CHAPTER XIV.
[THE MISTRESS OF EICHHOF AND HER GUESTS.]
With the first fall of snow there was born in Eichhof a little son and heir, and Bernhard, who had been summoned from Berlin, whither he had gone for a short autumn session, stared helplessly at the little creature that Thea presented to him, and which he proudly called his son, although how that red, wrinkled mite, quite buried in laces, could ever develop into a stalwart representative of the Eichhofs he could hardly imagine.
Consideration for her child kept Thea at Eichhof this winter, and Bernhard allowed her to follow her inclination in this respect, all the more willingly that his 'improvements' at Eichhof had cost a great deal, and he would scarcely have been able to maintain the state which he deemed required by his rank had his wife gone with him to Berlin and been presented at court.
"You are the dearest and most prudent of wives," he said to Thea; "and you are quite right to stay here this winter. But for all that you must not live the life of a recluse, for, since our year of mourning is over, we owe it to our position and to our neighbours to open our house again, even although I must be away. Your father and Lothar are close at hand, and will supply my place."
Lothar was enchanted with this prospect, although he was, upon the whole, more cool and reserved in his demeanour towards his brother at this time than he had ever been before. He had found Thea in tears once or twice during Bernhard's absence; for these tears he considered his brother responsible, and not wholly without reason.
"Now that is really a sensible idea of yours, Bernhard," said he. "Thea, we will give charming entertainments. We must take good care to have no more tears," he added in a low voice, meant for his sister-in-law's ear alone.
Herr von Rosen shook his head, and pronounced Thea still too young to go out and to give entertainments without her husband, especially this winter, when, in consequence of a cattle-plague in neighbouring Poland, there was a strong cordon militaire established in the vicinity to keep guard over the frontier.
"There are many young officers hereabouts now," he said, "and the Schönburgs and Lindenstadts have some young girls staying with them, so that the feminine element is not wanting. There are balls and all kinds of entertainments in the air, which my wife and I shall not always be able to attend, although I wish with all my heart that Alma could enjoy them all."
"Well, if you cannot go, Thea can chaperone her; the greater the gayety, the more frequent the balls, the more reason, it seems to me, that Thea should not shut herself up. She owes it to her position not to do so; and if her going out without me, young as she is, seems unusual, why, we must remember that she is an unusual woman. Much that would be very unbecoming in a Frau Miller or Frau Schmidt would be quite fitting in the Countess Eichhof."
Lothar entirely agreed with his brother upon this point, and all that Herr von Rosen could do was to try to persuade the old Countess Eichhof to spend this winter in the castle with Thea.
Bernhard left home, after having made known far and wide that Castle Eichhof was no longer closed to visitors, and the old Countess, who had actually come to her daughter-in-law, soon followed him, as she had accepted an invitation from a relative who lived in great splendour in Dresden. She explained to Herr von Rosen, with many sighs and tears, that she found it impossible to be only number two in a house where she had so long held sole sway; she assured him that upon the whole Thea was a dear child and could not help it, but her visitors showed such an inconceivable lack of tact as constantly to make her conscious of the great difference that there was between Castle Eichhof now and what it had been formerly, and so on, until she exhausted Herr von Rosen's patience, and he mutely assented to whatever she had to say and made no more efforts to induce her to remain.
Nor did Thea try to detain her. She was so proud and secure in the possession of her little son that she was quite ready to undertake to fulfil her social duties without any timidity, and she received with extreme dignity the young officers, who of course hastened to avail themselves of Bernhard's invitation to call at the castle.
"Thea is absolutely famous," Lothar repeated incessantly to Werner, and he was quite irritated that his friend did not join in his enthusiastic praise of his sister-in-law, merely assenting by a cool nod of his head, and even going less frequently to Eichhof. Lothar reproached him with this, and yet was never in a good humour when Werner accompanied him thither. For this man, usually so grave and silent, knew how to introduce subjects of conversation that absorbed all Thea's interest. He would become really talkative and brilliant, and, since the topics under discussion generally had some reference to literature or art, Lothar was soon bored, and felt himself quite de trop and thrust out in the cold. It was odd that Werner had lately seemed to have a perfect talent for irritating Lothar, who often, nowadays, was very impatient with his friend without any reasonable cause, for Werner's demeanour towards him was not changed in any respect.
One day Thea was seated in her bow-windowed room in full council with the cook, the housekeeper, and the major-domo. The matter in hand was the arrangements for an entertainment to be given the next day at Eichhof, and Thea was availing herself of the experience of her trusty retainers. She sat at a table with a sheet of paper before her, jotting down various memoranda, and the three people stood by with grave faces, evidently quite aware of the enormous responsibility resting upon their shoulders. There had been a slight difference of opinion between the housekeeper and her young mistress, and Thea had for the first time asserted herself and carried her point with quiet firmness. She was so much interested that she bestowed only a careless 'good-day' upon Lothar, who entered the room and, seated in a low arm-chair, became both spectator and auditor of the debate. He sat with his back towards the window, so that the light fell full upon Thea. She wore a black silk gown, with a profusion of rich white lace at her throat and wrists, her sole ornament being a cross upon a broad, heavy golden chain at her neck. The very simplicity of her dress set off the delicate noble outline of her face, from which the large dark eyes, beneath the finely-pencilled eyebrows, were now gazing with a gentle, kindly expression upon the servants who were receiving her orders.
"How beautiful she is!" thought Lothar, as he sat and looked at her. "Bernhard is a fool to leave this woman here while he busies himself, or thinks he busies himself, with politics in Berlin. To be sure, she is an angel, and can do everything that she attempts, even to representing her husband in his absence. But it is not right of him for all that, and I should just like to know what she thinks of it. I wonder whether she misses him much?"
Thea now dismissed her people and turned to Lothar. "What! alone again?" she asked, offering him her hand. "Has Herr von Werner repented his promise to help us with the decoration of the ball-room?"
"Oh, you never can count upon him," said Lothar; "he said he could not possibly come with me, but would make his appearance later."
"Well, then, let us go to the greenhouses and pick out what we want from there."
Half an hour afterwards Lieutenant Werner arrived. He did not follow the young people to the greenhouses as the servant suggested, but awaited their return in the bow-windowed room. Here he walked slowly to and fro, paused for a few seconds before Thea's writing-table, and then went into the bow-window, where stood her low chair and her embroidery-frame. He passed his hand over her work with a touch that was like a caress, then suddenly turned away and stood at the window, leaning his forehead against the glass pane. Here he remained motionless until Lothar and Thea entered the room.
"Oh, I am so glad you are come!" the Countess exclaimed upon seeing him. "Now we will go immediately to the ball-room to arrange the plants and the table for the cotillon favours."
"Ah, we are to have a cotillon, then?" said Werner.
"Yes; this is to be a dinner followed by a dance, after the old Eichhof fashion. My husband writes me that our section of country is actually falling into undeserved disrepute from a social point of view, and he makes it my bounden duty to do the honours of the castle as well as possible. I pray you, therefore, to do all that you can to help me to entertain the young officers from the frontier posts."
Lothar and Werner arranged the pretty favours for the cotillon on a satin cushion placed on the table for the purpose, while Thea disposed little flowering plants around it. It all looked very bright and fancifully gay.
"I want it to be all ready by the afternoon," she said, "for my father and sister are coming over to tea, and the dance is a surprise for Alma."
"It absolutely delights my soul to see you busy with anything so frivolous as cotillon favours," said Lothar to Werner, who was just arranging a refractory ribbon.
"Do I weary you with all I give you to do?" asked Thea.
Werner laughed. "For heaven's sake, my dear Countess, do not take me, as your brother-in-law does, for a mere bookworm in uniform."
"Not at all; I take you for a profound philosopher."
"Greatly obliged, I'm sure; but really, Eichhof, I cannot see why I should not like to unpack and arrange these pretty little things, or why my books, which you so despise, should hinder me from winning some of them in the cotillon."
"I know how well you dance, and ride too, and that is just why I cannot understand how you can read so much. When did you learn that habit?"
"I learned it when my income would not allow of my passing much time outside of my four walls."
Lothar was silent, and Werner went on very composedly: "At the time of the universal money-panic, after those years when gold seemed to be lying about by millions in the streets, and when many a man, in stooping to pick up what he fancied he saw, lost his own hard thalers out of his pocket, I suddenly found my modest income reduced by one-half. All the choice I had was either to make it suffice or to leave the service, and as I was a soldier, and nothing but a soldier to the very marrow of my bones, I got through."
"Couldn't you give me a receipt for the process?" asked Lothar.
Werner laughed. "The receipt is simple enough: 'Determine to do what you must.'"
"And then it was that you began to read?" said Thea.
"Oh, I had tried somewhat before to fill up the gaps in a cadet's education, but then it was that I began to read in earnest, for my books had to indemnify me for so much else. Now that I have no longer that reason for study, my taste leads me in the same direction. Did you look through the book I sent you the other day, Countess?"
Here they were again launched upon one of those confounded literary topics that made Lothar feel his presence so superfluous. He gave a vicious dig to the pin by which he was fastening a knot of ribbon to the cushion, and then went and worked away among the flower-pots, wishing fervently that Herr von Rosen would come and interrupt this bookish talk, and altogether getting himself into a desperately bad humour.
When at last the carriage from Schönthal drove up, he hurried out to meet the guests. Thea observed for the first time this afternoon that Lothar was certainly attentive to Alma; he devoted himself to her exclusively, and no wonder, she looked so bright and pretty that it was but natural that Lothar should be fascinated.
Thea brought out Walter's last letter, from which she wished to read a few extracts to her father. As she opened it, two photographs fell out of the envelope and made the round of the table about which they were sitting over a cup of afternoon tea. One was a late picture of Walter; the other, which he asked to have returned to him, was Dr. Nordstedt.
"A fine, earnest face," said Werner, looking at the latter.
Lothar glanced at it over his friend's shoulder. "By Jove, that is a beard!" he exclaimed. "Look, Alma: how do you like that?"
He handed her the picture. She looked at it with a smile. "He has fine eyes," she said, "but otherwise the picture does not please me. I detest those huge beards."
Lothar stroked and twisted his handsome blonde moustache, and Alma cast a glance at him as if to compare the two heads,--heads so dissimilar that there was absolutely no comparison between them.
"Does Walter say nothing of the Hohensteins?" asked Herr von Rosen. "Adela and her father have been two weeks now in Berlin."
"Walter does not seem to have seen them," replied Thea; "he never mentions them."
"I should like to see how papa Hohenstein comports himself towards his new relatives," said Lothar.
"He does not comport himself towards them at all," Alma answered him. "Adela wrote me that her father seems very well, and is very amiable to everybody, except that he will neither hear nor see anything of the Kohnheims, and if his affairs did not compel him to be in Berlin, he would, owing to them, far rather never have gone there."
"I am very curious with regard to Hugo's wife," said Lothar. "I really never dreamed that he would make such a marriage. In the spring the happy couple are to come to Rollin, because papa-in-law Kohnheim absolutely must see his daughter installed there as a noble châtelaine. Aha! our part of the country is growing excessively interesting; we have a Polish countess already, we are going to have a Jewess, and we may hope shortly to have a third,--a Japanese."
"Matters are bad enough," Herr von Rosen said, seriously, "when the salvation from ruin of a young nobleman and of an ancient family must be sought at the hand of a Jewish heiress."
"Before resorting to such means it surely would be better to send a bullet through one's brains," said Lothar.
"Or to live within one's income," Herr von Rosen gravely corrected him.
"Of course; and Hohenstein might have done so, since he was the only son of a man who certainly some years ago possessed considerable wealth."
Herr von Rosen fixed his eyes earnestly upon Lothar for a moment, and then said, "My dear Lothar, I think it can be done in every case. He who has but little must rely solely upon that, and not try to build himself a house of cards."
A flush mounted to Lothar's forehead; he passed his hand through his hair in some embarrassment, but said nothing. It seemed to him that Herr von Rosen had laid special emphasis upon the word 'cards,' and it awakened in his mind all kinds of disagreeable memories.
"I am so sorry for the poor rich girl,--I mean Hugo Hohenstein's wife," said Alma; "although, for Adela's sake, I cannot but be glad that matters are to be arranged at Rollin."
Lothar had conquered his embarrassment. "Nonsense!" he said. "The 'poor rich girl' is my lady Baroness von Hohenstein, wears Parisian toilettes, and will be quite content if you do not all treat her too badly. Why, Rollin is being turned inside-out to make it worthy to receive her. A regiment of tradesfolk are at work there, and the Rollin wagons are rolling to and from the railroad station every day, transporting the adornments of the cage that is to imprison the golden bird."
"Adela will be unhappy if much in Rollin is changed," said Alma.
"Oh, Adela will be a lovely sister-in-law for the little Jewess; she is not to be pitied so far as Adela is concerned," Lothar declared.
"Most certainly not," said Thea.
"Werner had taken no part in the discussion. He looked at his watch, and rose to take leave.
"I am seriously concerned about Lothar," said Herr von Rosen, when the young officers had departed. "There are a couple of incorrigible gamblers among the officers of the frontier posts, and it is reported that Lothar lately played with them all night long."
"But that would be horrible, papa," exclaimed Thea, "when he promised Bernhard so faithfully that he would be prudent----"
"He is too heedless!"
"And yet such a dear good fellow withal," Thea said, affectionately, inwardly resolving to entreat Werner on the morrow to have an eye upon her brother-in-law while Bernhard was away.
"Yes, he is an amiable fellow, but thoroughly untrustworthy," Herr von Rosen rejoined.
Alma said nothing, but her cheek flushed and paled. She knew her father was right, but then she could find so many reasons for excusing Lothar. Thea looked very grave and sad. She suspected how it stood with her sister. She had honestly taken pains to know Lothar, and, although she could not but be prepossessed by his frank amiability, she had arrived at the conviction that he was wavering and uncertain in his views and principles. She had not sufficient experience of life to judge whether his character would ever become firm and stable, but with true feminine instinct she suspected what she could not know, and felt instinctively that it would cost her many an anxious fear to see her sister's happiness intrusted to a man like Lothar. Often when Alma had involuntarily betrayed her affection Thea had wished for an instant that Lothar might reciprocate it, but the next moment she would gladly have known them miles asunder. And on the morrow they were to dance together in her house, and to enjoy all the opportunity for familiar intercourse afforded by an entire evening! She wished Alma had fallen in love with Werner, who she could see was attracted by her. Else why should he come to Eichhof whenever Alma was there? And why else had she so often surprised that dreamy expression in his eyes? Oh, if Alma had only loved him! He was so trustworthy and honourable! Long after she had retired for the night her thoughts were occupied with her sister and the young officers.