Problematic Characters Part 44

"I do not know," said the old gentleman, out of humor.

"But I do know," said the baroness, rising; "and formerly that was enough for you, dear Grenwitz. Come, it is time for us to start, if we wish to reach Count Grieben's for dinner. There is Malte. I hope you are warmly dressed. Where on earth is Bruno?"

"Up stairs with the doctor. He wants to stay if the doctor stays."

"There you see, dear Grenwitz; there you have it. A nice education, indeed. At once go up stairs, Malte! Bruno must get ready instantly; do you hear, instantly!"

"I won't tell him any such thing," replied Malte. "You can do it yourself."

"So I will," said the baroness, ringing the bell. "Tell Dr. Stein I beg him to come down for a moment!" she said to the servant.

The servant disappeared; the baroness walked up and down in the room with rapid strides.

"Only for Heaven's sake no scene, dear Anna Maria," said the old gentleman, who had risen.

The baroness did not vouchsafe an answer, for at that moment the door opened, and Oswald and Bruno came in--Bruno with a dark, defiant face and traces of recent tears in his eyes, but quite ready to start; a straw hat covered with oil-cloth in his hand.

"You wish to see me, madam," said Oswald, bowing to the baroness.

The baroness was not a little disconcerted by this unexpected solution of the difficulty.

"I was told Bruno refused to accompany us," she said "and so I thought----"

"Pardon me, madam," said Oswald, interrupting her; "of course, a refusal on the part of Bruno to obey your orders is utterly out of question. Bruno would have preferred to keep me company. It required only a word, however, to remind him that he must not on my account forget for a moment what he owes to you and the baron."

"Well, that is what I thought," said the baroness, who in her heart was very glad to have escaped a "scene" with Oswald, of whom she was more or less afraid, little as she was willing to confess this humiliating weakness even to herself. "He shall not repent having complied with our wishes. The weather is splendid, and I hope we shall have a delightful ride. What a pity, dear doctor, you cannot be one of us! Well, I hope we shall find you quite well again when we return--probably in two or three days.--Ah, mademoiselle, everything in readiness? Well, let us start, dear Grenwitz. Adieu, my dear doctor! _Adieu, mademoiselle; n'oubliez pas ce que je vous ai dit!_ Ah, Mr. Timm! really, I had nearly forgotten you."

"Very flattering and very natural," said Mr. Timm, who had just made his appearance, his pencil stuck behind his ear, and his toilet in very imperfect condition, in order to bid them good-by, and who now helped the baroness into the carriage. "_Bon voyage._ My kindest regards to Count Grieben! famous old gentleman, who keeps a capital gla.s.s of wine!

All right! Up!" and Mr. Timm gave the nearest horse a sound blow with his open hand, and then kissed his hand to the people in the carriage as it began to get into motion.

"G.o.d be thanked," he said, as the carriage had disappeared, and rubbed his hands with delight "Now we are all alone among the girls. What shall we do for sheer delight! _Qu'en dites-vous, Monsieur le docteur?

Qu'en dites-vous, Mademoiselle?_"

"I have to write some letters, and will go to my room," said Oswald, going into the house.

"Then we'll take a French lesson in the garden, little Marguerite,"

said Mr. Timm, putting the young lady's arm unceremoniously in his own.

"I have not time," said the pretty Frenchwoman, trying to withdraw her arm.

"Ah, nonsense!" said Albert "If you have not time now that the old scarecrow is gone, when will you have time? We have made very good progress already in the verb _aimer_: _J'aime_--_tu aimes_--_nous aimons_!"

And Albert drew willing Marguerite into the garden, and those who took a special interest in the romantic couple, could see them roam about there, arm in arm, till dinner-time, and notice, moreover, that they decidedly preferred the divers shrubberies and darker avenues to the more exposed parts, which was perfectly natural in the burning sunlight.

It was afternoon, and Oswald was sitting at his writing-table, which he had only left to share a very silent dinner with Albert and Margerite, when a servant brought him a note. Oswald had, since he lived at Grenwitz, received so few letters that he was quite surprised, and asked the bearer from whom it came.

"From Baron Oldenburg," was the answer, "and the baron's carriage is at the door."

Oswald opened the note. It ran thus:

"Dear friend! If you can get rid of the studious boys, and have nothing better to do, I wish you would come and keep a lonely hypochondriac company for a few hours, and convince yourself, at the same time, how well the little heath flower has borne the transplanting into a strange soil. My coachman brings you this. He has orders to return with you or upon you. You may choose! Your Oldenburg."

Oswald hesitated what he should do. With the suns.h.i.+ne his longing for Melitta had returned. He could not comprehend how he could have let three days pa.s.s without making an attempt to see her. And yet he was reluctant to take the first step towards a reconciliation, although he knew that the cloud conjured up by the scene in the ball-room had long since disappeared, and that he had himself repented a thousand times his grievous wrong. We all know the contradictions in which so young a heart is apt to lose itself when pride and love contend for the mastery! And Oswald's proud heart had to beat many years yet before it learnt true love, which the Bible knows under the beautiful image of Charity, that beareth all things and believeth all things. True love can live only in hearts that have lived much and suffered much, as the sweetest and most highly prized fruits hang on those trees which the autumnal winds begin to strip of their summer dress of rich leaves.

Oswald took a sheet of paper to write the baron, that he could not accept his invitation, but the next moment he had taken up his hat and run down. The same elegant light wagon in which the baron had brought him back from Barnewitz, with the two fiery black horses, was at the door. The coachman, a handsome young man with an immense beard, smiled when he saw him, remembering the liberal fee he had received on that evening. As he got in, Albert called out over the garden wall:

"Can you take me with you, _Monsieur le docteur_?"

"Not very well!" said Oswald.

"Well, then, go alone!" said Albert; "to the devil," he added, as the carriage rolled away. "You are right, Marguerite," he said to the little Frenchwoman, who now came out of the shrubbery in which she had hid from Oswald, "the doctor is really a _fat_, as you say, and I shall soon be near hating him."

In the mean time the object of Mr. Timm's rising hatred was driving through the smaller gate towards the lane which went all around the ramparts into the beechwood. The latter came up to this place from the sea-sh.o.r.e, and had to be pa.s.sed by all who drove from Grenwitz to Cona, the old home-place of the Oldenburgs. It was a delightful drive through the lofty cool halls of beech-trees, where the blue sky shone through the thick green tops of the trees; and on the left, when the underwood in places flourished less thickly between the grand old trunks, the blue sea occasionally flashed through, at first at rare intervals only, then, as they approached the edge of the forest, more and more frequently, till at last, at the end of the wood, it lay before them blue and boundless, sparkling in the glorious sunlight.

The road followed the bluffs above the beach,--at times coming quite near to the brink, so that the roaring of the breakers among the great rocks below could be distinctly heard,--then again receding for some distance. On the right the eye swept over enormous grain-fields, which covered the whole table-land. The tall, strong stalks bent under the burden of the full ears, and waved to and fro in the mild breezes which came from the sea. Here and there a lark was fluttering, whose nest was close by the road, and then winged its way singing up into the blue sky.

Then the road descended into a low valley, through which a considerable brook, the outlet of the Fashwitz moor, was hurrying towards the sea. A village extended along the brook and close down to the sea, in which mostly fishermen lived, who paid rent to Baron Grenwitz, The carriage had to pa.s.s through the village, which looked very pretty with its small, tidy cottages, and the little gardens before the doors, in which all the flower-beds were edged with sh.e.l.ls. At the door of one of the larger houses, which bore a sign with a large s.h.i.+p sailing swiftly through the green waves, and thus announced itself as an inn, a horseman was stopping. He was on a marvellously beautiful thoroughbred.

He wore a long overcoat, and Oswald could not see his face, as he was just bending down to take a gla.s.s of brandy, which a pretty blue-eyed girl with a charming little snub nose held up to him.

"That horse is worth his two hundred pounds," said the coachman, who was a connoisseur.

"Who is the gentleman?" asked Oswald.

"Can't tell; I could not see his face."

Behind the fishermen's village the road ascended quite suddenly to a greater height than before. The landscape also changed its aspect entirely. The ground was less level; instead of golden grain, russet heather covered the soil--a desert, with large and small stones here and there, and at times with large plains of sand, on which a few spare signs of turf appeared at intervals. The air even seemed to be less mild, and where the road approached nearer to the brink of the steep bluff one could hear the roaring of the sea very distinctly. A sea-eagle was drawing its vast circles on high, and at times its blue shadow would darken for a moment the sunlit, rocky road.

"Is it far to Cona?" asked Oswald.

"The farm lies in that direction," said the coachman, pointing with his whip to the right across the heath; "you cannot see it from here. I have orders to drive you to the Swiss cottage."

"And where is that?"

"Straight before us, in the pines."

A small wood of pines crowned the highest point on the sh.o.r.e, to which the road now led upwards, becoming more and more rocky and steep. When Oswald turned round to look back, he noticed, at a distance of four or five hundred yards, the horseman whom he had seen at the inn. He rode keeping pace with the carriage, and when the latter stopped accidentally, because something was out of order in the harness, he also checked his horse till the carriage moved on again. Oswald, who had been struck by this man[oe]uvre, asked the coachman a few minutes later to stop again. He turned round: the horseman also was stopping.

He repeated the same man[oe]uvre once more with the same success.

"That is very strange," said Oswald.

"Yes," replied the coachman; "I do not know what it can mean."

At that moment the horseman left the road and trotted off across the heath in the direction in which the coachman had said the farm-buildings of Cona were lying.

The carriage had reached the pines, which stood so close that one could not see the sea, and only heard its roaring as it mingled with the rush of the wind in the tall trees. Then it suddenly flashed up again at a turn in the road, and they saw before them, upon an open place looking upon the sea, a house built in Swiss cottage style, Oldenburg's summer-house.