CHAPTER VII.
UNEXPECTED
Summer had gone, and autumn was tinging forest and field with crimson and gold.
The Freiherr von Hohenstein was driving in a little open vehicle through his forest, – that is, over that part of his estate which a few years previously had been covered with fine old trees, but where now some labourers were removing a few stumps, while at intervals a solitary giant of the woods seemed to tell of his brothers, certain of whom were now sailing the seas, while others upheld the roofs of city dwellings.
The Freiherr von Hohenstein looked gloomily about him upon the desert plain, dotted here and there with small spots of future forest in the shape of low scraggy shrubs, and found as much food for vexation in the quick disappearance of the former forest as in the slow growth of the young trees. He was powerless, however, to alter either of these annoying facts, and he sighed heavily as his thoughts wandered oddly enough, and yet by a strictly logical train of ideas, from the forest-trees to his son Hugo, who had not indeed any personal connection with ship-builders and carpenters, but who could have told a great deal about the money paid by them for the trees.
"The deuce knows how it is all to end!" the Freiherr growled to himself. "Every year living is dearer and the income smaller; everything to be bought goes up in price, everything to be sold comes down. It is enough to drive me mad!"
Such had now for some time been the usual conclusion of the Freiherr's reflections, and after these deep-drawn sighs he was wont to fall into a still gloomier revery, in which he arrived at no single clear idea except that fate was using him with singular injustice in so complicating his financial affairs from year to year.
"Was he extravagant in any direction? No, assuredly not! It is true, he bred racers, and in order to do so was obliged to employ certain people who required high wages; but it was his only pleasure, and could not be altered. His domestic affairs were conducted upon a very liberal scale; but, as the neighbour and friend of the Eichhofs, it was his duty not to allow any difference to be observed between the Baron's style of living and his own; he surely owed this to his rank and station in life. His son required enormous sums; but the Freiherr had but two children, and his daughter cost him almost nothing. And it was natural that Hugo should enjoy life, – he must represent his name worthily. The Hohensteins had never been bookworms or arithmeticians, and if the young fellow sometimes went too far and his father resolved that he should be 'brought to book' the very next time, still his debts must be paid; the boy could not be dishonoured. All these expenses were really matters of course; they would not have troubled the Freiherr in the least except for this unaccountable yearly deficit in his income.
"I suppose the bad harvest years are at the bottom of the mischief," the Freiherr thought, and consoled himself with the reflection that the good years must come, and that then the 'unavoidable expenses' would be met, and the 'inconceivable deficits' be made up. He had of late positively loathed the books of the estate, and had in consequence rather neglected them. Now he remembered that the time was at hand for the first instalment to be paid of a loan he had had of Count Eichhof, and that he could not possibly pay it. He looked up from his gloomy contemplation of the soil which had once been forest-land, and which was to be forest-land again in the future, and drove over to Eichhof to discuss matters with the Count. But he did not find him at home. "The Herr Count is hunting to-day," the footman informed the visitor. The Freiherr decided to await the Count's return. He could not be long away, for twilight was close at hand. He asked for the Countess, was most graciously received by her, and inquired after the welfare of her sons. When the Countess talked of her sons she adopted a manner and bearing which plainly indicated that, although the young men might very possibly conduct themselves pretty much after the fashion of other young people of their age and rank in society, still they were unquestionably very remarkable men, as she and indeed many others well knew. Bernhard was at present, after the usual wedding-tour among the Alps, installed in his vine-wreathed villa in one of the Thiergarten streets.
"He writes seldom," said the Countess, "and seems to spend much of his time at home. I could have wished that they had continued to travel until the saison morte was over in Berlin; for, although he is extremely happy with his little wife, a man of his force and intellect needs social excitement."
"Oh, your daughter-in-law is so charming that her husband's distaste for general society is easily understood," the Freiherr observed.
"She is a good child," said the Countess.
A more attentive listener than the Freiherr could possibly be at this time would have plainly heard in the Countess's intonation as she uttered the words 'good child' the unspoken thought, "but much too insignificant for my Bernhard." The Freiherr, however, was only listening to catch the first sound of the hoofs of the horses that were bringing home the hunting-party, and just as the Countess was preparing to tell him of the charming letter she had just received from her cousin the ambassador, with whom she had begun a correspondence "solely upon Walter's account," the wished-for cadence struck upon his ear.
"I think your husband has returned," he said, "Allow me to go and meet him."
"I don't think it is my husband," was the reply. "His voice usually makes itself unmistakably heard upon his return from hunting. But pray inform yourself about it, my dear Baron."
The Freiherr left the room, although there was still no sound of the Count's voice. The Countess sat gazing towards the western sky, where the last gleams of the dying day faintly lingered, and began to wonder why the servant had not brought in the lamp, and why the house was so silent, since, as the Freiherr did not return, her husband must surely be at home.
The room grew darker and darker, and silence still prevailed. This quiet was positively oppressive. The Countess arose, passed through the antechamber, and opened the door leading out to the landing of the grand staircase. No light was burning here either, but from below came a dull gleam, and the smothered sounds of hurried words and whispers.
"What is the matter? Why are the lamps not lighted?" the Countess asked, standing at the head of the stairs. The Freiherr, who stood at their foot with a candle in his hand, looked up at her with a face so pale and horror-stricken that a cold shudder ran through her as she repeated her question, "What is the matter? For God's sake tell me what has happened!"
"Be calm," said the Baron, who stood beside her in an instant, while his voice trembled as perceptibly as did the candle in his hand. "Be calm, I entreat you, dearest madame; your husband has met with an accident."
The Countess grew pale to the very lips. "Oh, God!" she shrieked; "where is he? where is he?" And she would have rushed down the staircase, but the Freiherr detained her. "He is not yet here, – he is coming. One of his huntsmen brought us the news."
"He is coming?" she cried; "he is only wounded, – he must be only wounded?"
"He is seriously injured, very seriously," said the Freiherr. "I fear we must be prepared for everything, – even for the worst!"
The Countess stared at him with eyes wide with horror; her lips twitched convulsively, as though unable to utter the terrible word written so plainly in the Freiherr's face, – uttered so distinctly in this fearful silence, which was interrupted only by the sounds of suppressed sobs from the group of servants in the hall below.
Suddenly she threw up her arms. "Dead!" she shrieked, "dead!"
The word was spoken, and she fell back senseless into the Baron's arms.
At that moment a vehicle drew up in the castle court-yard, and the Count, surrounded by his huntsmen, and a few others whom the accident had called together, was slowly carried up the terrace steps. They bore him into the castle through the same portal which he had left lusty and joyous only a few hours before, never to behold it again.
With drooping tail, and now and then uttering a melancholy whine, his favourite hound followed his master's body; he had long been the faithful companion of his sport. And in the wagon that had brought his master home dead lay the gun, which all shunned to touch, for it had caused all this woe, by its accidental discharge as the Count was leaping a ditch in the ardour of the chase.
A few hours later, mounted horsemen rode out into the night, and telegraphs and letters spread the news of the Count's sudden death far and wide.
In the big drawing-room heavy silver candelabra, with their myriad candles, are burning at the head of the couch where Count Eichhof is lying sunk in his last sleep. His head is turned slightly to one side, so as entirely to conceal the fatal wound in the right temple, and the smile that the excitement of the hunt had called to his face still lingers there.
"Can this be? Is it really true?" murmurs the Countess, seated in an arm-chair beside the couch, and gazing fixedly with dry eyes at the smiling face; while the old servant, kneeling at the dead man's feet, slowly shakes his white head. He cannot believe it, it is so unlike his master to die; it must all be an evil dream. But below-stairs all are fully convinced of its reality. The huntsman in the kitchen is telling circumstantially, for the twelfth time, the whole terrible story, – how the Count jumped across the ditch and the gun went off. Nor does he forget to mention the black rabbit that crossed their path when the chase had just begun, or his own frightful dream of the previous night, which had caused him to say to his wife when he left her, "Look out for some accident to-day!" And the cook listens with the same shudder that he felt the first time the story was told, only it passes off rather more quickly, and he is able to find consolation not only in the tankard to which he has frequent recourse, but also in the thought that he stands very well "with the young master" and will in all probability retain his position. At last the huntsman goes home, the kitchen is gradually deserted, and the lights are extinguished, leaving the castle in darkness, save for the broad glare out into the night from the windows of the big drawing-room, where he who was the castle's lord now lies at rest.
CHAPTER VIII.
AT THE TOMB
The Count's three sons hurried to Eichhof immediately upon the receipt of the sad news, and the obsequies were performed with all the gloomy pomp demanded by the occasion and by the rank of the deceased. The sarcophagus, in accordance with a traditionary custom of the family, was placed before the altar in the Eichhof monumental chapel, where it was to remain three years before it should be finally consigned to the tomb. The road to the chapel was still strewn with cut hemlock boughs, when Walter Eichhof slowly walked along it some days after the funeral ceremonies, while Bernhard and Lothar were busied over the affairs of the estate and the settlement of the Count's testamentary dispositions.
Although the dead man had annihilated all Walter's plans for the future, he had always been to him a tender and loving father, whose merry voice and resounding tread he seemed still to hear everywhere in Eichhof, so indissolubly were they connected in his mind with his home. And now that voice and that tread had died away forever! Walter wandered restlessly through the well-known rooms of the castle, lingering in those where he had been with his father during the last few months, pacing to and fro on the terrace where he had talked with him about his future, when the Count in his sanguine way had spoken of his expectation of living to an advanced age and of providing handsomely for all his children. Where now were all his plans, and what was Walter's future to be? He knew that there would be no means to further him in that diplomatic career which might perhaps have reconciled him to the study of the law, and the prospect of passing his youth as the legal authority of some petty town seemed as insupportable as was any idea at present of transgressing the injunctions of the dead.
The Count's "I will not have it!" still rang in the son's ears. Oh, if his father were only here now, that he might appeal to him once more! An idle wish. That "I will not have it!" had been spoken, and Walter bowed to the decision of him whose untimely departure would greatly change his home for him, as he well knew. He was not upon intimate terms with Bernhard; their training and education had differed so widely. He had never appealed to him for aid as Lothar had been in the habit of doing. And he had paid but little regard to his brother's claims as the future head of the family. So long as their father lived, he had felt himself upon an entire equality with his brothers. They were all 'sons of the house.' Now he was the younger brother of the heir who had entered into possession. He had no rights to assert, and only his brother's kindness could justify him in regarding the castle as a home in the future. And this very feeling of dependence which united Lothar with his brother estranged Walter from him. He was more reserved with Bernhard than before, partly perhaps because he thought he observed that Lothar, and even his mother, treated him with a degree of deference. It wounded him deeply to hear his mother lament not only her loss, but her changed circumstances. To his irritated sensibility it seemed as if the settlement of the estate thrust grief for the departed into the background, and as though life had put forward so many claims that but small time could be spared in which to pay due tribute to death. All this distressed him, and hence he often strolled away to the quiet chapel, where nothing offended his filial affection or disturbed his memories of his dead father.
No one out of the family, except the sexton, who lived close by, owned a key to the building; and therefore Walter was surprised to find the door unlocked and ajar. He looked in. The light through the stained-glass window fell full upon a female figure, dressed in black, kneeling beside the sarcophagus, and engaged in hanging about it wreaths of ferns and autumnal leaves. Walter entered softly. The kneeling figure was so occupied with her pious task that she did not observe him until he stood close beside her. Then she looked up.
"Adela!" Walter exclaimed, in surprise. "You here? I never expected to find you here."
"And why not?" she asked, a gleam of defiance in her eyes, which nevertheless showed traces of recent tears. "Did I not love your father dearly?" she continued, with a perceptible tremor in her voice, "and do I not know how dearly he loved the woods? – and-and-there were only flowers from the garden and greenhouse laid upon his coffin."
Walter was silent for a moment, looking down at the forest wreaths that Adela had brought. Then he took her hand in his. "You are right," he said, gently. "Your heart is true and kind, after all."
Instead of replying, the girl turned from him, and, hurrying out of the chapel, sank down upon the steps, covered her face with her hands, and burst into a passion of sobs.
Walter followed her, startled, and yet touched, by this outbreak of grief.
"I thank you for these tears, Adela," he said, Beating himself on the step beside her. "You loved him, and can understand what we have all lost."
"Oh, I know there is no one left like him, so good and kind!" the girl sobbed. "And he loved me, too, and was always tender to me. I can never forget it, for no one else cares for me!"
"Adela!" Walter exclaimed, interrupting her.
She dried her eyes, and looked up at him. "Yes," she went on, "no one gives me credit for anything good; no one really cares for me; but he-he said, only a few days ago, – the last time he came to us, – 'Little Adelaide,'-oh, no one will ever call me that again! – 'Little Adelaide, some day you will-' But why should I repeat it, and to you, who are surprised that I have a warm, kind heart? Oh, I am so unhappy!"
In spite of her naïve egotism in the expression of her grief, Walter felt that she was really deeply moved, and the unaccustomed spectacle of one who was always laughing, always gay, giving way to such a heart-breaking burst of tears, touched him profoundly.
"Adela, dear Adela, I pray you be calm," he entreated. "How can you say that no one cares for you, – you who have a father, and so many others who love you?"
"Don't speak of them," she interrupted him, angrily. "You do not understand. Papa lets me do as I please because he cannot help it, and, besides, he thinks of nothing but his business affairs and of Hugo. He cares about that for me," and the girl snapped her fingers. "My governess is going back to her home, and is immensely delighted to be rid of me. Frau von Rosen is angry with me, and will not let Alma come to see me, because I persuaded her the other day to disguise herself with me in two new liveries that had just come home, and to drive into town, where nobody recognized us, and where all that we did was to eat a couple of queen-cakes at the confectioner's. And all because of that perfectly innocent frolic I am thought unfeminine and odious, and I must lose my best friend. And now you come, and give me to understand that you think me heartless; and your dear, good, splendid father is dead, and will never speak kindly to me again. I am alone, – all alone!"
Walter took her hand again; he knew that she was indeed alone if the Rosens had forsaken her, and he was so grieved for her that he almost forgot his purpose in coming hither.
"And it hurts me more than all," Adela went on in an agitated way, "that you, who have been my good comrade ever since we were little children, should think all manner of ill of me, and should treat me so coldly as you did the day of the funeral. Then I thought it was because of your grief, but now I know that it was something else. No, no, do not contradict me. I know you were surprised to find me here, and to see my wreaths, because you thought me too frivolous and childish, and heaven knows what beside, to think of what your dear dead father loved best. Can you deny it?"
"No, Adela, I will not deny that I was surprised," Walter frankly confessed; "but I cannot tell you how happy I am to find I was wrong."
"Why did you think so of me?"
"Because, Adela, you have lately seemed 'so' to me. We were always good friends until a few months ago, and then you suddenly changed your manner to me. When we rode together you talked only of new dresses, of the officers from the neighbouring garrison, of your plans and prospects for the winter, which you hoped to pass in Berlin, and of heaven knows what nonsense besides. If I tried to talk of something else, you yawned, and I felt that we no longer were in sympathy with each other. And when I called upon you in Kissingen in the summer, as I was passing through the town, instead of my old playmate I found a fashionable little lady flirting with a couple of affected fops and quite ready to make game of her old 'comrade.'"
"That is not true!" exclaimed the girl.
"Oh, yes, it is," said Walter, who had quite talked himself into a heat; "remember the day we made a party on the mountain, and you gave your shawl to Herr von somebody, and your parasol to that other fellow to carry, and when I asked whether you had nothing for me, you answered, although you must have seen that I was not in jest, 'Oh, yes: my caprices; you may have those; the youngest always ought to carry the heaviest burden.' And then you ran on laughing with the others, and we never spoke another word to each other the whole day long. Do you remember?"
"Yes; but I did not mean anything."
"Nevertheless you were ready enough to laugh with the others at your 'comrade's' discomfiture; and that laugh broke the bond between us. From that moment you were no more to me than a strange young lady; and that I forget this and tell you all that I am saying now, is due to the sight of those wreaths and of your tears."
"And when the wreaths are withered and the tears are dried, must we be strangers again?" Adela whispered softly, with a questioning glance.
"Would you have it otherwise?" he asked.
She was silent, her looks bent on the ground. He, too, looked away from her beyond the crosses and marbles of the church-yard, where the autumn asters were blooming and a few belated white butterflies were fluttering. All was so quiet around them, except for the low rustling amid the old oaks on the other side of the church-yard, and a soft twitter from a little bird perched on the roof of the chapel, who hushed his note suddenly, as though silenced by the influence of the spot.
Walter's gentle mood had changed. He was irritated by the provoking silence of this girl, who had no kind reply for him, and he was wellnigh ashamed of having made an attempt to renew the youthful friendship the loss of which had given him more pain than he liked to acknowledge even to himself.
He arose and touched his hat.
"Farewell, Fräulein Adela," he said, and turned to go.
Then she looked up, and all the former bravado had vanished from her eyes. "Walter!" she said, and at the sound of her voice he stopped involuntarily. "Walter, do not go; stay for one moment and listen to me."
"I thought you wished me to go," he said.
She shook her head emphatically. "Do not tease me, Walter," she said, imploringly. "You see, it is not so easy to confess that one has been in the wrong. I know I was wrong, and that I am really very vain and often behaved very foolishly to you. You were quite right to be displeased, and I am glad to know that you were so, but for all that you need not be so very angry with me. You see, I know what a foolish girl I am; and indeed I don't care in the least what people in general think of me, but it cuts me to the heart when I see that you take my nonsense seriously and believe me heartless."
"Walter sat down again beside her on the step.
"I never thought you 'heartless,' Adela," he cried, interrupting her; "only superficial and-"
"But that's just the same thing!" she exclaimed; "and I cannot change your opinion of me all in a moment. Perhaps you are partly right; but one thing I can and will promise you, and that is, that I will always in future be honest and frank with you, and never again play such idiotic pranks as on that day at Kissingen. I will not pretend to be better than I am, and neither will I pretend to be worse than I am, and you shall always have the right to lecture me and tell me what you think of me. In return you must promise always to be my friend. If ever I vex you again, tell me so, and scold me, but do not instantly run away from me as though I were too contemptible a thing to turn back and look at. Will you promise me this?"
She looked up at him with eager anxiety, though with a childlike confidence, and held out her hand, which he grasped cordially.
"Yes, Adela," he said, "I will be a true and faithful friend to you. I cannot tell you how glad I am to find my dear little playfellow once more. I know now that she may sometimes hide herself, but she will not vanish utterly. Be sure I shall remember this."
Adela gave him so sunny a smile that he smiled too, and then, passing quickly to other things, she asked after his mother and his brothers.
"You are alone too, Walter," she said. "You are very unlike your brothers, and your mother cannot be much to you. She sees you more in the future than in the present."
"Why, Adela!" said Walter, almost startled, "what puts such ideas into your head?"
"I keep my eyes open," she said, and then grew suddenly very grave. "I only mean that your father is a terrible loss to you, and that Eichhof will be much changed. Thea will come, and I am glad of it, although she is something of a prig, like all the Rosens. I love her dearly for all that, and she will be a good sister to you."
Walter gazed sadly before him.
"Come," said Adela, laying her hand upon his arm, "do not look so troubled; you know I am just like a sister too."
He pressed her hand; they rose, and she noticed that his eyes sought the door of the chapel.
"Shall we not go in again together?" she asked, gently, and they ascended the steps and entered the building. Adela knelt down beside the sarcophagus, and hid her face for some time upon the wreaths that she had placed there. Walter looked down at her, and it seemed to him that they were in the presence of his father, who smiled upon them.
When Adela rose from her knees she looked him gravely and earnestly in the face, and then left the chapel with him in silence. They went out into the calm autumn evening; the skies were naming with crimson and gold, for the sun was just sinking behind the line of forest that bounded the horizon, and the bell in the little village church began to ring for vespers.
"How solemn!" said Adela, pausing before the chapel. Suddenly she turned to Walter again: "From this moment we are friends for life, are we not?"
"Yes, Adela; at least I promise to be your friend for life," he replied.
She took from her finger a ring set with a sapphire. "Take this ring in remembrance of today," she said. "It was my mother's, and I have always worn it, first on my chain and then on my finger. Take it."
"But, Adela," Walter said, delighted, and yet hesitating to accept so strange a gift, "will it not be missed from your finger?"
"Who is there to miss it? No one cares enough for me to notice whether I wear it or not," she said, with some bitterness.
He took the ring, and as he did so detained her hand in his for some moments, as they walked down the steps and across the church-yard.
"I thank you, Adela; the ring will be most precious indeed to me," he said, in a low, earnest voice. "But I do not need it to make me remember this evening."
She smiled, and at the gate of the church-yard they took leave of each other. The chapel lay about half-way between Rollin and Eichhof, so that each could reach home before dark.
Adela felt very happy this evening, and, as there was no one to whom she could speak of her happiness, she carried a basket of sugar into the stable and fed her various black and brown pets.
"Some living creatures shall be happy with me, at all events," she said, stroking the necks of the horses as they took their sugar from her hand.
No one shared Walter's happiness. Indeed, he was not clear as to whether the emotion that filled his heart at the thought of Adela was precisely happiness. But he thought much of her all through the evening, and was even more quiet and dreamy in his mood than usual.