Countess Erika's Apprenticeship Part 28

Close behind the Lenzdorffs walks the Russian Princess B----, who hires an entire suite of rooms for every season and attends every representation. She is dressed in embroidered muslin, and from the broad brim of her white straw hat hangs a Brussels lace veil partially concealing her face, which was once very handsome.

She addresses the old Countess: "_etes-vous touchee de la grace, ma chere Anne?_"

Countess Anna shakes her head emphatically: "No; the music is too highly spiced and peppered for me. It bas made me quite thirsty. I long for a draught of prosaic beer and some Mozart."

The Russian smiles, and immediately begins to tell of how she had once reproved Rubinstein when he ventured to say something derogatory with regard to Wagner.

A stout tradesman, whose poetically-inclined wife has apparently brought him to Bayreuth against his will, exclaims, "What a humbug it is!" to which his wife rejoins, "You cannot understand it the first time: you must hear 'Parsifal' frequently." "Very possibly," he declares; "but I shall never hear it again."

The Lenzdorffs and Lord Langley take their seats at a table in the airy balcony of the restaurant, to drink a cup of tea: table and tea have been reserved for them by Ludecke's watchful care. The greater part of the a.s.semblage can scarcely find a chair upon which to sit down, or a gla.s.s of lemonade for refreshment. The consequence is that there is much unseemly pushing and crowding.

Erika eats nothing. Lord Langley complains, as do all Englishmen, of the German food, and the old Countess complains of the shrill music.

Meanwhile, a tall, striking woman advances to the table where the three are sitting, and where there is a fourth chair, unoccupied. "_Vous pardonnez!_" she exclaims: "_je tombe de fatigue!_"

Erika gazes at her: it is the companion of the man who had turned to look at her in the theatre during the prelude. A disgust for which she cannot account possesses her: it is as if she were aware of the presence of something impure, repulsive; and yet she could not possibly explain why the stranger should excite such a sensation: she is undeniably handsome, well formed, with regularly-chiselled features, and fair hair dressed with great care and knotted behind beneath the brim of her broad Leghorn hat. A red veil is tied tightly over her face. There is nothing else to excite disapproval in her dress, and inexperienced mortals would p.r.o.nounce her age to be scarcely thirty. It would require great familiarity with Parisian arts of the toilette to perceive that her whole face is painted and that she is at least forty years old. Everything about her is exquisitely fresh and neat, and from her person is wafted the peculiar aroma of those women whose chief occupation in life is to take care of their bodies. Her air is respectable, and somewhat affected.

Lord Langley, to whom her unbidden presence seems especially annoying, is about to intimate this to her, when her escort approaches, and, hastily whispering to her, obliges her to leave her place, which she does unwillingly and even crossly. Courteously lifting his hat, the young man utters an embarra.s.sed "Excuse me," and retires. She can be heard reproaching him petulantly as they walk away, and their places in the theatre remain unoccupied during the other acts of the drama.

"Disgusting!" mutters Lord Langley. "Do you know who it was?" he asks, turning to the Countess Anna. "Lozoncyi, the young artist who created such a sensation a couple of years ago. She was his mistress. I remember her in Rome."

Although upon Erika's account the words are spoken in an undertone, she hears them, and the blood rushes to her cheeks.

And now 'Parsifal' is over, the second act, with its fluttering flower-girl scene, in rather frivolous contrast with the serious motive of the work, its crude inharmonious decorations, and its wonderful dramatic finale; the third act too is over, with its sadly-sweet sunrise melody, its Good Friday spell resolving itself into the angelic music of the spheres.

With the hovering harp-arpeggio of the final scene still thrilling in their souls, Erika and her grandmother with Lord Langley drive back to town, leaving behind them the melancholy rustle of the forest, and hearing around them the rolling of wheels, the cracking of whips, and the footsteps of hundreds of pedestrians.

Life throbs in Erika's veins more warmly than it is wont to do; she is filled with a vague foreboding unknown to her hitherto. She seems to herself to be confronting the solution of a great secret, beside which she has pursued her thoughtless way, and around which the entire world circles.

At the door of their lodgings Lord Langley takes his leave of the ladies: with a lover's tenderness he slips down the glove from his betrothed's white wrist and imprints upon it two ardent kisses, as he whispers, "I trust that my charming Erika will be in a more gracious mood to morrow."

The disagreeable sensation caused by his warm breath upon her cheek was persistent; she could not rid herself of it.

She sent away her maid, and whilst she was undressing took from her pocket the packet of letters which Goswyn had left with her. She had carried it with her all day long, without finding a moment in which to destroy the papers. Now she removed their outside envelope, merely to a.s.sure herself that they were her mother's letters. Yes, she recognized the handwriting,--not the strong, almost masculine characters which had distinguished her mother's writing in the latter years of her life, but the long, slanting, faded hand which Erika could remember in the old exercise-books of her school-days. Nothing could have tempted the girl to read these letters: she kissed the poor yellow sheets twice, sadly and reverentially, and then she held them one by one in the flame of her candle.

Her heart was very heavy; a yearning for tenderness, for sympathy, possessed her, and she felt sore and discouraged. The wailing music, the shuddering alluring strains of sinful worldly desire, still haunted her soul with the glance of the stranger who seemed to her no stranger.

She felt a choking sensation at the thought of his companion. Never before had she come in contact with anything of the kind.

She lay down, but could not sleep. How sultry, even stifling, was the atmosphere! The windows of the little room were wide open, but the air that came in from without was heavy and inodorous: it brought no refreshment.

The tread of a belated pedestrian echoed in the street below, and there was the sound of laughter and song from some inn in the neighbourhood.

Suddenly the door opened, and the old Countess entered, in a white dressing-gown and lace night-cap. She had a small lamp in her hand, which she put down on a table, and then, seating herself on the edge of the bed, she scanned the young girl with penetrating eyes.

"Is anything troubling you, my child?" she began, after a while.

Erika tried to say no, but the word would not pa.s.s her lips. Instead of replying, she turned away her face.

"What was the difficulty between Lord Langley and yourself to-day?" the grandmother went on to ask.

Erika was mute.

"Tell me the simple truth," the old Countess insisted. "Did you not have some dispute this morning?"

"Oh, it was nothing," Erika replied, impatiently; "only--he attempted to play the lover, and I thought it quite unnecessary. Such folly is very unbecoming in a man of his age; and, besides, I cannot endure anything of the kind."

A strange expression appeared upon the grandmother's face,--the same that Goswyn had worn when his indignation had suddenly been transformed into pity for the girl. She cleared her throat once or twice, and then remarked, dryly, "How then do you propose to live with Lord Langley?"

Erika stared at her in dismay. "Good heavens! I have thought very little about it. You know well that I do not wish to marry for love.

That is why I accepted an old man instead of a young one,--because I supposed he would refrain from all lover-like folly. You have always told me that you married my grandfather without love, and that it turned out very well."

Her grandmother was silent for a while before she rejoined, "In the first place, const.i.tuted as you are, I should wish for you a less prosaic companion for life than your grandfather; but, at the same time, the torture which, with your exaggerated sensitiveness, awaits you in marrying Lord Langley bears no comparison with the simple tedium of my married life. We married in compliance with a family arrangement; and if I did so with but a small amount of esteem for him, he for his part brought to the match no devouring pa.s.sion for me,--which I should have found most annoying. But the case is entirely different with Lord Langley. He is as desperately in love with you as an old fool can be whose pa.s.sion is stimulated by the consciousness of his age."

Something in the horrified face of the inexperienced young girl must have intensified the old Countess's pity for her. "My poor child, I had no idea of your innocence and inexperience. I have lived on from day to day without in the least comprehending the young creature beside me."

She kissed the girl with infinite tenderness, put out the light, and left her alone, her burning face buried in the pillows and sobbing convulsively, a picture of despair.

The next day Erika broke her engagement to Lord Langley.

CHAPTER XV.

Erika's betrothal to Lord Langley had produced a sensation in society, but it had been regarded as a very sensible arrangement. The girl had been envied, and all had declared that her ambition had achieved its aim in a marriage with an English peer. Malice had not been silent: she had been credited with heartlessness,--but then she had done vastly well for herself. The announcement that the engagement was dissolved gave rise to all sorts of reports. No one knew the real reason of the breach, and had it been known it would not have been credited.

The belief steadily gained ground that Lord Langley had been the first to withdraw, dismayed by the discovery of Erika's objectionable relative Strachinsky, and shocked by the girl's heartless treatment of him.

Countess Brock furnished the material for this report, the Princess Dorothea detailed it with various additions, and in the eyes of Berlin society Erika was nothing more than an ambitious blunderer who had experienced a tremendous rebuff. It was edifying to hear Dorothea descant upon this theme, winding up her remarks with, "I do not pity Erika,--I never liked her,--but poor old Countess Lenzdorff. She has always been one of Aunt Brock's friends."

There had been an apparent change in the Princess Dorothea from the day when she had publicly insulted Goswyn von Sydow in Charlottenburg Avenue. The story had been told greatly to her discredit, and not only had her cousin Prince Helmy forsworn his allegiance to her, but the other men who had been present at that memorable interview had since held aloof from her. She found herself compelled to attract a fresh circle of admirers,--which she did at the sacrifice of every remnant of good taste which she yet possessed.

After this for a while she pursued her madly gay career; but for a year past there had been a change. The number of her admirers had greatly diminished,--was reduced, indeed, to a Prince Orbanoff, who was now her shadow. She boasted of her good resolutions, went to church every Sunday, was shocked at the women who read French novels, and was altogether rather a prudish character.

Society held itself on the defensive, and did not put much faith in her boasted virtue. But when she calumniated Erika society believed her; at least this was the case with the society of envious young beauties whom she met every Friday at the 'wicked fairy's,' where they made clothes for the poor.

When, late in the autumn, the Lenzdorffs returned to Berlin, supposing that the little episode of Erika's betrothal was already forgotten by society, they were met on all sides by a malicious show of sympathy.

Erika regarded all this with utter indifference, and withdrew from all gaiety as far as she could, but the old Countess fretted and fumed with indignation.

She could not comprehend why all the world could not view Erika from her own point of view; and her exaggerated defence of the girl contributed to make Erika's position still more disagreeable. Moreover, age was beginning to cast its first shadows over the Countess's clear mind. She was especially annoyed, also, by Goswyn's holding aloof. He had replied courteously, but with extreme reserve, to the Countess's letter informing him, not without exultation, of the breaking of Erika's engagement. This was as it should be; but when the answer to a second letter written much later was quite as reserved, the old Countess was vexed and impatient. Erika insisted upon reading this second epistle herself. Her hands trembled as she held it, and when she had finished it she laid it on the table without a word, and left the room as pale as ashes.

To the grandmother, whose heart was filled with tenderness, all the more intense because it had been first aroused in her old age, her grand-daughter's evident pain was intolerable. After a while she went to her in her room. The girl was sitting at the window, erect and pale.

She had a book in her hand, and the Countess observed that she held it upside down.

"Erika," she said, tenderly laying her hand on the girl's shoulder, "I only wanted to tell you----"