Riven Bonds. Vol. II. / A Novel, in Two Volumes

by E. Werner

CHAPTER IV.

"I wish, Eleonore, we had stayed in the Villa Fiorina, and not undertaken our migration here," said Consul Erlau, as he stood still before his adopted daughter, whom he had surprised in tears on his unlooked-for entrance into her room. "I see I have made you suffer far too much by it."

Ella had soon effaced the traces of weeping, and now smiled with a calmness which might well have deceived a stranger.

"Pray, uncle, do not be anxious on my account! We are here for your sake, and we will thank God if your recovery, which has begun so promisingly in the south, is completed here."

"Still I wish that Dr. Conti were at any other place in the world," replied the Consul, annoyed, "only not just in the town which we would avoid at all cost, and where I am obliged to put myself under his treatment. Poor child, I knew you were making a sacrifice for me in this journey; how great it is I only now am learning to see."

"It is no sacrifice, at least no longer now," said Ella, firmly. "I only dreaded the possibility of a first meeting. Now this is overcome, and all the rest with it."

Erlau examined her features enquiringly, and somewhat suspiciously. "Indeed! then why have you wept?"

"Uncle, one cannot always control one's mood. I was cast down just now."

"Eleonore!" The Consul seated himself beside her, and took her hand in his. "You know I have never been able to overcome the thought that this unhappy connection commenced in my house, and my only satisfaction was that this house could afford you a home afterwards. I hoped that now, when years lie between, when everything in and around you has so completely changed, the injury you once received would pain you no longer; and instead I must see that it continues to burn undiminished and unforgotten--that the old wounds are torn open afresh, that you--"

"You are mistaken," interrupted Ella, hastily, "you are quite mistaken, I--have long made an end of the past."

Erlau shook his head incredulously. "As if you would ever show that you suffered! I know best what reticence and self-control are hidden under these fair plaits. You have often displayed more of it than you could answer for to your second father, but his sight is keener and goes deeper than that of others; and I tell you, Eleonore, you cannot be recognised since the day when that Rinaldo, regardless of all refusals, at last forced an interview upon you. What exactly passed between you I do not know to this day; it was trouble enough even to obtain the confession from you that he was with you. You are utterly inaccessible in such matters, but deny it as you may, you have become quite another person since that hour."

"Nothing took place at all," persisted Ella, "nothing of importance. He demanded to see the child, and I refused him."

"And who answers for it that he will not repeat the attempt?"

"Reinhold. You do not know him! I have dismissed him from my door; he will never pass it a second time. He understood everything, only not how to humble himself."

"At any rate he had tact enough to leave Mirando as soon as possible," said Erlau. "This vicinity would have been unbearable for any length of time. But his withdrawal was not of much use, as then Marchese Tortoni sprang up, who raved so uninterruptedly to you about his friend that I felt obliged at last to give him a hint that this subject did not receive the slightest sympathy from us."

"Perhaps you did it too plainly," suggested Ella, softly. "He had no conception of the wounds he touched, and your harsh repulse of it must have seemed remarkable to him."

"I do not care! Then he can obtain the commentary upon it from his much-admired friend. Were I to allow you to endure Signor Rinaldo's glorification for hours, certainly we were not much better off here. One cannot take up a newspaper, receive a visit, hold a conversation, without stumbling upon his name; every third word is Rinaldo. He seems to have infected the whole town with his tones and his new opera, which seems to be considered here as a sort of event of the world. Poor child! and you must be quiet under it all, must witness how this man regularly revels in victories and triumphs, how he has attained the zenith of success, and maintains it undisputed."

The young wife rested her head on her hand so that the latter shaded her face.

"Perhaps you deceive yourself after all. He may be celebrated and worshipped like no other--happy he is not."

"I am glad of it," said the Consul, violently, "I am extremely glad of it. There would be no more justice or right in the world if he were. And that he has seen you, as you allow yourself to be seen now, does not conduce much to his happiness, I hope."

He had risen at the last words, and walked up and down the room with his old vivacity. A short silence followed, which Ella at last interrupted--

"I want to beg something of you, dear uncle. Will you grant it me?"

Erlau stopped. "Gladly, my child. You know I cannot easily refuse you anything. What do you wish?"

Ella had fixed her eyes on the ground, and did not look up while she spoke.

"It is that Rein--that Reinhold's latest work is to be performed the day after to-morrow."

"Yes, to be sure, and then the adoration will become unendurable," growled Erlau. "You wish to escape from the first commotion about it--I understand that, perfectly; we will drive into the mountains for a week or a fortnight. Dr. Conti must give me leave of absence for so long."

"On the contrary. I wanted to beg you--to go to the opera with me."

The Consul looked at her with a countenance full of the most intense astonishment.

"What, Eleonore! I cannot have heard aright? You wish to go on that day to the theatre, which hitherto you have so decidedly avoided as soon as Rinaldo's name was connected with it?"

Notwithstanding the shielding hand, one could see plainly how the deep red which coloured her cheeks rose to her temples, as she replied almost inaudibly--

"I never ventured to enter the opera house at home, when his music reigned there. I always felt as if every one's eyes would be directed to me and seek me, even in the darkest background of our box. In your drawing-rooms and in those of our acquaintances I seldom or never heard his compositions. People avoided them whenever I was present; people knew what had taken place, and tried to spare me in every way. I never attempted to break through this fence of shielding consideration which you all drew around me. Perhaps I was too great a coward to do so, perhaps also, too much embittered. Now," she raised herself suddenly, with a violent motion, and her voice gained perfect firmness, "now I have seen Reinhold again, now I will learn to know him in his works--him and her."

Erlau's astonishment continued; apparently this affair surprised him in the highest degree, but it was very evident that he was not accustomed to refuse his favourite anything, even if it seemed to him to be a point requiring consideration. For the present, however, he was relieved from an immediate consent, as the servant entered with the announcement that Dr. Conti had just driven up, and that Captain Almbach also was in the drawing-room.

"Certainly, Herr Captain Almbach is most enviable in his want of diffidence," said the Consul. "Notwithstanding all that has passed between you and his brother, he asserts his right as a relation just the same as if nothing had occurred. Hugo Almbach is the only person in the world who could do this."

"Do you not like his visits?" asked Ella.

"I!" Erlau smiled. "Child, you know that he has won me as completely as every one else whom he chooses to win, perhaps only excepting my Eleonore, for whom he seems to entertain quite incredible respect."

He then took his adopted daughter's arm, and led her to the drawing-room. The medical visit did not last long, and Hugo in about half-an-hour also quitted the Erlau's house, which he was wont to visit frequently. Whether Reinhold knew of it could not be decided, certainly he suspected it; but there appeared to be a tacit agreement between the brothers not to touch upon this subject. It was not Captain Almbach's way to force himself into a confidence which was determinedly and continuedly withheld from him, and therefore he followed Reinhold's example, who observed utter silence about the meeting in the locanda. and never mentioned his wife's or child's names again, since he knew they were in his neighbourhood. What might be really hidden beneath the impenetrable reticence, Hugo could not discover, but he was convinced that it did not arise from indifference.

Captain Almbach had reached his brother's dwelling, and entered his own room, where he found Jonas, who seemed to be waiting for him. In the sailor's appearance to-day there was decidedly something unusual; his wonted phlegm had given way to a certain restlessness, with which he waited until his master had taken off hat and gloves and sat down. Hardly was this done, than he came forward and planted himself close beside the Captain's chair.

"What is it then, Jonas?" asked the latter, becoming attentive. "You look as if you meant to make a speech."

"That is what I wish to do," said Jonas, as he placed himself in an attitude half solemn, half confused.

"Indeed? That is something new. I was always under the impression hitherto that you would prove a most valuable acquisition to a Trappist monastery. If, however, by means of all the classical recollections here, the spirit of oratory has come to you also, I rejoice at it. Begin then, I will listen."

"Herr Captain Almbach"--the sailor's spirit of oratory did not seem to be sufficiently developed, as for the present he could not get beyond those three words, and instead of continuing, he gazed persistently and fixedly on the floor as if he wished to count the Mosaic stones.

"Listen, Jonas, I am suspicious about you," said Hugo, impressively. "I have been suspicious about you for more than a week, you do not growl any more; you cast no more furious looks at the padrona and her maids; you sometimes lay your face in folds, such as any one with power of imagination might consider the first feeble attempt at a smile. I repeat it, these are highly serious symptoms, and I am prepared for the worst."

Jonas seemed to discover that he must express himself somewhat more clearly. He made an energetic start, and actually completed half a sentence.

"Herr Captain Almbach, there are men--"

"A most indisputable fact, which I do not in the remotest degree intend to attack. So there are men--well, go on."

"Who may like women," continued Jonas.

"And others who may not like them," added the Captain, as a second pause ensued; "an equally undeniable fact, of which Herr Captain Hugo Almbach's seaman, William Jonas, of the 'Ellida,' is offered as an example."

"I did not wish to say that exactly," responded the sailor, whom this arbitrary continuation of his evidently studied speech quite disconcerted. "I only meant to say that there are men who appear to be, no one knows how unkind towards women, and yet at heart are not so at all, because they think nothing about them."

"I believe that is a very flattering illustration of my character," remarked Hugo. "But now tell me, for Heaven's sake, what do you purpose with all these prologues?"

Jonas drew several long breaths; the next words appeared to be too hard for him. At last he said, stammeringly--

"Herr Captain Almbach, I know, of course, best what you really are--and--and--I know a young woman."

A smile, which he suppressed with difficulty, quivered about Captain Almbach's lips, but he compelled himself to remain serious.

"Really!" said he, coolly, "that is, indeed, a remarkable event for you."

"And I will bring her to you," continued Jonas.

Now Captain Almbach began to laugh aloud. "Jonas, I believe you are not sane. What in the world am I to do with this young woman. Shall I marry her?"

"You shall do nothing with her," explained the sailor, with an injured countenance. "You are only to look at her."

"A very modest pleasure," scoffed Hugo. "Who then is the lady concerned, and what necessity requires me to look at her?"

"It is the little Annunziata, Signora Biancona's lady's maid," replied Jonas, who now became more fluent of speech. "A poor, quiet young thing, without father or mother. She has only been a couple of months with the Signora, and at first all went well with her; but there is a man," the sailor clenched his fist with intense rage, "called Gianelli, and he is the conductor; he follows the poor thing at every step, and never leaves her in peace. She has repulsed him once very roughly, and on that account he maligned her to the Signora, and since then the Signora is so unkind and violent to her, that she can stand it no longer. In that house, indeed, she does not see much good, and therefore she shall leave, and must leave, and I shall not allow her to remain any longer."

"You appear to be very fully informed about that little Annunziata," remarked Hugo, dryly. "She is an Italian; have you learned all these details by pantomimic means?"

"The Signora's servant helped us now and then, when we could not get on," confessed Jonas, quite openly. "But he speaks horrible German, and I do not like him putting his finger into everything. Without reference to this, though, she shall get away from the whole crew; she must absolutely go into a German house."

"On account of the morals," added Hugo.

"Yes, and besides on account of learning German. She cannot speak a single word of it, and it is really sad when people cannot understand one another. So I thought--you often go to Herr Consul Erlau, Herr Captain Almbach--perhaps young Frau Erlau may want a maid, and in such a rich household it cannot matter one person more or less, if you were to put in a good word for Annunziata." He stopped and looked beseechingly at his master.

"I will speak to the lady," said Captain Almbach, "and at all events it will be better for you only to introduce your protegée after I have had a decided answer; I will also look at her then. But one thing more, Jonas"--he put on a grave expression--"I presume that nothing influences you in the whole matter, excepting pity for the poor persecuted child?"

"Only pure pity, Herr Captain," assured the sailor, with such honest frankness that Hugo was obliged to bite his lips, so as not to give way to renewed laughter.

"I really believe he is capable of imagining that," murmured he, and then added aloud, "I am glad to hear it. I was convinced of it from the first; as you know, Jonas, we shall never marry!"

"No, Herr Captain," answered the sailor; but the answer sounded somewhat wanting in heartiness.

"Because we think nothing of women," said Hugo, with immovable seriousness. "Beyond pity and gratitude, the story never goes; then we sail away, and regret remains with them."

This time the sailor made no reply, but he looked at his master as if much taken aback.

"And it is indeed most fortunate that it is so," ended Captain Almbach, with great emphasis. "Women on our 'Ellida!' Heaven preserve us from them!"

With which he left Jonas and went out of the room. The latter looked after him with an expression in which it was difficult to decide whether it consisted more of annoyance or sadness; finally, however, the latter sentiment seemed to prevail, as he let his head droop, and uttered a sigh, saying, in an undertone--

"Yes, certainly, she is a woman also--more's the pity!"

Hugo had gone across into his brother's study, where he found him alone. The piano stood open, but Reinhold himself lay extended on the couch, his head thrown back on the cushions. The face, with its half-closed eyes and high forehead, with its dark hair falling over it, looked alarmingly pale. It was an attitude, not of repose, but of the most supreme fatigue and exhaustion, and he barely changed it at his brother's entrance.

"Reinhold, really this is too bad of you," said the latter, coming up to him. "Half the town is in commotion with your opera; in the theatre everything is in a whirl; people openly fight for tickets. His Excellency the Director does not know where his head is, and Donna Beatrice is in a regular state of nervous excitement. And you, the real promoter of all this disturbance, dream away here in dolce far niente. as if there were no public nor operas in the world."

Reinhold turned his head towards the new comer with a feeble, indifferent movement; his face showed that his dreams had been anything but sweet.

"You were at the rehearsal?" asked he. "Did you see Cesario?"

"The Marchese? Certainly, although he was no more at the rehearsal than I was. This time he preferred to give a performance himself in the higher equestrian art; I have just paid a high tribute of admiration to his bravery."

"Cesario? How so?"

"Well, he rode no less than three times up and down the same street, and regularly under a certain balcony; let his horse curvet so senselessly that one dreaded an accident every moment. He will break his own and his beautiful animal's neck too, if he should try that often. Unfortunately this time mine was the only, probably not much wished for, physiognomy which he saw at the window."

The evidently irritable tone of these words caught Reinhold's attention--he half raised himself up.

"At which window?"

Hugo bit his lips; in his anger he had quite forgotten to whom he spoke. His brother remarked his hesitation.

"Do you mean the Erlau's house?" asked he, quickly. "It seems to me you often visit it."

"Sometimes, at least," was Captain Almbach's quick response. "You know I have always enjoyed the privilege of neutrality there; even when the battle was raging most fiercely in my uncle's house, I have asserted this old privilege there, and it is tacitly recognised by both parties."

Reinhold had raised himself entirely, but the eagerness had quite disappeared from his features; in its place was a dark expression of enquiry, as he said--

"Then Cesario has also the entrée of the Erlau's house? Of course you introduced him there."

"Yes, I was so--stupid," said Captain Almbach, speaking angrily, "and I seem to have caused something very charming by it. We had hardly left Mirando when Don Cesario--who cannot resolve to sacrifice his freedom---who rides past the only lady in the neighbourhood without looking at her even--loses no time on the strength of that introduction in making himself agreeable at the Villa Fiorina; and this was done, the Herr Consul tells me, in so pleasant and modest a manner that it was impossible to repulse him; the more so, as our departure from Mirando removed the only cause of their seclusion. Then he was fortunate enough to discover Herr Doctor Conti, who was making his villegiatura somewhere in the vicinity, and bring him to the Herr Consul. The doctor's treatment produced results beyond all expectation, and Don Cesario is almost looked upon in the family as the saviour of life, which he knows how to make use of. Trust one of those women-haters! They are the worst of all; Jonas has just given me a speaking example of it. He has started a wonderful theory of pity, in which he believes firmly as in the Gospel; but all the same, it has caught him hopelessly, and the aristocratic Marchese Tortoni is on the same path."

It could not have escaped any calm observer, that under the Captain's mocking speech, which was usually only dictated by mischief, a bitterness lay concealed which, with all his scoffing, he could not quite control; but Reinhold was far from calm. He had listened as if he would read every word from off his brother's lips, and at the last remark he started up wildly.

"On what path? What do you mean by it?"

Hugo stepped back as if struck, "My God, Reinhold, how can you fly out like that? I only meant--"

"It concerns Ella, does it not?" interrupted Reinhold, with the same violence. "To whom else can these attentions be paid?"

"Certainly, to Ella," said Captain Almbach. It was the first time for months that this name had been mentioned between them. "And just for this reason, it can and must be indifferent to you."

Simple as the remark was, it seemed to hit Reinhold unexpectedly hard. He strode up and down the room once or twice, and at last stopped before his brother.

"Cesario has no idea of the truth," said he, in a suppressed voice; "he made some enthusiastic remarks to me at the beginning. I may have betrayed to him, involuntarily, how much they pained me, as since then he has not touched the topic again."

"Erlau appears to have given him a similar hint," added Hugo. "He tried to find out something about it from me--if any and what connection existed between you and that family. I naturally avoided it, but he seems to suspect some former enmity between you and Erlau."

Reinhold looked down gloomily. "This connection will indeed not long remain a secret. Beatrice knows it already, and, as I fear, from a very unsafe source, whence no silence can be expected. Cesario must learn it sooner or later, after what you have just disclosed to me. He is romantic enough to take anything of the sort seriously, and give himself up, with his whole soul, to a hopeless passion."

Captain Almbach leaned with folded arms against the piano, a slight pallor lay upon his face, and his voice trembled faintly, as he answered--

"Who tells you that it is hopeless?"

"Hugo, that is an insult," stormed Reinhold. "Do you forget that Eleonore is my wife?"

"She was," said Captain Almbach, emphasising the word strongly. "You surely think now as little of asserting such rights as she would be inclined to admit them."

Reinhold was silent. He knew best with what determination even the slightest appearance of any right was denied him.

"You have both been satisfied with mere separation," continued Hugo, "without requiring judicial divorce. You did not need it, and what restrains Ella from it I understand only too well. In such a case final decisions as to the possession of the boy must be made. She knew that you would never quite sacrifice your paternal rights, and trembled at the thought of giving you the boy even for a time. Your tacit resignation of him was sufficient for her; she preferred to give up all satisfaction, in order to remain in undisturbed possession of her child."

Reinhold stood there as if struck by lightning. The glow of agitation which had so lately coloured his brow disappeared; he had become deadly pale again, as he asked, in a suppressed voice--

"And this--this you think was the sole reason?"

"So far as I know Ella, the sole one which could prevent her completing the step which you had commenced."

"And you think that Cesario has hopes?"

"I do not know it," said Hugo, seriously, "but we both know that nothing stands in the way of Ella's freedom, if she were really disposed to assert it still. You forsook her, gave her up entirely for years, and all the world knows why it was done, and what kept you continuously away from her. She has not only law, but also public opinion on her side, and I fear the latter would compel you to leave the boy with her. Beatrice stands terribly in the way of your paternal rights."

"You think that Cesario has hopes?" repeated Reinhold, but this time the words sounded moody and full of menace.

"I believe that he loves her, loves her passionately, and that sooner or later he will try to woo her. He will then certainly learn that the imaginary widow was the wife of his friend, and still bears that friend's name, but I doubt if this will exercise any influence upon him, as not the slightest shadow falls upon Ella. Only your friendship may receive an irrecoverable blow; but even without this, it would be at an end, so soon as passion speaks; consider this, Reinhold, and do not let yourself be carried away to any rash act. You broke your bonds in order to set yourself free. Thereby you also made Eleonore free--perhaps for another."

Captain Almbach's voice fell at the last words, and, as if to suppress or conceal some violent emotion, he turned quickly to depart. Although his brother's agitation, whom he left alone, did not escape him, he had not the remotest suspicion of the firebrand which his words threw into the other's breast.

If Reinhold had shown almost nothing but fatigue and indifference lately to those around him, if a sensation often overcame him that for him there was an end of life and love, this moment proved that the same wild passion could still rage in his heart which had once drawn the young artist away from his bonds at home; and the manner in which the storm had been loosed, betrayed, if not to others yet to himself, that which hitherto he would not know, and which now disclosed itself to him with merciless distinctness. The defiance and bitterness with which he had armed himself against the wife who dared to let him feel that he had once deeply offended her, and that she would now and never more pardon this offence, succumbed before the burning pain which suddenly blazed forth in his breast. But although his pride taught him to meet the coldness, indifference and irreconciliation with harshness, he still could not prevent it that so soon as the picture of his child rose before him its mother's form also stood by its side. Certainly it was no longer the same Ella, who a few months previously barely held a place in his recollection, but the woman, who on that evening, when for the first time he recognised what he had so frivolously given up, and what he had irretrievably lost, had shown him such an energetic will, and such a never dreamed of depth of feeling. Near the child's fair curly head there hovered, ever and ever, the face with those large, deep blue eyes, whose glance had struck him so annihilatingly. He did not confess to himself with what passion he clung to this picture, with what longing he dreamed away hours in these recollections; he did not even confess the thought which lay unexpressed in his soul, that the woman who still bore his name, who was the mother of his child, notwithstanding all that had happened, still belonged to him, and although he had forfeited the right of possession, at any rate no other dared approach her.

And now he must hear that another already stretched forth his hand to the prize, and offered everything to gain it. His brother's words unsparingly disclosed the motive, to which alone he owed it, that Ella had not answered his flight with letters of divorce. Only for the child's sake was she still called his wife; not because one trace of liking for him lingered in her heart. And if she were now to take the step once avoided; if on her side she removed the chain, now when a Cesario offered her his hand, who could prevent her; who could blame the woman, who after the lapse of years sought at last in a purer, better love, recompense for the treachery her husband had exercised towards her? The danger did not lie in the fact that Marchese Tortoni, who was handsome, rich, and who, belonging to one of the noblest families, was the aim of so many aspirations, could raise his wife to a brilliant position; that could only come under Erlau's consideration; but Reinhold knew that Cesario, with his noble and thoroughly pure character, with his glowing enthusiasm for everything beautiful and ideal, might indeed win the heart of an Eleonore--yes, must win it--if this heart were still free; and this conviction robbed him of all self-possession. There was once an hour in which the young wife had lain full of despair on her knees by her child's cradle, with the annihilating consciousness that at that moment her husband was forsaking her, his child, and his home for another's sake--that hour now revenged itself on him, who was guilty of it, revenged itself in the words, which stood as if written in letters of flame before his soul--"Therefore you made her free also--perhaps for another."