Gloria Victis! Part 36

"Yes, he sends you his thanks."

Oswald seemed metamorphosed. Never before had he answered her so curtly; she glanced at him anxiously, he was sitting leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, his head resting on his hand like one longing to carry out a terrible resolve.

A distressing silence ensues. He feels as if he were about to ask of a competent authority whether or not there be a G.o.d. He cannot bring himself to do it, and then too how shall he shape the fearful question?--how can he utter anything so vile in her presence?--he who all his lifelong would rather have blasphemed in a church than have spoken an evil syllable before his mother!

The minutes pa.s.s; tick, tick, goes the antique watch with the silver face on the Countess's writing-table. He clears his throat.

"Mother!" he begins.

She interrupts him. "I feel very ill, Ossi!" she says, rising with difficulty from her arm-chair, "give me your arm, I should like to go to bed."

But he gently urges her back in her chair again. "Only a moment, mother; I have something to say to you,--I cannot spare you!"

"Well--say it then!" She sits erect, deadly pale, clutching the arms of her chair; he stands before her, one hand resting on the table, his eyes cast down.

"It will not pa.s.s my lips," he murmurs, "it will not;--my _idee fixe_ has a.s.sailed me again with a strength that I cannot master, try as I may,--it perverts and absorbs my sense of duty, my conscientiousness.--Mother....!" the blood rushes to his face, "Mother--could you forgive me if, in a fit of madness, I struck you in the face?"

Can she ever forget the imploring, despairing tone of his voice?

"Yes, what do you wish?--I cannot understand--" she stammers.

He gazes at her in surprise. "Mother!" he exclaims--his breath comes short and quick, when, as though repeating memorised phrases, he says, "Capriani and I have quarrelled--to revenge himself upon me he has written me a letter in which he says that you----" he sees her sudden start--"Great G.o.d! can you dream of what he accuses you?"

She gasps for breath, her lips part, she tries with all her strength to say "no!"--has G.o.d stricken her dumb? Struggle as she may only a faint gasp issues from her lips, no word can she speak!

"Mother!" he moans, "Mother!" She is mute.

The ground seems to rock beneath his feet, the outlines of every object grow indistinct, dissolve into undefined spots of colour which fade and mingle.

For a moment he stands as if turned to stone; then he turns towards the door, walking slowly as if under a crushing weight,--on a sudden he hears the rustle of skirts behind him, two frail, ice-cold hands clasp his arm;--half-fainting his mother crouches beside him on the floor.

"My son! my child!" she gasps "Have mercy!"

But he loosens the clasp of her hands, without impatience, without anger, with the apathy of a man whose heart has been slain in his breast, and leaves the room.

CHAPTER XII.

It was over,--over and gone,--sentence had been p.r.o.nounced,--her child's life was destroyed. This she repeated to herself again and again, without any clear comprehension of the fact, as she lay, still half-stunned, on the floor where she had sunk down when he left her.

After a while she staggered to her feet, and began to move aimlessly to and fro, steadying herself at times by grasping a chair or table. At last she sank into a seat, her memory had given way;--she asked herself the meaning of the dull weight at her heart, her eyes wandered vaguely around, her thoughts dazed by agony groped backward through the past, and forward through the future, finding no resting-place. She recalled her child's birth, and how every one rejoiced in it, except herself; when the doctor showed her the little thing as a perfect model of a baby, did she not thrust it from her impatiently? Farther back, beyond Oswald's birth, all light faded--everything was dark. That within her which had sinned had been so long, so completely dead; a woman capable of such a lofty ideal, whom maternal affection had so entirely purified and refined, could not but lose all comprehension of her past. All her inner life preceding the hours of Oswald's life, was to her mental consciousness misty and undefined; the birth of her child had revealed a new world to her, and though for years she had denied it, and had crushed down the mother in her, it was none the less true that after his birth she had no interest save her child. Urgent regard for her health prompted the physician to order that she should nourish the boy herself, if only for the first two months of his life; she obeyed him fretfully, eyeing the child suspiciously--nay, well-nigh malignantly,--when it was first placed in her arms, and then .... then she enjoyed it, and longed for the hours when her baby was to be brought to her, and when the two months were over, and the physician informed her that she could now without detriment to her health hand over the child to a hired nurse, she was angry, and felt strangely vexed with the man, who after all had thought only to please her in relieving her of what he supposed was an intolerable burden. What was intolerable to her was the idea of laying her child on the breast of a stranger, and for an instant she was on the point of flatly refusing to do it. But no, that would have been too eccentric, and she gave the boy up. For a couple of days she feared she should lose her reason, so consumed was she with restless jealousy; she could not sleep at night, and when the hours came round at which her baby had usually been brought to her, she trembled from head to foot, and sometimes burst into tears of agitation and longing. She could not forget the warm little bundle that had lain upon her knees, and the boy had thriven so well in her arms, had begun to be so pretty, to smile back at her and to gaze slowly about him in solemn surprise, after the fashion of such human atomies, to whom everything around is strange, and a deep mystery. Still she conquered herself and avoided all sight of the child, trying to divert her mind, but--'the wine of life was drawn.'

The child's existence caused her infinite torment; she was not one whom shams could satisfy. She called everything by its right name, and this foisting of a false heir upon the Lodrins she called, in her soul a crime. Sometimes she wished he would die--that would have untangled everything;--good Heavens! how many children die! but he--was never even ill, he throve and grew strong.

The Count, who had never before ventured upon the slightest remonstrances with his headstrong wife, now reproached her continually for her neglect of the child. She listened to him with brows gloomily contracted and lips compressed, but said not a word in reply. In winter she could contrive never to see the boy, but in summer this was more difficult, especially at times when her husband declared that he could receive no guests at the castle, that he wished to be alone. She could hardly set foot in the park without hearing soft childish laughter, or without seeing some plaything, or the gleam of a little white dress among the bushes. Once, on a lovely day in June, after a thunder-shower, as she was walking in the park she suddenly noticed two tiny footprints on the damp gravel. She stood still, her eyes riveted upon the delicate outlines, when from the shrubbery close at hand a little creature toddled up to her, grasped her dress with his chubby hands and looked up roguishly at her out of his large dark eyes. But she extricated herself, and hurried past the little man so quickly and impatiently, that he lost his balance and fell down. What else could she do but turn and look at him....? Had he cried like other children of his age it would probably have made no impression upon her; but he sat stock-still, his little legs stretched out straight, and gazed at her in indignant surprise like, a little king to whom homage had been denied. He could not understand it. He was a comical little fellow, with tiny red shoes, a white frock that did not reach to his bare knees, and a broad-brimmed, starched, linen hat tied beneath his chin, shading his charming little face. In a flash her heart was conscious of a consuming thirst; she stooped and lifted him in her arms.

Some children there are who dislike to be caressed, and will fretfully turn away their heads from their mother's kisses, but little Ossi was of a different stamp, and responded with a bewitching readiness to his mother's tenderness, nestling his head on her shoulder with a satisfied chuckle, and pressing his little lips to her cheek. For just one moment she resolved to yield, she would forget everything, and take her fill of kisses, and of delight in his beauty, in his bright eager looks, and in the droll way in which words, robbed of every harsh consonant by rosy little lips, came rippling like the twittering of birds.

"Papa!--Papa!" the child shouted. She looked round,--there stood the old Count watching her in mute delight.

"Has he conquered you too at last?" he exclaimed, "there's no finer little fellow in all Austria than our Ossi!" And he held out his hands to the child. She let him be taken from her, and without a word walked away toward the castle. Ah, what a wretched night she pa.s.sed after this episode! No, she would not think of him, it hurt too much.

Time pa.s.sed; for weeks she would not look at him; then suddenly she would appear when he was taking his lessons, and for a couple of days she would watch him with a morbid intensity which sometimes degenerated into lurking distrust; then finding nothing to justify the distrust she would again turn from him.

In spite of his excellent disposition the boy might perhaps have grown up a good-natured but inconsiderate egotist, had not Count Lodrin taken an unwearied interest in his training, guiding him aright with the most affectionate gentleness. The influence of the frail old man upon the child was invaluable. In the society of an invalid so tender and so loving, the boy learned what he could have learned nowhere else,--to bow before weakness, and helplessness, the only two potentates whose sway natures as proud as Oswald's acknowledge. He learned to refine his innate haughtiness by the most considerate delicacy towards his inferiors, and to consider his pride as inseparable from devotion to duty and an impregnable sense of honour.

Sometimes the Countess would steal to the door of the library, where the father and son were wont to talk together, and would listen. She did so once when the old man was seriously reproving the boy for some rudeness that he had shown towards his tutor.

"I know it, papa, I am wrong, but Herr Muller is a coa.r.s.e kind of man, and I cannot abide coa.r.s.eness," she heard the boy say, and the old man rejoined gently, "He is unfortunate, Ossi, remember that before all.

How, think you, could he endure his lot if in his veins ran such blood as yours?"

All things swam before the mother's eyes, as with downcast looks she hurried away, locked herself in her room and wrung her hands.

She never addressed a kind word to him, treating him with studied indifference, with almost malignant severity. Under such treatment the boy suffered, grew pale, thin, and nervous. Then came a damp, warm autumn, the skies were every day veiled behind leaden clouds,--it drizzled continually without actually raining, and the leaves instead of falling rotted on the trees. A terrible epidemic broke out in the country around Tornow, and raged like a pestilence, carrying off victim after victim, until at last it appeared in the market town itself.

The Count, fanatically faithful as ever to the duties of his position, would not leave Tornow for fear of increasing the panic, but he entreated his wife to go away and take the boy with her, but this she obstinately refused to do, not even allowing Oswald with his tutor to be sent to her relatives.

One morning the Count came to her saying, "Ossi has the fever! The disease is of a malignant and contagious character; it is quite unnecessary that you should expose yourself to it, Schmidt and I can take care of him." Whereupon he left her.

She was fearfully agitated; the hour of her liberation was perhaps about to strike; she determined not to lift a finger to save the child's life. She forced herself to keep away from his sick-room for several days; the boy rapidly grew worse; for his recovery the Count had ma.s.s said in the chapel of the castle, although he himself was not present at it,--he would not leave the child's bedside; but of course the Countess attended at the religious celebration. She was very generally beloved by her servants, but on that day she could see on their faces ill-concealed surprise, nay, scarce-repressed indignation, beneath their conventional expression of respect.

After the Elevation the chaplain delivered a short discourse in which he praised the sick boy's amiable qualities, and requested all to join him in imploring G.o.d's grace for the heir of the house. Tears ran down the cheeks of all the old servants while the priest prayed, but the Countess kneeled on her _prie-dieu_, her face pale, her eyes tearless, her lips scarcely moving.

The day wore on; hour after hour pa.s.sed into eternity, the early autumnal twilight descended from the gray clouds upon the earth, and gradually deepened to black night; throughout the castle reigned unbroken silence, and not even outside was heard the sound of a falling leaf. The Countess's pulses throbbed with a feverish longing for her child, that nearly drove her mad. She wondered if he in turn did not feel a yearning for her presence?--if his grief at her absence from his sick-bed did not aggravate the disease?--how if it were killing him?

She pictured him borne away upon the dark, swiftly-rushing stream of eternity so close beside her that she might have stretched forth her hand to save him,--and she dared not! Oh, that she could have commanded fate, "Take him, I will not keep him, but take me too!"

Minutes grew to hours; perhaps at that very instant he was breathing his last. She sprang up,--she would not nurse him back to life, no, but she must see him once more, once more clasp him to her heart before he died.

She hurried to the door of the sick-room, listened, and heard the low monotonous moan that is wrung from a half-conscious sufferer. She entered; at the foot of the bed sat the old Count, bent and weary.

Schmidt, Oswald's old nurse, was applying a cold, wet towel to the boy's forehead. The Countess took it from her, thrust her aside with jealous haste, and herself laid the wet cloth upon her son's head.

Strange! at the touch of her hand he opened his eyes, and even in his half-unconscious state, recognised her with a faint, wondering smile.

From that hour she never left his bedside. The famous physician in whom she had great confidence, and for whom she telegraphed to Vienna, frequently declared afterwards: "Never have I seen a child nursed with such devotion by a mother!"

She tended him like a sister of charity,--like a maid-servant. She gloried in his refusal to allow any one else to wait upon him, that he screamed with pain when another hand than hers touched him, that he turned from his medicine if she did not administer it.

The crisis pa.s.sed; the physician p.r.o.nounced all danger over if no unforeseen relapse occurred. This he made known to the Count and Countess in the antechamber of the sick-room, whither they had withdrawn to hear his opinion. When the Count feelingly thanked him for saving his child's life, Doctor M .... denied that any credit was due to him, "my share," said he, "in this fortunate result is but trifling; the recovery of our little patient is owing solely to the wonderful nursing that he has been blessed with," and turning to the Countess he added respectfully, "Your Excellency may say with pride that your child owes his life to you for the second time."

The ground seemed to reel beneath her,--she could have shouted for joy, and yet never in her life had she been so wretched as at this blissful, terrible moment. Without a word she returned to the sick-room, and sat down by the little white bed; she motioned to Schmidt who had been watching the boy's sleep, to retire, she wanted to be alone with her child. He was sleeping soundly, his breath came and went regularly, and his brown head rested comfortably on the pillow. She could not look long enough at the dear little emaciated face, wearing now a smile in sleep. He was like herself, his every feature resembled hers, his straight, broad brow, the short, delicately chiselled nose, the finely curved mouth, firm chin, nay, even the gleam of gold in the dark hair about the temples, all were her own. Even his hands lying half-closed on the coverlet resembled hers; they were longer and more muscular, but they were shaped like hers. How she admired him, how proud she was of him in her inmost soul! She had not been able to let him die,--he _owed his life to her for the second time!_ It was useless to combat a feeling that always gained the upper-hand; but how was she to adjust herself to her false position?--what was her duty? This question she asked herself in desperate earnest, honestly ready to atone for her guilt by any sacrifice. Her stern, cold duty was perhaps to go to her husband, confess to him the terrible truth, and then, with her child, and with all the means that was her own, depart for some quarter of the world where amid strangers she could provide a tolerable existence for her boy. She shuddered!--her own disgrace was of no consequence; she suffered so fearfully beneath the weight of the falsehood of her life, that it would have been a relief to burst its bonds,--but her child!--Why, in comparison with the torture to which her confession would subject him, it would be merciful to stab him to the heart. He was too old and too precocious not to appreciate fully the disgrace of his position; he was too proud and too sensitive to find any consolation or support under such fearful circ.u.mstances in the love of a dishonoured mother.

She must continue to carry out the lie. Who would thus be the sufferer?--Her own conscience; hers must be the torture! A confession would ruin the existence of her husband, and her son, and would overwhelm two families with disgrace, while now ....! The only being who had any claim to the Lodrin estates was a good-for-naught, who never could be to his people what Oswald promised to be. And suddenly she seemed to see her duty clear before her, a n.o.ble sacrificial duty!

She would so train Oswald that he should fill the station that he occupied better than any other could possibly fill it,--his excellence should justify her deceit.

She solemnly vowed, by her child's bedside, to watch over his heart and soul, to guard his fine qualities like a priceless treasure, to see that no breath of evil should ever taint them. Then she bent over him and kissed his hands gently. He woke and smiled, whispering, "Mamma, will you go on loving me when I am well?"