Fickle Fortune Part 17

The Ettersberg festivities had taken place at midsummer, and now a September sun shone over the land. The young master had taken the reins, but it could not be said that any material change for the better was noticeable in the management of his estates. On the contrary, all remained _in statu quo_. Rustow's urgent persuasion so far prevailed that the land-steward received notice to leave; but it was arranged that he should continue in office until after the new year, and though some restraint had become so necessary, none was laid either on him or any of the other officials. Count Edmund judged it superfluous--he knew it was most inconvenient--to trouble himself about such matters. He always lent a willing ear to his father-in-law's plans and projects, agreed with him on all points, and regularly gave him an a.s.surance that he would see about it all 'to-morrow'; but that morrow never came. Oswald's prediction was verified. The Councillor soon found out that he must intervene himself, if any good were to be effected.

Edmund, for his part, would have been quite satisfied to let Rustow act for him, but the latter encountered unexpected resistance from the Countess, who thought it highly unnecessary that anyone should now attempt to tutor her son, and was not disposed to yield up to the future father-in-law an authority she had hitherto exercised herself.

Besides this, the changes the Councillor proposed making were by no means to the lady's taste. Rules and arrangements which might be suitable for plain Brunneck would not fittingly serve aristocratic Ettersberg. The number of persons employed on the estates might be greater than was required, the system prevailing might be a costly and a comparatively unproductive one, but so it had been for long years.

It was all part of the large and liberal style in which they were accustomed to live. Any limitation of the staff, that fretting and minute attention to all the details of management which Rustow advocated, appeared to the Countess as a species of degradation; and hers being still the casting-vote at the castle, the opposition carried the day. Already there had been some lively skirmishes of debate between the reigning mistress and the Councillor, and though Edmund promptly interfered on these occasions and made peace, a certain amount of acrimonious feeling lingered on both sides.

Rustow's admiration for the grand and haughty dame had considerably diminished since he had discovered how grandly she could a.s.sert and defend her own privileges; and the Countess, for her part, now declared that the Councillor was really too peculiar, and that it was impossible to accept all his whims without remark. In short, the harmony of their relations was disturbed, and there were clouds on the hitherto clear sky, clouds which seemed to menace the family peace.

Oswald had consistently held himself aloof from all these discussions.

He seemed to look on himself as a stranger in the house he was so soon to leave. Moreover, his legal studies absorbed all his time, and afforded him a pretext for withdrawing from society, and declining most of the invitations with which the young engaged couple and their families were overwhelmed.

The end of September had now arrived, and with it the date appointed for his departure. All his preparations were made, the necessary farewell visits had been duly rendered, and his journey was fixed for the day after the morrow. One thing alone had been left undone. He must still pay his respects at the Brunneck manor-house, and take leave of the family there. In view of the connection now existing between the houses, this duty could not be avoided, though Oswald had postponed its fulfilment to the last moment. He had intended to drive over in Edmund's company, but the Count, it appeared, had agreed to join a shooting-party on that very day, so his cousin had no alternative but to proceed on his expedition alone. Despite the Councillor's friendly and oft-repeated invitations, Oswald had not set foot in the house since the day of the betrothal, at which ceremony he had been compelled to a.s.sist. Nevertheless, he had met his cousin's affianced wife on several occasions, for Hedwig now frequently came over to Ettersberg with her father. Part of the castle was already being put in readiness for the accommodation of the young married couple.

The Master of Brunneck was sitting in the veranda-parlour, reading his newspapers, while his cousin, stationed before a side-table, took up and carefully examined first one and then another of several elegant articles of toilette which lay spread out before her. They were patterns of new fas.h.i.+ons, which had just arrived from town, and were destined to form part of Hedwig's trousseau, now in active course of preparation.

The Councillor did not appear to be much interested in his reading. He turned over the pages absently, and at length looked up from his paper, and said in an impatient tone:

'Have not you made your choice, or done looking over those things yet, Lina? Why don't you get Hedwig to help you?'

Aunt Lina shrugged her shoulders.

'Hedwig has declared, as usual, that she intends to leave it all to me. I must make a selection by the light of my own unaided judgment.'

'I don't understand how it is the girl shows so little interest in these matters. They all relate to her own trousseau, and formerly dress was to her an affair of state.'

'Formerly--yes,' said Aunt Lina emphatically.

A pause ensued. The Councillor seemed to have something on his mind.

Presently he laid aside his newspaper, and stood up.

'Lina, I have something to say to you--Hedwig does not quite please me.'

'Nor me either,' murmured the old lady; but she avoided looking at her cousin, and kept her eyes fixed on a lace-pattern she had taken up.

'Not?' cried Rustow, who always grew quarrelsome when he was at all worried. 'Now I should have thought her present manner would have been exactly what you would like. According to you, Hedwig was always too superficial and light-minded; now she is growing so wonderfully profound in her feelings that she is forgetting how to laugh. Why, she is never contradictious, never up to tricks of any sort! Upon my word, it is enough to drive one mad!'

'What, that she has given up contradiction, and all her foolish tricks?'

Rustow took no notice of this ironical interruption. He went up to his cousin, and posted himself before her in a menacing att.i.tude.

'What has happened to the girl? What has become of my merry, saucy Hedwig, my madcap who was never weary of frolic and fun? I must and will know.'

'You need not look at me so fiercely, Erich,' said Aunt Lina calmly.

'I have not injured your child in any way.'

'But you know what has brought about the change,' cried the anxious father, in a dictatorial tone. 'You can, at least, explain to me what it all means.'

'I cannot do that, for your daughter has not made me her confidante.

Don't take the matter so much to heart. Hedwig has certainly grown grave and pensive of late, but you must remember she is about to take a most important step, to leave her father's house and enter upon new relations.h.i.+ps and new surroundings. She may have much to fight through and to overcome, but when once she is married, a sense of duty will sustain her.'

'A sense of duty?' repeated the Councillor, petrified with amazement.

'Why, has not this love-affair of hers been a perfect romance? Have not they got their own way in spite of the Countess and of me? Is not Edmund the most tender, the most attentive lover the world ever saw?

And you talk about a sense of duty! It is a very excellent thing in its way, no doubt, but when a young woman of eighteen has nothing warmer than that to offer her husband, you may reckon with certainty on a miserable marriage. Take my word for it.'

'You misunderstand me,' said his cousin soothingly. 'I only meant that Hedwig would be brought face to face with life's graver side and with its duties when she goes to live at Ettersberg. The situation does not appear to me so simple, the future so smooth and thornless, as we at first supposed.'

Rustow did not observe that a trap was laid for him, a palpable effort made to lead him from the topic under discussion. He followed up the seemingly careless remark at once, and with some warmth.

'No, truly not. If things go on in this way, the Countess and I will come to words again. Whatever I do, or propose doing, I am met and stopped by those confounded uppish notions of hers, to which everything else must be kept subordinate. There is no making the woman understand that the ruin impending over the property can only be averted by strong and timely measures. No, all must go on in the old routine! The most necessary reforms are rejected if they, as she thinks, in any way diminish the glory of the house, or impair the halo surrounding it. The actual owner and master does just nothing at all.

He thinks he has made the greatest effort that can be demanded of him, if he holds half-an-hour's interview with his steward. Beyond this he ventures not, but simply kneels and adores his wonderful mamma, whom he looks on as the embodiment of all wisdom and perfection. Hedwig will have to make very sure of her husband, if she does not mean to be altogether thrust into the background by her mother-in-law.'

The Councillor would probably have continued in this strain, disburdening his heart of its pent-up fears and anxieties, but he was interrupted by the sound of approaching wheels.

Aunt Lina, who was standing by the window, looked out.

'It is Herr von Ettersberg,' said she, returning that gentleman's salutation.

'Oswald?' inquired Rustow in surprise. 'Ah, he has come to say good-bye, no doubt. I know he was to leave one of these days. Let Hedwig be sent for. She is somewhere out in the park.'

The old lady hesitated. 'I don't know--I rather think Hedwig intended going for a walk. It will not be so easy to find her; besides, you and I are both here to receive him.'

'I must say it would be more than impolite if Hedwig failed to appear when a near relation of her future husband comes to take leave of us,'

said Rustow angrily. 'The man shall go out, at least, and see if she is in the park. If he finds her, he can let her know who is here.'

He stretched out his hand to the bell, but Aunt Lina was too quick for him.

'I will send out after her. You stay and receive Herr von Ettersberg.'

So saying, she left the room, returning after the lapse of a few minutes. She knew very well that Hedwig was in the park, yet no order to seek her out was given, no summons was sent her.

Meanwhile Oswald had entered the house. He came, as had been rightly guessed, to take leave, but much pressing business awaited him at home. Some preparations for his journey were yet unmade, which must be completed that day; he could therefore only pay a flying visit. A little commonplace chat ensued. The Councillor regretted much that his daughter had gone out for a walk. He had sent into the park after the truant, but presumably the man had failed to find her. Oswald, in return, expressed polite regret, begged that her father would present his kind regard to the young lady and say good-bye for him. In a brief quarter of an hour the visit was concluded. Rustow looked on with a heavy heart at his favourite's departure, but Aunt Lina, on the other hand, drew a deep breath of relief when the carriage rolled out of the courtyard.

Oswald leaned back in the corner of the barouche. He was glad that this leave-taking was over, immensely glad--or so, at least, he told himself. He had long feared this hour--feared and yet longed for it.

No matter, it was best so. The farewell, which accident had denied him, would have been but one pang more, and a useless one. Now the struggle of many days and weeks was at an end; a struggle which none had witnessed, but which had shaken the young man's being to its very centre, and had threatened completely to unhinge him. It was high time he should go. Distance would enfeeble, and perhaps ultimately break, the spell; and even were it not broken, a part.i.tion-wall of defence would be erected. Now he must throw all his energy into the new life before him, must zealously work, wrestle, and, if possible, forget.

While Oswald thus reasoned with himself, his heart beat wildly, despairingly, in his breast, reminding him that he had looked forward to this one last pang as to a last gleam of happiness. Was he not going--going never to return?

The carriage pa.s.sed the corner of the park. Oswald turned and looked back once more. There at some little distance above him, on a small wooded eminence, he caught sight of a slender girlish figure--and in a trice all the wise comfort he had been administering to himself, all his fine resolutions for the future, melted away, fell to pieces. Once more--just once! Reflection, prudence vanished at the thought. In a second Oswald had called to the coachman to stop, and had sprung out of the carriage.

The man drove on to the village, with instructions to wait there.

Oswald entered the park by a side-gate, and proceeded towards the raised terrace; but as he approached the goal before him, his pace slackened, and when at length he mounted the steps, and Hedwig came forward to meet him, he had fully recovered his usual calmness of demeanour. He was, as it seemed, simply obeying the dictates of courtesy which called on him to stop and say a word of leave-taking to his cousin's future wife.

'I have just paid my farewell visit to your father,' he began; 'and I could not omit saying good-bye to you in person, Fraulein.'

'You are leaving shortly?' inquired Hedwig.

'The day after to-morrow.'