O Thou, My Austria! Part 41

Lotta seated herself bolt upright at a respectful distance from her master.

"Well?" began the Baron, pouring out the coffee for himself.

"I wrote all the news to the Herr Baron; nothing else has happened, except that the English sow which the Herr Baron bought at the fair littered last night,--twelve as nice fat little pigs as ever were seen."

"Indeed! very interesting. But what was in the letter? Since I never received it, it must be lying at Franzburg."

"Oh, all sorts of things,--about the short-horn calves, and the weight of the hay, and Baron Harry's betrothal; but of course the Herr Baron knew of that."

The Baron set down his cup so hastily that it came near being broken.

"Not a word!" he exclaimed, doing his best to conceal the delight which would mirror itself in his face. Harry betrothed? To whom but to the golden-haired enchantress he had met in the forest, Fritz's daughter Zdena? To be sure, he had threatened to disinherit the boy if he married her, but the fellow had been quite right to set the threat at naught. The old man chuckled at the fright he would give them, and then---- Meanwhile, he tried to look indifferent.

"Indeed? And so the boy is betrothed?" he drawled. "All very fine--without asking any one's advice, hey? Of course your old heart is dancing at the thought of it, Lotta. Oh, I know you through and through."

"I don't see any reason for rejoicing at the young master's betrothal,"

Lotta replied, crossly, thrusting out her chin defiantly.

The old man scanned her keenly. Something in the expression of her face troubled him.

"Who is the girl?" he asked, bluntly.

"The younger of the two Harfink fruleins; the other married Count Treurenberg."

"Harfink, do you say? Impossible!" The Baron could not believe his ears.

"So I thought too, but I was mistaken. It is officially announced.

Baron Karl has been to see the mother, and there is shortly to be a betrothal festival, to which all the great people in the country round are to be invited."

"But what is the stupid boy thinking about? What do people say of him?"

thundered the Baron.

"Why, what should they say? They say our young Baron had interested motives, that he is in debt----"

The Baron started up in a fury. "In debt? A fine reason!" he shouted.

"Am I not here?"

Whereupon Lotta looked at him very significantly. "As if every one did not know what those get who come to the Herr Baron for money," she murmured.

The old man's face flushed purple. "Leave the room!" he cried, pointing to the door.

Lotta arose, pushed back her chair to the wall, and walked out of the room with much dignity. She was accustomed to such conduct on her master's part: it had to be borne with. And she knew, besides, that her words had produced an impression, that he would not be angry with her long.

When the door had closed after her, the old man seated himself at his writing-table, determined to write to Harry, putting his veto upon the marriage of his nephew with the "Harfink girl;" but after the first few lines he dropped the pen.

"What affair is it of mine?" he murmured. "If he had yielded to a foolish impulse like my Fritz,"--he pa.s.sed his hand over his eyes,--"why, then I might have seen things differently, and not as I did twenty years ago. But if, with love for another girl in his heart, he chooses to sell himself for money, he simply does not exist for me.

Let him take the consequences. My money was not enough for him, or perhaps he was afraid he should have to wait too long for it. Well, now he can learn what it is to be married without a penny to a rich girl whom he does not love."

He pulled the bell furiously. The young gamekeeper who always filled the position of valet to the Baron upon these spasmodic visits to Vorhabshen entered.

"Harness the drag, Martin, so that I can catch the train."

That very evening he returned to Franzburg, where he sent for his lawyer to help him make a new will.

CHAPTER XXIX.

SUBMISSION.

Yes, affairs had reached a terribly grave point, an Harry now fully appreciated. He felt like a man under sentence of death whose appeal for mercy has been rejected. The day for his execution was appointed; he had given his promise, and must keep it.

The day after his father's visit to Dobrotschau the young man presented himself there, and informed the ladies that pressing business obliged him to return to Vienna; but Paula, who was perfectly aware of the duration of his leave, routed from the field every reason which he gave for the necessity for his presence in Vienna. A betrothal festival had been arranged for a day early in September; he could not possibly be absent. And Paula, the robust, whose nerves were of iron, wept and made a scene; and Harry stayed, and conscientiously paid at least three visits a week at Dobrotschau. He was changed almost past recognition: he had grown very thin, his voice had a hard, metallic sound, and his eyes had the restless brilliancy of some wild creature in a trap. He ate scarcely anything, and his hands burned with fever. His betrothed, whose pa.s.sion was still on the increase, overwhelmed him with tender attentions, which he no longer strove to discourage, but which he accepted with the resignation of despair.

His bridges were burned behind him; he saw no escape; he must accept what life had in store for him. Now and then he made a pathetic attempt to blot out of his soul the pale image of the charming girl which never left him. He even made every effort to love his betrothed, to penetrate her inward consciousness, to learn to know and value her; but he brought home from every such psychological exploring trip a positive aversion, so rude and coa.r.s.e, so bereft of all delicacy, were her modes of thought and feeling. He pleased her; his quixotic courtesy, his unpractical view of life, she took delight in; but her vanity alone was interested, not her heart,--that is, she valued it all as "gentlemanly accomplishment," as something aristocratic, like his seat on horseback, or the chiselling of his profile. She was an utter stranger to the best and truest part of him. And as her pa.s.sion increased, what had been with him at first an impatient aversion changed to absolute loathing, something so terrible that at times he took up his revolver to put an end to it all. Such cowardice, however, was foreign to his principles; and then he was only twenty-four years old, and life might have been so fair if---- Even now at rare intervals a faint hope would arise within him, but what gave birth to it he could not tell.

Meanwhile, the days pa.s.sed, and the betrothal _fte_ was near at hand.

Fainacky, who had installed himself as _matre de plaisir_, an office which no one seemed inclined to dispute with him, was indefatigable in his labours, and displayed great inventive faculty. Every hour he developed some fresh idea: now it was a new garden path to be illuminated by coloured lamps, now a clump of shrubbery behind which the band of an infantry regiment in garrison in the neighbourhood was to be concealed.

"Music is the most poetic of all the arts, so long as one is spared the sight of the musician," he explained to Frau von Harfink, in view of this last arrangement. "The first condition of success for a _fte_ is a concealed orchestra."

He himself composed two stirring pieces of music--a Paula galop and a Selina quadrille--to enrich the entertainment. The decoration of the garden-room was carried out by a Viennese upholsterer under his special supervision. He filled up the cards of invitation, ordered the wine for the supper, and sketched the shapes for the plaques of flowers on the table. The menus, however, const.i.tuted his masterpiece. Civilized humanity had never seen anything like them. Beside each plate there was to lie a parchment roll tied with a golden cord, from, which depended a seal stamped with the Harfink coat of arms. These gorgeous things were Fainacky's _chef-d'[oe]uvre_. All his other devices--such as the torch dance at midnight, with congratulatory addresses from the Harfink retainers, the fireworks which were to reveal the intertwined initials of the betrothed pair shooting to the skies in characters of flame--were mere by-play. Yet, in spite of all his exertions in this line, the Pole found time to spy upon everybody, to draw his own conclusions, and to attend to his own interests.

By chance it occurred to him to devote some observation to Olga Dangeri, whom hitherto he had scarcely noticed. He found her a subject well worth further attention, and it soon became a habit of his to pursue her with his bold glance, of course when un.o.bserved by the fair Countess Selina, with whom he continued to carry on his flirtation.

Whenever, unseen and unheard, he could persecute Olga with his insolent admiration and exaggerated compliments, he did so. Consequently she did her best to avoid him. He was quite satisfied with this result, ascribing it to the agitation caused by his homage. "Poor girl!" he thought; "she does not comprehend the awakening within her of the tender pa.s.sion!"

In fact, a change was perceptible in Olga. She was languid, not easily roused to exertion; her lips and cheeks burned frequently, and she was more taciturn than ever. Her beauty was invested with an even greater charm. Upon his first arrival in Dobrotschau, the Pole had suspected a mutual inclination between Treurenberg and the beautiful "player's daughter," but, since he had seen nothing to confirm his ugly suspicion, he had ceased to entertain it. Every symptom of an awakening attachment which he could observe in Olga, Ladislas Fainacky interpreted in his own favour.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

PERSECUTION.

September has fairly begun. The harvest is gathered in, and the wind is blowing over the stubble,--a dry, oppressive wind, calling up clouds which float across the sky in fantastic ma.s.ses every morning and vanish at noon without a trace. All nature manifests languor and thirst; the dry ground shows large cracks here and there, and vegetation is losing its last tinge of green.

Nowhere in all the country around are the effects of the drought more apparent than at Dobrotschau, where the soil is very poor. Not even in the park is there any freshness of verdure. The fountains refuse to play; the sward looks like a shabby, worn carpet; the leaves are withering on the trees.

Everything is longing for a storm, and yet all feel that relief, when it comes, will bring uproar with it; something must go to ruin and be shattered in the change. The great life of nature, spellbound and withheld in this sultry languor, will awake with some convulsion, angrily demanding a victim. It is inevitable; and one must take comfort in the thought that all else will flourish, refreshed and strengthened.

Anything would be preferable to this wasting and withering, this perpetual hissing wind.

To-day it seems finally lulled to rest, for the barometer is falling, and livid blue clouds are piling up on the horizon, as distinct in outline as a range of mountains, and so darkly menacing that in old times men would have regarded them with terror. Now every one says, "At last! at last!"

But they mount no higher; the air is more sultry, and not a cooling drop falls.