I felt an abominable hypocrite at having to allow her to mislead herself, but the thought of Nessa"s plight made it impossible for me to undeceive her; and we all went to the carriage which was in waiting, the Countess clinging to my arm and pressing close to me.
Hoffnung was very decent about it. As I was stepping into the carriage, he held out his hand. "I hope you will believe that I am sincere in saying how glad I am to find I was wrong, Herr La.s.sen," he said with what seemed like genuine cordiality; and of course I wrung his hand and said something appropriate.
Why my arrival should have affected the dear little lady so deeply I did not know; but during the drive to her house she could do nothing but press my hand in both of hers and murmur words of delight at seeing me again, mingled with sympathy with my misfortunes. Again the very dim light in the carriage stood my friend; and by the time she reached home she was thoroughly convinced that I was her nephew.
I had still to meet the daughter; but to my relief she was not at home.
A meal was in readiness for me, and as I eat it, the Countess sat and feasted her eyes on me, noting the differences which, as she thought, time had effected in my looks. But these did not shake her conviction.
"You are very much changed, Johann; but of course, you would be in all these years. It must be ten quite since you were here. But you are just what I expected you would be, although not so much like your father as I looked for," she said, and then drew attention in some detail to the points of difference. I learnt then that the upper part of my face, shape of head, forehead and eyebrows, and nose had "changed less" than the lower part.
Then the son gave me a rather nasty jar. "You"re not a bit like that photograph you sent over to Rosa, cousin, is he, mother? She"ll jump a bit when she sees you."
"Photograph? Did I send one?" I asked.
"Don"t worry Johann, Hans," said his mother, frowning at him, and he coloured and collapsed with a muttered "I forgot."
"You did send one, dear," she said to me. "It was when you had a beard and moustache, and of course that hid the lower part of your face." I breathed a little more freely. "I think Rosa will be surprised when she sees you; you"re so much better looking than you promised to be. I suppose you don"t remember sending the photograph?" she asked with nervous wistfulness.
I could truthfully say I did not; and in this way the talk proceeded until I obtained a really good description of myself as well as many details about my past. La.s.sen"s engagement to the daughter was, as Hoffnung had said, the result of a family arrangement; one of those silly wills which left a fortune to the two on condition that they married. They had not seen him since he left Gottingen ten years before; during the whole of that time he had been out of the country; and was now coming back to marry his bride-elect.
The kind-hearted old soul hadn"t a word to say against him; but Hans let drop one or two remarks which led me to think I was not likely to receive a very cordial welcome from his sister. Anxious to know all I could, I pleaded great fatigue as soon as I had finished eating and asked to be allowed to go to bed. They both went up with me and I managed to keep the son while I undressed.
He was rather an awkward youth, about seventeen, totally unlike his mother who might have sat as model for a delicate Dresden china figure.
On the other hand he was fleshy, dark, and rather pudgy-featured; but I praised his figure, belauded his apparent strength, and generally played on his obvious vanity and wish to be considered a grown man.
"We must be the best of friends, Hans," I declared heartily.
He blushed with pleasure. "I should like it. You look awfully strong, cousin," he replied, looking at my biceps.
"You"ll make a far stronger man than I am." It was as welcome as jam on a trench crust ten days old; and I kept at it until I felt I could safely lead round to the subject of his sister and learn how the wind blew in that quarter.
"Of course Rosa"s a good sort in lots of ways, but she"s getting so bossy," he declared boyishly. "She"s the eldest for one thing, and then, you know, she"s come in for old Aunt Margarita"s fortune, and--well, she likes to run things, and I don"t like it."
"A man can"t be expected to," I agreed with an encouraging smile.
"That"s just it. She thinks a fellow"s never grown up. I can stand it from mother; but Rosa won"t understand that six years" difference is one thing when a fellow"s a kid of ten and another when he"s nearly eighteen. I shall get my commission in another month or two, you know."
I made a note of the fact that my "betrothed" was about four and twenty and inclined to be "bossy," and let him rattle on about the army, a subject of which he was very full.
"Are you going to join your regiment, cousin?" he asked presently.
I looked appropriately blank and gestured.
"Oh, I forgot," he exclaimed, blushing again. "But can"t you remember anything?" he asked, gathering courage for the question.
I shook my head and looked worried and perplexed.
"You don"t mind my asking that question?"
"Not a bit. Of course I want to hit on something that will wake up my memory."
"Herr Hoffnung said something about your not wanting to go to the war and that you were joining the Secret Service; and Rosa was just mad about it. She loathes the idea; but there, I don"t suppose she"ll care so much if----" He stopped short in some confusion.
"If what? Out with it, my dear fellow."
"I don"t think I"d better tell you. For one reason because you"re----"
and he pulled up again.
"Because I"ve lost my memory, do you mean?"
"I don"t know. She"s awfully funny sometimes, but I did mean that. I was going to say--you won"t give me away to her if I tell you?"
"Of course not. Aren"t we two going to be the best of chums?"
"Well, it"s a rotten arrangement to tie up two kids to marry, like you two, just because of some money."
I laughed. "I"m not exactly a kid now, Hans, at any rate."
"Rather not; and what she"ll think when she sees you I don"t know."
This let in a glimmer of the truth and I made a shot. "You mean she doesn"t much fancy the family arrangement?" His face told me it was a bull"s-eye, but he hesitated to own it. "When a man"s in my state it"s only decent for his real friends to tell him the hang of things, Hans,"
I said as a little touch of the spur.
"I daresay it"s a lot of lies now that I"ve seen you."
I tumbled to that, of course. "You mean that your sister has heard things which have set her against me?"
He nodded. "That you have only pretended to be out of the country all the time and then had to run away--oh, I don"t know exactly what it was, but it was enough for Rosa. She always takes a different view of everything from the rest of us."
Rather good hearing. It seemed to offer a way of breaking off the engagement. "She wants to end things between us, you mean?"
"I don"t know for certain, but I know what I think. She wouldn"t come to the station to-night for one thing, and then, well, if I was engaged to a girl I wouldn"t have her so thick with a fellow as she is with Oscar Feldmann. He"s always here. But don"t you breathe a word that I"ve told you about this."
"Not I, my dear fellow; I"m only too grateful to you. Is he in the army then?"
"Not he, but he ought to be;" and as this turned him on to the army again, I listened for a minute or two and yawned, and he took the hint and went away, promising to see me the first thing in the morning.
Things were going all right so far, and as I was really very tired, I put off my thinking until the next day, and went to sleep. In the morning I turned over the whole position in my mind and came to the conclusion that, for the present at any rate, there was only one difficulty to negotiate--that the daughter might not recognize me.
Hans" description of her was anything but alluring. She was "bossy"; inclined to oppose the others and run things on her own; she was already prejudiced against me as La.s.sen, and was probably ready to grasp at any excuse to break off the engagement.
That suggested a very disquieting thought. If she had heard that La.s.sen and I were the only cabin pa.s.sengers on the _Burgen_, that I was the only survivor, that there was some question about my ident.i.ty and that I had lost my memory, it was clear that she had only to refuse to recognize me, to free herself from the matrimonial entanglement.
Obviously that must be postponed if possible.
In view of what her mother had said about the upper part of my face being most like La.s.sen"s, it seemed a good moment to invent a bad face-ache, so that I could swathe my mouth and chin at our first meeting; and the remembrance of La.s.sen"s rather pinched shoulders and stooping figure suggested the advisability of being in bed when she had her first inspection.
Thus when Hans came to me in the morning, he found me suffering from a severe attack of toothache with a bandage wrapped round my face, and the windows carefully curtained. He was a good-natured fellow, was genuinely sorry and, after saying Rosa was really anxious to see me, although she pretended she wasn"t, went off to report.
Hans" report brought up the mother, full of solicitous sympathy and inquiries about breakfast and a suggestion that I had better stop in bed. I agreed, and she said that probably Rosa would come and see me during the morning. About an hour later all three came up together, and I augured well from the fact that Rosa was carrying a cup of tea.