Chapter XVII: Lost

Damped and disconcerted by the sudden hopelessness of his regard for Mary Wellwood on learning that she was betrothed to another, the young baron--after leaving cards subsequent to the night of the ball--did not visit the villa so frequently as had been his wont; but the society there was so pleasant and attractive, that he began to drop in during the afternoons and evenings for a little music and singing, in both of which, like most foreigners, he could bear his part very well.

That Ellinor had undergone some grief--he knew not precisely what it was--he was perfectly aware, but her story was not one on which Mrs. Deroubigne cared to enlighten him fully. He could also see that she wore black or sombre dresses, with suites of jet ornaments, for Ellinor felt that to do so was at least all that she might indulge in, as a proper tribute to the memory of one who had loved her well.

The sisters were to have been photographed in their sixteenth century ball costumes for the delectation of Colville; but this frivolity they abandoned after hearing of Robert Wodrow's catastrophe.

Ellinor often recalled the night of that brilliant festivity, when she had waltzed and promenaded to and fro as one in a dream of delight, and spoke in a hushed tone as if she feared to waken from it to a real and commonplace life, for never before had she been in so gay and glittering a paradise; but now that was all over--gone like a dissolving view, and she could but think of the poor heart that had loved her so well and so fondly now lying cold and stiff in the waters of the Cabul river.

Mrs. Deroubigne knew of Robert Wodrow only by name. Thus her natural equanimity on the subject of his fate, combined with her social qualities and equally natural brightness, helped much to calm, even to soothe, the equally natural grief, and also perhaps the remorse of Ellinor, who, of course, became in time composed and consoled over the inevitable, though she was still too terrified or too much pained to write to his parents--a task which she relegated to Mary.

And in her quiet and subdued grief, most generous, unvaryingly kind and sympathetic was young Rolandsburg, though he knew not quite the cause from which it sprang; and charmed by her sadness, softness, and beauty, finding that the elder sister was lost to him, it seemed to Mrs. Deroubigne that he was already turning his attention to the younger.

Ellinor had--as she said to Mary--wept her eyes out for poor Bob Wodrow; and thus, after a time, the elasticity of her volatile nature began to reassert itself, to the delight of the baron.

Nature, we are told, abhors a vacuum; so did the heart of the handsome young Uhlan; hence he adopted a new _rôle_ in his bearing to Ellinor, all the more easily and all the more readily that he had not committed himself with Mary.

Blooming as the German girls are, Ellinor's softer beauty was a new experience to him; she was like a tea-rose, a sea-shell, a wonderfully delicate and tinted bit of feminine nature, and as before, he first made Mrs. Deroubigne his confidant.

'Ah, madame!' said he, clasping his hands melodramatically, while drooping his head on one side till it nearly touched his gilt shoulderstrap, 'I suppose she could not understand anyone dying of love--of love of her?'

'I think not,' replied Mrs. Deroubigne, laughing excessively at this leading remark when remembering that he had been in the mood of 'dying for love' of Mary but some weeks before.

Yet he was a pleasant, handsome fellow, with so much _bonhommie_ about him that it was impossible not to be pleased with him, all the more that the iron cross on his breast showed that he had comported himself gallantly in the field.

'The Fraulein Ellinor is very cold and very calm,' said he; 'she can take a man's heart--take all his love and give him none in return.'

'It is not so,' replied Mrs. Deroubigne.

'How, madame, then?'

'You do not know her story; but why should I recur to it?'

'Her story--she has had, then, an _affaire du coeur_?'

'One at least, certainly,' said Mrs. Deroubigne, laughing again at the baron's expression of face and tone of pique.

'Der Teufel! One at least? How sad it is to think of a young lady having a story! And this--or these--render her indifferent to me?'

'Perhaps,' replied Mrs. Deroubigne, who, much as she liked the young Prussian, did not wish to flatter his hopes, but he was not the less resolved to put the matter to the issue.

Calling one afternoon when Mrs. Deroubigne and Mary had driven into Hamburg, he intercepted Ellinor in the garden, with her little camp-stool, easel, and colour-box, about to go forth and sketch; and though he had but a few minutes to spare, as his horse was at the gate to take him back to barracks, he resolved to utilise them.

Shaded from the declining sun by a broad garden-hat, he thought Ellinor's face never looked so charming before. Her eyes were peculiarly her greatest beauty; they were of the clearest and most luminous hazel--not very dark, and sweetly trustful and straightforward in expression; but they drooped now and sought the flower-beds, for something she read in those of young Rolandsburg told her what was coming.

In the physical nature of some people who love keenly there is a mysterious sympathy that draws them together, and the baron, thinking that she was inspired by that now, put out his hand to touch hers, but she withdrew it.

This was not encouraging, but he drew nearer her half-averted ear, and whispered bluntly enough, but tremulously, nevertheless,

'This is a great joy finding you alone--alone, that I may tell you what I have been longing--dying to tell you for weeks past--that I love you, Ellinor, and you only!'

In his foreign accent and half-broken English, the avowal sounded very pretty and simple, but did not touch Ellinor much, though she trembled and grew pale, for no woman can have such things said to her and remain quite unmoved.

'Love _me_--how strange!' said she, scarcely knowing what to say.

'To you it may seem so,' he continued, slowly and earnestly; 'for I know or suspect that you cherish some dead--some mysterious memory, and that you cannot or may not care for me as I wish you to do; but that does not prevent me from loving you, and you may never understand, even dimly, how much I do love you, and I can keep this secret untold no longer.'

'I respect you much, baron,' replied Ellinor, for his declaration was more formal than impetuous; 'but mere talking to me will not make me love you in return. I feel quite confused--most unhappy to hear all this; and we shall have to go away from Altona.'

'Go from Altona?'

'Yes.'

'I only tell you because I can not control--can not help myself,' said he, humbly and sadly, and not without an emotion of pique at the ill-luck of his second venture.

'I thank you, baron, but it cannot be,' said Ellinor, shaking her pretty head decidedly.

'You cannot--love me.'

'No--not as you wish.'

'Well,' said he, after a pause, during which he had been eyeing her downcast face with an expression of disappointment and chagrin, 'be it so; but I trust you will pardon any unpleasantness my perhaps abrupt avowal has occasioned you; and I also trust that in the future you will always view me as your friend--as one who will ever be ready and eager to hold out the hand of a brother to you, Miss Ellinor. Even with that conviction I shall be happy,' he added, with a voice that certainly broke a little with emotion.

She now gave her hand frankly, and he pressed it kindly, and then, proceeding to fill with tobacco his consolatory meerschaum pipe (that dangled at his button-hole) prior to riding back to the Dammthor Wall, he said, with a sigh,

'Ach--I will get over this, no doubt!'

'As you must have got over others, no doubt,' said Ellinor, laughing now, but piqued by his philosophy, and to see that he could so calmly canvass the prospect of ceasing to care for her already. But what does it matter? Robert Wodrow had loved her as no man had ever loved her, and what had been _his_ reward?

'Now leave me, please, baron,' she said, a little bluntly; 'the tide is far out, and I wish to sketch the creek and villa from yonder bank of dry sand ere the sun sets.'

'I must go--for parade awaits me; but must I recur to this dear subject no more?'

'Yes--no more,' said Ellinor, with decision, yet with a smile nevertheless.

The baron felt that all was over when he saw that smile; indeed, when with Ellinor, he always felt that he was in the presence of some feeling deeper than he could fathom; and, bowing low, he turned sadly away. Then in a few minutes the clatter of his horse's hoofs was heard as he cantered off towards the Millernthor, and so ended another little romance in Ellinor's life--at least, she thought so. And the baron knew that now never again could they enjoy each other's society as they had done so innocently till that afternoon.

Proceeding over the firm dry sand left by the far retreating tide, she selected a point upon a rough pebble-covered knoll, a quarter of a mile from the little wooded creek, set her sketching-block upon her tiny easel, and, seating herself upon a little camp-stool, proceeded, with her back to the setting sun, to outline the creek, with the trees, the garden, and sandy beach in foreground, and the villa in the middle distance.

She was very full of her work, to have it as a souvenir of Altona, but it proceeded very, very slowly; she was too full of the late episode to do much with her pencil--much successfully at least, and paused ever and anon to sink into deep thought over the past, the present, and the future.

When Mary and Mrs. Deroubigne returned home to a late dinner, Ellinor was not to be seen, she was not in the villa, and she was not in the garden, nor in the adjacent shrubberies, so the house-bell was rung for her in vain; and to Mrs. Deroubigne, Ellinor, always dreamy, delicate, and in temperament excitable, had been somewhat of a responsibility, more than her sister Mary.

Dinner was served up, but remained on the table untasted, while search after search was made without avail, and sunset was at hand.

She had last been seen in the garden, with Baron Rolandsburg, with her drawing materials and apparatus, going forth to sketch.

With the baron!

'Could she have eloped with him?' thought Mary, while her heart sank--recalling Ellinor's former folly--the folly she had been on the brink of committing with Sir Redmond Sleath.

Oh, that was very unlikely! Ellinor was a changed girl, and less confiding, and the young baron was too confident in himself, his position, wealth, and resources to love mystery or mischief when neither were needed.

A presentiment of evil--an emotion that she could not have explained--came over Mary's mind. Vainly she sought to settle her thoughts to some fixity of purpose. A vague terror seized her, and she could scarcely even think.

She remembered when Ellinor was ill how the tolling of the Passing Bell in the adjacent church appalled her with the dread that she was about to lose her--her only relation in the world; and had she lost her now?

'Was she going far to sketch?' Mrs. Deroubigne suddenly inquired of her now scared domestics.

'No, madame! Only to the sands beside the river, when the tide was out.'

'The tide!' exclaimed Mrs. Deroubigne; and, accompanied by Mary, she rushed to the foot of the garden, to find the creek full and the Elbe at flood tide and more.

'My God--oh, what can have happened?' exclaimed Mrs. Deroubigne, who was aware of a periodical event of which Mary knew nothing.

It was this. When the wind is from the west, and especially if violent, the waters of the Elbe become swollen to such a degree that the canals of Hamburg overflow their banks, the cellars, magazines and all channels, become gorged and inundated--that, in fact, the tide suddenly rises, sometimes to the height of twenty feet, with a rapidity that is alike dangerous and terrible. So the gorged tide, swollen by the incoming waves of the German Sea, was rolling inshore now, and Ellinor had been on the sands--the temporary dry sands, to sketch!

A wild waste of water was rolling and boiling there now, and where was she?

'Ellinor--oh, Ellinor!' cried Mary, again and again, in a voice of agony; but, save the sough of the waves, there was no response.

Soaked to pulp her sketch-book was found at the foot of the creek washed inshore, and, if other evidence of a tragedy was wanting, something was seen floating in the oozy waves about ten yards distant.

Jack, the terrier--that dog which had such amazing facility for getting into canine troubles--sprang in, and yapping and yelping laid that something at the feet of his mistress, who recognised at once her sister's garden-hat; and a low cry of despair escaped Mary as she turned it over in her trembling hands, and painfully and vividly it brought before her the face, figure, and whole individuality of the lost one.

A torrent of tears escaped Mrs. Deroubigne, but Mary seemed to have lost the power to shed one.

Even as the angry waves came rolling into the creek, so did wave after wave of sorrow seem to be coming upon her again, dark and sharp as ever.

'Oh, Lord--how long--how long!' she wailed in her heart.

She stretched out her hands as if clutching the air for support, she swayed a little, and then, her strength failing her, she would have fallen on her pallid face had not Mrs. Deroubigne caught her fast in her motherly arms.

Night drew on and day came again without a trace of the lost one, dead or alive.

Baron Rolandsburg, who was appalled by a catastrophe so sudden and unforeseen, corroborated the story that she had gone on the stretch of dry sand to sketch, and no doubt remained till the sudden tide had overtaken and overwhelmed her!

He now made himself invaluable in his exertions for intelligence. Rewards were offered to boatmen and river-pilots, and in the _Hamburger Nachrichten_ and other journals 'for her remains' (how horrible did this sound), but unknown to Mary, who was for several days and nights all but unconscious. He also put himself into communication with their _Herrshaften_ (their Excellencies) the four Burgomasters and four Syndics, and the Gendermerie, but all in vain.

Other traces of Ellinor than those which the hungry waves had washed to Mary's feet were never found!

The latter was now a prey to two emotions, when a time came that she could consider calmly. One was an intense longing to get away from Altona as a place which had now become hateful to her, as the scene of so much sadness; and the other was an affectionate repugnance to leave it, until her sister's fate was made certain, and her remains found.

But the latter might have been washed out to sea, and never--never might be heard of more.

The inexorable had to be accepted, but we fear that poor Mary Wellwood could not do so with the calmness of a disciple of Epictitus, the stoic.