Quisisana, or Rest at Last Part 12

"Is that all?" exclaimed Hildegard. "Of course I am kind, far too kind to you ungrateful _blasee_ girls, who cannot rise to enthusiasm even with the prospect of a dance! But you, Baron?"

"I envy the gentlemen," replied he, "who will benefit by your kindness; I myself, as you are aware, will scarcely be able to partic.i.p.ate in it."

Hildegard raised her eyebrows.

"I thought," she said, "that the matter was settled. Your relations may see how they can best do without you. I wish to hear nothing more upon the subject. This is my ultimatum, and I beg you will respect it."

The Baron bowed, and muttered something about _force majeure_.

Hildegard paid no heed to it; she had already taken up the second letter.

"I must beforehand apologise for my bad French accent. The letter is from the Residenz, and I ought to mention ..."

"From Princess Amelia?" the Baron asked eagerly.

"Not from our gracious Princess," replied Hildegard with a courteous smile, "but from a princess, for all that."

"Perhaps you would translate it?" suggested Otto timidly.

"Very well," replied his wife. "I was thinking of doing so anyhow, for I know you pretend that you do not understand French. Well, then--

"Madam,--Will you pardon a perfect stranger who ventures to request a favour which it is usual to grant only to one's friends, or to duly accredited persons--the favour of being your guest for a short time?

You are amazed, madam; but why do you own a mansion whose cla.s.sic style of architecture and whose internal fittings are the marvel of the land?

Why does every one who can judge, laud you as unsurpa.s.sed in the horticultural art? I travel through Germany chiefly with the object of studying all that is best and most beautiful in these things, in order to try and imitate it upon my estates in Livadia. I shall not, as I said, trouble you long; only a day or two. To-morrow and the day after, if I may, for I can unfortunately not dispose differently of my time.

And as regards the inconvenience I must needs cause you, I will try to reduce it to a minimum. A gardener or forester to pilot me about outside, a steward to show me some of the things inside, a little corner by your fireside, a little place at your table, a little chamber to sleep in; that is all! True, already too much, if I reflect; but one should not reflect, if one is the thorough egotist who has the honour of remaining, Madam, your obedient servant,--Princess Alexandra Paulovna ..."

Hildegard looked up from her letter, and said with a smile--

"I cannot make out the surname."

She pa.s.sed the letter to Bertram, who was sitting on her right.

"Well," said the Baron, on her left, "she would seem to be a Russian, anyhow."

"No doubt of that. Well, my friend?"

"No," replied Bertram, "I cannot make it out."

"Will you allow me?" said the Baron.

Bertram handed the letter back to Hildegard, who pa.s.sed it on to the Baron.

"Why," he exclaimed, "it is quite plain, Bo--Bo!" He paused.

"Bo, Bo, Bo!" laughed Lydia. "Let me try."

But Lydia failed too; the note was pa.s.sed round the table; Otto and Agatha tried and failed; Erna pa.s.sed it on to Bertram without casting one glance at it.

"Will you not try?" asked Bertram.

"No."

She uttered this so sharply that Bertram looked up terrified.

"How very unkind," said her mother.

Bertram had the same impression at first, but he knew Erna too well; there was a.s.suredly something else going on in her mind, something which had tried to find expression in the abrupt No. She was very pale, and had pressed her teeth against her under lip, whilst her eyes looked gloomily and fixedly straight in front of her. One might have expected her to burst into a flood of tears the next moment. To turn the attention of the rest from her, and also to overcome his own feelings of uneasiness, he began once more diligently to spell away at the signature, and suddenly exclaimed--

"I have got it, I think--Volinzov--Alexandra Paulovna Volinzov!"

"Let me see, please?" exclaimed Hildegard. "Really, Volinzov; and quite plain too. How blind we have been! Dear me, Herr Baron, what is the matter with you?"

"I beg a thousand pardons," said the Baron from behind his handkerchief, which he held pressed to his face, rising from the table as he spoke, and swiftly withdrawing from the room.

Hildegard looked sadly after his retreating figure.

"Poor fellow!" she said, "I am so sorry. He is in a terrible state of excitement. And now, in addition, this home news--if I only knew what it is all about, but he is discretion personified."

Bertram, still pondering over Erna's strange demeanour, had almost mechanically cast his eye over the whole letter, and only became conscious of this on coming to a pa.s.sage which he did not remember having heard in Hildegard's translation.

"Here," he said, "is one line, my fair friend, which has escaped you, and which yet strikes me as important. Listen: 'thorough egotist who has the courage to follow her letter at once, and has the honour,' &c."

"Impossible!" exclaimed Hildegard.

"There it stands; see for yourself. You pa.s.sed from the last line but two on to the last."

"Oh dear! oh dear!" exclaimed the hostess. "She will be wanting to dine of course; and that is not the worst, but all the rooms will be occupied by to-morrow afternoon."

"The officers must do with a little less accommodation," said Otto. "It will be all right."

"No, it will not be all right," said his wife, "if each of them is to have a room of his own; and we cannot put less than two each at the disposal of the two Majors and the Colonel."

"Let me help you in your embarra.s.sment," said Bertram. "You know, I originally intended leaving early to-morrow, let us adhere to the old plan; the more so, because I have just received a letter which necessitates my very speedy return to Berlin."

"That is an excuse," exclaimed his friend.

"No excuse, my dear fellow; you may see the letter yourself. But I may as well say what it is about. I have been selected by my political friends for a forthcoming vacancy in the _Reichstag_."

"But you will surely not stand?"

"Indeed, I mean to do so."

"And your Italian trip?"

"Postponed to some future day."

"But your illness?"

"Thanks to your excellent nursing, I never felt better in my life."