A Bride of the Plains

  He did little more than acknowledge the respectful salutations which greeted him from every corner of the little room as he entered, but he nodded to Erös Béla and smiled all over his good-looking face at Klara, who, in her turn, welcomed him with a profusion of smiles which brought a volley of muttered curses to Leopold Hirsch's lips.

  While he held her one hand rather longer than was necessary she, with the other, took his hat from him, and then, laughing coquettishly, she pointed to a parcel which was causing the pocket of his well-cut Norfolk jacket to bulge immoderately.

  [Pg 175]"Is that something for me?" she asked.

  "Of course it is," he replied lightly; "I bought it at the fair in Arad for you to-day."

  "How thoughtful of you!" she said, with a little sigh of pleasure.

  "Thoughtful?" he retorted, laughing pleasantly. "My good Klara, if I hadn't thought of you I would have died of boredom this afternoon. Here, give me a glass of your father's best wine and I'll tell you."

  He sat down with easy familiarity on the corner of the table which served as a counter. Klara, after this, had eyes and ears only for him. How could it be otherwise, seeing that it was not often a noble lord graced a village tap-room with his presence. Conversations round the room were now carried on in whispers; tarok cards were produced and here and there a game was in progress. Those who had drunk overmuch made themselves as inconspicuous as they could, drawing themselves closely against the wall, or frankly reclining across the table with arms outstretched and heads buried between them out of sight.

  An atmosphere of subdued animation and decorum reigned in the place; not a few men, oppressed by their sense of respect for my lord, had effected a quiet exit through the door, preferring the jovial atmosphere of the barn, from whence came, during certain hushed moments, the sounds of music and of laughter.

  The young man—whose presence caused all this revulsion in the usually noisy atmosphere of the tap-room—took no heed whatever of anything that went on around him: he seemed unconscious alike of the deference of the peasants as of the dark, menacing scowl with which Leopold Hirsch regarded him. He certainly did not bestow a single glance on Erös Béla who, at my lord's appearance,[Pg 176] had retreated into the very darkest corner of the room. Béla did not care to encounter the young Count's sneering remarks just now—and these would of a certainty have been levelled against the bridegroom who was sitting in a tap-room when he should have been in attendance on his bride. But indeed my lord never saw him.

  To this young scion of a noble race, which had owned land and serfs for centuries past, these peasants here were of no more account than his oxen or his sheep—nor was the owner of a village shop of any more consequence in my lord's eyes.

  He came here because there was a good-looking Jewess in the tap-room whose conversation amused him, and whose dark, velvety eyes, fringed with long lashes, and mouth with full, red lips, stirred his jaded senses in a more pleasant and more decided way than did the eyes and lips of the demure, well-bred young Countesses and Baronesses who formed his usual social circle.

  Whether his flirtation with Klara, the Jewess, annoyed the girl's Jew lover or not, did not matter to him one jot; on the contrary the jealousy of that dirty lout Hirsch enhanced his amusement to a considerable extent.

  Therefore he did not take the trouble to lower his voice now when he talked to Klara, and it was quite openly that he put his arm round her waist while he held his glass to her lips—"To sweeten your father's vinegar!" he said with a laugh.

  "You know, my pretty Klara," he said gaily, "that I was half afraid I shouldn't see you to-day at all."

  "No?" she asked coquettishly.

  "No, by gad! My father was so soft-hearted to allow Erös a day off for his wedding or something, and so, if you please, I had to go to Arad with him, as he had to[Pg 177] see about a sale of clover. I thought we should never get back. The roads were abominable."

  "I hardly expected your lordship," she said demurely.

  To punish her for that little lie, he tweaked her small ear till it became a bright crimson.

  "That is to punish you for telling such a lie," he said gaily. "You know that I meant to come and say good-bye."

  "Your lordship goes to-morrow?" she asked with a sigh.

  "To shoot bears, my pretty Klara," he replied. "I don't want to go. I would rather stay another week here for you to amuse me, you know."

  "I am proud . . ." she whispered.

  "So much do you amuse me that I have brought you a present, just to show you that I thought of you to-day and because I want you not to forget me during the three months that I shall be gone."

  He drew the parcel out of his pocket and, turning his back to the rest of the room, he cut the string and undid the paper that wrapped it. The contents of the parcel proved to be a morocco case, which flew open at a touch and displayed a gold curb chain bracelet—the dream of Klara Goldstein's desires.

  "For me?" she said, with a gasp of delight.

  "For your pretty arm, yes," he replied. "Shall I put it on?"

  She cast a swift, apprehensive glance round the room over his shoulder.

  "No, no, not now," she said quickly.

  "Why not?"

  "Father mightn't like it. I'd have to ask him."

  "D——n your father!"

  "And that fool, Leopold, is so insanely jealous."

  [Pg 178]"D——n him too," said the young man quietly.

  Whereupon he took the morocco case out of Klara's hand, shut it with a snap and put it back into his pocket.

  "What are you doing?" cried Klara in a fright.

  "As you see, pretty one, I am putting the bracelet away for future use."

  "But . . ." she stammered.

  "If I can't put the bracelet on your arm myself," he said decisively, "you shan't have it at all."

  "But . . ."

  "That is my last word. Let us talk of something else."

  "No, no! We won't talk of something else. You said the bracelet was for me."

  She cast a languishing look on him through her long upper lashes; she bared her wrist and held it out to him. Leopold and his jealousy might go hang for aught she cared, for she meant to have the bracelet.

  The young man, with a fatuous little laugh, brought out the case once more. With his own hands he now fastened the bracelet round Klara Goldstein's wrist. Then—as a matter of course—he kissed her round, brown arm just above the bracelet, and also the red lips through which the words of thanks came quickly tumbling.

  Klara did not dare to look across the room. She felt, though she did not see, Leopold's pale eyes watching this little scene with a glow in them of ferocious hate and of almost animal rage.

  "I won't stay now, Klara," said the young Count, dropping his voice suddenly to a whisper; "too many of these louts about. When will you be free?"

  "Oh, not to-day," she whispered in reply. "After the fair there are sure to be late-comers. And you know Erös Béla has a ball on at the barn and supper afterwards. . . ."

  [Pg 179]"The very thing," he broke in, in an eager whisper. "While they are all at supper, I'll come in for a drink and a chat. . . . Ten o'clock, eh?"

  "Oh, no, no!" she protested feebly. "My father wouldn't like it, he . . ."

  "D——n your father, my dear, as I remarked before. And, as a matter of fact, your father is not going to be in the way at all. He goes to Kecskemét by the night train."

  "How do you know that?"

  "My father told me quite casually that Goldstein was seeing to some business for him at Kecskemét to-morrow. So it was not very difficult to guess that if your father was to be in Kecskemét to-morrow in time to transact business, he would have to travel up by the nine o'clock train this evening in order to get there."

  Then, as she made no reply, and a blush of pleasure gradually suffused her dark skin, lending it additional charm and giving to her eyes added brilliancy, he continued, more peremptorily this time:

  "At ten o'clock, then?
??I'll come back. Get rid of as many of these louts by then as you can."

  She was only too ready to yield. Not only was she hugely flattered by my lord's attentions, but she found him excessively attractive. He could make himself very agreeable to a woman if he chose, and evidently he chose to do so now. Moreover Klara had found by previous experience that to yield to the young man's varied and varying caprices was always remunerative, and there was that gold watch which he had once vaguely promised her, and which she knew she could get out of him if she had the time and opportunity, as she certainly would have to-night if he came.

  [Pg 180]Count Feri, seeing that she had all but yielded, was preparing to go. Her hand was still in his, and he was pressing her slender fingers in token of a pledge for this evening.

  "At ten o'clock," he whispered again.

  "No, no," she protested once more, but this time he must have known that she only did it for form's sake and really meant to let him have his way. "The neighbours would see you enter, and there might be a whole lot of people in the tap-room at that hour: one never knows. They would know by then that my father had gone away and they would talk such scandal about me. My reputation . . ."

  No doubt he felt inclined to ejaculate in his usual manner: "D——n your reputation!" but he thought better of it, and merely said casually:

  "I need not come in by the front door, need I?"

  "The back door is always locked," she remarked ingenuously. "My father invariably locks it himself the last thing at night."

  "But since he is going to Kecskemét . . ." he suggested.

  "When he has to be away from home for the night he locks the door from the inside and takes the key away with him."

  "Surely there is a duplicate key somewhere? . . ."

  "I don't know," she murmured.

  "If you don't know, who should?" he remarked, with affected indifference. "Well! I shall have to make myself heard at the back door—that's all!"

  "How?"

  "Wouldn't you hear me if I knocked?"

  "Not if I were in the tap-room and a lot of customers to attend to."

  [Pg 181]"Well, then, I should hammer away until you did hear me."

  "For that old gossip Rézi to hear you," she protested. "Her cottage is not fifty paces away from our back door."

  "Then it will have to be the front door, after all," he rejoined philosophically.

  "No, no!—the neighbours—and perhaps the tap-room full of people."

  "But d——n it, Klara," he exclaimed impatiently, "I have made up my mind to come and spend my last evening with you—and when I have made up my mind to a thing, I am not likely to change it because of a lot of gossiping peasants, because of old Rézi, or the whole lot of them. So if you don't want me to come in by the front door, which is open, or to knock at the back door, which is locked, how am I going to get in?"

  "I don't know."

  "Well, then, you'll have to find out, my pretty one," he said decisively, "for it has got to be done somehow, or that gold watch we spoke of the other day will have to go to somebody else. And you know when I say a thing I mean it. Eh?"

  "There is a duplicate key," she whispered shyly, ". . . to the back door, I mean."

  "I thought there was," he remarked dryly. "Where is it?"

  "In the next room. . . . It hangs on a nail by father's bedside."

  "Go and get it, then," he said more impatiently.

  "Not now," she urged. "Leopold is looking straight at you and me."

  He shrugged his aristocratic shoulders.

  [Pg 182]"You are not afraid of that monkey?" he said with a laugh.

  "Well, no! not exactly afraid. But he is so insanely jealous; one never knows what kind of mischief he'll get into. He told me just now that whenever father is away from home he takes his stand outside this house from nightfall till morning—watching!"

  "A modern Argus—eh?"

  "A modern lunatic!" she retorted.

  "Well!" resumed the young man lightly, "lunatic or not, he won't be able to keep an eye on you to-night, even though your father will be away."

  "How do you mean?"

  "Hirsch is off to Fiume in half an hour."

  "To Fiume?"

  "Yes. You know he has a brother coming home from America."

  "I know that."

  "His ship is due in at Fiume the day after to-morrow. Leopold must start by the same train as your father to-night, in order to catch the express for Fiume at Budapesth to-morrow."

  "Did he tell you all that?"

  "I have known all along that he meant to meet his brother at Fiume, and yesterday he said something about it again. So you see, my pretty one, that we can have a comfortable little supper this evening without fear of interruption. We'll have it at ten o'clock, when the supper-party is going on at the barn, eh? We shan't be interrupted then. So give me that duplicate key, will you, and I can slip in quietly through the back door without raising a bit of gossip or scandal. Hurry up now! I shall have to be going."

  [Pg 183]"I can't now," she protested. "Leopold hasn't taken his eyes off me all this time."

  "Oh! if that is all that is troubling you, my dear," said the young man coolly, "I can easily settle our friend Leopold. Hirsch!" he called loudly.

  "My lord?" queried the other, with the quick obsequiousness habitual to the down-trodden race.

  "My horse is kicking up such a row outside. I wish you'd just go and see if the boy is looking after him properly."

  Of course it was impossible to do anything but obey. My lord had commanded; in the ordinary way the poor Jew shopkeeper would have felt honoured to have been selected for individual recognition. Nor did he do more now than throw one of those swift looks of his—so full of hatred and of menace—upon Klara and the young man; but the latter, having given his orders, no longer condescended to take notice of the Jew and had once more engaged the girl in animated conversation.

  Had Klara thought of looking up when Leopold finally obeyed my lord's commands and went to look after the horse, she could not have failed to realize the danger which lurked in the young man's pale eyes then. His face, always pale and olive-tinted, was now the colour of ashes, grey and livid and blotched with purple, his lips looked white and quivering, and his eyebrows—of a reddish tinge—met above his nose in a deep, dark scowl.

  But my lord had thrown out a casual hint about a gold watch, and Klara had no further thought for her jealous admirer.

  "Now go and fetch the key," said Count Feri, as soon as the door had closed on Leopold.

  The hint of the gold watch had stirred Klara's pulses.[Pg 184] A tête-à-tête with my lord was, moreover, greatly to her liking. He could be very amusing when he chose, and was always generous; and Klara's life was often dull and colourless. A pleasant evening spent in his company would compensate her in a measure for her disappointment at not being asked to Elsa's ball, and there was the gold watch to look forward to, above all.

  Taking an opportunity when her father was absorbed in his game of tarok, she went into the next room and presently returned with a key in her hand, which she surreptitiously gave to my lord.

  "Splendid!" exclaimed the young man gaily. "Klara, you are a gem, and after supper you shall just ask me for anything you have a fancy for, and I'll give it to you. Now I'd better go. Good-bye, little one. Ten o'clock sharp, eh?"

  "Ten o'clock," she repeated, under her breath.

  He strode to the door, outside which he found Leopold waiting for him.

  "The horse was quite quiet, my lord," said the Jew sullenly; "the boy had never left it for a moment."

  "Oh! that's all right, Hirsch," rejoined my lord indifferently. "I only wanted to know."

  Of course he never thought of saying a word of thanks or of excuse to the other man. What would you? A Jew! Bah! not even worth a nod of the head.

  Count Feri Rákosy had quickly mounted his pretty, half-bred Arab mare—a click of the tongue and she was off with him, kicking up a cloud of dust in her wake. r />
  But Leopold Hirsch had remained for a moment standing on the doorstep of Ignácz Goldstein's house. He watched horse and rider through that cloud of dust, and[Pg 185] along the straight and broad highway, until both had become a mere speck upon the low-lying horizon.

  "May you break your accursed neck!" he muttered fervently.

  Then he went back to the tap-room.

  * * *

  [Pg 186]

  CHAPTER XX

  "You happen to be of my race and of my blood."

  He strode at once to Klara, who greeted him with an ironical little smile and a coquettish look out of her dark eyes.

  "You never told me that you were going away to-night, my dear Leopold," she said suavely.

  "Who told you that I was?" he retorted savagely.

  "It seems to be pretty well known about the place. You seemed to have been talking about it pretty freely that you were going to Fiume to meet your brother when the ship he is on comes in."

  "I meant to tell you just now, only his lordship's arrival interrupted me," he said more quietly.

  "And since then you have been busy making a fool of yourself before my lord, eh?" she asked.

  "Bah!"

  "And compromising me into the bargain, what? But let me tell you this, my good Leopold, before we go any further, that I am not married to you yet, and that I don't like your airs of proprietorship, sabe?"

  He could not say anything more just then, for customers were departing, and she had to attend to them; he did not try to approach her while she was thus engaged, but presently, when her back was turned, he contrived to work his way across to the door which gave on the inner room, and to push it slightly open with his hand, until[Pg 187] he could peep through the aperture and take a quick survey of the room beyond.