Countess Erika's Apprenticeship Part 21

"I want you to look at a picture which has charmed me," Goswyn said, after a pause, desirous to change the subject, and as he spoke he pointed to a picture at sight of which the old lady uttered an exclamation of admiration, while Erika gazed at it pale and mute.

The picture was called 'The Seeress,' and represented a peasant-girl standing wan and rapt, her eyes gazing into the unseen, her hand stretched out as if groping. On the right of the girl were a couple of willows in the midst of the level landscape, their trunks rugged and scarred and here and there tufted with wild flowers, while in the background a little trickling stream was spanned by a huge stone bridge, through the arches of which could be seen glimpses of a miserable village half obscured by rising mists.

The Berlin public were too much spoiled by the mediocre artistic euphemism of the day to have the taste to appreciate this masterpiece.

A couple of art critics pa.s.sed it by with a shake of the head, muttering, "Unripe fruit."

Countess Lenzdorff repeated the phrase as the wise-acres disappeared.

"Unripe fruit!--Quite right, but a most n.o.ble specimen. I only trust it may ripen under favourable conditions. The thing is full of talent. 'A Seeress.' Apparently a Jeanne d'Arc."

"Probably," said Goswyn. "It certainly is original in conception: there is nothing conventional in it. What inspiration there is in the pale face! what maidenly grace in the n.o.ble and yet almost emaciated figure!

It is a most attractive picture."

"The strange thing about it is that this Seeress in reality looks far more like Erika than does Riedel's 'Heather Blossom,'" exclaimed the old lady. "I must have this picture!"

"You are too late, Countess," rejoined Goswyn.

"Is it sold already? What was the price?"

"It was very reasonable,--a beginner's price," Goswyn replied, with a slight blush.

The old Countess laughed: she had no objection that Goswyn, with his limited means, should buy a picture just because it resembled her grand-daughter.

Meanwhile, Erika was trembling in every limb. Who but _he_ could have painted the picture?--who else had seen Luzano,--Luzano, and herself?

She felt proud of her _protege_. In the corner of the picture she read 'Lozoncyi.' It pleased her that he had so fine-sounding a foreign name.

"You shall find out for me where the young man lives," Countess Lenzdorff cried, eagerly: "he must paint Erika for me while his prices are still reasonable."

Goswyn cleared his throat. "Much as I admire this young artist," he observed, "if I were you I would not have him paint Countess Erika."

"Why not?"

"Because he has another picture on exhibition here, to see which an extra price of admission is asked."

"Indeed!" cried the old lady. "Is it so very bad?"

"The worst of it is the curtain that hides it from the public, and the extra price paid to look at it," Goswyn replied, half laughing. "It certainly is a powerful thing,--painted later than 'The Seeress,' and under a different inspiration. If you would like to see it, let me play the part of Countess Erika's chaperon for a few minutes: you go behind that curtain."

The Countess Anna could not let such an opportunity slip. She was an old woman; no one--not even the over-scrupulous Goswyn--could object to her looking at the picture. So she blithely went her way.

Meanwhile, Erika had grown very pale. She felt as if some dear old plaything, to which she had attached all sorts of pathetic memories, had fallen into the mire! It was gone; let it lie there: she would not stoop to pick it up and wipe it off.

Goswyn, who was observing her narrowly, could not understand the sudden change in her face. He had often had occasion to notice the sensitiveness of her moral nature, but to-day the key to the riddle was lacking. What could it possibly matter to her whether or not an obscure artist painted an improper picture?

He tried to begin a conversation with her, but had hardly done so when Countess Lenzdorff returned, walking slowly, with her head held haughtily erect, a sign with her of extreme indignation.

"You seem more shocked, Countess, than I expected you to be," Goswyn remarked, as she appeared. "Do you think the picture so very bad?"

"Nonsense!" the old lady replied, impatiently. "It was not painted for school-girls and boys: it did not shock me. It is not the picture that has made me angry, but--whom do you think I found in the room with her cousin Nimbsch and two or three other young men? Your sister-in-law Dorothea! So young a woman had better not look at a picture before which it is thought necessary to hang a curtain, but it is beyond a jest when she takes a train of young men with her to see it. If one is without principles,--good heavens! it is hard enough to hold on to principles in this philosophic age, when one is puzzled to know upon what to base them,--one ought at least to have some feeling of decency, some aesthetic sentiment."

CHAPTER IX.

For some time of late the loungers in Bellevue Street had enjoyed an interesting morning spectacle. Before the hotel the first story of which was occupied by Countess Anna Lenzdorff, three beautiful thoroughbred horses pawed the ground impatiently between the hours of eight and nine. A stable-boy in velveteens held two of the horses, while a groom in a tall hat and buckskin breeches reverently held the bridle of the third steed, which was provided with a lady's saddle. The groom was bow-legged and red-faced, very English in appearance,--in fact, an ideal groom.

Before long a young lady would appear at the tall door of the house, a young lady in a close-fitting dark-blue riding-habit and a tall silk hat beneath which the knot of her gleaming hair showed in almost too great luxuriance, and close behind her would come a fair-haired officer of dragoons. After stroking her steed and feeding it with sugar, the young lady would place her foot in the willing hand of her tall escort and lightly leap into the saddle. Then there would be a slight arrangement of skirt and stirrup, and "Is it all right, Countess Erika?"

"Yes, Herr von Sydow."

And in an instant the officer and his groom would mount and the little cavalcade would wend its way with clattering hoofs to the adjacent Thiergarten.

At the close of the season Countess Lenzdorff had declared that her grand-daughter looked ill and needed exercise.

At first she prescribed a course of riding-lessons in the Imperial School; but Erika found this very irksome, and Goswyn was intrusted with the task of procuring her a riding horse and of teaching her to ride. Under his guidance she made astonishing progress, and then--she looked so lovely on horseback. When she began, the Thiergarten was cold and bare,--it was towards the end of March: now it was the end of April, and there was spring everywhere.

On the tall old trees the foliage, young and tender, drenched with sunlight, showed golden green, gleaming brown, and rosy red, shading off into transparency in the gradations of colour native to early spring, and in the midst of this harmonious variety here and there a grave dark fir would show its dark boughs not yet decorated with the slender green fingers in the gift of May. Among the trees the smooth surface of a pond would reflect the myriad tones of colour of the spring; the long shadows of morning stretched dark across the level sunlit sward of the openings in the woodland. The air was fresh and filled with the fragrance of cool moist earth and young vegetation, but mingling with its invigorating breath there was suddenly wafted a languid odour, intoxicatingly sweet, but with something sickening in its essence, and as the riders looked for its source they perceived among the spring greenery, covered to the tip of every bough with gleaming white blossoms, the luxuriant wild cherry.

Erika inhaled its heavy breath with eager delight, while Goswyn's dislike of it amounted almost to disgust.

Every day they rode thus together along the avenues of the Thiergarten, until they became familiar with every pond, every statue,--yes, even with the appearance of every rider. At times they would meet a couple of cavalry officers and exchange greetings; or a few infantry officers, much-enduring warriors, who seemed to find riding the most difficult duty required of them; or some gentleman in trade testing upon a hired steed his skill in horsemanship and pale with terror if he happened to lose a stirrup. Squadrons of young girls under the guardianship of a riding-master would come cantering along the smooth drive, some overflowing with youthful vitality, others evidently taking the exercise by order of a physician.

Of course Countess Lenzdorff had requested Goswyn's supervision for only the few first efforts in horsemanship made by her grand-daughter, never dreaming that he would sacrifice two hours of each day in trotting about the Thiergarten with the young girl. But week followed week and he was still riding daily with Erika. In themselves there could have been but little pleasure in these excursions always along the same familiar avenues,--longer flights into the surrounding country with only a groom as escort would have been thought indecorous,--and yet the two morning hours thus pa.s.sed were more to the young dragoon than the whole day beside.

The girl was in such harmony with the early, fresh nature about them.

She was still but a child; but just as she was, with her unblunted sensibilities, her eager warm-heartedness, he would fain have clasped her in his arms, and have claimed the right to cherish and nurture to their glorious development all the fine qualities now dormant within her, before she should be wounded and sore from the thorns that beset her pathway.

That her sentiments towards him bore no comparison with those he cherished for her he was perfectly aware; but what of that? Pa.s.sion too easily aroused on her part would not have pleased him, and she frankly showed her preference for him among all the men of her acquaintance.

The old Countess did all that she could to further his wooing: if he had not been in love he would have thought that she did too much. It was foolish to delay.

The leaves had lost their first tender beauty and were full-grown, strong, and shining, as they rode one day along one of the narrowest bridle-paths in the Thiergarten,--a path where here and there a huge tree, which those who had laid out the park had not had the heart to sacrifice, almost obstructed the way. They trotted along briskly, like all beginners. Erika preferred a very swift pace, at which Goswyn sometimes demurred. On a sudden the girl's horse shied, violently startled by a wayfarer who had fallen asleep in the shade by the side of the path.

Very calmly, with no thought of danger, Erika not only kept her seat in the saddle, but quickly succeeded in soothing her horse.

All the more was Goswyn terrified, and no sooner was he convinced that Erika did not need his a.s.sistance than he turned angrily and soundly berated the unfortunate man, who was apparently intoxicated. Then, somewhat ashamed of his outburst, he rejoined Erika, who awaited him with a smile of surprise. He frowned; his cheeks were flushed. "Pardon me, Countess; I am very sorry," he said. "I could think of nothing but that you might have been thrown,---that tree--if you had lost your presence of mind----" He shuddered.

She shrugged her shoulders. "And what if I had? You were by."

At these words his face cleared. "Do you really feel such confidence in me?" he asked.

"I?" She looked at him in utter surprise. Why should he ask a question to which the reply was so self-evident?

His grave, manly face took on an expression of almost boyish embarra.s.sment, and suddenly she became aware of his sentiments,--for the first time. She made a nervous effort to devise something that should hinder his confession, something that should spare him humiliation and herself pain: she could invent nothing. In vain did she search her mind for some, even the smallest, sensible evasive phrase, and at last she murmured, "The trees are very green for the time of year. Do you not think so?"

He smiled in spite of his agitation and confusion, and then said, in the slightly hoa.r.s.e tone which always with him betokened intense earnestness, "Countess Erika, beyond a certain point twilight, lovely as it is, becomes intolerable; one longs for light." He paused, looked full in her face, and cleared his throat. "You must long have been aware of how I regard you?"