XIII.
Below, in the garden saloon, Bertram found only Otto and the Baron, who abruptly stopped an eager conversation as Bertram entered. Otto looked greatly embarrassed; the Baron gave him one angry look, then turned away to the young ladies, who were walking on the verandah.
"I seem to have disturbed you," said Bertram.
"Don't be annoyed," replied Otto. "The Baron had, last night already, disagreeable news from home, which is confirmed to-day, and will compel him to travel back; and just now, in this time of tension, he wishes of course--it is extremely awkward ..."
"In one word, he has officially asked you for your daughter's hand?"
"Not exactly officially; we really do not know about Erna. You had undertaken to put us au courant, to advise and help us, and now you are not helping us at all, and--and my wife is rather annoyed with you on this ground."
"So I have observed; and therefore, to make up for previous omissions, I'll give you my advice now: get rid of him as quickly as possible, and spare Erna the humiliation of having to refuse the fellow."
"Humiliation? The fellow? How oddly you talk!"
"I talk how I feel. He is unworthy of Erna, absolutely."
"So you say; but why?"
Bertram made no answer. What good could it do now to have a dispute with Otto about the worthiness or unworthiness of the Baron?
"You see," said Otto triumphantly, "you have no real reason to give!" Then, seeing his friend look extremely grave, he went on--"I know of course that you mean well by Erna, by me, by all of us. Perhaps you are right, too, at least in this--that Erna may say: No. If she does, well, then there is an end of it, and Hildegard and he may see how they can best put up with it. If only it had not happened just now. I have my head quite full enough as it is--all these officers coming to be quartered here to-morrow, then the final debate on the railway question, and then I just remember that I have also to redeem to-morrow a certain mortgage, not much, only five thousand thalers, but it happens most inopportunely, I wanted to talk to you about it before, but I did not like to disturb you in your rooms; perhaps after dinner, or to-night sometime--there is my wife coming, for God's sake no fuss, I entreat you!"
Hildegard entered, Lydia followed soon after, the young ladies and the Baron came in from the verandah, and they all went to dinner. Conversation somehow flagged; every one was busy with his own thoughts, and, if one were to judge by looks, these thoughts did not seem to be pleasant ones, except in Hildegard's case. She kept smiling mysteriously to herself, and at last, when there had been a pause of some little duration, she held up a couple of letters which she had laid by the side of her plate, and said--
"It is really too bad; here, I am sitting with quite a treasury of most interesting surprises, and none of you take the trouble to show the slightest symptom of curiosity. It would really serve you right if I were not to say a word to you; but I will be gracious, as usual, and let you participate in my joy. First, then, your mother, Agatha, has after all yielded to my entreaties. It is most kind of her. She has a big party to-morrow, too; some twenty officers, she says, and can ill spare any of the girls. Still, she understands that I have even greater need of them in our solitude, if the crowd of uniforms is not to become intolerably monotonous--enfin, she'll send Louise and Augusta. They will arrive to-day; so we shall really be able to have a dance to morrow evening, if we invite the girls from the parsonage and a few others. Well, what do you say?"
Erna made no reply; she seemed hardly to have listened. Agatha said--
"You are very kind, aunt," but it did not sound hearty.
"Is that all?" exclaimed Hildegard. "Of course I am kind, far too kind to you ungrateful blasée girls, who cannot rise to enthusiasm even with the prospect of a dance! But you, Baron?"
"I envy the gentlemen," replied he, "who will benefit by your kindness; I myself, as you are aware, will scarcely be able to participate in it."
Hildegard raised her eyebrows.
"I thought," she said, "that the matter was settled. Your relations may see how they can best do without you. I wish to hear nothing more upon the subject. This is my ultimatum, and I beg you will respect it."
The Baron bowed, and muttered something about force majeure. Hildegard paid no heed to it; she had already taken up the second letter.
"I must beforehand apologise for my bad French accent. The letter is from the Residenz, and I ought to mention ..."
"From Princess Amelia?" the Baron asked eagerly.
"Not from our gracious Princess," replied Hildegard with a courteous smile, "but from a princess, for all that."
"Perhaps you would translate it?" suggested Otto timidly.
"Very well," replied his wife. "I was thinking of doing so anyhow, for I know you pretend that you do not understand French. Well, then--
"Madam,--Will you pardon a perfect stranger who ventures to request a favour which it is usual to grant only to one's friends, or to duly accredited persons--the favour of being your guest for a short time? You are amazed, madam; but why do you own a mansion whose classic style of architecture and whose internal fittings are the marvel of the land? Why does every one who can judge, laud you as unsurpassed in the horticultural art? I travel through Germany chiefly with the object of studying all that is best and most beautiful in these things, in order to try and imitate it upon my estates in Livadia. I shall not, as I said, trouble you long; only a day or two. To-morrow and the day after, if I may, for I can unfortunately not dispose differently of my time. And as regards the inconvenience I must needs cause you, I will try to reduce it to a minimum. A gardener or forester to pilot me about outside, a steward to show me some of the things inside, a little corner by your fireside, a little place at your table, a little chamber to sleep in; that is all! True, already too much, if I reflect; but one should not reflect, if one is the thorough egotist who has the honour of remaining, Madam, your obedient servant,--Princess Alexandra Paulovna ..."
Hildegard looked up from her letter, and said with a smile--
"I cannot make out the surname."
She passed the letter to Bertram, who was sitting on her right.
"Well," said the Baron, on her left, "she would seem to be a Russian, anyhow."
"No doubt of that. Well, my friend?"
"No," replied Bertram, "I cannot make it out."
"Will you allow me?" said the Baron.
Bertram handed the letter back to Hildegard, who passed it on to the Baron.
"Why," he exclaimed, "it is quite plain, Bo--Bo!" He paused.
"Bo, Bo, Bo!" laughed Lydia. "Let me try." But Lydia failed too; the note was passed round the table; Otto and Agatha tried and failed; Erna passed it on to Bertram without casting one glance at it.
"Will you not try?" asked Bertram.
"No."
She uttered this so sharply that Bertram looked up terrified.
"How very unkind," said her mother.
Bertram had the same impression at first, but he knew Erna too well; there was assuredly something else going on in her mind, something which had tried to find expression in the abrupt No. She was very pale, and had pressed her teeth against her under lip, whilst her eyes looked gloomily and fixedly straight in front of her. One might have expected her to burst into a flood of tears the next moment. To turn the attention of the rest from her, and also to overcome his own feelings of uneasiness, he began once more diligently to spell away at the signature, and suddenly exclaimed--
"I have got it, I think--Volinzov--Alexandra Paulovna Volinzov!"
"Let me see, please?" exclaimed Hildegard. "Really, Volinzov; and quite plain too. How blind we have been! Dear me, Herr Baron, what is the matter with you?"
"I beg a thousand pardons," said the Baron from behind his handkerchief, which he held pressed to his face, rising from the table as he spoke, and swiftly withdrawing from the room.
Hildegard looked sadly after his retreating figure.
"Poor fellow!" she said, "I am so sorry. He is in a terrible state of excitement. And now, in addition, this home news--if I only knew what it is all about, but he is discretion personified."
Bertram, still pondering over Erna's strange demeanour, had almost mechanically cast his eye over the whole letter, and only became conscious of this on coming to a passage which he did not remember having heard in Hildegard's translation.
"Here," he said, "is one line, my fair friend, which has escaped you, and which yet strikes me as important. Listen: 'thorough egotist who has the courage to follow her letter at once, and has the honour,' &c."
"Impossible!" exclaimed Hildegard.
"There it stands; see for yourself. You passed from the last line but two on to the last."
"Oh dear! oh dear!" exclaimed the hostess. "She will be wanting to dine of course; and that is not the worst, but all the rooms will be occupied by to-morrow afternoon."
"The officers must do with a little less accommodation," said Otto. "It will be all right."
"No, it will not be all right," said his wife, "if each of them is to have a room of his own; and we cannot put less than two each at the disposal of the two Majors and the Colonel."
"Let me help you in your embarrassment," said Bertram. "You know, I originally intended leaving early to-morrow, let us adhere to the old plan; the more so, because I have just received a letter which necessitates my very speedy return to Berlin."
"That is an excuse," exclaimed his friend.
"No excuse, my dear fellow; you may see the letter yourself. But I may as well say what it is about. I have been selected by my political friends for a forthcoming vacancy in the Reichstag."
"But you will surely not stand?"
"Indeed, I mean to do so."
"And your Italian trip?"
"Postponed to some future day."
"But your illness?"
"Thanks to your excellent nursing, I never felt better in my life."
"But it's quite out of the question!" cried Otto. "I cannot let you. It would be downright ..."
In thus urging his friend to stay, Otto was simply following the dictates of his own good-natured heart, without any reference to his own special interests; now it suddenly occurred to him that his wife had that very morning called Bertram's presence a positive misfortune, and had accused him of standing--the one obstacle--between herself and the execution of her favourite plan.
So he broke off abruptly, casting a sheepish, embarrassed look at his wife.
Hildegard blushed to the very temples. Now she was obliged to urge him to stay, if everything she had been settling during the last few days in secret with Lydia and the Baron, and at last with her husband too, was not to lie like an open book before Bertram, and unless there was to be a real rupture, which, of course, it was desirable to avoid as long as possible. In order to conceal the true reason of her blush, she seized, as though obeying some uncontrollable impulse, both his hands, and said--
"I am almost speechless with amazement, my friend! Otto is quite right; the thing is impossible, it would be downright--abominable--that is what you were going to say, is it not, dear Otto? You cannot, must not leave us now. In a few days, if it really must be, well and good; but not now. I have--quite apart from our own feelings--revelled in the thought of the pleasant surprise it will be for Herr von Waldor to meet here, upon the threshold of a strange house, an old friend of his own. And if old friendship cannot exercise a spell over you, are you not allured by the prospect of meeting the mysterious Russian, whose name you alone were able to decipher, and who will not care to converse with any one except yourself, once she has heard how beautifully you speak French? But come--Otto, Lydia, Agatha--help me to entreat our friend to stay."
In the general excitement, every one had risen from table, dinner being finished anyhow, and now they were talking on the verandah. The Baron had reappeared too, but was keeping at some little distance; he evidently had not quite recovered from his attack. Those to whom Hildegard had appealed by name hastened to comply with her request, and were all urging Bertram to remain. He never heard them at all; he did not even see them; he had eyes for Erna only.
Erna, as though she had no interest whatever in the matter under discussion, had stepped down from the verandah to one of the flower-plots on the lawn. Suddenly she turned, retraced her steps slowly, ascended the verandah again, and approached him. Her cheeks--so pale but a short time ago--were flushed now; there was a light in those large eyes, and a defiant smile played round her dainty lips. She fastened a beautiful red rose, just about to unfold, in his buttonhole.
"I prayed you the night you came--I pray you again: Stay! stay--for my sake! Come, Agatha!"
She had seized her cousin by the hand, and drawn her away into the garden; Bertram had stepped into the billiard-room, and was knocking the balls about; the others looked at each other, amazed, embarrassed, frightened, scornful. But, greatly though their various feelings desired expression and exchange, and opportune though the occasion might appear, there was no chance in the meantime. For the very next moment the sound of a post-horn was heard coming from the great courtyard, and announced, to Hildegard's terror, that Princess Volinzov had interpreted her own letter literally, and had really followed it without delay.