Fickle Fortune Part 16

'Are you satisfied with your mother now?'

The young Count carried the hand to his lips, and kissed it fervently.

'Can you ask me that to-day, a day which has seen my every wish fulfilled? I know that you made a great sacrifice in giving your consent, and that you have had to fight many a battle with my uncle on my behalf.'

The Countess repressed a sigh at this mention of her brother.

'Armand will never forgive me for yielding. Perhaps he is right! It would have been my duty, no doubt, to maintain the traditions of our house. And yet I could not resist your entreaties. I desired, at least, to see _you_ happy.'

As she spoke, she glanced involuntarily at the old Count's portrait hanging opposite. Edmund caught the look, and understood the thought underlying the words.

'You were not happy?' he asked in a low tone.

'My husband never once in the whole course of my married life gave me ground for complaint. He was always most kind and indulgent towards me.'

'But he was an old man,' said Edmund, gazing up at his father's kindly but withered features; 'and you were young and beautiful, like Hedwig, and had a right to expect all happiness in life. My poor dear!' his voice shook with suppressed emotion. 'It is only since I have been so happy myself that I have understood how dreary and desolate your life must have been, notwithstanding all my father's goodness. He could not love you with the ardour of youth. You bore your lot bravely always, but it must be a hard lot, nevertheless, to have constantly to listen to the dictates of duty, and to stifle the voice which calls for a fuller life and fuller happiness.'

He paused, for the Countess sharply withdrew her hand from his, and turned away from him and the picture.

'Enough, Edmund!' she said, with a hasty gesture. 'You distress me.'

The son stood silent and confused. It was the first time he had permitted to himself such an allusion, but he had not dreamed his mother would be wounded by it.

'Forgive me,' he said, after a pause. 'I did not intend any reproach to my father's memory. It a.s.suredly was no fault of his if anything were wanting to your contentment.'

'Nothing was wanting,' exclaimed the Countess, with a rush of genuine feeling. 'Nothing, for I had you, my Edmund. You have been all in all to me; you have made up to me for everything. I have desired no other happiness since I have had my son's love. So far indeed'--here her voice sank--'so far his love has been mine alone; now I must share it with another, who henceforth will take the first place in his heart.'

'Mother!' broke in the young Count, half pleading, half reproachful.

'You will be to me still what you have ever been.'

The Countess shook her head gently.

'I have, of course, long known that the time would come when the mother must make way for the wife; but now that it is here, it seems hard--so hard to bear, that I sometimes seriously think of leaving Ettersberg when you are married, and of going to live at Schonfeld, which you know was appointed me as a dower-house.'

'Never!' exclaimed Edmund, with vehemence. 'You cannot, will not, act so unkindly by me. You must not leave me, mother. You know that I cannot do without you, even though I have Hedwig. Much as I love her, she would not make up to me for all that I should lose in you.'

The Countess heard these words with secret triumph. She knew that Edmund was sincere in his speech; the present moment convinced her of her power afresh. For his promised wife he had never anything but light talk and merry jests; Hedwig knew only the pleasant but superficial side of his character, which he showed to the world generally. All the deeper, intenser feelings of his nature belonged exclusively to his mother. As they flowed out towards her in all their warmth and fulness, she triumphantly recognised the fact that the first place in her son's heart was still hers.

She had indeed known it, felt sure of it all along, and perhaps to this conviction Hedwig owed much of the friendly consideration which the Countess had always shown her. A bride more ardently, more pa.s.sionately beloved would have found a redoubtable adversary in the jealous mother; this young girl, who neither gave nor required any great depth of affection, was endured because she did not endanger the maternal sway.

'Hush, hush! do not let anyone hear you,' said the Countess playfully, yet with a swift deep undercurrent of tenderness. 'It is not becoming in an engaged man, and the lord of many broad acres, to declare that he cannot do without his mother. Do you think, my dear, that it would be easy for me to leave you?'

'Do you think I would let you go? The mere formal recognition of my majority will not make a straw's difference in our position one towards the other.'

'It will, Edmund,' said the Countess gravely. 'This day signifies to you more than a mere form. Hitherto you have been my son, the heir, over whom I exercised a guardian's authority. Henceforth you will be the leading person, the head of the house. It now devolves on you to represent the name and family of Ettersberg. May you sustain your rank brilliantly and well, in all happiness and honour! Then no sacrifice will have been too great. All that I have borne and suffered will seem to me a light thing--for your sake.'

The words breathed of a great secret satisfaction. Perhaps they had another and a deeper meaning than any Edmund attached to them. He thought only of the sacrifice she had made in consenting to his marriage, and, stooping, he kissed her brow, thereby expressing his mute thanks.

The Countess warmly returned his embrace, but in the very act of doing so she started, and clasped her arms tightly, eagerly about her son, as though she would shield him from some danger.

'Why, what ails you?' asked Edmund calmly, following the direction of her eyes. 'It is only Oswald.'

'Oswald! Yes, indeed,' murmured the Countess. 'He, and always he!'

The interruption was indeed caused by Oswald, who had opened the gla.s.s-door leading from the terrace, and now, as he came in, appeared much surprised at beholding his aunt and cousin.

'I thought these rooms were quite empty,' he said, going up to them.

'And I thought you had long ago retired to rest,' replied the Countess. 'Where have you been?'

'In the park,' answered the young man laconically, not noticing the sharpness of her tone.

'What, at this hour of the night?' cried Edmund. 'If it were not an offence to attribute anything like mooning or romance to you, I should believe that one of our fair ladies this evening had touched your rebel heart. At such a time one feels instinctively a desire to sigh out to the stars alone one's bliss or misery. Do my words displease you again? Oswald, my mother has just solemnly proclaimed me head of the house and representative-in-chief of the family. In this exalted capacity, I now forbid me those black looks of yours, and call on you to show a smiling countenance. I will have no clouds, nothing but sunshine, in this my Castle of Ettersberg.'

He would have thrown his arms about his cousin's shoulder in the old familiar fashion, but the Countess suddenly stepped between the two.

So energetic was this dumb protest against the young men's close intimacy that Edmund involuntarily receded. Oswald coldly scanned his aunt's face, and she returned the gaze. Neither of them spoke, but the expression of undying, irreconcilable hatred which gleamed in their eyes was eloquent enough.

'Sunshine alone?' repeated Oswald drily. 'I fear that you are stretching the supremacy you enjoy under your own roof too far. To command that is hardly possible even to the "head of the house," or to the "representative-in-chief of the family." Goodnight, Edmund. I will not intrude on you and my aunt any longer.'

He bowed to the Countess, without offering to kiss her hand, as usual, and left the room. Edmund looked after him, half angry, half surprised.

'Oswald grows harder in his manner and more unsociable day by day. Do you not think so?'

'Why did you force him to remain on here?' said the Countess, curtly and bitterly. 'You see how he repays your affection.'

The young Count shook his head. 'That is not it. This singular behaviour of his has nothing to do with me. There is some trouble weighing on Oswald. I can see it plainly, though he will not admit or speak of it. To you he always shows the more unpleasant side of his character, from some spirit of perversity, I suppose. I know him as he really is, and that is why I am so fond of him.'

'And I hate him!' exclaimed the Countess. 'I know that he is secretly hatching something against us at the present moment. Just as I was about to give you my blessing, and wish you all happiness and joy in the future, he rose up like a shadow, and stepped between us like a messenger of evil tidings. Why did you keep him here when he wanted to go? I shall not breathe freely until he has left Ettersberg.'

Edmund looked at his mother in real alarm. Pa.s.sionate outbreaks were so foreign to her nature that he positively hardly recognised her in this mood. Her dislike to Oswald was no secret from him, but this exceeding irritation he could in no way explain to himself.

The entrance of Everard and another servant here put an end to the conversation. They had extinguished the lights in the ballroom, and wished to continue and finish their work elsewhere. The Countess, accustomed to control herself in the presence of her servants, speedily recovered her usual composure of manner. After giving some few orders, she took Edmund's arm and begged him to take her to her room. Already she repented the vehemence of her speech to her son, and to him as to herself the interruption came opportunely. They never could, never would agree in their judgment of Oswald.

All grew quiet and dark in the state apartments. The doors were closed, and the domestics had withdrawn. In Edmund's room and in his mother's the lights were soon put out. Down the whole castle facade two windows only gleamed brightly: that of the turret-chamber in the side-wing where Oswald von Ettersberg had his lodging, and another in the main building, situated very near the Countess's own bedroom.

The young affianced bride, the heroine of the evening, had not yet retired to rest. She sat leaning back in a great armchair, her head half buried in its cushions, unmindful of the fact that the laces and roses adorning her dress were being unmercifully, irreparably crushed. Before her on a table lay her lover's latest offering, a costly pearl-necklace, which she had worn that day for the first time.

To these jewels, however, she vouchsafed not a glance, though but a few days ago they had been received by her with great manifestations of delight.

The evening had been plentiful in pleasure. Hedwig had made her entrance into society as Edmund's promised wife, had appeared amid the brilliant surroundings among which her future life would be pa.s.sed. To be mistress of Ettersberg was a.s.suredly no unenviable lot, even for so rich an heiress, so spoilt a child of Fortune, as Hedwig Rustow. She had never enjoyed such triumphs, never received so much homage, as had been lavished on her tonight in her quality of the future Countess Ettersberg.

Yet no happy smile, no sparkle of satisfied vanity, brightened the girl's face. Motionless, with her hands folded in her lap, she sat looking vaguely, dreamily before her into s.p.a.ce. The veil still shrouded her soul; the dream still held her enchained. It led her away from the gaiety and glamour of the fete to a lonely wooded hill-side, where, beneath a gray and cloudy sky, the swallows flitted through the rain-charged air, piping their shrill greetings.

They really had brought spring upon their wings, those small, joyful messengers. Beneath all the frost and rime the mighty work of germination had been progressing, and everywhere around, noiselessly, invisibly, mysterious forces had been active, weaving their wondrous tissues. Yes; springtime, though tardy, surely comes to Mother Earth and to her wearying, longing sons. Sad is it when the bright season is too long delayed, when from despairing hearts the cry goes up, 'Too late! too late!'

CHAPTER VIII.