Kitabı oku: «Fickle Fortune», sayfa 11

'I feel it rather chilly up here in these rooms, especially as evening draws on,' replied Heideck, dropping into a chair near the fire, and motioning to his nephew to be seated opposite. Edmund, however, remained standing.

'I want you to give me some explanation of the words I chanced to overhear to-day,' he began, without further preface. 'I would not press the matter seriously at the time, my mother being present; she is really too unwell to be troubled in any way. But now we are alone and can speak more freely. I positively have no peace for thinking of it. Tell me what that speech of yours meant.'

Heideck frowned. 'I have already said that I was speaking of affairs relating to our family. These affairs have long since been settled and forgotten, and the mention of them could only affect you painfully.'

'But I am no longer a child,' said Edmund, with unusual earnestness; 'and I may now claim to be initiated into all the family affairs, without exception. You spoke of some shadow which might obscure the Ettersberg fortunes. At this present time I am Master of Ettersberg. The matter therefore concerns me, and I have a right to inquire into it. In short, uncle, I am determined to know the meaning of all this.'

The demand was made with an energy quite foreign to the young Count's usual manner. Baron Heideck, however, merely shrugged his shoulders, and replied impatiently:

'What absurd questions, Edmund! How can you cling so pertinaciously to this fancy, or attach such importance to a mere word? It was just one of those expressions which escape one sometimes in the heat of conversation, but which have no real or deep significance.'

'But you spoke in a very excited tone.'

'And in spite of your protest against being thought a listener, you appear to have paused some minutes outside the door.'

'Had I been willing to humiliate myself so far, I should probably have heard more, and should not now have to sue for information,' returned Edmund angrily.

Heideck pressed his lips together, and for a moment remained silent, thinking, no doubt, what would have been the result if his nephew had really stooped to play the listener. He saw the necessity, however, of warding off any further attack; so he replied, with the coldest decision of manner:

'The matter in question affects me principally, and I do not desire to discuss it further. I fancy you will accept this answer as final and sufficient, and that you will besiege neither your mother nor myself with useless inquiries on the subject. If you please, we will say no more about it.'

To such a speech, delivered with firmness, and with all the authority of the ex-guardian, no reply was possible.

Edmund was silent, but he felt that he had not heard the truth; that, on the contrary, an endeavour was made to divert him from his search after it. He saw, however, that he should obtain nothing from his uncle, and that for the present he must abandon all attempt to solve the mystery.

Heideck seemed determined to put an end to the conversation. He seized the poker, and plied it in very demonstrative fashion, raking the coals vigorously, and repeatedly striking the stove in his efforts to quicken the flames. His whole manner testified to extreme impatience, and an irritation of spirit he with difficulty controlled.

Presently he bent imprudently forward over the fire, and as the blaze he had kindled suddenly burst forth, amid a shower of sparks, the Baron started back, hastily withdrawing his hand, and uttering a half-suppressed exclamation of pain.

'Have you burnt yourself?' asked Edmund, looking up.

Heideck examined his hand, which certainly showed a small red scar.

'The stoves here are so badly constructed,' he cried petulantly, giving vent to his secret vexation, and still with the same nervous haste tore a handkerchief from his breast-pocket to apply to the little wound. The handkerchief brought with it another article, which fell on the floor, and rolled close to Edmund's feet. Heideck stooped to pick it up, but it was too late; his nephew had been beforehand with him.

Already the miniature-case was in Edmund's hands. The spring, long grown slack, had given way in the fall, and the cover had started open. A fate must have attached to this unhappy picture. Precisely as it was about to be destroyed, it thus fell into the hands of him who never should have beheld it!

'My likeness?' cried Edmund, in the greatest amazement. 'How did you come by it, uncle?'

Every trace of colour had faded from the Baron's face, but it was only for a moment. He felt how much was at stake. By a strenuous effort of his will he succeeded in recovering outward calm, and taking advantage of the error, replied:

'You seem surprised. Why should I not possess a portrait of you?'

As he spoke, he made an attempt to take the case from the young man's hand, but the latter stepped back, and declined to surrender it.

'But I never sat for this portrait, and what is the meaning of this uniform, which I have never worn?'

'Edmund, give me back that case,' said Heideck authoritatively, stretching out his hand for it again–but in vain. Had it not been for that previous occurrence in the Countess's room, Edmund would probably have allowed himself to be deceived by any pretext invented on the spur of the moment, for suspicion and distrust were far removed from his open, ingenuous nature. But now both had been inoculated, now he knew that some secret, some baneful secret, was being kept from him. His instinct told him that it had some connection with this picture, and he obstinately clung to the clue thus obtained, little dreaming as yet, it is true, whither it would lead.

'How did you come by the picture, uncle?' he asked again, this time in a somewhat louder key.

'That I will tell you when you have restored it to me,' was the sharp reply.

For all answer, Edmund stepped from the centre of the room, growing dark in the gathering twilight, to the window, where he could still see clearly, and began to study the picture, trait by trait, and line by line, as Oswald had studied it on the preceding day.

A long and troubled pause ensued.

Heideck convulsively grasped the back of the chair from which he had sprung. He had no choice but to look on in silence; for he told himself that any false step now, any attempt at forcible interference, might be the ruin of them all; but the ordeal of suspense was hard to bear.

'Are you satisfied?' he asked, when some minutes had elapsed; 'and do you intend to restore to me my property?'

Edmund turned.

'That is not my portrait,' he said slowly, emphasising each word; 'but it bears an extraordinary resemblance to myself, one which deceives at the first glance. Whom does it represent?'

Baron Heideck had foreseen the question, and was prepared for it. So he answered without hesitation:

'A relation of ours who has been dead many years.'

'An Ettersberg?'

'No; a member of my family.'

'Indeed. And why have I never heard of this relative, and of the wonderful resemblance existing between him and me?'

'By mere accident, probably. Good heavens, you need not stare at the picture so persistently! Such likenesses are frequent enough among relations.'

'Frequent?' repeated Edmund mechanically. 'Was this the fatal souvenir which must disappear to-day? Had you destined it to be consumed by those flames? Was it for this you had the fire lighted?'

The young Count's deadly pallor, the faint accents of his voice, showed that he felt himself to be nearing an abyss, though as yet he could not fathom its depth. Heideck saw this, and made a last desperate effort to drag him from the brink.

'Edmund, my patience is now thoroughly exhausted,' he said, taking refuge in simulated anger. 'You cannot seriously suppose that I shall make reply to this folly, or try to solve all the mad fancies of your brain.'

'I demand that the secret of this portrait be made known to me,' cried Edmund, summoning up all his energy. 'You must give me an answer, uncle, now–at once, or you will drive me to extreme measures.'

Heideck racked his brain in vain to find a way out of the dilemma. He was not skilful in lying, and felt, moreover, that his nephew would no longer be deceived. The one chance left him was to gain time.

'You shall hear the story later on,' he said evasively. 'At this moment you are too excited, you are still suffering from the effects of your wound. This is not a fitting time to discuss such matters.'

'So you refuse to answer me,' Edmund broke out, with sudden fierce vehemence. 'You cannot, or will not, reply. So be it. I will apply to my mother, she shall give me an account of this.'

He rushed out of the room, and was down the stairs before his uncle could check him. The Baron hastened after the young man, but the pursuit was fruitless. When he reached his sister's room, Edmund had already entered, and closed the door of the boudoir behind him. It was impossible even to hear what was going on in the inner apartment. Heideck saw that he must abstain from further interference. The matter was taking its fated course.

'There will be a catastrophe,' he said to himself hoarsely. 'Poor Constance! I fear that your punishment may prove greater than your offence.'

CHAPTER XI

Next morning brought inclement autumn weather. Fog and drizzling rain obscured the landscape, and bushes and flowers bore evidences of the first nipping frost.

All the Ettersberg servants had their heads together, and were asking each other what could possibly have happened. That something had happened was as clear as day.

But the afternoon before, when the visitors from Brunneck had been at the castle, perfect union and cheerfulness had reigned; but shortly afterwards, from the moment the young master had left his mother's apartments, there had been disturbance throughout the house.

Since then the Count had remained invisible, shut up in his own room. The Countess was very ill, so her maid reported; but she would see no one, and had even forbidden that a doctor should be sent for.

Baron Heideck had made two attempts that morning to gain access to his nephew. To him, as to all others, admittance was refused. Family scenes being things quite unfamiliar to this household, imagination had the greater scope, and supplied various explanations, none of which, however, approached the truth.

It was almost noon. Heideck had made a third essay to reach the young Count, but once more without avail. Old Everard, dismayed and helpless, stood in the presence of the Baron, who was saying, with great determination of tone:

'I must see my nephew, cost what it may. It is impossible that he can be deaf to all this calling and knocking. Something must have happened to him.'

'I heard the Count pacing incessantly up and down all night,' timidly remarked Everard. 'He has only been quiet for the last half-hour.'

'No matter,' declared Heideck. 'He may have had a fresh hemorrhage from his wound and have fainted. I have no alternative but to force open the door.'

'There may, perhaps, be another way,' said Everard hesitatingly. 'The small tapestried door, which leads from the Count's dressing-room to his bedroom, is generally kept unlocked. If we–'

'Why did you not tell me this before?' Heideck interrupted him, with some heat. 'Why did I not hear of this the first thing this morning? Show me the door at once.'

The old servant suffered the rebuke in silence. He did not believe in the fainting or the hemorrhage, the fear of which was to serve as a pretext for a forcible intrusion. He had distinctly heard his young master's footsteps all the night through, but had felt that the latter desired to be left absolutely alone. Now, however, no choice was left him; he must point out the door of which he had spoken. It proved to be unlocked, as he had supposed.

Heideck motioned to the old man to remain outside, and went in alone to his nephew. The bedchamber was empty, the bed untouched. With rapid steps, the Baron passed on into the adjoining sitting-room, and an exclamation of relief escaped his lips as he caught sight of Edmund. For the last few minutes he had feared the worst.

'Edmund, it is I,' he said, in a low voice.

No answer came. The young Count seemed to have noticed neither his words nor his approach. He was lying on the sofa with his face buried in the cushions, having, as it seemed, thus thrown himself down from sheer fatigue. His attitude betrayed that utter exhaustion which comes as a reaction after any great tension of mind or body.

'How could you cause us so much anxiety?' said Heideck reproachfully. 'Three times to-day have I knocked at your door in vain, and I have been compelled almost to force an entrance here.'

Again there was no reply. Edmund remained quite motionless. His uncle went nearer, and bent over him.

'Give me a word of answer, Edmund. You rushed away like a madman yesterday. There was no holding you back. I trust that you have grown calmer by now, and that you can at least listen to what I have to say. I have just come from your mother–'

The mention of this name seemed at length to produce some effect. Edmund shivered slightly, and sat up.

At sight of his countenance the Baron started back, scared and shocked.

'For God's sake, what ails you? How can you allow yourself to be so utterly overcome?'

The young man's features were indeed so changed as to be hardly recognisable. The misfortune which had befallen him seemed at one dire stroke to have taken from him all strength and courage. The dimmed look of his eyes and the complete prostration evident in voice and bearing told this plainly, as he replied:

'What is there for me yet to hear?'

'You know no details. Have you really no questions to put to me?'

'None.'

Heideck glanced uneasily at his nephew. A passionate outburst of feeling would have pleased him better than this numb listlessness. He sat down by Edmund and took his hand.

The young man offered no resistance; he seemed hardly to know what was going on about him.

'Yesterday I did all in my power to conceal the truth from you,' pursued the Baron; 'for I myself am perhaps not blameless in this unhappy business. I interfered in a somewhat arbitrary manner with the lives of two human beings, and the fault, if fault it were, has been cruelly avenged. My intentions were indeed of the best. I knew that the young officer to whom my sister was attached, and even secretly engaged, was as poor as herself. He had no fortune to offer her, he could not have married for years, and I had too sincere an affection for Constance to allow her to lose the bloom of her youth, to pine away in anxiety and sadness. When I separated her from her first love, and persuaded her to accept the hand of Count Ettersberg, I did so in the firm persuasion that her attachment had been a mere transient romance, a passing fancy, which marriage would cure at once and effectually. Could I have guessed what deep root the feeling had taken, I would not have interfered. It was only about a year later, when I heard that the regiment had been moved and quartered in the garrison-town nearest to Ettersberg, that I began to divine a danger, and my next visit here transformed the suspicion into a certainty. When the two met, their old love sprang up with fresh intensity, and developed into a passion which bore down all barriers before it. When I discovered this, when I stepped between them and forcibly recalled them to a sense of their duty, it … it was, I grieve to say, too late!'

He paused, and seemed to expect an answer. Edmund withdrew his hand from his uncle's grasp, and stood up.

'Go on,' he said, in a half-stifled voice.

'I have nothing more to add. With this separation all was over. I told you yesterday that the portrait was the portrait of a dead man. He fell the very next year, being one of the first victims of the war which then broke out. My sister never saw him again. Now you know the chain of events, and how it all happened; now try to regain composure. I can understand that it has been a terrible blow to you. You must accept it as a hard decree of Fate.'

'Yes, a hard decree,' repeated Edmund. 'You see that I succumb to it.'

'A man must not so easily succumb to life's first trouble,' said Heideck earnestly. 'You will learn to bear that which must be borne. But now exert yourself, and put from you this useless brooding over the unalterable, the irreparable. Will you not come with me to your mother?'

The young Count negatived the proposal with a hasty gesture.

'No, uncle. Do not ask that of me, not that!'

'Edmund, be reasonable. You cannot remain shut up in your rooms for ever.'

'I shall leave them to-day. In a couple of hours I shall start on a journey.'

'On a journey? Where do you mean to go?'

'To town, to Oswald.'

'To Oswald!' cried Heideck, bounding from his seat, and staring at his nephew as though he had not heard aright. 'Are you out of your senses?'

'Did you imagine that I should be the accomplice of this fraud?' burst forth Edmund, his unnatural calm suddenly merging into a fierce blaze of anger. 'Did you really think it possible that I should be silent and continue to play the master here, when the rightful heir is driven out, leading a life of privation and almost of poverty? If you two can do it, I cannot. How I am to bear the terrible existence before me, whether I shall be able to bear it at all, I know not. But this I do know. I must go to Oswald, must tell him that he has been cheated, defrauded, that Ettersberg is his of right. He shall hear it all; then … then it will matter little what becomes of me.'

Heideck had listened in mortal alarm. Whatever he may have feared, for this turn of affairs he certainly was not prepared. Were Edmund to learn that his cousin knew, or at least divined, the secret, an explanation between the two could no longer be prevented, and so the whole edifice would crash to pieces.

The uncle understood all the incalculable consequences of such a catastrophe better than his impetuous nephew, and he was resolved to prevent it at any price.

'You forget that you are not the only person concerned in this,' he said emphatically. 'Have you not thought whom the confession you propose making would disgrace and dishonour?'

Edmund recoiled, and the feverish glow which had overspread his features gave way to a livid pallor.

'Oswald has always been your mother's enemy,' continued Heideck. 'He has always hated her, and she has never deceived herself as to his sentiments. Will you really go to him–to him of all people, with a tale which will ruin her? What a triumph for him to see at length the woman he hates in the dust before him, to hear her own son–'

'Uncle, no more,' broke in Edmund, with a wild cry. 'I cannot bear it.'

'I should not have supposed you could hesitate a moment between your mother and Oswald,' said the Baron, frowning. 'But here there is really no alternative. You must yield to necessity.'

Edmund had thrown himself on to a chair, and hidden his face in his hands. A low groan escaped his overcharged breast.

'Do you think it has been a light thing for me to keep silence, and to aid and abet that which you call fraud?' asked his uncle, after a short pause. 'But I repeat, you have here no choice. The entailed estates are not transferable; they cannot be alienated from you. You must either remain Master of Ettersberg, or proclaim your secret to the world–in which case the honour of two houses, of Heideck as of Ettersberg, will be irretrievably lost. There is no other issue. I set this distinctly before my sister in years gone by, when she was on the point of owning all to her husband; now again I must call upon you to recognise it. You must be silent. If Oswald's future is sacrificed through our silence, we cannot help that. The family honour stands higher than his right.'

He spoke with iron firmness and composure, but this only lent more power to his words, and Edmund felt the truth that was in them. A desperate struggle was going on in the young man's breast, a struggle between his sense of justice and the stern necessity which was so forcibly demonstrated to him.

Oswald's query recurred to his mind. 'Suppose silence was imposed on you for the sake of the family honour?'

He was, indeed, far from attributing to his cousin's words any deeper significance, or from divining his knowledge of the truth. That conversation had come about most naturally. The young Count remembered in this hour how he had been fired with indignation at the bare notion that anyone could impute to his mother interested motives. How proudly and disdainfully had he declared that no shadow, no slur should attach itself to his life, that he must ever bear himself before the world with a clear conscience and unsullied brow! Two days ago he had held that language, and now....

Baron Heideck lost not a moment in pursuing his advantage. He had recourse to the last and most effectual weapon in his armoury.

'Now come with me to your mother,' he said, in a milder tone. 'You do not know how cruelly she has suffered since yesterday evening. She is waiting in terrible suspense for news of you, for a word from your lips. Come.'

Edmund passively allowed himself to be raised from his seat and led a few steps towards the door. There he halted suddenly.

'I cannot,' he said.

Heideck, who had thrown open the door, which had been locked on the inside, paid no attention to this protest, but endeavoured to draw his nephew from the room. The latter now resisted energetically.

'I cannot see my mother. Do not press me, uncle; do not try compulsion, or there will be a repetition of last night's scene.'

He freed himself from Heideck's grasp, and pulled the bell. Everard came in at once.

'My horse,' commanded his master. 'Have him saddled immediately.'

'Is this your reply to all that I have been saying to you? Has it all been in vain?' cried Heideck, in despair, when the man had withdrawn. 'Can you really still intend to take that journey?'

'No, I shall remain; but I must be out in the open air, or I shall stifle. Let me go, uncle.'

'First give me your word that you will do nothing rash, nothing desperate. In your present state, you are capable of any madness. What am I to say to your mother?'

'What you will. I have no other intention than to ride about the country for a couple of hours. Perhaps I shall be better then.'

With these words Edmund hurried away, his uncle making no further effort to stop him. He saw that neither persuasion nor soothing words of comfort could avail at present. Perhaps it would be well to let the storm spend itself.

Hour after hour passed. Noon came, then gradually dusk drew on, and still the young Count did not appear. At the castle the anxiety produced by his protracted absence grew with every minute. Baron Heideck reproached himself most bitterly for having allowed his nephew to leave him in so excited a frame of mind, but he was obliged to conceal his fears. He had to be strong, to think and act for his sister, whose brain seemed well-nigh to reel beneath the weight of dread and suspense. She wandered from room to room, from window to window, rejecting all her brother's attempts at encouragement with a mute, despairing gesture. Better than he, than anyone, she knew her son, and knew therefore what was to be feared.

'It really is useless for us to send messengers, Constance,' said Heideck, as he stood near her at the window. 'We have not even an approximate idea of the road Edmund took, and it only causes the servants to shake their heads and gossip more persistently. The young madman must have tired himself out by this time. Now that it is growing dark he is sure to turn homewards.'

'If he has not started on his journey after all,' whispered the Countess, whose eyes never once swerved from the avenue leading up to the castle.

'No,' replied Heideck decidedly. 'I made it evident to him that his confession would involve another, and who that other would be; we have nothing to fear on that score. He has certainly not gone to Oswald, but–'

He forebore to finish his speech, out of consideration to the Countess, but a great dread had seized upon him. Might not his nephew, by some despairing act, have sought a solution which would be worse, more cruel even than the threatened avowal to Oswald?

Another troubled pause ensued, another interval of painful silence, such as had frequently occurred that afternoon. Suddenly the Countess started up with a cry, and bent forward, far out of the window. Heideck, following her example, could discern nothing, but the mother's eye had already recognised the figure of her son, in spite of mist and gathering darkness. There he was–still distant, however–at the farther end of the avenue. The Countess's self-control now utterly forsook her. She did not remember that a plea of illness had been advanced for her to the servants: did not stay to consider how Edmund might receive her. She only wanted to see him; to have him with her again, and she rushed to meet him, so swiftly and impetuously that her brother could hardly follow her.

Outside in the vestibule they had a few minutes to wait, for the young Count, who had set off from home at a furious gallop, was returning at a snail's pace. The horse, fairly bathed in sweat, trembled in every limb; at length it halted before the door. The animal was evidently completely spent, and its rider seemed to be in the same condition. He, who usually would swing himself so lightly from the saddle, dismounted now slowly, almost laboriously, and it cost him a visible effort to ascend the few steps leading up to the entrance-hall.

The Countess stood on the very spot where some months before she had received her son on his return from his foreign travels. Then, radiant with the happiness of meeting her, he had rushed impetuously into her arms. Today he did not even notice that his mother was there. His clothes were saturated with rain, his damp hair clung to his brow, and he moved slowly forward, never looking round, but walking straight in towards the staircase.

'Edmund!'

It was a faint, trembling cry. Edmund turned, and beheld his mother standing close before him. She said not another word, but in her eyes he could read the misery, the anguish of the last few hours. And as she stretched forth her arms to him, he did not recoil, but stooped down to her. His lips met her forehead with a damp and icy touch, and in a whisper, audible to her alone, he said:

'Be at peace, mother. I will try and bear it for your sake.'