Fickle Fortune

'So far, I have had no reason to complain of Edmund's mother,' she said hesitatingly. 'She has always been most courteous and kind to me.'

'And heartily affectionate?'

The young girl was silent.

'Do not think I am influenced in my judgment by my own personal relations towards my aunt,' pursued Oswald. 'I assuredly would not take upon me to sow distrust, did I not know how misleading too guileless a confidence may here prove. You are entering on a difficult position. The ground at Ettersberg is perilous ground for you, and it is right you should be warned before you set foot on it. Your mother fought a hard fight for her wedded happiness, but at least she had in her husband a firm stay and valiant defender. In your case the struggle will begin only after the marriage, but I fear it will not be spared you; for you are entering the bigoted and narrow-minded circle from which she escaped, and it remains to be seen whether Edmund will afford you the support of which you will stand in need. At all events, it is best to rely on one's self. Again I entreat of you on no consideration to consent to the plan of a joint household. You and your mother-in-law cannot live under one roof–Edmund must give up the idea.'

Hedwig shook her head slightly. 'That will be difficult, if not impossible. He loves his mother so well–'

'More than his affianced wife!' concluded Oswald emphatically.

'Herr von Ettersberg!'

'My words hurt you, Fräulein? No doubt the fact is a painful one, but you must learn to look the truth in the face. Hitherto you have heedlessly toyed with Edmund's love, and have met with sportive homage and mere trifling in return. All the deeper feelings of his nature you have left to his mother, who has well known how to pursue her advantage. Edmund is capable of something better than superficial, playful tenderness. Beneath that gay exterior lie warm affections–I might almost say strong passions–but they must be awakened, and so far his mother alone has fathomed these depths. Make sure now of that which is yours by right. The power of a first and early love is in your hands as yet. When that fair glamour has spent itself, it may be too late.'

He had spoken with great earnestness, but with his wonted utter disregard of any susceptibilities he might wound. Every word fell on his listener's ear with strong, unsparing emphasis, and flattering the words certainly were not. But a few months previously Hedwig would either have resented such a warning as an offence, or have laughed it away in happy, lighthearted confidence–now she listened in silence, with bowed head. He was right, she felt it; but why must these counsels come to her from his lips, why must she hear these cruel words from him?

'You are silent,' said Oswald, when he had waited in vain for an answer. 'You reject my advice, you think my interference uncalled for and impertinent.'

'No,' replied Hedwig, drawing a deep breath. 'On the contrary, I thank you, for I feel all the importance of such a warning coming from you.'

'And what it costs me to speak it?'

The words rushed to Oswald's lips, but he did not pronounce them. Perhaps his thought was divined, nevertheless.

The little terrace on which the two were standing rose out of a group of thickly clustering bushes, and offered a fine panoramic view of the surrounding country. Over broad meadows and green wooded hills the eye could wander away to the lofty mountain-summits which were in reality far distant, but which in that clear atmosphere seemed to have advanced their posts and to have drawn quite near. The particular spur of forest which formed the boundary between the Ettersberg and Brunneck domains could plainly be distinguished, and the gaze of both Oswald and Hedwig sought this spot. It was the first time they had met alone since their memorable interview on yonder hill-side. A whole summer-time lay between then and now, and much, how much besides!

Raw and inclement had been that spring-day, void of warmth and sunshine. Leaves and blossoms still shrank, hiding in their sealed retreat. The landscape was shrouded in fog and raincloud, and those happy heralds, the swallows, had pierced their way through masses of dense mist, ere they emerged suddenly in the gray distance. Yet those winged messengers had borne spring on their swift pinions–none knew this better than the two who now stood speechless side by side. They had seen how the great transformation scene may be effected in a night, how grandly, victoriously Nature works when she rallies to the task before her.

Now it was autumn–a beautiful clear day, indeed, with soft mild air and bright sunshine, but still autumn. The foliage, still thick on bough and branch, had that faint gleam of russet which foretells a speedy fall. The gay wealth of flowers had vanished from the meadows, all but the pale saffron, which yet glimmered here and there, and the swallows, streaking the sky in long flights, were gathering for their journey southwards. Farewell was written everywhere on Nature's countenance, as on the two sorrowing human hearts–farewell to summer, home, and happiness.

Hedwig first broke the oppressive silence which had followed her last words.

'The swallows are leaving us too,' she said, pointing upwards. 'They are on the wing.'

'I go with them'–Oswald completed her meaning–'but there is this difference … I shall not return.'

'Not return? You will come back to Ettersberg sometimes, will you not?'

She put the question with a certain eager anxiety. Oswald looked down.

'I hardly think that will be possible. I shall not have much leisure, and besides–when a man cuts himself adrift from old ties, and changes his way of life entirely, as I am about to do, it is best for him to remain away, and to devote all his energies to the sphere he has just entered. Edmund cannot be made to understand this. He hardly appreciates, as yet, the claims of duty.'

'And yet he is more anxious about you and your future than you believe,' interposed Hedwig.

Oswald smiled half disdainfully.

'He may spare himself any anxiety. I am not one to undertake a task beyond my strength, and then to abandon it feebly halfway. What I have begun I shall carry through, and, come what may, I shall, at least, have shaken off from me the bonds of dependence.'

'Did these bonds weigh so heavily on you?'

'Yes; with a crushing weight.'

'Herr von Ettersberg, you are unjust to your family.'

'And ungrateful,' added Oswald, with a sudden outburst of bitterness. 'You have heard that frequently from my aunt, no doubt–and she may possibly be right from her point of view. Perhaps I ought to have submitted myself more docilely to the yoke laid upon me, and patiently played out the rôle assigned to me by Fate. But then, you see, I could not. You do not know what it is constantly to bend to the will of another, when your own judgment has long been formed, to be thwarted in every effort, checked in every aspiration, not even to have the right of reply and remonstrance. I know that my future is uncertain, that it may be thorny, that I shall need all the energy and strength of will I possess, in order to succeed; but it will be my future, my own life, which I may shape and order as I please, unfettered by the galling chain of benefits conferred. And if I fail in the career I have marked out for myself, I shall, at least, have gained the right to fashion my own destiny.'

He drew himself up as he spoke these last words, and his chest heaved with a great sigh of satisfaction and relief. It seemed as though in this moment the great load he had borne so silently, but with so much grievous suffering, fell from the young man's shoulders. He stood bold and defiant, ready to accept the world's challenge, and to fight the battle before him to the bitter end. It was easy to see that he was one fitted to wrestle with Fortune, however hostile and uncompromising her attitude towards him might be.

Hedwig now for the first time understood how the iron had entered his soul, understood what this proud, unbending nature had endured from a position which many were disposed to envy, because it implied a share in the Ettersberg greatness and splendour.

'And now I must say good-bye to you,' Oswald began again, but the ring had died out of his voice now; it was very low and subdued. 'I came to take leave of you.'

'Edmund will expect you in December, if only for a few days,' said Hedwig, half hesitatingly. 'He counts on your being present at–at our wedding.'

'I know it, and know that he will think me coldhearted and unkind if I stay away. He must interpret it as he will. I can but submit.'

'So you will not come?'

'No.'

Oswald added no single word of pretext, for none would have found belief; but his eyes, resting full on Hedwig's face, gave the explanation of his curt, harsh-sounding answer. His meaning was understood. He read this in the look which met his; but fierce and poignant as might be the pain of parting in these two young hearts, no word was spoken, no outward manifestation of it was made.

'Goodbye, then, Herr von Ettersberg,' said Hedwig, offering him her hand.

He stooped, and pressed his hot, quivering lips on the trembling hand extended to him. That pressure was the only betrayal of how matters stood with Oswald. Next minute he released the little palm, and stepped back.

'Do not forget me quite, Fräulein,' he said. 'Good-bye.'

Hedwig was alone again. Involuntarily she grasped the bushes to draw them aside, and so once more gain sight of his departing figure, but it was too late. As the boughs closed again, the first faded leaves fell in a shower on the young girl's head. She shrank beneath them, as at some grave warning or reminder. Yes, there could be no mistake; autumn had come, though the whole landscape before her lay bathed in golden sunshine.

That rough, stormy spring day had been so rich in promise, with all its unseen magic movement, with its thousand mysterious voices whispering around. Now all these sounds had ceased. Nature's fair life had bloomed, and was slowly waning towards dissolution. The world was hushed and seemingly deserted.

Hedwig, pale and mute, stood leaning against the terrace railing. She did not move, did not weep, but with a sad ineffable longing in her eyes gazed over at the distant chain of mountains, and then up at the clouds, where the migratory birds swarmed, streaming hither and thither in long flights. Today the swallows swept not to the earth with loving greetings and pleasant messages of happy days to come. They passed high overhead, far, far beyond reach, flitting away into the blue distance, and their faint piping was borne down but as a vague murmur half lost in the immeasurable space. It was a last low echo of the word which here below had been spoken in the keen anguish of parting, an echo of the melancholy word Farewell.

CHAPTER IX

The following day, the last Oswald was to spend at Ettersberg, brought a somewhat unlooked-for visitor. Count Edmund, though his coming was hourly expected, had not returned from his shooting expedition when Baron Heideck suddenly arrived in the forenoon, straight from town. He had thought fit to absent himself in demonstrative fashion from the festivities held to celebrate his nephew's coming of age. The announcement of the young gentleman's approaching marriage, then publicly to be made, should not, he decided, receive the sanction of his presence; but when more than two months had elapsed, he determined to pay a brief visit to his relations at the castle. Though the fact of the engagement could not now be altered, an animated discussion on the subject seemed to have taken place between the brother and sister. They had remained more than an hour closeted together, and Heideck's reproaches took the more effect that Edmund's mother already secretly repented of her precipitate action in the matter, though as yet she would not admit it openly.

Finally the Countess, in evident perturbation, retired to her own room. Seating herself before her writing-table, she pressed a hidden spring, which opened its most secret drawer. The interview she had had with her brother must have borne upon, or at least have reawakened, memories of the past, for very certainly the article which the Countess took from that small compartment was a souvenir of distant, bygone days. It was a small leather case, a few inches long, containing apparently a portrait which perhaps for years had remained in its hiding-place untouched. That it belonged to a remote period was proved by its old-fashioned shape and faded exterior. The Countess held it open before her, and as she sat gazing fixedly down on the features thus exposed to view, her countenance assumed an abstracted air most unfamiliar to it.

She was lost in one of those vague, half-unconscious reveries which altogether efface the present, and carry the dreamer away to a far-distant past. Obliterated memories troop back upon the mind, forgotten joys and sorrows revive in all their old intensity, and forms that have long lain beneath the sod rise, move, and live again.

The Countess did not notice how the minutes sped by, lengthening into hours as she sat there, wrapt in contemplation. She started, half frightened, half annoyed, when, without any previous warning, the door of the room was suddenly thrown open. Quick as thought, she closed the little case and placed her hand upon it, while the angry look in her eyes seemed to inquire what the interruption could mean.

The intruder was old Everard, who came in with a haste much at variance with his usual formal, solemn demeanour. He was evidently agitated, and he began his report at once without waiting to be questioned by his mistress.

'The Count has just returned, my lady.'