Problematic Characters Part 57

It is improbable, though not impossible, that both should have died, mother and child alike. Marie was evidently a fine girl, and that little trouble and heart-sore could hardly have cost her her life. And the child, illegitimate as it was, enjoyed, in all probability, the proverbial good luck of such children. Therefore, the mother may be alive, and the child may be alive. If they are both alive,--and I do hope and wish it,--they either know something of the codicil to the will of the n.o.ble scapegrace, or they do not. If they have been informed of it,--which again is not very probable, since it would be a perfectly sublime height of stupidity to shut the mouth against such a roast pigeon flying about and seeking to be devoured,--they must be made to apply for their property. If they should know nothing of it, which is more likely, we must a.s.sist them in their lamentable ignorance. In any case we must first of all find out where they are. It is not to be presumed that they have concealed themselves in the neighborhood. For in the first place Harald would have found them, when he spared no money and left no means unemployed in his search; and secondly, such people are very apt to run, on like occasions, as far as they can; and thirdly, this Monsieur d'Estein seems to have been a very sly fox, who would be sure to hide his little dove as safely as could be done from the fierce lion. This monsieur is every way a very inconvenient quant.i.ty in the problem, which I should like to eliminate if I knew how to do it. If he did not die soon afterwards, he probably did a good deal of mischief yet; perhaps he even married little Marie, adopted the child, carried both of them back to France or to America, and spoilt the whole game for me--who knows? That would be disgraceful; for the story might really become highly interesting to me and to others. I should like to see the faces of the two, if I appeared before them and said: My good friends, what will you give me if I help you to a nice little fortune of a hundred thousand dollars or so? Or perhaps--and that might be the more convenient way of doing the thing--I might present myself before dear Anna Maria some fine afternoon, and say to her: Pardon me, madam, if I interrupt you, but I found among the papers of my father, who, as you know, did business for your departed cousin Harald, certain doc.u.ments which enable me to trace the legal owners of Stantow and Baerwalde with tolerable accuracy. My sense of justice, and the special respect I entertain for you and your daughter, are contending in my bosom. The one compels me to report my discovery to the proper court; the other whispers to me to keep the matter secret. What do you say, madam, if you were to re-enforce my disinterested veneration by a few thousand dollars, which, upon my honor, are very much needed just now?"

This suggestion seemed to inspire Mr. Timm. He jumped up from the lounge and walked up and down in the room, gesticulating actively.

"That might become a gold mine for me," he said to himself. "I should worry the old woman till her big gray eyes were twice as large. I should put the thumbscrews on her, and every time I wanted money I would give a turn or two. She would do anything rather than risk a lawsuit. Then I should be, so to say, master in the house; then I could drop the fool's mask and show myself in my true form. Then I might say who was to marry Miss Helen; why, I might marry her myself if I chose, and calmly look forward to the arrival of my good friend Felix, which dear Anna Maria has just confided to me as a great secret. Not that I am much troubled by it, any way, for friend Felix was the worthy pupil of his master, and handled the cards as well as I did and would probably not have fared any better than I did if he had not belonged to an old family. As it was, Ensign Baron Felix Grenwitz escaped with a reprimand, while Ensign Albert Timm had to quit the service. I am curious how we shall meet. Perhaps he won't recognize me; perhaps he'll try to get rid of the troublesome guest as soon as possible. Ha! How things would change if these wretched letters did not skip over the most important points with a levity and carelessness of which women alone are capable!" Albert sat down again and commenced his letters once more, although he nearly knew them by heart. He had carefully numbered them, and perused them in the order in which they came.

No. 1.--"Sir:--I do not know you, and if you are the same person who, a few weeks ago, intruded upon a conversation between myself and my companion, and were so energetically rebuked by the latter, the same who every evening pursues me when I return home from the store--then you will find it but natural that I should decline making your acquaintance. I pray you to spare me further requests, and all other letters. I should have left this note unanswered like the others, if I were not afraid to encourage your boldness by my silence. Surely no man would refuse the request of a lady, and especially of an unprotected, helpless woman?

"Marie Montbert."

No. 2.--"Sir:--You seem indeed to know how to obtain the forgiveness of a woman whom you have offended.--Whatever may have been the motives that induced you--you have dried many tears, you have saved a whole family from despair. I myself was unable to do anything for my poor countrymen--I could only pray to G.o.d to send them help. He sent you.

Show yourself worthy of such favor! Remember that he who asks for reward has his reward already, and do not let your left hand know what your right hand has done.

"Your humble servant,

"Marie Montbert."

No. 3.--"What do you know of my father's fate? For heaven's sake, sir, do not trifle with the heart of a child! You say you have learnt from a French colonel of the Grand Army, in whose regiment my father made the campaign against Russia, everything about his experiences during that year, and all the minor details about his death, shortly before the pa.s.sage of the Beresina. All this sounds so very improbable--and yet how could you know anything about it except from good authority?--even the colonel's name is right, as I see from my father's letters to my mother. I do not know what to believe--but why will you not give me this information, which you know must be of inestimable value to myself, in my house, I mean in the house of the good lady who has been in my mother's place for several months now? Why ask for a secret rendezvous? Why force a child, who expects information about the death of her father, to take a step which that father, if he were still alive, could never approve of? I am not appealing in vain to your generosity, I am sure.

"My lodgings are Ann Street, No. 21. If you are not afraid of three flights of steps, I shall be ready to receive you tomorrow morning, between 10 and 12 o'clock.

"Your humble servant,

"Marie Montbert."

No. 4.--"You insist upon a rendezvous which you say is by no means secret, as it is to take place in the open street, in one of the most frequented parts of the city, and at a time when the streets are still crowded with pedestrians. You will state yourself, you say, your reasons for declining to comply with my wish, 'however painful such a step may be,' and you vow I shall approve of your motives as soon as I hear them. Are you quite sure of that? But, it is true, you offer to give--I am to receive--and so I must needs give way to your wishes. I cannot, I will not, imagine that you mean to deceive me. You have been so generous towards poor and unhappy people, you will surely not be less so towards a poor unprotected girl.

"M. M."

No. 5.--"Dear Baron! Once more my heartiest thanks! Thanks also for the delicacy with which you had arranged it all! How much I have wronged you! But could I antic.i.p.ate that you would make me acquainted with Colonel St. Cyr himself? That I would hear from the lips of that veteran, in my beloved mother-tongue, the heroic death of my father?

You would not have it that the colonel should find the daughter of a hero, the last scion of a once rich and ill.u.s.trious family, in such reduced circ.u.mstances; you wished to spare me the mortification of having to receive the Count of St Cyr and Baron Grenwitz in a garret.

You preferred to present me to him as the governess of a family whom you knew, and it was after all perfectly right and proper that I should call in your company upon the old gentleman, tired as he was from his long journey, at his hotel. Once more a thousand thanks! Thanks also for the silence by which you honored my renewed grief during the long drive from the hotel to my lodgings! I know how hard it must have been to a man of your liveliness. How have I deserved the interest you take in my fate? Ah! I have been so ill-behaved towards you! You ask me, finally, whether I believe now that you mean it well with me? This letter may give you the answer. You leave the city tomorrow--farewell, and may the enclosed little keepsake, worked by my hand at night, remind you sometimes of

"Your grateful

"Marie Montbert."

"Now the little doll is ready and well trained," said Albert, who read the familiar letter, with a strange and unnatural zeal, over and over again. He sat there like a conjurer studying the rules of a rival in the Black Art. "This Harald, it cannot be denied, was the real Ratcatcher of Hameln. I should like to know what kind of a colonel that was who invented the pretty story of the 'heroic death, shortly before the pa.s.sage of the Beresina.' Perhaps a colonel of devils; at all events, one of his a.s.sociates--the thing must have cost Baron Harald an immense amount of money. However, it was spent to some purpose, for in No. 6 he has made great progress!"

No. 6.--"I can hardly recover from my surprise. You back again! And back for my sake! Back, because your desire to see me left you no rest!

Oh G.o.d! What is to become of it all! You are a rich n.o.bleman--I am a poor girl, who, whatever my ancestors once may have been, must now earn my daily bread by hard work. My judgment tells me that all this can only bring wretchedness upon me; that I ought to avoid you, flee from you. What did I tell you yesterday? What did I promise? Oh, give me back my promise! I cannot, I must not see you. I must never see you again. I beseech you, leave the city. You must do it if you really love me. Farewell. Thousand thanks!

"Your Marie."

"What eight days' absence must have done!" said Albert, lighting his cigar again, which had gone out during his perusal of the last note.

"'Your Marie!' How the brave Harald must have chuckled when he read this tearful epistle--here are the traces of the tears now. But let us go on."

No. 7.--"You must take back the costly jewels which an unknown man left here to-day. How have I deserved it, that you should think so meanly of me? You know that I love you in spite of my reason, which reproaches me constantly for it; I have not been able to conceal it from you any longer, nor did I wish to do so; but you ought at least to leave me the consolation that my love is pure and disinterested. These costly rubies, this red gold, it burns in my hand like coals of fire--leave me as you found me! If the poor simple girl could win your love, you see yourself that poverty and simplicity are perfectly compatible with love.

"M. M."

"Prettily expressed," said Albert, putting the letter on top of the others, "but very stupid! Poverty and love are as compatible as fire and water. I should like to know the burning love that would not be extinguished if a bucket of poverty were poured on it! Pshaw! I ought to know better. I think I would be capable of marrying poor little Marguerite if I were a dignitary with an ample income guaranteed by the State; but as I am nothing but a poor devil, with a famous appet.i.te and a real patent stomach, it would be a clear case of suicide if I were to share the scanty ration with another person. Love! Nonsense! Love is a most acceptable dessert after the dinner of life. A good dinner without a dessert--_bon!_ a dinner with a dessert--still better; but a dessert without a dinner--well, women may be able to do even with that, but it does not suit my const.i.tution. I wonder whether sweet Marie, if she is alive, as I fervently hope, does not sometimes regret having rejected the 'costly rubies and the red gold' for the benefit of other young ladies, who deserved them less well? In the next letter the virtuous little damsel becomes quite rampant."

No. 8.--"Aha! my dear, we can be jealous, can we? Who would have suspected Baron Harald Grenwitz of such plebeian foibles? I must change my lodgings--why? That I may not perish with cold in winter and with heat in summer; that I do not risk every day breaking my neck on the steep narrow staircase? Oh no! Simply because my good lord does not like Mrs. Black, with whom I live, and because my good lord has found out that a young Frenchman, a Monsieur d'Estein, lives on the same story with me; that I am quite well acquainted with said monsieur, and have actually been seen with him arm in arm late at night in the street! Horrible! But in good earnest, dearest Harald, you have no cause to complain. Mrs. Black is a very respectable, excellent woman, to whom I am deeply indebted, and who has been like a mother to me as far back as I can think; and as for Monsieur d'Estein, your jealousy will be lulled to sleep, I hope, when I tell you that he is the same little old gentleman on whose arm you saw me the first time in the Park. Monsieur d'Estein could very well be my father, and really was my father's friend. He is, like ourselves, descended from a family of French refugees, and would long since have gone back to the land of his fathers, since he has no relatives nor even friends here, if he was not justly afraid that he would starve there, since everybody there speaks the language which he here teaches to earn his daily bread. He is very eccentric, but the kindest heart in the world. He would go for me through fire and water, and be _au desespoir_ if he had the slightest suspicion of our friends.h.i.+p. All this I would have told you last night, but I wished to see if you could bear contradiction. Are you satisfied now? _Au revoir, Monsieur le baron_.

"_Votre tres mechante_

"Marie M."

"This is the only notice about this Monsieur d'Estein," said Albert, letting the letter fall back in his lap, and puffing out clouds of reflection from his cigar; "no doubt the same man who afterwards reappears as the Jew pedler in the old woman's story, when he first reconnoitred the locality and then eloped with the oppressed Innocence.

I fear several letters must have been lost here, because the next following note shows matters very much advanced."

No. 9.--"I have just received the--why should I not tell you?--the long-expected letter of your aunt. She writes me in a trembling but legible hand, that she values the happiness of her nephew more highly than the peace of her few remaining days; that she was even pleased to have such a motive for returning to her ancestral home, the place of her birth, where she now also expects to die. She says she will start on her journey, the last before the great journey home, on the 13th, so as to reach Grenwitz before me, 'as you fear a _tete-a-tete_ with my wild nephew' so much. I cannot tell how deeply I am touched by so much goodness and love! How grateful I am to the dear old lady, and how I long to kiss her withered old hands! Yes, Harald, if she, the matron, the oldest of your knightly race, has thought me worthy of you, if she blesses our union, I am willing to become yours. What pains me is only this, that I am to steal away like a thief at night from the woman whom I love as a mother, and from the man who has been both father and brother to me. But then--it cannot be helped. You are right. They would only make the parting harder; they would blame the whole as a romantic adventure. They do not know you; they do not know how good and n.o.ble you are! But I may at least bid them good-by in writing! Thank them in a few words for all their love and kindness, and hold out a bright future to them as a compensation for the grief I must needs cause them now. Ah, that that future were the present! Your new valet, whom I, by the way, like much less than the old one with the good face, told me last night that all was prepared for day after to-morrow. I am glad I am to travel in your carriage, and accompanied by your servants; the thought of so long a journey rather frightens me. I hope soon to see you, my dearly beloved.

"M. M."

"Well, now the little bird is in the net," said Albert, adding this letter to the others, and tying them all up again with the red-silk ribbon. "I could imagine the rest, even if I did not know it from the old woman's story. I believe the old witch, the dear friend of my excellent neighbor Stein; could tell a good deal more if she chose. I must try to win her favor and to obtain admittance to her salons. I wonder if she has not some things that belonged to Miss Innocence in her possession, that might lead to further discoveries? The little one can a.s.suredly not have cleared all her chests and drawers so completely, before her hurried flight at night, that the old woman should not have gleaned a nice store of ribbons, shoes and stockings, and perhaps also letters. She may keep all that in perfect security at the bottom of that big wooden chest on which I lay myself sore that afternoon, where it is now awaiting a joyful resurrection. There is an idea for you!"

Albert had risen and gone before the mirror, probably in order to see how such a clever head looked. "There is an idea," he repeated, and kissed his hand to his double in the gla.s.s, who returned the compliment promptly, "a very famous idea, which must be carried out at any hazard.

Perhaps the Jew pedler may have been a real Israelite, and agent of Monsieur d'Estein; perhaps he only brought the girl a letter which contained the plan for the elopement, and perhaps this letter might, if found, put us on the track of the fugitives."

Mr. Timm suddenly paused in his monologue, and his face grew dark: "Confound it," he murmured, "there is no money, that _nervus verum_, that divining-rod by which alone treasures can be raised! Of course I shall have to make several trips in order to find it all out. I must go to Berlin, Ann Street, No. 21, third story, to look for information.

But travelling costs money, and my a.s.sets amount to about five groschen, one of which I believe is counterfeit. I must make a forced loan. Marguerite must help. I was near enough doing it the other day, when the agreeable family suddenly returned and abruptly terminated our idyllic life. To be sure, these miserable plats must first be finished; otherwise Anna Maria won't let me go. I must submit to it."

And Mr. Timm lighted another cigar, unlocked the door, bent over his drawing-board, and worked with a zeal as if he had no other plans and knew nothing else in the world but the simple duty of a first-cla.s.s surveyor.

CHAPTER VI.

Baron Felix had arrived--in the middle of the night. He had left the ferry early in his own carriage, when his valet suddenly remembered that his master's dressing-case might not be with the rest of the luggage, as he had placed it on board the boat between his feet and probably left it there. A timid suggestion to that end--terrible indignation on the part of Baron Felix, threats of boxes on the ear, beatings and dismissal--a thorough search in the middle of the road--finally return, as the _corpus delicti_ was really missing. The ferry-boat, however, had unfortunately gone back in the mean time, and with it the precious box. Several hours had to pa.s.s before it would return, for the wind had lulled, and the men had to pull desperately with their heavy oars. Baron Felix watched them through his pocket telescope and became furious. At last, when the evening had come, the baron could start a second time, this time with the dressing-case. He was in a terrible state of mind. He had promised to arrive in Grenwitz early that day, as he could not await the moment to see his fair cousin. The delay might be interpreted unfavorably, and it was better, therefore, to arrive at night than not at all. On the other hand, it suited the taste of the ex-lieutenant by no means to travel by night through the forest and over damp moors, especially in an open carnage.

He suffered--probably in consequence of indescribable exertions on the parade ground and at drill of rheumatism, and feared a cold like the plague. He chose, therefore, the least of two evils, and only threatened Jean, his valet, to make his punishment on the next morning depend on the nature of his cold.

It was therefore a matter of great rejoicing to Jean when his master awoke next day in very good humor. They had tried to disturb the sleepers at the chateau as little as possible, and had quietly taken possession of the long-prepared rooms, with the aid of one of the more wakeful servants. Baron Felix ordered his cacao to be brought to his bed, and when he was dressed--he did very little of it himself--he sent Jean to ask Mr. Timm to come and see him for a few minutes in his room.

For Albert's presence had been one of the first things he learnt when inquiring about the state of things at the chateau.