Erlach Court Part 33

"Until you see me stifling in the mire, like poor Franz Meineck, console yourself with the conviction that you have done your duty by me."

Strange how deeply these words are impressed upon Katrine's soul! She does not sleep during the night following upon the captain's explanation, no, not for a quarter of an hour.

She tosses about restlessly in bed; a moonbeam which has contrived to slip through a crack in her shutters points at her with uncanny persistency, like an accusing ghostly finger. The little clock on her writing-table strikes twelve; the sixth of January is past, the seventh of January has begun. The seventh of January! It was her wedding-day.

On the seventh of January nine years before, without a spark of love for Jack Leskjewitsch, but with the angry memory of humiliation suffered at another's hands, she had donned her gown of bridal white and her bridal wreath had been placed upon her head. In her inmost soul she had compared her bridal robes to a shroud, and so cold, so white, so stern, had she looked on that day that those who helped to dress her for the sacred ceremony had often said later that they had seemed to themselves to be preparing a corpse for burial, while all who witnessed the marriage declared that no funeral could have been sadder.

She had first known Jack on her father's, the Freiherr von Rinsky's, estate in M----. Quartered at the castle, Jack had soon ingratiated himself with its gouty old master. Katrine did not dislike him,--nay, she rather liked him. Her pride, which had been suffering from the destruction of her illusions ever since the winter she had spent with her aunt in Pesth three years before, turned with a bitterness that bordered on disgust from all the homage paid her by men. Jack Leskjewitsch had always been attentive to her without ever making love to her,--which attracted her. When he asked her to marry him he did it in so dry, odd a way that from sheer surprise she did not at once say no.

She replied that she would take his offer into consideration. Living beneath the same roof with a young stepmother whom she did not like, and who ruled her father, the suit of a wealthy, thoroughly honourable man was not to be lightly rejected. Yet if he had wooed her pa.s.sionately and tenderly she would surely have refused to listen to him. This, however, he did not do.

When she confessed to him that a bitter disappointment had paralyzed all the sentiment she had ever possessed, that he was not to expect any love from her, he received the confession with the utmost calmness, and replied that he too had nothing to offer her save cordial friendship.

"Those of my friends who married for love are one and all wretched now.

Let us try it after another fashion," he had said to her. And thus, almost with a laugh, without the slightest emotion, they had been betrothed on a gray, rainy November day, when the winds were raging as if they had sworn to blow out the sun's light in the skies, while the last field-daisies were hanging their heads among the faded meadow-gra.s.s as if tired of life.

Six weeks afterwards they were married, and took the usual trip to Rome and from one hotel to another.

The pale moonbeam still pointed at her like an accusing finger; its silver light fell upon her past and revealed many things which she had heedlessly forgotten during the nine years which now lay behind her.

She had married poor, very poor, had brought her husband nothing save her trousseau.

All the material comfort of her existence came from him. To show him any special grat.i.tude for that would indeed have been petty; but, putting it aside, with how much consideration he had always treated her! how carefully he had removed from her path all need for trouble and exertion, with the tenderness which rude soldiers alone know how to lavish upon their wives. She had complained of the inconveniences of the nomadic life of the army; but who had drained all those inconveniences to the dregs? He! He had taken all trouble upon himself.

In their wanderings she and the child had been cared for like the most frail and precious treasures, upon the transportation of which it was impossible to bestow too much thought. It had always been, "Spare yourself, and look out for the boy!" and either "It is too hot," or "It is too cold: you might be ill, or you might take cold; but do not stir.

I will see to it; rely upon me!"

Yes, she had indeed relied upon him; he looked after everything, without any words, without annoying her with restlessness, quietly, simply, and as if it could not have been otherwise.

And what had she done for him in return for all his care and consideration? She had kept his home in order, had treated him with more or less friendliness, had never flirted in the least with any other man, and had presented him with a charming child.

But no; she had not even presented him with it: she had jealously kept it for herself, had grudged him every caress which the boy bestowed upon his father; she had spoiled the child in order that she might hold the first place in his heart. Yet, oddly enough, in spite of all her indulgence the boy was fonder of his fiery, irritable, good-humoured, but strict papa whose nod he obeyed, than of herself, whom the young gentleman could wind around his finger. She confessed this to herself, not without bitterness.

When, the previous autumn, Erlach Court had come to her by inheritance from a grand-uncle, she was filled with a desire to break off all connection with an army life. Without the slightest consideration for her husband, she had left him and forced him for her sake to adopt an existence that was contrary to all his habits and tastes. The moonbeam still penetrated into her room: it grew brighter and brighter, and at last lit up the most secluded corner of her heart.

"Until you see me stifling in the mire, like poor Franz Meineck, console yourself with the conviction that you have done your duty by me."

Again and again the words echoed through her soul.

"I have done my duty by him," she repeated to herself, with the obstinacy with which we are wont to clutch a self-illusion that threatens to vanish. "I have done my duty."

Suddenly she trembles from head to foot, and, hiding her face in the pillow, she bursts into tears.

The boundless egotism, in all its petty childishness, which has informed her intercourse with her husband flashes upon her conscience.

How is it that she has never perceived that he has long since ceased to perform his part of their agreement? Little tokens of affection full of a timid poetry hitherto heedlessly overlooked now occur to her. Why had she not understood them? Why had she never felt a spark of love for him? Her cheeks burn. She had continually reproached her husband with never being done with his illusions, and she---- In a secret drawer of her writing-table there is at this very moment, shrivelled and faded, a gardenia which she has never been able to bring herself to destroy. She springs up, lights a candle, hastens to her writing-table, finds the ugly brown relic,--and burns it. When she lies down in bed again the admonitory moonbeam has vanished, but through the cold black of the winter night filters the first weak shimmer of the dawn. The dreamy ding-dong of a church bell among the mountains ringing for early ma.s.s has the peaceful sound of a sacred morning serenade as it floats into her room.

It is barely six o'clock. She folds her hands, a fervent prayer rises to her lips, and, with a still more fervent, unspoken prayer in her heart, her brown head sinks back upon the cool white pillow, and she falls asleep.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

GLOWING EMBERS.

"Papa is lazy to-day," Freddy remarks the next morning, breaking the silence that reigns at the breakfast-table and looking pensively at his father's empty chair. It is late, Freddy has drunk his milk, and Rohritz and the tutor are engaged with their second cup of tea. The host, usually so early, has not yet made his appearance.

"You ought not to make such remarks about papa," Katrine corrects her son on this occasion, although she is usually very indulgent to Freddy's impertinence. "Run up to his room and tell him I sent you to ask whether he took cold last evening, and if he would not like a cup of tea sent to him." In two minutes the boy returns, shouting gaily, "Papa sends you word that he does not want anything; he has nothing but a bad cold in his head, and he is coming presently."

In fact, the captain follows close upon the heels of his pretty little messenger.

"I was troubled about you," Katrine says, receiving him with a sort of timid kindness which seems painfully forced.

"Indeed? Very kind of you," he makes reply, in a very hoa.r.s.e voice, "but quite unnecessary."

"You seem, however, to have taken cold," Rohritz interposes.

"Pshaw! 'tis nothing. I lost my way in the dark last night, and got into a drift this side of K----: that's all.--Well, Katrine, am I to have my tea?"

"I have just made you some fresh; the first was beginning to be bitter," she makes excuse. "Wait a moment."

The captain is about to reply, but a fit of coughing interrupts him.

"Papa barks as Hector does at the full moon," Freddy remarks, merrily.

Katrine frowns. Why does Freddy seem so thoroughly spoiled to-day?

"I told you just now that it is very wrong in you to speak in that way of your father."

"Let him do it; papa knows what he means," the captain replies, turning to his little son sitting beside him rather than to his wife. "You're fond enough of papa,--love him pretty well,--eh, my boy?"

"Oh, don't I?" says Freddy, nestling close to his father; "don't I?"

That any one could doubt this fact evidently amazes him. The captain talks and plays merrily with the boy, never addressing a single word to Katrine.

Breakfast is over. For an hour Katrine has been sitting in her room, some sewing which has dropped from her hands lying in her lap, listening and waiting for his step,--in vain. Another quarter of an hour glides by: her heart throbs louder and louder, and tears fill her eyes. Suddenly she tosses her work aside, rises, and with head erect, looking neither to the right nor to the left, walks with firm, rapid steps along the corridor to the captain's room. At the door she pauses,--pauses for one short moment,--then boldly turns the latch and enters. Is he there? Yes, he is standing at the window, looking out upon the quiet, white landscape. Rather surprised, he looks back over his shoulder at his wife, for he knows it is she: he could recognize her step among a thousand.

"Do you want anything?" he asks, dryly.

"N--no."

The captain turns again to the snowy landscape.

"What are you gazing at so steadily?" Katrine asks him. "Is there anything particularly interesting to be seen out there?"

"No," he replies; "but when the room is cheerless, one looks out of the window for diversion."

A pause ensues.