The Undying Past Part 24

"No," Ulrich answered; "with great difficulty, I persuaded her to stay at home. Just before we started she had an hysterical fit, and if she had had another on the platform it would have made a scene."

"But if she feels it so much, why does she send him away?"

A shadow of pained self-dissatisfaction, which Leo knew from childhood, pa.s.sed over Ulrich's face. "I believe it is my fault," said he.

"Of course, everything is your fault," replied Leo. "If a stone falls on some one's head in Borneo, it is your fault."

Ulrich smiled.

"Look at the boy," he said, "and then at me, and you must see that if he were my own flesh and blood he could not be more like me. Sickly he has been from birth--sensitive, anaemic, just as I have been. And since he has become attached to me, he moulds himself more and more after my pattern. And nothing could be worse for him. Who knows what I should have grown to be without your pluck and muscularity to rely upon? He has had no such comrade as I had in you. Instead, he has only had me to pamper and pet him. Under my guidance he must grow up a weakling and a milksop, and no man. In order that he should have a stronger hand over him, I advised Felicitas to engage your pastor's son as his tutor. And when that young gentleman began to demoralise my household, I winked at it for the boy's sake. Finally, Felicitas herself got sick of him, and sent him packing. For two or three weeks after that she taught the little chap herself, but Felicitas is not the person to stick long to that sort of thing. And she was certainly right when she decided on a new move. I dare not take on my shoulders the responsibility of being the ruin of her son."

It all sounded rational enough, yet in spite of that it was monstrous.

"But if you must sacrifice him," exclaimed Leo, "why send him to the other end of the country? He might be ill and die before you got to him."

"Hold me answerable for as much as you like," answered Ulrich, and his eyes glistened with anxiety; "but just in this matter you must leave me out. The child is not my child, and I am bound to acquiesce. All I can do is to see that the thing is properly done. Felicitas chose the school. The energy with which she set about it astonished me. She declares that such a thorough change of air may prove most blessedly beneficial to the boy, both mentally and physically, provided that the influence of his earlier surroundings are entirely eradicated. I should be quite ready to agree with her in theory, if the application of that theory did not tear my heartstrings. But why do I talk of myself? She is the mother by blood of the child. She must suffer more than I. Ah, and what will she not yet have to suffer."

Leo was silent. Suspicion, dim at first, that his coming home had something to do with what had happened, grew clearer and stronger in his mind. Was it fear that, now he was in the neighbourhood, some rumour of the horrible deed might poison the heart of the child, which had prompted the mother to send him away? The poor little creature's peace of mind and innocence might be blasted for ever by the tactless gossip of a servant or an overheard tag of conversation. For this she was parting with him, sending him into banishment, that the well of his pure childhood's days should remain undefiled. He had never suspected her of such powers of renunciation. It seemed almost too great a sacrifice to be wrung from a mother's heart. However frivolous she might be, this atoned for much.

The wonder was that Ulrich saw or suspected nothing of all this.

Despite his being the practical philosopher _par excellence_, be always seemed to be more and more hopelessly out of touch with the practical side of life. But to open his eyes would have been cruel--cruel to himself more than to any one else. Why impose a fresh burden on their friendship, already bowed to the earth?

The bell announcing the incoming train sounded outside. Ulrich sprang up.

"Go out that way," he said, pointing to the door that led into the waiting-room, "so that you don't see him again."

"Yes, you are right. I promise that it shall be the last time," replied Leo. He squeezed his friend's hand and went, and behind him he heard a voice calling, "Uncle Leo."

XIII

Hertha was not feeling happy. She had built such high hopes on Leo's return, that it was only natural that she should be disappointed. How she had thought about him, prayed and worked for him! and now she had to retire into the background. His teasing wounded her; his demand that she should obey him seemed almost an insult, and since her stepmother had migrated to the dower-house, Hertha thought seriously of leaving Halewitz altogether. She had written three letters already to her guardian, asking to be taken away, but had torn them up. Then, it would not be easy to separate herself from this spot of green earth, where the sun seemed to shine brighter and hearts to be kindlier than anywhere else in the world.

n.o.body, not even grandmamma, suspected anything of these struggles going on in her heart; they came, and then were over as if they had never been. They were a luxury reserved for lonely musing hours; at rosy sunset, or by pale moonlight, in the glorious drowsy solitude of the forest and on dew-glittering meadow paths. They began of themselves, but ceased at the sound of a human voice. She derived from them a painful joy, a defiance that longed to be conquered and cling to some one, a thirst for battle which she only wished to end in a slowly bleeding, prostrate martyrdom.

The reaction was a wild whirl through house and courtyard. As before, she would romp and skip about to her heart's content, fraternizing with all the live stock, and as she no longer might superintend the milking, she slept, from pique, till the sun was high in the heavens.

Elly trotted obediently in her wake as she had always done. Only sometimes, when her friend's pranks were a little too much for her, did she strike and go to grandmamma with complaints, for which Hertha gave her a scolding, and she became her abject slave once more.

For the rest, grandmamma took care that the trees did not grow into the sky. Now that there was nothing more to do in the gardening or the housekeeping line, there was time for reading French in the morning, doing fancy-work, and practising drawing-room pieces on the piano.

After that was over, one was free to go for walks, to bathe, or to loaf as much as one pleased.

It was a sultry, steamy evening at the beginning of September. The river lay softly gleaming like a mirror of molten silver. Blue-black clouds rose on the horizon, which now and then opened with a faint flash, unanswered by any echo of thunder. On the wooded rising ground above the river the glossy, fat red pony, half harnessed to his small governess-cart, was standing, flapping with tail and mane at the midges, which to-day seemed more impertinent in their onslaughts than usual. Occasionally he sent forth a pathetic neigh in the direction of the bank, where the white awning of a swimming-bath glimmered above the woolly heads of the bulrushes. From inside came those long-drawn shrieks, half frightened, half joyous, in which young women-folk indulge when disporting themselves in the water.

It was some time before the canvas-covered door opened and Hertha appeared, glowing-red, still steaming from the damp, warm air within.

She jumped on to the landing-stage, that oscillated violently, while Elly, always rather pale, but still whiter after bathing, poked her delicate little nose out guardedly, waiting till Hertha should have left the dangerous plank. Not till then did she become fully visible.

Near the swimming-bath a light rowing-boat danced on the dark water. It could not have been used for a long time, and had been left neglected, to its own devices. The seats were missing, the rudder had been torn out, and at the bottom, between its thin ribs, a muddy whirlpool gurgled up at its every motion.

"What a pity the nice boat should not be used!" said Hertha, and sprang into it. The dirty water spurted up and sprinkled her face, but she did not mind that. Laughing, she tucked her skirts up above her knees; her shoes and stockings were still in her hand, and her legs, firm, round, and softly moulded like pilasters of Parian marble, stood out from the black background.

Then she squatted on the steerer's seat--the only one there was--put her footgear in safety, and seemed as if she were quite prepared to stay there.

Elly looked alarmed. "Oh dear I what are you going to do?" she cried, tripping about on the steps of the landing-stage. "Do come back and be good!" The exhortation "be good" she had retained from her childhood.

Hertha clasped her hands behind her head and stared into the distance, dumbly weaving fancies. Out into the current, circling with the eddies, swept ever onwards away to the wide ocean--into the blue immensity, that was what she longed for at this moment.

Then drawing herself erect, she asked, "I say, how does the boat come here?"

"Leo used to keep it years ago, lying on the sandbank, so that he could get over by it quickly to Uhlenfelde and the Isle of Friendship," Elly informed her.

The Isle of Friendship! A double romance cast its halo about the little island, with its hazel-nut bushes, and high-arched coronet of alders and birches above, which, like the curly head of some drowned giant, reared itself from the water and looked fiercely across to the other side. A tiny morsel of white masonry gleamed through the sombre density of the foliage. That must be the temple of which the country-folk with superst.i.tious awe whispered mysterious legends into each other's ears.

In ancient times the island had been the scene of heathen sacrifices.

It was said that the terrible stone was still to be seen from which the Druid priest had spurted the blood of the slain victim towards heaven.

And when on dark nights you pa.s.sed the island, you saw, even now, figures swathed in long white robes crouching in the branches of the alders. In more modern times, the two friends had invoked the old spirit, and brought it back to life. And people related, besides, that on either side of the mossy sacrificial stone they had each opened a vein of the other, and drank the warm blood; that they had composed hymns to the white statue, and burnt incense before it, so that red fire was seen rising nightly into the sky. Hertha had heard all this from Elly's lips at school, and it had fired her imagination. The romances of her history-primers, the heroes of which had long ago been cast away as rubbish with her old exercise and composition books, lived again, a decade later, in her soul, glowing and glorious with mystery.

Before she knew Halewitz at all, she had pined to see the Isle of Friendship, and as, thanks to grandmamma's anxious vigilance, she had not been allowed to set foot on it yet, the very thought of it possessed a magic which filled her with the same sweet thrills which had been her delight in twilight hours at school.

She got up, and stretched out her arms longingly. If only she might get across!

At that instant her eye caught sight of an oar lying horizontally along the edge of the boat and wedged into it, but the twin oar was missing.

An audacious plan began to take shape in her mind. She remembered to have seen an old key hanging up inside the bathing-house, which apparently belonged to the boat. She would make Elly fetch it.

Elly was horrified. "What _are_ you going to do?"

Hertha banged with her fist on the side of the boat. When she commanded, she expected blind obedience. A few seconds later the little implement, covered with rust, was thrown into her lap.

A sudden furious ardour came over her. With the unfastened lock still in her hand, she tore the oar out of its old resting-place, and dug it with all her strength deep in the mora.s.s, from which glittering bubbles came gurgling to the surface. Poor Elly's lamentations died away unheeded. The boat began slowly to break through the reeds and sedges, and to drift up the stream.

Hertha calculated that if she kept to the calm shallows near the bank and worked her way up to a point where she would have left the island a hundred paces behind her, she might hope by skilful steering and even with only one oar to master the current, and reach her goal by a circuitous route.

When she saw that she was really making progress, she uttered a cry of triumph, and worked on with yet hotter zeal.

Meanwhile Elly, like a motherless chicken, ran wildly up and down amongst the reeds and rushes on the bank, getting her shoes stuck in the slime, and falling over willow-stumps. She wrung her hands, and implored Hertha to come back, but for answer was laughed to scorn.

But Hertha's Nemesis soon overtook her. The boat that unintentionally she had launched into a whirling side-current began to turn round of itself. For a few moments it stayed motionless, as if not sure what to do next, then began to glide, at first slowly, and afterwards more and more rapidly towards the valley. It pa.s.sed the bathing-house and the island, and descended gaily in mid-stream.

Elly saw how Hertha lost her grasp of the oar and threw it away, how she spread out her arms, and called out some words quite unintelligible, so that she did not know whether they meant triumph or despair. She went back to her cart, sat down on the gra.s.s beside the pony to await coming events, and wept.

Thus it happened that when supper was ready at Halewitz, neither of the girls put in an appearance. Leo tried to laugh away his mother's uneasiness, but at once ordered the mare to be resaddled, which stood sweating in the stable, put a flask of brandy in his pocket, whistled for his namesake, and started off two minutes later over the dewy meadows to the river.

The thunderstorm, which had been threatening all day, had dispersed. A crescent moon shone serenely in the blue and gold expanse of cloud. He could not deny that he was anxious about the girls. Two such giddy young creatures, it was true, might certainly lose themselves without being in any particular danger. But Hertha had the devil in her, and her escapades were generally serious. The dog, who had bounded on before him, discovered the pony cart with a howl of joy. He was about to give a sigh of relief, when he saw Elly was crouching on the ground alone, bathed in tears. The reins slid from his hand, and the mare and everything else seemed to spin round.