Riven Bonds Volume I Part 4

CHAPTER III.

It was Sunday morning. The office was closed, and Reinhold at last had a free morning before him, which certainly was seldom his good fortune.

He was in the garden house, to the entire and special possession of which he had at last attained, to be sure only after many struggles and by repeated reference to his musical studies, which were considered highly disturbing in the house. It was here alone that the young man was in any degree safe from the constant control of his parents-in-law, which extended even into the young couple's dwelling, and he seized every free moment to take refuge in his asylum.

The so-called "garden" was of the only description possible in an old, narrowly-built, densely populated town. On all sides high walls and gables enclosed the small piece of ground, to which air and sunshine were sparingly given, and where a few trees and shrubs enjoyed but a miserable existence. The garden's boundary was one of those small ca.n.a.ls, which traversed the town in all directions, and whose quick, dark stream formed a very melancholy background; beyond this, again, walls and gables were to be seen; the same prison-like appearance, which clung to Almbach's whole house seemed to reign over the only free s.p.a.ce belonging to it.

The garden house itself was not much more cheerful--the single large room was furnished with more than simplicity. Evidently the few old-fashioned pieces of furniture had been set aside from some other place as superfluous, and been sought out in order to fit up the room with what was absolutely necessary. Only in the window, round which climbed some stunted vines, stood a large, handsome piano, the legacy of the late Music Director, Wilkens, to his pupil, and its magnificent appearance contrasted as singularly and strangely with the room as did the figure of the young man, with his ideal brow and large flashing eyes, behind the barred office windows of the dwelling-house.

Reinhold was sitting writing at the table, but to-day his face did not wear the tired, listless expression, which rested upon it whenever he had the figures of the account books before him; his cheeks were darkly, almost feverishly red, and as he wrote a name rapidly on the envelope, lying on the table, his hands trembled as if with suppressed excitement. Steps were heard outside, and the gla.s.s door was opened; with a quick gesture of annoyance the young man pushed the envelope under the sheets of music lying on the table, and turned round.

It was Jonas, servant of the Captain, who for a few days only had accepted the hospitality offered by his relations, and then had migrated to a dwelling of his own. The sailor saluted and entered in his peculiarly rough and somewhat uncouth manner, and then laid some books on the table.

"The Herr Captain's compliments, and he sends the promised books from his travelling library."

"Is my brother not coming himself?" asked Reinhold astonished. "He promised surely."

"The Captain has been here some time," replied Jonas, "but they have got hold of him in the house; your uncle wished to have a conference with him on family affairs; your aunt requires his help to make some alteration in the guest room, and the bookkeeper wants to catch him for his society. All are fighting for him; he cannot tear himself away."

"Hugo appears to have conquered the whole house in the course of a single week," remarked Reinhold ironically.

"We do that everywhere," said Jonas, full of self-consciousness, and appeared inclined to add more about those conquests, when he was interrupted by his master's entrance, who greeted his brother in the most cheerful humour.

"Good morning, Reinhold! Now Jonas, what are you staying here for? You are wanted in the house. I promised my aunt that you should help at the dinner to-day. Go at once to the kitchen!"

"Amongst the women!"

"Heaven knows," said Hugo, turning laughingly to his brother, "where this man has learned his hatred for women. Certainly not from me; I admire the lovely s.e.x uncommonly."

"Yes, unfortunately, quite uncommonly," muttered Jonas, but he turned away obediently and marched out of the room, while the Captain came quite close to Reinhold.

"To-day there is a large family dinner!" he began, imitating his Uncle Almbach's pedantic, solemn voice so well as almost to deceive any one.

"In my honour of course! I hope you will pay proper respect to this important ceremony, and that you will not again behave in such a manner, that I can at the utmost use you as a b.u.t.t for my too developed amiability."

Reinhold knitted his brows slightly--

"I beg you, Hugo, do be sensible for once! How long do you intend to continue this comedy, and amuse yourself at the expense of the whole house? Take care, lest they find out what your amiability consists of, and that you are really only ridiculing them all."

"That would indeed be bad," said Hugo, quietly, "but they will not find me out, depend upon that."

"Then do me the kindness, at least, of ceasing your horrid Indian tales! You really go too far with them. Uncle was debating with the bookkeeper yesterday about the battle with the monster serpent, which you served up for them lately, and which, even to him, appeared unheard of. I became extremely confused in listening to them."

"It put you to confusion?" mocked the Captain. "If I had been there, I should immediately have given them the benefit of an elephant hunt, a tiger story, and a few attacks of savages, with such appalling effects, that the affair of the giant snake would have appeared highly probable to them. Be easy! I know my hearers; the whole house oppresses me almost, with its acts of sympathy."

"Excepting Ella," suggested Reinhold, "it is certainly remarkable that her shyness towards you is quite invincible."

"Yes, it is very remarkable," said Hugo with an offended air. "I cannot allow any one in the house to exist who is not entirely persuaded of my perfections, and have already set myself the task of presenting myself to my sister-in-law in all my utterly irresistible charms. I do not doubt at all that she will thereupon immediately join the majority--you are not jealous, I hope."

"Jealous?--I? and on Ella's account?" The young man shrugged his shoulders half-pityingly, half-contemptuously.

"What are you thinking of?"

"Well, there is no danger! I have sought an interview with her already, but she was entirely occupied with the young one. Tell me, Reinhold, where does the child get those wonderful, blue, fairy-tale-like eyes from? Yours are not so, besides there is not the least resemblance, and, excepting his, I do not know any in the family."

"I believe Ella's eyes are blue," interrupted his brother indifferently.

"You believe only? Have you never convinced yourself then? Certainly it may be somewhat difficult; she never raises them, and, under that monstrous cap, nothing can be seen of her face. Reinhold, for Heaven's sake, how can you allow your wife such an antediluvian costume? I a.s.sure you, for me that cap would be grounds sufficient for a divorce."

Reinhold had seated himself at the piano, and let his hands glide mechanically over the notes, while he answered with perfect indifference--

"I never trouble myself about Ella's toilet, and I believe it would be useless to try and enforce any alterations there. What does it matter to me?"

"What it matters to you how your wife looks?" repeated the Captain, as he seized some sheets of music on the table, and turned them over lightly, "a charming question from a young husband! You used to have a sense of beauty, too easily aroused, and I could almost fear--what is this then? 'Signora Beatrice Biancona on it.' Have you Italian correspondents in the town?"

Reinhold sprang up, confusion and annoyance struggled in his face, as he saw the letter, which he had pushed under the music, in his brother's hands, who repeated the address unconcernedly.

"Beatrice Biancona? That is the _prima donna_ of the Italian Opera, who has made such a wonderful sensation here? Do you know the lady?"

"Slightly," said Reinhold, taking the letter quickly from his hands. "I was introduced to her lately at Consul Erlau's."

"And you correspond with her already?"

"Certainly not! The letter does not contain one single line."

Hugo laughed aloud, "An envelope fully addressed, a very voluminous sheet of paper inside it, with not a single line! Dear Reinhold, that is more wonderful than my story of the giant snake. Do you expect me really to believe it? There, do not look so savage, I do not intend to force myself into your secrets."

Instead of answering, the young man drew the paper out of the unsealed envelope, and held it to his brother, who looked at it in astonishment.

"What does it mean? Only a song--notes and words--no word of explanation with it--just your name below. Have you composed it?"

Reinhold took the paper again, closed the letter and put it in his pocket.

"It is an attempt, nothing more. She is _artiste_ enough to judge of it. She can accept or reject it."

"Then you compose also?" asked the Captain, whose face had become serious all at once. "I did not think that your pa.s.sionate liking for music went so far as creating it yourself. Poor Reinhold, how can you bear this life, with all its narrow, confined ways, wishing to stifle every spark of poetry as being unnecessary or dangerous? I could not do it."

Reinhold had thrown himself upon the seat before the piano again.

"Do not ask me how I endure it," he replied, with suppressed feeling.

"It is enough _that_ I do it."

"I guessed long since that your letters were not open," continued Hugo; "that behind all the contentment with which you tried to deceive me, something quite different was concealed. The truth has become plain to me, during one week in this house, notwithstanding that you gave yourself all conceivable trouble to hide it from me."

The young man gazed gloomily before him. "Why should I worry you, when far away, with anxieties about me? You had enough to do to take care of yourself, and there was a time, too, when I was contented, or at least believed myself so, because my whole mental being lay, as it were, under a spell, when I allowed everything to pa.s.s over me in stupid indifference, and I offered my hand willingly for the chain. I have done it; well, yes! But I must carry it my whole life long!"

Hugo had gone towards him, and laid his hand upon his brother's shoulder.

"You mean your marriage with Ella? At the first news of it, I knew it must be my uncle's work."