The Undying Past Part 38

"And then?"

Leo saw that he could not rise to the task of convincing his friend.

"Let her explain to you herself," he said, getting red and turning away.

On the way home Ulrich learnt what he wanted to know. Rocking herself to and fro, half-crying, half-laughing like a child, who fears a scolding and hopes to turn it off by being funny, Felicitas told him of the stroke of genius, which had resulted in Frau von Stolt interceding to bring about the reconciliation for her own and her guests' sake, which otherwise she would never have countenanced or forgiven. A dispensation of Providence had drawn the good woman into the fray, to convince her, even while she resisted, of the holiness of such a work of love.

Ulrich listened, still vexed. "Why did you not tell me what you intended to do?" he asked.

"Because I wouldn't have my dear, good, n.o.ble husband mixed up in it,"

she replied.

He shook his head. He could not understand, even yet, how the two could have lent themselves to such scheming.

"It was all done for your sake," she whispered, leaning against him tenderly.

That night Ulrich spent many hours walking up and down his room.

"They lie for me; they deceive for me. For me they reverse all the laws of the human heart. Can such love as that lead to any good?"

And when he had put out the light, and stared into the darkness with searching eyes, the thought flashed suddenly across him--

"This reconciliation ought not to be. It is not moral."

XVIII

It was too late now to turn back. And however much Ulrich Kletzingk might feel himself master of his will, he recognised the fact that he would not be able to bear turning back. He clung to the repossession of Leo with the whole strength of his pa.s.sionate heart, which could never do enough to show its love. The greater the sacrifice which had been made for him, the more jealously he prized the value of what had been regained.

For the most part, things went on in their old routine. Leo was seldom able to come over, and then for only a few hours at a time, for at Halewitz the oats were not yet disposed of. When he did come he was in gay spirits, but in his solicitude for Ulrich there mingled a nervousness that was altogether alien to his nature.

The first time that he had made his way over and looked his friend in the eyes, his heart-beats rose to his throat, for he felt as if some misfortune had happened, and as if either anger or pain blazed at him from Ulrich's face. Then he seized the thin, transparent hands, which the summer sun had powdered with a heap of freckles, and as he pressed them felt thankful that his alarm had been uncalled for. But still it could not be disguised that something in their friendship had been severed--something which could not be cemented or grow together again.

Their mutual love had not lessened, their confidence in each other was the same, but a shadow crouched between them, and rose its full height when neither was on his guard. Ulrich too was conscious of this. The more fervidly he clung to the refound friend, the clearer he saw that the manner of their intercourse had altered. Hardly perceptible, of course. No third person would have noticed it, but it could not escape Ulrich, whose sensitive organism longed for the sunshine of harmless gaiety. Leo's jokes were rarer. He weighed his words, and sometimes stopped short in the middle of a sentence as if considering whether what he was going to say would hurt his friend's feelings.

"Don't treat me as if I were a brittle article," he besought him once.

"You know I can stand a puff of wind, and you used not to spoil me."

"Perhaps not," replied Leo, wrinkling his forehead; "the devil knows how it is that I have suddenly got into this mincing way."

After the manner of st.u.r.dy country squires, Leo, in old days, had delighted to crack broad jests, which though in themselves distasteful to Ulrich, he had let pa.s.s with a smile, feeling that no side of human nature ought to be ignored.

It occurred to him now that Leo avoided all reference to s.e.xual subjects, and had ceased to retail gallant adventures.

"Have you secretly gone over to the monks?" Ulrich asked once.

"Why?"

"Because women don't seem to exist for you now."

"A time comes when one gets sick of that sort of thing," Leo answered, and quickly turned the conversation into another channel.

A vague feeling of shyness kept him at a distance from the castle. He much preferred to get his friend out into the fields and plantations where they would ride silently side by side.

But while they were trying, out of doors, to enjoy once more the old communion of interests, which had so long been sacrificed, Felicitas, hidden behind the curtains of one of the balcony windows, cast wistful eyes after them.

She had no just cause for complaining of Leo. He scarcely ever omitted at the end of his visits to seek a short interview with her. And when time would not allow of this courtesy, she received through Ulrich his greetings and apologies. His manner towards her was uniformly natural and kind. There was something in it of brotherly camaraderie, half respectful, half facetious; and the pressure of his hand, and the expression in his eyes, betokened sincere and warm friendship. In short--she ought to have been content.

Nevertheless it dispirited and hurt her that no look or syllable of his ever recalled what she had once been to him. It would seem as if not the slightest trace had been left in his memory of that mad, blissful time, vivid pictures of which lived on in hers; for despite all pain, she could not banish them. What she had done for him was in vain if he had thus erased everything from his mind, and made it blank to the past.

She cried a good deal in these days, declared that her life had been a failure, and revelled in old memories, which, whether painful or sweet, filled her soul with bitterness. She looked back and saw herself from earliest childhood, a burden to unknown relations, parentless and homeless: an adventuress through circ.u.mstance on the look-out for lucky chances.

She had never known her mother; her father, an impecunious officer, had been embittered by an unsuccessful career, and out of disappointment at his discharge, had taken his own life.

From his grave-side she had been taken by an old-maidish aunt to her inst.i.tution, where for three years she had gazed with yearning through a barred window on the forbidden street. Then other relations sent her to a fashionable Belgian school, where the pious sisters instructed her in the art of dancing and embroidery, and inculcated coquetry; and next, by one of those turns of fate which characterised the years of her early girlhood, she found herself transported to the solitude of a Polish magnate's estate. From there, after various stages of transition and misery, she pa.s.sed into the circle of Halewitz, which, in spite of several efforts to get away from it--for she dearly loved change--she was destined to take root in. After all, it was the only place where she was not forcibly reminded of her helplessness and homelessness; and, what was more, where her bewitching personality was allowed to unfold itself according to her sovereign will.

At that time there had been a little flirtation between her and Leo--the innocent prelude to their later guilty liaison. It had pa.s.sed without leaving any serious consequences behind.

The first to approach her in earnest with a proposal was Herr von Rhaden, the proprietor of Fichtkampen, a former loose-liver, and at one time a crony of old Baron Sellenthin's. He was at the end of his forties, sallow, grizzled, and gallant. Felicitas, admired as she knew herself to be, said "Yes" without much reflection. For since her thirteenth year, she had determined to take the first husband she could get, to throw herself into his arms whether he was the best or worst of men, so that she might be released from her forlorn situation by an early marriage.

Thus, at nineteen, she migrated to Fichtkampen; became mother of a son; danced, rode, made point lace, played patience, and waited for the advent of the hero whom the cards promised her. She would gladly have flirted, only the cantankerous disposition of her elderly husband would not have permitted it. First, _faute de mieux_, and then, really to satisfy her heart's hunger, she attracted Leo to her again. As a friend of her youth, and a second cousin, he was placed beyond her husband's jealous suspicion, and so things happened as they were bound to happen.

The famous duel which made her a widow was the climax. It would have been sheer insanity to remain a widow, and no one blamed her when, after nearly two years' mourning, she accepted the hand of the grave and high-minded Uhich von Kletzingk, although he was the bosom-friend of the man who had killed her first husband.

Now, for the first time, she was free, and enjoyed the liberty she had so long yearned for. Ulrich's patience was admirable. He guessed that a secret repugnance alienated her from him, the sickly man; as his innate refinement of feeling would not allow him to take by force what was not readily acceded, he put a bridle on his own wishes. His self-denial did not make him reproach her. She found in her husband her ready and sincerest friend, while she engaged in flirtations with the gentlemen of the country round, scoring triumphs, which fed her vanity. But happy she was not. It was part of her nature to luxuriate in feeling unhappy.

It raised her in her own esteem to a higher sphere, and increased the charms of her personality. She posed to the world defenceless and lovely, with a veil of melancholy draping transparently the mystery of a soul devoured by a secret desire.

She knew perfectly well that with Leo's return a new epoch in her life had opened. Folly was at an end; her existence had become serious once more. It seemed to her clear that she didn't, perhaps never had loved him, and daily and hourly she repeated this a.s.sertion to herself, as his image rose before her again, laughing as of old, and would not be obliterated from her mind any more. He roused her animosity, at times she almost hated him; yet a gnawing, anxious curiosity drew her to him irresistibly.

During the first eight days of his return, she had given her train of admirers their _conge_; then she went further, and sacrificed her child. She had found a thousand ways of deceiving herself into justification of the act. She scarcely knew, and she didn't want to know, what she was doing. Even the goal that she thought to attain by it was misty and vague. Now the child had been gone nearly a second month, and a dull anxiety filled the place in her heart left empty by her motherly care for him.

One afternoon, when Ulrich was out, she took the letters from the postman, and a note from Paulchen fell into her hands which increased her anxiety. It ran--

"Dear Papa and Dear Mamma,

"It isn't nice here, and I should like to come home at once. And I am very frightened. And we have to get up at six o'clock in the morning, and then I get the morning banging from the boys, because I am the youngest. If I was not the youngest, some one else would get the banging; but, as I am the youngest, I get it. After dinner, there is the afternoon banging, and after supper, the evening blessing, and that hurts worst of all. Lotzen is the strongest boy. He can spin a top splendidly; but he does everything else badly. But he says it doesn't matter, because he is going to be a general; his uncle is a general, and that is why he will be a general, too. I should like to be a landowner. I wish I was not so frightened. How is Fido? And now I must say good-bye.

"Your

"Paul.

"P.S.--It is 123 days to Christmas. One of the boys has counted it up."