The Eichhofs Part 9

"That is not true!" exclaimed the girl.

"Oh, yes, it is," said Walter, who had quite talked himself into a heat; "remember the day we made a party on the mountain, and you gave your shawl to Herr von somebody, and your parasol to that other fellow to carry, and when I asked whether you had nothing for me, you answered, although you must have seen that I was not in jest, 'Oh, yes: my caprices; you may have those; the youngest always ought to carry the heaviest burden.' And then you ran on laughing with the others, and we never spoke another word to each other the whole day long. Do you remember?"

"Yes; but I did not mean anything."

"Nevertheless you were ready enough to laugh with the others at your 'comrade's' discomfiture; and that laugh broke the bond between us.

From that moment you were no more to me than a strange young lady; and that I forget this and tell you all that I am saying now, is due to the sight of those wreaths and of your tears."

"And when the wreaths are withered and the tears are dried, must we be strangers again?" Adela whispered softly, with a questioning glance.

"Would you have it otherwise?" he asked.

She was silent, her looks bent on the ground. He, too, looked away from her beyond the crosses and marbles of the church-yard, where the autumn asters were blooming and a few belated white b.u.t.terflies were fluttering. All was so quiet around them, except for the low rustling amid the old oaks on the other side of the church-yard, and a soft twitter from a little bird perched on the roof of the chapel, who hushed his note suddenly, as though silenced by the influence of the spot.

Walter's gentle mood had changed. He was irritated by the provoking silence of this girl, who had no kind reply for him, and he was wellnigh ashamed of having made an attempt to renew the youthful friends.h.i.+p the loss of which had given him more pain than he liked to acknowledge even to himself.

He arose and touched his hat.

"Farewell, Fraulein Adela," he said, and turned to go.

Then she looked up, and all the former bravado had vanished from her eyes. "Walter!" she said, and at the sound of her voice he stopped involuntarily. "Walter, do not go; stay for one moment and listen to me."

"I thought you wished me to go," he said.

She shook her head emphatically. "Do not tease me, Walter," she said, imploringly. "You see, it is not so easy to confess that one has been in the wrong. I know I was wrong, and that I am really very vain and often behaved very foolishly to you. You were quite right to be displeased, and I am glad to know that you were so, but for all that you need not be so very angry with me. You see, I know what a foolish girl I am; and indeed I don't care in the least what people in general think of me, but it cuts me to the heart when I see that you take my nonsense seriously and believe me heartless."

"Walter sat down again beside her on the step.

"I never thought you 'heartless,' Adela," he cried, interrupting her; "only superficial and----"

"But that's just the same thing!" she exclaimed; "and I cannot change your opinion of me all in a moment. Perhaps you are partly right; but one thing I can and will promise you, and that is, that I will always in future be honest and frank with you, and never again play such idiotic pranks as on that day at Kissingen. I will not pretend to be better than I am, and neither will I pretend to be worse than I am, and you shall always have the right to lecture me and tell me what you think of me. In return you must promise always to be my friend. If ever I vex you again, tell me so, and scold me, but do not instantly run away from me as though I were too contemptible a thing to turn back and look at. Will you promise me this?"

She looked up at him with eager anxiety, though with a childlike confidence, and held out her hand, which he grasped cordially.

"Yes, Adela," he said, "I will be a true and faithful friend to you. I cannot tell you how glad I am to find my dear little playfellow once more. I know now that she may sometimes hide herself, but she will not vanish utterly. Be sure I shall remember this."

Adela gave him so sunny a smile that he smiled too, and then, pa.s.sing quickly to other things, she asked after his mother and his brothers.

"You are alone too, Walter," she said. "You are very unlike your brothers, and your mother cannot be much to you. She sees you more in the future than in the present."

"Why, Adela!" said Walter, almost startled, "what puts such ideas into your head?"

"I keep my eyes open," she said, and then grew suddenly very grave. "I only mean that your father is a terrible loss to you, and that Eichhof will be much changed. Thea will come, and I am glad of it, although she is something of a prig, like all the Rosens. I love her dearly for all that, and she will be a good sister to you."

Walter gazed sadly before him.

"Come," said Adela, laying her hand upon his arm, "do not look so troubled; you know I am just like a sister too."

He pressed her hand; they rose, and she noticed that his eyes sought the door of the chapel.

"Shall we not go in again together?" she asked, gently, and they ascended the steps and entered the building. Adela knelt down beside the sarcophagus, and hid her face for some time upon the wreaths that she had placed there. Walter looked down at her, and it seemed to him that they were in the presence of his father, who smiled upon them.

When Adela rose from her knees she looked him gravely and earnestly in the face, and then left the chapel with him in silence. They went out into the calm autumn evening; the skies were naming with crimson and gold, for the sun was just sinking behind the line of forest that bounded the horizon, and the bell in the little village church began to ring for vespers.

"How solemn!" said Adela, pausing before the chapel. Suddenly she turned to Walter again: "From this moment we are friends for life, are we not?"

"Yes, Adela; at least I promise to be your friend for life," he replied.

She took from her finger a ring set with a sapphire. "Take this ring in remembrance of today," she said. "It was my mother's, and I have always worn it, first on my chain and then on my finger. Take it."

"But, Adela," Walter said, delighted, and yet hesitating to accept so strange a gift, "will it not be missed from your finger?"

"Who is there to miss it? No one cares enough for me to notice whether I wear it or not," she said, with some bitterness.

He took the ring, and as he did so detained her hand in his for some moments, as they walked down the steps and across the church-yard.

"I thank you, Adela; the ring will be most precious indeed to me," he said, in a low, earnest voice. "But I do not need it to make me remember this evening."

She smiled, and at the gate of the church-yard they took leave of each other. The chapel lay about half-way between Rollin and Eichhof, so that each could reach home before dark.

Adela felt very happy this evening, and, as there was no one to whom she could speak of her happiness, she carried a basket of sugar into the stable and fed her various black and brown pets.

"Some living creatures shall be happy with me, at all events," she said, stroking the necks of the horses as they took their sugar from her hand.

No one shared Walter's happiness. Indeed, he was not clear as to whether the emotion that filled his heart at the thought of Adela was precisely happiness. But he thought much of her all through the evening, and was even more quiet and dreamy in his mood than usual.

CHAPTER IX.

CLOUDY WEATHER AT EICHHOF.

Several months had pa.s.sed since Count Eichhof's death. The Countess had withdrawn to her dower-house, about half a league distant, whence, however, she drove over at least once every week to complain of the miserable condition of her present abode. She witnessed, with a resignation made apparent amid many sighs and tears, the alterations effected by her son and her daughter-in-law in Eichhof. She found it perfectly right and proper that Bernhard should be master there, but that Thea--"that insignificant little girl," as she called her--should have usurped the position so lately her own, was more than she could understand or endure.

It required all Thea's gentleness and amiability to enable her to endure her mother-in-law's visits, and her task was made none the easier by Bernhard's pa.s.sing almost the entire day out-of-doors. The Freiherr von Hohenstein, who had found the son quite as accommodating a creditor as the father had been before him, said that Bernhard was "launching out tremendously," which was his way of designating the restless energy with which Bernhard had entered upon the duties of his new position.

It was not in vain that the young man had so often heard from his mother that his position would be one of unusual distinction, and that he himself was endowed with extraordinary powers of mind. He was convinced that much, very much, was due from him to himself and to his position, and his head was so crammed with ideas of the reform that was to be effected in the management of his estate, that he could not waste an instant before beginning to carry them out in action. His father had employed clever agents, and had left all the farming to their care, prudently aware that he was quite ignorant of rural economy; but Bernhard was determined to see to everything himself, to have every operation conducted under his own eye. An unfavourable crisis in the business world had greatly depreciated the iron-works on the Eichhof estate. Bernhard determined to indemnify himself for the loss of income in this direction, and to this end established various extensive factories. Eichhof was to be a model estate in every respect.

It must be confessed that results by no means kept pace with his purposes, and his orders, issued as they were with autocratic decision, produced terrible confusion when, as frequently happened, they were hostile not only to traditional customs, but to especial existing arrangements. His bailiffs would gravely shake their heads at the young Count's excessive though praiseworthy energy, and slight differences would arise, which were, however, speedily adjusted by his personal amiability and the rare kindliness of his manner towards his inferiors.

Owing to his personal qualities, and to the influence of his old superintendent, whose faithful attachment to the Eichhof family knew no bounds, Bernhard suffered no losses of any significance, and was saved from the disastrous results that might have ensued from his ignorant interference in all sorts of affairs connected with the estate.

"He is hardly more than a boy, but he'll come all right," the old superintendent would declare. "Others lose their money at cards or on the race-course, we waste some on these 'useless improvements;' but there's enough left after all, and it will all come right with time.

The Count has not lost his head, but the sudden possession of such an estate and such an income has confused it a little, that's all. He is so young."

Thea sometimes sadly missed her idyllic Thiergarten home, but in her secret soul she was proud of Bernhard's untiring energy, and thought it only natural that he should have but little time to devote to her, since, as she had been educated to think, wealth entailed many duties upon its possessor.