Читать книгу Success and How He Won It - E. Werner - Страница 10

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The state dinner, prepared with lavish expense and on a most luxurious scale, was over at last. It had procured for Berkow one special triumph, independently of the pleasure he must have felt at seeing how numerous were the guests around him. The nobility of the neighbouring town, and its leading personages in particular, had always been exclusive to the last degree. No member of it had condescended as yet to enter the house of a parvenu, whose equivocal antecedents still shut him out from the highest circles of society; but the invitations bearing the name of Eugénie Berkow, née Baroness Windeg, had been universally accepted. She was, and would ever remain, a scion of one of the most ancient and noble houses of the land.

No one could or would wound her by a refusal, more especially as it had not remained a secret how she had been forced into this union. But, if the bride were to be met with fullest esteem and sympathy, her father-in-law, in whose house the dinner was given, could not possibly be treated otherwise than with politeness, and so this too came to pass.

Berkow was jubilant; he knew well that this was only the prelude to what must happen in the capital next winter. The Baroness Windeg would certainly not be allowed to fall out of her sphere because she had sacrificed herself to filial love. She would now, as hitherto, be looked on as an equal in spite of the plebeian name she bore. And touching this name, too, the object for which he had so long striven lay now, as he hoped, almost within his grasp.

But if, on the one hand, the ambitious millionaire felt that he owed his daughter-in-law some thanks, notwithstanding that she had on this day more than ever assumed the airs of a princess, and had held herself completely aloof from him and his, the behaviour of his son, on the other hand, surprised as much as it angered him. Arthur, who had been in the habit of associating exclusively with people of rank, seemed all at once to have lost all taste for such company. He was so extremely cool in his politeness towards his distinguished guests, he even maintained so studied a reserve towards the officers of the garrison, with whom, on previous visits, he had always been on a familiar footing, that he more than once approached those bounds which a host cannot overstep without giving offence. Berkow could not understand this new whim. What could possess his son? Did he want to show his opposition to his wife by thus obviously avoiding her guests?

Those gentlemen from the town, who had ladies under their escort, started early on their return-journey, for the long rains had made the roads almost impracticable, and a drive of several hours in the darkness was not a thing to be desired. This gave the mistress of the house liberty to withdraw, and Eugénie at once availed herself of it, leaving the reception-rooms and retiring to her own private apartments, while her husband and his father stayed with the remaining visitors.

At the appointed hour, Ulric Hartmann made his appearance. Since his early childhood, since Frau Berkow's death, when his parents' relations with the great house had altogether ceased, he had not been within its walls. Indeed, the master's château, with its surrounding terraces and gardens, was to the whole working-population a closed Eldorado, into which even the officials only gained occasional access when called thither by some weighty matter of business, or by a special invitation. The young man walked through the lofty hall, lined on each side by flowering plants, up the carpeted stairs, and through the well-lighted corridors, until in one of the latter, he was received by the servant who had brought him the message in the morning. The man showed him into a room, saying:

"Her ladyship will be here directly," and, with this observation, shut the door and left him alone.

Ulric looked round the large handsomely decorated ante-room, the first of a long suite of apartments, all of which were now completely empty. The guests were still assembled in the distant dining-room which looked out on the garden, but the emptiness and stillness of this part of the house made its splendour yet more impressive. The portières were all drawn back, and Ulric could see through the long suite of handsome rooms, each one of which seemed to surpass the others in beauty.

The thick, dark-coloured velvet of the carpets drank in the light, so to speak; but it shone all the brighter on the richly gilt decorations of the walls and doors, on the silk and satin furniture, in the tall mirrors which reached to the ceiling and cast forth the reflection of it in a thousand brilliant rays, yes, even on the waxed floors bright and smooth as glass; it set off to fuller advantage those pictures, statues and priceless vases with which the salons were so profusely ornamented. All that wealth and luxury can give was here brought together, and the effect was one which might well dazzle an eye accustomed to obscurity, and most at home in the dark mazes of the mine.

But the sight, though it would certainly have been confusing to any of his comrades, appeared to make no impression on Ulric. His look glanced darkly through the sparkling vista, but there was no admiration to be traced in it. Each costly thing which drew his attention seemed to rouse up within him a feeling of enmity, and he suddenly turned his back on the glittering perspective, and gave a little vehement stamp with his foot on finding that there were no signs of any one as yet. Ulric Hartmann, clearly, was not the man to wait patiently in an anteroom until such time as he could be conveniently received.

At last something rustled behind him; he turned round and took a step back involuntarily, for a few paces from him, just under the great chandelier, stood Eugénie Berkow. Up to this time he had seen her but once, on the day he had carried her from the carriage, and she then wore a travelling-dress of dark silk, whilst her face was shaded by her hat and veil. Of that meeting he had preserved only one remembrance, that of the great dark eyes which had scanned his countenance so closely.

Now--ah yes, indeed! this was an apparition very different from any that had hitherto come within the young miner's sphere of vision. Over the white silk dress flowed a delicate white lace, which waved like a cloudlet round her tall and slender figure. Into these airy folds some roses seemed to have been wafted, and a wreath of roses encircled her blonde head, the shining tresses of which rivalled in their soft brilliancy the pearls about her neck and arms. The blaze of the wax-lights fell full on this lovely picture so fitly framed by its surroundings. As she stood there, it seemed as though nothing ought to approach her which had anything in common with the ordinary life of this work-a-day world.

But although Eugénie's whole appearance might betoken the high-born lady of fashion, that being the rôle which she had this evening exclusively played--her eyes showed plainly that she could be something else too. They lighted up now with a glad expression, as she caught sight of the young man, and she went up to him with quiet friendliness.

"I am pleased that you came when I sent for you. I wanted to speak to you to clear up a misunderstanding. Come with me."

She opened one of the side doors, and entered the adjoining room, followed by Ulric. It was her own boudoir, and separated her apartments beyond from the suite before mentioned--but what a contrast it was to the latter! Here only a mellowed light streamed from the lamp over the tender blue draperies and hangings. The foot, bold enough there to tread, sank silently into the yielding carpet, and the caressing air was warm and balmy with the scent of flowers.

Ulric stood on the threshold as if spell-bound, though he was in general but little used to fits of shyness. Here all was so different to the dazzling rooms he had left, so much more beautiful, so dreamily still. The wrath with which he had looked on all that splendour had gone out from him; in its place there stirred a something which he could not define, a something born of the gentler influences now so strangely surrounding him. But in the next minute a hot anger at this weakness burned up within him, he drew back instinctively as from some vaguely-felt danger, and his whole being rose up in inflexible hostility to this atmosphere of beauty and fragrance with all its seductive charm.

Eugénie stopped, noticing with some surprise that the miner was not following her. She took a seat near the door, and her eyes scrutinised his face narrowly. The curly light hair entirely covered the still fresh scar, and the wound, which might well have proved dangerous to another man, had had but little effect on this powerful frame. Eugénie sought for some trace of past suffering, but found none. Her first question related, however, to his injury.

"So you have quite recovered? Does the wound really give you no pain now?"

"No, my lady, it was not worth speaking about."

Eugénie did not appear to remark the short ungracious tone of the answer. She continued, speaking with the same kindness.

"I heard, certainly, from the Director's mouth on the very next day that there was nothing to be apprehended, or we should have had you more thoroughly cared for. After his second visit to you, the Director assured me again that there was no question of any danger, and Herr Wilberg, whom I sent to your house on the day after the accident, brought me the same report."

At the first words of her little speech Ulric had raised his eyes and fixed them on her face. His moody brow cleared slowly, and his voice had a gentler sound as he answered,

"I did not know, my lady, that you had troubled yourself so much about it. Herr Wilberg did not tell me he came from you, or"----

"Or you would have been rather more friendly to him," concluded Eugénie, a little reproachfully. "He complained of the brusque way in which you treated him that evening, yet he was so full of sympathy for you, and offered with such cheerful alacrity to procure me the news I wished for. What do you object to in Herr Wilberg?"

"Nothing--but he plays on the guitar and writes poetry."

"That does not seem to be any special advantage in your eyes," said she, half-jesting; "and I hardly think you would be guilty of it, if you were to change places with him. But we will leave that! It was for something else I sent for you. I hear," she played in rather an embarrassed way with her fan, "I hear from the Director that you have declined a mark of our gratitude, which he was commissioned to offer you from us."

"Yes," Ulric assented briefly, without adding one word to soften the harsh monosyllable.

"I am sorry if the offer, or the way in which it was made, has offended you. Herr Berkow,"--a faint flush overspread Eugénie's face as she uttered the untruth--"Herr Berkow certainly intended personally to express to you his thanks and mine. He was prevented from doing so, and therefore begged the Director to represent him. It would grieve me much if you were to see in that any proof of ingratitude or indifference on our part towards our deliverer. We both know how deeply we are in your debt, and you would hardly now refuse me too, if I were to beg you to receive from my hands"----

Ulric started up; the happy influence of her first words had been quite destroyed by the close of her speech. His face had grown pale, when he guessed what was her object, and he broke out recklessly,

"Let that matter be, my lady. If you offer me money, you too, I shall wish I had let the carriage go over with all that was in it!"

Eugénie was a little startled by this outbreak of that savage wildness for which Ulric Hartmann was feared by every one about the works. Such a look and such a tone had certainly never been addressed to Baron Windegs daughter; it was indeed the first time she had been brought in contact with one belonging to the working classes. She rose offended.

"I do not wish to impose my thanks upon you. If the expression of them displeases you so much, I regret that I should have called you hither."

She turned away and was about to leave the room, but the movement brought Ulric to his senses. He took one hasty step forwards.

"My lady--I--forgive me! I would not vex you for the world!"

Eugénie was struck by the passionate, remorseful tone. She stopped and looked at him, seeking in his face for the key to his strange conduct; but his vehement cry for pardon had disarmed her.

"You would not vex me?" she repeated, "but you do not mind how much you hurt other people's feelings by your ungracious ways? The Director's, for instance, and Herr Wilberg's?"

"No, I do not," returned Ulric, "no more than they would mind hurting mine, if the case were reversed. There is no talk of friendliness between the officials and us."

"No?" asked Eugénie in surprise. "I did not know that the officials and the hands were on such bad terms, and Herr Berkow cannot suspect it either, or he would assuredly have tried to mediate."

"Herr Berkow," said Ulric, sharply, "has cared during the last twenty years for every possible thing on the works, except for the welfare of the hands employed, and so it will go on, until we begin caring a little about him, and then--oh, my lady! I was forgetting that you are his son's wife. Forgive me!"

She was silent, a little confounded by his reckless plain-speaking. What she now heard was, in truth, only what had often before been hinted in her presence about her father-in-law, but the terrible bitterness of these words made her feel all the depth of the gulf which lay between him and his subordinates. Whoever brought an accusation against Berkow was sure beforehand of having his daughter-in-law's sympathy. Eugénie had herself had bitter proof of his unscrupulousness, but she was sensible that, as his son's wife, she ought not to make this evident. If she noticed Hartmann's last speech at all, it must be to reprove him, and she preferred to let it pass.

"So you will not accept any mark of our gratitude, not even from my hands?" she began again, waiving the dangerous subject. "Well, then, I can do nothing but tender my thanks to the man who saved me from certain death. Will you reject them, too? I thank you, Hartmann!"

She held out her hand to him. It lay only a few seconds, white and delicate as a flower, in the miner's strong work-hardened palm, but its touch sent a quiver through him. All the bitterness went out of his face, the threatening look from his eyes; the defiant head was bent over her outstretched hand, and his features bore an expression of gentleness and submissiveness, which none of his superiors could ever boast of having seen on Ulric Hartmann's countenance.

"Oh, you are giving audience here, Eugénie, and to one of our people!"

Berkow's voice sounded behind them, as he opened the door at this moment, and came in, accompanied by his son. Eugénie drew back her hand and Ulric stood up erect. As those tones met his ear, he resumed his characteristic attitude of silent hostility, which became even more marked, as Arthur exclaimed, with a sharpness, oddly contrasting with his habitual languid manner,

"Hartmann, how do you come here?"

"Hartmann?" repeated Berkow, attracted by the name, and going up nearer. "Oh, here we have our friend the agitator, who"----

"Who stopped our horses when they were running away in their mad fright, and who was injured himself in saving our lives!" put in Eugénie, quietly, but very decidedly.

"Ah, yes!" said Berkow, disconcerted by this reminder, and by his daughter-in-law's resolute look. "Yes, indeed, I heard of it, and the Director was telling me that you and Arthur had already given a proof of your sense of the obligation. The young man has come, no doubt, to express his thanks. I hope you were satisfied, Hartmann?"

The cloud rolled back on Ulric's brow blacker and more menacing than ever, and the reply, which hovered on his lips, would probably have brought down on him the most serious consequences. Eugénie stepped up to her protégé and touched him lightly on the arm with her fan. The miner understood the warning; he looked at her, saw the unconcealed anxiety in her eyes, and his hatred and defiance gave way once more. He answered quietly, almost coldly:

"Certainly, Herr Berkow, I am satisfied with her ladyship's thanks."

"I am glad of it," said Berkow, shortly.

Ulric turned to Eugénie.

"I can go now, my lady?"

She bowed her head in silent assent. She saw but too plainly what constraint the man had to put on himself in order to remain quiet. With one slight movement of the head directed to the master and his son, a salutation evidently bestowed with much reluctance, he left the room.

"Well, I must confess that your protégé has not very good manners," remarked Berkow, with a sneer. "He takes leave in rather an off-hand way, and does not wait to be dismissed. But there, how can such people learn the proper way to behave! Arthur, you seem to find something remarkably interesting in this Hartmann. I hope you have looked after him long enough?"

Arthur's eyes had indeed followed the miner with an intent gaze, and they were still fixed on the door he had closed behind him. The young man's eyebrows were drawn together slightly, and his lips firmly set. At his father's remark, he turned round.

The latter went up to his daughter-in-law, with a great show of politeness.

"I regret, Eugénie, that your complete ignorance of the state of things here should have led you to an act of excessive condescension. You, naturally, could have no idea of the part that fellow plays among his comrades, but he should, on no account, have been permitted to come to this house, much less to enter your boudoir, even under the pretext of returning thanks for a present."

The lady had seated herself, but there was a look on her face which made it seem advisable to her father-in-law to remain standing, instead of taking a place at her side as he at first intended. She compelled him too "to admire her only from a distance."

"I see they have only told you half the story," she answered, coolly. "May I ask when you last spoke to the Director?"

"This morning, when I learned from him that he had been commissioned to hand over to Hartmann a sum, which I, by the way, consider much too large. It is quite a fortune to such people! But I do not wish to lay any restrictions on you and Arthur, if you think it right to show your gratitude in this exaggerated way."

"So you do not know that the young man has refused the money altogether?"

"Re--refused?" cried Berkow, starting back.

"Refused?" repeated Arthur. "Why?"

"Probably because it offended him to be put off with a sum of money offered through a third person, while those whom he had saved did not think it worth their while to add even a word of thanks. I have made good this latter negligence, but I could not persuade him to accept the smallest thing. It does not seem as though the Director had managed the matter so 'admirably.'"

Arthur bit his lip. He knew these words were meant for him, though they were spoken to his father.

"It appears, then, you sent for him yourself?" he asked.

"Certainly."

"I wish you had left it undone," said Berkow, somewhat irritated. "This Hartmann is pointed out to me on all sides as the chief promoter of that revolutionary spirit which I am about to meet with the utmost severity. I see now that too much has not been said about him. If this fellow dares to refuse such a sum, because it has not been paid to him with all the ceremony his mightiness demands, he may well be capable of anything. I must remind you, Eugénie, that there are certain considerations my daughter-in-law must keep in mind even when she is giving a proof of her kind feeling."

The old contemptuous look played about Eugénie's lips. Remembering the compulsion to which she had been subjected, she felt but little disposed to yield to her father-in-law's wishes, and the bitter thought of it rising within her made her overlook the real justice of what he said.

"I am sorry, Herr Berkow," she answered, icily, "that other considerations must have weight with me besides any your daughter-in-law may be bound to regard. This was an exceptional case, and you must allow me to act on my own judgment in such matters both now and for the future."

She was again every inch the Baroness Windeg, as she thus recalled the plebeian millionaire to his place; but whether the cause of dispute had angered him too much, or whether the wine, which had flowed so freely at dinner, had produced some little effect on him, he did not this time show her the same boundless respect, but answered with some heat,

"Really? Well, then, I shall thank you to remember,"----but he got no further in his speech, for Arthur, who had remained in the background so far, taking no part in the conversation, stood up all at once at his wife's side, and said quietly,

"I must beg you, sir, to put an end to this unpleasant discussion.--I have left Eugénie unlimited freedom of action, and I do not wish that any one else should attempt to restrain it."

Berkow looked at his son as though he had not heard aright. He was accustomed to see Arthur display the most passive indifference on all occasions, great and small, and was as much surprised by his son's interference as by this open championship.

"You seem to have quite gone over to the opposition to-day," he returned in a jesting tone. "I shall do well to beat a retreat before such combined forces, particularly as I have some business matters to attend to still. I hope I may find you rather less disposed to quarrel to-morrow, Eugénie; and you, Arthur, somewhat more tractable than you have shown yourself to-day. I wish you both a good evening."