Fickle Fortune Part 28

He released the girl from his arms and left her, once more breaking off abruptly, fleeing, as it were, from further explanation or discussion. It was impossible to solve the enigma. The Countess and Edmund were alike impenetrable.

Hedwig returned to her former place, and sat, absorbed in troubled meditation, resting her head on her hand. Edmund was concealing something from her, yet his love for her had suffered no change or diminution. It needed not the Countess's words to a.s.sure her of this; her own feelings told her the fact far more convincingly. His affection seemed indeed to have gained in intensity. She was more to him now than in former days, when his mother stood so prominently in the foreground; but the girl involuntarily trembled at meeting an outburst of fervid pa.s.sion there, where she had been wont to look only for gay and sportive tenderness. How strange, how fitted to inspire uneasiness had been Edmund's manner again to-day! Why did he so vehemently demand an a.s.surance that her love was given to him, to him personally? And why would he 'make an end of it,' were he to be deceived in this belief?

Hedwig felt that she should have thrown herself on her lover's breast, and forced from him a frank and open confession.

Obstinately as he might withhold his confidence from her, he would surely have given way, if she had prayed him with all the eagerness and earnestness of heartfelt love--but this she could not bring herself to do. Something like a secret consciousness of guilt restrained her from using her full power. Yet she had valiantly fought against the dreams which constantly brought before her another figure, the figure of one who now was far away, and whom she would probably never see again.

Oswald von Ettersberg since his departure had been completely lost sight of. He might almost have vanished into s.p.a.ce. The Countess never voluntarily alluded to her nephew, and to some inquiries of Rustow's she had merely replied curtly and coldly that she believed he was well, and satisfied with his new mode of life, but that he rarely communicated with his relations. She evidently desired to avoid the subject, and it was accordingly not again broached. The fact that Edmund never mentioned the name of his cousin, from whom he had hitherto been inseparable, that any allusion to the absent one appeared unpalatable to him as to his mother, was just one of the many eccentricities which now marked his behaviour. They had probably had some fresh quarrel shortly before Oswald's departure, and it seemed that the rupture between the cousins and old allies was this time complete.

Weary of thinking, of pondering over mysteries she could not fathom, Hedwig sat leaning back in her chair. She heard the door of the anteroom open, heard the approach of footsteps, but, supposing that it was Edmund coming back, she did not alter her att.i.tude, and it was only as the new-comer entered that she languidly turned her head in his direction.

Then suddenly an electric thrill shot through the girl's frame.

Trembling, blushing to the temples, she sprang from her seat, her eyes fixed on the door before her. Was it alarm, or was it joy that seized upon her with such paralyzing might? She knew not--she rendered no account to herself; but the name which burst from her lips, and the tone in which it was uttered, betrayed all that she had long so sedulously hidden.

'Oswald!'

Yes, it was Oswald who stood on the threshold. He must have been prepared for the possibility of seeing her when he started on his journey to Ettersberg, but this sudden meeting was quite unlooked for.

The flush which dyed his brow on beholding his cousin's promised wife was evidence enough of this.

For a moment he waited, irresolute, but when his name struck on his ear, p.r.o.nounced in those accents, all hesitation was over. In an instant he was at her side.

'Hedwig! Have I startled you?'

The question was well warranted, for Hedwig's perturbation was still visible and extreme.

'Herr von Ettersberg! You appear so suddenly, so unexpectedly.'

'I could not send word of my coming. I am here on pressing business, which made it necessary for me to see Edmund at once.'

He spoke, almost without knowing what he said, gazing fixedly the while at the girl's face before him. The sight of her did away in a moment with the ramparts which for months he had laboriously been building up.

Hedwig moved as though to withdraw.

'I ... I will let Edmund know.'

'He has been informed of my arrival. Do not fly from me in this way, Hedwig. Will you not grant me one minute?'

Hedwig paused. The sorrowful reproach in his tone chained her to the spot, but she did not dare to make reply.

'I do not come voluntarily or in my own interest,' pursued Oswald.

'Tomorrow I shall leave again; I could not possibly divine that you would be here at Ettersberg just at this time, or ... or I would have spared us both this meeting.'

Us both! Through all his bitterness there gleamed a ray of satisfaction. That unguarded exclamation of hers had changed a dim half-knowledge into a certainty, and though he could fasten on it no single hope, this certainty had in an instant become to him the one all-precious thing in life, a possession he would have surrendered at no price.

During their farewell interview, the young man had valiantly maintained his self-control, but the joyful shock of this unexpected meeting threatened to unseal his lips. The long-hidden pa.s.sion in his breast was fanned to a quick, sudden blaze. Hedwig read this in his eyes, and the imminent danger gave her back her self-command, which did not again desert her.

'We can, at all events, shorten this interview,' she said, speaking in a low, steady tone, and turned to go. But Oswald followed.

'Will you leave me suddenly in this way? May I not say a word to you--one word?'

'I fear we have already said too much. Let me go, Herr von Ettersberg.

Let me go, I entreat of you.'

Oswald obeyed. He stepped back to let her pa.s.s. She was right, he felt, and it was well that she should be strong and prudent when his prudence was on the verge of failing him. He looked after her silently, with an expression of infinite sadness, but he would no further detain her.

Hardly had Hedwig disappeared in the direction of the Countess's apartments when Edmund came in from the other side. His cousin's arrival had been notified to him, but his face showed no joyful surprise. On the contrary, the young Count appeared disturbed, nay, agitated. As Oswald hastened towards him, and held out his hand with all the old friendly cordiality, he evaded taking it, and the welcome he expressed was strangely forced and formal.

'What a surprise, Oswald! I did not think you intended to pay Ettersberg a visit just now.'

'Am I unwelcome?' asked Oswald, astonished at and chilled by this unwonted reception, and his outstretched hand fell to his side as he spoke.

'No, certainly not!' cried Edmund hastily. 'Quite the contrary. I only meant that you might have sent me word previously.'

'It was I who had the right to expect a letter,' said Oswald, with some reproach in his tone. 'You only replied to my first by a few lines: of my second you took no notice at all. I could understand your silence as little as I now understand the manner of your welcome. Have you been ill, or has anything happened?'

The young Count laughed--the loud derisive laugh which in these days was so frequent with him.'

'What an idea! You see I am as well as I can be. It was only that I had no time for writing.'

'No time?' said Oswald, much hurt. 'Well, I have found more leisure for you, then, in spite of all the urgent claims my work makes upon me. I have come now solely and entirely in your interest, not to pay you a visit, but to guard and save you from certain loss. Have you cancelled the powers formerly conferred on your land-steward?'

'What powers?' asked Edmund, who was absent and uneasy.'

He persistently avoided meeting his cousin's eye.

'The authority to act in your name, with which Baron Heideck, as your guardian, thought fit to invest him, and by means of which the entire management of the Ettersberg affairs was left in his hands. Does he still hold the doc.u.ment which gave him this authority?'

'Probably. I have never asked him for it back.' Oswald frowned.

'How could you be so imprudent?' he said impatiently. 'How could you continue to place confidence in a man whom you know to be unreliable?

In all probability you will find that he has grossly abused his trust.

Are you aware that the third part of your forests is doomed--that the timber is to be cut down and sold?'

'Oh! Is that in contemplation?' Edmund replied, still absently. The news seemed to make little or no impression on him.

'Do reflect,' insisted Oswald. 'If you know nothing of this transaction, if it has been entered into without your consent, the intent at robbery is as clear as day. The purchase-money, which is fixed at an absurdly low figure, is to be paid in cash, and the steward, no doubt, hopes to pocket it, and to be clear of the place before the affair is found out. I heard of it accidentally. The would-be purchaser consulted my friend Braun on the subject, and I hurried over here at once, in the hope of saving you and Ettersberg from this tremendous injury.'

Edmund pa.s.sed his hand across his brow, as though it required an effort on his part to follow the conversation.

'That was very kind of you! Did you really come expressly for that?

Well, we can talk it over another time.'

This utter lack of interest still further increased Oswald's amazement, but what roused even greater anxiety in his mind was the strangely-fixed and half-distraught expression of the young Count's face. Evidently his thoughts were busy elsewhere.

'Edmund, have you not heard what I have been saying to you? This matter is of the first importance--it will not brook the slightest delay. You must at once rescind those powers, and you must make sure of the rascal to whom they were committed, or you will be compelled to recognise the bargain he has made. This bargain means ruin to your forests, and considerable, perhaps irreparable, damage to the entailed estates.'

'Ah, the entail,' repeated Edmund, who, of the whole exordium, seemed only to have caught this word. 'True, the estates must not be injured.

I give this matter over into your hands, Oswald. You have taken it up--go through with it.'