CHAPTER XVIII.
AN EVENTFUL DAY
The next day was Sunday.
Werner stood at the church door, looking down the road from Eichhof, along which Thea's carriage was wont to come at this hour.
To-day it did not appear. The tones of the organ, heard through the open door, died away at last, and Werner entered.
There were none of his comrades there except a young lieutenant, who had been absent from the garrison the day before, and who could, of course, know nothing of the events of the previous evening. Werner hesitated whether or not to look up Lothar after church, but, seeing the curtains before his windows still closed, he decided not to disturb him. As he left the church and walked out into the clear winter sunshine, his mood was very grave, almost solemn.
"I will ride to Eichhof and take leave of Countess Thea," he thought. "I can do so calmly now, without betraying myself; and the sooner it is over the better." A quarter of an hour later he was riding along the broad Eichhof road.
Thea, sitting in the bow-window, saw him coming. Her cheeks did not flush, her heart beat no faster, as she recognized him. In her pure unconsciousness of self she had not a shadow of a suspicion of this man's sentiments towards her. Her first thought was, "How strange that he should know that Alma is coming here again at noon!" And then she took up the letter which she had just received and read before recognizing Werner riding along the road. Was there really nothing more in it than the few hasty words she had just read? was this all the answer from Bernhard to the two long letters, filled with every detail that could interest him, that she had written to her husband? Of course he must be very busy, his thoughts entirely occupied with the proceedings of the Reichstag, and his time with his social duties. But she had so longed for some heartsome words from him; she missed him so terribly, and she would so gladly have had some little share in his present life, even although she were so far away from him. She would so much have liked to know whom he saw most, and what chiefly occupied him. She had asked him a hundred questions, but for all he had but a brief indifferent answer. She had often pressed Bernhard's letters to her lips, but to-day she could not, – something cold and strange seemed breathing upon her from these few lines: she was chilled. Yes, she had, she knew, perceived the same thing in all of Bernhard's letters lately, but what it was she could not tell, she could not explain.
For a moment she had forgotten the approaching guest, and her sad eyes, half veiled in tears, saw only the leafless branches outside her window, now glittering with snow. Not until her glance fell upon the road did she remember Werner, and she blushed, for she feared that if he found her sad, and with a letter from her husband in her hand, he might suspect the cause of her melancholy mood. Therefore she hurriedly thrust the letter into her work-table. When Lieutenant von Werner entered, she arose and calmly and kindly offered him her hand.
"I am come to take my leave of you," he said, and there was a slight tremor in the voice usually so firm and clear. "I am ordered to the military school at S-; and, as I shall be excessively busy during the next few days, I thought I would employ my Sunday leisure in paying a farewell visit to Eichhof."
Thea looked at him surprised, and almost alarmed. "Good heavens, so suddenly!" she exclaimed. "I had no idea that you expected to be transferred-"
"I did not expect it, although I had asked for it. A happy combination of circumstances has favoured me."
"You wish to go away, then?"
"I think this transfer is best for me," he replied, passing his hand across his brow. Never in his life had he felt the atmosphere so insufferably sultry and close as at this moment.
"Oh, then I will not be sorry that you are transferred, grieved as I must be for ourselves and for Lothar. Ah, if Bernhard were only at home again! When you go Lothar will be left entirely to himself."
The introduction of this subject restored Werner's self-possession. He told Thea that he had become convinced of the impossibility of his exercising any influence over Lothar, and that this certainty had added to his desire to be ordered elsewhere. They were still discussing Lothar, when the noise of carriage-wheels was heard, and Thea arose with the words, "Ah, there comes my sister!" Werner, too, arose. His broad forehead flushed crimson, for the moment had come in which he must say farewell, and he knew that perhaps-yes, most probably-he was alone with Thea for the last time in his life. He was not in a condition to carry on an indifferent conversation with her any longer.
"Let me say farewell to you now, madame," he said. "I have several other visits to pay, and anything so painful as leave-taking should not be unnecessarily prolonged."
Thea looked up at him in startled wonder, and there was some embarrassment in her voice as she asked him if he would not stay and dine.
But she knew as she spoke that he would not accept her invitation. Yes, she saw it all; she knew now that he loved Alma, and that he wished to avoid meeting her, since he saw plainly that his affection was not returned. Filled with compassion and sympathy for him, she held out to him both her hands, and said, in the firm conviction that his heart lay open before her, "Go; you are right to go now. God bless you! and believe that I shall always think of you with warm, genuine friendship."
He made no reply, but for one short moment pressed her hand to his trembling lips, and then left the room. On the stairs he met Alma, and briefly bade her good-by, leaving her as much astonished at his sudden departure as Thea had been.
Then he flung himself upon his horse, and gave him the spur. He avoided the roads leading to the town, and turned towards the forest. The swift gallop cooled his heart and brain, and when he had reached a low hill whence there was a last view of the castle and park of Eichhof, he slackened rein and turned for one more look. Then, with a murmured "Farewell! farewell!" he plunged into the forest, to reach by a circuitous route a neighbouring estate, where his leave-taking would be a far easier matter.
He was fleeing, it is true, but his flight was a victory; he had come off conqueror in the hardest battle in which the human soul can ever engage, – the strife between passion and duty.
Meanwhile Lothar had awakened from his prolonged morning slumbers, and endeavoured in vain to recall how he had got home and to bed on the previous evening. It cost him a considerable amount of resolution to get up, and when he did so he felt wretched and depressed. Gradually certain vague memories of last night occurred to his mind. He put his hand into one of his coat-pockets, then into the other; both were empty. He shook his head, and finally recollected that he had worn another coat yesterday. It was hanging over an arm-chair. He proceeded to search the pockets, and produced a crumpled roll of paper. He opened it, and sank upon a lounge with an exclamation of despair.
The paper contained an acknowledgment for the round sum of ten thousand marks, which he had lost in the course of the night at play, and which he had pledged his honour should be paid within a week. Lothar stared at the characters on the crumpled sheet. Ten thousand marks! Payable within a week! Here was an overwhelming disaster! How had it happened? He racked his brain to remember; the events of the evening were mere formless shadows in his dulled remembrance. He had first won, then lost, and there had been a good deal of champagne drunk; all that was perfectly simple and commonplace. But this debt! How was it to be paid? If Bernhard had been at home, he would have gone to him again in spite of everything that he had said to him. He had always been wont to rectify in this manner the unjust family traditions that endowed one son with everything in the way of the goods of this world and left the others destitute. But Bernhard was away, and must either be sought out in Berlin or informed by letter of this last terrible debt. And what if Bernhard refused this time, as he had so often threatened to do, to pay the debts? Lothar buried his face in his hands, and the moisture stood in beads upon his forehead. There was but a week before him in which to adopt any plan of payment; he must decide immediately, and, in common with all men lacking independence, he was incapable of decision without consultation with some friend. It is true that he now remembered that Werner had warned him and that he had rejected his advice; he knew, too, that of late there had been a certain diminution of the cordial friendship that had existed between them. But nevertheless it was to Werner that his thoughts turned in this dire extremity.
"He is the best of fellows, and has proved that he is really my friend," he thought. "I could not, of course, accept a loan from him again, aside from the fact that this sum is far beyond his means; but I will, at all events, ask his advice. One's own perceptions become clearer when one has talked matters over with a sensible man."
He rose, arranged his dress, and went to Werner's apartments. He found them closed; but, as the key was hanging up beside the door, Lothar determined to go in and await the return of his friend or of his friend's servant, who was also absent. He knew that Werner frequently went to church, and if he had gone there this morning, and had been detained, he might come in at any moment. Lothar paced the room to and fro several times, then went to the window, and finally decided that this waiting was intolerable. He threw himself upon the small leathern sofa, and spent some moments lost in gloomy revery; then he sprang suddenly to his feet again, and as he did so accidentally twitched off the cover of a small table, so that several books and some papers that had lain upon it fell upon the ground. With an exclamation of impatience he stooped to gather them up. A small portfolio had opened in falling, and several sheets of paper fluttered out of it on to the floor.
"Cursed scribblings!" muttered Lothar, picking them up. Suddenly his attention was arrested by one of these, and he looked at it more closely.
"Why, that is Eichhof," he thought; "there is the fountain, with the old oaks in the background, the chapel by the pond, and the avenue on the right. When did he draw this, and what induced him to select exactly this view?" Suddenly the thought flashed upon him, "This is the view from Thea's bow-window. How did Werner come by it?"
He stooped for the other sheets, firmly resolved not to look at them.
"Good heavens, 'tis Thea herself!" he exclaimed involuntarily, as he held the last of them in his hand. "The resemblance is so striking that it can be seen at a glance. Well, there's surely no reason why I should not look closely at the picture of my sister-in-law. I did not know that Werner was such an artist, and still less was I aware that Thea had been sitting to him. A charming study of a head. I really should like to know when and where it was drawn. I thought he never went to Eichhof without me; but he always vexed me with his want of frankness. Who knows what he has been about while he has been pretending to study- Ah!" As he threw the sheet upon the table it turned upon its face, and upon the other side was written the refrain of a song, "Fair Marjory," that Thea often sung: "Be still, my heart, be still."
Lothar, who had meant to see and to read nothing, had seen and read enough to make him stride to and fro in the room like a madman, muttering in broken sentences, "He loves her, – she has been sitting to him! Bernhard has neglected her, and Werner has consoled her, while I, fool, double-dyed fool that I am, suspected nothing! Night and day I have thought of her, and never dared, not even to myself, to call what I felt for her by its right name! And now I know that Bernhard is faithless to her, that Werner is false, and that she, indeed, is no saint! Was I not half mad for her sake yesterday when Hohenstein went on telling such fine stories of Bernhard, my worthy brother? Did I not try to drive away with wine and cards the thoughts that would haunt me? and at that very time perhaps Werner was with her. Oh, if it were not so horrible it would be ridiculous, – a silly, ridiculous farce-"
"Has the Herr Lieutenant any orders?" the voice of Werner's servant suddenly asked just behind him.
"Where is your master?" Lothar asked, roughly.
"The Herr Lieutenant has ridden over to Eichhof. He left word that he should be gone some time, as he meant to go farther still."
Lothar was gone before the man had finished his sentence.
For a moment he had forgotten his gambling debt: he thought only of Werner and Thea. His brain seemed on fire; his temples throbbed violently. Without one distinct idea formed in his mind, he threw himself upon his horse and rode furiously to Eichhof.
As he dismounted in the court-yard his first question was with regard to Werner.
"The Herr Lieutenant rode away more than two hours ago," the footman replied.
Lothar ran up the staircase, and entered Thea's bow-windowed room almost at the same moment in which the servant announced him. As he did so an opposite door was hastily closed, and he thought he could hear the sound of retreating footsteps.
Agitated as he was, no longer master of himself, he took no notice of Thea, who was sitting at her writing-table and who rose to greet him, but rushed to the closed door and tore it open, to discover Alma, who quickened her pace almost to a run as she perceived him. He turned about, went to Thea, seized her by the wrist, and said, with flashing eyes, "Has Alma been here all day long?"
Thea tried to free her hand from his grasp.
"What is the matter, Lothar?" she asked, alarmed by his expression and his strange conduct. "What do you want with Alma?"
"Why did she hurry away as though there was some mystery to conceal?"
"Good heavens! she went to lay aside her wraps. I had detained her here to read a letter."
"A letter? What letter?"
Thea shook her head and tried to smile.
"It was nothing," she said; "nothing worth mentioning," but her lip quivered.
Lothar still gazed at her with eyes that were menacing and yet unutterably sad.
"But that is not what I would ask," he said, retreating a step or two without turning his eyes from her face. "I pray you tell me, – how long have you been receiving Werner's visits, – how long have you known that he loves you?"
"Lothar!" she almost screamed, involuntarily steadying herself by the table as if she needed a support; every trace of colour faded from her face, and she muttered beneath her breath, "He is mad!"
Hitherto Lothar had been convinced of the truth of his suspicions. But now that he had hurled the base inquiry in Thea's face, as it were, now that she had made him no reply save by an indignant and terrified exclamation, he suddenly doubted, and as he looked at her the conviction of her perfect innocence overwhelmed him with irresistible force.
"Answer me, Thea! for God's sake answer me!" he implored her. "Tell me it was all a phantom of my disordered fancy. I know that Werner was here alone to-day, – that he has taken your picture, that he loves you; but tell me that you are innocent, and I will believe it. Only speak, speak! I implore you!"
Thea looked fixedly at him; she saw the entreaty in his eyes and the agony expressed in all his features.
"You are ill, Lothar," she said, "and therefore I will answer your wild questions. Werner came to Eichhof for the first time without you to-day. He came to take leave of me, since he is ordered to the military school of S-. What you say about a picture is as unintelligible to me as all the rest of your words."
"Werner going away! I knew nothing of it."
"His orders arrived only last evening. You were still sleeping this morning when he called for you. And now go to your room and lie down: your eyes show that you have fever. I will send a servant to you."
She put her hand upon the bell, but Lothar stayed her as she was about to ring.
"Forgive me, Thea," he begged. "I have suffered so much!"
"You are still suffering, for you are ill."
"No, no! I am well enough, only-but I will not speak of myself. Thea, tell me one thing, are you happy? Does Bernhard write often, and are his letters what they should be?"
Thea's cheeks flushed and grew pale; her hands trembled as she collected, with nervous haste, the various letters lying upon her table, and which Lothar, who watched her narrowly, could see were postmarked 'Berlin.'
For a moment she could not reply in words, but Lothar, believing that he read an answer in her face to his words, cried, "Oh, I see, – you know it all! They have written you all about it from Berlin, have they not?"
"Hush!" she said, imperatively, her face dyed with a burning blush. "How dare you touch upon that subject?"
"Oh, it is just that which drove me mad, – which made me dream what I said of Werner possible," Lothar exclaimed, passionately. "I knew how unhappy you must be. I hate Bernhard for it, but I hated Werner still more, because I thought that in your misery you-"
Thea had turned away, and in silent indignation would have left the room, but Lothar interposed between her and the door, and, throwing himself at her feet, cried, "Forgive me! forgive me! My sin is my excuse; for I love you, Thea, I love you! more-far more-than all the rest!"
Suddenly he sprang to his feet. A servant entered with some commonplace message.
Lothar stood for a moment as though paralyzed. He heard the man's voice and then Thea's as though from some vast distance, and when he looked around Thea had vanished, and the servant was asking whether the Herr Lieutenant would drive home in the open wagon or the covered carriage.
For an instant Lothar stared at him in bewilderment. Then he passed his hand across his brow. "No; the Countess's kindness is unnecessary," he said, when the explanation of the scene dawned upon him. "I am no longer giddy, and I can ride home."
He left the room, and in the hall he encountered Alma, who had dried her tears and bathed her eyes.
"Farewell, my dear Alma," he said, with a deliberate gravity, almost a solemnity of manner, quite foreign to him.
"Are you going away?" the girl asked, all unconsciously, and impressed by this strange mood of his.
"Going away? No-that is-yes-perhaps so. At all events, I bid you farewell."
She heard him go down the stairs slowly and heavily. A sudden inexplicable foreboding weighed upon her like lead. She felt as though some evil threatened him, and she longed to avert it, to call him back. She started to do so, when she heard the voices of the servants in the hall below, and reflected that she did not know what to say to him. She ran into the bow-windowed room, and looked down the avenue. A flock of crows hovered above it; they were the only living things in sight. Alma waited. One of the crows that had alighted in the road flew into the air, and instantly afterward a lonely horseman rode along between the snow-clad trees. Alma pressed her forehead against the window-panes, but the rider never turned to look towards the castle. His head was bent forward on his breast, and he seemed to pay no heed to his horse. Like some shadow horse and rider appeared and disappeared at regular intervals among the poplars lining the avenue. Alma gazed after them until the last glimpse of Lothar had vanished in the wintry mist that had begun to veil the landscape.
"Farewell," she whispered, and her heart was as heavy as if she had parted from him forever.
Suddenly she roused herself from her revery. "How selfish I am!" she thought. "I stand dreaming here, thinking of all kinds of impossible misfortunes, while Thea is alone. Ah, we have enough real sorrow to bear! There is no need to invent fancied woes." She went to look for her sister, whom she had some difficulty in finding.
Thea had retained sufficient self-possession to tell the servant that her brother-in-law was ill, and to order a carriage for him; and then, like some scared bird, she had flown through the castle, and taken refuge in the conservatory adjoining the drawing-room. Here she sank upon a seat, – the same seat where she had so often sat with Bernhard before their marriage. She pressed her hands upon her throbbing heart, and then upon her eyes, which were dry, hot, and tearless. Could all that had happened in the last hour be real? The wild, insane words in which Lothar had told her of Werner's love and of his own still rang in her ears. Could such things be? Had she in her utter unconsciousness so deceived herself? Or had Lothar actually spoken in the delirium of fever? She sighed heavily. These questions, press upon her as they might, vanished before that other: Was it possible that she had lost Bernhard's heart, – nay, that perhaps she had never possessed it, – that he had deceived her from the first? "No," her own heart answered, "that cannot be! And yet-" She selected a letter from among those she had gathered up from her table and brought hither with her, and read it once more. It was from Adela Hohenstein, and addressed to Alma, who had taken it from the post on her way to Eichhof that morning, and had read it in the carriage. She had been unable to conceal from her sister the agitation its contents had produced. Thea had questioned her, suspecting that she had heard some news of Bernhard, and Alma had finally been induced to show her the letter. Adela wrote in her usual thoughtless harum-scarum way all that she had heard and seen of Bernhard. She had frequently, at the house of one of her relatives, met Bernhard and Julutta Wronsky together, and her letter was evidently written in the first flush of her anger after one of these occasions.
"Let me tell Thea that for at least a year she ought never even to condescend to look at that husband of hers," she wrote upon the last page, "and then perhaps he may come to learn that she is a thousand times prettier and better and lovelier than this detestable Frau von Wronsky. For I have learned thus much of the world, that men like to be ill-treated; they make all the good women unhappy, but they will lay down their lives for the worthless ones. Papa is the only exception; it does not spoil him to be loved and petted. He is kinder and dearer than words can tell; but all other men are monsters, your Bernhard as well as the rest." Then there was a postscript:
"Dearest Alma, for heaven's sake don't give Thea my message. I have reflected that it can only do mischief. She is married to him, and they must get along together as they best can. It can do no kind of good for other people to meddle and talk. I would tear up this letter, but it is well that you at least should know what men are worth, and every word that I have written is true. So I send my letter just as it is, and only beg you to say nothing to Thea about it.
"P. S. the second. À propos, yesterday I met Walter in the street, and I stopped him and asked him to come and see us. Do you know what his reply was? 'I am very sorry, Fräulein von Hohenstein' (that is what he called me), 'that my studies leave me no time for visiting.' What do you think of that? Just like men in general, and the Eichhofs in particular."
At another time this letter of Adela's might not have made such an impression upon Thea as it had produced to-day, when her heart was filled with doubts and fears with regard to Bernhard. Had she not foreboded all that Adela had written?
Still, after she had re-read the letter, it might perhaps not have affected her so deeply as at first had not the tidings it contained been confirmed by Lothar's wild words. Bernhard's conduct was then striking enough to be a theme for Berlin gossip! Oh, if only his devotion had been shown towards any other woman! But that he should turn to this Frau von Wronsky, with whom he had at first denied all acquaintance, and afterwards confessed to it under such strange circumstances; that it should be she, the woman with whom Bernhard had desired that his wife might have as little intercourse as possible! Thea's thoughts were in a whirl, – an abyss seemed yawning between Bernhard and herself which all her love could not bridge over. She raised her eyes. Above her trembled the mysterious fantastic blossom of the orchid to which Bernhard had once compared the Countess Wronsky. Ah, whither had they gone, those bright summer days when he had called Thea his rose of May and had promised to surround her with perpetual sunshine?
"If this is all true, he does not deserve that I should weep for him," she said, aloud. "No, he does not deserve it," she repeated, firmly, closing her quivering lips. But then she thought of her child, of her lost happiness, of her lonely youth, and she wept bitterly.
Thus Alma found her at length, and led her back to the bow-windowed room, where a lamp was now lighted.
"Do not speak," Thea entreated, and Alma only put her arms about her and held her in a tender embrace. But Thea was restless. She sprang up and went to her child. Even there she could not stay long, but returned to the bow-windowed room, and paced it hurriedly to and fro. She could not talk to her young sister of what was agitating her. Why, she seemed to herself almost guilty when she remembered Lothar's passionate words. Lothar, – there was another dark spot in her thoughts! Ah! from all sides black clouds were gathering above her, and she could do nothing save wait quietly until the tempest broke. She was condemned to quiet, and what could be more horrible in her present agitation?
Alma felt that the struggle in Thea's soul must be fought out alone. She went silently hither and thither, looked after the child, presided at the tea-table, and only now and then approached her sister to press her hand or to imprint a kiss upon her forehead. She went to the window and looked out into the night, now illumined by the rising moon. Her heart was filled with a yearning melancholy, and, reproach herself for it as she might at such a time, she could not restrain her thoughts from deserting Thea and centring about Lothar. He had looked so strange, so disturbed, when he had spoken that last 'farewell.'
Suddenly her attention was attracted towards the avenue, which lay like burnished silver beneath the moon. Was there not a shadow stirring there? And could she not distinguish the sound of horses' hoofs? She peered eagerly out, but the moonlight was deceptive, – she might be mistaken. Then she heard doors closing below and steps coming through the antechamber. Thea had sunk into the arm-chair at her writing-table, and with pen in hand was pondering upon a letter which she believed it her duty to write, and for which she could find not only no words but not even one clear idea. Alma hastened to the door.
"Who is there?" she asked, so quickly that Thea looked up startled.
"Herr Lieutenant von Werner begs-" the entering servant began.
"Lieutenant Werner, – how, so late?" Alma repeated, and her slight figure trembled as she added, beneath her breath, "That means misfortune."
Thea had risen. "What, what is coming now?" she thought. "Show Herr von Werner up!" she said, in a sharp tone of command very unlike her. But Herr von Werner had followed close upon the footman's heels, and stood at the door. Alma could not utter a word; she only gazed anxiously into his pale face, and steadied herself by an arm-chair as though she were afraid of falling. Thea went firmly to meet him. She had never borne herself so proudly, her dark eyes had never been so haughty and cold, as, without seeming to notice Werner's agitation, she asked, calmly, "What brings you to us so late, Herr von Werner? It must be something very unusual."
"Yes, madame, it is so, and very sad."
Alma could hardly stand. Thea still looked at Werner with an unnaturally calm expression, and with not the faintest suspicion of what was to come.
"Lothar!" came breathed like a sigh from Alma's pale lips.
Thea's thoughts were not of him. "Tell me. I need no preparation; I am prepared," she said.
"Your brother-in-law met with an accident in riding home from Eichhof, and is severely injured."
Now Thea too grew pale.
"Was he thrown? Is his life in danger?" she asked, in low, uncertain tones, while Alma's eyes never for one moment left Werner's face.
"His condition leaves little room for hope. He was not thrown, – an accident, probably the result of carelessness-"
"He is dead! he has shot himself!" Alma suddenly gasped. Her gloomy forebodings had at last found distinct expression.
Thea looked at Werner. He was very pale, but he uttered no contradiction.
Alma sank on her knees and buried her face in her hands. Thea slowly passed her hand across her forehead. "Dead, – shot," she repeated softly, as if hardly able to apprehend the meaning of the words. The erect figure tottered, and before Werner could spring forward to support her she fell fainting on the floor.
Alma raised her head at Werner's exclamation of terror, and saw her sister's unconscious form. She called the servants and did all that was necessary to restore Thea, while she herself felt hardly aware of what had happened.
She, the younger and weaker of the two sisters, had not fainted, while to Thea the thought that she might have had some share in Lothar's death had been like a destroying flash of lightning. Alma did not succumb, but deep darkness seemed to envelop her, in which she was aware only of the present moment and its duties; all else was a blank. She felt a dull pain in her head and heart, and would fain have cast herself on the earth and have wept passionately. But shame lest she should betray feelings that only the closest and dearest ties with Lothar could justify, restrained her, and Thea's helpless condition gave her a power of self-control of which she never could have believed herself capable.