The Undying Past Part 33

"Well, let her come," he said, in some surprise.

Then, as grandmamma appeared, followed by Christian, he relapsed again into reverie. He ate and drank, but it was like an automaton eating and drinking.

Her eyes did not move from his face. She dreaded to try and win a look from him, full of understanding and warm feeling, yet it seemed as if she had ceased to exist for him. She might be stupid, and of course she was, but this much she knew--that a man did not usually treat the woman of his choice in such a manner.

Meta Podewyl, for instance, and Hans Sembritzky were in love with each other for a long time before he declared himself. They called each other "Herr Baron" and "Gnadiges Fraulein" quite stiffly, and were outwardly like strangers; but their eyes could not deceive them. They spoke a glowing language which made all formality a pretence. And then how dreamily and blissfully they had smiled away into vacancy, when their eyes might no longer meet! But he--oh, he!

With a low murmur, he stood up, shot his shirt-cuffs, whistled to his dog, and strode away without vouchsafing her another look. Without another look!

Later the same thing repeated itself. Hertha sat through lunch in dull misery. Two tears fell on the hands that nervously crumbled her bread.

Grandmamma had been sharply observing her, and it had not escaped her that Hertha, whose healthy appet.i.te was proverbial in the house, had to-day scarcely swallowed a morsel of meat.

She slipped noiselessly out of her seat, pushed Elly aside, and caught hold of Hertha's left hand.

She jumped up as if she had been p.r.i.c.ked by a needle.

"Sit down, and give me your wrist," commanded grandmamma.

Further resistance was useless. And the pulse was indeed galloping feverishly. Then she was asked to show her tongue. This she wouldn't do.

"Grandmamma, please don't torment me," she begged, and flung her arms round her neck, bursting into tears.

But grandmamma would not allow herself to be trifled with in such important matters. "Show me your tongue," she insisted.

But the tongue was still not forthcoming. Then ensued a sharp tussle, in which Hertha was defeated.

And this was how she was treated, and her heartache misunderstood. She was ordered to bed; and told she must perspire.

XVI

On the afternoon of the same day, Leo Sellenthin reined in his mare at the gateway of Uhlenfelde. The heraldic sword amidst the three wide-jawed fish pointed warningly down on him from the escutcheon of the Kletzingks above the entrance.

As he wiped the sweat from his brow, a last faint "Turn back," breathed by the rustling leaves, fell on his ear. But he clenched his teeth, and rode on. To the left, on the same side as the stream, lay the house, a white slate-crowned bijou structure, resembling the country seat of a parvenu more than the ancestral castle of a doughty old feudal race.

It had been built at her desire, for the former gray castellated pile had not found favour with the fair new mistress. Two female figures in marble, representing peace and hospitality, stretched out their shining arms in welcome to the stranger from the parapet of the ramparts, which were approached by a terraced drive. Groups of widespreading palms, overarched by the ragged plumes of a banana, filled the s.p.a.ce made by the curve of the drive. The jagged, fan-like foliage stretched up to the marble figures, which in their snow-whiteness seemed like rare exotic blooms in this wilderness of green.

Leo turned away from the house, for, according to the programme, he was not to meet Felicitas until he had seen Ulrich.

The s.p.a.cious courtyard stretched its huge length before his eyes.

Ulrich, it would appear, had been building without a pause during the last few years, for more than half the offices and farm-buildings had been rebuilt. Where once the long white clay wall covered with stubbly thatch had stood, there was now a row of brand-new brick palaces, with iron bolts and locks, stone porches, and a system of covered drainage round about.

In the yard, drawn up in columns, were the long waggons with their big strong axles, and their fresh-polished wood agleam. There were the ploughs--a distinguished blue-coated regiment, beginning with a bulky "Ruchadlo," and ending with the slender furrow hedgehog, a beautiful "Fowler" steam plough with double shafts--and an engine at the head.

The more delicate machines lay under the shelter of a shed; the drainers and the manure-scatterer, and the newest inventions, just arrived from England. There was also a "Zimmermann" threshing-machine, of the kind Leo himself so earnestly coveted, and a five-tubed apparatus for setting seed.

A feeling of admiration untainted by envy awoke in him. A good deal that he had only seen before at agricultural exhibitions, where he had been apt to regard it all scarcely sympathetically as so much machinery _de luxe_, was there in everyday use, its working capabilities tested and proved.

In another place, on wooden blocks, boxes out of the potato carts lay huddled together like unslain dragons weltering in the sun. Near the stable stood a company of iron-spouted kettles, in which during the winter the tougher-fibred fodder was soaked, and made easy for the mouths of the cattle to masticate. To crown all, there was a perfect reservoir designed by Wolf, such as only model farms could afford.

Black clouds of smoke issued from the tall chimney which flanked the distillery buildings, for, although the distillery itself was not this moment at work, the steam-engine was setting in motion the dairy machinery, which was in full activity. Long rows of milkpails were ranged near it facing the sun, snowy white with gold-gleaming hoops--the tin strainers shining as bright as silver; the b.u.t.ter-churns and b.u.t.ter-separators, and all sorts of implements which Leo didn't even know by sight; at every step some new wonder was revealed to him.

"And what is _my_ old lumber in comparison with this?" he thought.

Then a solemn mood overtook him, a feeling of reverend exultation, which banished all his fears, and for a moment let him forget what had brought him there. If it was within human possibility to accomplish all this by dint of energy and strength of purpose, why should not he succeed in a like achievement? He had only to push on steadily from the point at which he had begun, to throw himself heart and soul in his work, and to abandon frivolity and philandering for evermore. The elevating example of his friend before his eyes, the feeling of deliverance which it would give him to procure secretly his happiness, this alone would prevent his making shipwreck again of his career.

As he drew near the stable, a groom whom he did not know met him, and smiled up in his face with familiar impertinence.

"The mistress is not at home to-day," he remarked. "Two lots have had to ride away without seeing her."

"Speak when you are spoken to, fellow!" Leo thundered at him, so that with an anxious exclamation he nearly jumped out of his skin.

What a delightful understanding must exist between servants and guests when a complete stranger was received with this gratuitous officiousness! And how it was accepted as a matter of course that his visit was intended for the fair lady of the house!

He sprang out of the saddle, and was told that the master was with the horses in the paddock, exercising the two-year-olds. He walked in that direction, and the groom, who was probably in the habit of being tipped by his mistress's admirers, glared after him dumbfounded.

On the miniature racecourse which sloped towards the stream, Ulrich's lanky figure was to be seen, surrounded by a crowd of golden-brown thoroughbred colts, which were pressing against him to be caressed by his hand. Leo's heart smote him at the thought of the comedy of deception he had given his word to enact, and the victim of which was to be the man who was dearest to him in the world. But what was to happen was to be for his happiness and his peace of mind. Therefore he must go forward with it.

The colts, at his approach, bounded away half shyly, half roguishly.

Ulrich turned round. Pure joy, succeeded the next moment by horror, lit up his emaciated features.

"You at Uhlenfelde?" he gasped.

"How do you do, little girl?" cried Leo, forcing himself into an a.s.sumption of his old genial manner. "Don't let your eyes quite start out of your head. You can set the dogs on me to chase me out of the yard if I am not welcome."

And then he repeated his lesson. How he felt things could not go on as they were, and he wanted to try if, by means of an interview with Felicitas, he could get to the bottom of the aversion she had expressed for him, and through an explanation put the relations between them on a more tolerable footing. Therefore he besought his friend to go indoors and beg Felicitas to see him.

A smile of hopelessness flitted over Ulrich's face. "It is altogether useless," he replied. "I am sure that she won't receive you. You don't know in what strong terms she speaks of you."

"That may be," said Leo, without daring to raise his eyes from the ground, "but at least make the attempt. Say I have come to ask her pardon, anything you like."

Ulrich reflected, and then said, "Very well, come. It shall not be said that I did not try, however little good it may be."

They left the enclosure, surrounded by the colts, who had begun to make friendly overtures to the stranger. But he took no notice of them.

Mutely he walked at his friend's side, now and then giving himself a shake, as if he would shake off from his soul some insupportable horror.

Ulrich stood still when they came to the ramparts.

"In case she does consent, do you think it best to see her alone?" he asked.

"Certainly," Leo replied, feeling that he was not used yet to the distasteful game he was pledged to play in the eyes of his unsuspecting friend.

"Then let me go in to her, and you wait out here. Forgive me," he added, "but unless it is her desire, I cannot permit you to enter the house consecrated to her honour."

Leo nearly crushed his hand in his own, but he hadn't the courage to meet the eyes that rested on him with their fiery brilliance melting into tenderness. He watched him disappear behind the statue of peace.

He fixed his gaze absently on the marble woman, who seemed to hold out her palm-branch towards him with a friendly gesture. Then he began to pace up and down the forecourt with long strides. He dared not think of what was going on indoors at that moment.