Kitabı oku: «Clear the Track! A Story of To-day», sayfa 11

"Let that be, Cecilia!" said he after a while. "It was a fierce, desperate struggle to maintain that station which I did not want to give up at any price, and many a thing happened in so doing that had better not be talked about. But I had no choice. In the struggle for existence it is either sink or swim. Never mind!" He took a long breath. "Now all that trouble is over, you are Eric's betrothed bride and I–have something delightful to communicate to you."

He did not, however, get the opportunity to make his communication at present, for at the door of the parlor a gentle knock was heard, and directly afterwards Eric's voice asked:

"May I come in at last?"

"Eric," exclaimed Cecilia in dismay. "I cannot see him–not now!"

"You must talk with him," whispered Oscar softly, but dictatorially. "Is your behavior to strike him as yet more peculiar? Only for a few minutes."

"I cannot! Tell him, I am sick, or asleep, or anything you choose!"

She wanted to spring to her feet, but her brother again drew her down upon her seat, while he called out in a cheerful tone:

"Just come in, Eric! Here am I–being indulged with a half-hour's audience, by this gracious lady!"

"So I heard from Nannon!" said Eric, in a reproachful tone, as he entered, after passing through the parlor. "Is your door to remain locked to me, when it is open to Oscar? Dear me, how pale and disturbed you look! What happened on that unfortunate expedition? I implore you, speak!"

He had seized her hand and looked into her face, with deep solicitude. Her little hand trembled in his, but there followed no answer.

"You ought rather to scold her, although I have already done so sufficiently myself," said Wildenrod. "Do you know where she has been this morning? Why, on top of the Whitestone!"

"Lord of heaven!" cried Eric, horrified. "Is that true, Cecile?"

"Literally true! Of course she was dizzy on the way back, came down half dead and is now sick from overexertion and the agony endured. She was ashamed to confess to you and the doctor, but you had to learn about it."

"Cecilia, how could you treat me so?" said the young man reproachfully. "Did you not think of my distress, my despair, if anything had happened to you? Had I only suspected that it was more than a jest that time when you threatened to climb it, in your talk with Egbert and me–what is the matter with you?"

At the mention of that name, Cecilia had shuddered; now a couple of tears rolled over her cheeks, while she murmured: "Pardon me, Eric–pardon me!"

Eric had never before seen his beloved weep, nor ever heard her plead for pardon. With overflowing tenderness he kissed her hands. "My Cecile, my darling girl, I am not scolding you, I only beg of you, never, never again to undertake such an adventure. You promise me that, do you not? Done! And now–"

"Now we will indulge her with a little rest. Try to sleep a few hours, Cecile; that will soothe your overtaxed nerves. Come, Eric!"

The latter followed, evidently very unwillingly, but since Cecilia, too, urged him to go with feverish impatience, he submitted. Oscar accompanied him as far as the stairs, and then went into his own room. Hardly, however, had the sound of the young man's steps died away outside, than he returned to his sister, after bolting the parlor door.

"How can you be so wanting in self-control?" said he, in a suppressed voice. "A blessed thing it was that I was by your side. Under these circumstances, the best thing to do was to make a clean breast of your mountain adventure. But the thing now is to ward off another danger. Without proof, Runeck will not venture to undertake anything against us, and meanwhile things are coming to a pass that must necessitate a rupture between him and Dernburg. Until then–well, I have been equal to worse emergencies!" These last words once more betrayed all the rash self-confidence of the man, who had already often staked everything upon the one card and won the game.

Cecilia had risen from her seat; her eyes were fastened upon him, with a singular expression in them. "Then we shall be no more at Odensburg," said she. "Do not flare up so, Oscar! I do not want to know what you conceal from me; what you said to me was enough. You must arm yourself against a danger that threatens you on the part of Runeck–he told the truth, then–he can accuse you. But I shall not be an adventuress, who has thrust herself in here and who will one day be driven away in shame and disgrace–do you hear?–I shall not! Let us begone, no matter whither, under some pretext or other–only away from here, at any price!"

"Are you out of your senses?" cried Wildenrod, while he seized her arm, as though he had to hinder her from taking to flight that very moment. "Away? Whither? Think you that I can again open to you our former mode of life? That is past–my sources of revenue are at an end!"

"I hate to think of those sources of revenue," cried Cecilia, trembling. "I want to work–"

Oscar laughed aloud and bitterly. "With those hands, perhaps? Do you know, what it is to toil for daily bread? One has to be brought up to it–people like us would starve at it."

"I cannot stay here, though, now, when my eyes are opened, I cannot! Do not try to force me, else I'll tell Eric this very hour, that I do not love him, never have loved him; that our engagement has been solely your work."

Oscar turned pale. Cecilia had outgrown his power, nothing was to be effected here by commands and threats, so he caught at a last expedient.

"Do so, then," said he suddenly with a cold, resolute look, "destroy yourself and me with you! For, so far as I am concerned the question here is 'to be or not to be.' An hour ago I became engaged to Maia."

"To whom?" Cecilia looked at him, as though she did not comprehend his words.

"To Maia. She loves me, and all left for me to do now, is to obtain Dernburg's consent. If you break with Eric, and tell him the truth, then to me, too, Odensburg will be closed forever and then–I follow the example of our father."

"Oscar!" It was a shriek of horror.

"I'll do it, my word upon it! Think you that it has been easy for me to lead the life of an adventurer, for me, a Wildenrod? Do you know what I suffered before it came to that? How often I sought afterwards to burst my bonds and soar upwards? Always in vain! And now at last deliverance draws near, salvation through the hand of a sweet child, now, at last, I grasp the long-sought, so ardently desired happiness–and at the very moment, when I am about to clasp it in my arms, it is again to be torn from me! Am I to be thrust back and put under the old ban? That is what I cannot endure. Rather the end!"

There was an iron determination upon his features and in his tone; that was no empty threat. Cecilia shuddered.

"No," whispered she, with failing voice. "No, no, anything but that!"

"Is what I require of you anything so dreadful?" asked Wildenrod, more mildly. "You are only to be silent and forget this unhappy hour! I wanted to save you from the life into which I had to lead you, ere your eyes were opened to its nature, and now I save myself with you. I cast behind me the past, and begin a better life. Here at Odensburg a grand new field opens before me, and Dernburg is to find in me what his son could never be to him. You will be Eric's wife; he loves, idolizes you; you can make him happy, and yourself be happy at his side!"

He had stooped over her, and his voice had a tender sound. The eyes of his sister were uplifted to him with an expression of infinite woe.

"How am I now to endure Eric's presence with his demonstrations of affection? Just now those few minutes put me on the rack. And if I meet Runeck again, and have to read in his eyes the same contempt as I did early this morning, without being able to feel that he is the slanderer of the innocent–contempt from that Runeck!"

This last sentence rang out like a scream. Wildenrod started and fixed a strange look upon her.

"Do you dread his contempt so much?" asked he, slowly. "Rest easy, after that scene he will himself avoid any meeting; independently of that, he enters the family circle no more. Leave everything else to me! You have only to keep silent and make yourself easy. Promise me that."

"Yes," murmured Cecilia almost inaudibly.

Oscar bent down and touched her forehead with his lips. "I thank you! And now I really shall leave you alone, for I see that you can no longer stand this conversation."

He turned to go, but once more paused and gazed intently upon her face. "Egbert Runeck is our foe, a deadly foe, who wants to annihilate you and me, and if I offer him battle it must be to the knife–do not forget that!"

Cecilia gave no answer, but her whole body shook as with an ague, when the door fell to behind her brother. The truth that he no longer sought to conceal from her, had wounded her to the very depths of her soul. The gay glittering world of pleasure and fashion with which alone she had been familiar up to this time, lay shattered at her feet, the rock was riven–what did it hide in its depths?

CHAPTER XII.
THE GOAL IN SIGHT

Weeks had elapsed, spring had taken her leave and summer had come in the full blaze of her glory. At Odensburg, they had already begun preparations for the wedding festivities, which were appointed for the last days in August. After the ceremony a grand entertainment was to take place, to which the Dernburg family were to invite the whole circle of their acquaintance, and immediately afterwards the young couple were to set out on their trip to the South.

The officers and operatives belonging to the Dernburg works purposed to have their share in the festivities also. They wished to do honor to their chief upon occasion of the marriage of his son and heir. The director and Doctor Hagenbach were at the head of a committee, who planned a grand festal parade, and all had gone into the affair with spirit.

But in spite of these joyful preparations, there rested, as it were, a cloud over the Manor-house and the Dernburg family. The chief himself was out of sorts on account of various annoyances, public and private; the approaching elections to the Reichstag were beginning to attract sympathy even at his Odensburg, and he knew, only too well, that his men were being tampered with. Openly, this was not done, most assuredly he held the reins too firmly in his hand for this, but he was not able to steer clear of the secret, and on that very account dangerous, activity, with which the Socialistic party encroached step by step upon his works, that had hitherto been kept so clear of any such tendencies.

Moreover, Eric's health was again causing him grave anxiety; he had been obliged almost entirely to renounce the hope of introducing his son (as he had hoped and desired) to his future calling. The young man was perpetually ailing–needed to have his strength spared just as much now as before he went South. Such a thing as his engaging in systematic work was not to be thought of. Finally came Wildenrod's wooing and Maia's openly acknowledged love for him, which Dernburg had heard of with extreme surprise, yes, almost with indignation.

The Baron had asked her father for her hand, on the very same day that he had declared himself to the young girl, but had met with a much more decided opposition than he had expected. However much Dernburg might have been taken with him personally, Oscar was not the husband that he had selected for his daughter, and the thought of wedding the sixteen-year-old child to a man old enough to be her father, was just as repulsive to him as Maia's reciprocating this passion. His darling's entreaties availed in so far that the original No was rescinded, but just as little was he to be moved to give his consent for a speedy betrothal. He declared with all positiveness that his daughter was still much too young to bind herself already for a lifetime, saying that she must wait and put her feelings to the test; two years hence would be ample time to introduce the subject again.

Wait! That was a fatal, an impossible sentence for this man, with whom every minute counted, and yet, for the present, no alternative was left him, because Maia had been withdrawn from his influence. After that declaration he himself had received a gentle but unmistakable hint, that under these circumstances, daily intercourse between the pair was not to be kept up. But to leave Odensburg now, was equivalent to giving up his game as lost. The thing for him now to do was to be vigilant, and confront the danger which, since that threat of Runeck, had hung over his head like a thunder-cloud. And he must also stand by his sister, in order to be sure that she would keep her word with him–wrested from her, as it had been, almost by force. She was incredibly altered since that unhappy hour. Therefore he had not wanted to understand that hint, and had held his ground; but here Dernburg interposed immediately, with his wonted determination, and under pretext of her paying a visit to a friend of the family, he sent his daughter away, not to return until her brother's marriage took place.

Egbert Runeck had come from Radefeld, in order to give in his usual report to his chief. For weeks past, he had been accustomed, at these times, only to tarry awhile in the work-room and then return forthwith as soon as he had dispatched his business. He seemed to have become quite estranged from the family-circle. But to-day he had sought out Eric the first thing, who received him with joyful surprise, but also with reproaches.

"Why, Egbert, is that you,–do I actually lay eyes on you once more? I thought that you had quite forgotten me, and laid our house under a ban. Father is the only one who ever gets a sight of you."

"You know how closely occupied I am," answered Egbert evasively. "My works–"

"Oh yes, those works of yours always serve for a pretext! But come, let us have a good chat–I am so glad to have you all alone to myself once more."

He drew his friend down on the sofa beside him and began to ask questions and narrate his own experiences. He had the conversation almost entirely to himself however. Runeck showed himself strikingly taciturn and absent-minded, and meanwhile he answered mechanically as it were, as though he had his mind bent on very different things. Not until Eric began to speak of his approaching marriage did he grow more attentive.

"We want to set off on our trip immediately after the grand entertainment to be held on our wedding-day," said the latter with a happy smile. "I think of spending a few weeks, with my young wife in Switzerland, but then we shall both wing our flight to the South. To the South! You have no idea what a charm that word has for us. This cold Northern sky, these gloomy fir-clad mountains, all the bustle and stir here, all this lies so heavy upon me. I cannot get perfectly well here. Hagenbach, who just left me, thinks so too and proposes that we spend the whole winter in Italy. Alas! father, though, will not hear of this–it will cost us a battle to carry our point with him."

"Are you feeling worse again?" asked Egbert, whose eyes rested with a peculiarly searching expression upon the pale, sunken features of his friend.

"Oh, nothing to signify," said Eric, carelessly. "The doctor is only so incredibly anxious. He has prohibited my riding, gives me all manner of prescriptions, and now wants the wedding-festivities to be on a reduced scale, because they might cause me to over-exert myself. Anything but excitement. That is the first and last word with him. I am getting rather tired of this thing, for he treats me always like a very ill patient to whom any excitement might bring death."

Runeck's gaze was fixed yet more intently and gravely upon the young man, and there was restrained emotion in his features and his voice, when he asked:

"So Dr. Hagenbach dreads excitement for you, does he? To be sure, you did have a hemorrhage that time–"

"Dear me, Egbert! that was two years ago, and every trace of it has disappeared," interrupted Eric impatiently. "The only thing is, Odensburg does not agree with me, any more than it does with Cecile, who can never feel at home here. She is made for joy and sunshine, that is the element in which, alone, she can thrive; here, where all hinges upon labor and duty, where my father's stern eyes hold her spellbound, as it were, she cannot be herself. If you knew what a change has been wrought in my Cecile, who sparkled with life and exuberant spirits, who was so captivating even in her caprices! How pale and quiet she has grown in these last weeks, how strangely altered in her whole nature. Many a time I am afraid that something quite different lies at the bottom of it. If she repents of having plighted her troth to me, if–ah, I see specters everywhere!"

"But, Eric, I beseech you," remarked Runeck soothingly. "Is this the way you follow the prescription of the doctor? You are stirring yourself up in a manner wholly unnecessary."

"No, no!" cried the young man passionately. "I see and feel that Cecile is concealing something from me–day before yesterday she betrayed herself. I spoke of our wedding-trip,–of Italy, when she suddenly burst out with: 'Yes, let us be gone, Eric, wherever you will, only far, far away from this place! I can stand it no longer!' What cannot she stand? She would not let me question her on the subject, but it sounded like a shriek of despair."

Carried out of himself he sprang to his feet. Egbert, too, got up, managing as he did so, accidentally as it were, to step out of the bright sunshine, that poured in through the window, into the shade. "Do you love your betrothed much?" asked he slowly with marked emphasis.

"Do I love her!" Eric's pale face reddened and his eyes beamed with the tenderest enthusiasm.

"You have never loved, Egbert, else you could not ask such a question. If Cecilia had rejected me that time, when I courted her, I might have stood it. If I had to lose her now–it would kill me!"

Egbert was silent. He stood with his face half-averted, his features still working from the intensity of the emotions that were warring within. At those last words, however, he drew himself up, advanced to his friend and laid his hand upon his arm.

"You are not to lose her, Eric," said he firmly, although with quivering lips. "You will live and be happy!"

"Do you know that so surely?" asked Eric, looking up in surprise. "Why, you talk as if you held the keys to life and death."

"Then take it as a prophecy, which will be fulfilled to you.–But I must go, I only came to bid you farewell, for my course at Radefeld has come to an end sooner than I had supposed."

"So much the better, for then you can come back to Odensburg, and we shall see each other frequently enough, I hope, before I leave."

"I am just on my way now to talk with your father about it."

"You are an enviable fellow!" said Eric with a sigh. "Ever forward, ever upward to new aims, without allowing yourself a moment's repose! Hardly is one task over, when you are as busy as ever carving out new ones. What sort of plans are these, pray?"

"You will hear about them better from your father, now you are in no mood for it. Then–farewell, Eric!"

With emotion that struggled for utterance, he offered him his hand, which Eric took with no sign of embarrassment.

"You do not mean this as a farewell for any length of time. You will be at Radefeld for a while yet?"

"Of course, meanwhile I may leave there very shortly, and who knows where I may have pitched my tent, by the time you come back from Italy, in the spring?"

"But then we'll see each other once more at my wedding!" remarked Eric.

"If it is possible for me–"

"It must be possible for you, I'll not let you go until you have promised me that. You will come under all circumstances, Egbert, do you hear? And now I must let you go, for I see that the ground burns under your feet. Good-bye, then–to meet again soon!"

"Yes–farewell, Eric!"

It was a vehement, almost convulsive pressure, with which Runeck clasped his old friend's hand, then he turned off hurriedly and left the room, as though he dreaded being detained. Not until he was on the pathway out of doors did he stand still, when, drawing a long breath, he murmured to himself:

"That should be overcome! He is right, it would kill him.–No, Eric, you are not to die, not through me! That is what I will not take upon myself."

As usual, about this time, Dernburg was found in his office. He looked grave and troubled, while he listened to Dr. Hagenbach who sat opposite to him. Oscar von Wildenrod was likewise present, but he with folded arms leaned against the window-frame, without taking any part in the conversation, the course of which, however, he followed with breathless attention.

"You give yourself too much solicitude," said the physician in a soothing tone, although his air was not exactly one calculated to inspire confidence. "Here Eric is still suffering from the after-effects of our harsh spring. He should have stayed longer in the South and then selected some half-way station; the abrupt change of climates has been injurious to him. Meanwhile, he must now return to Italy, and I have just been talking with him, persuading him to spend the winter there. He would prefer Rome, on account of his young wife. But I am for Sorrento, or if it must be a larger city than that, Palermo."

Dernburg's brow darkened yet more at these last words, and with hardly concealed displeasure he asked,

"Do you regard it as absolutely necessary for Eric to spend the whole winter away? I had hoped that he would bring his wife back to spend Christmas with us."

"No, Herr Dernburg, that will not do for this time," answered Hagenbach with decision. "That would be to stake everything that we won last winter."

"And what have we won? A half cure, that is questionable after the lapse of a few months. Be candid, Doctor. You believe that my son, in general, cannot stand this climate."

"Provisionally it would certainly be necessary–"

"Nothing about provisionally; I want to know the truth, the whole truth! Do you think that it is at all likely, that Eric can live constantly at Odensburg, that he can be my co-worker, my successor some day, as I hoped when he returned last spring, apparently cured?"

His eye hung in agonized suspense upon the doctor's lips, and Wildenrod's gaze was just as intent, as he now emerged from the window-niche.

Hagenbach was slow in answering; it seemed to cost him a great effort. At last he said earnestly:

"No, Herr Dernburg–since you desire to know the truth–as things are now, a permanent sojourn in the South is a condition of life with your son. He can come to Odensburg, for a few months in summer, but he can never stand another winter in our mountains, no more than he can the fatigues of an active calling. This is my firm conviction, and any of my colleagues will indorse my opinion."

Wildenrod made an involuntary movement when he heard this sentence pronounced so positively. Dernburg was silent; he only supported his head upon his hand, but it was easy to see what a heavy blow was inflicted upon him, by the doctor's outspoken opinion, although he must have had a foreboding of what it would be.

"That means, then, that I must bid farewell to all the plans that I have been cherishing so long," said he softly. "I hoped against hope–nevertheless, Eric is my only son. I want his life preserved, even though my dearest hopes be buried thereby. Let him, then, establish a home somewhere in the South, and limit his activity to building and adorning it–I can afford it."

A heavy, half-suppressed sigh betrayed what this resolve cost him. Then he turned to the physician and offered him his hand.

"I thank you for your candor, Doctor. Although the truth be bitter, I must accommodate myself to it. Let us speak more particularly of it another time!"

Hagenbach took his leave. For a few minutes silence prevailed in the room, then Wildenrod asked in a subdued voice: "Did that sentence surprise you? It did not me, I have long feared something of the sort. If Eric only soundly recovers, then, I hope, you and he will both find the separation a lighter trial than you apprehend."

"Eric will find it very light," said Dernburg, with swelling bitterness. "He has always dreaded assuming the position in life to which he was born. He shrank back before this mighty, restless enterprise, of which he was to be master and leader, with all its duties and responsibilities. He will far rather sit on the shore of the blue Mediterranean, making plans for his villa, and be glad if nothing disturbs him in his dreamy repose. And I am left alone here; forced, one day, to leave my Odensburg, my life-work, to pass into the hands of strangers. It is hard!"

"Must you really do that?" asked Oscar significantly, drawing nearer as he spoke. "You have still a daughter who can give you a second son, but you persistently refuse to the man of her choice the rights of a son."

Dernburg made a gesture expressive of his repugnance to the thought suggested.

"Let that be! Not now–"

"Just now, at this hour, I would like to speak to you. You have taken my wooing of Maia in a manner that I have neither expected nor deserved. You almost reproached me for it as if I had committed a crime."

"It is a crime, too, Herr von Wildenrod. You should not have spoken of love to a sixteen-year-old child, and bound her to you by the confession of your passion, without being sure of her father's consent. One pardons a youth for being carried away by the feelings of the moment, but not a man of your years."

"And yet, this moment has given me the highest happiness of my life," cried Oscar, ecstatically, "the certainty that Maia loves me. She must have repeated this confession to you–we both hoped for a father's blessing. Instead of this we are condemned to an endless probation. You have banished Maia from Odensburg, depriving yourself of her sweet presence, only to withdraw her from my neighborhood–"

"And what else was I to do?" asked Dernburg. "After your premature declaration, unembarrassed daily intercourse was no longer possible, if I did not agree to the engagement."

"Then do so now! Maia's heart belongs to me, neither time nor separation is going to alter that, rest assured, and I love her more than I can tell. You have to let your son go to a foreign land–well, then, let me step into his place! I have learned to love your Odensburg, and bring to it the unbroken energies of a man who is weary of his aimless existence and would like to begin a new life. Will you refuse me this, only because two decades divide me and her whom I love?"

He spoke with passionate entreaty, and could not have selected a better time than this hour in which the man, who sat there with darkly clouded brow, had seen shattered all the hopes which he had built upon his son and upon that other, whom he had, one day, wanted to see by the side of his weak and dependent heir–that plan, too, had been wrecked, since he knew, that Maia's heart was preoccupied. He need not be separated from his darling child if she became Wildenrod's wife, and he with his determined, strongly-marked character, offered him indemnity for all that he had lost. The choice was indeed not difficult.

"That is a serious, pregnant decision, Herr von Wildenrod," said Dernburg, whom this proposition surprised less than Oscar would have supposed. "If you really could adapt yourself to so complete a reversal of your former mode of life–it is no light task that awaits you, and perhaps the only reason that it has a charm for you is, because it is new and strange to you. You are unaccustomed to any kind of systematic business–"

"But I shall learn method," interposed Wildenrod. "You have often called me your assistant in jest, be you now in earnest my instructor and guide. You shall have no cause to be ashamed of your scholar! I have at last come to the conclusion that one must be useful and industrious in order to be happy. And now, pray, grant my request: you have allowed Eric to be happy in his own way, will you refuse Maia and me the same?"

"We shall see," returned Dernburg, but his tone showed that his point was half-conceded. "Eric's wedding will come off in three weeks, then Maia returns to Odensburg and–"

"Then I may ask for my bride," impetuously exclaimed Oscar. "Oh, thank you, we both thank our stern but good father."

A passing smile illumined Dernburg's brow, and although he had not yet given his consent, he did not refuse the expression of gratitude.

"But enough of that now, Oscar," said he, for the first time using the familiar form of address. "Else with your impetuosity you will force everything possible from me, and I have other business to attend to. Egbert ought to be here by this time; he comes in from Radefeld to day to report to me."

The radiant expression vanished from Wildenrod's features, and gave place, for an instant, to a slightly scornful smile; then, with seeming indifference he threw out this hint: "Herr Runeck is very much engrossed in another direction, at present. He bestirs himself in his party's service at every nook and corner."

"Yes, indeed," responded Dernburg quietly, without appearing to notice the insinuation implied. "The socialists begin to feel their own importance and their combs swell visibly. They even seem to want to put up a candidate of their own in our electoral district–for the first time."

"So it is said at all events. Do you know whom they have in view for it?"

"Not yet, but I suppose that it will be Landsfeld, who acts the leader upon all occasions. To be sure he is nothing but an agitator, his affair being merely to bluster, and hound others on. He is not fit for the Reichstag, and that party usually know their men pretty thoroughly. But the question in hand is, in general, only to test their power. The men are not seriously thinking of disputing my right to a seat."

"Is that your belief?" The Baron's eye rested with a peculiar expression upon the face of the speaker. "Well, perhaps, Herr Runeck can supply you with some more exact information on the subject."