About a year had passed since the gay doings at the castle, when one day Dr. Putzer brought a piece of news to the gentlemen in the inn parlour that excited them greatly. He had just had a letter from his brother, an advocate in Vienna, and he read it aloud. The Vienna man wrote that madame had died in her confinement, and had left an immense fortune, not to her husband, but to her new-born child. Castle Reifenstein belonged to him now, and Herr von Heydeck was only his son's guardian. After the letter had been read, the gentlemen made many malicious remarks,--the worst came from Dr. Putzer, who in his tipsy mood boasted that if he were Herr von Heydeck he would tie a stone about the little bastard's neck and drown him like a kitten, but Herr von Heydeck had no nous. As he had shut his eyes for fear of his wife and Count Menotti, and taken no notice of what all the world knew, so now he would patiently acknowledge the Count's son, and live on as the brat's steward.
About four days after this conversation Herr von Heydeck arrived at Tausens, this time accompanied by no brilliant company or numerous retinue. Only one servant sat beside the coachman on the box of the carriage inside of which was Herr von Heydeck and opposite him a woman with a child carefully wrapped in shawls and blankets; it was the nurse with his dead wife's child.
The Herr only stopped in Tausens long enough to leave word at the inn for Dr. Putzer to come to the castle as soon as possible, and then drove on to Reifenstein. Here he took up his abode in his old room, while the nurse and child lived in another wing of the building. He sent to the farm in the valley for old Stoffel's two daughters. Trine and Lene, and the youngest son, Melcher, the stupidest of all, a perfect blockhead, and they were hired to do all the work of the household.
Henceforth Herr von Heydeck led the life of a hermit in the castle; the only man with whom he had any intercourse in all the country round was tipsy Dr. Putzer, whom he often sent for to visit the child and report to him the state of its health, for the Herr himself never saw it. The nurse was strictly forbidden ever to take it out of the apartments appropriated to her; if she was obliged to leave them herself, she was ordered to leave the child in the cradle and lock the door after her. Except the doctor, nobody in Tausens ever saw the baby; even the servants were not allowed to go into the room where it was.
The nurse was a very proud person; she never condescended to speak a word to any one except the doctor; she was always polite enough to him. They two understood one another extremely well; they would sometimes sit together for hours, while the master was in his room buried in his books. Once Trine saw him kiss her.
One evening--it was in the beginning of the winter--the doctor came to the inn parlour and told the gentlemen who were sitting there over their wine that he had just come from the castle, where matters looked badly; the child was seriously ill. He could not yet say what was the matter with it, but he thought it had the smallpox.
The gentlemen were greatly surprised at this intelligence. There had been one or two cases of smallpox in the neighbouring valleys, but none in Tausens or its immediate vicinity. It seemed impossible that the child should have taken it, living as he did in one part of the castle and seeing no one but his nurse and the doctor. But nevertheless it was the case, for a few days afterwards he proved to have the smallpox in its most malignant form, and within a week he was dead.
He was buried the day he died. The doctor ordered this for fear of contagion. Herr von Heydeck spared no expense. The child had a splendid funeral, and the master paid a lot of money for masses for his soul, besides giving the priest a large sum to distribute among the poor. But for all that he could not stop people's mouths. There were strange tales told in the village. No one spoke out loud; they only whispered among themselves. But one and all, gentlemen as well as peasants, thought that all had not been right at the castle. They did not believe in the smallpox. The child had died some other way, of which the master, who was his heir, would know nothing. That was why no one had been allowed to see the little corpse. This which was whispered at first was soon talked of loudly, and the doctor confirmed the tale, for he married the nurse. The wedding was celebrated scarcely two months after the child's death. The doctor bought the house in Tausens where he still lives with his wife. Where he got the money no one knew, for until the boy died he had more debts than hairs on his head; and when Herr von Heydeck furnished and fitted up the house for the newly-married pair as if a count and countess were going to live there, every one in the village said plainly that the master had good reasons for doing so. He had to show his gratitude to the doctor and his wife, who had made him a wealthy man.
In the inn parlour the matter was thoroughly discussed in the doctor's absence. The forester boldly declared his belief that the doctor had poisoned the poor little boy; but the district judge took him sharply to account for his words. He had no right to accuse the doctor of what would warrant the interference of the law; the gossip of the villagers was unworthy of repetition, and the doctor would be justified in dealing hardly with whoever did repeat it.
After this warning from the judge, which was soon known throughout the village, no one dared to utter a suspicion aloud, but the peasants thought that if a poor labouring man, and not a rich gentleman and a Herr Doctor, had been suspected of such a crime, the district judge would have spoken differently.