Countess Erika's Apprenticeship Part 31

"Now, don't be so impatient. I know I am rather slow at explanations.

You see, Gos, of late matters have not gone quite right between Thea and myself. There is sure to be fault on both sides in such cases: I could not be satisfied with the stupid life here in town, and she did not care for Silesia, so we agreed that I should stay at home, while she diverted herself for a while in town, and perhaps she would come back to me and be more contented in the end. I know that certain people disapproved of my course; but I had my reasons. There's no good in fretting a nervous horse: better give it the rein. But the time seemed long to me, she wrote so seldom and her letters were so incoherent. In short,"--he suddenly began to be embarra.s.sed,--"I got some foolish notions into my head, and so, without letting her know, I appeared in Berlin this morning. And how do you think I found poor Thea? Sitting crying by the fire. Just think of it, Gos! Of course I was frightened, and did all that I could to comfort her, and when she was calm I asked her what was the matter. Homesickness, Gos! Yes, a longing for the old home and for the clumsy bear who is, after all, nearer to her than any other human being. She reproached me for neglecting her,--said I had not even expressed a wish in my letters to see her, and she was just on the point of starting for Kossnitz; and she was jealous too,--poor little goose! In short, there were all sorts of a misunderstanding, and the end of it all was that she begged me--begged me like a child--to carry her back to Kossnitz. I wish you could have heard her describe our life together there! She would not hear of my going a few days before to make ready for her, but clung to me as if we had been but just married. What is the matter with you, Gos?" for his brother had walked to a window, where he stood with his back turned to Otto, looking out.

"What could be the matter?" Goswyn forced himself to reply.

"Then why do you stand looking out of the window as if you took not the least interest in what I am telling you?"

"Forgive me: there is a crowd in the street about a horse that has fallen down."

"Very well: if every broken-down hack in the street can interest you more than what is next my heart, there is no use in my talking. But I know what it is; you were always unjust to Thea; you never understood her. Adieu!" And Otto took his hat and walked towards the door.

Goswyn conquered himself. What affair was it of his if his brother was happy in an illusion? he ought to do all that he could to prevent his eyes from being opened.

He laid his hand upon Otto's arm and said, kindly, "Forgive me, Otto; you must not take it ill if such a confirmed old bachelor as I does not share as he should in your happiness; it all seems so foreign to such a life as mine."

Otto's brow cleared. "I was silly," he confessed. "I ought not to have been so irritable. Poor Gos! But indeed I should rejoice from my heart if you could marry. There is nothing like it in the world. You need not frown: I never will mention the subject to any one else."

"Yes, yes, Otto. And when are you going home?"

"To-morrow. We are going to spend a few weeks at Kossnitz, and then we are to take a trip together. I came to ask you if you would not lunch with us to-day, that we might see something of you in comfort. This room of yours is decidedly cold. Do you never have it any warmer?

Dorothea especially begs you to come,--at one o'clock."

"Indeed! does Dorothea want me?"

"Gos!"

"I will come. I have one or two things to attend to, but I will be with you in half an hour." And the brothers parted.

A few hours have pa.s.sed. Goswyn had appeared punctually at lunch, and had done his best not to be a spoil-sport. They were now sitting by the fire in the little _salon_ in which they had taken coffee, Goswyn and his brother. The early twilight began to make itself felt, but no object was as yet indistinct.

Dorothea had gone out to inform her aunt Brock of her projected departure and to ask her to make a few farewell calls for her. She had met Goswyn with such gay indifference that he had been puzzled indeed, and had finally begun to believe that he had been mistaken,--that the person whom he had supposed to be Dorothea Sydow was not she at all.

Something had happened in her life, however; of that he was convinced.

Never had Dorothea been so simply charming. She gave him her hand in token of reconciliation, alluded, not without regret, to her defective education, told an anecdote or two with much grace and in a softened tone of voice, and clung to Otto like an ailing child.

"We are going to begin all over again,--all over again," she repeated, adding, "And when Gos has forgotten what a bad creature I used to be, and that he could not bear me, he will come and see us at Kossnitz: won't you, Gos? You shall see how pleasant I will make it for you there. You have absolutely hated me; or perhaps you thought me not worth hating,--you only detested me as one detests a caterpillar or a spider. I confess, I hated you. I always felt as if I ought to be ashamed in your presence; and that is not a pleasant sensation." She laughed, the old giggling silvery laugh, but there was a pathetic tone in it as she brushed away the tears from her eyes, and left the room, to return in a few moments, fresh and smiling, equipped for her walk.

She kissed her husband by way of farewell, and held out her hand to Goswyn. "Shall I find you here when I return, Gos?" she asked, just before the door closed behind her.

"There is no one like her!" murmured Otto. "And to think that I could ever fancy a bachelor existence a pleasant one! But all is different now." The good fellow's eyes were moist as he pa.s.sed his hand over them.

Shortly afterwards they heard a ring at the outside door. "Some visitor,--the deuce!" growled Otto. Goswyn looked about for his sabre, which he had stood in a corner.

But it was no visitor. Dorothea's maid entered. "A package has come for her Excellency," she announced. "Perhaps the Herr Baron will sign the receipt."

"Give it to me, Jenny."

Sydow signed it, and then said, "And give me the package. I will hand it to your mistress."

The maid gave it to him: it was a thick sealed envelope.

A dreadful suspicion flashed upon Goswyn's mind: in an instant he guessed the truth. What if it should occur to his brother to open the envelope? Apparently he had no thought of doing so: he simply laid it upon Dorothea's writing-table, a pretty, useless piece of furniture, much carved and decorated. Goswyn felt relieved. He suddenly became garrulous, talked of the latest political complication, told the last story of the intense piety of the Countess Waldersee, as narrated by the Prince at a recent supper-party, and described the four magnificent horses sent by the Sultan to the Emperor.

Otto sat with his back to the ominous packet. It did not escape Goswyn that he became very monosyllabic and did not show much interest in his brother's conversation.

"If she would only return!" Goswyn thought to himself. He was convinced that the packet contained Dorothea's letters to Orbanoff. He had not been mistaken the previous evening: it had been Dorothea who had pa.s.sed him, evidently returning to her home from a last interview. The affair, odious as it was, was at an end: Dorothea was relieved that it was so.

She was not fitted to engage in a dangerous intrigue.

Suddenly Otto began to sniff, as if perceiving some odour in the air.

"'Tis odd," he said. "Don't you perceive a peculiar fragrance? If it were not too silly, I should say that it smells like Dorothea."

"That would not be odd," his brother rejoined, "since she left the room only half an hour ago."

"But I did not perceive it before," Otto said; and then, with sudden irritability, turning towards the writing-table, he added, "It is that confounded packet!"

"It probably contains something of Dorothea's which she has accidentally left at a friend's."

But Otto had taken the packet from the table. He turned it over. "I know the seal,--a die with the motto _va banque_: it is...o...b..noff's seal!" His breath came quick. "What can Orbanoff have sent her?"

"Probably some political treatise. I do not see how it can interest you," said Goswyn.

Once more Otto turned the packet over in his hands. He seemed about to lay it down on the writing-table again; then, at the last moment, before Goswyn could bethink himself, he opened it hastily. About a dozen short notes, in Dorothea's childish handwriting, fell out, then a note of Orbanoff's. Otto's eyes were riveted upon it with a gla.s.sy stare; he could not yet comprehend. Then with a sudden cry he crushed the note together, tossed it to Goswyn, and buried his face in his hands.

A dull, brooding silence followed. Goswyn held the note in his hand, without reading it: it was not for him to pry curiously into his brother's anguish and disgrace.

After a while Otto raised his head. "What have you to say?" he exclaimed, bitterly. "That such another idiot as I does not live upon the earth? Say it! Ah, you have not read the note, Goswyn. Why do you look at me so? Could you have known---- Oh, my G.o.d! my G.o.d!" The strong man buried his face in his hands again, and sobbed hoa.r.s.ely.

Goswyn was terribly distressed. He had never known his brother to weep since his childhood. He would far rather have had him fall into a fury.

But no; he was weeping: the sense of disgrace was drowned in agony.

Before long he collected himself, ashamed of his weakness, and there was the quiet of despair in the face he lifted to Goswyn.

"You knew it--since when?"

"I know nothing," Goswyn replied.

"No, you know nothing,--good G.o.d! who ever knows anything in such affairs?--but you suspected, did you not?"

Goswyn was silent.

"Perhaps you can tell me how many people in Berlin--suspect it?"

Goswyn bit his lip. What reply could he make? after a while he began: "Otto, I would have given anything in the world to prevent you from learning it."

"Indeed!" Otto interrupted him. "You would have let me go through life grinning amiably, ridiculously, with a stain on my name at which people would point contemptuously, and you never would have told me of that stain? Goswyn!" He started up; Goswyn also arose, and the brothers confronted each other beside the hearth, upon which the fire had fallen into glowing embers and ashes.

"I ought certainly to have given Dorothea opportunity to expiate her fault. She was in the right path," said Goswyn. "The result of her frivolity had caused her a panic of terror: the entire affair had been a burden to her from the beginning, as you can see by her relief that it is at an end. One must take her as she is. All this has less significance for Dorothea than for any other woman whom I know. It has not entered into her soul. It has left nothing behind it but a horror of it all from beginning to end."

Otto looked suspiciously at his brother. Was this Goswyn who talked thus?--Goswyn the strict,--Goswyn, so uncompromising where honour was concerned?