Kitabı oku: «Fickle Fortune», sayfa 5

Suddenly, from the higher ground, a low, far-off sound was wafted down. It was like the chirping of many birds, and yet consisted in a single note, long drawn out.

Hedwig and Oswald looked up simultaneously. High in the air above them hovered a swallow. As they looked, it directed its course downwards, shooting by them so close that it almost brushed their foreheads in its arrow-like swiftness. Quickly following the first came a second and a third, and presently out of the misty distance a whole flight was seen emerging. On they came, nearer and still nearer, winging their way rapidly through the moist, heavy air. Then, circling above the woods and hilltops, they dispersed fluttering about in all directions, joyfully greeting, as it were, the old home they had found again. Here, with their gracious, hopeful message, were the first harbingers of spring.

The lonely hill-side had suddenly grown animated, a scene of movement and of life. Restlessly, incessantly, the swallows darted hither and thither, sometimes high overhead at an unattainable distance, then quite low to the ground, almost touching the soil. Backwards and forwards shot the pretty slender creatures on facile wings, so swiftly that the eye could hardly follow them; and all the while the air was resonant with that low happy piping which has nothing in common with the nightingale's trill or the lark's ecstasy of song, and which yet is sweeter to man's ears than either, because it is the herald's note, proclaiming the approach of Spring, and bearing her first message to fair nature, fresh from the long winter trance.

Hedwig had started from her reverie. All else was suddenly forgotten. Bending eagerly forwards, with a glad radiance in her eyes, she watched the tiny newcomers; then, with all the delight, the joyful excitement of a child, she cried:

'Oh, the swallows, the swallows!'

'Truly, they are here,' assented her companion, 'and fortunate they may consider themselves in receiving so hearty a welcome.'

The cool observation fell like a chilling hoarfrost on the girl's innocent joy. She turned and measured the sober spectator at her side with an indignant glance.

'To you, Herr von Ettersberg, it appears inconceivable how one can rejoice over anything. It is not one of your failings, and I dare say the poor swallows to you signify nothing–you have never bestowed the smallest attention on them.'

'Oh, pardon me! I have always envied them for their distant journeyings, their free powers of flight, which nothing shackles or restrains. Ah, liberty! there is nothing better, no higher good in life than liberty!'

'No higher good?'

The question was put in a tone of anger and indignation, making the answer seem all the colder and more decided.

'None, in my estimation, at least.'

'Really, one would think you had hitherto been languishing in chains,' said Hedwig, with unconcealed irony.

'Must one breathe dungeon-air in order to long for freedom?' asked Oswald in the same tone, only that his irony amounted to scathing sarcasm. 'The accidents of life often forge fetters which weigh more heavily than the real iron chains of a captive.'

'Then the fetters must be shaken off.'

'Quite true, they must be shaken off. Only that is much more easily said than done. They who have never been otherwise than free, hardly prize their liberty, looking upon it as a thing of course. They cannot understand how others will strive and struggle for years, will stake life itself to secure that precious guerdon. But, after all, the efforts matter little, if the end be but attained.'

He turned away, and seemed to be attentively watching the swallows in their rapid flittings to and fro. A fresh silence ensued, lasting longer, and putting Hedwig's patience to a still severer test than those which had previously occurred. These lapses in the conversation were strange and intolerable to her. Really, this Oswald von Ettersberg was an audacious personage. In the first place he presumed to reprimand her with regard to her meeting with Edmund; then he declared sharply, and with an emphasis which was almost insulting, that nothing should now induce him to remain on in his cousin's house; then he began to talk of dungeons and all sorts of disagreeable things, and finally lapsed into absolute silence, giving himself up to his meditations as completely as though a young lady, his cousin's promised wife, were not in his company. Hedwig thought the measure of his rudeness was filled, and she rose to go.

'It is time for me to be returning,' she remarked shortly.

'I am at your service.'

Oswald moved forward, intending to escort her, but she waved him back with an ungracious gesture.

'Thank you, Herr von Ettersberg. I know the way perfectly.'

'Edmund expressly charged me to see you home,' objected Oswald.

'And I release you from the obligation,' rejoined the young lady, in a tone which plainly said the young Count's wishes were not as law to her when opposed to her own will. 'I came alone, and will go back alone.'

Oswald retreated at once.

'Then you must make haste to reach Brunneck,' he said coolly. 'The clouds are gathering yonder, and in half an hour we shall have rain.'

Hedwig looked inquiringly at the threatening clouds. 'I shall be home long before then; and if it comes to the worst, I think nothing of being caught in a spring shower. The swallows have reappeared, you know–have told us that spring is coming at last.'

The words were spoken almost in a tone of challenge, but the gauntlet was not taken up. Oswald merely bowed with an air of constrained politeness, thereby forfeiting the young lady's last remnant of indulgence. She, in return, strove to infuse the utmost chilliness into her parting salutation, after which she hastened away, light and swift of foot as a roe.

This haste was not induced by fear of rain, for when she had left the hill-side well behind her, Hedwig slackened her pace. She only wished to get out of the neighbourhood of this unbearable 'Mentor,' who had tried to extend his system of education to her, and had been guilty of considerable rudeness in the attempt. He had not even raised any serious objection when she declined his escort. She had fully meant it, but the merest politeness demanded some words of regret at her decision. Yet there had been nothing of this; he was visibly delighted at being relieved of a troublesome office. This spoilt young lady, whose beauty, and perhaps also whose wealth, had won for her on all sides attention and lavish homage, looked on such indifference almost in the light of an insult, and she had not fully recovered from the vexation it caused her when she issued from the forest and saw Brunneck lying before her in close vicinity.

Oswald, remaining behind alone, seemed altogether to forget the rain he had prophesied. He stood motionless, with folded arms, leaning against the trunk of a tree, and made no sign of setting out homewards.

The clouds grew heavier and more lowering; the whole forest was now shrouded in mist, and the swallows almost swept the ground with their wings as they shot by to and fro. Patches of white might here and there be seen bearing witness still to the night's hoarfrost; but beneath, amidst all this mist and rime, a great work was going on. The life-germs hidden away in a thousand unsuspected buds and leafless branches were secretly, silently stirring; it wanted but the first balmy breath, the first glow of sunshine, to awaken all Nature from her long slumber. Ungenial as the air might be, there was in it just a touch, a faint suggestion of spring, and a whisper of spring ran through the bare forest. All around mysterious powers were active, weaving their chains, arraying their forces, unseen, unheard, yet felt and understood even by the lonely self-absorbed man who stood gazing dreamily out into the cloudy distance.

A while ago, as he pursued his solitary way through the woods, all had been void and desolate. Not a sound had reached his ears of the language which was now so distinct and eloquent to him. He knew not, or would not know, what had so suddenly opened his understanding; but the harsh, aggressive look died out of his face, and with it faded away the remembrance of a dreary, joyless youth–faded away the rancour and bitterness of spirit which dependence and neglect had engendered in a proud, strong nature. The soft, half-unconscious dreams, which visit others so frequently, had spun their magic web around the cold, impenetrable Oswald. It was, perhaps, his first experience of them, but the spell was therefore the more irresistible. Overhead the swallows were still busy, flitting incessantly to and fro through the heavy, rain-charged air. The happy chirping of their tiny throats, the wonderful whisperings about him, the low voice in his own breast, all repeated in constant refrain that message which other lips had so triumphantly proclaimed: 'Spring is coming, really coming to us at last.'

CHAPTER V

In the course of a few days the plan of campaign devised by Edmund and Hedwig was carried into execution. The young people made their important disclosure, declaring their sentiments in most unambiguous terms, and the effects produced were precisely those expected. First came a simultaneous outburst of indignation at Brunneck and at Ettersberg; then followed reproaches, prayers, threats; finally an irrevocable fiat was issued on either side. The Countess solemnly announced to her son, the heir, that she once for all refused her consent to such a marriage; and Fräulein Hedwig Rüstow, on making her avowal, encountered a small hurricane, before which she was fain for a while to bow her head. The Councillor grew fairly distracted with wrath when he heard that an Ettersberg, a member of the family he hated, and his adversary in the Dornau suit, was to be presented to him as a son-in-law.

The parental displeasure, though most pointedly expressed, unfortunately made but small impression on the young people. Prohibited, as a matter of course, from holding any further communication, they calmly within the hour sat down to write to each other, having, with a wise prevision of coming events, already fixed on a plan for the safe conveyance of their letters.

Councillor Rüstow was striding angrily up and down the family sitting-room at the Brunneck manor-house. Hedwig had thought it wise to retire and leave her infuriated parent to himself for a while. The worthy gentleman, finding his daughter beyond his reach, turned fiercely upon his unhappy cousin, whom he bitterly accused of having, by her unpardonable weakness and folly in favouring the acquaintance, paved the way for all that had occurred.

Fräulein Lina Rüstow sat in her accustomed place by the window and listened, going on steadily with the needlework she had in hand. She waited patiently for a pause to supervene. When at length her exasperated cousin was compelled to stop and take breath, she inquired, with perfect imperturbability:

'Tell me, in the first place, Erich, what objection you really have to offer to this marriage?'

The master of the house came to a sudden stand. This was a little too much! For the last half-hour he had been giving expression in every possible way to his anger, his fury, his indignation, and now he was coolly asked what objection he really had to offer to the marriage. The question so amazed and upset him that for a moment he could find no fitting answer.

'Upon my word, I do not understand why you should be so angry,' went on the lady, in the same tone. 'There is evidently a sincere and mutual attachment. Count Ettersberg, in himself, is a most charming person. That unhappy lawsuit, which has so tried your temper during the whole of the winter, will be brought to the simplest conclusion; while, in a worldly point of view, the match is in every respect a brilliant one for Hedwig. Why do you set yourself so strongly against it?'

'Why–why?' cried Rüstow, more and more incensed by this calm, argumentative tone of hers. 'Because I will not suffer my daughter to marry an Ettersberg. Because, once for all, I forbid it–that is why!'

Aunt Lina shrugged her shoulders.

'I do not think Hedwig will surrender to such reasons as those. She will simply appeal to the example of her parents, who married without the father's consent–'

'That was a very different matter,' interrupted Rüstow hotly. 'A very different matter indeed.'

'It was a precisely similar case, only that in that instance all the circumstances were far more unfavourable than they are now, when really prejudice and obstinacy alone stand in the way of the young people's happiness.'

'Well, these are nice compliments you are heaping upon me, I must say,' cried the Councillor, breaking forth anew. 'Prejudice! obstinacy! Have you any more flattering epithets to bestow on me? Don't hesitate, pray. I am waiting to hear.'

'There is no speaking sensibly to you to-day, I see,' observed the lady, tranquilly resuming the work which for a few minutes had been discontinued. 'We will talk of this another time, when you have grown calmer.'

'Lina, you will drive me mad with that abominable composure of yours, which is nothing but affectation. Put that confounded sewing stuff away, do. I can't endure to see you drawing your thread in and out as primly as though there were nothing amiss, while I–I–'

'Feel inclined to pull the whole house about our ears. Don't take the trouble; it will stand after all, you know, just as firm on its foundations as ever.'

'Yes, it will stand, though everyone prove rebellious, though even you set yourself in open opposition to me, the master. Thank God, I have an ally, and a strong one, in the Countess-mother over at Ettersberg. She will show more obstinacy even than I, you may depend upon it. We can't endure each other; we are doing our very best to harass and torment each other by raising fresh quibbles in the lawsuit; but on this point we shall, for once, be agreed. She will soon bring her son to reason, and I am glad of it. It meets my views exactly. I shall act in the same way by my daughter.'

'I do not suppose that the Countess will give her consent very readily,' said Aunt Lina, in a pensive tone. 'To obtain that from her must be Edmund's business.'

'Edmund!' repeated Rüstow, whose indignation was constantly being roused afresh. 'Dear, dear! how very familiar we are, quite like relations already! You regard him altogether in the light of a nephew, I suppose. But you will find yourself mistaken. I say no, and I mean no, so that is all about it.'

With these words he stormed out of the room, banging the door to behind him with a crash which set all the windows jarring. Aunt Lina must indeed have conquered 'her nerves,' for she did not start at the noise, but merely looked after the angry man with a shake of the head, and murmured to herself:

'I wonder how long it will be before he gives in!'

There was certainly less noise and bluster at Ettersberg, but the prospects of the young pair were not on that account more hopeful. The Countess thought the matter serious enough to warrant her in sending for her brother, Baron Heideck, who, in all cases of difficulty, was her stay and counsellor. He answered her summons in person, so Count Edmund had now to contend with the allied forces of mother and guardian.

The latter, who had arrived from the capital a few hours previously, was closeted with the Countess in her own boudoir. He was several years older than his sister, and while she had preserved an almost youthful appearance, a premature look of age, on the contrary, was to be remarked in him. Cold, grave, and methodical in speech and bearing, his outward man at once denoted the bureaucrat of high standing. He listened attentively and in silence to the Countess as she made her report, which concluded in rather desponding terms.

'As I told you in my letter, there is nothing whatever to be done with Edmund. He persists stubbornly in this marriage-scheme, and is constantly urging me to give my consent to it. I really did not know what better course to take than to send for you.'

'You did quite right,' said the Baron; 'for I fear that, left to yourself, you would not have the necessary firmness to resist your darling, and refuse him his heart's desire. I think, however, we are agreed in this–the alliance in question must be prevented at any pains or any cost.'

'Certainly we are,' assented the Countess. 'The only point to be discussed is how we are to prevent it. Edmund will shortly come of age, and he will then be absolute master, free to follow his own will.'

'Hitherto he has submitted to yours,' remarked the Count. 'His love for you is paramount.'

'Has been hitherto!' said the Countess, with a rush of bitter feeling. 'But now another shares his love. It remains to be seen whether his mother will retain her old place in his affections.'

'Ah, this maternal sensitiveness of yours has been the cause of all the trouble, Constance,' remonstrated her brother. 'You have loved your son with a jealous exclusiveness which has made you shrink from the thought of his marriage. That was why you refused to entertain the proposal I made to you last year. An alliance suitable in point of rank and in every other respect could then easily have been secured. You see the result of your conduct on that occasion. But let us to the matter in hand. This Rüstow is wealthy?'

'He passes, at least, for wealthy in this part of the country.'

'And in town also. Not long ago he contributed funds towards one of our great industrial undertakings to a surprisingly large amount. Moreover, he is looked upon as an authority in his own particular line. Even at the Ministry his opinion on all subjects connected with agriculture carries weight with it. Add to this his connection by marriage with the Ettersberg family, which, say what you will, exists, and must be taken into account, and it becomes evident that we cannot treat this intended marriage as we would an unworthy mésalliance.'

'No, and I think Edmund builds on that fact.'

'He builds simply on your unbounded affection for him, from which he hopes to obtain all he desires–perhaps would have obtained it, had I not stepped in in time. You owe it to your husband's memory and to the name you bear to resist this marriage, which, as you know, he never would have allowed. Remember how he condemned his cousin for contracting a union with Rüstow. You are bound to act according to his wishes.'

'I have done so in all respects,' said the Countess, a little piqued; 'but if Edmund will not listen–'

'It is for you to exact obedience from him, no matter by what means. This plebeian blood must not again be infused into the Ettersberg race. One such taint was sufficient.'

He spoke slowly and meaningly, and the Countess grew pale beneath the menace of his look.

'Armand, what do you mean? I–'

'I am alluding to Rüstow's marriage with your husband's cousin,' the Baron interrupted coldly. 'The reminder was, I think, necessary to warn you that there must be no weakness now. You are not wanting in energy generally, but to Edmund you have always been far too indulgent a mother.'

'Possibly,' said the Countess, with sad and bitter emphasis. 'I have had no one but him to love since you compelled me to accept the Count as my husband.'

'It was not I, but circumstances, that compelled you. I should have thought you had in your youth sufficient experience of poverty and privations to make you bless your brother's hand, which delivered you from that wretched life and placed you in a high position.'

'Bless?' repeated the Countess, in a low, half-stifled voice. 'No, Armand, I have never blessed your action in the matter.'

Baron Heideck frowned.

'I acted according to my conscience and sense of duty. It was my desire to procure for my father one last satisfaction on this side the grave, to free my mother from anxiety as to the future, and to secure for yourself a brilliant and much-envied position. If I used some pressure–some force to deliver you from the trammels of a first and foolish attachment, I did so with the firm conviction that for the Countess Ettersberg the past would be as though it had not been. I could not possibly foresee that my sister would not justify the confidence I placed in her.'

The Countess shuddered as he spoke these words, and turned away.

'Enough of these reminiscences, Armand; I cannot bear them.'

'You are right,' said Heideck, changing his tone. 'We will leave the past, and turn our attention to the present. Edmund must not be allowed to commit this act of youthful folly. I hardly touched on the subject as we drove here from the station–I purposely avoided any discussion of it until I had spoken to you; but a very decided impression was left on my mind that we have not to do with a very deep or serious passion, capable of breaking down all barriers and setting all at defiance in order to obtain its end. He has merely fallen in love with a young and, as I hear, beautiful girl, and is naturally in a great hurry to be married at once. We must take care that this does not occur. We have weapons enough in our armoury to combat any such juvenile sentiment.'

'I hope so,' said the Countess, making a visible effort to regain her composure, and speak in an ordinary conversational tone. 'That is why I asked you to come. You are his guardian, you know.'

Heideck shook his head.

'My guardianship has never been more than a barren legal fact, and in a few months it will lapse altogether. Edmund will hardly bow to its authority but to you he will yield, for he is accustomed to be guided by you. Place before him the choice between this new fancy of his and yourself. Threaten that you will leave Ettersberg if he brings this bride home to the castle. He worships you, and will take no step which would estrange his mother from him.'

'No; he would not do that,' said the Countess in a tone of absolute conviction; 'I am still sure of his love.'

'And you may continue to feel sure of it, if you know how to use your influence over him, as I doubt not you will, to the fullest extent. You are well aware, Constance, that in your son's case, in his case especially, the traditions of the family must be maintained. Remember this, I beg of you.'

'I know it,' said the Countess, drawing a deep breath. 'You may set your mind at rest.'

A long pause ensued. Then Baron Heideck spoke again:

'And now to the other disagreeable matter! Will you send for Oswald? I should like to have some talk with him about this wonderful new project of his.'

The Countess rang the bell.

'Let Herr von Ettersberg know that Baron Heideck wishes to speak to him, and is waiting for him here,' she said to the servant who answered the summons.

The man withdrew with his instructions, and Heideck continued, in a sarcastic vein:

'It must be admitted that Edmund and Oswald are outvying each other just now in their endeavours to add lustre to the family name. One is bent on marrying the daughter of a ci-devant farmer, and the other means to set up as a lawyer. Oswald cannot, I fancy, have conceived this idea quite suddenly.'

'I think he has cherished the project for years, but he has never committed himself by a word,' said the Countess. 'It is only now, just when he is on the point of passing his examination, that he thinks fit to publish his plan. I have declared to him, however, in the most decided manner, that he must give up all notion of the law, and prepare to enter a Government office.'

'And what reply did he make to you?'

'He made none–as usual. You know the moody, obstinate silence with which, even as a boy, he received reproof and punishment, the look of insufferable defiance which he always has in readiness, though his lips remain closed. I am persuaded that my opposition only makes him cling the more pertinaciously to his absurd plan.'

'Precisely what I should expect from him, but in this case he will have to give way. A young man who, like Oswald, is absolutely without resources of his own, must, no matter in what position, be for a time dependent on his relations. Disobedience would cost him too dearly.'

The conversation had undergone a marked change. Previously, when Edmund's conduct had been under debate, the Countess and her brother had spoken gravely and with a certain anxiety, but every word testified to the consideration in which the wilful young son and nephew was held. They merely wished to lead, to guide him back into the paths of prudence, and the love he bore his mother was the only constraining influence suggested. But from the moment Oswald's name was mentioned, another and a very different tone prevailed. His sins were reported with harshness, and condemned with great severity; measures of compulsion were at once discussed. Baron Heideck evidently shared in an eminent degree his sister's dislike to this young relation.

The offender now came in. He greeted his aunt and his guardian, whom he had seen only for a few minutes on arrival, with his accustomed calm composure; but a keen observer might have detected the fact that he had armed himself for the coming scene. He stood before them in the 'sombre, obstinate silence' to which allusion had been made, with his ever-ready look of 'insufferable defiance,' and waited for what should be made known to him.

'You have prepared a singular surprise for us,' began Baron Heideck, addressing Oswald. 'For me especially, as I was just about to move in your interest. What are these absurd ideas you are so suddenly disclosing? You refused formerly to enter the army, and now you object to a Government office. Let me tell you that, situated as you are, you have no right to vacillate thus between the only professions which are open to you.'

'I have never vacillated, for no choice has ever been offered me,' replied Oswald quietly. 'I was destined first for the army and then for a Government clerkship, but my inclination was never consulted.'

'And why did you never inform us by a single word that it would please you in the last instance to set yourself against this second plan?' asked the Countess.

'That is easily divined,' interposed Heideck. 'He wished to avoid a long struggle against you and myself, a struggle in which he was sure to succumb, and hoped that by taking us unawares he might paralyse our resistance. But you are mistaken, Oswald. My sister has already informed you that we consider the name and rank of a Count von Ettersberg to be incompatible with the calling of the law, and I repeat to you that you will never receive our consent to your present scheme.'

'I am sorry for that,' was the steady reply. 'For I shall thus be obliged to pursue the course I have determined on without the approval of my nearest relatives.'

The Countess would have started up in anger, but her brother signed to her to be calm.

'Say nothing, Constance. We shall see if he can carry out this famous plan. I really do not understand you, Oswald,' he continued, with withering sarcasm. 'You have been long enough away from home to form some idea of the world and its ways. Have you never said to yourself that without some assured means of existence you can neither pass the examination in the capital, nor live on for years until an income of your own be forthcoming? Have you not reflected that these means may be withdrawn, if you push matters so far as to provoke a rupture with your family? You probably rely on Edmund's good-nature and on his affection for yourself, but in this case my sister will take care that he does not second and support you in your wilful obstinacy.'

'I rely on no one but myself,' declared Oswald. 'Edmund knows that I shall make no claim on him for assistance.'

'Well, perhaps you will allow me, as your ex-guardian, to inquire how you propose to live during the next few years?' said Heideck, in his former scornful tone.

'I think of going to town to stay with Councillor Braun, a lawyer of eminence, whose name is probably known to you.'

'Certainly I know him. He has a considerable reputation at the bar.'

'He was my father's legal adviser, and the intimate friend of our house. I called on him and renewed our acquaintance when Edmund and I were in town together, and he has been good enough to transfer the old friendship from the father to the son. During the time I was at the university, he gave me many hints how best to direct my studies with a view to the career I had already chosen, and since then we have remained in constant correspondence. He wishes now for some assistance in his really overgrown practice, and the assistant of to-day may, very probably will, be his successor in the future. The berth will be held open for me until I shall have passed my examination. He has asked me to stay at his house during the period of that examination, and this offer I have thankfully accepted.'

Oswald delivered this speech with imperturbable calm, but the astonishment of his hearers knew no bounds. They had supposed that a simple assertion of authority on their part would extinguish all 'absurd ideas,' and quell the rebellious nephew whose dependent position placed him so completely at their mercy. Instead of this, they were met by a steady resolve, a practical, matured plan, every detail of which had been considered and provided for, and which withdrew the young man altogether from their influence and control. The disagreeable surprise this discovery caused them was expressed in the look they now exchanged.

'Really, this is remarkable news,' said the Countess, who could no longer suppress her anger. 'So you have been conspiring against us with a stranger in secret–and this conspiracy has been going on for years!'

'And with what an aim in view!' added Heideck. 'Either in the army or in a Government office your ancient and noble name would have been of service to you; it would have assured you a career. But the advantages you possess you deliberately put from you in order to embrace the law as a profession. I really thought your ambition would soar higher. Are you so wedded–so enthusiastically attached to this new vocation of yours?'