CHAPTER IX.
The postmaster did exactly as he had promised, and he did it promptly.
"Now I have got the house, you've got to set up housekeeping, but don'tbuy much furniture, the wife will see to that. Till you get a wife, I'lllend you my maid-servant to keep house; she's also a good hand atmilking, for a cow you must have; and your cooking will have to be doneat home, for there is no cafe or hotel here, as at Vienna. And don'ttrust your wine-cellar key to anyone else!"
Mathias Raby took this good advice, and arranged his new house as if hewere settling down for good in it. He had his fields sown with crops,his vineyards overhauled, and laid in a stock of winter provisions. Buthe encouraged no gossips, took no interest in outsiders, and wasreserved with acquaintances to the verge of taciturnity.
But general rumour had it that the gentleman who had thus settled amongthem, had been sent by the Kaiser himself to investigate matters ofstate in Szent-Endre.
Soon after this, Raby made an excuse for going to Pesth so as to call onthe Tarhalmys.
Tarhalmy was the county notary, and lived in the Assembly House assignedhim. Raby knew it well, for when he was a clerk, he used to go thereevery day. When he reached the door, the heyduke who stood sentry,barred his way, with his musket under his arm, one foot crossed over theother, and his shoulder against the door.
"Tell me, my friend," for thus did Raby accost the old heyduke, "is theworshipful pronotary at home?"
The man answered, his worship had just gone out, but his lady-daughterwas within, and would be delighted to see the honourable gentleman.
Raby hastened up the familiar wooden stairs, that were so well worn downthe middle.
Our hero needed no guide through these rooms. He knew all the nooks andcorners of the house, and likewise the time at which callers mightcome--between the hours of three and four in the afternoon. First hebetook himself to the ante-room, where he laid aside his sword and hat.But there was no lackey there to announce him, he had to knock thereforeat the first door, to hear a "come in," before he ventured to enterwithout further preamble.
It was the familiar dining-room, where the women-folk were used tobetake themselves to their spinning-wheels.
They sat there now, the Fraulein and the two maids. The spinning-wheelwas to our grandmothers what the cycle is to the women of to-day; nay,it took also the place of the pianoforte itself.
Mariska had certainly grown very pretty since Raby had last seen her,although, as Mr. Leanyfalvy had remarked, she was quite simply dressed,and did not curl her hair. He was also quite right about her blushingwhen she was spoken to. In this instance, words indeed were not neededto bring the colour into her cheeks, she no sooner saw the visitor, thanshe crimsoned to the roots of her hair. The young girl rose respectfullyfrom the spinning-wheel, glanced shyly at the intruder, and ere he couldforbid it, had made him a childish curtsey and kissed his hand.
Raby was very nearly being angry.
"But, Mariska, do you not recognise me?"
"How should I help recognising you, Matyi?"
"Why then do you kiss my hand?"
"Ah, you have become a great man since those days."
"Were I ever so great a man, I would not allow my hand to be kissed by alady."
"But I am no lady, you see."
"Nor am I a great man. And now please give me your hands that I may kissthem."
But the girl put both hands behind her back.
"No, for then should I be a lady indeed. Please be seated."
She motioned Raby to the leather-covered sofa, and sat down again by thespinning-wheel, as she deftly began afresh to twist the flax into finesilky threads, so that they could talk if they wanted to.
The two maid-servants did not leave the room, but just listened to allthat their mistress and her visitor said; it was but proper, theythought.
Raby was meanwhile thinking how to baffle the maids. To this end heasked in German what she was doing?
The young girl gazed at him with her great blue eyes full of sorrowfulamazement. Fancy expecting that in the household of the pronotary ofPesth, that stronghold of Magyar freedom, that anyone, much more thedaughter of the house, should speak German! She lowered her eyes, andwhispered timidly, "I do not understand German."
"You do not understand German? Why, whatever would you do if you went toa ball here in Pesth, and could not speak to your partners?"
"I never go to any balls; I can't even dance," murmured the girl.
"You mean to say, you don't dance? Well then, however do you amuseyourself?"
"When I have time for it, I read."
"And what in the world do you read, if you only know Hungarian?" askedRaby.
"Father has a fine library, and so he chooses books for me."
"And how do you spend the whole day?"
"Oh! I have a small garden in the courtyard; I love flowers!"
Tho two were silent, and Raby looked around him.
The whole room was eloquent to him of the past. There, by thework-table, was still the little box containing thread, scissors, andthimble, which he himself had made when he was a clerk. There over thecouch, hung a withered wreath of dried flowers which he recognised.Nothing was lost; all had been carefully preserved, even the pen whichhe had used for the last time in the office, rested still behind themirror with his name inscribed upon the holder.
And yet they had not expected him; all these souvenirs had not beenspread out at the news of his coming. They were, everyone, abidingwitnesses to the way in which his memory was cherished in a guilelessmaiden's heart which loves, while it yet hardly knows what love is.
Mathias Raby was surely strangely ungrateful to the fate which hadpreserved such a treasure for him. But it is the way of youth, sounregardful is it of the treasures true love spreads for its unheedingeyes, to be its own for the asking.
But his meditations were interrupted by the entrance of Miska, theheyduke, who came to announce that his worship, the notary, was ready tosee Mr. Raby if he would wait upon him in the bureau.
Raby rose from his seat, and took leave of his hostess, who accompaniedhim to the door.
There they exchanged the usual farewell greetings, and she laid herlittle hand in his shyly, as if fearing the ceremonial kiss. As Rabytook the small soft fingers in his, a magnetic shock, as it were,thrilled his being, so that he would fain have asked the question whichwas on his lips, the question the girl would have seen in his eyes, hadshe but raised her own.
And Mariska, too, yearned to ask him, "How long do you stay?" How gladlywould she have heard the answer that it was for some time, how naturallywould the invitation have risen to her lips to Raby to come again oftenand see them.
But instead of all this, they did but hold each other's hands a momenthalf-fearfully, as if each were afraid of the other's kiss.
This once, at any rate, did Raby have the chance of grasping thatinvisible golden thread which runs once through the life of everymortal. Well for him who seizes it, for it will lead him safely throughall perils, but woe to him who lets it go! He cannot pick it up again.
Raby did not seize the thread.
"Good-bye!" they murmured. And a right good word it is this "God be withyou!" Yet what if man refuses the blessing the good God proffers him?