"Oh, how very beautiful she is!" she said to herself with a sigh. "How I should love to be like her."
Greetings were exchanged, and half-murmured, significant words spoken; but Hertha heard nothing, being completely fascinated by the fair stranger whose smile was so melancholy, and who knew how to bow her head with such gentle grace.
She had a dim sensation as if hearing music--low, dreamy, strange music, which grew stronger directly the beautiful woman made a movement, and died softly when she sat motionless and silent.
When she kissed her husband, Hertha envied him; and when she greeted Elly in a friendly manner, Hertha felt herself alone and deserted. But then the fair creature turned to her and gave her an astonished yet exquisite smile. Hertha glowed to the roots of her hair.
"This is, then, Countess Hertha, of whom I have often heard?" asked Frau Felicitas.
"Whom has she heard of me from?" wondered Hertha, without daring to lift her eyes.
And now she beheld a rounded, snow-white hand stretched invitingly out to her. She would like to have rushed at it, to have kissed it; but in her awkwardness she could only lay three fingers in it uncertainly, and then quickly withdraw them.
"You are like a fairy princess, Countess Hertha," she heard the stranger"s sweet, soft voice breathe close to her--"so tall and so proud. We must be friends."
"Oh!" exclaimed Hertha, glowing with grat.i.tude for so much kindness, and what was more, the beautiful woman threw her arms round her and kissed her on the lips. Then something happened which she could not have explained. At the moment the stranger"s lips touched hers, she was seized anew with the same uncanny feeling which her stepmother"s exclamation had awakened in her a few hours earlier. As if turned to stone, she allowed herself to be kissed, and gasped, for the deadening perfume which this embrace exhaled streamed over her and almost took her breath away.
Then she heard grandmamma say, "She is still shy ... she hasn"t seen much society yet." Dear, dear grandmamma, and she nearly crushed the old, protecting hand, that so kindly guided her stumbling destiny. Now every one sat down on the terrace, and tea was served. It was long past the vesper hour. Hertha sat in a dream, and eat and drank absently as if she hadn"t broken her fast for days.
Her attention was first caught again by overhearing bits of the conversation which pa.s.sed between her stepmother and the Baron Kletzingk.
There was nothing remarkable about the conversation itself, for it turned on the pedagogic principles which governed Ulrich"s education of the village children. Only the tone in which it was conducted was extraordinary.
There was something like suppressed scorn in her stepmother"s indifferent words, one moment she seemed as if she would like to cry, the next she would collapse into brooding reflection, and her eyes would be fixed on his face, full of stony pain. He, on his side, talked to her as if she were an invalid who was to be humoured. He did not contradict her, but modified at once anything that seemed to displease her ... and when she threw in a derogatory or incredulous remark with her nervously trembling lips, he pretended that he heartily shared her opinion, saying that her reasons were important enough to make him change his mind. But after such a concession he got hardly more than a shrug of her shoulders for answer.
"What can he have done to her that she hates him so," thought Hertha; and then her attention wandered again to Felicitas, at whom she stared admiringly.
In the middle of the flagging conversation a firm footstep was heard in the breakfast-room, accompanied by the pattering of the St. Bernard"s feet. Whoever was speaking broke off before finishing his or her sentence.
Every one sat upright and glanced expectantly at the door. Hertha felt her heart beating quickly. For an instant her eyes met those of the beautiful woman, and it seemed to her that the pale face had grown a shade paler.
The door was flung back, and Leo burst on to the terrace. Suddenly he paused and drew back. His hand fidgeted with the ends of his beard, his eyes fastened on Felicitas with a searching, threatening gaze.
"He doesn"t like her," was Hertha"s inward comment.
Ulrich went up to him quickly, and seized his hand. "What you see here, old man, means reconciliation. Now we are all going to enjoy ourselves together at last."
"You two?" asked Leo, indicating with his finger the two women.
"Yes, certainly, we are reconciled," responded Johanna, with her bitterest smile. He was going to say more, when Ulrich admonished him.
"Think of the children," he said.
"It is to be hoped now that you will not disdain to shake hands with me, sister," Leo said.
"I have come here expressly with that purpose," answered Johanna, rising.
Their hands touched, and they looked into each other"s eyes. To him her hand said, "I hold you in its hollow," and her glance, "Be careful."
Then he turned to greet Felicitas with a fleeting smile.
"I wonder why he doesn"t like her?" Hertha asked herself, rather puzzled at everything.
XX
It was late in the evening of the following day. Hertha, already half undressed, stood at the bedroom window and looked at the moon. Her breast heaved under its burden of woe. She had just written to her best friend, Ada--Ada von Wehrheimb--with whom, since they were at school together, she had been supposed to share every joy and sorrow. The letter, with two postscripts, lay on the table.
At last she had had the courage to tell her friend of the utter wreck of all her hopes, and, having once written her woes, she realized, as she had not done before, their full extent, for till now a vague mistrust of herself had prevented her taking her own suffering altogether seriously. And when one wanted to feel thoroughly unhappy, there were so many little things to interrupt one--the c.o.c.ks and hens, the foals, the saddle-horses, the swing, Elly"s silly chatter, archery, and, last but not least, grandmamma and her cookery-book. On the other hand, friends and nourishers of the unhappy mood were "Poetic Greetings" by Elise Polkos, Leo the dog, embroidery, and, above all, the moon.
Slowly it sailed, now, above the rustling treetops. The true September moon--big, white and cold, with sharply defined shadows visible in its brilliant orb. It swept the grey clouds which seemed to disperse like silver dust, so soon as it touched them, leaving only a faint mist behind on the smooth floor of the sky.
The garden-lawns lay brightly illumined in the moonbeams. A swarm of silvery sparks chased each other over the carp pond directly the breeze ruffled its waters. It was like a shower of h.o.a.r-frost skimming a white body. In the middle of the flashing circle of light rose the obelisk--a clumsy pile of blackness with sharp-cut corners. On one side it seemed to project a little as if a round piece had been added on to it there, and within this arch something dark-red was glowing like a fiery eye.
Hertha looked at it again. She thought she must be mistaken; but the fiery eye did not disappear. It winked at her roguishly and pryingly as much as to say, "I know you. You and your stupid love-lorn heart!"
This heart began to beat louder. What could it be at this time of night making fireworks in the deserted sleeping garden? "If you had an atom of pluck you would go at once and find out."
When Hertha"s will called her courage in question, she was sure to act.
So she flung a grey waterproof over her shoulders, threw an inquiring glance at Elly, who, with slightly pouting rosy lips, slept the most profound sleep, and in her slippered feet slid out into the corridor, where the moonlit window-panes cast a galaxy of bright shapes on the long wall.
Now she began to be afraid in earnest, but it was not far to the wicket. The latch clicked, and, breathing quickly, she entered the garden, the damp dew-laden gra.s.s of which struck icy cold through her thin stockings. All the time the fiery eye still gleamed across at her.
For a moment it seemed as if a lid had dropped over it, but then it appeared again in a somewhat darker corner. One instant she almost decided to turn round, but the next she was ashamed of her cowardice and began to hurry straight towards the suspicious object, at the top of her speed. Then suddenly a dog barked, and a voice that made her heart stand still, cried--
"Who is there?"
She was so terrified that she could neither speak nor move a step backwards or forwards. As if glued to the spot, she stood there till Leo, the dog, with a friendly whine, pressed his damp nose into the palm of her hand.
"Who the devil is there?" the voice called out once more, and then _his_ figure rose up like that of a huge Hun and began to stride towards the tree that she crouched behind.
"It"s only me," she gasped chokingly.
"Child, you! Why aren"t you in bed?"
"I couldn"t sleep."
"And so are running about out-of-doors late at night. Grandmamma ought to know this."
He had caught hold of her hand, which in vain struggled to get free.
The short pipe in his mouth emitted clouds of white smoke around her.
Its glowing bowl had been the fiery eye which had blinked at her so suspiciously.
"You are out yourself," she answered, biting her lips till her teeth ground together.
"That is a different thing. I am a robust fellow who can stand all weathers."