her chair, played with her coffee-spoon, and seemed to hesitate and consider CYRILLA. 9 what she should next say. At this moment the sound of an approaching sledge became audible, and no sooner did the jingling of the bells denote its immediate vicinity, than Rupert sprang up, and throwing wide open the double windows, gave entrance to the cold winter air, and a con siderable quantity of snow, while making exaggerated salu tations to some one below.

" At last ! " exclaimed the Baroness, rising hastily ; " at last ! Well, I really am glad that they have come before you leave Salzburg, for I must tell you " What she intended to tell her nephew was inaudible, for the moment she had risen from her chair, jvith a little more than usual precipitation, four dogs, remarkable for nothing but their diminutive dimensions, commenced snarl ing and barking with all their might. Totally inattentive to her commands for silence, they first endeavoured to im pede her progress across the room, by running over her feet, and then seizing Rupert's fur-lined dressing-gown, which hung temptingly before them as he leaned out of the window, they tugged at it so successfully that in a few seconds it was torn in several places. " I don't hear what you say ! " cried Rupert to some one in the street.

" Confound these useless curs," he added, impatiently kicking those nearest him, " it is impossible to hear a word when they are yelping in this way. Where are you to be found ? " " At the barracks. We are going to make a sledging party into Bavaria to-day, to drink Rhine wine — did not Polyak tell you?" " I did not see him " " I thought he was the best person to give the mes sage to you, as we all know that he is every day and all day " Rupert threw back his head and eyes with a significant jerk, the speaker made an odd grimace, and calling out, " I shall expect you in an hour," drove off. " I wish you would shut the window, Rupert," said his aunt pettishly ; " it is very cold. I really thought, from your impetuous manner, that it must have been your CYRILLA. cousins you expected to see, and it is only that stupid Count Glaneck."

" An excellent, kind-hearted fellow as ever lived." " That is more than I can say for you, — you have kicked Amor and Mi-lady unmercifully." " I did not mean to hurt them, though they provoked me beyond endurance. Come here, Mi-lady. Tou do not seem to have suffered much from my boot. Affectionate creature ! She has turned up her little red eyes to my face — she forgives me. May I not hope that my aunt wdl also pardon my impatience, or cruelty, or whatever the misdemeanour may be denominated, of which I have been guilty?" " I think," said his aunt, not quite satisfied at his attempt at contrition, " I think, Rupert, you must purposely try to annoy me. I know you are fond of dogs — all sportsmen are; and yet mine are abused and kicked by you on every possible occasion." " If they did not bark just when I happen to be speak ing, or when other people are speaking, I have no sort of dislike to them, though they are useless little brutes."

" Useless little brutes !" "Why, yes. I don't suppose Mi-lady ever killed a rat in her life ; Amor would run away from a mouse ; and Jolie and Minkerl are of such doubtful breed, that one hardly knows what they are intended to represent." " Minkerl is a Russian terrier ; his father was Russian and his mother was Russian, and Colonel Bockenheim says he envies me but one thing in the world, and that is — Minkerl." " Don't believe him. He envies you your thousands and tens of thousands of Austrian florins and Prussian dollars much more ! I suspect, too, he intends you to bestow a few of them on his very pretty daughter, or he would never have proposed giving her to you for a companion." " That was not exactly his intention, but you are not very far from the mark." " And, pray, what ivas his intention ?

" asked Rupert carelessly, while he amused himself by placing bits of sugar CYRILLA. 11 on the dogs' noses, which they were not to eat until he had given the word of command. " What was his intention ? — Steady, Amor ! make ready — present; — halt — present " " He knows the large fortune of which you are in actual possession, as well as that, having quarrelled with my brother, you, and you alone, are likely to be my heir. He thought that as you are unmarried, and his daughter as you say very pretty, there was a chance of " " Fire ! " cried Rupert, and the dogs crunched their sugar whde he hastdy rose, and with a gesture of impatience prepared to leave the room. " You always avoid this subject, Rupert, though yon know very well how much I wish you to leave the army, and " " I know very well how much you wished me to enter it a few years ago."

" Yes, when you wanted to travel in the East ; but now that you are older and steadier, I wish you to marry and settle at Windhorst. Colonel Bockenheim says you would be more manageable if you had a few debts, and I believe he is right ; not that I exactly wish you to have pecuniary embarrassments like other young men " " Thank you, aunt, but I have none whatever ; and as to marrying Colonel Bockenheim's daughter " " His daughter ! " exclaimed the Baroness haughtily ; " no, indeed, I never thought of such a connection ! We can easdy find some one more suitable." " Yes, yes, we can easdy find some one more suitable," repeated Rupert, while he hurried towards the door. " Time enough, time enough. I give you the next ten years to look out for a wife for me. No man should ever marry until he is past thirty."

" Generally speaking, perhaps, you are right ; but in your case it is otherwise. You are the last of the Adlerkron Windhorsts ; and know, that should you die without having chddren, estates that have been in our family for hundreds of years fall to the crown. Windhorst you know " " I know, I know," cried Rupert ; " but your other CYRILLA. nephew, Walden, of Waldenburg, is precisely in the same position. Why don't you bestow some care on the preser vation of your own immediate famdy ? Conrad must be a well-grown lad by this time. What's his age ?" " Don't name him to me !" she exclaimed angrily. " The son of a brother I disliked so much, and who did not scruple to injure my reputation in every way that lay in his power, shall never inherit anything from me. All my hopes and expectations are centred in you."

" I'm very sorry to hear it," said Rupert, with an impatient sigh, " and wish that I had a brother or any thing that would save me from proposals of marriage, and pre vent so many people from interesting themselves in my concerns." " I hope you have no objection to my expressing some interest about you, Rupert?" " O, of course not." " Well then, I wish to speak a few words to you about something really of importance, and deeply interesting to us both." " I am afraid Glaneck expects me, — if you would only postpone your communication untd I return . . . ." " But you intend to spend the whole day with him : I heard you say so!" cried his aunt with visible irritation. " You never bestow five minutes' attention on me, how ever," she added with affected resignation ; " you learned to treat me with indifference and disrespect from your uncle, and I ought never to have submitted to it from either of you."

Rupert had heard this so often that he either no longer doubted the fact, or deemed it unnecessary to attempt a contradiction, and merely replied while his hand was on the lock of the door : " I intended to have remained out late, but if you desire it I shall endeavour to get back in time to talk to you before you go to bed. Early to-morrow morning I must start for the north ; the remainder of my leave of absence ought to be spent at Windhorst : they tell me the roof wants repairagain ; I wish half the castle would fall to the ground — the other half would be more than large enough for me ! " CYRILLA. 13 " Rupert ! " " You need not look so shocked ; there's no harm in a man's wishing his ancestors had been more economical in stone and mortar. I never go to Windhorst without thinking what a famous cavalry barrack it would make !

" " Oh, Rupert ! if your uncle were alive, and could hear you talk in this way, after all the improvements he made there during your minority ! " " I did occasionally hint something of the kind to him ; for even his presence could not make it other than a magnificently dull place. I am thinking of buying a very pretty hunting-lodge near Exfort as soon as I find we are likely to be quartered there ; but I can tell you all about that in the evening. You may expect me at nine or ten o'clock. Are you satisfied ? May I go ? " His aunt did not look satisfied, but she nodded her head, and Rupert, uttering a hasty au revoir, left the room.

Chapter II Oon

after her nephew left her, the Baroness, muffling herself in a fur-lined cloak, and accompanied by her housekeeper, descended the stairs to inspect the rooms prepared for the reception of her sister-in-law and her two daughters. Under pretence of a wish to be useful and kind to relatives in not very brdliant circumstances, and altogether forgetting to mention that her wealth had not been able to procure her one friend, or even a com panion whose presence she could tolerate, she had offered them the use of some apartments on the ground-floor of her house, after having found it impossible to induce any tenant to remain more than a few months in them. It is probable her sister-in-law would have declined the permis sion to occupy them, had not the letter containing the proposal hinted something conciliatory about a "certain important paragraph in her husband's will," and a " hope that her house would henceforward be a home for her sister-in-law and her daughters."

Unwilling to decline the first advance towards friendship on the part of their rich relation, they had not ven tured to refuse, and they quitted Italy with heavy hearts ; and from Meran they wrote to request the Baroness to purchase whatever furniture was absolutely necessary in the first instance, but to avoid any expense beyond their means. Nothing could be more comfortless than the appearance of the large low rooms with their half-dozen chairs, hard cushionless sofas, and scanty white curtains. CYRILLA. 15 The Baroness Adlerkron, however, seemed to think it quite good enough for the expected occupants, and even found some of the bedroom furniture unnecessarily costly. " Painted chests of drawers and wardrobes would have answered the purpose quite as well, Monica," she observed to the housekeeper, who stood shivering beside her, " painted in imitation of cherry-wood or walnut, you know.

This is an unnecessary expense — don't foiget to collect all the bills, that my sister-in-law may see exactly the price of everything." The woman sneered slightly, and murmured something about stoves requiring to be heated, as there had been no fires since the whitewashing. " The time of their arrival is too uncertain," replied the Baroness coldly ; " but you had better bespeak wood for them — not, however, from the peasant who supplies me ; I wish as much as possible to avoid employing the same tradespeople." She drew her cloak tighter round her, and walked up stairs. After looking over her house-accounts, and scolding a good deal about the extravagance practised, without ex ception, by every member of her establishment, she sum moned her maid and changed her dress. The morning wrapper was thrown aside, and a silk dress, evincing an economical inclination to follow the latest fashion without a too great expenditure of stuff, was substituted ; an in describable fantastic head-dress, supposed to be Hungarian, composed of bright-coloured velvet ribbons, partly con cealed her dark hair, which was but slightly tinged with grey ; and whde she amused herself clasping bracelets on her wrists, her maid kneeling before her, placed on her feet a pair of diminutive sdk shoes the colour of her robe.