Kitabı oku: «Clear the Track! A Story of To-day», sayfa 10

"What then, Herr von Wildenrod?"

"I would do better not to express it, since it involves a sheer impossibility."

"Why so?" asked Dernburg irritably.

"Because Egbert is the son of a common laborer? His parents are dead, but even if they were living–"

"I am above such prejudices."

Wildenrod was silent, he did not look at the speaker but away over at the works. There was a disagreeable look upon his face.

"You are of a different opinion on that point, I see," began Dernburg again. "In you stir the feelings of the aristocrat, to whom such a thing appears unheard of. I think differently. I let Eric choose upon his own responsibility, but I shall have to stand sponsor for my daughter's happiness. My little Maia,"–the voice of the man usually so stern had a strangely tender intonation,–"she was given to me late, but she is the sunshine of my life. How often have the merry tones of her clear young voice and the light of her bright eyes lifted me out of despondency. She is not to be the prey of the fortune-hunter. She shall be beloved and happy–and so far I know only one person into whose hands I could commit her future without solicitude, for I am convinced that he loves her. He is not calculating, he has proved that to me!"

A peculiar pallor lay upon the Baron's face. Was it anger or shame that palpitated in his soul at those last words? At all events he was spared any answer, for at this moment a servant entered with the announcement that the director was in the work-room and wanted to speak with the master.

"On Sunday? It must be about something very important!" said Dernburg, as he turned to go. "But one thing more, Herr von Wildenrod–do not let what we just talked about go any farther than ourselves. Consider it as confidential."

He went into the house, leaving Oscar alone. Now he knew that he was unobserved, and his brow resembled a threatening thunder-cloud, as he leaned with folded arms on the parapet of the terrace. Here was a danger that he had not apprehended, and with which he had never calculated upon having to cope, but in contrast with which the looming up of Count Eckardstein, that had just now appeared to him so menacing, faded away to a mere shadow. Dernburg evidently had settled it in his own mind that an attachment existed between his daughter and that Runeck, the simpleton, who had sacrificed the high prize offered him to a mere chimera,–that so-called conviction. About Wildenrod's lips now played a scornful smile of conscious superiority. He knew better to whom Maia's love was given, he felt himself equal to the conquest of this new adversary also. And there must be no more delay and no more pausing to reflect, the thing was to act! Oscar drew himself up with a determined air, it was not the first time in his life, that he had played va banque, and here the stake was happiness and a future that promised him everything.

At the end of the extended grounds of Odensburg, where they bordered on the wooded mountain, lay the "Rose Lake," a small sheet of water, that took its name from the water-roses, with which its surface was covered in summer. Now, indeed, none of the white blossoms had opened, only the whispering reeds and sedge-grass edged its shores; a huge beech-tree stretched its branches over it, with its foliage of fresh and tender green, and a dense thicket of blooming shrubbery fenced it in on all sides. It was a snug and quiet retreat, made, as it were, for solitary dreams.

Upon a bench beneath the beech-tree sat Maia, her hands full of flowers that she had plucked on her way, and now wanted to arrange. But this task was not accomplished, for by her sat Oscar von Wildenrod, who had accidentally sought the same spot, and managed to fascinate her so by his conversational powers, that she forgot flowers and everything else in her absorption.

He spoke of his travels at the North and South, there was hardly a land in Europe that he was not acquainted with, and he was a masterly narrator. His descriptions shaped themselves into pictures, in which landscapes, people and events came forth as though living before the listener. Maia followed him in his narrative with breathless sympathy, it all sounded so strange and unreal to her, whose world had hitherto been confined to the family circle.

"Oh! what have you not seen and experienced!" cried she admiringly. "What an entirely different sphere you moved in before you came to us at Odensburg!"

"Another, but not a better one," said Wildenrod earnestly. "It has, indeed, something blinding and intoxicating–this living in boundless freedom, with its perpetual change and fullness of impressions, and it blinded me, too, once upon a time, but that has long since past. There comes a day when one awakens from his intoxication, when one feels how hollow and empty and vain all this is, when one finds himself alone in that concourse of men and in that longed-for freedom–quite alone."

"But you have your sister!" Maia put in reproachfully.

"How long, though! In a few months she deserts me to belong to her husband, and I have a regular horror of going back to that empty and aimless existence. You have no idea, Maia, how I envy your father. He stands firmly and surely upon the foundation of his own labor and its results; to thousands he gives bread, and the blessings, love and admiration of all compass him about, and will follow him to the grave. When I sum up the results of my life–what is the remainder?"

Perplexed, almost shocked, Maia looked up at him who had uttered these bitter words. It was the first time that Wildenrod had adopted such a tone in her presence; she knew him as the brilliant man of the world, who, even when he approached her confidentially, always maintained the character of the elderly man, who conversed half-jocularly with the half-grown girl. To-day he spoke very differently, to-day he had let her have a glimpse of his inner life, and that overcame her shyness. "I have always thought that you were happy in that life, which seems lovely as a fairy-dream, when you tell about it," said she softly.

"Happy!" repeated he gloomily. "No, Maia, I have never been so, not for a day, nor for an hour."

"Yes, but–why did you lead that life so long?"

Oscar looked into those clear child-eyes, that looked up at him with earnest questioning in their depths, and involuntarily his eyes sought the ground.

"Why? Yes, why does one live at all? To win that happiness, of which they sing to us while we are still in our cradles, and of which we think in youth that it lies out in the wide world, in the dim blue distance. Restlessly, feverishly, we pursue it, ever thinking to attain to it, while it retreats farther and farther from us, until at last it fades away like a shadow until finally we give up the restless chase–and with it hope."

In spite of his strong effort to command himself, the disquiet of a tortured spirit was but only too transparent in these words, that had the ring of perfect sincerity. None knew better than Oscar Wildenrod what was that wild chase after happiness, which he had sought all these years–by what paths, indeed, he alone knew.

That woful confession sounded strange in these surroundings, at this season of spring, when everything breathed only beauty and peace. Bright lay the sunshine upon the mirror of the little lake, over which the dragon-flies were hovering dreamily, with their gay-colored, scintillating wings. Golden rays stole through the young leaves of the beech and played in the tender May-green. Round about bloomed the lilac, filling the air with its fragrance, varied by clumps of the yellow laburnum, covered with its rich freight of pendant clusters of bloom, and the lower shrubbery was strewn over, as it were, with wild hedge-roses. There was no end to the blooms, and in the background rose a distant chain of blue mountains, gravely taking a look into this little sunny paradise.

Wildenrod's chest heaved with his deep and heavy breathing; it seemed as though he wanted to inhale the peace and purity of his environment. Then he looked upon the young being at his side, upon the innocent, rosy countenance, that was so untouched by the slightest breath of that life which he had drunk of to its very dregs. But the brown eyes that were now fixed upon him were swimming in tears, and a low, quivering voice said:

"All that you have just been saying sounds so hard, so desperate. Do you really believe no longer in any happiness?"

"Oh, yes, now I believe in it!" cried Oscar with enthusiasm. "Here at Odensburg, I have learned again to hope. It is the old story of the jewel that one goes out into the world to look for, in a thousand ways, meanwhile it rests hidden in the deep and silent woods, until the happy man draws near, who finds it–and perhaps I am such a lucky fellow!"

He had caught the young girl's hand and clasped it firmly in his own. With sudden force, Maia recognized in these words, this movement, what had hitherto been but a dim, half-understood impression resting in her soul; there sprang up within her a sweet sense of joy and yet, at the same time, again came that mysterious, uneasy sensation, which she had experienced already at their first meeting, the dread of that dark, flaming glance, which seemed to magnetize her, as it were. Her hand trembled in that of the Baron.

"Herr von Wildenrod–"

"My name is Oscar!" interposed he beseechingly.

"Oscar–leave me!"

"No, I will not leave you!" ejaculated he passionately. "I have found the jewel, now I will catch it and keep it all my life long. Maia, years, tens of years part us, I have no longer youth to offer you, but I love you with all the fervent ardor of youth. From the instant when you advanced to meet me on the threshold of your father's house, I knew that you were my destiny, my all. And you love me too, I know it–let me hear it now from your own lips. Speak, Maia, say that you will be mine! You have no idea what power this word will exert over me–to deliver and to save."

He had thrown his arm around her, his passionate, glowing words passing over the trembling girl like the breath of a burning flame. Her head rested upon his bosom, and fixedly she looked up at him. Now she no longer shrank from meeting his eyes, she only saw the melting tenderness in them, heard only the confession of his love, and that bodeful dread was lost in triumphant rapture.

"Yes, I do love you, Oscar," said she softly. "Dearly love you."

"My Maia!"

It rang out like a shout of joy. Oscar folded her in his arms, kissing again and again the light hair and rosy lips of his beloved. An intoxication of bliss had come over him. The past, with its dark shadows, sank into oblivion, and to the man who was already approaching the autumn of life sounded joyously the message that every blossom was repeating: Spring is here!

After a while Maia gently extricated herself from his arms, her lovely face all aglow.

"But my father, Oscar, will he consent?"

Wildenrod smiled. He knew that the difference of age between himself and his betrothed would be an objection hard for Dernburg to overcome, that his consent would neither be easily nor quickly obtained, but this did not frighten him. "Your father desires only to see you beloved and happy, I know that from his own mouth," said he with overflowing tenderness. "And my Maia, my sweet, pretty child, you shall be happy and beloved!"

CHAPTER XI.
A SECRET FOE AND OPEN ENEMY

Dernburg sat in his office at the desk. He had just had a lengthy talk with the director of his works and was looking over the papers which he had left when the door was again opened. Count Eckardstein entered, who, as a guest of the house, needed no special announcement.

"I just saw the director leave," said he. "May I disturb you for a few minutes? I only come, preparatory to bidding adieu."

"Why, you will not be at dinner, as usual?" asked Dernburg, somewhat surprised.

"I thank you, I must return to Eckardstein.–Must I really have to report to my brother that you decline his invitation? We had depended so confidently upon your presence and that of your family."

"I am sorry. You have already heard that we have invited company to dinner, ourselves, for the day named."

This refusal of the invitation sounded just as positive as chilling, and so the young Count could but feel it to be. He impulsively drew a few steps nearer, and asked in a whisper:

"Herr Dernburg–what have you against me?"

"I? Nothing! What put such an idea into your mind, Sir Count?"

"Your very address proves it to me. This morning you called me Victor and treated me with your wonted kindness. Have I, then, become a stranger to you in the course of a few months? I am afraid that another influence has been brought to bear upon you, that I can guess."

Dernburg frowned, the hint at Wildenrod, which was only too intelligible, wounded him, but he was accustomed to go about things in a direct manner. Why seek to find out what he wanted to know by indirect methods. He looked at the handsome, open countenance of the young man, then he said slowly:

"I do not allow myself to be influenced, and it is not my way to condemn any one unheard, least of all you, Victor, whom I have known from the days of your earliest boyhood. Now that you introduce the subject yourself, it may as well be discussed between us. Will you answer me a few questions?"

"With pleasure, proceed."

"You stayed away from home a long while, and did not set foot on Eckardstein soil for years. Why was that?"

"It resulted from personal, family relations–"

"Which you would rather not talk about–I perceive."

"No, Herr Dernburg, I do not care to have concealments with you," said Victor, in a low tone. "My relation to my brother was never an especially friendly one, and since the death of our father has grown to be positively painful. Conrad is the elder, and heir of the entailed property, I am dependent upon him, and cannot maintain my rank as an officer without his assistance. He has often enough made me feel his unwillingness to do this, and in so insulting a manner, that I prefer to keep aloof from him."

One could see that it was exceedingly trying to the young Count to give this explanation, and still he was telling nothing that his hearer did not already know. The strained relations existing between the brothers was known to the whole neighborhood, but the main fault was attributed to the elder. Count Conrad, who, at the time, was still unmarried, and the senior of Victor by only a few years, was regarded as haughty and unmindful of the rights of others, and his ambition was a fact known to all. He was, therefore, anything but popular. Dernburg knew this likewise, but made not the slightest allusion to it, only asking:

"And yet you have come now?"

"This happened by my brother's express desire."

"He has concocted plans in conjunction with you–I know."

Victor started, and the blood began slowly to mount into his cheeks. Dernburg watched him sharply and inquisitively, while he continued:

"You apprehend, without doubt, what I mean. I shall be quite candid with you, but shall expect just as candid an answer. It is said that you have been summoned by Count Conrad to Eckardstein, in order to turn to account your former intimacy at Odensburg."

Victor started at this insulting speech.

"Herr Dernburg!"

"Victor, I ask you, is that so?"

The young man cast down his eyes in painful embarrassment.

"You put the question in a way–"

"That admits of no evasion. Yes or no, then?"

"You seem to take my courtship as an insult," said Victor, without lifting his eyes from the floor. "Is it such a crime, then, to seek the renewal of youthful friendship with such thoughts? Well, yes, I came here to seek a happiness that in memory took the shape of a bright little elf. What is there bad about that? At my age you would probably have done the same."

"But not at the behest of another person!" said Dernburg cuttingly. "And when I went courting I had a different fortune to offer from what you have, Herr Lieutenant."

The young Count was incensed, and with difficulty restrained himself, but his voice trembled, when he answered:

"You make poverty very bitter to me."

"Such is not my desire, for poverty is no disgrace in my eyes. You only share the fate of the younger sons in those families whose whole property is entailed upon the oldest. But they say that your brother has still more pressing reasons for exhorting you to make a so-called good match. I am sorry, Sir Count, to hurt your feelings, but you have sought this interview yourself, not I."

"So they have informed you of that, too, and you put the most shameful interpretation upon it," said Victor bitterly. "If I have been indiscreet, my brother has already given me good cause to rue it, and I repent tenfold at this moment. Well, yes, I did not keep free of debt, could not do so with the small means that were at my command. It would have been an easy thing for Conrad to release me from my obligations, but he did not do it, even putting before me the possibility of being obliged to send in my resignation, and then–"

"Then you acceded to his proposition!" Dernburg's voice had a harsh, contemptuous intonation. "I understand that perfectly; but you, on your side, will also understand that I am not willing to give my daughter as a prize in a financial operation."

The color came and went in the young man's face, but at the last word he sprang to his feet with a half-suppressed shriek, and shook his fist in the face of the elder man, who looked at him steadily.

"To what end is this, Count Eckardstein? Will you challenge me to a duel because I undertake to tell you my view of this matter? A man of my years and station does not commit such follies."

Again Victor let his hand drop and stepped back.

"Herr Dernburg, you have been a fatherly friend to me for years, Odensburg has been a second home for me, and you are the father of Maia, whom I–"

"Whom you love," said Dernburg, with bitter irony, "you were about to say."

"Yes, I do love her!" cried Victor, drawing himself up to his full height, and his eye met clearly and openly that of the infuriated man. "This became clear to me the moment when I met again as a blooming girl the child who still lived in my memory. After what you have said nothing is left for me but to leave your house, never to enter it again; but in bidding farewell, I at least challenge your faith in the truth of my feelings for Maia–although she is lost to me."

There was intense anguish, genuine emotion manifest in these last words, which would have convinced anybody else but Dernburg. But that grave, earnest man there at the desk had never known the frivolities of youth, and hence had no idea how to make allowance for its errors. Perhaps, too, he, was convinced at this moment, but he could not pardon any one for presuming to court his darling for the sake of her wealth.

"I am not authorized to judge of your feelings, Sir Count," said he, with a coldness that forbade any further attempt at reconciliation: "and yet I understand perfectly why you should avoid Odensburg after this conversation. I am sorry that we must part thus, meanwhile as things stand, there is no help for it."

Victor answered not a word, but silently bowed and withdrew. Dernburg looked after him moodily.

"He, too!" murmured he half aloud. "The honest, open-hearted fellow, who, in earlier days, did not know the meaning of calculation! Everything goes to destruction in this wild chase after wealth, that they call good fortune!–"

At the foot of the broad staircase, that led to the upper story, stood Wildenrod and Eric, engaged in conversation. The latter had just come in from the park, and, meeting with Oscar, poured out his heart to him.

"I am afraid Cecilia is seriously unwell," said he excitedly. "She complains of severe headache and looks dreadfully pale, but has forbidden me in the most positive manner from having Hagenbach called. She protests that a few hours of undisturbed repose will restore her quicker than anything else. I saw her only a few minutes after her arrival, and have not been able to learn where she has really been, for she preserves an obstinate silence on the subject."

Oscar smiled and shrugged his shoulders. "And you, I suppose, are beside yourself over it. I told you awhile ago, that you must calculate upon the self-will of our spoilt little princess. When Cecile is in a bad humor, she stretches herself on the sofa and will have naught to do with anybody; happily she does not keep in this mood long, I can tell you that for your comfort. Your father, to be sure, is of opinion that you must break her of such whims, but you are not the man for this, my dear Eric. There is nothing, then, left for you to do, but to possess your soul in patience, and already make preliminary studies for the pattern husband, which you will undoubtedly make."

Eric looked at him in amazement. "What has come over you, Oscar? Your face fairly beams with joy. Has something very pleasant happened to you?"

"Who knows–perhaps!" said Oscar, with a flash of his dark eyes. "And therefore I want to take you in hand. You do look desperate. I have always had a great deal of influence over my sister, and shall give her to understand how unwarrantable a thing it is of her to make you taste already the miseries of the married state–properly she has no right to do this, until after the wedding is over. You see if she does not appear at dinner in as good spirits as ever, and then you, too, I trust, will wear a different face–you poor, maltreated lover, who take so much to heart the caprices of his ladye-love."

He laughed with a superior air, and waving back a salutation, he mounted the stair. Eric looked at him, shaking his head dubiously. Such radiant gayety of mood was not at all natural to Oscar von Wildenrod, who was hardly recognizable to-day. What could have happened to him?

Up in the parlor, the Baron was met by his sister's maid, who informed him that her lady had given her strict orders not to allow her to be disturbed, under any circumstances–without exception, no one was to be admitted. Not even Herr Dernburg.

"Pshaw, such orders do not include me, you know, Nannon," said Wildenrod, cutting her speech short, without ceremony. "I want to speak to my sister. Open the door!"

Nannon courtesied, and obeyed, for she knew very well that the Baron was not one to brook contradiction. Without further ceremony, he entered his sister's chamber, which was next door.

Cecilia lay upon the sofa, with her face buried in a cushion. She did not stir, although she must have heard the opening and shutting of the door, but her brother evinced no surprise at this, and quietly drew nearer.

"Are you once more in an ill-humor, Cecile?" he asked, still in a playful tone. "You really do treat Eric in a most unwarrantable manner. He has just been pouring his laments into my ears."

Cecilia remained silent and motionless, until Wildenrod finally lost patience.

"Will you not at least have the goodness to look at me? I should like to ask you in general–" he hushed, for his sister suddenly sat bolt upright, and he looked into a face so pale and distorted, that he almost shrank back in dismay.

"I have something to say to you, Oscar," said she, softly. "To yourself alone. Nannon is in the parlor–send her away, that we may be undisturbed."

Oscar knitted his brows,–he could not yet believe that anything serious was in question; but in his joyous mood, he was more inclined than usual to indulge the whim of another. He therefore went into the parlor, sent the maid away on a message, and then turned back.

"Am I finally to learn what all that signifies?" he asked, impatiently. "Where in the world were you, Cecile, and what means this early morning trip to the mountains? Dernburg has already noticed it with much displeasure! You must know that Odensburg is not the place for such escapades."

Cecilia had gotten up, and said not a word in her own defense, but breathed out in a whisper:

"I have been on the Whitestone."

"On the Whitestone?" exclaimed Oscar. "What foolhardiness! What incredible rashness!"

"Let that be, the question is about something else," she interrupted him vehemently. "I met up there with–with that friend of Eric's youth, and he has said things to me,–Oscar, what happened between you two the first time that you met?"

"Nothing!" said the Baron, coldly. "Perhaps I did see him then; it is possible; one easily overlooks such people. At all events, I did not speak with him, and did not know that he was witness of a painful event that took place on that evening."

"What sort of an event was it?"

"Nothing for your ears, my dear, and therefore I should not like Runeck to talk with you on the subject. By the way, tell me exactly what he did say."

The question was apparently thrown off indifferently, and yet keen suspense was apparent in the dark eyes of the questioner.

"He seemed to take for granted my cognizance of the affair, and passed on to make insinuations which I did not rightly understand, but behind which looked something horrible."

"How? Did he dare to?" said Oscar, flaring up.

"Yes, he did dare to impugn your honor, and treat me as your accomplice. He spoke of knowing more about your life than would be agreeable to you; he called us adventurers–do you hear? adventurers! But you will have your revenge, will give him the answer that he deserves, and avenge both yourself and me!"

Wildenrod had turned pale. He stood there with darkened brow and clinched fists, but he was silent. The passionate outburst of indignation, and wrath, that Cecilia had looked and hoped for, did not come.

"Did he actually say that to you?" he slowly inquired at last.

"Word for word! And you–you make no answer?"

Wildenrod had recovered his self-possession. He shrugged his shoulders with a mocking air of superiority. "What answer am I to make? Would you have me take such nonsense seriously?"

"He was in sober earnest, and if, as he maintained, proofs are lacking up to this time–"

"Actually?" Oscar laughed, scornfully and triumphantly, while he drew a deep, long sigh of relief.

"Well, let him search for those proofs; he will not find them!"

Cecilia supported herself on the back of the chair by which she stood. That sigh of relief had not escaped her, and her eyes were fixed upon her brother in deadly anguish.

"Have you no other answer, when your honor is assailed? Will you not call Runeck to account?"

"That is my affair! Leave it to me to get even with that man! What is it to you?"

"What is it to me, when you and I both receive a deadly insult?" cried Cecilia, beside herself. "To call us adventurers, to whom Odensburg is to fall a prey. Shall a man dare to say such a thing and go unpunished? Oscar, look me in the eye! You shrink from chastising that man. You are afraid of him! Alas! alas!"

She broke out into a wild and passionate fit of sobbing. Oscar stepped quickly up to her, and his voice fell to a low and angry whisper.

"Cecilia, use your reason! You behave like a madwoman. What has come over you, anyhow? You have been like a different person since this morning."

"Yes, since this morning!" repeated she passionately. "Since I awoke, and oh! what a bitter awakening! Do not evade me! You told me that our fortune was gone, and I was thoughtless enough not once to inquire how it came, that, in spite of this, we lived on a grand scale. When was it lost? In what way? I will know!"

Wildenrod looked at her darkly, that threatening tone in his sister was as new to her as her whole behavior; he must henceforth give up treating her as a child.

"Would you know when our fortune was lost?" asked he roughly. "At the time when our house broke with a crash. And our father–laid hands on himself."

"Our father!" The eyes of the young girl opened wide, and were full of horror. "He did not die from–a stroke of apoplexy?"

"That was what they told the world, the neighborhood, and you, the eight-year old child–I know better. Our estate had long been involved in debt, ruin was only a question of time, and when it actually came, father seized his pistol–and left us behind–beggars."

As unsparing as these words sounded, there was an undercurrent of dull grief in them, showing that the man still suffered at the recollection, after the lapse of twelve years.

Cecilia did not shriek, did not weep, her tears seeming suddenly to be stanched. She only asked dispiritedly: "And then?"

"Then the honor of our name was saved by the personal interposition of the king. He bought the estate and satisfied the creditors. Your mother obtained a pension from his bounty, and alms of residence in the place where she had been mistress, and I–well I went out into the wide world, to seek my fortune."

A momentary silence followed; Cecilia had dropped into a chair, and had clasped both hands before her face. Finally Wildenrod resumed: "That hits you hard, I well believe, but at the time it hit me yet harder. I had no suspicion of how it stood with us, and now to be snatched from supposed wealth, from a brilliant station in life, from a grand career, in order to be confronted by poverty and misery–you do not know what that means. They offered me this and that office, either in the postal service or as collector of taxes in some remote province, offered me, whose glowing ambition had dreamed of the highest aims, beggarly positions, in which body and soul would have been destroyed in the tread-mill of a wretched existence. I was not made for that. I cast everything behind me and forsook Germany, to at least save appearances, and produce the impression that the sale of property and my resignation of office had been voluntary."

Cecilia slowly let her hands drop, and straightened herself up. "And yet you maintained your position in society? We were regarded as rich the three years that I passed with you, and were surrounded by splendor and luxury."

Wildenrod had no answer to this timid and reproachful question; he avoided meeting his sister's eye.