CHAPTER II.
"That is too bad. This mania really begins to surpass all limits. I must forbid Reinhold all cultivation of music if he continues to pursue it in so senseless a manner."
With these words, the merchant Almbach opened a family council, which took place in the parlour, in his wife's and daughter's presence, and at which, fortunately, the special object of the same did not assist.
Herr Almbach, a man about fifty, whose quiet, measured, almost pedantic manner, generally served as a pattern for all the office people, appeared to have quite lost his equilibrium to-day, by the above-named mania, as he continued, in great excitement--
"The bookkeeper came home this morning about four o'clock from the jubilee, which I had left directly after midnight. From the bridge he sees the garden house lighted up, and hears Reinhold raving over the notes, and lost to all sense of sight and hearing. Of course he could not accompany me to the feast! he declared himself to be ill; but his 'unbearable headache' did not hinder him from maltreating the piano in the icy-cold garden-room until morning's dawn. I shall be hearing again from my partners that my son-in-law has been doing his utmost in uselessness as well as in carelessness. It is hardly credible! The youngest clerk understands the books better, and has more interest in the business, than the partner and future head of the house of 'Almbach & Co.' My whole life long have I worked and toiled to make my firm secure and respected, and now I have the prospect of leaving it, at last, in such hands."
"I always told you that you should have forbidden his associating with the Music-Director, Wilkins," interrupted Frau Almbach, "he is to blame for it all; no one could get on with that misanthropical, musical fool. Everyone hated and avoided him, but with Reinhold that was all the more reason to form the most intimate friendship with him. Day after day he was there, and there alone was laid the foundation of all this musical nonsense, which his master seems to have bequeathed to him at his death. It is hardly bearable since he had the old man's legacy--the piano--in the house. Ella, what do you say, then, to this behaviour of your husband?"
The young wife, to whom the last words were addressed, had so far not spoken a syllable. She sat in the window, her head bent over her sewing, and only looked up as this direct question was addressed to her.
"I, dear mother?"
"Yes, you, my child, as the affair affects you most. Or do you really not feel the irresponsible manner in which Reinhold neglects you and your child?"
"He is so fond of music," said Ella, softly.
"Do you excuse him also?" said her mother, excitedly. "That is just the misfortune, he cares for it more than for wife or child; he never asks for either of you if he can only sit at his piano and improvise. Have you no idea of what a wife can and must demand from her husband, and that, above all, it is her duty to bring him to reason? But to be sure, nothing is ever to be expected of you."
The young wife certainly did not look as if much were to be expected of her. She had little that was attractive in her appearance, and the one thing about her that could perhaps be called pretty, the delicate, still girlishly slender figure, was entirely hidden under a most unbecoming house dress, which in its boundless plainness was more suggestive of a servant than of the daughter of the house, and was made so as to disguise any possible advantages which there might be. Only a narrow strip of the fair hair, which lay smoothly parted on her brow, was visible, the rest disappeared entirely under a cap more suited to her mother's years, and offering a peculiar contrast to the face of the barely twenty-years-old wife. This pale face with its downcast eyes, was not adapted to arouse any interest; it had no expression, there lay in it something stolid, vacant, that nearly approached to stupidity, and at this moment, when she let her sewing drop and looked at her mother, it betrayed such helpless nervousness and senselessness, that Almbach felt obliged to come to his daughter's assistance.
"Leave Ella alone!" said he in that half-angry, half-compassionate tone with which one rejects the interference of a child, "you know nothing is to be done with her, and what could she effect here?"
He shrugged his shoulders and continued bitterly; "That is the reward for the sacrifice of adopting my brother's orphan children! Hugo throws all gratitude, all reason and education in my face, and runs away secretly; and Reinhold, who has grown up in my house, under my eyes, causes me the greatest anxiety, with his good-for-nothing hankering after all fancies. But with him, at all events, I have kept the reins in my hand, and I shall draw them so tightly now, that he shall lose all inclination to chafe against them any more."
"Yes, Hugo's ingratitude was really outrageous!" Frau Almbach joined in. "To fly from our house at night, in a fog, and go to sea, 'to try his luck alone in the world,' as he said in the impudent letter of farewell which he left behind him! Two years since there actually came a letter to Reinhold from the Captain; and the former hinted only lately, quite openly, about his probable return. I fear he knows something positive about it."
"Hugo shall not cross my threshold," declared the merchant, with a solemn motion of his hand. "I know nothing of this interchange of letters with Reinhold, and will know nothing. Let them correspond behind my back, but if the unadvised youth should have the audacity to appear before me, he will learn what the anger of an offended uncle and guardian is."
While the parents prepared to discuss this apparently often-treated theme, with the wonted details and ire, Ella had left the room unnoticed and now descended the staircase leading to the office, situated on the ground floor. The young wife knew that now, at midday, all the people would be absent, and this probably lent her courage to enter.
It was a large gloomy room; whose bare walls and barred windows caused it somewhat to resemble a prison. No trouble had been taken to impart any comfort or even a pleasant appearance to the office. And what for? What belonged to work was there; the rest was luxury, and luxury was a thing that the house of Almbach and Co., notwithstanding its notoriously not inconsiderable wealth, did not allow itself.
At present no one was to be found in the room, excepting the young man, who sat at a desk with a big ledger open before him. He looked pale and as if he had been up late; his eyes, which should have been busy with figures, were fixed on the narrow strip of the sun's rays which fell slantingly across the room. In his gaze was something of the longing and bitterness of a prisoner, to whom the sunshine, penetrating into his cell, brings news of life and freedom from without. He hardly turned his head at the opening of the door, and asked indifferently--
"What is it? What do you want, Ella?"
Every other wife at the second question would have gone to her husband and put her arm round his shoulder. Ella remained standing close to the doorway. It sounded far too icily cold, this "What do you want?" she evidently was not welcome.
"I wished to ask how your headache is?" she began, shyly.
"My headache?" Reinhold recollected himself suddenly. "Ah, yes, I think it has gone."
The young wife closed the door and came a step or two nearer.
"My parents are very furious again, that you were not at the feast yesterday, and were playing, instead, the whole night long," she told him hesitatingly.
Reinhold knitted his brows. "Who told them? you perhaps?"
"I?" her voice sounded half like a reproach. "The bookkeeper saw the garden house lighted up, and heard you playing as he returned this morning."
An expression of contemptuous scorn played around the young man's lips, "Ah! I certainly had not thought of that. I did not believe that those gentlemen, after their jubilee, would have time or inclination left for observations. To be sure for spying they are always ready enough."
"My father thinks--" began Ella, again.
"What does he think?" shouted Reinhold. "Is it not enough for him that from morning to evening I am bound to this office; does he even grudge me the refreshment I seek at night in music? I thought that I and my piano had been banished far enough; that the garden house lay so distant and so isolated, that I could run no risk of disturbing the sleep of the righteous in the house. Fortunately no one can hear a sound."
"Not so," said the young wife, softly, "I hear every note when all is still around, and I alone lie awake."
Reinhold turned round and looked at his wife. She stood with downcast eyes and thoroughly expressionless face before him. His glance swept slowly down her figure as though he were unconsciously drawing some comparison, and the bitterness in his features became more plainly displayed.
"I am sorry for it," he replied coldly, "but I cannot help your windows looking into the garden. Close your shutters in future, then it is to be hoped that my musical extravagances will not disturb your sleep any more."
He turned over the pages of his book, and appeared to lose himself again in his calculations. Ella waited about a minute longer, but as she saw that not the least notice was taken of her presence, she went away as noiselessly as she came.
She had hardly left before Reinhold flung the ledger from him with a passionate movement. His glance, which fell upon the contemptuously-treated object, and was cast around the office, showed the most bitter hatred; then he laid his head on both arms and closed his eyes, as if he wished to see and hear no more of the whole surroundings.
"God greet you, Reinhold!" said a strange voice suddenly, quite close to him.
He started up, and looked bewildered and inquiringly at the stranger in sailor's clothes, who had entered unnoticed and now stood before him. Suddenly, however, a recollection seemed to shoot through him, as with a cry of joy, he threw himself on the new-comer's breast.
"Is it possible, Hugo!--you here already?"
Two powerful arms embraced him firmly, and a pair of warm lips were pressed again and again upon his.
"Do you really know me still? I should have picked you out from amongst hundreds. Certainly you do look rather different from the little Reinhold I left behind here. Well, with me I suppose it is not much better."
The first words still sounded full of deep emotion; but the latter already bore a somewhat merrier tone. Reinhold's arm still lay fondly round his brother's neck.
"And you come so suddenly, so completely unannounced? I only expected you in a few weeks' time."
"We have had an unusually quick voyage," said the young captain, cheerfully, "and once I was in the harbour, I could not stay a minute longer on board, I must come to you. Thank God, I found you alone! I was afraid I should have to pass the purgatorial fire of domestic anger and to fight my way through the united relatives in order to reach you."
Reinhold's face, still beaming with the pleasure of meeting again, became overcast at this recollection, and his arm fell slowly down.
"No one has seen you surely?" he asked, "you know how my uncle feels towards you, since--"
"Since I withdrew myself from his all-wise rule, which wished to screw me absolutely to the office table, and ran away?" interrupted Hugo. "Yes, I know; and I should have liked to look on at the row that broke loose in the house when they discovered I had fled. But the story is nearly ten years old. The 'good-for-nothing' is not dead and ruined, as the family have, no doubt, prophecied hundreds of times, and wished oftener; he returns as a most respected captain of a most splendid ship, with all possible recommendations to your principal houses of business. Should these mercantile and maritime advantages not at last soften the heart of the angry house of Almbach and Co.?"
Reinhold suppressed a sigh, "Do not joke, Hugo! you do not know my uncle--do not know the life in his house."
"No, I went away at the night time," asserted the Captain, "and that was most sensible; you should do the same."
"What are you thinking about? My wife--my child?"
"Ah yes!" said Hugo, somewhat confused. "I always forget you are married. Poor boy! they chained you fast by times. Such a betrothal altar is the safest bolt to thrust before all possible longing for freedom. There, do not fly out at once! I am quite willing to believe they did not regularly force you to say 'yes.' But how you came to do it, my uncle will probably have to answer for; and the melancholy attitude in which I found you, does not say much for the happiness of a young husband. Let me look into your eyes, that I may see how it really is."
He seized him unceremoniously by his arm, and drew him towards the window. Here in broad daylight, one could see, for the first time, how very unlike the brothers were, notwithstanding an undeniable resemblance in their features. The Captain, the elder of the two, was strongly, and yet gracefully built, his handsome, open countenance was browned by sun and air; his hair curled lightly, and his brown eyes sparkled with love of life and courage; his carriage was easy and firm, like that of a man accustomed to move in the most varied surroundings and circumstances, and his whole bearing had a species of self-confidence which broke forth at every opportunity, with, at the same time, such a fresh, open kindliness, that it was difficult to resist him.
Reinhold, his junior by a few years, made a totally different impression. He was slighter, paler than his brother; his hair and eyes were darker, and the latter had a serious, even gloomy expression. But there lay on this brow, and in those eyes, something which attracted all the more, as they did not disclose all which lay behind them. Hugo was, perhaps, the handsomer of the two, and yet a comparison was sure to be drawn unconditionally in favour of the younger brother, who possessed, in the highest degree, that rare and dangerous charm of being interesting, to which, often the most perfect beauty must give way.
The young man made a hasty attempt to withdraw from the threatened inspection. "You cannot remain here," he said, decidedly, "uncle may enter at any moment, and then there would be a terrible scene. I will take you to the garden house for the present, which I have had fitted up for my sole use. You will hardly dare to appear before the family, and your arrival must be known. I will tell them."
"And bear all the storm alone?" interrupted the Captain. "I beg your pardon, but that is my affair! I am going up at once to my uncle and aunt, and shall introduce myself as their obedient nephew!"
"But Hugo! are you out of your senses? You have no idea of the state of affairs here."
"Exactly! The strongest fortresses are taken by surprise, and I have long looked forward to one day entering like a bomb amongst the stormy relations, and to seeing what sort of a grimace they would make. But one thing more. Reinhold, you must give me your promise to remain quietly below until I return. You shall not be placed in the painful position of witnessing how the weight of the family wrath is poured upon my erring head. You might wish to catch some of it out of brotherly self-sacrifice, and that would disturb all my plans of campaign. Jonas, come in!"
He opened the door and admitted a man, who, until now, had waited outside in the passage. "That is my brother. Look well at him! You have to report yourself to him, and pay him your respects. Once more, Reinhold, promise me not to enter the family parlour for the next half-hour. I shall bring all to order up there by myself, if I have even to take the whole barrack by storm."
He was out of the door before his brother could make any remonstrance. Still half-bewildered by the rapid changes of the last ten minutes, he looked at the broad, square figure of the new arrival, who set a good-sized portmanteau down on the floor, and planted himself close beside it.
"Seaman Wilhelm Jonas, of the 'Ellida,' now in the service of Herr Captain Almbach!" reported he, systematically, and attempted a movement at the same time, probably intended to be a bow, but which did not bear the least similarity to the desired courtesy.
"All right," said Reinhold, abruptly, "you can leave the luggage here at present! I must first hear how long my brother proposes remaining."
"We are to stay here a few days with his uncle," assured Jonas, very quietly.
"Oh! is that decided already?"
"Quite positively."
"I do not understand Hugo," murmured Reinhold. "He appears to have no idea of what is before him, and yet my letters must have prepared him for it. I cannot possibly let him bear the storm alone."
He made a movement towards the door, but this was quite blocked up by the sailor's broad figure, who, even at the young man's displeased glance of enquiry, did not move from his position.
"The Captain said that he would bring all to order up yonder by himself," he explained laconically, "so he will do it. He succeeds in everything."
"Really?" asked Reinhold, somewhat struck by the insuperable confidence of the words, "You seem to know my brother well."
"Very well."
Hesitating whether he should accede to Hugo's wish, Reinhold went to the window which looked into the court, and became aware of three or four faces, expressive of boundless curiosity, belonging to the servants, who were trying to obtain a peep into the office. The young man allowed a sound of suppressed annoyance to escape him, and turned again to the sailor.
"My brother's arrival seems to be known in the house already, said he hastily. Strangers are not such a rarity in the office, and the curiosity is evidently directed to you."
"It does not matter," muttered Jonas, "even if the whole nest becomes rebellious and stares at us. That sort of thing is nothing new. The savages in the South Sea Islands do just the same when our 'Ellida' lies-to."
The question may remain undecided, as to whether the comparison just drawn was exactly flattering to the inhabitants of the house. Fortunately no one but Reinhold heard it, and he considered it necessary to remove the object of this curiosity. He desired him to enter the adjoining room and wait there; he himself remained behind and listened uneasily if quarrelling voices were to be heard, but to be sure the family parlour lay in the upper story and at the other side of the house. The young man debated with himself as to whether he should remain true to the half-promise which he had made to Hugo, and leave him to manage alone, or if he should not, at least, attempt to cover the unavoidable retreat, as, that such lay before Hugo, he believed to be certain. He had too often heard the condemning verdict accorded to his brother by the family, not to dread a scene, in which even the former would be unable to hold his own, but he also knew his own position towards his uncle too well, not to say to himself that his interference would merely make matters worse.
More than half-an-hour had passed in this painful anxiety, when at last steps were heard and the Captain entered.
"Here I am, the affair is settled."
"What is settled?" asked Reinhold, hastily.
"Well, the pardon of course. As much-beloved nephew, I have this moment lain alternately in the arms of my uncle and aunt. Come upstairs with me, Reinhold! you are missing in the reconciliation tableau, but you must be prepared for endless emotion; they are all crying together."
His brother looked at him doubtfully. "I do not know, Hugo, if this be meant for fun, or--"
The young Captain laughed mischievously. "You seem to have little confidence in my diplomatic talents. But all the same, do not think that the affair was easily settled. I was certainly prepared for a storm. But here raged a regular tornado--bah, we sailors are accustomed to such things--and when at last I could obtain speech, which certainly was not for some time, the victory was already decided. I represented the return of the lost son with a masterly hand; I called heaven and earth as witnesses of my reformation. I ventured upon falling at their feet--that took, at least with my aunt--I now made sure of the hesitating female flank, in order to storm the centre in conjunction with it, and the victory was brilliant. Forgiveness in due form--general emotion and embraces--group of reconciliation--my Heaven, do not look so incredulous. I assure you I am speaking in all seriousness."
Reinhold shook his head, yet unconsciously he drew a breath of relief. "Comprehend it, who can! I should have thought it impossible! Have you"--the question sounded peculiarly uncertain--"have you seen my wife?"
"To be sure," said Hugo, slyly. "That is to say, I have certainly not seen much of her, and heard even less, as she remained quite passive during the scene, and did not even cry like the rest. The same little cousin Eleonore still, who always sat so quietly and shyly in her corner, out of which even our wildest boyish teasings did not drive her--and she has become your wife! But now, above all, I must admire the representative of the house of Almbach! Where is he?"
Reinhold looked up, and for a moment a bright gleam drove all the gloominess away from his face. "My boy? I will show him to you. Come, we will go up to him."
"Thank God, at last a sign of happiness in your face," said the Captain, with a seriousness of which one would hardly have deemed his merry nature capable, and he added in a lowered voice, "I have sought for it in vain so far."
The firm of Almbach and Co. belonged to that class whose names on the Exchange, as well as in the commercial world generally, were of some position, without being of conspicuous importance. The relations between its head and Consul Erlau were not only of a business nature; they dated from earlier times, when both, equally young and meanless, were apprenticed in the same office, the one to raise himself until he became a rich merchant, whose ships sailed on every ocean and whose connections extended to every quarter of the globe--the other to found a modest business, which never reached beyond certain bounds. Almbach avoided all more daring speculations, all greater undertakings, which he was by no means the man to superintend or guide; he preferred a moderate, but steady gain, which also fell to his share to the fullest extent. His social position was certainly as different from that of Consul Erlau as was his old-fashioned gloomy house in Canal Street, with its high gables and barred office windows, from the princely furnished palace at the Harbour. The friendship between the former youthful companions had gradually diminished, but it was certainly Almbach who was principally to blame for it. He could not be reconciled to the Consul after the latter had become a millionaire, living in the style suited to that position. Perhaps he could not forgive him for occupying the first place, while he himself only stood in the third or fourth rank, and well as he knew how to utilise the advantages which the intimate acquaintance with the great firm of Erlau opened to him, yet he held, all the more, to his strictly middle-class, and somewhat old-frankish household, and kept aloof from all communication with that of the Consul. The latter's invitations had ceased when he saw that they were never accepted; for years the mutual meetings had been restricted to those occasional ones on Exchange or some chance place, and lately Almbach had even, when any business matters required a personal interview, let his son-in-law represent him. It was decidedly disagreeable to him, that on this occasion the young man had received the invitation to the opera and the succeeding evening party, and impossible as it was to refuse this civility, the merchant did not attempt to disguise from his family his dissatisfaction at Reinhold's introduction into the "nabob's life," the designation with which he usually honoured his old friend's household.
Notwithstanding all this, Almbach was a well-to-do, even, as was maintained by many, a very rich man, and on this account the centre and support of numerous relations not blessed with over-much fortune. In this manner the care of his two orphaned nephews, whom their father, a ship's captain, had left quite without resources, fell to his charge. Almbach had only one child, to whose existence he had never attached very much importance, as she was a girl. The Consul and his wife were the little one's god-parents, and it might always be considered as an act of self-conquest, that Almbach gave his daughter Frau Erlau's name, as he particularly hated the aristocratic, romantic-sounding "Eleonore" and soon changed it for the much simpler "Ella." This designation was also more suitable, as Ella Almbach was considered by every one to be, not only a simple, but even a very contracted-minded being, whose horizon never was extended beyond the trifling domestic events of housekeeping. The child had formerly been very sickly, and this may have had a crippling effect upon the development of her mental faculties. They were indeed of a very inferior order, and the very prejudiced, strictly domestic education in her father's house, excluding every other circle of ideas and thought, did not appear adapted to give them a higher direction. Thus, then, the girl had grown up quiet and shy, always overlooked, everywhere set aside, and without the least value, even amongst her nearest relations. They were wont to consider her quite incapable of self-dependence, even half-irresponsible, and her eventual marriage did not change things at all.
Neither of the young people raised any objection to the long-cherished, and to them long-known, plan of a union. A girl of seventeen and a man of twenty-two have certainly not much self-decision, least of all when they have grown up under such repressed circumstances. Besides, in this case, there was also the habit of always living together, which had created a sort of liking, although in Reinhold it was really only pitying tolerance, and in Ella secret fear of her mentally superior cousin. They gave their hands obediently at the betrothal, which was followed, after a year's reprieve, by the wedding. Almbach's sceptre swayed over both as much after as before it, he allowed his new son-in-law, who, as far as the name went, was literally his partner, as little independence in the business as his wife did the young mistress in the household.