Fickle Fortune

To Hedwig, accustomed to read in other glances a tender homage and admiration, which this certainly did not convey, the look remained problematical.

'Why not now?' she asked in surprise. 'What do you mean by that?'

'Oh, nothing, nothing! I was alluding to family affairs which are unknown to you as yet.'

Evidently he repented his hasty error; as though in anger at himself, he fiercely snapped to pieces a branch which he had torn from a neighbouring bush.

Hedwig was silent, but the explanation did not suffice her. She felt there must have been other grounds for the sudden vehemence and bitter emphasis with which he had spoken those words. Was it the thought of her entering the family which had roused him thus? Did this new relation intend to take up a hostile attitude towards her from the very first? And what did that strange, that enigmatic glance portend? She sat thinking over all this, while Oswald, who had turned away, looked persistently over in the opposite direction.

Suddenly, from the higher ground, a low, far-off sound was wafted down. It was like the chirping of many birds, and yet consisted in a single note, long drawn out.

Hedwig and Oswald looked up simultaneously. High in the air above them hovered a swallow. As they looked, it directed its course downwards, shooting by them so close that it almost brushed their foreheads in its arrow-like swiftness. Quickly following the first came a second and a third, and presently out of the misty distance a whole flight was seen emerging. On they came, nearer and still nearer, winging their way rapidly through the moist, heavy air. Then, circling above the woods and hilltops, they dispersed fluttering about in all directions, joyfully greeting, as it were, the old home they had found again. Here, with their gracious, hopeful message, were the first harbingers of spring.

The lonely hill-side had suddenly grown animated, a scene of movement and of life. Restlessly, incessantly, the swallows darted hither and thither, sometimes high overhead at an unattainable distance, then quite low to the ground, almost touching the soil. Backwards and forwards shot the pretty slender creatures on facile wings, so swiftly that the eye could hardly follow them; and all the while the air was resonant with that low happy piping which has nothing in common with the nightingale's trill or the lark's ecstasy of song, and which yet is sweeter to man's ears than either, because it is the herald's note, proclaiming the approach of Spring, and bearing her first message to fair nature, fresh from the long winter trance.

Hedwig had started from her reverie. All else was suddenly forgotten. Bending eagerly forwards, with a glad radiance in her eyes, she watched the tiny newcomers; then, with all the delight, the joyful excitement of a child, she cried:

'Oh, the swallows, the swallows!'

'Truly, they are here,' assented her companion, 'and fortunate they may consider themselves in receiving so hearty a welcome.'

The cool observation fell like a chilling hoarfrost on the girl's innocent joy. She turned and measured the sober spectator at her side with an indignant glance.

'To you, Herr von Ettersberg, it appears inconceivable how one can rejoice over anything. It is not one of your failings, and I dare say the poor swallows to you signify nothing–you have never bestowed the smallest attention on them.'

'Oh, pardon me! I have always envied them for their distant journeyings, their free powers of flight, which nothing shackles or restrains. Ah, liberty! there is nothing better, no higher good in life than liberty!'

'No higher good?'

The question was put in a tone of anger and indignation, making the answer seem all the colder and more decided.

'None, in my estimation, at least.'

'Really, one would think you had hitherto been languishing in chains,' said Hedwig, with unconcealed irony.

'Must one breathe dungeon-air in order to long for freedom?' asked Oswald in the same tone, only that his irony amounted to scathing sarcasm. 'The accidents of life often forge fetters which weigh more heavily than the real iron chains of a captive.'

'Then the fetters must be shaken off.'

'Quite true, they must be shaken off. Only that is much more easily said than done. They who have never been otherwise than free, hardly prize their liberty, looking upon it as a thing of course. They cannot understand how others will strive and struggle for years, will stake life itself to secure that precious guerdon. But, after all, the efforts matter little, if the end be but attained.'

He turned away, and seemed to be attentively watching the swallows in their rapid flittings to and fro. A fresh silence ensued, lasting longer, and putting Hedwig's patience to a still severer test than those which had previously occurred. These lapses in the conversation were strange and intolerable to her. Really, this Oswald von Ettersberg was an audacious personage. In the first place he presumed to reprimand her with regard to her meeting with Edmund; then he declared sharply, and with an emphasis which was almost insulting, that nothing should now induce him to remain on in his cousin's house; then he began to talk of dungeons and all sorts of disagreeable things, and finally lapsed into absolute silence, giving himself up to his meditations as completely as though a young lady, his cousin's promised wife, were not in his company. Hedwig thought the measure of his rudeness was filled, and she rose to go.

'It is time for me to be returning,' she remarked shortly.

'I am at your service.'

Oswald moved forward, intending to escort her, but she waved him back with an ungracious gesture.

'Thank you, Herr von Ettersberg. I know the way perfectly.'

'Edmund expressly charged me to see you home,' objected Oswald.

'And I release you from the obligation,' rejoined the young lady, in a tone which plainly said the young Count's wishes were not as law to her when opposed to her own will. 'I came alone, and will go back alone.'

Oswald retreated at once.

'Then you must make haste to reach Brunneck,' he said coolly. 'The clouds are gathering yonder, and in half an hour we shall have rain.'

Hedwig looked inquiringly at the threatening clouds. 'I shall be home long before then; and if it comes to the worst, I think nothing of being caught in a spring shower. The swallows have reappeared, you know–have told us that spring is coming at last.'

The words were spoken almost in a tone of challenge, but the gauntlet was not taken up. Oswald merely bowed with an air of constrained politeness, thereby forfeiting the young lady's last remnant of indulgence. She, in return, strove to infuse the utmost chilliness into her parting salutation, after which she hastened away, light and swift of foot as a roe.

This haste was not induced by fear of rain, for when she had left the hill-side well behind her, Hedwig slackened her pace. She only wished to get out of the neighbourhood of this unbearable 'Mentor,' who had tried to extend his system of education to her, and had been guilty of considerable rudeness in the attempt. He had not even raised any serious objection when she declined his escort. She had fully meant it, but the merest politeness demanded some words of regret at her decision. Yet there had been nothing of this; he was visibly delighted at being relieved of a troublesome office. This spoilt young lady, whose beauty, and perhaps also whose wealth, had won for her on all sides attention and lavish homage, looked on such indifference almost in the light of an insult, and she had not fully recovered from the vexation it caused her when she issued from the forest and saw Brunneck lying before her in close vicinity.

Oswald, remaining behind alone, seemed altogether to forget the rain he had prophesied. He stood motionless, with folded arms, leaning against the trunk of a tree, and made no sign of setting out homewards.

The clouds grew heavier and more lowering; the whole forest was now shrouded in mist, and the swallows almost swept the ground with their wings as they shot by to and fro. Patches of white might here and there be seen bearing witness still to the night's hoarfrost; but beneath, amidst all this mist and rime, a great work was going on. The life-germs hidden away in a thousand unsuspected buds and leafless branches were secretly, silently stirring; it wanted but the first balmy breath, the first glow of sunshine, to awaken all Nature from her long slumber. Ungenial as the air might be, there was in it just a touch, a faint suggestion of spring, and a whisper of spring ran through the bare forest. All around mysterious powers were active, weaving their chains, arraying their forces, unseen, unheard, yet felt and understood even by the lonely self-absorbed man who stood gazing dreamily out into the cloudy distance.

A while ago, as he pursued his solitary way through the woods, all had been void and desolate. Not a sound had reached his ears of the language which was now so distinct and eloquent to him. He knew not, or would not know, what had so suddenly opened his understanding; but the harsh, aggressive look died out of his face, and with it faded away the remembrance of a dreary, joyless youth–faded away the rancour and bitterness of spirit which dependence and neglect had engendered in a proud, strong nature. The soft, half-unconscious dreams, which visit others so frequently, had spun their magic web around the cold, impenetrable Oswald. It was, perhaps, his first experience of them, but the spell was therefore the more irresistible. Overhead the swallows were still busy, flitting incessantly to and fro through the heavy, rain-charged air. The happy chirping of their tiny throats, the wonderful whisperings about him, the low voice in his own breast, all repeated in constant refrain that message which other lips had so triumphantly proclaimed: 'Spring is coming, really coming to us at last.'

CHAPTER V

In the course of a few days the plan of campaign devised by Edmund and Hedwig was carried into execution. The young people made their important disclosure, declaring their sentiments in most unambiguous terms, and the effects produced were precisely those expected. First came a simultaneous outburst of indignation at Brunneck and at Ettersberg; then followed reproaches, prayers, threats; finally an irrevocable fiat was issued on either side. The Countess solemnly announced to her son, the heir, that she once for all refused her consent to such a marriage; and Fräulein Hedwig Rüstow, on making her avowal, encountered a small hurricane, before which she was fain for a while to bow her head. The Councillor grew fairly distracted with wrath when he heard that an Ettersberg, a member of the family he hated, and his adversary in the Dornau suit, was to be presented to him as a son-in-law.

The parental displeasure, though most pointedly expressed, unfortunately made but small impression on the young people. Prohibited, as a matter of course, from holding any further communication, they calmly within the hour sat down to write to each other, having, with a wise prevision of coming events, already fixed on a plan for the safe conveyance of their letters.

Councillor Rüstow was striding angrily up and down the family sitting-room at the Brunneck manor-house. Hedwig had thought it wise to retire and leave her infuriated parent to himself for a while. The worthy gentleman, finding his daughter beyond his reach, turned fiercely upon his unhappy cousin, whom he bitterly accused of having, by her unpardonable weakness and folly in favouring the acquaintance, paved the way for all that had occurred.

Fräulein Lina Rüstow sat in her accustomed place by the window and listened, going on steadily with the needlework she had in hand. She waited patiently for a pause to supervene. When at length her exasperated cousin was compelled to stop and take breath, she inquired, with perfect imperturbability:

'Tell me, in the first place, Erich, what objection you really have to offer to this marriage?'

The master of the house came to a sudden stand. This was a little too much! For the last half-hour he had been giving expression in every possible way to his anger, his fury, his indignation, and now he was coolly asked what objection he really had to offer to the marriage. The question so amazed and upset him that for a moment he could find no fitting answer.

'Upon my word, I do not understand why you should be so angry,' went on the lady, in the same tone. 'There is evidently a sincere and mutual attachment. Count Ettersberg, in himself, is a most charming person. That unhappy lawsuit, which has so tried your temper during the whole of the winter, will be brought to the simplest conclusion; while, in a worldly point of view, the match is in every respect a brilliant one for Hedwig. Why do you set yourself so strongly against it?'

'Why–why?' cried Rüstow, more and more incensed by this calm, argumentative tone of hers. 'Because I will not suffer my daughter to marry an Ettersberg. Because, once for all, I forbid it–that is why!'

Aunt Lina shrugged her shoulders.

'I do not think Hedwig will surrender to such reasons as those. She will simply appeal to the example of her parents, who married without the father's consent–'

'That was a very different matter,' interrupted Rüstow hotly. 'A very different matter indeed.'

'It was a precisely similar case, only that in that instance all the circumstances were far more unfavourable than they are now, when really prejudice and obstinacy alone stand in the way of the young people's happiness.'

'Well, these are nice compliments you are heaping upon me, I must say,' cried the Councillor, breaking forth anew. 'Prejudice! obstinacy! Have you any more flattering epithets to bestow on me? Don't hesitate, pray. I am waiting to hear.'