A SECRET FOE AND OPEN ENEMY.
Dernburg sat in his office at the desk. He had just had a lengthy talk
with the director of his works and was looking over the papers which he
had left when the door was again opened. Count Eckardstein entered,
who, as a guest of the house, needed no special announcement.
"I just saw the director leave," said he. "May I disturb you for a few
minutes? I only come, preparatory to bidding adieu."
"Why, you will not be at dinner, as usual?" asked Dernburg, somewhat
surprised.
"I thank you, I must return to Eckardstein.--Must I really have to
report to my brother that you decline his invitation? We had depended
so confidently upon your presence and that of your family."
"I am sorry. You have already heard that we have invited company to
dinner, ourselves, for the day named."
This refusal of the invitation sounded just as positive as chilling,
and so the young Count could but feel it to be. He impulsively drew a
few steps nearer, and asked in a whisper:
"Herr Dernburg--what have you against me?"
"I? Nothing! What put such an idea into your mind, Sir Count?"
"Your very address proves it to me. This morning you called me Victor
and treated me with your wonted kindness. Have I, then, become a
stranger to you in the course of a few months? I am afraid that another
influence has been brought to bear upon you, that I can guess."
Dernburg frowned, the hint at Wildenrod, which was only too
intelligible, wounded him, but he was accustomed to go about things in
a direct manner. Why seek to find out what he wanted to know by
indirect methods. He looked at the handsome, open countenance of the
young man, then he said slowly:
"I do not allow myself to be influenced, and it is not my way to
condemn any one unheard, least of all you, Victor, whom I have known
from the days of your earliest boyhood. Now that you introduce the
subject yourself, it may as well be discussed between us. Will you
answer me a few questions?"
"With pleasure, proceed."
"You stayed away from home a long while, and did not set foot on
Eckardstein soil for years. Why was that?"
"It resulted from personal, family relations----"
"Which you would rather not talk about--I perceive."
"No, Herr Dernburg, I do not care to have concealments with you," said
Victor, in a low tone. "My relation to my brother was never an
especially friendly one, and since the death of our father has grown to
be positively painful. Conrad is the elder, and heir of the entailed
property, I am dependent upon him, and cannot maintain my rank as an
officer without his assistance. He has often enough made me feel his
unwillingness to do this, and in so insulting a manner, that I prefer
to keep aloof from him."
One could see that it was exceedingly trying to the young Count to give
this explanation, and still he was telling nothing that his hearer did
not already know. The strained relations existing between the brothers
was known to the whole neighborhood, but the main fault was attributed
to the elder. Count Conrad, who, at the time, was still unmarried, and
the senior of Victor by only a few years, was regarded as haughty and
unmindful of the rights of others, and his ambition was a fact known to
all. He was, therefore, anything but popular. Dernburg knew this
likewise, but made not the slightest allusion to it, only asking:
"And yet you have come now?"
"This happened by my brother's express desire."
"He has concocted plans in conjunction with you--I know."
Victor started, and the blood began slowly to mount into his cheeks.
Dernburg watched him sharply and inquisitively, while he continued:
"You apprehend, without doubt, what I mean. I shall be quite candid
with you, but shall expect just as candid an answer. It is said that
you have been summoned by Count Conrad to Eckardstein, in order to turn
to account your former intimacy at Odensburg."
Victor started at this insulting speech.
"Herr Dernburg!"
"Victor, I ask you, is that so?"
The young man cast down his eyes in painful embarrassment.
"You put the question in a way----"
"That admits of no evasion. Yes or no, then?"
"You seem to take my courtship as an insult," said Victor, without
lifting his eyes from the floor. "Is it such a crime, then, to seek the
renewal of youthful friendship with such thoughts? Well, yes, I came
here to seek a happiness that in memory took the shape of a bright
little elf. What is there bad about that? At my age you would probably
have done the same."
"But not at the behest of another person!" said Dernburg cuttingly.
"And when I went courting I had a different fortune to offer from what
you have, Herr Lieutenant."
The young Count was incensed, and with difficulty restrained himself,
but his voice trembled, when he answered:
"You make poverty very bitter to me."
"Such is not my desire, for poverty is no disgrace in my eyes. You only
share the fate of the younger sons in those families whose whole
property is entailed upon the oldest. But they say that your brother
has still more pressing reasons for exhorting you to make a so-called
good match. I am sorry, Sir Count, to hurt your feelings, but you have
sought this interview yourself, not I."
"So they have informed you of that, too, and you put the most shameful
interpretation upon it," said Victor bitterly. "If I have been
indiscreet, my brother has already given me good cause to rue it, and I
repent tenfold at this moment. Well, yes, I did not keep free of debt,
could not do so with the small means that were at my command. It would
have been an easy thing for Conrad to release me from my obligations,
but he did not do it, even putting before me the possibility of being
obliged to send in my resignation, and then----"
"Then you acceded to his proposition!" Dernburg's voice had a harsh,
contemptuous intonation. "I understand that perfectly; but you, on your
side, will also understand that I am not willing to give my daughter as
a prize in a financial operation."
The color came and went in the young man's face, but at the last word
he sprang to his feet with a half-suppressed shriek, and shook his fist
in the face of the elder man, who looked at him steadily.
"To what end is this, Count Eckardstein? Will you challenge me to a
duel because I undertake to tell you my view of this matter? A man of
my years and station does not commit such follies."
Again Victor let his hand drop and stepped back.
"Herr Dernburg, you have been a fatherly friend to me for years,
Odensburg has been a second home for me, and you are the father of
Maia, whom I----"
"Whom you love," said Dernburg, with bitter irony, "you were about to
say."
"Yes, I do love her!" cried Victor, drawing himself up to his full
height, and his eye met clearly and openly that of the infuriated man.
"This became clear to me the moment when I met again as a blooming girl
the child who still lived in my memory. After what you have said
nothing is left for me but to leave your house, never to enter it
again; but in bidding farewell, I at least challenge your faith in the
truth of my feelings for Maia--although she is lost to me."
There was intense anguish, genuine emotion manifest in these last
words, which would have convinced anybody else but Dernburg. But that
grave, earnest man there at the desk had never known the frivolities of
youth, and hence had no idea how to make allowance for its errors.
Perhaps, too, he, was convinced at this moment, but he could not pardon
any one for presuming to court his darling for the sake of her wealth.
"I am not authorized to judge of your feelings, Sir Count," said he,
with a coldness that forbade any further attempt at reconciliation:
"and yet I understand perfectly why you should avoid Odensburg after
this conversation. I am sorry that we must part thus, meanwhile as
things stand, there is no help for it."
Victor answered not a word, but silently bowed and withdrew. Dernburg
looked after him moodily.
"He, too!" murmured he half aloud. "The honest, open-hearted fellow,
who, in earlier days, did not know the meaning of calculation!
Everything goes to destruction in this wild chase after wealth, that
they call good fortune!--"
At the foot of the broad staircase, that led to the upper story, stood
Wildenrod and Eric, engaged in conversation. The latter had just come
in from the park, and, meeting with Oscar, poured out his heart to him.
"I am afraid Cecilia is seriously unwell," said he excitedly. "She
complains of severe headache and looks dreadfully pale, but has
forbidden me in the most positive manner from having Hagenbach called.
She protests that a few hours of undisturbed repose will restore her
quicker than anything else. I saw her only a few minutes after her
arrival, and have not been able to learn where she has really been, for
she preserves an obstinate silence on the subject."
Oscar smiled and shrugged his shoulders. "And you, I suppose, are
beside yourself over it. I told you awhile ago, that you must calculate
upon the self-will of our spoilt little princess. When Cecile is in a
bad humor, she stretches herself on the sofa and will have naught to do
with anybody; happily she does not keep in this mood long, I can tell
you that for your comfort. Your father, to be sure, is of opinion that
you must break her of such whims, but you are not the man for this, my
dear Eric. There is nothing, then, left for you to do, but to possess
your soul in patience, and already make preliminary studies for the
pattern husband, which you will undoubtedly make."
Eric looked at him in amazement. "What has come over you, Oscar? Your
face fairly beams with joy. Has something very pleasant happened to
you?"
"Who knows--perhaps!" said Oscar, with a flash of his dark eyes. "And
therefore I want to take you in hand. You do look desperate. I have
always had a great deal of influence over my sister, and shall give her
to understand how unwarrantable a thing it is of her to make you taste
already the miseries of the married state--properly she has no right to
do this, until after the wedding is over. You see if she does not
appear at dinner in as good spirits as ever, and then you, too, I
trust, will wear a different face--you poor, maltreated lover, who take
so much to heart the caprices of his ladye-love."
He laughed with a superior air, and waving back a salutation, he
mounted the stair. Eric looked at him, shaking his head dubiously. Such
radiant gayety of mood was not at all natural to Oscar von Wildenrod,
who was hardly recognizable to-day. What could have happened to him?
Up in the parlor, the Baron was met by his sister's maid, who informed
him that her lady had given her strict orders not to allow her to be
disturbed, under any circumstances--without exception, no one was to be
admitted. Not even Herr Dernburg.
"Pshaw, such orders do not include me, you know, Nannon," said
Wildenrod, cutting her speech short, without ceremony. "I want to speak
to my sister. Open the door!"
Nannon courtesied, and obeyed, for she knew very well that the Baron
was not one to brook contradiction. Without further ceremony, he
entered his sister's chamber, which was next door.
Cecilia lay upon the sofa, with her face buried in a cushion. She did
not stir, although she must have heard the opening and shutting of the
door, but her brother evinced no surprise at this, and quietly drew
nearer.
"Are you once more in an ill-humor, Cecile?" he asked, still in a
playful tone. "You really do treat Eric in a most unwarrantable manner.
He has just been pouring his laments into my ears."
Cecilia remained silent and motionless, until Wildenrod finally lost
patience.
"Will you not at least have the goodness to look at me? I should like
to ask you in general--" he hushed, for his sister suddenly sat bolt
upright, and he looked into a face so pale and distorted, that he
almost shrank back in dismay.
"I have something to say to you, Oscar," said she, softly. "To yourself
alone. Nannon is in the parlor--send her away, that we may be
undisturbed."
Oscar knitted his brows,--he could not yet believe that anything
serious was in question; but in his joyous mood, he was more inclined
than usual to indulge the whim of another. He therefore went into the
parlor, sent the maid away on a message, and then turned back.
"Am I finally to learn what all that signifies?" he asked, impatiently.
"Where in the world were you, Cecile, and what means this early morning
trip to the mountains? Dernburg has already noticed it with much
displeasure! You must know that Odensburg is not the place for such
escapades."
Cecilia had gotten up, and said not a word in her own defense, but
breathed out in a whisper:
"I have been on the Whitestone."
"On the Whitestone?" exclaimed Oscar. "What foolhardiness! What
incredible rashness!"
"Let that be, the question is about something else," she interrupted
him vehemently. "I met up there with--with that friend of Eric's youth,
and he has said things to me,--Oscar, what happened between you two the
first time that you met?"
"Nothing!" said the Baron, coldly. "Perhaps I did see him then; it is
possible; one easily overlooks such people. At all events, I did not
speak with him, and did not know that he was witness of a painful event
that took place on that evening."
"What sort of an event was it?"
"Nothing for your ears, my dear, and therefore I should not like Runeck
to talk with you on the subject. By the way, tell me exactly what he
did say."
The question was apparently thrown off indifferently, and yet keen
suspense was apparent in the dark eyes of the questioner.
"He seemed to take for granted my cognizance of the affair, and passed
on to make insinuations which I did not rightly understand, but behind
which looked something horrible."
"How? Did he dare to?" said Oscar, flaring up.
"Yes, he did dare to impugn your honor, and treat me as your
accomplice. He spoke of knowing more about your life than would be
agreeable to you; he called us adventurers--do you hear? _adventurers!_
But you will have your revenge, will give him the answer that he
deserves, and avenge both yourself and me!"
Wildenrod had turned pale. He stood there with darkened brow and
clinched fists, but he was silent. The passionate outburst of
indignation, and wrath, that Cecilia had looked and hoped for, did not
come.
"Did he actually say that to you?" he slowly inquired at last.
"Word for word! And you--you make no answer?"
Wildenrod had recovered his self-possession. He shrugged his shoulders
with a mocking air of superiority. "What answer am I to make? Would you
have me take such nonsense seriously?"
"He was in sober earnest, and if, as he maintained, proofs are lacking
up to this time----"
"Actually?" Oscar laughed, scornfully and triumphantly, while he drew a
deep, long sigh of relief.
"Well, let him search for those proofs; he will not find them!"
Cecilia supported herself on the back of the chair by which she stood.
That sigh of relief had not escaped her, and her eyes were fixed upon
her brother in deadly anguish.
"Have you no other answer, when your honor is assailed? Will you not
call Runeck to account?"
"That is my affair! Leave it to me to get even with that man! What is
it to you?"
"What is it to me, when you and I both receive a deadly insult?" cried
Cecilia, beside herself. "To call us adventurers, to whom Odensburg is
to fall a prey. Shall a man dare to say such a thing and go unpunished?
Oscar, look me in the eye! You shrink from chastising that man. You are
afraid of him! Alas! alas!"
She broke out into a wild and passionate fit of sobbing. Oscar stepped
quickly up to her, and his voice fell to a low and angry whisper.
"Cecilia, use your reason! You behave like a madwoman. What has come
over you, anyhow? You have been like a different person since this
morning."
"Yes, since this morning!" repeated she passionately. "Since I awoke,
and oh! what a bitter awakening! Do not evade me! You told me that our
fortune was gone, and I was thoughtless enough not once to inquire how
it came, that, in spite of this, we lived on a grand scale. When was it
lost? In what way? I _will_ know!"
Wildenrod looked at her darkly, that threatening tone in his sister was
as new to her as her whole behavior; he must henceforth give up
treating her as a child.
"Would you know when our fortune was lost?" asked he roughly. "At the
time when our house broke with a crash. And our father--laid hands on
himself."
"Our father!" The eyes of the young girl opened wide, and were full of
horror. "He did not die from--a stroke of apoplexy?"
"That was what they told the world, the neighborhood, and you, the
eight-year old child--I know better. Our estate had long been involved
in debt, ruin was only a question of time, and when it actually came,
father seized his pistol--and left us behind--beggars."
As unsparing as these words sounded, there was an undercurrent of dull
grief in them, showing that the man still suffered at the recollection,
after the lapse of twelve years.
Cecilia did not shriek, did not weep, her tears seeming suddenly to be
stanched. She only asked dispiritedly: "And then?"
"Then the honor of our name was saved by the personal interposition of
the king. He bought the estate and satisfied the creditors. Your mother
obtained a pension from his bounty, and alms of residence in the place
where she had been mistress, and I--well I went out into the wide
world, to seek my fortune."
A momentary silence followed; Cecilia had dropped into a chair, and had
clasped both hands before her face. Finally Wildenrod resumed: "That
hits you hard, I well believe, but at the time it hit me yet harder. I
had no suspicion of how it stood with us, and now to be snatched from
supposed wealth, from a brilliant station in life, from a grand career,
in order to be confronted by poverty and misery--you do not know what
that means. They offered me this and that office, either in the postal
service or as collector of taxes in some remote province, offered _me_,
whose glowing ambition had dreamed of the highest aims, beggarly
positions, in which body and soul would have been destroyed in the
tread-mill of a wretched existence. I was not made for that. I cast
everything behind me and forsook Germany, to at least save appearances,
and produce the impression that the sale of property and my resignation
of office had been voluntary."
Cecilia slowly let her hands drop, and straightened herself up. "And
yet you maintained your position in society? We were regarded as rich
the three years that I passed with you, and were surrounded by splendor
and luxury."
Wildenrod had no answer to this timid and reproachful question; he
avoided meeting his sister's eye.
"Let that be, Cecilia!" said he after a while. "It was a fierce,
desperate struggle to maintain that station which I did not want to
give up at any price, and many a thing happened in so doing that had
better not be talked about. But I had no choice. In the struggle for
existence it is either sink or swim. Never mind!" He took a long
breath. "Now all that trouble is over, you are Eric's betrothed bride
and I--have something delightful to communicate to you."
He did not, however, get the opportunity to make his communication at
present, for at the door of the parlor a gentle knock was heard, and
directly afterwards Eric's voice asked:
"May I come in at last?"
"Eric," exclaimed Cecilia in dismay. "I cannot see him--not now!"
"You must talk with him," whispered Oscar softly, but dictatorially.
"Is your behavior to strike him as yet more peculiar? Only for a few
minutes."
"I cannot! Tell him, I am sick, or asleep, or anything you choose!"
She wanted to spring to her feet, but her brother again drew her down
upon her seat, while he called out in a cheerful tone:
"Just come in, Eric! Here am I--being indulged with a half-hour's
audience, by this gracious lady!"
"So I heard from Nannon!" said Eric, in a reproachful tone, as he
entered, after passing through the parlor. "Is your door to remain
locked to me, when it is open to Oscar? Dear me, how pale and disturbed
you look! What happened on that unfortunate expedition? I implore you,
speak!"
He had seized her hand and looked into her face, with deep solicitude.
Her little hand trembled in his, but there followed no answer.
"You ought rather to scold her, although I have already done so
sufficiently myself," said Wildenrod. "Do you know where she has been
this morning? Why, on top of the Whitestone!"
"Lord of heaven!" cried Eric, horrified. "Is that true, Cecile?"
"Literally true! Of course she was dizzy on the way back, came down
half dead and is now sick from overexertion and the agony endured. She
was ashamed to confess to you and the doctor, but you had to learn
about it."
"Cecilia, how could you treat me so?" said the young man reproachfully.
"Did you not think of my distress, my despair, if anything had happened
to you? Had I only suspected that it was more than a jest that time
when you threatened to climb it, in your talk with Egbert and
me----what is the matter with you?"
At the mention of that name, Cecilia had shuddered; now a couple
of tears rolled over her cheeks, while she murmured: "Pardon me,
Eric--pardon me!"
Eric had never before seen his beloved weep, nor ever heard her plead
for pardon. With overflowing tenderness he kissed her hands. "My
Cecile, my darling girl, I am not scolding you, I only beg of you,
never, never again to undertake such an adventure. You promise me that,
do you not? Done! And now----"
"Now we will indulge her with a little rest. Try to sleep a few hours,
Cecile; that will soothe your overtaxed nerves. Come, Eric!"
The latter followed, evidently very unwillingly, but since Cecilia,
too, urged him to go with feverish impatience, he submitted. Oscar
accompanied him as far as the stairs, and then went into his own room.
Hardly, however, had the sound of the young man's steps died away
outside, than he returned to his sister, after bolting the parlor door.
"How can you be so wanting in self-control?" said he, in a suppressed
voice. "A blessed thing it was that I was by your side. Under these
circumstances, the best thing to do was to make a clean breast of your
mountain adventure. But the thing now is to ward off another danger.
Without proof, Runeck will not venture to undertake anything against
us, and meanwhile things are coming to a pass that must necessitate a
rupture between him and Dernburg. Until then--well, I have been equal
to worse emergencies!" These last words once more betrayed all the rash
self-confidence of the man, who had already often staked everything
upon the one card and won the game.
Cecilia had risen from her seat; her eyes were fastened upon him, with
a singular expression in them. "Then we shall be no more at Odensburg,"
said she. "Do not flare up so, Oscar! I do not want to know what you
conceal from me; what you said to me was enough. You must arm yourself
against a danger that threatens you on the part of Runeck--he told the
truth, then--he can accuse you. But I _shall_ not be an adventuress,
who has thrust herself in here and who will one day be driven away in
shame and disgrace--do you hear?--I _shall_ not! Let us begone, no
matter whither, under some pretext or other--only away from here, at
any price!"
"Are you out of your senses?" cried Wildenrod, while he seized her arm,
as though he had to hinder her from taking to flight that very moment.
"Away? Whither? Think you that I can again open to you our former mode
of life? That is past--my sources of revenue are at an end!"
"I hate to think of those sources of revenue," cried Cecilia,
trembling. "I want to work----"
Oscar laughed aloud and bitterly. "With those hands, perhaps? Do you
know, what it is to toil for daily bread? One has to be brought up to
it--people like us would starve at it."
"I cannot stay here, though, now, when my eyes are opened, I cannot! Do
not try to force me, else I'll tell Eric this very hour, that I do not
love him, never have loved him; that our engagement has been solely
your work."
Oscar turned pale. Cecilia had outgrown his power, nothing was to be
effected here by commands and threats, so he caught at a last
expedient.
"Do so, then," said he suddenly with a cold, resolute look, "destroy
yourself and me with you! For, so far as I am concerned the question
here is 'to be or not to be.' An hour ago I became engaged to Maia."
"To whom?" Cecilia looked at him, as though she did not comprehend his
words.
"To Maia. She loves me, and all left for me to do now, is to obtain
Dernburg's consent. If you break with Eric, and tell him the truth,
then to me, too, Odensburg will be closed forever and then--I follow
the example of our father."
"Oscar!" It was a shriek of horror.
"I'll do it, my word upon it! Think you that it has been easy for me to
lead the life of an adventurer, for me, a Wildenrod? Do you know what I
suffered before it came to that? How often I sought afterwards to burst
my bonds and soar upwards? Always in vain! And now at last deliverance
draws near, salvation through the hand of a sweet child, now, at last,
I grasp the long-sought, so ardently desired happiness--and at the very
moment, when I am about to clasp it in my arms, it is again to be torn
from me! Am I to be thrust back and put under the old ban? That is what
I cannot endure. Rather the end!"
There was an iron determination upon his features and in his tone; that
was no empty threat. Cecilia shuddered.
"No," whispered she, with failing voice. "No, no, anything but that!"
"Is what I require of you anything so dreadful?" asked Wildenrod, more
mildly. "You are only to be silent and forget this unhappy hour! I
wanted to save you from the life into which I had to lead you, ere your
eyes were opened to its nature, and now I save myself with you. I cast
behind me the past, and begin a better life. Here at Odensburg a grand
new field opens before me, and Dernburg is to find in me what his son
could never be to him. You will be Eric's wife; he loves, idolizes you;
you can make him happy, and yourself be happy at his side!"
He had stooped over her, and his voice had a tender sound. The eyes of
his sister were uplifted to him with an expression of infinite woe.
"How am I now to endure Eric's presence with his demonstrations of
affection? Just now those few minutes put me on the rack. And if I meet
Runeck again, and have to read in his eyes the same contempt as I did
early this morning, without being able to feel that he is the slanderer
of the innocent--contempt from that Runeck!"
This last sentence rang out like a scream. Wildenrod started and fixed
a strange look upon her.
"Do you dread his contempt so much?" asked he, slowly. "Rest easy,
after that scene he will himself avoid any meeting; independently of
that, he enters the family circle no more. Leave everything else to me!
You have only to keep silent and make yourself easy. Promise me that."
"Yes," murmured Cecilia almost inaudibly.
Oscar bent down and touched her forehead with his lips. "I thank you!
And now I really shall leave you alone, for I see that you can no
longer stand this conversation."
He turned to go, but once more paused and gazed intently upon her face.
"Egbert Runeck is our foe, a deadly foe, who wants to annihilate you
and me, and if I offer him battle it must be to the knife--do not
forget that!"
Cecilia gave no answer, but her whole body shook as with an ague, when
the door fell to behind her brother. The truth that he no longer sought
to conceal from her, had wounded her to the very depths of her soul.
The gay glittering world of pleasure and fashion with which alone she
had been familiar up to this time, lay shattered at her feet, the rock
was riven--what did it hide in its depths?