Quicksands Part 24

Elise inclined her head in a.s.sent and withdrew, taking Clara with her. The girl went willingly, but cast a glance of defiance at her sister-in-law as she left the room, thus further exasperating Bertha's angry mood. "Surely, Hugo," she said, when the husband and wife were alone together, "you cannot wish to expose me to such insult at the hands of a child? I cannot have Clara in the house any longer."

"You will listen to reason, darling," w.a.n.gen replied, in his easy, good-humoured way, "when your present irritation has subsided. You know how gladly I comply with every wish of yours if I can do so, but you must not require of me the impossible. Clara is my only sister. I promised my mother on her death-bed to be a father to her, and I promised my father never to allow her to leave me, except to become the wife of some worthy man. I cannot break such promises; and really the child is good at heart and affectionate; she is a little pert and forward, perhaps, but she responds instantly to kindness. You see how devotedly attached she has become to Elise."

"That is just it. Although you will not see it, they are leagued against me. Elise hates me. Years ago, at Castle Osternau, she showed only too plainly her invincible dislike of me. I never can forget how I was forced then to feign affection for her, and how she never neglected an opportunity to repulse me. Then I was dependent, now it is her turn,--her turn to feign and dissemble, although I can see how it galls her pride to do so."

"My dear Bertha, what do you mean? If I did not know how really kind and good you are, such words as these would make me doubt you; but I know you better. It was your proposal to engage Lieschen for Clara's governess, and to give her a salary so large as to enable her to support her poor mother. Your unwillingness to suffer the unfortunate girl to go among strangers bore testimony to your goodness of heart."

Bertha's expression of face, as her husband spoke thus, was not pleasant to see. "We'll say nothing more of Elise," she said.

"She can remain here as my companion, but Clara must be sent to boarding-school."

"I told you that I could not break my promise. I must tell you now that by the conditions of my father's will I could not if I would. I did not wish to annoy you, and so I have hitherto refrained from explaining these conditions to you, but there is no help for it. You must know that it is impossible to send Clara away if we would retain possession of the estates."

"But how can this be? Explain to me exactly how your father's will is expressed."

"I should greatly prefer not doing so, but, since there is no help for it, you must know that in the last years of his life my father regarded you with a certain suspicion which I could not allay. He conceived an idea that when he was no longer here you would use your influence with me to induce me to remove to Berlin, and that you would find in Clara an obstacle to your schemes. I did all I could to disabuse him of his mistrust of you, dear, but in vain, and he gave it expression in his will, by which I am not the proprietor of the estates; their income is mine only so long as Clara is brought up beneath my roof. Upon the day of her marriage, if she lives until then with me, the estates become my own. My father had a horror of boarding-schools for girls, and expressly forbade my sending Clara to any such. Should I transgress the injunctions laid upon me by his will, Clara becomes his residuary legatee. The value of his property is legally appraised, and my share will be only that which the law allows me. The same result will ensue should Clara, through my own or my wife's unkindness, be forced to leave my house before she is of age; as to the sufficiency of her provocation the courts would decide. My father provided for all possible contingencies. The will is drawn up by an admirable lawyer, Councillor Herder, and I could not possibly evade its provisions, even should I be so lacking in filial respect as to endeavour to do so."

"Does Clara know of all this?"

"I believe Councillor Herder has informed her upon the subject. She is a great pet of his, as you know, and he is her G.o.dfather. You know, too, that he has always been somewhat prejudiced against you; indeed, dear, you have not treated him with quite the respect due to an old friend of the family. And now you see that I could not send Clara away from home if I would, and I frankly confess to you that even if I could I would not. Only try to win the child's affection and it will be given to you without reserve, and you will be glad to have her with us."

"I am, then, to kiss the hand that smites me?" Bertha rejoined, with bitterness. "It does not make me love the child any better to have her thus forced upon me. But you may rest easy, Hugo, I understand it all now, and you may be sure that I never shall give your sister an opportunity to use her power against us. She is quite aware of the extent of it, and would doubtless hail an occasion for exercising it.

Be sure that I will so conduct myself that no court in Prussia would justify her in leaving your house and defrauding you of your inheritance."

w.a.n.gen was deeply grieved by his wife's words and her manner of speaking; for the first time he entertained suspicions as to the genuineness of her kindness of heart. All such he had hitherto banished, reproaching himself at her first kind word for even allowing their shadow to cross his mind. To-day he could not lay them to rest, he was so hurt by his wife's open expression of her dislike of his pet Clara.

CHAPTER XXI.

AN ACCIDENT.

The rain rattled against the gla.s.s enclosure of the balcony, flash after flash of lightning illumined the darkness, and the crashing thunder shook the walls of the old manor-house of Linau to their foundations.

Hugo von w.a.n.gen was pacing the s.p.a.cious room restlessly to and fro. The storm had been raging for more than two hours. The rain was falling in torrents, and through it could be heard the rushing noise of the brook at the end of the garden,--it was plainly overflowing its banks.

"The storm is increasing," said w.a.n.gen, and his words instantly received confirmation from an intensely vivid flash of lightning, followed by a reverberating clap of thunder. The panes in the windows shook almost to breaking, and the howling of the blast all but drowned the sound of his voice.

"You make me very nervous," Bertha said, "by pacing backwards and forwards in that manner, like some wild animal in a cage. Come and sit down with us, your restlessness can do no good."

w.a.n.gen did not heed her; he quickened his steps, his anxiety evidently increasing every minute. "I hope there has been no accident," he said.

"The Dombrowker bridge is unsafe at the best of times, and very dangerous in a storm like this."

"Don't worry yourself, Hugo," Clara rejoined, leaving the table where she had been seated at her embroidery and affectionately putting her arm through her brother's as he pursued his restless walk. "Herr Kampf is with the men, and he is so prudent he will see that nothing happens.

Perhaps he has not started from the station, but is waiting there for the storm to abate."

"Clara is right," Bertha said, kindly. Since Elise and her charge had made their appearance again at supper the mistress of the house had been once more all sweetness and amiability, and had seemed desirous of effacing any unfavorable impression produced by her previous ill humour. "Herr Kampf is certainly waiting at the station. He must have seen the storm coming up all the afternoon."

"That is just why he will surely have driven over,--it came up so very slowly, and then burst forth with such sudden fury. Something must surely have hap----"

He interrupted himself to listen. The noise of the rain beating against the gla.s.s panes was fainter for the moment, and w.a.n.gen distinctly heard the rolling of wheels in the court-yard.

It ceased, and the next moment the door of the garden-room was hurriedly opened, and Inspector Kampf appeared on the balcony. The water was dripping from his wet and muddy overcoat, and his hair hung in damp, straight strings over his sunburned forehead.

"Thank G.o.d you are back again!" w.a.n.gen exclaimed, hastening to meet him, but pausing as he looked into the troubled face of the man, who turned in some hesitation from him to the ladies.

"We are back again," the inspector said, after an instant's pause. "The first carriage is here, the other is directly behind us, nothing has happened to us, but--I should be sorry to startle madame and the ladies, but--there has been an accident. A stranger left the station a short time before us in a one-horse light wagon, and wagon and horse fell over the cliffs in the Dombrowker Pa.s.s. The driver is dead, and the stranger is senseless. He fell but a short distance, but there is a wound upon his forehead,--he must have struck his head against a stone.

We put him into our foremost wagon and brought him here; there was nothing to be done for the unfortunate driver. The storm was furious, and we have been obliged to drive very slowly. The stranger may revive, but I fear----the men are now bringing him into the hall."

As he spoke, the sound of many footsteps and a murmur of low voices were heard in the hall, whither w.a.n.gen instantly went, followed by the inspector, Elise, Clara, and last by Bertha.

The s.p.a.cious hall was filled with men-servants and maids, who had hurried hither from all parts of the house and stables upon hearing of the accident. The unconscious stranger had been carefully brought in from the wagon and laid upon various wraps on the floor of the hall, where men and maids were crowding about him, whispering their pity and dismay, and wondering who the unfortunate man could be lying there as pale and lifeless as the poor driver, whose body had just arrived in the second wagon.

No one knew him, not even Herr Berndal, the second inspector, who had lived at Linau for years, and who knew every one in all the country round. One of the men affirmed that he had seen the gentleman get out of a first-cla.s.s carriage when the train arrived at the railway-station. He must be a rich man, he thought, for he had a very grand air, and the station-master had bowed low to him and had sent one of the porters to get him a conveyance immediately.

There was nothing of the grand air to be seen now in the senseless figure lying there, his clothes muddy and disordered, his face ghastly pale and stained with the blood that trickled from a wound in the forehead, now half concealed by the thick dark hair. The features were scarcely distinguishable in the fitful light of the candles in the hall and of a stable lantern held by one of the men, but the maid at the man's elbow whispered that the poor gentleman would be very fine-looking if he were not so horribly pale, and he could not be over thirty at most.

The whispering suddenly ceased when Herr von w.a.n.gen appeared, and the servants respectfully made way for the new arrivals.

w.a.n.gen looked down compa.s.sionately upon the unconscious man; Bertha, after one timid glance at the motionless form, hid her face in her hands and turned away in horror; while Elise stooped, and, gently brushing aside the hair from the wound, listened eagerly, in hopes of catching some faint sound of breathing from the parted lips.

"There is hope," she said, gently: "he is still living." Then, as the light of the lantern held by the man beside her fell full upon the stranger's face, she started, grew very pale, and with difficulty suppressed a cry of horror. "Good G.o.d!" she whispered, "it is he! Oh, horrible!"

Her start, her change of colour, and her whispered words attracted Bertha's attention again, and w.a.n.gen, no less amazed, bent over the prostrate figure and eagerly examined the lifeless features. "You know him?" he asked, hurriedly. "Yes, yes; I too have seen that face before, but where? Now I remember--at Castle Osternau. Surely it is the Candidate who disappeared so suddenly, the tutor with the odd name,--yes, I remember it now,--Pigglewitch."

The name, even at this moment, called forth a smile from some of the servants, but w.a.n.gen exclaimed, eagerly, "There! his lips moved, he will recover! Help me, Hans, instantly to take him up gently and carry him to the blue room, it is ready for guests. Be careful! he is coming to himself."

And, all alert in the hope of the stranger's recovery, w.a.n.gen himself supported the head and shoulders of the wounded man, and, with the help of the groom, carried him slowly up the steep staircase to the designated guest-chamber and laid him upon the huge old-fashioned bed.

Elise walked beside the bearers, lending what aid she could, and never heeding that the blood, which was beginning to flow freely from the wound in the unfortunate man's forehead, was staining her hands and her dress.

"We must have medical aid immediately," w.a.n.gen said, when his burden had been safely deposited in the blue room; "every minute is precious."

He was interrupted by a vivid flash of lightning and a terrific clap of thunder, the echo of which was drowned in the dashing of the rain against the rattling window-panes.

"No servant will venture to drive to Ostrowko in such a night as this,"

Inspector Berndal declared; "we shall have to wait until the storm abates. It would be impossible to brave its fury."

Elise had occupied herself in arranging the pillows about the wounded man's head, after sending a maid for water to wash the wound, but as the words of the inspector fell upon her ear she turned to him, and said, quietly, "I know the road to Ostrowko perfectly well. I will drive over there and bring the doctor if you will have a vehicle made ready for me."

"What! you drive to Ostrowko in this storm, Fraulein Lieschen?

Impossible!"

"You forget that I am a country girl, and accustomed from my earliest childhood to drive alone over the roughest possible roads. My sight is keen, my hand is sure. I know the road, and am not afraid either of the darkness or of the storm. Delay may imperil a human life; you have just said that every minute is precious, Herr von w.a.n.gen. You must not prevent my going to Ostrowko."

The inspector looked admiringly at the girl, who announced her daring resolve as quietly as if it were the easiest and most natural of undertakings.

"I really believe you would do as you say, Fraulein von Osternau," he said, "but it is out of the question. I never could look any one in the face again if I allowed you to go. I will go for the doctor, and bring him back with me as soon as may be."

"You have just got home," Elise remonstrated.