Читать книгу A Noble Name; or, Dönninghausen - Claire von Glümer - Страница 9

The sleighing-party did not return to the second breakfast. The dinner-hour first assembled the various members of the family.

"Was grandpapa angry?" Magelone whispered to Johanna. Just then the Freiherr was wheeled into the room, and his frowning brow answered her question only too clearly.

Hildegard was not to be intimidated.

"Do not be angry, dear grandpapa," she said, with an air of arrogant ease quite her own. "It was my fault that we stayed so long; I had not seen the Klausenburgs for an age, and they begged us so to stay that it was impossible to say no."

"But you found it quite possible to keep us waiting here," the Freiherr rejoined. "Another time please to remember that such want of consideration has never been the rule of my household, and never shall be. Be seated!"

"I told you so," Karl Wildenhayn whispered to his wife as she passed him.

"You are all cowards!" she rejoined, and then seated herself with head erect and knitted brows on the left of the Freiherr, for whom she seemed no longer to have any existence.

The meal was very monosyllabic. Now and then Otto would whisper something to Johanna, and she would listen with a smile. Then Johann Leopold, who looked paler and more weary than usual, would look up from his plate, gaze at her, and then sink again into his usual apathy, from which Magelone to-day did not try to rouse him.

When they went to the drawing-room she left Johann Leopold, and, approaching Otto, said, "Pray suggest some folly to me, – I am dying of ennui."

he began to sing in an undertone, and his eyes expressed the passion which was suppressed in his half-teasing voice. Magelone shrugged her shoulders.

"Nonsense! even the poet himself called that tragedy," she replied. "I want something merry to do. But you are afflicted with the Dönninghausen stupidity."

"How unjust!" cried Otto. "Was it not a merry thing to whisk you away from Klausenburg – right from under Johann Leopold's long nose – into the sleigh with me, and drive off with you?"

Magelone laughed. Otto continued passionately: "I should have liked to carry you off to the end of the world. The thought of seeing you in Johann Leopold's arms makes me frantic. Why do you look at me so disdainfully, and what does that smile mean?"

"Perhaps it means what did you whisper to Johanna at table with just the same look you wear at present?"

"I thought I was to obey orders and pay court to her," said Otto. "Do you command the contrary?"

"Indeed I do not."

"It really would be better to continue the farce," Otto went on in a graver tone. "Johann Leopold's jealousy is evident; it would be better to lead him upon a false scent – "

"And beguile two female hearts at the same time," Magelone interposed, laughing. "Oh, Don Juan, Don Juan!"

"Play the 'Don Giovanni' overture," Otto begged her. "You play it magnificently."

"Not to-day. There must be nothing but chorales to-day," she said. And with a coquettish glance she turned away towards the fire, where were her cousins and Aunt Thekla.

During this conversation Johann Leopold had approached Johanna at her coffee-table.

"How do you like your new cousin?" he asked; "but I need hardly ask, for you seem to have become excellent friends with him since last evening."

"Not quite since last evening," Johanna replied, blushing slightly. "He came to see me just after my father's death, and was so kind – "

"I can easily imagine it," Johann Leopold interrupted her. "He knows how to strike the right chord everywhere, modern Piper of Hamelin that he is. Have a care of him."

She looked up at him inquiringly, but the telltale blush would return; involuntarily she turned away to conceal it, and suddenly, she did not know why, she remembered the lovers whom she had promised to befriend. "I have a favour to ask of you," she said, gravely. "It concerns Red Jakob."

"What is it?" he asked, taking a chair by her side; and, encouraged by his sympathy, she told him of the scene in the forest lodge and of poor Christine's sorrows. Johann Leopold readily promised his help to the girl, and together they discussed what should be done.

"Let me beg you, Magelone, to look towards the coffee-table," said Hildegard, after she had watched the pair for a while. "They have been engaged in that interesting conversation for a quarter of an hour. Are you not jealous?"

Magelone laughed. "Jealous of Johanna? Oh, no," she declared, confidently.

"Don't be so sure, my dear child," was Hildegard's sneering reply. "In spite of your irresistible charms, you have never succeeded since I have been here in making Johann Leopold talk as he is now talking to Johanna."

"Yes, he actually seems transformed," said Hedwig. "He certainly is talking and listening now, while beside you he sits like a wooden doll."

"Of course, ''tis love, 'tis love that makes men mute,'" Magelone said, with a smile; but her eyes gleamed, and a sensation of mistrust of Johanna stirred in her heart, – faint and fleeting, it is true, but it was the beginning, nevertheless, of a change in the relations between the cousins.

The next morning Johann Leopold rode to the forest lodge. When he returned, meeting Johanna in the corridor, he told her that the rough fellow had wept bitterly when told of the death of his child, and had entreated that he might see Christine.

"It would be best for you to go up to the lodge with her to-morrow morning early," he added; "it would lighten the weary way for her, and I will be there to take her to the invalid."

"I will certainly have her there," Johanna replied, "punctually at eleven o'clock. Oh, Johann Leopold, how kind you are!"

They had just reached the drawing-room door. Magelone, gliding noiselessly down-stairs, heard Johanna's last words.

"What has he been doing that is so kind?" she asked. "Tell me, that I may admire it too."

Johanna was embarrassed. Her cousin came to her assistance. "Never mind, my dear Magelone," he said, in his usual cold, deliberate tone. "You would consider it the mere dilettantism of philanthropy, upon which you but lately expended your ridicule."

As he spoke he opened the drawing-room door. Magelone passed him with an angry blush. How silly to take her words so seriously! Of course Johanna never said such things. The girl was growing positively disagreeable.