CHAPTER XX.
SUCCESS IN THE CHASE.
Alberta Goldsborough had been a pupil in the convent school for somewhat more than four months. In all that time she had not once heard from her lover. She bore her trial with great stoicism, disdaining to complain, and doing all that was required of her with quiet indifference. She made no friends either among the teachers or the pupils. She was, as the little girl described her to be, proud and still. She felt sure that some time or other Vittorio would, with his Italian craft, succeed in discovering her retreat and effecting her deliverance. And she calmly awaited the time.
Julie McKnight, the little girl whom Vittorio had intrusted with the letter to his ladylove, watched all the afternoon for an opportunity of delivering it to Miss Goldsborough. Chance favored her. She was sent by her class mistress into one of the small music-rooms to practice her lesson on the piano. As she passed on the long hall, flanked on each side by a row of such rooms, she saw the door of one of them open and Miss Goldsborough seated at the piano. The child cast a hurried look up and down the hall, and, seeing no one near, she slipped in and thrust the letter into Alberta’s hands, whispering eagerly:
“He gave it to me outside. You are to answer it, please, and give me the answer to take to him. You had better make haste, please, and write it and give it to me before we have to go down in the classrooms again. I am in the music-room, number seven.”
“Thanks, my dear——” began Alberta; but the little girl did not wait to hear thanks. She was off like an arrow.
Miss Goldsborough opened her letter and read:
MY OWN AND ONLY LOVE:—I have but a few minutes to write to you in; if I would seize the earliest opportunity of getting this letter into your hands I must have it ready in a quarter of an hour. After long months of unremitting and unavailing search, I have but just learned the place of your incarceration. Oh, my beloved, my adored, my worshiped queen, you know that I would die to deliver you. Events are on the wing, sweet love, that may separate us—‘it may be for years, or it may be forever’—unless we meet and unite our destinies immediately. I have neither time nor opportunity to explain farther. Let it suffice for me to say that I will be on the watch outside the north front of the building every evening from six o’clock p. m. to six a. m. I will have a carriage and horses waiting near, but out of sight. Dear love! if you can effect your escape from the inside of those jealous walls I will secure your safety on the outside. Or if you will give me a hint as to how I can further aid your deliverance, I will risk my life—nay, more—my eternal salvation to serve you. And always, for time and for eternity, I devote myself body and soul to your service.
VITTORIO.
Alberta read this with flushed cheeks and beaming eyes. Before she had finished it her plan was formed. Ever since she had been in the convent all the senses and faculties of her mind and body had been on the alert to discover the best means of escape. And she knew them and she might have availed herself of them long before, but for this one consideration—she was ignorant of the whereabouts of her lover, and she was destitute of any other refuge. Out of the convent, where could she have found Vittorio, or where could she have gone for shelter? These unanswered questions held her captive as bolts and bars could never have done.
But now, if she should make her escape, Vittorio would be outside waiting to receive her. And her resolution was taken immediately.
She had no proper writing materials at hand. But she took an end of a pencil from her pocket and tore the blank page from Vittorio’s letter and wrote her answer. It was very pithy:
Be at your post to-night and wait till you see me.
She turned his envelope inside out and put her answer into it, and took it into the little music-room where the child, Julia McKnight, was practicing.
“You will give this to the gentleman as you go home,” she said, handing the letter to the little girl.
“Oh, yes, that I will, Miss Goldsborough. I am so glad you wrote the answer to his letter. He will be delighted to get it,” replied little Julia, hiding the letter in her bosom.
These two could not remain long together. Their interview was altogether against the rules of the school, where the elder and the younger pupils were not allowed to associate, except in the presence of their teachers.
Now, as soon as the affair that had brought them together was thus far concluded, they separated, the cold Alberta warming with gratitude enough to stoop and kiss her ardent little friend before leaving her.
Alberta returned to her own room. And when the inspecting sister came around she found the two pupils diligently practicing at their respective pianos.
When the hours for study were over for that afternoon, and the day pupils were dismissed, little Julia hurried away to deliver the letter to its destination.
Alberta, in furtherance of her plan of escape, went to the large apartment known as the recreation-room, where the boarding pupils always spent their play time in bad weather. The windows on one side of this apartment overlooked the north road, where she had warned Vittorio to be upon his post. When she entered this room she found many of her schoolmates assembled, and the question, “What shall we play?” eagerly discussed among them.
“I will tell you,” said Alberta.
“What? what?” demanded the girls, pressing around her in much surprise that the still, proud Miss Goldsborough should move in any play.
“Hide and seek. It is a fine, exhilarating play for a cold winter afternoon,” said Alberta.
“Yes, that will be just the thing,” replied the girls.
To the ever-increasing astonishment of her companions, Miss Goldsborough engaged eagerly in the play, but not successfully at first, for she caught no one. At length, however, when the afternoon deepened into night, and the gas was lighted, and the snow was falling very fast, Alberta succeeded in finding the hider. Then it was her turn to hide.
“Now, mind,” she said, addressing her companions, “you must act fairly, and go quite out of sight, and refrain from watching me. I mean to hide where none of you have hidden before. You will have great difficulty in finding me, but I assure you it will be good fun when you do find me. Don’t come back until I call ‘Whoop!’”
“No, no, we won’t, Alberta!” exclaimed several of her companions in a breath.
And they all hurried out into the passage.
Alberta stole behind them, and not only closed the door upon them, but silently slipped the bolt. Then she went to the only other door of the room, which was at the opposite end, and she drew the key from the other side and locked it fast. Having thus secured the room, she went to the north windows. The green linen blinds were drawn down, and the outside shutters were closed. She stopped at a window at the extreme end of the row, and the most out of the range of vision of any one who might, at a later hour, force an entrance into the room, and she lifted the blind, but did not draw it up, and she hoisted the window and opened the shutters. It was dark as pitch outside, and snowing fast; it was a terrible night to take the road in. But what will not a self-willed girl, bent upon her own destruction, venture? She leaned far out of the window and peered into the darkness, but she could see nothing except the falling snow.
Then she ventured to call softly:
“Vittorio! Vittorio!”
There was no response. After a minute she called again, but with no better success. She paused another minute, and then called for a third time:
“Vittorio!”
“I am here, my love—I am here!” answered a hushed and vehement voice below the window.
“I have called you three times,” she said.
“I must have been at the other end of my beat. I have been pacing the whole length of this building from one end to the other, and looking up to those windows—oh, how longingly!”
“Is all clear below this?”
“Yes, dear love.”
“Then wait there. I will be with you in a moment,” she said, and she withdrew from the window.
Her schoolmates, who had grown impatient at her long delay in hiding, were now clamoring for admittance at the closed door, which, however, they did not know was fastened.
“Why don’t you ‘whoop’ and let us in? Haven’t you hid yourself yet?” inquired one and another.
“No,” answered Alberta, going up to the door—“not quite yet; I shall in a minute. Don’t you be in such a hurry, and don’t come in until I whoop.”
“Make haste, then,” exclaimed several of the girls in a breath; “it is cold out here.”
“I will,” said Alberta. And she went to the peg where her own everyday bonnet and shawl hung, and she took them down and put them on. Next she turned off the gas, leaving the room dark.
Then she went to the window, pushed it up as high as it would go, got upon the sill, letting the blind drop behind her to hide her means of exit, and took a clear leap down to the sidewalk below. It was a fall of about eight feet, and she came down with a severe shock but with whole bones.
“My own! my own! are you hurt?” exclaimed her lover, in the extremity of anxiety, as he picked her up.
“I—let me recover myself! No, I am not hurt,” answered Alberta, confusedly.
“The carriage is round the corner. Let me lift you and bear you to it.”
“No, I can walk very well now, if you will give me the support of your arm,” answered Miss Goldsborough.
He drew her hand through his arm, and carefully conducted her to the waiting carriage.
How long her school companions remained outside the door of the recreation room, clamoring to come in; or when their patience became exhausted; or how they affected an entrance; or whether they gave the alarm; or who first discovered her flight, Alberta never knew and never cared.
Her lover placed her in a carriage and drove her immediately to the dwelling of a clergyman, where, with the special license Vittorio had taken care to provide, they were married; for in the District of Columbia there is no law to prevent a minor marrying, without the consent of parents or guardians, at any hour.
From the house of the officiating clergyman they went to a hotel, where they remained until the next morning, when they took the boat to Richmond.
You see Vittorio Corsoni, with all his faults, did not shrink from facing his father-in-law. In the Italian’s creed, love was law, and in his inmost soul he was unconscious of having done a great wrong.
But there was no chance of Vittorio’s meeting Mr. Goldsborough in Richmond just then. The very boat upon which the newly-married pair embarked, and which had reached the Washington wharf late on the evening before, had brought up Alberta’s father on a visit to herself. As it was too late for him to see his daughter that night, and as the hotels were almost uncomfortably crowded, the old gentleman decided to quarter himself upon his good friend, the retired Lutheran minister.
It seemed that Erminie had been booked for surprises that day, and that the tribe of cousins or friends as numerous as a Scotch clan, of which her father had jestingly spoken, were really beginning to pour in. She had scarcely curtsied Vittorio Corsoni out, before a cab rolled up to the door and her two uncles, Hans and Friedrich Rosenthal, got out of it.
Hans had suddenly come from Germany the day before, and they had both come on to see their brother Ernest, the retired Lutheran minister.
Erminie welcomed them with the warmest affection, and showed them into a spare room, where she hastened to have a fire lighted, and to make them comfortable; and then she dispatched Catharine to the Congress Library to look for her father and tell him of the arrival of his brothers, so that he might hurry home. The old Lutheran minister came with the messenger, his face beaming with joy, and embraced his brothers warmly in his earnest German manner.
Colonel Eastworth did not appear until the six o’clock dinner, when he was introduced to the strangers. He was, as often now, moody and preoccupied; but even he could not long resist the influence of that cordial spirit of love which seemed to pervade the Lutheran minister’s family.
It was some time after they had had tea in the library, and had gone into the drawing-room, and it was while Erminie, her uncles and her lover were at the piano, singing some of the finest selections from the German operas, that the doorbell rang and Mr. Goldsborough was announced.
Old Dr. Rosenthal started up with the agility of youth to welcome his friend.
Erminie stopped singing and playing, and turned around with a frightened look. Her first impression, that came quick as lightning at the sight of Mr. Goldsborough, was that he had come to Washington in fierce pursuit of Vittorio Corsoni; but she arose to receive her father’s guest with all the calmness and courtesy she could command.
Mr. Goldsborough’s first words somewhat allayed her fears.
“You look surprised and even shocked to see me here so unexpectedly, at this late hour, my dear young lady; but you will be pleased to learn that I have come to withdraw your friend, my daughter Alberta, from her convent school,” said Mr. Goldsborough, cordially shaking her hand.
“I am very glad to see you at any hour,” replied Erminie, smiling.
“Thanks! The boat was behind time in getting in, or I should not have been so unseasonable in my appearance,” added Mr. Goldsborough.
“You are not unseasonable at all, my old friend. It is not yet eleven o’clock. And we had not begun to think of retiring. For, you see, here are my two brothers, just arrived, and one come all the way from Germany! Let me present them to you: Mr. Hans Rosenthal, Mr. Friedrich Rosenthal—Mr. Goldsborough.”
The Virginia gentleman bowed with old-fashioned ceremoniousness as the simple-hearted German merchants were introduced. And then he sat down and became one of the party.
“Have you supped?” hospitably inquired the young mistress of the house.
“Yes, my dear, on the boat. Give yourself no trouble,” said Mr. Goldsborough, with a bow.
“I am very glad that you are going to take my favorite, Alberta, out of the convent,” said the doctor.
“Yes! my doing so before the half-yearly term has expired may seem very capricious; but, in fact, it is not so. There are grave reasons why all we Virginians should gather all the scattered members of our families under our own State roofs. The progress of public affairs makes it imperative that I should take my daughter home, or risk the being separated from her for a long and indefinite period. I believe that I am speaking among friends and sympathizers here—the presence of Colonel Eastworth in this house, indeed, assures me that I am. And I know, also, that my esteemed host, although not a native of the country, has been a citizen of the South for many years. I may, therefore, say that Virginia will certainly secede from the United States, and that she is now arming herself in defense of her right to do so.”
No one answered for a while. But the speaker caught the eye of Colonel Eastworth, who was looking at him with a steady and meaning gaze, that was intended to convey the impression that the subject must not be pursued, and must never be resumed in that house.
At length, after a thoughtful pause, Dr. Rosenthal spoke; but he spoke rather wide of the mark; for though nothing could have been plainer than the words used by Mr. Goldsborough, and although Dr. Rosenthal understood the meaning of those words, yet he strangely misunderstood the position assumed by the speaker. He honestly supposed that the Virginian gentleman, in speaking of secession, spoke of it only as deprecating its evils. This was very apparent in his answer:
“You say that Virginia will certainly secede from the United States, and that she is even now arming herself in defense of her right to do so! Nonsense, Goldsborough! Don’t alarm yourself! There is, certainly, an epidemical madness in the air, and a few leading statesmen have caught it. South Carolina has gone, it is true! She took the malady in its most malignant form. Let us hope that she will soon get well and come back. But Virginia secede! The gallant Old Dominion go! Never, Goldsborough! Don’t distrust your native State, my friend! She is as loyal to the Union as you are, or as I am! And, Heaven knows, I love this country, which has fostered me for forty years—I love her as truly and as deeply as if I had been born her son! And should this madness of secession become general, and should she have a civil war forced upon her, I, with my three score years, will take up arms in her defense as promptly as you, Goldsborough, or as Eastworth, or any other loyal and gallant son of her soil would do!”
What a speech was this for the brave and true-hearted old man to make to a couple of conscientious, but unsuspected secessionists, who were his honored guests.
Neither of them answered a word; they found that they had mistaken their man; for this was really the first definition of his position that the Lutheran minister had ever thought it worth while to make; and Eastworth had supposed him to be indifferent on the subject; and Goldsborough, seeing one of the strongest spirits of secession an inmate of his house, had really believed him to be one of that party. They were silent from surprise.
But Erminie was a picture! She turned upon her father, beaming with love, admiration and enthusiasm as she exclaimed:
“Right, my dear father! I love to hear you speak so. And I myself would strap the sword to your side and place the musket in your hand, and follow you to the field, if you would let me, to dress your wounds if you should be hurt, and nurse you if you be sick; and to risk my life with yours and die with you, if need should be!”
“There, there, my darling; I know you are a brave and good girl! and there are millions of your countrywomen like you! for you are a native American citizen, my Minie, although I am not,” said the Lutheran minister, patting his daughter on the head. “But there will be no necessity, let us hope, for all this self-devotion! The clouds of secession gather rather thickly and darkly just now, but they will be dispelled—they will be dispelled,” he added, walking away to the fireplace.
Colonel Eastworth took the vacant place beside Erminie, and stooped and whispered very low:
“And what will become of me, my Minie, when you shall follow your father to the field? Where shall I be, and who will care for me?”
“You will be with my father, and I will care for you both! Surely you will stand shoulder to shoulder with my father, in defense of our beloved country! And as surely I shall be near to minister to you both!” answered Erminie, looking up with surprise.
As the hour was late, the party now separated and retired to their respective rooms.
The last thought of Colonel Eastworth, in sinking to sleep, was:
“It will come to this—that my beloved Minie must choose between her loyalty and her lover—and her lover will be quite sure to triumph!”