CHAPTER XIII.
The bright spring sunshine streamed through the open bow-window of the Countess's boudoir and stretched a broad band of light at her feet. She was sitting in an arm-chair knitting with very thick wooden needles and coarse brown worsted, something evidently destined for a charitable purpose.
The boudoir, an irregular square room and with a picturesque bow-window, was furnished with no regard to uniformity of style, and therefore had the charm which characterizes rooms which have been as it were gradually evolved from the habits and tastes of a cultured occupant, until they are the frame or setting of an individuality. A delightful confusion of comfort and feminine taste reigned here, and the two or three trifling articles that offended all artistic sense, struck the eye only as piquant beauty spots. The cabinets, filled with rare old porcelain, threw into strong relief the ugly inkstand and candlesticks of modern dark-blue Sèvres upon a writing-table. They were a memento,--a marriage gift from a Russian cousin and youthful playmate who fell in the Crimean war. Among some old pictures, an Andrea del Sarto, a Franz Hals, and two Wateaus, hung in triumphant self-complacency a portrait by Lawrence--a man's head and bust,--a crimson-lined cloak was thrown around the shoulders, the shirt collar was open, black hair fell low on the brow, the eyes were large and wild, the frankly smiling mouth was exquisitely chiselled. It hung just over the writing-table, lord of all, and was the portrait of Oswald Zinsenburg, an uncle of the Countess, a gifted fellow, who, when Secretary of Legation in England, had been intimate with Lord Byron, and in all the romantic ardour of a young aristocrat fighting for freedom, had died of brain fever at Missolonghi at the age of twenty-seven, shortly after Lord Byron's death.
This portrait the Countess Wjera loves, principally because it is so like her son, and upon it her gaze rested as she dropped the long wooden-needles in her lap, and fell into a revery.
The air of the room was penetrated with the delicious fragrance of the roses, and lilies of the valley that filled the various vases. Everything was quiet,--the birds were taking their siesta, the faint pattering of the horse-chestnut blossoms could be heard as they fell upon the gravel path, before the castle.
The drowsy midday stillness was suddenly broken by a softly whistled Russian gipsy melody and an elastic young footstep. The Countess turned her head. She knew the air well--how often she had sung it! The whistling came nearer, then ceased, and the door of the boudoir opened. "May we come in?" a cheery voice asked.
"Always welcome!" replied the Countess, and Oswald, followed by a large shaggy Newfoundland, entered, his curls wet and clinging to his forehead, a bunch of waterlilies in his hand, and looking more than ever like the portrait by Lawrence.
"Good morning, mamma; how are you? Make your bow, Darling--so, old fellow--so!" And as the Newfoundland gravely lowered his fine head, a performance for which he was duly caressed by his master, Oswald sank into a low seat beside his mother.
"You have been bathing," she observed, stroking back his wet hair.
"Yes, I have been swimming in the lake at Wolnitz, and I have brought you these waterlilies," he replied, laying the flowers in her lap, "they are the first I have seen this year, and they are your favourite flowers, are they not? How fair and melancholy they are! Strange that these pure white things should spring from such slimy mud! May I?" taking out his cigar-case.
"Of course, my child. What have you been about to-day? I have not seen you before."
"I went out very early. I had sent for the forester to come to me at seven, and I went with him to the new plantations. The young firs are as straight as soldiers. And then I dawdled about in the woods--it was so lovely there!--'tis the earth's honeymoon, and when I see everything blossoming out in the sunshine, I think of all that lies in the near future for me, and I feel like shouting for joy! Apropos, mamma, I have found a site for the Widow's Asylum that you want to found. I have been puzzling over the best situation for it, and I have decided to put the old Elizabeth monastery at the disposal of your benevolence. Is this what you would like?"
She held out her hand to him with a smile. "Have you found time to think of that too? I thought you had forgotten my scheme long ago."
"Ah yes, I am in the habit of forgetting your wishes!" he said gaily.
"No, Heaven knows you are not," the Countess murmured, "you have always been loving and considerate to me."
"And what else could I be, mamma?" he said affectionately. "Ah, on a glorious spring day like this, when the world is so beautiful, and my blood goes coursing in my veins with delight, I am tempted to kneel down before you and thank you for the dear life you have bestowed upon me--what is the matter, mamma, you have suddenly grown so pale?"
"It is nothing--only a slight pain in my heart--it has gone already," the Countess whispered, turning aside her head.
"Quite gone?--is it my cigar smoke?"
"Not at all, dear child!"--
In spite of this assertion he tossed his cigar out of the window. "You used to smoke yourself," he observed.
"Yes," she said, looking down at her knitting, "but since I have learned to employ my hands, I have given up smoking."
"You knit instead--It seems odd to me to see you knitting. Georges thinks you very much altered."
"I have grown old, voilà!"
"And he thinks too that you spoil me tremendously, that no mother in all Austria spoils her son as you do me."
"No other mother has such a son," the Countess said proudly.
"Oh, oh!" he laughed and took his seat beside her again.
"Nevertheless, I am not blind to your faults," she continued, "I know them all."
"And love every one of them."
"Because they are the faults of a noble nature--men of lower tendencies are obliged to show more self-control."
"Indeed! God bless your aristocratic prejudices! and now for a piece of news. The Truyns reach Rautschin to-morrow by the four o'clock train. Will you drive with me to meet them?"
"Certainly, if you wish me to."
"If I wish you to--if I wish you to!"--he softly snapped his fingers, "and you look all the while as if I had asked you to attend an execution with me. I cannot quite understand you, mamma, you used to take delight in every little pleasure that chance threw in my way, and now will you not rejoice in my great happiness? As soon as there is any allusion made to my betrothal, your whole manner changes; you grow so distant and reserved, that I hardly like to mention my betrothed."
"I really did not know, Ossi ..." began the Countess with constraint.
"Oh, yes, mother, I felt in Paris that you were not pleased with my betrothal, and I have racked my brain to discover what there can be about it that you do not like, and I can not imagine what it is. There can be no objection to make to Gabrielle." Then suddenly smiling in the midst of his irritation, and curbing the impetuous flow of his words, he asked in a lower tone and more calmly, "Ah, ça, mamma, perhaps you dislike the connection with my darling's stepmother? I assure you that ...."
"Nonsense!" replied the Countess, growing still more disturbed, "from what you and Georges both tell me of the young woman, she seems to adapt herself very well to her position. A residence abroad and foreign associations are much better means of training than ...."
"Yes, mamma," interrupted Oswald in some surprise, having followed out his own train of thought, "but if you are so kindly disposed towards Zinka, I cannot possibly conceive what exception you can take to my betrothal. There never was a purer, more noble creature than my little Gabrielle. Highly as I rank you, mother, she is every way worthy of you."
The Countess changed colour, "I do not understand what you wish," she exclaimed, "do not distress me, I have no objection to the girl!...."
"Well then,--you could not possibly expect me to remain unmarried."
The Countess cast down her eyes and was silent.
Oswald sprang up, called his dog and left the room, his face very pale, his eyes very dark.
Impetuous and hasty as he was with others, he had always controlled himself in his mother's presence. Leaving the room was the extreme point to which he allowed his displeasure to manifest itself when with her. If he wished to vent his anger, he did it in seclusion, he never had spoken an angry word--scarcely a loud one to her. And his disagreeable mood never lasted long.
"I am myself again, mamma!" with these words, in which he was wont to announce his return to a better frame of mind, he presented himself half an hour afterward in his mother's boudoir. She was sitting just as he had left her, the waterlilies in her lap, very pale, very erect, with the set features that veil distress of mind.
Pushing his chair close up to her he laid his hand upon her shoulder, and said with the winning tenderness of all impetuous men after bursts of anger: "Forgive me, mamma, I was very wrong again!" She smiled faintly and murmured some half inaudible words of affection--"I was odiously egotistical," he went on, "I had quite forgotten what a change my marriage will make in your life, what a trial it must be to you, you poor, foolish, jealous little mother! But whatever change there may be outwardly in our relations, we must always be the same in heart; and if I must deprive you of something," he added gaily, "my children shall requite you. It had to come sooner or later, mamma; or could you really wish me to renounce the fairest share of existence?"
She trembled in every limb, and suddenly taking his hand, before he could prevent it, she carried it to her lips, "No, you shall renounce no joy, my child, my noble child!" she exclaimed,--"but--leave me now for a while, for only a little while--I am tired!"