The Wish Part 7

Mrs. h.e.l.linger had meanwhile commenced to cry.

"Do you suppose I know?" she sobbed; "do you suppose anybody at all knows? We found her in her bed, that is all. She has brought disgrace upon our house, the miserable creature, in return for----"

"Do not abuse her, mother," he said, wildly, speaking in an angry undertone; "you know very well that she was my bride!"

His mother gave vent to a cry of astonishment, and her husband too made a movement of surprise.

"What! you do not know that? Mother," he cried, and pressed both his fists to his temples, "did she say nothing to you? Did she not come to you last night, and tell you what had taken place between her and me during the day?"

"Heaven forbid!" groaned the old woman. "Scarce a syllable did she speak to me, but went and locked herself up in her room."

"Mother," he said, and stepped close up to her. "When she had confessed all to you, did you not work upon her conscience? Did you not impress it upon her that if she truly loved me she must give me up, that she would bring misfortune upon me, and Heaven knows what besides! Mother, did you not do this?"

"My own son does not believe me! My own son gives me the lie,"

whimpered the old woman. "These are the thanks that I get from my children to-day."

He grasped her right hand. "Mother," he said, "you have done me many a wrong in all these years. The worst and bitterest I ever experienced came to me through you."

"Merciful Heavens," shrieked the old woman, "these are the thanks--these are the thanks!"

"But all the evil you did to me and Martha I will forgive you, mother,"

he continued, "nay, more even! On my bended knees I will ask your forgiveness for ever having harboured a bitter thought against you; but one thing you must do for me--here by her dead body you must swear that you knew of nothing, that in all things you were speaking the truth."

And he dragged her to the corpse that stared up at him with its ecstatic smile--a bride's smile to her bridegroom.

"That such a thing should be necessary between us," complained the old woman, and cast a glance of bitter hatred at him out of her swollen eyes. But she suffered him to lay her right hand on the dead girl's forehead; she stroked it and sobbed, "I swear it, my sweet one, you know best that I knew nothing and never required anything wrong of you." Thereupon she gave a sigh of relief, as if she had suddenly come to understand what a gain this tragic deed would mean for her and her family. Sincere grat.i.tude lay in the tender caress with which she fondled the dead face.

At this moment the old physician came rus.h.i.+ng into the room. He had hoped to overtake Robert and prepare him for the worst, and saw in terror that he had come too late.

Old h.e.l.linger hurried towards him and whispered in his ear: "Take him away, he is out of his senses! We can do nothing with him here!"

Robert stood there clutching at the bed-posts, his chest heaving, his face as if turned to stone with gloomy, tearless misery.

The old doctor rubbed his stubbly grey beard against his shoulder, and growled in that roughly compa.s.sionate way which goes quickest to the hearts of strong men.

"Come away, my boy; don't do anything foolish; do not disturb her rest."

Robert started and nodded several times.

Then suddenly--as if overpowered by his misery--he fell down in front of the bed and cried out, "Wherefore didst thou die?"

IV.

Wherefore had she died?

This question henceforth puzzled the whole town completely. In the streets--at the tea-table, on the alehouse benches--it was the one topic for discussion. People indulged in the most out-of-the-way surmises, the most hazardous conjectures were put forward, and still no one was one whit the wiser. Some spoke of an unhappy, others of an over-happy love affair, and others again declared that they had always predicted that she would not come to a good end.

During her life-time already, her proud, taciturn, reserved nature had been a riddle to the good homely townfolk; now her death was a still greater riddle to them.

Meanwhile it had got about that the physician had been the first to receive news of the suicide, and the only one to whom she herself had confided her intention. People crowded up to him; they almost stormed his house; but he persisted in his silence. With all the bluffness of which he was so particularly capable, he sent the importunate questioners about their business. Olga's letter he had on the very same day committed to the flames, for he feared that a court of law might require it of him. As for the rest, the cause of death was so evident that even a post-mortem examination could be dispensed with.

As might have been expected, the dead girl had not succeeded in absolutely removing every trace of her deed. In the gla.s.s standing on her night-table were found, adhering to its sides, drops of a fluid whose flavour proved, even to a non-expert, that here a solution of morphia was in question. The chain of evidence became complete when in the garden, embedded under some hawthorn bushes, were found fragments of gla.s.s bottles, to the necks of which a portion of the poisonous solution still adhered in white crystallised streaks. They had evidently been thrown out of the window, and still bore labels giving the date of the prescription and directions for taking.

As matters stood, it would have been simple madness on the doctor's part if he had dared to attempt to hush up the suicidal intention; for even carelessness in taking the sleeping draught was quite out of the question.

Nevertheless, he was tormented by the idea that he had been unable to carry out the dying girl's last request, and he faithfully promised himself that he would all the more truly at least keep the secret which she had wrapped round her motives for the unhappy deed.

If only he himself could see his way clear at last! The days pa.s.sed by, however, and still he could not succeed in taking possession of the legacy which Olga had left to him.

Mrs. h.e.l.linger, senior, mistrusted him; she told him openly to his face that he had always had some secret understanding with the dead girl, and behind his back she added that if he had not prescribed such unreasonably strong solutions of morphia, Olga would have been alive and happy for a long time to come. She almost went so far as to ascribe the blame of her niece's death to their old family friend.

At any rate she did not permit him henceforth to remain for one second alone in the dead girl's room. She kept the door carefully locked, and declared she would not suffer the dead girl's belongings, which to her were sacred relics, to be defiled by the touch of strange hands, or by strange glances.

Thus from hour to hour there was increasing danger that the book, in which Olga had written down her confessions, might fall into the old woman's hands.

She need only take it into her head one day to rummage among the little collection of volumes which filled the book-shelf, and the mischief was done.

Added to this anxiety, which drove the old doctor daily to the h.e.l.lingers' house, came his growing uneasiness about Robert who, since that disastrous hour, had fallen a prey to blank, despairing lethargy.

He seemed absolutely deprived of the power of speech, would endure no one near him, and even taciturnly shunned and avoided him, his old friend; by day he roamed about in the fields, by night he sat by his child's cot, and stared down upon it with burning, reddened eyes.

So said the servants, who three times had found him in the morning in this position.

V.

The lights round Olga's coffin had burnt down.

The guests, who for so long had surrounded the bier in solemn silence, began to move to and fro, and to look round for refreshments.

Mrs. h.e.l.linger, who was receiving condolences, and at the same time, with a great profusion of tears and pocket handkerchiefs, extolling the virtues of the deceased, suddenly, in the midst of her grief, proved herself an attentive and liberal hostess. The guests gave a sigh of relief when the doors of the dining-room were thrown open, and from the resplendent table a sweet odour of roast meats, _compotes_ and herring salad greeted them.

Mr. h.e.l.linger, senior, praised the Lord, and with a few privileged friends, drank the specially fine claret which he set before them in honour of the occasion. They were not yet agreed whether an innocent game of cards would be disparaging to the general mourning, and decided to send delegates to the hostess to obtain her permission.

There was plenty of life and bustle in the h.e.l.lingers' house--one might have imagined one were at a wedding.

The physician, who dropped in late upon this merry company, looked about anxiously for Robert. He was nowhere to be seen.

Thereupon he took one of the guests aside and inquired after him. Yes, he had been there, had looked about him with startled eyes, and had silently moved aside when any one wanted to shake hands with him. But after a very few minutes his disappearance had been noticed.

The physician went into the entrance-hall, and hunted among the guests'

wraps for Robert's cloak. It was lying there yet.

With the freedom of an old friend of the family, he then commenced his search through the back rooms of the house, which were quiet and deserted; for the servants were busy waiting at table.