Part 38 (1/2)

”But just tell me for certain, Elsa . . . so that I shouldn't have to torment myself in the meanwhile . . . just tell me for certain that one day . . . in the far-distant future if you like, but one day . . . say that you will marry me.”

”Some day, Andor, I will marry you if G.o.d wills,” she said simply.

”Oh! But of course He will!” he rejoined airily, ”and we will be married in the spring--or the early summer when the maize is just beginning to ripen . . . and we'll rent the mill from Pali bacsi--shall we, Elsa?”

”If you like, Andor.”

”If I like!” he exclaimed. ”If I like! The dear G.o.d love me, but I think that if I stay here much longer I shall go off my head. . . . Elsa, you don't know how much I love you and what I would not do for your sake.

. . . I feel a different man even for the joy of sitting here and talking to you and no one having the right to interfere. . . . And I would make you happy, Elsa, that I swear by the living G.o.d. I would make you happy and I would work to keep you in comfort all the days of my life. You shall be just as fine as Eros Bela would have made you--and besides that, there would be a smile on your sweet face at every hour of the day . . . your hands would be as white as those of my lady the Countess herself, for I would have a servant to wait on you. And your father would come and live with us and we would make him happy and comfortable too, and your mother . . . well! your mother would be happy too, and therefore not quite so cantankerous as she sometimes is.”

To Andor there was nothing ahead but a life full of suns.h.i.+ne. He never looked back on the past few days and on the burden of sin which they bore. Bela had been a brute of the most coa.r.s.e and abominable type; by his monstrous conduct on the eve of his wedding day he had walked to his death--of his own accord. Andor had _not_ sent him. Oh! he was quite, quite sure that he had not sent Bela to his death. He had merely forborn to warn him--and surely there could be no sin in that.

He might have told Bela that Leopold Hirsch--half mad with jealousy--was outside on the watch with a hunting-knife in his pocket and murder in his soul. Andor might have told Bela this and he had remained silent.

Was that a sin? considering what a brute the man was, how his action that night was a deadly insult put upon Elsa, and how he would in the future have bullied and browbeaten Elsa and made her life a misery--a veritable h.e.l.l upon earth.

Andor had thought the problem out; he had weighed it in his mind and he was satisfied that he had not really committed a sin. Of course he ought before now to have laid the whole case before Pater Bonifacius, and the Pater would have told him just what G.o.d's view would be of the whole affair.

The fact that Andor had not thought of going to confession showed that he was not quite sure what G.o.d--as represented by Pater Bonifacius--would think of it all; but he meant to go by and by and conclude a permanent and fulsome peace treaty with his conscience.

In the meanwhile, even though the burden of remorse should at times in the future weigh upon his soul and perhaps spoil a little of his happiness, well! he would have to put up with it, and that was all!--Elsa was happy--one sight of her radiant little face was enough for any fool to see that an infinite sense of relief had descended into her soul. Elsa was happy--freed from the brute who would have made her wretched for the rest of her life; and surely the good G.o.d, who could read the secret motives which lay in a fellow's heart, would not be hard on Andor for what he had done--or left undone--for Elsa's sake.

CHAPTER x.x.x

”Kyrie eleison.”

But the daily routine of everyday life went on at Marosfalva just as it had done before the double tragedy of St. Michael's E'en had darkened the pages of its simple history.

The maize had all been gathered in--ploughing had begun--my lord and his guests were shooting in the stubble. The first torrential rain had fallen and the waters of the Maros had begun to swell.

Gossip about Eros Bela's terrible end and Leopold Hirsch's suicide had not by any means been exhausted, but it was supplemented now by talk of Lakatos Pal's wealth. The old man had been ailing for some time. His nephew Andor's return had certainly cheered him up for a while, but soon after that he seemed to collapse very suddenly in health, like old folk do in this part of the world--stricken down by one or other of the several diseases which are engendered by the violent extremes of heat and cold--diseases of the liver for the most part--the beginning of a slowly-oncoming end.

He had always been reputed to be a miser, and those who were in the know now averred that Andor had found several thousand florins tucked away in old bits of sacking and hidden under his uncle's straw pailla.s.se. Pali bacsi was also possessed of considerable property--some land, a farm and the mill; there was no doubt now that Andor would be a very rich man one of these days.

Mothers with marriageable daughters sighed nevertheless in vain. Andor was not for any of them. Andor had eyes only for Elsa. He had become an important man in the village now that his uncle was so ill and he was left to administer the old man's property; and he took his duties very earnestly in the intervals of courting Kapus Elsa.

As to this no one had cause to make any objection. They had loved one another and been true to one another for five years; it was clearly the will of the good G.o.d that they should come together at last.

And now October was drawing to its close--to-day was the fourth Sunday in the month and one of the numerous feasts of our Blessed Lady, one on which solemn benediction is appointed to be sung in the early afternoon, and benediction is followed by a procession to the shrine of the Virgin which stands on the roadside on the way to Saborso some two kilometres distant from Marosfalva. It is a great festival and one to which the peasantry of the countryside look forward with great glee, for they love the procession and have a great faith in the efficacy of prayer said at the shrine.

Fortunately the day turned out to be one of the most glorious suns.h.i.+ny days which mid-autumn can yield, and the little church in the afternoon was crowded in every corner. The older women--their heads covered with dark-coloured handkerchiefs, occupied the left side of the aisle, the men crowded in on the right and at the back under the organ loft. Round about the chancel rail and steps the bevy of girls in gayest Sunday dresses looked like a garden of giant animated flowers. When the s.e.xton went the round with the collecting-bag tied to the end of a long pole, he had the greatest difficulty in making his way through the maze of many-hued petticoats which, as the girls knelt, stood all round them like huge bells, with their slim shoulders and small heads above looking for all the world like the handles.

The children were all placed in the chancel to right and left of the altar, solemn and well-behaved, with one eye on the schoolmistress and the other on the Pater.

After the service the order of procession was formed, inside the church: the children in the forefront with banner carried by the head of the school--a st.u.r.dy maiden on the fringe of her teens, very proud to carry the Blessed Virgin's banner. She squared her shoulders well, for the banner was heavy, and the line of her young hips--well accentuated by the numerous petticoats which a proud mother had tied round her waist--gave a certain dignity to her carriage and natural grace to her movements.

Behind the children came the young girls--those of a marriageable age whom a pious custom dedicates most specially to the service of Our Lady.

Their banner was of blue silk, and most of them were dressed in blue, whilst blue ribbons fluttered round their heads as they walked.