A Son of the People/Chapter 30

came away from the interview with her father, in a state, which was half one of bewilderment, and half one of acute suffering.

That pride which is the inalienable characteristic—virtue or vice—of those magyars who have held the lands of Hungary in uninterrupted succession of generations, while the empires of Europe fell and rose again, that pride which rules their every action, which has prevented their accepting modern progress, and built a barrier round them which nineteenth-century civilisation could never pierce, that pride in Ilonka, had received a deadly wound. The descendant of a line of noble warriors, who helped to build up a kingdom, had been shamed by the chivalry and generosity of a peasant.

For the first time, in her life, Ilonka broke the spirit of the commandment which bade her “honour her father and her mother.” She resented bitterly the part she had, in her ignorance, been made to play. She felt her conduct to have been odious, beyond what words could say. In ignorance of the real state of the case, she had been thrown into the arms of one of those men, whom, all her life she had been taught to despise; and, wilfully, she had been kept in ignorance of the fact, that this man, among all men, was noble and generous, and proud above all.

Yes! proud, with the pride of noble deeds, with the pride, that disdained even to reply to insults, so absolutely unmerited.

Oh! how he must have despised her. He, the peasant, the descendant of serfs, with what contempt he must have looked upon her, the penniless aristocrat, the noble beggar, who turned on the hand that fed her and hers.

Oh! it was horrible!—a burning shame brought the tears into her eyes, She tortured herself with the recollections of all the taunts, the insults, she had, in her blind ingratitude, hurled at this man, who had loaded her and her family with gifts, and in return, asked for such a very little love.

The silence, which she took to mean shame and remorse, was one of unutterable scorn for her. He disdained to explain to her how little he had merited those taunts of cupidity and arrogance. Ilonka remembered that he bore everything silently, until … until …. Oh! that was a cruel blow she dealt; she wondered now what demon had suggested it. He had done so much to win her, and she calmly told him, that she loved another. Then only, did he say to her, that she had gone too far, then only did the rough peasant’s wrath threaten to avenge the bitter insults, and silence for ever the ungrateful tongue.

Oh! why had Etelka then intervened? Why was not her life allowed to pay the penalty of her odious conduct? one blow would then have ended the bitter conflict between a man’s passion and a woman’s pride. Then …. oh, then …. the terrible duty would not have been before her, which now her very pride compelled her to perform.

A peasant could not outdo an aristocrat in chivalry. She had wounded him and his pride; she would make amends. He had made every sacrifice to gain her love; she would try and give it. Humbled before him, she would ask for his forgiveness. She would return to that home, from which her cruelty and injustice, had driven him that fatal night. She had done a great wrong, but the reparation would be equally great. Love, she could not give him. Oh, no! she had loved once … long ago … in her early youth, a man who was refined, aristocratic … so respectful, when he whispered gently: “Ilonka, I love you!” without even daring to touch her hand. Oh, no! she could never love this man, whose voice was rough, and whose eyes seemed to look into her very soul, whose strange, wild words made her shudder, with an indefinable feeling, which must be horror. Ilonka remembered his last farewell to her, when his voice had ceased to tremble, and he swore to her, that never again would he speak of his dead love to her.

Dead love? could love be dead? Hers, for the handsome young hussar was surely still alive in her heart. It seemed so cruel to talk of love as dead. No wonder that, when he swore the strange oath, a terrible pain had seized her heart, and had remained there ever since. It was a curious pain, which she could not understand, but which, at times, became unbearable, whenever the sighing of the wind through the poplar trees, brought a faint echo of the rugged voice to her ear. Then at night, when the moon shone cold upon the plains, she felt sometimes as if her heart would break. And she always wondered why.

Oh, no! no! no! a thousand times no! She, Ilonka, of Bideskút, the daughter of those who had owned this beautiful land, while ages came and went, no! she could never love the peasant. But, she could be grateful; she could make amends for her wrongs, and repay by her submission, her obedience—if need be her deference,—the deep debt her family had contracted in her name.

She had strolled out into the garden. The midday sun was hot and scorching. Dreamily she wandered down the acacia drive, where the ground was cool and fragrant, covered with a carpet of sweet-scented petals. She looked out through the open gates, and, there far away across the plain, she saw a tiny speck upon the horizon. Her heart beat fast She was angry with herself, at her own cowardice; she had nothing to fear. The humiliation would be great, but the greater it was, the more contented would be her pride, for then the greater would be the atonement

András dismounted at the gate, leaving Csillag to wander at her sweet will, while he walked up the drive to the castle. Ilonka heard him saying farewell to his horse, and telling her, he would not be long, just as if the mare was a human creature, and his dearest friend. Then she stepped forward.

András did not start He looked at her so quietly, almost as if he had expected to see her there. Ilonka saw at once, how very much older he seemed, than on the day, when he had first kissed her hand. And as he lifted his cap, she saw how grey his hair had turned at the temples. Silently he would have passed, but she said timidly:

“My father is waiting to see you; but, I came out here, as there is something I wished to say to you. … Will you hear it?”

He stopped, with his cap in his hand, looking down at her, with a half-vacant look in his eyes, as if his thoughts were very far away.

“If it is necessary,” he said, “I will listen!”

“I, accidentally … to-day … for the first time … heard something, which should never have been kept from me, … I … I did not understand … when I married … the terrible position in which my poor father was placed … and from which your … your … generosity rescued him. … I …”

“Noble lady,” he said very quietly, “I must ask you not to distress yourself, or waste your valuable time, in speaking of things which are long past and forgotten. What business dealings I had with my lord, I can assure you that he has acknowledged, in the way, he thought fit.”

“Yes! but that is not all,” she continued more vehemently, while her cheeks gradually began to glow, “I myself had a great part,—one unknown to me—in these dealings. My ignorance blindly led me, into what must have seemed to you the basest ingratitude, when … when … on that night … I spoke to you as I did. … Believe me … I did not know … all you had done. … Oh! I see it now! how contemptible I must have appeared … the shame of it is more than I can bear … and now I could not rest … till I had told you … how infinitely sorry I am. …”

She looked exquisitely beautiful, as she spoke, with the flush upon her cheeks, her eyes glowing with excitement and tears, looking up at him with the gentlest look he had ever received from her.

“I assure you again, noble lady,” he said with an effort, “that you distress yourself unnecessarily. The simple services which I had the good fortune to render to your father, were such as any man would render another, if he saw him struggling against a somewhat undeserved fate.”

“You are trying to shame me worse,” she said, “by depreciating your generosity. It is cruel of you! I have come to you, full of gratitude … tardy, perhaps … but, nevertheless truly felt. I had been deceived by my parents, who no doubt thought, they acted for the wound you deeply, whom I should have honoured, for your kindness and chivalry. … Hearing that you were coming to the castle to-day, I stole out, that I might tell you how …”

He put up his hand with the quick commanding gesture, so habitual to him.

“Pardon me, noble lady, for interrupting you. There is absolutely no occasion that you should say the words, which, I feel sure, in a calmer moment you will bitterly regret. The events of the night to which you refer, have faded from my memory. If, as you say. you have some consideration for the few services I rendered your family, might I appeal to it, in requesting you to allow this interview to cease, since it must be equally painful to us both.”

He bowed very low, and had turned to go, before Ilonka could make the slightest attempt to stop him.

She stood in the drive, beneath the acacia trees, watching his tall figure, moving quickly towards the castle. He did not turn once to look behind him, although he must have heard the sob, which involuntarily broke through her throat. She watched him, till he had disappeared within the castle, then, unreasoningly, blindly, she fled through the gates, down the alley of poplar trees, towards the plain where, at least, she could be alone with her shame and her humiliation.

Oh! what a fool she had been! Acting on blind, mad impulse, she had humbled her pride before that man, offered him her gratitude, her friendship, and he would have none of it. With absolute scorn he refused to listen to her explanations and to her sorrow; he despised her too much, even to touch her hand. Fool! Fool, that she was!

What did she think? what had she hoped? She knew his love was dead, he had said so that fatal flight. She with her own hand had killed it, and in its place scornful indifference sat, against which she had just bruised her pride. Oh! he knew how to take his revenge! he had returned insult for insult, taunt for taunt; his cool contempt had struck her in the face, as once her cruel words must have struck him. She hated him now, ten thousand times worse than before, now that he took a pleasure in humiliating her, and in making her suffer, now that she was powerless to wound him, since he did not care. Yes! of course she hated him, and that was the reason that the pain in her heart seemed more unbearable, than it had ever been. She hated him for that indomitable pride, a pride akin to her own; he, a peasant, dared to be proud, a slave born but to be kicked and despised. The untamed magyar blood in her veins boiled with indignation. Her mind tried to conjure up a picture of that man, suddenly thrown into bondage, as his ancestors had been, and made to obey humiliating orders, with a rough foreman at his back, who would strike him in the face with a whip, if he dared disobey. She gloated on that vision, the abasement of him, who had dared to look down at her from some high altitude of inches or of pride, gloated over it, till the tears refused to be kept back any longer by wrath and she threw herself down, passionately on the hot dry soil, and, burying her face in her hands, she sobbed her heart out with shame and with longing.

It was late in the afternoon, when she at last roused herself from this passionate weeping. A feeling of utter hopelessness, of the deepest shame, made her long to fly at once from Bideskút. But she was inexperienced; she did not know to whom to turn for help, in this terrible emergency. Of course Bideskút must be returned to him as soon as possible. Thank God! she yet had the power to return scorn for scorn, and throw back at the feet of the arrogant peasant, the rich gifts, with which he thought to shame her. Then … when that was done, she would go, where he could find no trace of her. She would be as dead to him, as that vaunted love, which did not live a day.

She hoped that she could make him suffer once again. She knew she had wounded him once, but this, he said, he had forgotten. She would try to find the weapon again, with which she had struck him that night, and which, in striking, had wrung from him the cry: “Woman, you have gone too far!” She had allowed that weapon to become rusty from want of usage; it was lying by, somewhere, half-forgotten, but she would find it, to-morrow, when the walls of Bideskút rang out with gaiety and laughter, and she, as the young matron, the grass widow of the mysterious peasant, would be courted, respected, as he now scorned to do. The echo of her merriment, her laughter would reach his ears, the leaves of the poplar frees would repeat the soft words, others would whisper, on moonlight evenings; then, perhaps, though love lay buried, it would rise again from the dead, to suffer bitter agony once more.

She wandered homewards, where she found the house in a whirl of excitement for the coming festivities. Her mother had been anxious about her, and looked suspiciously at her eyes, still swollen with tears. But Ilonka threw herself, with almost feverish energy into the plans for picnics, parties and music; she displayed a keen interest in the list of probable arrivals, and delighted her mother with her eagerness, over the new frock, she would wear on the morrow.

Bideskúty was in the highest spirits. András had brought him good news and a handful of money. He hoped his daughter would have the good sense to hold her tongue before her mother. Ilonka certainly seemed so eager, so merry, so excited, that the lord of Bideskút quite modified his views, as to all women being aggravating.