Book: 54 40 or Fight

E >> Emerson Hough >> 54 40 or Fight




There appeared at the crack of the door the wrinkled visage of the old
serving-woman, Threlka. I knew that she would be there in precisely this
way, because there was every reason in the world why it should not have
been. She paused, scanning me closely, then quickly opened the door and
allowed me to step inside, vanishing as was her wont. I heard another
step in a half-hidden hallway beyond, but this was not the step which I
awaited; it was that of a man, slow, feeble, hesitating. I started
forward as a face appeared at the parted curtains. A glad cry welcomed
me in turn. A tall, bent form approached me, and an arm was thrown about
my shoulder. It was my whilom friend, our ancient scientist, Von
Rittenhofen! I did not pause to ask how he happened to be there. It was
quite natural, since it was wholly impossible. I made no wonder at the
Chinese dog Chow, or the little Indian maid, who both came, stared, and
silently vanished. Seeing these, I knew that their strange protector
must also have won through safe.

"_Ach, Gott! Gesegneter Gott!_ I see you again, my friend!" Thus the old
Doctor.

"But tell me," I interrupted, "where is the mistress of this house, the
Baroness von Ritz?"

He looked at me in his mild way. "You mean my daughter Helena?"

Now at last I smiled. His daughter! This at least was too incredible! He
turned and reached behind him to a little table. He held up before my
eyes my little blanket clasp of shell. Then I knew that this last and
most impossible thing also was true, and that in some way these two had
found each other! But _why_? What could he now mean?

"Listen now," he began, "and I shall tell you. I wass in the street one
day. When I walk alone, I do not much notice. But now, as I walk, before
my eyes on the street, I see what? This--this, the Tah Gook! At first, I
see nothing but it. Then I look up. Before me iss a woman, young and
beautiful. Ach! what should I do but take her in my arms!"

"It was she; it was--"

"My daughter! Yess, my daughter. It iss _Helena_! I haf not seen her for
many years, long, cruel years. I suppose her dead. But now there we
were, standing, looking in each other's eyes! We see there--Ach, Gott!
what do we not see? Yet in spite of all, it wass Helena But she shall
tell you." He tottered from the room.

I heard his footsteps pass down the hall. Then softly, almost silently,
Helena von Ritz again stood before me. The light from a side window fell
upon her face. Yes, it was she! Her face was thinner now, browner even
than was its wont. Her hair was still faintly sunburned at its
extremities by the western winds. Yet hers was still imperishable youth
and beauty.

I held out my hands to her. "Ah," I cried, "you played me false! You ran
away! By what miracle did you come through? I confess my defeat. You
beat me by almost half a year."

"But now you have come," said she simply.

"Yes, to remind you that you have friends. You have been here in secret
all the winter. Mr. Calhoun did not know you had come. Why did you not
go to him?"

"I was waiting for you to come. Do you not remember our bargain? Each
day I expected you. In some way, I scarce knew how, the weeks wore on."

"And now I find you both here--you and your father--where I would expect
to find neither. Continually you violate all law of likelihood. But now,
you have seen Elisabeth?"

"Yes, I have seen her," she said, still simply.

I could think of no word suited to that moment. I stood only looking at
her. She would have spoken, but on the instant raised a hand as though
to demand my silence. I heard a loud knock at the door, peremptory,
commanding, as though the owner came.

"You must go into another room," said Helena von Ritz to me hurriedly.

"Who is it? Who is it at the door?" I asked.

She looked at me calmly. "It is Sir Richard Pakenham," said she. "This
is his usual hour. I will send him away. Go now--quick!"

I rapidly passed behind the screening curtains into the hall, even as I
heard a heavy foot stumbling at the threshold and a somewhat husky voice
offer some sort of salutation.




CHAPTER XXXII

PAKENHAM'S PRICE

The happiest women, like nations, have no history.
--_George Eliot_.


The apartment into which I hurriedly stepped I found to be a long and
narrow hall, heavily draped. A door or so made off on the right-hand
side, and a closed door also appeared at the farther end; but none
invited me to enter, and I did not care to intrude. This situation did
not please me, because I must perforce hear all that went on in the
rooms which I had just left. I heard the thick voice of a man,
apparently none the better for wine.

"My dear," it began, "I--" Some gesture must have warned him.

"God bless my soul!" he began again. "Who is here, then? What is wrong?"

"My father is here to-day," I heard her clear voice answer, "and, as you
suggest, it might perhaps be better--"

"God bless my soul!" he repeated. "But, my dear, then I must go!
_To-night_, then! Where is that other key? It would never do, you
know--"

"No, Sir Richard, it would never do. Go, then!" spoke a low and icy
voice, hers, yet not hers. "Hasten!" I heard her half whisper. "I think
perhaps my father--"

But it was my own footsteps they heard. This was something to which I
could not be party. Yet, rapidly as I walked, her visitor was before me.
I caught sight only of his portly back, as the street door closed behind
him. She stood, her back against the door, her hand spread out against
the wall, as though to keep me from passing.

I paused and looked at her, held by the horror in her eyes. She made no
concealment, offered no apologies, and showed no shame. I repeat that it
was only horror and sadness mingled which I saw upon her face.

"Madam," I began. And again, "Madam!" and then I turned away.

"You see," she said, sighing.

"Yes, I fear I see; but I wish I did not. Can I not--may I not be
mistaken?"

"No, it is true. There is no mistake."

"What have you done? Why? _Why_?"

"Did you not always credit me with being the good friend of Mr. Pakenham
years ago--did not all the city? Well, then I was _not_; but I _am_,
now! I was England's agent only--_until last night_. Monsieur, you have
come too soon, too late, too late. Ah, my God! my God! Last night I gave
at last that consent. He comes now to claim, to exact, to
take--possession--of me ... Ah, my God!"

"I can not, of course, understand you, Madam. _What_ is it? Tell me!"

"For three years England's minister besought me to be his, not
England's, property. It was not true, what the town thought. It was not
true in the case either of Yturrio. Intrigue--yes--I loved it. I
intrigued with England and Mexico both, because it was in my nature; but
no more than that. No matter what I once was in Europe, I was not
here--not, as I said, until last night. Ah, Monsieur! Ah, Monsieur!" Now
her hands were beating together.

"But _why_ then? Why _then_? What do you mean?" I demanded.

"Because no other way sufficed. All this winter, here, alone, I have
planned and thought about other means. Nothing would do. There was but
the one way. Now you see why I did not go to Mr. Calhoun, why I kept my
presence here secret."

"But you saw Elisabeth?"

"Yes, long ago. My friend, you have won! You both have won, and I have
lost. She loves you, and is worthy of you. You are worthy of each other,
yes. I saw I had lost; and I told you I would pay my wager. I told you
I would give you her--and Oregon! Well, then, that last was--hard." She
choked. "That was--hard to do." She almost sobbed. "But I have--paid!
Heart and soul ... and _body_ ... I have ... _paid_! Now, he comes ...
for ... the _price_!"

"But then--but then!" I expostulated. "What does this mean, that I see
here? There was no need for this. Had you no friends among us? Why,
though it meant war, I myself to-night would choke that beast Pakenham
with my own hands!"

"No, you will not."

"But did I not hear him say there was a key--_his_ key--to-night?"

"Yes, England once owned that key. Now, _he_ does. Yes, it is true.
Since yesterday. Now, he comes ..."

"But, Madam--ah, how could you so disappoint my belief in you?"

"Because"--she smiled bitterly--"in all great causes there are
sacrifices."

"But no cause could warrant this."

"I was judge of that," was her response. "I saw her--Elisabeth--that
girl. Then I saw what the future years meant for me. I tell you, I vowed
with her, that night when I thought you two were wedded. I did more. I
vowed myself to a new and wider world that night. Now, I have lost it.
After all, seeing I could not now be a woman and be happy,
I--Monsieur--I pass on to others, after this, not that torture of life,
but that torturing _principle_ of which we so often spoke. Yes, I, even
as I am; because by this--this act--this sacrifice--I can win you for
her. And I can win that wider America which you have coveted; which I
covet for you--which I covet _with_ you!"

I could do no more than remain silent, and allow her to explain what was
not in the least apparent to me. After a time she went on.

"Now--now, I say--Pakenham the minister is sunk in Pakenham the man. He
does as I demand--because he is a man. He signs what I demand because I
am a woman. I say, to-night--but, see!"

She hastened now to a little desk, and caught up a folded document which
lay there. This she handed to me, unfolded, and I ran it over with a
hasty glance. It was a matter of tremendous importance which lay in
those few closely written lines.

England's minister offered, over the signature of England, a compromise
of the whole Oregon debate, provided this country would accept the line
of the forty-ninth degree! That, then, was Pakenham's price for this key
that lay here.

"This--this is all I have been able to do with him thus far," she
faltered. "It is not enough. But I did it for you!"

"Madam, this is more than all America has been able to do before! This
has not been made public?"

"No, no! It is not enough. But to-night I shall make him surrender
all--all north, to the very ice, for America, for the democracy! See,
now, I was born to be devoted, immolated, after all, as my mother was
before me. That is fate! But I shall make fate pay! Ah, Monsieur! Ah,
Monsieur!"

She flung herself to her feet. "I can get it all for you, you and
yours!" she reiterated, holding out her hands, the little pink fingers
upturned, as was often her gesture. "You shall go to your chief and tell
him that Mr. Polk was right--that you yourself, who taught Helena von
Ritz what life is, taught her that after all she was a woman--are able,
because she was a woman, to bring in your own hands all that country,
yes, to fifty-four forty, or even farther. I do not know what all can be
done. I only know that a fool will part with everything for the sake of
his body."

I stood now looking at her, silent, trying to fathom the vastness of
what she said, trying to understand at all their worth the motives which
impelled her. The largeness of her plan, yes, that could be seen. The
largeness of her heart and brain, yes, that also. Then, slowly, I saw
yet more. At last I understood. What I saw was a horror to my soul.

"Madam," said I to her, at last, "did you indeed think me so cheap as
that? Come here!" I led her to the central apartment, and motioned her
to a seat.

"Now, then, Madam, much has been done here, as you say. It is all that
ever can be done. You shall not see Pakenham to-night, nor ever again!"

"But think what that will cost you!" she broke out. "This is only part.
It should _all_ be yours."

I flung the document from me. "This has already cost too much," I said.
"We do not buy states thus."

"But it will cost you your future! Polk is your enemy, now, as he is
Calhoun's. He will not strike you now, but so soon as he dares, he will.
Now, if you could do this--if you could take this to Mr. Calhoun, to
America, it would mean for you personally all that America could give
you in honors."

"Honors without honor, Madam, I do not covet," I replied. Then I would
have bit my tongue through when I saw the great pallor cross her face at
the cruelty of my speech.

"And _myself_?" she said, spreading out her hands again. "But no! I know
you would not taunt me. I know, in spite of what you say, there must be
a sacrifice. Well, then, I have made it. I have made my atonement. I say
I can give you now, even thus, at least a part of Oregon. I can perhaps
give you _all_ of Oregon--to-morrow! The Pakenhams have always dared
much to gain their ends. This one will dare even treachery to his
country. To-morrow--if I do not kill him--if I do not die--I can
perhaps give you all of Oregon--bought--bought and ... paid!" Her voice
trailed off into a whisper which seemed loud as a bugle call to me.

"No, you can not give us Oregon," I answered. "We are men, not panders.
We fight; we do not traffic thus. But you have given me Elisabeth!"

"My rival!" She smiled at me in spite of all. "But no, not my rival.
Yes, I have already given you her and given you to her. To do that--to
atone, as I said, for my attempt to part you--well, I will give Mr.
Pakenham the key that Sir Richard Pakenham of England lately held. I
told you a woman pays, _body_ and soul! In what coin fate gave me, I
will pay it. You think my morals mixed. No, I tell you I am clean! I
have only bought my own peace with my own conscience! Now, at last,
Helena von Ritz knows why she was born, to what end! I have a work to
do, and, yes, I see it now--my journey to America after all was part of
the plan of fate. I have learned much--through you, Monsieur."

Hurriedly she turned and left me, passing through the heavy draperies
which cut off the room where stood the great satin couch. I saw her cast
herself there, her arms outflung. Slow, deep and silent sobs shook all
her body.

"Madam! Madam!" I cried to her. "Do not! Do not! What you have done here
is worth a hundred millions of dollars, a hundred thousand of lives,
perhaps. Yes, that is true. It means most of Oregon, with honor, and
without war. That is true, and it is much. But the price paid--it is
more than all this continent is worth, if it cost so much as that Nor
shall it!"

Black, with a million pin-points of red, the world swam around me.
Millions of dead souls or souls unborn seemed to gaze at me and my
unhesitating rage. I caught up the scroll which bore England's
signature, and with one clutch cast it in two pieces on the floor. As it
lay, we gazed at it in silence. Slowly, I saw a great, soft radiance
come upon her face. The red pin-points cleared away from my own vision.




CHAPTER XXXIII

THE STORY OF HELENA VON RITZ

There is in every true woman's heart a spark of heavenly fire,
which beams and blazes in the dark hours of adversity.--_Washington
Irving_.


"But Madam; but Madam--" I tried to begin. At last, after moments which
seemed to me ages long, I broke out: "But once, at least, you promised
to tell me who and what you are. Will you do that now?"

"Yes! yes!" she said. "Now I shall finish the clearing of my soul. You,
after all, shall be my confessor."

We heard again a faltering footfall in the hallway. I raised an eyebrow
in query.

"It is my father. Yes, but let him come. He also must hear. He is indeed
the author of my story, such as it is.

"Father," she added, "come, sit you here. I have something to say to Mr.
Trist."

She seated herself now on one of the low couches, her hands clasped
across its arm, her eyes looking far away out of the little window,
beyond which could be seen the hills across the wide Potomac.

"We are foreigners," she went on, "as you can tell. I speak your
language better than my father does, because I was younger when I
learned. It is quite true he is my father. He is an Austrian nobleman,
of one of the old families. He was educated in Germany, and of late has
lived there."

"I could have told most of that of you both," I said.

She bowed and resumed:

"My father was always a student. As a young man in the university, he
was devoted to certain theories of his own. _N'est-ce pas vrai, mon
drole?_" she asked, turning to put her arm on her father's shoulder as
he dropped weakly on the couch beside her.

He nodded. "Yes, I wass student," he said. "I wass not content with the
ways of my people."

"So, my father, you will see," said she, smiling at him, "being much
determined on anything which he attempted, decided, with five others, to
make a certain experiment. It was the strangest experiment, I presume,
ever made in the interest of what is called science. It was wholly the
most curious and the most cruel thing ever done."

She hesitated now. All I could do was to look from one to the other,
wonderingly.

"This dear old dreamer, my father, then, and five others--"

"I name them!" he interrupted. "There were Karl von Goertz, Albrecht
Hardman, Adolph zu Sternbern, Karl von Starnack, and Rudolph von
Wardberg. We were all friends--"

"Yes," she said softly, "all friends, and all fools. Sometimes I think
of my mother."

"My dear, your mother!"

"But I must tell this as it was! Then, sir, these six, all Heidelberg
men, all well born, men of fortune, all men devoted to science, and
interested in the study of the hopelessness of the average human being
in Central Europe--these fools, or heroes, I say not which--they decided
to do something in the interest of science. They were of the belief that
human beings were becoming poor in type. So they determined to marry--"

"Naturally," said I, seeking to relieve a delicate situation--"they
scorned the marriage of convenience--they came to our American way of
thinking, that they would marry for love."

"You do them too much credit!" said she slowly. "That would have meant
no sacrifice on either side. They married in the interest of _science!_
They married with the deliberate intention of improving individuals of
the human species! Father, is it not so?"

Some speech stumbled on his tongue; but she raised her hand. "Listen to
me. I will be fair to you, fairer than you were either to yourself or
to my mother.

"Yes, these six concluded to improve the grade of human animals! They
resolved to marry _among the peasantry_--because thus they could select
finer specimens of womankind, younger, stronger, more fit to bring
children into the world. Is not that the truth, my father?"

"It wass the way we thought," he whispered. "It wass the way we thought
wass wise."

"And perhaps it was wise. It was selection. So now they selected. Two of
them married German working girls, and those two are dead, but there is
no child of them alive. Two married in Austria, and of these one died,
and the other is in a mad house. One married a young Galician girl, and
so fond of her did he become that she took him down from his station to
hers, and he was lost. The other--"

"Yes; it was my father," she said, at length. "There he sits, my father.
Yes, I love him. I would forfeit my life for him now--I would lay it
down gladly for him. Better had I done so. But in my time I have hated
him.

"He, the last one, searched long for this fitting animal to lead to the
altar. He was tall and young and handsome and rich, do you see? He could
have chosen among his own people any woman he liked. Instead, he
searched among the Galicians, the lower Austrians, the Prussians. He
examined Bavaria and Saxony. Many he found, but still none to suit his
scientific ideas. He bethought him then of searching among the
Hungarians, where, it is said, the most beautiful women of the world are
found. So at last he found her, that peasant, _my mother!_"

The silence in the room was broken at last by her low, even, hopeless
voice as she went on.

"Now the Hungarians are slaves to Austria. They do as they are bid,
those who live on the great estates. They have no hope. If they rebel,
they are cut down. They are not a people. They belong to no one, not
even to themselves."

"My God!" said I, a sigh breaking from me in spite of myself. I raised
my hand as though to beseech her not to go on. But she persisted.

"Yes, we, too, called upon _our_ gods! So, now, my father came among
that people and found there a young girl, one much younger than himself.
She was the most beautiful, so they say, of all those people, many of
whom are very beautiful."

"Yes--proof of that!" said I. She knew I meant no idle flattery.

"Yes, she was beautiful. But at first she did not fancy to marry this
Austrian student nobleman. She said no to him, even when she found who
he was and what was his station--even when she found that he meant her
no dishonor. But our ruler heard of it, and, being displeased at this
mockery of the traditions of the court, and wishing in his sardonic mind
to teach these fanatical young nobles to rue well their bargain, he sent
word to the girl that she _must_ marry this man--my father. It was made
an imperial order!

"And so now, at last, since he was half crazed by her beauty, as men are
sometimes by the beauty of women, and since at last this had its effect
with her, as sometimes it does with women, and since it was perhaps
death or some severe punishment if she did not obey, she married him--my
father."

"And loved me all her life!" the old man broke out. "Nefer had man love
like hers, I will haf it said. I will haf it said that she loved me,
always and always; and I loved _her_ always, with all my heart!"

"Yes," said Helena von Ritz, "they two loved each other, even as they
were. So here am I, born of that love."

Now we all sat silent for a time. "That birth was at my father's
estates," resumed the same even, merciless voice. "After some short time
of travels, they returned to the estates; and, yes, there I was born,
half noble, half peasant; and then there began the most cruel thing the
world has ever known.

"The nobles of the court and of the country all around began to make
existence hideous for my mother. The aristocracy, insulted by the
republicanism of these young noblemen, made life a hell for the most
gentle woman of Hungary. Ah, they found new ways to make her suffer.
They allowed her to share in my father's estate, allowed her to appear
with him when he could prevail upon her to do so. Then they twitted and
taunted her and mocked her in all the devilish ways of their class. She
was more beautiful than any court beauty of them all, and they hated her
for that. She had a good mind, and they hated her for that. She had a
faithful, loyal heart, and they hated her for that. And in ways more
cruel than any man will ever know, women and men made her feel that
hate, plainly and publicly, made her admit that she was chosen as
breeding stock and nothing better. Ah, it was the jest of Europe, for a
time. They insulted my mother, and that became the jest of the court, of
all Vienna. She dared not go alone from the castle. She dared not travel
alone."

"But your father resented this?"

She nodded. "Duel after duel he fought, man after man he killed, thanks
to his love for her and his manhood. He would not release what he loved.
He would not allow his class to separate him from his choice. But the
_women!_ Ah, he could not fight them! So I have hated women, and made
war on them all my life. My father could not placate his Emperor. So,
in short, that scientific experiment ended in misery--and me!"

The room had grown dimmer. The sun was sinking as she talked. There was
silence, I know, for a long time before she spoke again.

"In time, then, my father left his estates and went out to a small place
in the country; but my mother--her heart was broken. Malice pursued her.
Those who were called her superiors would not let her alone. See, he
weeps, my father, as he thinks of these things.

"There was cause, then, to weep. For two years, they tell me, my mother
wept Then she died. She gave me, a baby, to her friend, a woman of her
village--Threlka Mazoff. You have seen her. She has been my mother ever
since. She has been the sole guardian I have known all my life. She has
not been able to do with me as she would have liked."

"You did not live at your own home with your father?" I asked.

"For a time. I grew up. But my father, I think, was permanently shocked
by the loss of the woman he had loved and whom he had brought into all
this cruelty. She had been so lovable, so beautiful--she was so
beautiful, my mother! So they sent me away to France, to the schools. I
grew up, I presume, proof in part of the excellence of my father's
theory. They told me that I was a beautiful animal!"

The contempt, the scorn, the pathos--the whole tragedy of her voice and
bearing--were such as I can not set down on paper, and such as I scarce
could endure to hear. Never in my life before have I felt such pity for
a human being, never so much desire to do what I might in sheer
compassion.

But now, how clear it all became to me! I could understand many strange
things about the character of this singular woman, her whims, her
unaccountable moods, her seeming carelessness, yet, withal, her dignity
and sweetness and air of breeding--above all her mysteriousness. Let
others judge her for themselves. There was only longing in my heart that
I might find some word of comfort. What could comfort her? Was not life,
indeed, for her to remain a perpetual tragedy?

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