Quisisana, or Rest at Last Part 21

Will you not at least take Erna, and, of course, her parents, into the secret?"

"The deuce I will!" cried Waldor. "I surely should not hesitate to rescue Ringberg at any cost from some position of great danger, but this is, not a question of my making a sacrifice, but of Alexandra making one that she cannot make, unless she wishes to give up half her fortune, which goes to the deuce as soon as our engagement gets known. But I want the whole fortune and not the half! When I was but a lieutenant I swore a great oath to myself that I would die a Field-Marshal, and would live like a Prince until I got to be one! Now you surely cannot expect that I should break my oath, and, to myself too?"

Bertram did not think it advisable to point out to his friend, the contradictions he was guilty of in one breath. He only said--

"I should think the sacrifice might be avoided, if you made the people who are interested pledge themselves to secrecy. None of them would hesitate to accept that objection."

"In such things," replied the Colonel, "one should not trust any one's promise of secrecy. Why, every thing would already be betrayed, if Alexandra had honoured any one but yourself with her indiscretions!"

"But if the Princess absolutely insists upon making the sacrifice?"

"Then I shall as absolutely forbid her doing anything of the kind! The services which Kurt has rendered us are considerable, I admit; but then, in the first case, they were rendered to me. How can I ask her to act such a generous part? Nay, what does she mean by wishing to do it?

One would not, one could not, do more for one's lover! And, to the best of my knowledge, she is in love with me, and not with Ringberg!"

His cigar had gone out and he flung it away, turning to light a new one at one of the lights placed along the verandah. Thus he did not see the smile which Bertram--though his heart was little attuned to mirth--had not been able to repress at the words which his not over-modest friend had been uttering.

"In that case the Princess will have to say, like the priest Domingo, in Schiller's 'Don Carlos:' 'We have been here in vain,'" he resumed, as the Colonel took his arm again.

"To be sure," was the calm reply; "and I have strongly urged her to leave to-morrow. Surrounded as we are here by my officers, one or two of whom are already likely enough to know more than I care for, we are not for a single moment safe from startling disclosures. I think I have as strong nerves as most people, but to be seated upon a powder-barrel when there is a conflagration raging all round, is uncomfortable for the most courageous."

"What is uncomfortable, Colonel?" asked Alexandra's voice behind them.

The Colonel turned on his heels; and quickly b.u.t.toning his uniform, exclaimed--

"Ah, most gracious Princess!"

"Let us call each other by our names before this good friend," said Alexandra. "Give me your arm, dear Doctor Bertram; and you, my friend, please to come to the other side. So now we can talk confidentially."

"May I go on with my cigar?"

"I should like to smoke one myself, if I dared! But now to the point.

What have you decided?"

"That is the very question," Bertram said, "which I was just submitting to Waldor."

"I have decided, that the young people are to see how they can best settle things for themselves!"

"That is an abominable decision!"

"It is necessary."

"Not for me! I shall speak to the young lady."

"You will not do so if you value my advice ever so little. Moreover, if you felt so sure of this, why did you not do so yesterday?"

"Because I require your co-operation."

"Which I refuse!"

They were talking excitedly, almost vehemently now. Then, there was a pause, a very uncomfortable one for Bertram, although he said to himself that discord between the two ought to be welcome to him. He had closely watched Erna and Ringberg. At dinner, where they had been seated almost directly opposite to each other, they had not exchanged a single word; and just now, whilst Erna had followed the other young ladies into the garden, Ringberg had remained on the verandah and had subsequently gone into the billiard-room. As Erna was so very proud, a meeting of the two seemed difficult, almost impossible, without kind and skilful mediation, and there would be little time or opportunity for it now. To-morrow the regiment was again to leave its quarters.

They would again be separated for long--for ever, if he chose to avail himself of the influence which he doubtless had over Erna; and if he could only bring into play something of the robust egotism, with which the handsome soldier by his side was smoothing his own way to rank and unlimited riches.

"Then I only know one way to achieve our object," the Princess said at last, speaking somewhat huskily.

"I knew you would find something," said Waldor; "but what is it?"

"It is this ..."

Alexandra paused abruptly, for as they reached the end of the verandah, and were turning round, the very man of whom they were all thinking was approaching them.

"Anything for me, my dear Ringberg?" exclaimed the Colonel.

"Yes, Colonel; an orderly from the General in command ..."

"May the ..." muttered the Colonel through his teeth.

He went up to the young officer, who made his report in a low voice, whilst the Princess and Bertram remained standing at some little distance. They saw the Colonel angrily fling away his cigar, and draw himself up.

"Thank you, my dear Ringberg; you need not come with me. It is bad enough if one of us has to lose all the fun. No remonstrance, sir! I shall want an orderly to go with me, and, perhaps, you will, in pa.s.sing, kindly bid them saddle Almansor."

"Yes, Colonel," said the young officer, saluting.

Ringberg had gone. Waldor turned round.

"It seems," he said, "that the soldiers have taken a different position from what His Excellency had expected, and now he is getting all the officers in command of regiments together, to get things done as noisily as possible. The old owl! Upon my word, I would let him have a bit of my mind, if he did this in actual war, and summoned me at such a time two or three miles off from a position where we may be 'alarmed'

at any moment. However, there is no help for it. I shall not spare the horse, but I am afraid I shall not be back before one o'clock. My officers must be in their quarters by twelve o'clock precisely, and the rest of the party are likely to vanish too. I presume that we shall be attacked between two and three o'clock. If, then, I do not see you again, dearest Alexandra, the arrangement is this: you drive to town to-morrow and remain there until I can look in for a moment, as I hope to be able to do the day after, or else until I send word. Farewell, dearest! And you, my good friend, will probably not have gone to bed before I return. I will come to your room, and learn what the best and cleverest of women will have planned in the interest of our _proteges_."

The Colonel kissed her hand again, and hurried away. Alexandra looked gloomily after him, standing with her hands crossed over her bosom, until he had vanished through the door of the billiard-room; where several of the senior officers were advancing to meet him. Then, with a pa.s.sionate gesture, she turned to Bertram.

"He is mistaken! Alexandra Volinzov is not to be ordered about like a pack of recruits. I shall not leave to-morrow! I shall not leave at all, until I have achieved my object; and you, friend, you must help me to achieve it."

She flung the end of her shawl impatiently across her shoulder, and took Bertram's arm, drawing him away from the verandah down into the garden, whence the young people, in pairs and in groups, were now hurrying merrily back to the mansion-house, attracted by the sound of the band striking up a polka in the banqueting-hall, which had been cleared in the interval.

"And what is my help to consist in?" asked Bertram.

"You must speak to Erna. You must explain all to her. I am powerless without Waldor's co-operation, and you have heard how he refuses it?

Nay, more; I have learned from Hildegard, that he has definitely denied standing in any special relation to me, and as he could not disown me altogether, has accounted for it all by talking of a casual watering-place acquaintance; nay he has actually gone the length, of reviving the old suspicion of there being something between Kurt and myself; in a word, he has done his utmost to shake my credibility with the parents, and with Erna; and to make my interference, if I dared interfere, appear a ridiculous and hideous farce. You are the intimate friend of the parents; you are Erna's natural protector and guardian--you are more to her than her own father. The foolish dread of the mother, that you loved the dear child in a different way, I have absolutely put an end to; you will be met on all sides with the utmost confidence, and if any doubt still existed, if any objections were still raised, why, you are so clever, so wise, so eloquent, that you will with ease remove every objection, that you will with a sure hand bring all things to a good end, be the saviour of those two poor dear souls, and rescue them from the infernal torments of jealousy, doubt, and despair. I shall not be found wanting; I shall confirm everything that you say; I shall take the full responsibility of it all, of course. I am firmly resolved upon this; it is simply my duty, and I shall do it, and Waldor may put up with it or not, as he pleases."

Alexandra had been saying all this with hurried breath and heaving bosom. Bertram's own excitement was intense, too, but he managed to reply in calmer accents--

"You ask much, My Lady. You call me Erna's guardian, her second father. I accept these t.i.tles; now, will you please and try to fancy yourself in the position of a guardian, a father, under these circ.u.mstances. In the story of Claudine you have told me your own, striving, I do not doubt for a moment, to be strictly truthful, seeing no danger in this, when speaking to a stranger, and being, moreover, impelled to do so, both by your quick temperament and by your pa.s.sionate sympathy. But now comes the question: Has your truthfulness really brought out the truth? Not the truth of yesterday and to-day, but of to-morrow. The truth, the truthful picture of the future, when you will be constantly and closely brought into contact with the former object of your ardent love, when you will be ever seeing him by the side of a woman who is not much younger than yourself, who is not as beautiful as you, not as clever as you; who, however graceful, lacks that nameless charm which is radiated by a beautiful and clever woman of the great world, and which is so apt to beguile the hearts of men; can you then--I am now speaking of yourself only, My Lady, only of what is in your power--can you, for your part, for your own heart, undertake the guarantee for the future? I conjure you, by all you hold sacred, can you conscientiously give the guardian, the father, this a.s.surance?"

"By all I hold sacred," replied. Alexandra, "yes! And I will rather die than break my oath!"

She had stooped suddenly, and was about to draw Bertram's hand to her lips, but he prevented her with gentle force.

"We must not soften each other's hearts," said he, his own voice quivering with emotion, "must not dim the clearness of our vision by tears of emotion. I accept your vow. And now I crave but one boon from Fate, to wit, that I be permitted one look, one deep, searching look into the young man's heart,--and into Erna's heart!"

He had been murmuring the last words in a scarcely audible tone; his lips were trembling; Alexandra also was too much moved to be able to speak. Thus they had silently reascended the verandah-steps and moved on--unintentionally--to the open door which led to the card-room.