Chapter XIV: The Letter of Ernestine

The events of the war succeeded each other with frightful speed. Marshal MacMahon's spirited address to the army and his promise, 'with God's help, soon to take a brilliant revenge,' failed to inspire with courage the troops of France, whose military prowess seemed gone. The excitement in the army and at Paris grew terrible. Saarbrück was retaken by the Prussians; the French were again defeated at Forbach; vast bodies of prisoners taken in battle or by capitulation began to pour through the towns of Germany, where they were kindly received; the once great Empire of France seemed tottering to its fall, and on the 13th of August the Prussian scouts were at Pont-à-Mousson, on the Moselle.

Then, more fully to cut off MacMahon's communications with Metz, the 95th Thuringians, now greatly reduced in strength by fighting, and other troops, took post in the pleasant valley where the river divides the town in two parts. The town was soon filled by Prussian troops, but the hardy Thuringians pitched their tents near a village on the bank of the river, on a pretty wooded slope; and there on the first evening of the halt, Charlie received some intelligence from Frankenburg, which caused him much perplexity and thought.

Most of the furniture from the village had been brought into camp; before the tent of Captain Schönforst stood a table and chairs, and there he, with Charlie, Heinrich, and two other officers, sat smoking and drinking, and making merry, while their servants prepared a repast for them.

The aspect of the camp was very picturesque; it was now the beginning of evening, the August sun was sinking behind a wooded mountain range, the 'blue Moselle' looked bluer than ever between its green and fertile banks, and the rooks were cawing noisily overhead in the stately old beeches, amid which the tents of the 95th were pitched.

A single day's halt had enabled the officers to remove all the mud of the march; parade suits of uniform with fresh lace had been donned in lieu of old 'fighting jackets;' boots were polished and spurs burnished, and Schönforst wore a sword of which he was justly vain, as he had received it from the hands of King William after a battle in the campaign of 1866, when he was but a feldwebel, but won his silver shoulder-straps by bravery.

On all sides the men were cleaning their muskets, cutting wood, lighting fires, carrying water from the stream, singing merrily, and many of them in chorus.

'Well, Schönforst,' said one of his guests, Herr Donnersberg, a thoughtless young fähnrich, 'I feel that I have an appetite--what is your speise-karte for to-day?'

'The bill of fare shows rather an omnium gatherum,' replied the Captain, thrusting nearly half a pound of tobacco into the bowl of his pipe; 'but the chief feature in it is a goose, now broiling on ramrods. One of our foragers gave it to me this morning for a couple of kreutzers and a bottle of cognac.'

'Excellent!' replied the other, 'though it is a bird, which an English gourmand said "was too much for one, but not quite enough for two."

'Here is my contribution to the repast,' said Heinrich, producing from his tent a square case bottle of prime Geneva 'per Johann de Kuy, Rotterdam,' which he had picked up somewhere on the march.

'So, as we have nothing better than Geneva and beer,' said the Captain, 'it will be useless to discuss the question as to the aroma of Veuve Clicquot, as compared with that of sparkling hock or Sillery.'

'Hock!' cried the other; 'wait till our drums are ringing among the vineyards of Champagne!'

The goose was pronounced excellent, and soon disappeared with all Schönforst's own viands; the bowled pipes were again resorted to, and when Charlie produced a bottle of cognac from his tent, the serious business of the evening began, with the usual amount of rough military joking; and Schönforst was making them all laugh noisily and heartily, with an account of how Herr Major Rumpenfalz, just before the Westphalians marched, had married the frolicsome widow of a Hofrath, and on waking in the morning found his bride's golden hair on the toilette table, and her pearly teeth in the tumbler out of which the Herr Major was about to take his matutinal draught of cold water. While they were still laughing at this, or rather at the manner in which Schönforst related it, an officer who was passing suddenly paused, and--

'A glass with you, gentlemen!'

'With pleasure,' replied Schönforst, handing him a bumper of brandy and water.

'The Kaiser!' said the stranger, on which all started to their feet and drank the toast, standing with their caps off. Though wearing the usual spike-helmet, a plain blue surtout, with silver shoulder-straps, and a little eight-pointed cross at his neck, in the closely shaven face, the resolute mouth and square jaws, the stern grey eyes and aquiline nose of their visitor, they all recognised the Count Von Moltke--the spirit of the war, 'that embodied fate who prepared in mystery and gloom the blows that were to fall on mighty armaments, and in a few weeks to reduce great military powers to ruin and humiliation.'

'I have news for you, gentlemen,' said he. 'The Emperor has resigned the command of the French army to Marshal Bazaine, so he will have to make the great stand at Metz, where he has one hundred and forty thousand men, with two hundred and eighty pieces of cannon.'

He then put two fingers to the peak of his helmet, and walked slowly away, leaving them to discuss the probable turn events might take now; but jollity was soon resumed.

Charlie was rather silent and thoughtful; for sooth to say, the vivid nature of his dream still haunted him; and Heinrich, who knew well where his thoughts were, gave him a clap on the epaulette, and began to sing a verse of an old love song:

THE CARRIER PIGEON.

'They that behold me little dream
How wide my spirit soars from them,
And, borne on fancy's pinions, roves
To seek the glorious form it loves.

'Know that a faithful herald flies
To bear her image to my eyes,
My constant thought for ever telling
How fair she is, all else excelling!'

'Pass the bottle, Carl,' he added; 'let us be merry; weep when you must, but laugh when you can. Vive la bagatelle! as these Frenchmen have it.'

At that moment a Uhlan came spurring into camp with letters for the brigade from the field post; those for the 95th were soon distributed: there was one for Heinrich from Herminia, with another for Charlie enclosed, and both became at once deep in their contents by the last light of the sun. Ernestine's letter was very long, and so crossed and recrossed that the perusal of it occupied a long time. Ere he had read a few lines, Heinrich said:

'I do not know whether I should show you this, Carl.'

'What?'

'A passage in Herminia's letter.'

'About whom?' asked Charlie anxiously.

'Ernestine--my sister.'

'Read it, pray; anything is better than suspense.'

'Herminia writes, "Poor Ernestine seems to fret fearfully. There is a flush on her cheeks such as often precedes but more often follows pallor; and all her actions, figure, and manner are indicative of listlessness and ill-health."'

'My poor darling!' said Charlie, in a low agitated voice.

'"Surely her mamma will have some pity upon her," continued Herminia; "the Baron Grünthal has returned to Aix, and though his gout still continues----"'

'Praised be Plutus!' commented Charlie; 'I wish the nasty old beast was at the bottom of the Red Sea.'

'"And though it does not improve his temper, he has become very anxious and importunate."'

'Curse him! I hope the gout may get into his Excellency's stomach.'

'"The Count and Countess begin to hint now that as the war will too probably be a protracted one, it was unwise to wait for Heinrich's presence at this odious marriage. How Aunt Adelaide pores over the _Gazettes_--those dreadful _Gazettes_!" And now, Herr Carl, all that follows are little _bon-bons_ for my own perusal.'

Innocent Herminia little knew that her aunt watched the war _Gazettes_ with the double hope that Heinrich's name was not in them, and that Charlie's _was_--or might be.

Poor Charlie! Her ladyship was to be gratified one day, however.

'What news from Ernestine?' asked Heinrich, when Charlie had finished the perusal of _his_ letter; 'I feel as anxious about these girls at Frankenburg, as if I was Rip Van Winkle after his long snooze in the Sleepy Hollow.'

But Charlie made no reply; he sat with the letter in his hand, and lost in thought.

'What is the matter, my friend?' asked Heinrich. 'There is something more in your letter than there is in mine?'

'There is, indeed!' replied Charlie, in a strange voice, as he drained his glass.

'Good news?'

'No, Heinrich.'

'Bad news, then?'

'No, thank Heaven!' replied Charlie fervently.

'What, then, agitates you?'

'That which I cannot tell you. That which you cannot understand.'

'Carl!' exclaimed Heinrich.

'Pardon me--another time, and I may tell you. Oh, Heinrich, your sister, Ernestine, is indeed the world's one woman to me!' he exclaimed, with deep emotion; and, heedless of Schönforst and the rest, he rose from the table, walked into his tent, and threw himself on the pallet which was his couch, to re-peruse the letter of his betrothed.

The following was the passage at the end of her letter which caused him so much thought and bewilderment:

'Oh, Carl! Carl! what is separation but a living death--a blank in life--a place vacant?' ('How prone the girl is to speak of death!' thought Charlie.) 'But I am ever and always with you in spirit, my love. Do you ever dream of me, Carl? I ask this because last night I had such a delicious dream of _you_.'

'_Last_ night,' thought Charlie, glancing again at the date of her letter--'7th' August; 'last night must have been the 6th, when we bivouacked in the stackyard, and I had such a vivid dream of her.'

'I imagined, love, Carl,' continued the letter, 'that I came upon you suddenly, when you were lying on the cold earth in your cloak, as I fear you too often are compelled to do. A great horror seized me! I thought you were dead, you looked so white and wasted; but a sudden joy came into my poor heart when I found you were but asleep. I drew your dear head upon my bosom, as a mother might do her baby's, and caressed you, calling you "My darling!" "My very own darling!" so distinctly that Herminia heard me speaking in my sleep.

'And then you kissed me, Carl, with such tender and passionate kisses as you gave me on that dear day in the Hoch Munster, and called me your little wife and your guardian angel. I was then startled by the great hall clock striking three in the morning, and awoke to weep on finding that it was all a dream, but a dear, dear dream to me.'

These were the actions and words of Charlie's dream, and he remembered that when he awoke the hour of _three_ was tolled in the village spire!

'What can it mean?' he exclaimed, tossing his thick curly hair back from his forehead, impatiently--a way he had; 'the mystery of dreams is unfathomable; they are, indeed, "strange--passing strange!" The same dream, yet we are miles upon miles apart! The same words spoken and heard!--the same night!--the same hour and moment of time!'

Was there some magnetic influence at work? Some spiritual affinity, born of this great love, between these two? It almost seemed so.

Charlie Pierrepont, a matter-of-fact young officer, knew as little of the famous Dr. Emmerson's theories of polarity and odic force, as he did of the Philosophy of the Infinite, or any other abstruse speculation of the present day.

Though bewildered and perplexed, as we have said, it gave him a thrill of strange delight to think how strong, and yet how tender, must be the tie of love between him and Ernestine to produce a spiritual intercourse like this; and lest they might be laughed at by the heedless Heinrich, it was not until some days subsequent to the arrival of her letter that he revealed its contents to her brother, to whom, fortunately for the corroboration of the story, he had told of his vivid dream on the morning it occurred, before the regiment marched from the village.