Linnet: A Romance

In his native valley the Robbler would have flown at Will’s throat on those words, and fought him, strong as he was, to the death, for his mädchen. But since he came to Meran he had learned some new ways: such were not, he now knew, the manners of civilisation. Will’s resolute attitude even produced a calming effect upon the young barbarian. He felt in his heart he had a better plan than that. To beat Will in fair fight would, after all, be useless; the mädchen wouldn’t abide, as mädchen ought, by the wager of battle. But he could wound him far worse. He could go down to the town – and tell Andreas Hausberger how his ward spent her mornings on the slopes of the Küchelberg!

Already he was learning the ways of the world. With a sarcastic smile, he raised his hat ceremoniously, turned feather and all, in mock politeness. “Good morning, mein Herr,” he drawled out, with a fine north German accent, picked up in the billiard-rooms. “Good morning, sennerin.” And without another word he strode away down the mountain.

But as soon as he was gone Linnet burst into tears. “Ah, I know what he’ll do!” she cried, sobbing and trembling. “He’ll go down to the town and tell Andreas Hausberger. He’ll go down to the town and tell how he met us here. And, of course, after this, Andreas will put the very worst face upon it.”

CHAPTER XVIII

TAKEN BY SURPRISE

Andreas Hausberger was a wise and prudent man. He felt convinced by this time that Linnet, as he said to himself – though to no one else, for to confess it would have been foolish – was a perfect gold mine, if only a man knew how to work her properly. And in exploiting this mine, like a sensible capitalist that he was, he determined to spare neither time nor pains nor money. Night after night, as the audiences at the hotels grew more and more enthusiastic, the truth forced itself upon his wise and prudent mind that what they said was right: Linnet was a singer fit for the highest undertakings. She must be trained and instructed for the operatic stage; and on the operatic stage, with that voice and that presence, she’d be worth her weight in gold if she was worth a penny.

So, ever since the first day when he left the Zillerthal, Andreas’s views and ideas about his troupe and his tour had been undergoing a considerable and constant modification. It would cost a good deal, of course, to abandon his first plan, and instead of proceeding to the Riviera as he originally intended, take Linnet to be trained at Milan and Florence. But it was worth the money. You must throw a sprat to catch a herring. And it must be Italy, too, not Munich or Dresden. He wouldn’t put her precious life in jeopardy, now, in those cold northern towns, during the winter months, for he had grown wonderfully careful of Linnet’s health since he saw how her voice conjured florins into the plate for him; and though he believed as much as ever in the virtues of fresh air and a Spartan diet, he feared to expose the throat that uttered such golden notes to the rigours and changes of a Bavarian or Saxon December. So Milan and Florence it must be, though he had Franz Lindner and Philippina and the others on his hands to pay and care for. And in those great settled towns, where theatres and amusements were regularly organised, he couldn’t hope his little troupe, deprived of its chief ornament, could compete, save at a loss, with more showy establishments. Still, to one thing he had made up his mind: Linnet should never utter another note in public, after they moved from Meran, until she could blaze forth, a full-fledged star, armed and equipped at every point with all that art could do for her, on the operatic stage of London, Paris, or Petersburg. He must put up with present loss for the sake of future gain; he must pay for his little troupe and for Linnet’s training, though he spent by the way his bottom dollar.

Not that the wise impresario was moved in this affair by any mere philanthropic desire to benefit a favourite pupil. As a prior condition to any expenditure on fitting and preparing Linnet for the operatic stage, Andreas proposed to obtain a clear hold on her future earnings by the simple little business preliminary of marrying her. And he proposed this plan to himself in the same simple-hearted and entirely dictatorial way in which he would have proposed some arrangement about his cows or his horses. That Linnet could possibly object to his designs for her advancement in life was an idea that hardly so much as even occurred to him. He was her master, and, if he ordered her, she could scarcely say him nay. That would be plain contumacy. Besides, the match would be one so much to her own advantage! Not a girl in St Valentin but would be overjoyed to catch him. Philippina, he knew, would give her eyes for such a chance; but Philippina’s high notes were shrill – a great deal too shrill – while Linnet’s were the purest and clearest and most silvery ever uttered by woman. He was a husband any girl might well be proud of, and though Linnet would be worth money, too, if properly trained, yet without his capital to back her up and give her that needful training, she could never use her voice to full (mercantile) advantage. She’d be a fool, indeed, if she refused his offer. And if she did, – well, she was bound to him for three years at any rate; he could use up her voice pretty well in those three years, as he used up his horses – on commercial principles – and make a very fair profit out of her meanwhile in the process.

Thinking which things to himself during his stay in Meran, Andreas, who was by nature a taciturn person, had been in no hurry to communicate his ideas on the point prematurely to Linnet. He didn’t want to puff her up with too much vanity beforehand, by disclosing to her over-soon the high honour in store for her. She had received more than enough homage already from the audiences at their concerts; it would turn her head outright if she knew all at once she was also to be promoted to marry her master. He would make all the legal preparations for the wedding in due time, without consulting Linnet; then, when everything was finished, and the day had come for them to leave Meran, he would break to her all at once the good fortune he designed for her. Not only was she to marry a man of substance, and a man of weight, and a Land-amt of the parish, but she was to be trained and fitted by him with sedulous care as a special star of the operatic profession.

When Franz Lindner burst in upon him, however, at his old-fashioned inn, in the street that is called Unter den Lauben, all indignant with the news how he had lighted upon Linnet and the Herr Engländer together on the slopes of the Küchelberg, and how he believed they had been meeting there secretly for many mornings at a stretch, Andreas saw at once this was no laughing matter. It was serious rivalry. For Franz Lindner himself, as a possible suitor of Linnet’s, he didn’t care a button. He could afford to despise the self-assertive Robbler. But Will Deverill – ah, that was quite another matter! Will Deverill was dangerous; he saw so much at a glance; and all the more dangerous in that he made his advances to the girl clandestinely. Poaching on those preserves must be severely repressed. Andreas didn’t for a moment suppose the Engländer intended or wanted to marry the child; that was hardly likely: but he might upset her feelings, and, lead her into trouble, and unsettle her heart, and what was worse still, stuff her head all full of silly romantic nonsense.

Still, being always a prudent man, Andreas said little at the time. He was content with assuring Franz, in a very confident tone, that he’d put a stop at once to this folly of Linnet’s. He acquiesced for the present – it being his nature to temporise – in Franz’s little pretension to treat the girl as his acknowledged mädchen. He acquiesced, and smiled, – though he hadn’t the slightest intention of relinquishing his own hold on a future prima donna. Meanwhile, he pushed on all the legal formalities for marrying Linnet himself, as soon as he thought it well to disclose his matured plans to her.

So when Will went up to their stated meeting-place on the slopes of the Küchelberg, the morning after that stormy interview at the knoll with Franz Lindner, hardly daring to expect Linnet would be there to receive him, he was astonished to find her awaiting him much as usual at the accustomed seat, undeterred by either the wirth or the redoubtable Robbler. “I can’t understand it myself,” she said, holding his hand, and half crying. “It’s awfully curious. I thought he’d be angry with me, and scold me so hard, and perhaps shut me up in the house for a week, or, at any rate, not let me come out any more to meet you. But, instead of that, he never said a word; he hasn’t even spoken to me at all about the matter. Perhaps Franz hasn’t told him yet; but I think he must have – and so does Philippina. It almost seems as if he didn’t mind my coming out at all. We can only wait and see. That’s all I can make of it.”

Thus, for the next few days, Linnet and Will lived on in a real fool’s paradise. Andreas never said a word about the meetings on the hill; Franz Lindner looked wise, and bided his time in silence. At the end of the week, however, Will found himself reluctantly compelled to fulfil a long-standing engagement with Rue and Florian, entered into before Linnet’s arrival at Meran, to go for a three days’ tour among the Botzen Dolomites. Will had put it off and put it off, not to miss one morning of Linnet’s time in the town, till Rue declared in her imperious little American way she wouldn’t wait a single day longer for anyone. And, indeed, it was getting full late in the season, even south of the Alps, for a mountain excursion. Rue had ordered her carriage, and settled her day to start. Will must go or stop behind, she said; and to do the last would be to confess all to Rue; so with a pang at his heart and no small misgivings in his brain – for Linnet by this time had grown wonderfully dear to him – he made up his mind to absent himself for three days, and to miss three precious mornings on the hills with his lady-love. It would freshen up the operetta, Rue declared, with deep conviction; there’s nothing like change of scene to inspire one with the germs of poetry and music. But Will, for his part, knew something better – and he got it every day on the slopes of the Küchelberg.

“You won’t go away while I’m gone?” he asked eagerly of Linnet, on the day before he left for those hateful Dolomites. “You’re sure Andreas means to stop longer in the town. You’ll be here when I come back again?”

“Oh yes; quite certain,” Linnet answered, confidently. “He’s not going away yet. We’ve engagements at hotels for nearly another fortnight.”

Will held her hand long. It was only for three days, yet he found it hard to part from her. “One last kiss!” he said, drawing her close to him behind the sheltering gourd-vines. And Linnet let him take it without struggling for it now. In after years, Will felt those words were a kind of omen. It was far more of a last kiss than ever he dreamed at the time. And Linnet – well, Linnet was glad in her heart, when she came to look back on it, she had allowed him to take that last kiss so easily.

Next morning Will left. Andreas knew he had gone. Not many things escaped the wise Andreas’s notice. From the moment he first heard of Will’s meetings with Linnet on the hill behind the town, that cool-headed wirth had been waiting for his chance; and now the chance had come of its own accord to him. That day, after dinner, he went into the parlour of their little inn, and called Linnet to speak to him. Linnet came, all trembling. In a few short sentences – concise, curt, business-like – Andreas unfolded to his tremulous ward the notable scheme he had devised for her advancement. He would make her his wife. But that wasn’t all; he would make her a great lady – a star of the first magnitude. If she did as he bid, crowds would hang on her lips; silver and gold would be hers; she should dress in silk robes, diamonds dangling at her ears, pearls in strings on her bosom. But he said never a word about her heretic lover. Still, he said never a word about himself any more. He never mentioned love – her heart, her feelings. He laid before her, like a man of the world as he was, a simple proposal for an arrangement between them – in much the same spirit as he might have laid before Franz Lindner an agreement for a partnership. And he took it for granted Linnet would instantly jump at him. Why shouldn’t she, indeed? She had every reason. Not a girl in St Valentin but would be proud if she could get him.

Yet he wasn’t the least surprised when Linnet, growing pale, and with quivering lips, hid her face in her hands at last and began to cry bitterly. These girls are so silly!

“You agree to it?” Andreas asked, laying his palm on her neck behind with what tenderness he could muster.

Linnet shook it away angrily. “Never, never!” she cried, “never!”

Andreas bore with her patiently. He knew the ways of women. They were all little idiots! And this Engländer on the hill had filled her poor head with sentimental rubbish. With infinite forbearance, like a business man, he began to explain, to expostulate, to admonish her. He pointed out to her how rare a chance in life it was for a girl in her position to get an offer of marriage from a man in his; how his capital would enable her to train herself for the stage; how, without it, she must remain for ever just what she was now; how, with it, she might rise to the very crown and head of an admired profession. And, besides, she was bound to him for three years in any case. In those three years, of course, he could do as he liked with her.

But Linnet, weeping passionately, with her face in her hands, and every nerve in her body quivering with emotion, only sobbed out now and again in a heart-broken voice, “No; never, never!”

At last, after one such convulsive outburst, even fiercer than before, Andreas put the question point blank, “Is it because of this Engländer?”

And Linnet, raising her head, and clasping her hands in despair, made answer, obliquely, in one wild burst of speech, “Oh, I love him, I love him!”

At those words, Andreas smiled a peculiar cold smile, and began once more. He kept his head cool; he explained, he reasoned. The Engländer, of course, never meant to marry her. Marriage in such a case was out of the question. She must know what that meant; why go off on such side-issues?.. And, besides, she must never forget – the man was a heretic!

Still, Linnet, unflinching, looked up and clasped her hands. “I don’t care for that,” she cried wildly. “I love him! I love him!”

“Then you refuse, point blank?” Andreas asked, stepping a little aside, and holding the knob of the bedroom door in his hand, half-irresolute.

“I utterly refuse!” Linnet answered, very firm, but sobbing.

With an air of cruel triumph, Andreas opened wide the door. “Come in, Herr Vicar!” he cried, with real theatrical effect. And even as he spoke, the Herr Vicar entered.

Linnet gazed at him, dumb with awe, surprise, and amazement. How had he ever got here? It was her own parish priest – her confessor from St Valentin!

CHAPTER XIX

SPIRITUAL WEAPONS

The Herr Vicar in Meran! It was wonderful, miraculous!

For a minute or two, Linnet was so utterly taken aback at this unexpected portent that she hardly knew how to comport herself under such novel circumstances. Now, that was exactly the result Andreas Hausberger had counted upon. Andreas loved not the Church, to be sure, but, like all sound strategists, political or social, he knew how to make use of it for his own wise purposes. As soon as ever he learned from Franz Lindner how things were going on between Linnet and her Engländer, and had ascertained by private inquiry from the Herr Oberkellner at the Erzherzog Johann that Herr Will was going away for a few days’ tour among the Botzen Dolomites, – why, taking opportunity by the forelock, he telegraphed at once to the Herr Vicar at St Valentin to come on by the first train, all expenses paid, over the Brenner to Meran, on purpose to save the soul of an erring member of his flock, in imminent danger of faith and morals, from a heretic Englishman. And the Herr Vicar, in return, though he loved not Andreas – for the wirth was a Liberal, an enemy of the “Blacks,” and reputed to be even not far short of a freethinker – the Herr Vicar, for his part, was by no means averse to a pleasant holiday in a fashionable watering-place south of the Alps at that delightful season, especially if some one else was to pay the piper. It is well to combine the salvation of souls with an agreeable excursion. The Herr Vicar was prepared to make free use of the Mammon of Unrighteousness – in the Church’s service; a good pastor employs it without stint or compunction to secure the eternal bliss of the particular flock committed to his guidance.

Not that the astute priest began at once with the matter in hand, on which Herr Andreas had already most amply coached him. He was far too wise and politic a fisher of souls for so clumsy a procedure. He angled gently. He started on his task by striking, first, all the familiar home chords of St Valentin. The moment he entered the room, indeed, Linnet rushed up and seized his hand – she had known him from her childhood, and taken the mass from him often; she had confessed to him her sins, and received time and again his paternal blessing. At such a moment as that any old friend from St Valentin would have been a welcome counsellor: how much more then the Herr Vicar, who had taught her the Credo, and the Vater Unser, and the Ave; who had prepared her lisping lips for First Communion; who had absolved her from her sins from her babyhood onward! And he had seen that dear mother only the day before! How she flooded him with questions as to everyone at St Valentin.

The Herr Vicar, in reply, folding two plump hands over his capacious waistband, sank back in an easy-chair, and answered her at full length as to all that had happened since she left the village. The good mother was well, very well indeed, seldom better in November; some holy oil rubbed on night and morning, had proved highly effectual against her threatened rheumatism. Oh yes; she had duly received the five florins that Linnet sent her – thanks very much for them – and had expended two of them, as Linnet would no doubt herself have wished, in the performance of a mass for the deliverance of the dear father’s soul from purgatory. She knew the Herr Vicar was coming to Meran, and would see her daughter, and she had sent many messages (all detailed at full length) – how the cow with the crooked horn was giving no milk, and how the cat had five kittens, and how pleased they all were to hear at St Valentin there was talk Linnet was to make such a brilliant marriage.

Then poor Linnet faltered out, half-sobbing again, when the Herr Vicar spoke of that mass for the repose of her father’s soul, how great a trial it had been to her to be away from St Valentin for the first time in her life on All Souls Day – the Feast of the Dead – when it had always been her custom to lay a little wreath, and burn four small tapers on her father’s grave in the village churchyard. She was afraid that dear spirit in its present home would feel itself neglected by the duty unperformed in due season.

But the Herr Vicar, with a benign smile, was happy he should be able to reassure her as to this matter. The candles and the wreath had been forthcoming as usual; he had seen to them himself – at Herr Andreas’s request, who had written to him on the subject from Meran most thoughtfully.

That was kind, Linnet thought, far kinder than she ever could have expected from Andreas. But that wasn’t all. He had provided in many ways, or intended to provide, for the good mother’s comfort. Then the Herr Vicar went on to speak still more of Andreas, who slipped out as he spoke, leaving priest and penitent alone together. So Herr Andreas, it seemed, was going to marry her! For a girl like her, that was a very great honour. And the sooner the better, indeed; the sooner the better! These were grave and painful rumours now afloat in St Valentin – and the Herr Vicar shook his head in solemn warning – grave and painful rumours, how Linnet had been seen on the hillsides more than once – with an English heretic. And he had followed her to Innsbruck! and then to Meran! and now, Heaven knew what he was trying to do with her! ’Twas a dangerous thing, a compromising thing (the Herr Vicar thought) for a girl to get involved in an affair like that with a man so much above herself in position and station. But Herr Andreas was so kind, and consented to overlook it; there were very few men who in a similar case would act like Herr Andreas. In other matters the Herr Vicar had withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed; but in this, he had behaved like a generous gentleman.

To all which, poor Linnet, hiding her face in her hands, only made answer once more, “I can never marry Andreas Hausberger.”

“Why not?” the priest asked, sharply.

And Linnet, hardly knowing how to answer him for fear and shame, yet murmured very low, “Because I don’t love him.”

Then the Herr Vicar, thus aroused, went off at a tangent into a clerical exhortation on the nature, duties, and inducements of matrimony. We must remember that, in these matters, the wishes of the flesh were not alone or even chiefly to be consulted. They were of minor importance. There was her duty as a daughter, for example: Herr Andreas was rich; how much might he not do to lighten her mother’s old age? how much to release her poor father’s soul from the flames of purgatory? There was her duty as a woman, and a child of the Church; how much might not Herr Andreas’s money enable her to accomplish for the good of the world and for the souls of her people? She was still a giddy girl. What temptations such a marriage would enable her to avoid; what a brilliant future in the end it might open out before her! And then these floating rumours had disturbed him much; on his way from Jenbach, if she would only believe him, he had said prayers on her behalf to Our Lady, to preserve her honour.

But Linnet, raising her head, and looking him straight in the eyes, made answer at last in these wicked, rebellious words, “I love the Engländer! Ah, I love the Engländer! If ever I marry at all, I’ll marry the Engländer!”

The Herr Vicar grew grave. This was a case, indeed, not for humouring and coaxing, but for the sternest admonition. And he administered it without stint. With the simple directness of the Tyrolese priest, accustomed to deal with coarse, straightforward natures, he spoke the plain truth; he brought her future sin home to her with homely force and unvarnished language. In the first place, this young man clearly meant no good by her. That was obvious to everyone. Now, if he were one of her own sort, a faithful son of the Church, and a Tyrolese jäger, well, the Herr Vicar might, in that case, have been disposed, no doubt, to be somewhat more lenient. He admitted, while he deplored, the temptations and difficulties of a sennerin’s life, and was never too hard on them. And besides, in such circumstances, the young man might mean in the end to marry her. But this Engländer assuredly meant nothing of the kind; and, what was worse, even if he did, the Herr Vicar could by no means approve of such a union. The Holy See, acting as ever on the Apostolic advice, “Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers,” disallowed and discouraged the union of Catholics with Jews, heretics, infidels, and other schismatics, under one or other of which unholy categories (and the Herr Vicar frowned) he must needs place her Engländer. True, the Holy Father was sometimes pleased, on good cause duly shown, to grant certain persons an exceptional dispensation. But even if the Engländer desired to marry her, which was scarcely likely, and even if he consented to invoke such aid, which was still more improbable, how could he, the Herr Vicar, knowing the young man’s circumstances, back up such a request? – how consign a lamb of his flock to the keeping of an infidel? Every sentiment of gratitude should bind her to Herr Andreas. Every feeling of a Catholic should turn her instinctively away from the false wiles of a schismatic.

To all which theological argument, Linnet, raising her head, and wringing her hands, only answered once more, in a wildly despairing voice, “But I love him, I love him!”

The priest saw at once this was a case for strong measures. Unless he adopted them, a lamb might slip from his pastoral grasp, a doubtful soul might stray for ever from the fold of true believers. He put on at once the set tone and manner of the confessional. It was no longer a question now of merely meeting Herr Andreas’s wishes – though Herr Andreas’s aid would be most useful indeed in the affairs of the parish; it was a question of preserving this poor sheep of his flock from everlasting perdition. What are a few fleeting years, with this lover or that, compared with an eternity of unceasing torment? The Herr Vicar was an honest and conscientious man, according to his lights; this poor girl was in deadly danger of her immortal soul – and that window for the chancel, which Herr Andreas vowed, would be a work of piety most pleasing to their holy patron saint, the blessed Valentin.

So, with all the strength of imagery he possessed at his command, the priest began to play of deliberate design upon the chords of poor Linnet’s superstitious terror. In horribly vivid and realistic language, such as only a Tyrolese tongue could command, he conjured up before her mind that familiar picture of dead souls in purgatory, lost souls in torment. He poured out upon her trembling head all the thunders of the Church against unholy love, or, what came to the same thing, against an uncatholic union. Linnet listened, and cowered. To you and me, this would just have been a well-meaning but ignorant parish priest; to Linnet, he was the embodied voice of all Catholic Christendom. She had sat upon his knees; she had learnt prayers from his lips; she had looked upon him for years as the mouthpiece of whatever was right and just and holy. And now, he was bringing all the weight of his authority to bear against the dictates of her poor hot heart; he was terrifying her with his words; he was denouncing upon her the horrible woes of apostasy. Whether the man meant to marry her or not, all was equally sin; she was bent on the downward path; she was flying in the face of God and His priest, to her own destruction. She might marry Andreas or not – that was a question of inclination; but if she persisted in her relations with an infidel, who could mean her no good, she was hurrying straight to the devil and all his angels. And the devil and all his angels were very real and very near indeed to Linnet; the flames of purgatory were as familiar to her eyes as the fire on the hearth; the tortures of hell were as solid and as material as she had seen them pictured on every roadside oratory.

And the effect? Ah, well, only those who know the profound religious faith of the Tyrolese peasantry can fully understand the appalling effect this pastoral exhortation produced upon Linnet. It was no new discovery, indeed. All along, amid the tremulous delight of her first great love, she had known in her heart this thing she was doing, though sweet – too sweet – was unspeakably wicked. She was paltering with sin, giving her heart to a heretic. She herself had seen him pass many a wayside crucifix, many a shrine of Our Dear Lady, without raising his hat or letting his knee do obeisance, as was right, before them. He was good, he was kind; in a purely human sort of way he sympathised with her, and understood her as no one else in the world had ever yet done; but still – he was a heretic. She had known that all along; she had known the danger she ran, and the end, the horrible end, it must finally lead her to. And now, when her parish priest, her earliest friend, her own tried confessor, pointed out her sin to her, she quivered and crouched before him in bodily terror and abject submission. The flames of hell seemed to rise up and take hold of her. And the more frightened she grew, the more vehement and fierce grew the priest’s denunciation. He saw his opportunity, and made the best use of it. What were the few short years of this life to an eternity of pain? What a dream of brief love to fiery floods for ever?

At last, appalled and horrified, Linnet, bowing her frightened head, held up her bloodless hands, and begged convulsively for mercy. “Give me absolution,” she cried; “Father! O Father, forgive me!”