Sunrise by William Black (love letters to the dead .TXT) 📕

blessing of Heaven is more likely to follow you and crown your work if you can say to every man whom you ask to join you, 'You have women-folk around you. They have tender consciences, perhaps; but we will ask of you nothing that your sister or your wife or your daughter would not approve.' Then good men will not be afraid of you; then brave men will not have to stifle their conscience in serving you; and whether you succeed or do not succeed, you will have walked in clear ways."

Her mother felt that she was trembling; but her voice did not tremble--beyond that pathetic thrill in it which was always there when she was deeply moved.

"I have to beg your pardon, sir," she said, addressing herself more particularly to Von Zoesch, but scarcely daring to lift her eyes. "But--but do not think that, when you have made everything smooth for a woman's happiness, she can then think only of herself. She also may think a little about others; and even with those who are nearest and dearest to her, how can she bear to know that perhaps they may be engaged in something dark and hidden, something terrible--not because it involves danger but because it involves shame? Gentlemen, if you choose, you can do this. I appeal to you. I implore you. If you do not seek the co-operation of women--well, that is a light matter; you have our sympathy and love and gratitude--at least you can pursue ways and means of which women can approve; ways and means of which no one, man or woman, needs be ashamed. How otherwise are you what you profess to be--the lovers of what is just and true and merciful?"

She sat down, still all trembling. She held her mother's hand. There was a murmur of sympathy and admiration.

Brand turned to Von Zoesch, and said, in a low voice,

"You hear, sir? These are the representations I had wished to lay before the Council. I have not a word to add."

"We will consider by-and-by," said Von Zoesch, rising. "It is not a great matter. Come to me in Genoa as you pass through."

But the tall old gentleman with the long white hair had already risen and gone round to where the girl sat, and put his hand on her shoulder.

"My noble child, you have spoken well," said he, in a quavering, feeble voice, "Forgive me that I come so near; my eyes are very weak now; and you--you do not recognize me any more?"

"Anton!" said the mother.

"Child," said he, still addressing Natalie, "it is old Anton Pepczinski who is speaking to you. But you are disturbed; and I have greatly changed, no doubt. No matter. I have travelled a long way to bring you my blessing, and I give it to you now: I shall not see you again in this world. You were always brave and good; be that to the end; God has given you a noble soul."

She looked up, and something in her face told him that she had recognized him, despite the changes time had made.

"Yes, yes," he said, in great delight; "you remember now that you used to bring me tobacco for my pipe, and ask if I would fight for your country; I can see it in your eyes, my child: you remember, then, the old Anton Pepczinski who used to bring you sweet things? Now come and take me to the English gentleman; I wish to speak to him. Tell me, does he love you--does he understand you?"

She was silent, and embarrassed.

"No! you will not speak?" the old man said, laughing; "you cast your eyes down again. See, now, how one changes! for in former days you made love openly enough--oh yes!--to me, to me myself--oh, my dear, I can remember. I can remember very well. I am not so old that I cannot remember."

Brand rose when he saw them coming. She regarded him earnestly for a brief second or two, and said something to him in English in an undertone, not understood by those standing round.


CHAPTER LX.


NEW SHORES.

The moonlight lay on the moving Atlantic, and filled the hollow world with a radiance soft and gray and vague; but it struck sharp and white on the polished rails and spars of this great steamer, and shone on the long and shapely decks, and on the broad track of foam that went away back and back and back until it was lost in the horizon. It was late; and nearly all the passengers had gone below. In the silence there was only heard the monotonous sound of the engines, and the continuous rush and seething of the waters as the huge vessel clove its way onward.

Out there by the rail, in the white light, Natalie Lind lay back in her chair, all wrapped up in furs, and her lover was by her side, on a rug on the deck, his hand placed over her hand.

"To-morrow, then, Natalie," he was saying, "you will get your first glimpse of America."

"So you see I have procured your banishment after all," she said, with a smile.

"Not you," was the answer. "I had thought of it often. For a new life, a new world; and it is a new life you and I are beginning together."

Here the bell in the steering-room struck the half-hour; it was repeated by the lookout forward. The sound was strange, in the silence.

"Do you know," he said, after a while, "after we have done a fair share of work, we might think ourselves entitled to rest; and what better could we do than go back to England for a time, and go down to the old place in Buckinghamshire? Then Mrs. Alleyne would be satisfied at last. How proud the old dame was when she recognized you from your portrait! She thought all her dreams had come true, and that there was nothing left but to the Checkers and carry off that old cabinet as a wedding present."

"Natalie," he said, presently, "how is it that you always manage to do the right thing at the right time? When Mrs. Alleyne took your mother and you in to the Checkers, and old Mrs. Diggles led you into her parlor and dusted the table with her apron, what made you think of asking her for a piece of cake and a cup of tea?"

"My dearest, I saw the cake in the bar!" she exclaimed.

"I believe the old woman was ready to faint with delight when you praised her currant-wine, and asked how she made it. You have a wonderful way of getting round people--whether by fair means or otherwise I don't know. Do you think if it had been anybody else but you who went to Von Zoesch in Genoa, he would have let Calabressa come with us to America?"

"Poor old Calabressa!" she said, laughing; "he is very brave now about the sea; but he was terribly frightened that bad night we had after leaving Queenstown."

Here some one appeared in the dusky recess at the top of the companion-stairs, and stepped out into the open.

"Are you people never coming below at all?" he said. "I have to inform you, Miss Natalie, with your mamma's compliments, that she can't get on with her English verbs because of that fat girl playing Strauss; and that she is going to her cabin, and wants to know when you are coming."

"Now, at once," said Natalie, getting up out of her chair. "But wait a moment, Evelyn: I cannot go without bidding good-night to Calabressa. Where is Calabressa?"

"Calabressa! Oh, in the smoking-room, betting like mad, and going in for all the mock-auctions. I expect some of them will sit up all night to get their first sight of the land. The pilot expects that will be shortly after daybreak."

"You will be in time for that, Natalie, won't you?" Brand asked.

"Oh yes. Good-night, Evelyn!" and she gave him her hand.

Brand went with her down the companion-stairs, carrying her rugs and shawls. In the corridor she turned to bid him good-night also.

"Dearest," she said, in a low voice, "do you know what I have been trying all day--to get you to say one word, the smallest word, of regret?"

"But if I have no regret whatever, how can I express any?"

"Sure?"

He laughed, and kissed her.

"Good-night, my darling!"

"Good-night; God bless you!"

Then he made his way along the gloomy corridor again and up the broad zinc steps, and out into the moonlight. Evelyn was there, leaning with his arms on the hand-rail, and idly watching, far below, the gleams of light on the gray-black waves.

"It is too fine a night to go below," he said. "What do you say, Brand--shall we wait up for the daylight and the first glimpse of America?"

"If you like," said Brand, taking out his cigar-case, and hauling along the chair in which Natalie had been sitting.

They had the whole of this upper deck to themselves, except when one or other of the officers passed on his rounds. They could talk without risk of being overheard: and they had plenty to talk about--of all that had happened of late, of all that might happen to them in this new country they were nearing.

"Well," he said, "Evelyn, that settlement in Genoa clinched everything, as far as I am concerned. I have no longer any doubt, any hesitation: there is nothing to be concealed now--nothing to be withheld, even from those who are content to remain merely as our friends. One might have gone on as before; for, after all, these death-penalties only attached to the officers; and the great mass of the members, not being touched by them, need have known nothing about them. But it is better now."

"It was Natalie's appeal that settled that," Lord Evelyn said, as he still watched the shining waves.

"The influence of that girl is extraordinary. One could imagine that some magnetism radiated from her; or perhaps it is her voice, and her clear faith, and her enthusiasm. When she said something to old Anton Pepczinski, on bidding him good-bye--not about herself, or about him, but about what some of us were hoping for--he was crying like a child! In other times she might have done great things: she might have led armies."

By-and-by he said,

"As for those decrees, what use were they? From all I could learn, only ten have been issued since the Society was in existence; and eight of those were for the punishment of officers, who ought merely to have been expelled. Of course you will get people like Calabressa, with a touch of theatrical-mindedness, who have a love for the terrorism such a thing can produce. But what use is it? It is not by striking down an individual here or there that you can help on any wide movement; and this great organization, that I can see in the future will have other things to do than take heed of personal delinquencies--except in so far as to purge out from itself unworthy members--its action will affect continents, not persons."

"You can see that--you believe that, Brand?" Lord Evelyn, said, turning and regarding him.

"Yes, I think so," he answered, without enthusiasm, but with simple sincerity. Presently he said, "You remember, Evelyn, the morning we turned out of the little inn on the top of the Niessen, to see the sun rise