The Breaking of the Storm Volume I Part 23

A knock at the door, which she had already heard once or twice, now sounded louder. She let her arms fall, glanced round the room, grasped the letter hidden in her bosom, and pa.s.sed her hands over her hair and brow and eyes and cheeks. "Come in!"

"I was afraid of disturbing you," said Reinhold, standing in the open doorway.

"Oh, come in and shut the door."

It was the Ferdinanda of last night, with the half-careless, half-sullen, impenetrable manner, and the deep, monotonous, tired voice.

Reinhold did as he was desired. She replaced the modelling tool, which she had caught up at random, on the little table, and gave him her hand.

"I have been waiting a long time for you."

"I should have been here sooner," answered Reinhold, "but a handsome young fellow next door, whom I seemed to disturb in the act of dressing----"

"Antonio, an Italian--Herr Anders' a.s.sistant."

"He either could not or would not give me any information. So I have been through the yards and the machinery department in search of your father, and--did you not hear the noise?"

"No."

Reinhold stared with astonishment, his heart was still beating and his mind still full of what he had seen and heard. The clang of the bell had frightened Aunt Rikchen out of the house, where he had just led her back only half quieted; the servants had run and stood in the distance, staring anxiously; blind Cilli had come into the doorway and had said a few kind words to him as he pa.s.sed by; and here, fifty yards off, his own daughter had heard nothing!

"Do you artists live in a world of your own?" he asked in astonishment, and then he explained what had happened. "I am afraid," he added, "that half the manufactory will have to be closed. My uncle will suffer immense loss, for he has heavy contracts to fulfil, so the men told me before. Heaven only knows how it will all end!"

"What will it signify to my father?" answered Ferdinanda, as a bitter smile played about her lips. "The world may come to an end if only he can have his own way! You do not know my father quite yet," she continued more quietly. "We, unhappily, are accustomed to this sort of thing; all we know is that we live over a volcano. If we left off work every time there was a storm we should have no peace, and should never finish anything."

She had taken off her great ap.r.o.n. Reinhold was standing looking at her work.

"How do you like it?" asked Ferdinanda.

"It is beautiful," answered Reinhold, with sincere admiration; "but I could wish it were less beautiful if it might be less sad. The expression of the mouth, the look of the eyes as they are shaded by the head--the whole effect of the otherwise lovely face seems to me not quite in keeping with the peaceful and rural occupation suggested by the sickle and wheatsheaf. As I came in I fancied a maiden looking out for her lover. She is looking out for him, but woe to him when he comes! He had better be careful of the sickle! Am I right?"

"Perfectly," answered Ferdinanda. "And now I am more glad than ever that I am going with you to the Exhibition. It must be a pleasure to look at the work of real artists with any one who can so closely criticise the work of an amateur."

She was standing at the end of the room, and let the water from a tap in the wall run over her hands into a washhand-basin. "Excuse me," said she, "but that is what we are obliged to do here. Now tell me how you slept."

"Perfectly as soon as I got to sleep. I was a little excited at first."

"So was I. I had to walk for a long time in the garden before I could calm myself. May I confess? I was so ashamed of my father's losing his temper before you, as you could not know what he was like in such matters, and that he can work himself up into a perfect fury over a mere nothing. Luckily, he only fights these battles in imagination; and, for example, if the son of the man whose very name--heaven only knows why--puts him into such a state, if Herr von Werben were to pay you a visit, and my father met him, he would be courtesy itself. I tell you that because I presume you will not be able to avoid some intercourse with the Werbens, and might think the situation more serious than it really is. Indeed, I am convinced that if I had not, in my extreme nervousness, cut short the introduction yesterday at the station, and my father could have seen that Herr von Werben is a man very much like other men, that scene never would have occurred. But one can't think of everything."

So said Ferdinanda as she slowly walked through the garden, which led, by a back door, from the studio to the house. The sun threw a shadow from the trees upon the garden wall, as the moon had done last night.

"It really was only a shadow on the wall," said Reinhold to himself.

CHAPTER X.

I am afraid you will spoil me so dreadfully that I shall find it very difficult to return to my simple "way of life," said Reinhold, as he drove through the Brandenburg gate of the Thiergartenstra.s.se sitting by Ferdinanda's side in his uncle's carriage.

"What is the good of having carriages and horses if they are not to be used?" answered Ferdinanda.

She had thrown herself back upon the cus.h.i.+ons with the tip of her foot upon the opposite seat. Reinhold could hardly take his eyes off the exquisite figure, which was shown off to the greatest advantage by a pretty autumn toilette. He seemed to realise for the first time how beautiful his cousin was, and he could quite understand why she so plainly attracted the notice of the gaily-dressed crowds that thronged the walks, and why several riders as they trotted past turned in their saddles. Ferdinanda did not seem to observe it; the large eyes looked straight before her, or were raised with a tired dreamy look to the branches of the trees, which seemed tired and dreamy, too, as they drank in unmoved the mild warmth of the autumn suns.h.i.+ne. Perhaps it was this connection of ideas which made Reinhold ask himself about what age the beautiful girl might be? and he was rather astonished when he calculated that she could not be far from four and twenty. She had always lived in his memory as a tall thin girl, not yet blossomed into flower, but then certainly that was ten years ago. His cousin Philip, who was then a long lanky youth, must now be very nearly thirty.

A light two-wheeled carriage that had been following them now overtook them.

On the high driving-seat sat a tall, fine, broad-shouldered man, well, and it struck Reinhold rather over dressed, driving a pair of remarkably fine high-stepping black horses with his hands encased in light kid gloves, and a little groom on the back seat with folded arms.

The driver had to get out of the way of a carriage that was coming towards him. His attention was turned to the other side of the road, but when he was some carriage-lengths off he leaned over his seat and eagerly waved his hand and whip, to which Ferdinanda replied in her usual careless way with a nod.

"Who was that?" asked Reinhold.

"My brother Philip."

"How strange!"

"What?"

"I was just thinking of him."

"That often happens, particularly in a big town and at the hour when every one is out. I shall not be surprised if we see him again at the Exhibition. Philip is a great lover of pictures, and draws and paints by no means badly. There, he has stopped! I thought so. Philip has good manners."

The next moment they were side by side with the phaeton.

"Good-morning, Ferdinanda! good-morning, Reinhold! I bless the light which showed me how to light on you the very first day! Bad pun that, Ferdinanda--eh? You look uncommonly well, my dear cousin, with your brown face and beard; and you need not be ashamed of the lady by your side either--eh? Where are you off to? The Exhibition? That is capital; we shall meet. That horse is like a mad thing to-day. Au revoir!"

He touched with his whip the black horses, who were already beginning to fidget, and drove quickly off, again nodding over his broad shoulders.

"I should not have known Philip again," said Reinhold; "he is not like you--I mean not like you or my uncle."

In fact, a greater contrast could hardly be imagined than between the big red beardless smooth face of the young man with his short hair, and the deeply-lined face of Uncle Ernst, surrounded and surmounted with its grey beard and hair, or the refined and unusual beauty of Ferdinanda.

"Lucky for him," said Ferdinanda.

"Why lucky?"

"He is what he looks, a man of the day; we are ghosts of the middle ages. Consequently it is he who is looked upon as the ghost amongst us; but it is not his fault."

"Then in this terrible rupture between him and my uncle you take his side?"

"We are not asked our opinion at home; you will see that by-and-by."

"I can do that now," thought Reinhold, as Ferdinanda again sank back amongst the cus.h.i.+ons. "Ghosts, however, are not my favourite companions, particularly on such a bright sunny day. There are so many lovable people in the world--sweet Cilli, for instance. Whatever a man expects he finds."

As though he wished in all haste to make up this morning for any previous neglect, he now tried to fix his thoughts upon the image which he imagined was always present to his mind, but which now he could not call up before his eyes.

"That is all the fault of these crowds," said he angrily.