The Alpine Fay Part 39

The young physician was wont to be all patience and gentleness, but at this interference with his most sacred emotions he lost his temper so thoroughly that he tried to be rude.

"Herr Gronau, let me reiterate my request that you will no longer meddle in my affairs. Do you suppose that I can ever call by the name of father a man who so injured my father? You understand nothing of any refinement of sentiment."

"No, I suppose not; but all the more do I comprehend what is practical, and this matter is as simple as possible. You possess a means of forcing Nordheim to consent to your marriage with his daughter, whom you love. Use it and marry her. Anything else is nonsense, and that's an end of it!"

"My opinion precisely," said a voice from the doorway, and Frau Gersdorf, having heard the last words, advanced into the room and took part with aplomb in the conversation.

"Herr Gronau is perfectly right. The matter is as plain and simple as possible," she repeated. "All you have to do, Benno, is to marry Alice, and there's an end of it."

Poor Reinsfeld thus a.s.sailed on both sides might well tremble for his 'refinement of sentiment.' He made up his mind to a final effort, and declared,--

"But I will not. I am the one, and the only one, to decide here!"

"A pretty lover you are!" exclaimed Gronau raising his hands to heaven in despair.

Molly, however, took a much more practical view of the case, and attacked Benno's obstinacy from the other side.

"Benno!" she said, reproachfully, "there sits poor Alice in the next room crying her very heart out. Will you not try at least to comfort her?"

This was perfectly successful. Benno hesitated for a moment, but only for a moment, then he rushed into the next room.

"There! he will not come back for some time," said Molly, closing the door behind him. "Now we can take the affair in hand, Herr Gronau."

But this was too much for Veit Gronau's declared distrust of womankind.

Charming as was this new ally, her very presence reminded him of how false to his avowed principles he was in thus standing G.o.dfather to a love-affair. He suddenly remembered his attendant spirits still waiting at the garden gate, and with a hurried and awkward apology he took his leave, while Frau Gersdorf, with much self-satisfaction, seated herself in the doctor's study to await the close of the interview in the next room, and to reflect upon the vicissitudes that beset the path in life of a self-const.i.tuted guardian angel.

CHAPTER XXIII.

A JEALOUS LOVER.

For three days there had been raging in the Wolkenstein district a storm which even in this mountain-region was held to be unprecedented in violence. The keen blasts of November set in several weeks earlier this year and were unusual in their fury. In addition, the rain poured down day and night; in certain valleys there had been rain-spouts which had deluged the fields, and had so swollen streams and brooks that they had burst all bounds, overflowed their banks, and made travel impossible. Communication with Heilborn was interrupted, intercourse between neighbouring hamlets and villages was maintained with difficulty, and the danger increased from hour to hour.

In the Nordheim villa preparations had been made for a return to the capital, but any such intention had to be given up, since travel was not to be thought of in this weather. All regretted the impossibility, and longed to be gone, for the entire household was oppressed as by some gloomy spell.

Alice pleaded indisposition, and had not left her room for several days, availing herself of this pretext to avoid meeting her father, whom she had dreaded since their last interview; but the president's mind was filled with far other anxieties. He probably never noticed his child's avoidance of him, nor was he aware of the strained relations existing of late between Erna and her betrothed.

The good fortune which had befriended him hitherto during his life seemed all at once to be forsaking him; it was as if some hostile power were at work, frustrating all his efforts, confusing all his schemes, and confounding all his expectations.

The boldly-conceived plan, the success of which was to gain him millions, was shattered, and its ruin came from a quarter whence he had never looked for it. The man whom he thought indissolubly bound to himself and to his interests withdrew from his plans at the decisive moment, and made their execution impossible. Nordheim knew perfectly well that if the engineer-in-chief, his future son-in-law, refused to approve the estimates as they had been made out, it would be impossible to present them to the company. The scheme was naught since Elmhorst refused his aid, opposing a frigid refusal to all efforts to persuade him. There had been a brief, stern interview between the two men, and it had set the seal upon their estrangement.

Then Wolfgang had spent an hour with his betrothed. What had pa.s.sed at this interview no one was told, not even the girl's father. Alice, with unwonted decision, refused to speak of it, but the parting had surely not been unkindly, for when Elmhorst left the house, not to enter it again, Alice had waved him a farewell from the window more cordial than any she had ever vouchsafed him while they were betrothed, and he had responded with equal cordiality.

Nordheim was not a man to bear with equanimity the ruin of schemes which he had spent years in developing, and to his vexation on that score was added annoyance at Gronau's threats, which he had at first underestimated. He regretted that he had not attempted at least to conciliate the former friend, whose restless energy he had been familiar with of old. It had been a mistake to make an enemy of him, a mistake which might have serious consequences.

For the moment it was, however, all thrown into the background in view of a threatened loss which dwarfed all other anxiety in the president's mind. The mountain-railway, which should have been completed in a few days, was in great peril from the freshets. From all quarters came terrifying reports,--one piece of bad news followed another. The injury done was already serious; if the storm should continue and the water mount higher it might be incalculable, and Nordheim was implicated pecuniarily to an extent which could not but be very grave even to a man of his vast wealth.

Erna and Molly, whose departure had been perforce postponed, were in the drawing-room. The lawsuit which had brought Gersdorf to Heilborn had been decided by a compromise, the arrangement of which detained the lawyer a few days longer. His wife was at first delighted, for in her capacity of guardian angel she considered her presence in the Nordheim household as absolutely necessary, although, to her great disappointment, she was obliged to admit that she had nothing here to protect.

The engineer-in-chief had retired; his betrothal with Alice was dissolved, as all the family now knew, and Alice obstinately refused to open her heart to her friend. Benno was just as impracticable, seeming to persist in his idea of a separation, and, worse than all, no human being required any advice or counsel from Frau Doctor Gersdorf, who was naturally indignant at such base insensibility.

"That is my reward for my philanthropy," she said, very much out of humour. "Here I sit, as upon a desert island in the midst of the ocean, cut off from all the world, separated from my husband, in danger of being swept away at any moment by a deluge. Albert may be obliged to rescue my corpse from the raging element and return to town an inconsolable widower. I wonder if he will marry again? It would be horrible. I should turn in my grave. But then men are capable of anything."

Erna, standing at the window looking out at the storm and rain, hardly heard this chatter; her thoughts were elsewhere.

"We are not in any peril here, Molly," she said at last. "The house is perfectly safe, standing as high as it does, but I am afraid matters look serious in Oberstein and on the railway."

"Oh, the engineer-in-chief will take care of that," Molly declared, confidently. "We hear from all sides of his heroic conduct, how he accomplishes the impossible. We never did this Elmhorst justice. He released Alice although he resigned millions by so doing, and now he is exerting himself to the utmost to preserve the railway for your uncle, although they separated in anger. Confess, Erna, that you were prejudiced against him."

"Yes--I was," Erna replied, softly.

"There comes your betrothed!" exclaimed Molly, joining Erna at the window. "How odd he looks! The water is actually pouring from his waterproof; he has ridden over from Oberstein in this storm. I think he would really go through fire and water for one hour with you. But marriage puts an end to all that, my child; trust the experience of a wife of four months. My lord and master sits calmly with his ma.n.u.script in Heilborn and waits until the weather is clear enough to come to me.

Your romantic Ernst appears, indeed, to be made of different stuff. But what is the matter with him? For three days he has been glooming about like a thunder-cloud, never taking his eyes off you when you are in the room. It is positively terrible to see you together. Nothing will persuade me that there has not something occurred between you. Do be frank with me, Erna; open your heart to me. I am as silent as the grave."

She clasped her hands upon her breast in a.s.severation of her trustworthiness, but Erna, instead of throwing herself into her arms and confessing, returned the greeting of her betrothed as he alighted from his horse, and then said, evasively, "You are quite mistaken, Molly; nothing has happened,--nothing at all."

Frau Gersdorf turned away provoked: no one seemed in the least need of a guardian angel; these people had a very stupid way of managing their affairs themselves. The little lady could not understand it, and she rustled out of the room decidedly out of humour.

Scarcely was she gone when Waltenberg entered. He had laid aside his hat and cloak, but nevertheless his dress showed traces of the storm, against which no cloak was a protection. He greeted his betrothed with his usual chivalric courtesy, but there was something chilling in his air which was strangely contradicted by the glow in his dark eyes.

Molly was right: he was indeed like some thunder-cloud, whose depths threaten ominously.

Erna went to meet him in evident embarra.s.sment; she had learned to dread this icy calm.

"Well, how is all going on outside?" she said. "You come directly from Oberstein?"

"Yes, but I had to take a roundabout way, for the mountain-road is under water. Oberstein itself looks tolerably secure, but the villagers have entirely lost their heads, and are running about bewailing themselves incessantly. Dr. Reinsfeld is doing all that he can to bring them to reason, and Gronau is giving him all possible support, but the people are behaving like lunatics because they think their paltry belongings are in peril.

"Those paltry belongings, however, are all that they have in the world," the girl interposed. "Their own lives and those of their families depend upon them."

Ernst shrugged his shoulders indifferently: "I suppose so; but what is that in comparison with the tremendous loss sustained by the railway?

As I entered the house just now tidings of fresh disasters were brought to the president. Nothing but ill news from all quarters. Everything seems to be imperilled."

"But they are working away desperately; can it be entirely in vain?"

"Yes, the engineer-in-chief is waging desperate warfare against the elements," Ernst said, with a kind of savage satisfaction. "He is defending his beloved creation to the death, but against such catastrophes no mortal power avails. The water is steadily rising, the dikes are giving way, and the bridges on the lower portion of the road are already carried off. All nature seems in revolt."

Erna was silent. She went again to the window, and looked out into the mist, which made any distant view impossible. Even the stretch of railway in the vicinity of the villa was invisible, while the roaring of the waters was distinctly audible. Below there Wolfgang was doing battle at the head of his men, fighting, perhaps, in vain.

"The Wolkenstein bridge stands firm, at all events," Waltenberg continued. "Herr Elmhorst ought to be satisfied with that, and not expose himself so foolishly, as he does at every opportunity. He is no coward, it must be admitted, but it is folly to risk his life to save every dike that is threatened. He does wonders at the head of his engineers and labourers, who follow his lead blindly. They had better take care, or he will drag them with him to destruction."

There was a cold, calculating cruelty in his way of speaking to his betrothed of the peril threatening the life of the man whom he knew she loved. She turned and gave him a sad, reproachful glance: "Ernst!"

"Beg pardon?" he asked, without heeding her glance.

"Why do you avoid the frank explanation which I have so often tried to give you? Do you not wish for it?"