Quicksands Part 26

"You knew yesterday evening then that we had Herr von Ernau beneath our roof? Ah, now I understand your eagerness to tend and nurse the wounded man."

"Dear Bertha, how unkind, how unjust you are!" her husband said, reproachfully.

"Of course you think me unjust, and Elise the model of all sweetness and compa.s.sion. She could have had no interested motives. The poor Candidate and the wealthy Egon von Ernau were alike to her."

"I have given you no reason, Bertha, to speak thus insultingly. Let me go to my room until you are able to compose yourself and think better and more justly of me."

"Oh, you will not be allowed to stay there long; you will speedily be summoned to receive the acknowledgments of your grateful patient. Clara can be his Mercury."

"Clara will come with me, and I shall stay in my room so long as Herr von Ernau remains at Linau. Since I make it a special request, I am sure that you, Herr von w.a.n.gen, will not mention my presence beneath your roof. I pray you promise me this."

"But, Fraulein Lieschen----"

"I can take no refusal to give me this promise. It is the only way in which you can atone for Bertha's unworthy suspicions. Come, Clara, you will surely obey me?"

"Indeed I will--go with you and stay with you, my dearest Elise!" the girl exclaimed, impetuously. "I see how Bertha hates you, but I will love you all the more." She took Elise's hand and drew her gently towards the door, casting an indignant glance at her sister-in-law as she pa.s.sed her.

w.a.n.gen had been moving restlessly about the room while his wife and Elise had been speaking. Every word of Bertha's cut him to the heart.

He could not but sympathize in Clara's honest indignation, and the vague consciousness that he was taking part against the wife whom he so adored made him miserable. "I did not think you could be so unkind," he said, sadly, when he and Bertha were left alone in the room.

Bertha heard his words, but she did not heed them; her eyes were bent thoughtfully upon the floor. Suddenly raising them, she said, "Did you tell Herr von Ernau that Elise is here?"

"No, I forgot to. I was so amazed to find him perfectly conscious, and then to hear him declare himself Egon von Ernau, that I never thought of Elise during our short conversation."

"You need not excuse yourself, dearest Hugo, you were perfectly right.

Ernau must not know that Elise is here. If he is to fall a victim to her snares, it must not be beneath our roof. Oh, I suspected her air of unconscious innocence long ago! How craftily she has plotted to compa.s.s her ends! I never dreamed that it was for the wealthy Egon von Ernau that she was casting her nets four years ago. I thought her enamoured of the poor Candidate. Her exclamation just now opened my eyes. Now I understand why, knowing that Plagnitz was so near us, she instantly consented, greatly to my surprise, to come to us as Clara's governess.

Oh, I have been blind! but now that I see it all, her schemes shall be foiled!"

w.a.n.gen had listened in growing distress to his wife's voluble accusations of Elise. For the first time since his marriage the glow upon Bertha's cheek, the angry light in her fine eyes inspired him with anything save admiration, although he was too good-humoured to be seriously provoked with her. "I cannot comprehend you, my dearest," he said, sadly. "How can you give rein to such unkind fancies?"

"They are not fancies," Bertha insisted, with vehemence. "Your good nature blinds you, but you must be made to perceive the truth. Elise shall not attain her ends, however. I owe it to poor Herr von Ernau to save him from this Circe. You and I wronged him deeply years ago. We will atone for it now in coming to his rescue."

"I do not understand you, Bertha. What wrong did you and I ever do to Herr von Ernau?"

"Have you then quite forgotten the past? Was I not all but betrothed to him, and did I not forget him so soon as I learned to know you?

Scarcely had I heard of his death when I lent an ear to your vows, and when afterwards he would have claimed his rights I repulsed him with aversion. He loved me. Now, since I know that he knew me at Castle Osternau, I can understand why he left Berlin in despair after learning of my betrothal to you. You have heard the sad story from my father. Do you not see how we have embittered the unfortunate man's life? I could not help it. I loved you, but I am conscious of the wrong I did him. Do you not feel this with me, my dearest love?"

She clasped her hands about his arm and looked up at him, her eyes swimming with tenderness, and w.a.n.gen thought he had never seen her so surpa.s.singly lovely. What was there that he could refuse her? What proposal of hers could he gainsay?

"Do you not see that it is our duty to be doubly kind to him to atone for the wrong our love has done him?" she asked, still gazing into his eyes.

"Why--yes, of course, my darling; but what can we do?"

"Receive him as a dear friend, be to him the best of neighbours, and, above all, prevent his falling a prey to the arts of a thorough coquette. Who knows but that in time he may take a fancy to Clara?"

w.a.n.gen laughed outright. "What an idea!" he said. "Ah, trust a woman for match-making! That child!"

"That child is now a wonderfully lovely girl, and will in a couple of years be well worth the wooing."

"Nonsense! nonsense, my darling!"

"Promise me at least not to let Herr von Ernau know that Elise is here."

"The fact cannot be concealed."

"Trust me to see that it is. Only say that you will not tell him of it."

He promised, although he could not persuade himself that Fraulein Lieschen was what his wife represented her. How could it be that he had been so mistaken in her? Still, his respect for his wife's superiority of mind, his entire confidence in her keenness of insight, so far beyond his own, forbade his seeming to doubt what she a.s.serted so positively. And then when she looked into his face with those pleading eyes he was as wax in her hands.

CHAPTER XXIV.

PAST AND PRESENT.

Egon rose to dress after w.a.n.gen had left him, but he found that he had overrated his strength. He grew giddy, a dull headache confused his thoughts, and he lay down again for a while to collect them before making another attempt to rise. By degrees the pain subsided, and he was able to reflect calmly upon what had occurred, and upon the future.

He was to see Bertha again, and, to his own surprise, the thought of a fresh meeting with the woman with whom he had once dreamed of pa.s.sing his life had no power to agitate him, or to quicken his pulses. It was simply a necessity, and, since the vicinity of Plagnitz to Linau made future intercourse unavoidable, the sooner it was over the better.

His second attempt to complete his toilet was much more successful than the first, although, as he finally looked at himself in the mirror before leaving his room, he was startled at the pale face and weary eyes which he saw there. He was conscious for the first time that he had grown very much older in the last four years. Was there not a white hair in the curl that escaped from beneath the narrow strip of linen bound about his brow?

"Madame will hardly find her old admirer dangerous," he said to himself, with a smiling nod at his reflection. "You never were handsome, old fellow, at the best of times, but to-day you are a positive fright. Perhaps 'tis best so. The consciousness of the figure that I cut may be of use in putting an end to any foolish fancies that might be born from a very gracious reception of me. Let the past be buried in the grave of poor Pigglewitch, we do not need it for the better life of the future." Thus reflecting, he left his room to take his way to the balcony, where, w.a.n.gen had told him, he should find the mistress of the mansion.

As he closed his door behind him he heard another door open at the end of the corridor, along which there instantly came tripping a graceful little girl of scarcely fifteen.

Involuntarily Egon's slow steps were stayed. There was something about the child that reminded him of Lieschen as he had first seen her. For an instant the present vanished, and he was standing, in the form of 'the new tutor,' at his window at Castle Osternau. Merry laughter floated upward from the lawn, and two children came flying out of the shrubbery. Lieschen's image as he had then seen it arose vividly before his mind's eye in all its innocent charm; but another moment brought him back to reality, and he knew that he was in a strange house, and that courtesy required that he should show himself aware of the presence of the new-comer. He bowed as ceremoniously as he would have done to a woman grown, and surveyed the pretty girl with great interest. Indeed, there was something of Lieschen in the arch sparkle of her eyes and in the girlish grace of her movements.

Clara paused also as she became aware of the stranger's presence, and returned his bow with a charming little courtesy. Then, suddenly approaching him, she said, "Are you Herr von Ernau, of whom I have heard so much? Oh, I thought you would look so different!"

"Indeed? And in what does the reality differ from the picture you condescended to frame of my insignificance?"

"I can't exactly say, but you are very---- Of course that bandage disfigures you, and you will look better when you have recovered from losing so much blood. Do you feel better? Are you strong enough to go alone, or shall I support you? Oh, you think I am too little to be of any use; but indeed you are mistaken, I am very strong. Lean on me.

Indeed you do need help, you look so terribly pale and tired."

"I thank you for your kind offer of help, but----"

"Oh, you refuse it, of course; but I shall walk behind you, and if you totter I shall hold you up. Now I think of it, you do not know who I am. I must introduce myself. I am Clara von w.a.n.gen, Hugo von w.a.n.gen's sister, and I know you are on your way to pay my sister-in-law a visit.

Is it not so?"

"You are right, Fraulein Clara."

"Do not call me Fraulein, it sounds as if you were laughing at me. Only the servants say Fraulein Clara, every one else calls me Clara only. I will show you the way to the balcony, where my sister-in-law is anxiously expecting you. She was very much surprised when she heard that you were Herr von Ernau, and I don't wonder at it, for a cousin who used to live with us while poor papa was alive told me such an interesting tale about how you were once betrothed to Bertha, and how you were thought dead, when she was betrothed to my brother. I hope it is not pert and forward to talk so to you, Herr von Ernau?"

"Not at all, I like it very much."

"Well, then, I'll go on, and tell you that you'd better be careful with Bertha. I don't think she has a good heart, and just when she seems kindest she is sometimes really most unkind. You'd better take care, Herr von Ernau. But I really must not talk to you any longer, or she will wonder what has become of you. Good-by!"