Riven Bonds Volume I Part 16

"No," said the Captain, quietly; "you may imagine that the state of mind which existed in the family towards you was also partly carried over to me. Since I left H---- at that time, a few days after you did, I have never revisited it, but I correspond still with the former bookkeeper of the firm of Almbach, who has taken over the business, and continues it on his own account. I heard a few things from him."

"And you only tell me this now, after being together for nearly a fortnight?" cried Reinhold, almost furiously.

"I have naturally not wished to touch upon a subject which it seemed to me you wished to avoid," answered Hugo coolly.

Reinhold walked up and down the room a few times--

"Her parents are dead, then? And Ella and the child?"

"You need not be anxious about them; my uncle left a good fortune, much more than people thought."

"I knew he was richer than he wished to be deemed," said Reinhold quickly, "and this certainly alone gave me perfect freedom of action in my departure. I was not necessary for my wife and child. They were safe from any change of fate, without even my presence. But where are they now? Still in H----?"

"Herr Consul Erlau was appointed the boy's guardian," informed Hugo, rather shortly and distantly. "He appears also to have taken very active interest in the deserted wife, as directly after expiration of the time of mourning she moved into his house with the child. There both were still living, half-a-year ago; so far my news extends."

"Indeed?" said Reinhold thoughtfully, "only I do not understand how Ella, with her education and her habits, can possibly exist in the splendid establishment of the Erlaus. I suppose she will have arranged a few back rooms so as never to appear, or, notwithstanding her fortune, have undertaken the post of housekeeper. She will never be able to rise above this ambition. Had it not been so, I should have borne much, indeed all--for the child's sake."

He went to the window, pushed it open, and leant out. The evening air blew cool into the close room, where now a long silence ensued, as even the Captain seemed to have no more inclination to prolong the conversation. After a time he arose.

"Our departure in the morning is arranged rather early; we must be awake betimes. Good night, Reinhold!"

"Good night!" replied Reinhold, without turning round.

Hugo left the room. "I wish this Circe of a Beatrice could see him at such moments," muttered he, shutting the door. "You have conquered, Signora, and torn him to yourself as your indisputable property--you have not made him happy."

Reinhold remained a few moments longer immovable, at his place; then he raised himself and went over to his work room. He had to pa.s.s through several apartments in order to reach it. This abode, which occupied the entire ground floor of the roomy villa, was not so brilliant as that of Signora Biancona, but yet more extravagantly furnished, as the magnificence which reigned there was here ten times surpa.s.sed by the artistic decorations of the rooms; so there pictures hung on the walls, statues stood in the window niches, whose value could only be estimated by thousands; here were produced masterly copies of the most splendid art treasures of Italy. Wherever the eye turned, it met vases, busts, drawings and beautiful works, which elsewhere would have been each alone the ornament of any drawing-room, and which here, scattered everywhere, only served as additional decorations. Everywhere was wealth of beauty and art such as only a Rinaldo could gather around him in so lavish a manner, to whom gold as well as fame flowed in never-ceasing plenty, and who was accustomed to throw the former away quite recklessly.

In the middle of the study there stood a splendid piano, the gift of an enthusiastic circle of admirers, who wished to offer a visible testimony of their thanks to the master; the writing-table was covered with cards and letters, which bore the names of the first people in the kingdom, both as regards birth and genius, and which here were indifferently thrust aside, without the recipient placing the least value on them; from the princ.i.p.al wall, a life-sized picture of Beatrice Biancona looked down, painted by a celebrated hand, most charmingly represented, a really speaking likeness. She wore the fanciful costume of one of her chief parts in an opera of Rinaldo's, through the successful representation of whose works she herself had only risen to be an actress of the first order. The painter had succeeded in embodying the utterly infatuating magic, the glowing charm of the original, in this portrait. The beautiful figure appeared half-turned to the piano in an inimitably graceful pose, and the dark eyes gazed with deceptively life-like truth down upon the man whom they had kept so long already in indissoluble bonds, as if even here, in the sacred place of his works and labour, they would not leave him alone.

CHAPTER IX.

Reinhold sat at his piano, improvising. The room was not lighted, only the moon's rays, streaming fully in, hung over the flood of tones, which now rose as if the storm were raging in its waves, now rolling up mountains high, and then again disclosing the depths of an abyss. The melodies flowed forth pa.s.sionately, glowing, intoxicatingly, and then suddenly they would start and change as if to harsh dissonance, to jarring discord. Those were the tones with which Rinaldo for years had reigned in the realms of music, with which he carried the crowd away to admiration; perhaps because they lent language to that demon-like element which slumbers in every one's breast, and of which every one is conscious, partly with dread, partly with secret shuddering. There lay, too, in these melodies something of that wild rush from pleasure to pleasure, of that rapid change from feverish excitement to deadly exhaustion, from that striving to benumb all feeling, which, sought for ever, is never found; and yet there rang forth something powerful, eternal, which had nothing in common with that element with which it fought, and which was raised above it, only to be wrecked within it at last.

The perfume of oranges rose from the gardens and streamed in through the widely-opened doors on to the balcony, and was wafted intoxicatingly through the apartments. Clear, full of great beauty and intense peace, lay the moonlight above the old town, and the dim distance disappeared in the blue, misty vapour. The fountain rustled dreamily amongst the blooming trees, and the light which shone in the falling drops illuminated with powerful distinctness the whole row of apartments, with their marble treasures of art; it illuminated the picture in the richly gilt frame, so that the witch-like, beautiful figure above seemed to live; and the same light fell upon the countenance of the man, whose brow, amid all this beauty and all this peace, remained so heavily overcast.

How many years, and, indeed, much besides which weighed more heavily than years only, lay between those long northern winter nights on which the young musician created his first compositions, and this balmy moonlight night of the south, on which the world-renowned Rinaldo repeated, in endless variations, the princ.i.p.al theme of his newest opera. And yet all vanished in this hour. Softly, recollection pa.s.sed before him, and let long-forgotten days live again, long-forgotten pictures stand before him; the little garden house, with its old-fashioned furniture, and the stunted vines over the window, the miserable little strip of garden with its few trees and shrubs, and the high, prison-like walls around it; the narrow, gloomy house, with the so intensely hated business-room. Faint, colourless pictures--and yet they would not give way, as above them floated smilingly a pair of large, deep, blue child's eyes, which only there had shone for the father, and which here, in this...o...b..t, full of poetry and beauty, he sought for in vain. He had seen them so often in his child's face, and also once--somewhere else. The remembrance of this was certainly but dim, almost forgotten; they had only then shown themselves to him for a moment, before being veiled again immediately, as they had been for years; but it was still those eyes, which hovered before him, as now, out of the storming and rolling tones, a magically sweet melody arose.

An endless longing spoke in it, a pain which his lips would not utter, and thus formed a bridge across into the far distant past. Now had genius burst the fetters which then oppressed and confined him; now he stood aloft on the once dreamed-of heights. All that life and success, fame and love could give had become his portion, and now--again like a storm, it swept over the notes, wild, pa.s.sionate, bacchante-like, and through it ever again that melody came plaintively, with its touching pain, its restless longing, which could not be pacified.

"I fear our captain will not endure Mirando much longer. It is dangerous having the sea thus ever before his eyes; he gazes over it with such longing, as if the sooner that he could sail away from us the better."

With these words Marchese Tortoni turned to his guest, who, for the last quarter of an hour had taken hardly any part in the conversation, and whom the young lord just caught in the act of a surrept.i.tious yawn.

"Indeed not," said Hugo, defending himself. "I only feel myself so utterly unimportant and ignorant in these ideal art discussions, and so deeply impressed with the sense of my ignorance, that I have just gone hurriedly through all the words of command during a storm, in order to obtain for myself the consolatory conviction that I do understand something."

"All evasion!" cried the Marchese. "You miss the female element here, which you adore so much, and now appear unable to forego.

Unfortunately, my Mirando cannot offer you that charm, as yet. You know I am not married, and have not been able to resolve upon sacrificing my freedom."

"Not resolve upon sacrificing your freedom," intimated Hugo. "My G.o.d, that sounds shocking. If you have not yet ascended the highest ladder of earthly happiness, as books express it--"

"Do not believe him, Cesario," broke in Reinhold. "Notwithstanding all his gallantry and knightliness, at heart he is of an icy nature, which nothing warms too easily. He plays with all--has no feeling for any; the ever-recurring romance, which he even sometimes calls pa.s.sion, lasts just so long as he is on sh.o.r.e, and disappears with the first fresh breeze which wafts his 'Ellida' away on the sea. Nothing has ever yet stirred his heart."

"Abominable character!" cried Hugo, throwing away his cigar. "I protest against it most solemnly."

"Well you, perhaps, maintain that it is untrue?"

The Captain laughed and turned to Tortoni. "I a.s.sure you, Signor Marchese, that I too can be unimpeachably true to my beautiful blue ocean bride"--he pointed towards the sea--"to her I am pledged with heart and hand. She alone understands how to chain and hold me fast again and again, and if she do allow me now and then to look into a pair of beautiful eyes, she never tolerates serious faithlessness."

"Until you look at last into a pair of eyes which teach you that you also are not proof against the universal fate of mortals," said Reinhold, half-jokingly, half with a bitterness which was intelligible only to his brother. "There are such eyes."

"Oh, yes, there are such eyes," repeated Hugo, looking out over the sea with an almost dreamy expression.

"Ah, sir, the tone sounds very suspicious," said the Marchese, teasingly. "Perhaps you have already met with those kind of eyes?"

"I?" The Captain had at once thrown off the momentary seriousness, and was again full of the old mischief. "Folly! I hope to defy long enough yet the 'universal doom of mortals.' Do you hear?"

"What a pity you can find no opportunity here of proving this determination," said Cesario. "The only neighbours whom we have keep themselves so secluded that no attempt ever could be made. The young Signora even--"

"A young Signora? Where?" Hugo jumped up eagerly.

The Marchese pointed to a country house, which, barely a mile distant, lay half-hidden in an olive grove.

"The villa Fiorina yonder has been inhabited for some months. So far as I hear they are also countrymen of yours, Germans, who have settled there for the summer; but they appear to make the most perfect solitude and invisibility their law. No one is received, no one allowed to enter. Visitors from S----, taking advantage of their acquaintance at home, were dismissed, without exception, and, as the family confine their walks chiefly to the park and terrace, it is impossible to approach them."

"And the Signora--is she beautiful?" asked Hugo, with most lively eagerness.

Cesario shrugged his shoulders. "With the best will I cannot tell you.

I only saw her once slightly, and at some distance. A slight, youthful figure; a head covered with beautiful golden plaits; unfortunately her face was not turned towards me, and I rode pretty quickly past her."

"Without having seen her face? I admire your stoicism, Marchese, but guarantee myself solemnly against the suspicion of doing likewise. By this evening I will bring you and Reinhold information as to whether the Signora be beautiful or no."

"You may find it difficult," laughed the Marchese. "Do you not hear, all entrance is forbidden?"

"Bah! as if that would prevent me!" cried Hugo, confidently. "The affair only now begins to be interesting. An unapproachable villa, an invisible lady, who is, besides, fair and a German. I will enquire into it, thoroughly examine into it. My duty as a countryman requires it."

"Thank G.o.d that you put him upon this scent, Cesario," said Reinhold.

"Now let us hope that his ill-concealed yawns will not disturb us any more, when we talk of music. I wished to discuss the parts with you again."

The young Marchese had risen and laid his hand entreatingly on Rinaldo's shoulder.

"Well, and the opera? Do you stand immovably by your ultimatum? I a.s.sure you, Rinaldo, it is almost impossible to carry out all these alterations by the autumn; I have convinced myself of it. A new postponement will be required, and the public and company have been waiting for months already."

"They must wait longer." The words sounded haughty, and short in their decision.