CHAPTER VI.
A couple of cards of invitation were after a fleeting examination stuck into the frame of the mirror, then came two Austrian newspapers, then three letters from Austria; one addressed in a firm, bold hand he opened instantly with a smile of pleasure and the exclamation "from my mother! at last! I am very curious to know what she says to my betrothal--I began to be anxious--she has taken so long to write."
But the light in his eyes faded, he frowned, angrily crushed the letter together, and propping his elbows on the table leaned his head upon his hands. "I could not have thought this possible," he murmured.
"Is not your mother satisfied?" Georges asked.
"Satisfied--?" growled Oswald, "satisfied--? she couldn't be dissatisfied if she tried ever so hard, but she does not rejoice with me. There, read that. 'Dear child, I agree to everything that will make you happy, and pray for every blessing upon yourself and your betrothed, whom, moreover, I remember as a charming little girl ....'"
"Well, what more can you ask?" said Georges, elevating his eyebrows.
"What more can I ask?" Oswald very nearly shouted, "what more can I ask? why, I am not used to having such conventional phrases served up to me by my mother!"
"Do you and your mother live upon perfectly good terms with each other?" asked Georges, mechanically brushing away a few crumbs on the table-cloth, and without looking at his cousin.
Oswald opened his eyes wide. "My mother and I? Why, yes, what can you be thinking of?"
Georges made no reply, he remembered perfectly well that years previously, before he had left home the Countess Lodrin had been anything but tender to her charming little son, nay, that she had been the downright fine-lady mother who figures in romances, but who fortunately is found but seldom in real life.
He thought it unnecessary, however, to remind his cousin of this.
In the meanwhile Oswald had somewhat cooled down. "My poor unreasonable mother!" he said half-aloud to himself, "it is so hard for her to give me up, in all her life she has had me only. Well, I shall soon bring her round. Ah, Georges, Georges, it seems but a poor arrangement in this life that we must so often take from one person to give to another! I only hope that my mother's letter to my betrothed is more cordial. Ah, here are two more epistles," and in no cheerful mood he opened one after the other of the two very business-like envelopes, read their contents, compared them with each other, threw both upon the table and, quite pale, with very red lips and flashing eyes, began to pace to and fro, from time to time passing his hand angrily across his forehead. "Everything disagreeable is sure to happen all at once!" he exclaimed.
Georges knowing his cousin's impetuousity watched his excitement with smiling composure. "Is Vesuvius again in a state of eruption," he said kindly, "or what is the matter, man alive?"
"Siegl is an ass!"
"Ah?--and your man of business besides?"
"Yes."
"Then this present affair is a matter of business?"
"No!" Oswald said gloomily, "an affair of honour. The matter is that I am forced to break my word--voilà tont! But I cannot understand Siegl, he ought to know ...." Suddenly he went to his secretary, opened it, rummaged nervously among a chaos of letters, at last finding a closely-written sheet, which he read through carefully, then grew very quiet, and seating himself opposite Georges at the uncleared breakfast-table, said "I am wrong, it is my fault."
"Pray explain yourself," said Georges, "my counsel, and my experience are at your service."
"The matter is simple enough. Before I came away from home I gave Siegl a power of attorney to conclude an unfinished sale, the sale of a couple of insignificant building lots in W----. In practical business matters I can thoroughly rely upon him. Well, the other day I had this letter from him asking whether I would agree to the winding up of the affair under certain conditions, and at the end of the letter he asked me in this case to telegraph him. His handwriting is execrable and his style most tedious,--and--and I hurried off to the Avenue Labédoyère. I was going to ride in the Bois with Gabrielle,--in short I skimmed over the letter, never noticing that he asked about another far more important sale, and telegraphed, 'I agree to everything; do as you think best.'"
"Eh bien!"
Oswald cleared his throat. "You remember Dr. Schmitt? He was our family physician, a true man if ever there was one, my father valued him highly. Well, he leased an estate from us, Kanitz, it lies in one corner of the Schneeburg grounds; after the old man's death his son held the lease, he is a very good fellow, we served together in the same regiment in our volunteer year. He married, and set great store by the lease, which would run out in three years. Before his marriage he came to me to know whether he might depend upon an extension of the lease; of course I promised it to him, thereby relieving him of immense anxiety. And now Siegl has sold the property at a high price to Capriani, and is very proud of the transaction, and it is all because of my thoughtlessness, because I thought it too tedious to read through his roundabout epistle and .... and young Schmitt, poor devil, is quite beside himself, and writes me this letter! I cannot understand Siegl, he might have asked me again, he knows me perfectly well, he ought to have known that I could never have contemplated anything of the kind ....! But it's just the way with all my people! If they can make a few gulden for me, no matter how, they pride themselves upon it hugely; no one seems to understand that I care precious little for the augmentation of my income; what I want is, to alleviate as far as lies in my power the existence of as many men as possible!"
"How old are you, Ossi?" Georges asked with an oddly-scrutinizing glance at his cousin.
"Twenty-six. What makes you ask?"
"Your transcendental views of life, my child. Men and ants are born with wings, but both rub them off in the struggle for existence,--men usually do so before they are twenty-four."
"That goal is passed," rejoined Oswald, "and the winged ants do not lose their wings, they only die young," and he became again absorbed in study of the two letters. "I cannot blame Siegl this time, try as hard as I can, it is my fault; 'tis enough to drive one mad!"
"I can understand how it goes against the grain, but--well, you must indemnify Schmitt with another property."
"That of course, but it does not help the matter," Oswald grumbled, "he has a special love for Kanitz--he was born there, his parents are buried there in a pretty little churchyard on the edge of the woods by the Holtitzer brook. He takes care of their graves himself--they are perfect beds of flowers. And his wife!--I paid her a visit last Autumn,--she is a dear little shy thing, and she looked at me out of her large eyes as if I were Omnipotence itself. There is such an old-fashioned loyalty, so poetic a content about those people; upon whom shall we depend if we heedlessly destroy the devotion of such as they? Schmitt must keep Kanitz, even although I buy it back at double the price paid for it!"
"My dear fellow you can do nothing with money where Capriani is concerned," Georges observed calmly, "but I am convinced that he is very desirous of standing well with all of you. If you make a personal request of him he certainly will not object to annul his purchase. If the matter is really important to you go and call upon Capriani, and...."
Oswald tossed his head angrily. "What? ask me to have any personal intercourse with that man--no--in an extreme case indeed----but there must be some legal way out of the difficulty, it is a matter for our agents--Ça! A quarter of twelve and I breakfast at Truyn's."
"You must make haste. Can I do anything for you?"
Oswald went to the writing-table and in large bold characters wrote a couple of lines on a sheet of paper. "Pray see that this telegraph to Schmitt goes off immediately, and then one thing more--if it does not bore you too much--please leave a card for me at the places on this list. Do not take any trouble, but if you should be passing.... Good-bye old fellow--remember we are to go home together."
"Hotspur!" murmured Georges as the door closed after his cousin. "Well, after all, I do not grudge him his position; he becomes it well."