The Breaking of the Storm Volume I Part 14

The train stopped. Reinhold took his things out of the net. He could not collect them all at once. When he turned round Herr von Werben had already jumped out, Reinhold saw him once hastily threading the crowd, and then lost sight of him as he let his eyes wander till they caught sight of a man who was standing at some little distance. The stately, broad-shouldered figure, the pose of the head held up so proudly, while turning to right and to left as he looked about him, the thick beard, almost entirely grey--how could he have doubted his recognising that face at the first glance!

It was Uncle Ernst.

"Ah! my dear boy!"

Such a hearty tone was in the deep strong voice, and hearty and strong was the pressure from the large muscular hand which was stretched out to Reinhold.

"The very image of your father!" said Uncle Ernst.

The fine eyes which were fixed on Reinhold's face grew dim. The hand which held his loosened its grasp, and his uncle caught him to his breast and kissed him.

"My dear uncle!"

His own eyes were wet; he had not expected to be received with so much affection by this strong stern man. It was but a pa.s.sing emotion, and Uncle Ernst said, "Your things came yesterday. Where is Ferdinanda?"

"Is she here?"

"There she comes."

A tall handsome girl came hurriedly up to them. "I had quite lost you, father. How do you do, my dear cousin! Welcome to Berlin!"

A pair of melancholy blue eyes glanced at him with what Reinhold thought a rather uncertain look. There was a sort of hasty indifference, too, in the tone of the full deep voice, while the pressure of the hand she gave him was but slight.

"I certainly should not have known you," said Reinhold.

"Nor I you."

"You were still a child then, and now----"

"And now we will try and get out of the crowd," said Uncle Ernst, "and you can say what you have got to say to each other on the way and at home."

He had already turned and went on a few steps; Reinhold was about to offer his arm to his cousin when suddenly Herr von Werben stood before him.

"I must say good-bye."

"I beg your pardon, Herr von Werben, but you disappeared so suddenly----"

"I had hoped to be of some use, but I see I am too late. Will you introduce me?"

"Lieutenant von Werben--my cousin, Fraulein Ferdinanda Schmidt."

Ottomar bowed, hat in hand. Ferdinanda returned the bow, very formally it seemed to Reinhold.

"I have often had the pleasure of seeing Fraulein Schmidt at the window when I have been riding by. I will not presume to think that I have been honoured by any such notice in return."

Ferdinanda did not answer. There was a gloomy, almost severe, expression upon her face, which made her look like her father.

"I will not detain you," said Ottomar; "I hope to have the pleasure of meeting my fellow-traveller again. Good-bye, Fraulein Schmidt."

He bowed again and walked quickly away. Some knots of people collected at the entrance came between them.

"Oh, do come!" said Ferdinanda.

She had taken Reinhold's arm and suddenly pressed forward impatiently.

"I beg your pardon, but I could not help introducing that man to you.

You did not seem to like him?"

"I? Why should I mind it? My father cannot bear waiting."

"Who was that?" asked Uncle Ernst.

"A Herr von Werben--a soldier. I knew him during the war, and fell in by accident with some of his people on my way here."

"A son of the General's?"

"Yes."

Reinhold felt a touch from the hand which lay on his arm, and a low voice said in his ear, "My father hates the Werbens--at least the General--since '48----"

"Yes, by the way," said Reinhold.

Ferdinanda's shrinking from the introduction, her haste to put an end to it--all was clear to him; and then he felt that sensation which is common to every one who has suddenly seen a vista of pleasure opening out before him, and as suddenly seen it withdrawn.

"There is my carriage," said Uncle Ernst. "Friedrich!"

A large carriage with two strong brown horses drove up. Uncle Ernst stepped in; Reinhold helped in Ferdinanda. As he was following, casually glancing on one side, he saw Ottomar von Werben standing at some distance, with a soldier servant near him holding a dog in a chain. Ottomar waved his hand. Reinhold answered the friendly greeting with equal cordiality.

"I do not hate the Werbens," thought he to himself as he sank back in the carriage.

CHAPTER II.

From the short letters which he had received from his relations during the last ten years, Reinhold had gathered that at all events his uncle's business prospered fairly. Ferdinanda's handsome dress, and the smart carriage in which they dashed at a tremendous pace through the long, crowded, twilight streets, led him to expect that his uncle must have become a well-to-do, if not a rich man, and the entrance to the house quite fulfilled these expectations. The broad marble steps before which the carriage stopped, at the entrance; the square marble staircase, decorated with flowers, divided from the entrance by a gla.s.s door, and which led, in three flights, to the gallery that ran along two sides of it, whence various doors opened to the living rooms; the spare room on the upper floor, to which his uncle himself led him, with the request that he would make himself comfortable and then come down to supper--everything was of the best; rich, without show, showing taste even; but still it struck Reinhold as not comfortable. There was a chilliness about it, he thought, and then felt that this was but imagination, the result of that state of mind so common to any one suddenly coming without much preparation to a new place, where he is expected to be at home at once, amongst people who, without being absolute strangers, are yet strange enough to lead one to antic.i.p.ate at any moment something odd and chilling, because unexpected, unhoped-for, or even undesired.

"But in fact that is how it always is in this life," said Reinhold to himself, as he put the finishing touches to his dress. "And if I did not know it before, the last few days might have taught it to me. How much that was unexpected and unhoped for have they not brought! And just now again, a good-looking young fellow, tired out with a long day's shooting and a little too much wine, after sleeping for an hour, at the last moment discloses himself as a fellow-soldier and her brother! It is like a romance, and yet it all comes so naturally! And to think that she is living close by, that the boughs of the trees which rise above the gables of the house are perhaps in her garden, that she whom I never hoped to see again--Reinhold, tell the truth!--you know that you have always cherished a hope that you would see her again! You certainly did the day before yesterday, the last time that you gazed into her eyes. Those loved and lovely eyes showed you a faint glimmering of hope which must not, cannot be extinguished, even if there should be but slight sympathy in this house with your aristocratic tastes, unless it come from Aunt Rikchen."

Uncle Ernst's sister had hastened to him with open arms, and embraced him over and over again, with an exuberance of emotion which could hardly find sufficient vent in tears and exclamations, a wonderful contrast to the suppressed emotion with which her brother had received him. Even this scene Uncle Ernst speedily put an end to with a short gruff, "If you have cried enough, Rike, I might perhaps take Reinhold to his room." Whereupon his aunt, taking advantage of a final embrace, whispered to Reinhold: "He still calls me Rike! but I shall be Aunt Rikchen to you, shall I not?"

"Poor old aunt! For indeed she has grown quite old, though, by the way, I suspect she really is younger than her stately brother! And pa.s.sing years do not seem to have improved the terms on which they are together. He still calls her Rike! But no doubt they unite in spoiling my pretty cousin."

Reinhold carefully combed out his beard, and then punished himself for his vanity and for the grievous wrong thus done to the love and truth which he had sworn to Elsa von Werben, by disarranging it again with his hand, but only moderately, "half-measures," thought he, smiling to himself, as he ran downstairs to the dining-room, where Uncle Ernst and Ferdinanda were already awaiting him.

"Of course Rike cannot be in time," said Uncle Ernst.