The firm of Almbach and Co. belonged to that class whose names on the Exchange, as well as in the commercial world generally, were of some position, without being of conspicuous importance. The relations between its head and Consul Erlau were not only of a business nature; they dated from earlier times, when both, equally young and meanless, were apprenticed in the same office, the one to raise himself until he became a rich merchant, whose ships sailed on every ocean and whose connections extended to every quarter of the globe--the other to found a modest business, which never reached beyond certain bounds. Almbach avoided all more daring speculations, all greater undertakings, which he was by no means the man to superintend or guide; he preferred a moderate, but steady gain, which also fell to his share to the fullest extent. His social position was certainly as different from that of Consul Erlau as was his old-fashioned gloomy house in Canal Street, with its high gables and barred office windows, from the princely furnished palace at the Harbour. The friendship between the former youthful companions had gradually diminished, but it was certainly Almbach who was principally to blame for it. He could not be reconciled to the Consul after the latter had become a millionaire, living in the style suited to that position. Perhaps he could not forgive him for occupying the first place, while he himself only stood in the third or fourth rank, and well as he knew how to utilise the advantages which the intimate acquaintance with the great firm of Erlau opened to him, yet he held, all the more, to his strictly middle-class, and somewhat old-frankish household, and kept aloof from all communication with that of the Consul. The latter's invitations had ceased when he saw that they were never accepted; for years the mutual meetings had been restricted to those occasional ones on Exchange or some chance place, and lately Almbach had even, when any business matters required a personal interview, let his son-in-law represent him. It was decidedly disagreeable to him, that on this occasion the young man had received the invitation to the opera and the succeeding evening party, and impossible as it was to refuse this civility, the merchant did not attempt to disguise from his family his dissatisfaction at Reinhold's introduction into the "nabob's life," the designation with which he usually honoured his old friend's household.
Notwithstanding all this, Almbach was a well-to-do, even, as was maintained by many, a very rich man, and on this account the centre and support of numerous relations not blessed with over-much fortune. In this manner the care of his two orphaned nephews, whom their father, a ship's captain, had left quite without resources, fell to his charge. Almbach had only one child, to whose existence he had never attached very much importance, as she was a girl. The Consul and his wife were the little one's god-parents, and it might always be considered as an act of self-conquest, that Almbach gave his daughter Frau Erlau's name, as he particularly hated the aristocratic, romantic-sounding "Eleonore" and soon changed it for the much simpler "Ella." This designation was also more suitable, as Ella Almbach was considered by every one to be, not only a simple, but even a very contracted-minded being, whose horizon never was extended beyond the trifling domestic events of housekeeping. The child had formerly been very sickly, and this may have had a crippling effect upon the development of her mental faculties. They were indeed of a very inferior order, and the very prejudiced, strictly domestic education in her father's house, excluding every other circle of ideas and thought, did not appear adapted to give them a higher direction. Thus, then, the girl had grown up quiet and shy, always overlooked, everywhere set aside, and without the least value, even amongst her nearest relations. They were wont to consider her quite incapable of self-dependence, even half-irresponsible, and her eventual marriage did not change things at all.
Neither of the young people raised any objection to the long-cherished, and to them long-known, plan of a union. A girl of seventeen and a man of twenty-two have certainly not much self-decision, least of all when they have grown up under such repressed circumstances. Besides, in this case, there was also the habit of always living together, which had created a sort of liking, although in Reinhold it was really only pitying tolerance, and in Ella secret fear of her mentally superior cousin. They gave their hands obediently at the betrothal, which was followed, after a year's reprieve, by the wedding. Almbach's sceptre swayed over both as much after as before it, he allowed his new son-in-law, who, as far as the name went, was literally his partner, as little independence in the business as his wife did the young mistress in the household.
CHAPTER III.
It was Sunday morning. The office was closed, and Reinhold at last had a free morning before him, which certainly was seldom his good fortune. He was in the garden house, to the entire and special possession of which he had at last attained, to be sure only after many struggles and by repeated reference to his musical studies, which were considered highly disturbing in the house. It was here alone that the young man was in any degree safe from the constant control of his parents-in-law, which extended even into the young couple's dwelling, and he seized every free moment to take refuge in his asylum.
The so-called "garden" was of the only description possible in an old, narrowly-built, densely populated town. On all sides high walls and gables enclosed the small piece of ground, to which air and sunshine were sparingly given, and where a few trees and shrubs enjoyed but a miserable existence. The garden's boundary was one of those small canals, which traversed the town in all directions, and whose quick, dark stream formed a very melancholy background; beyond this, again, walls and gables were to be seen; the same prison-like appearance, which clung to Almbach's whole house seemed to reign over the only free space belonging to it.
The garden house itself was not much more cheerful--the single large room was furnished with more than simplicity. Evidently the few old-fashioned pieces of furniture had been set aside from some other place as superfluous, and been sought out in order to fit up the room with what was absolutely necessary. Only in the window, round which climbed some stunted vines, stood a large, handsome piano, the legacy of the late Music Director, Wilkens, to his pupil, and its magnificent appearance contrasted as singularly and strangely with the room as did the figure of the young man, with his ideal brow and large flashing eyes, behind the barred office windows of the dwelling-house.
Reinhold was sitting writing at the table, but to-day his face did not wear the tired, listless expression, which rested upon it whenever he had the figures of the account books before him; his cheeks were darkly, almost feverishly red, and as he wrote a name rapidly on the envelope, lying on the table, his hands trembled as if with suppressed excitement. Steps were heard outside, and the glass door was opened; with a quick gesture of annoyance the young man pushed the envelope under the sheets of music lying on the table, and turned round.
It was Jonas, servant of the Captain, who for a few days only had accepted the hospitality offered by his relations, and then had migrated to a dwelling of his own. The sailor saluted and entered in his peculiarly rough and somewhat uncouth manner, and then laid some books on the table.