Читать книгу The Alpine Fay - E. Werner - Страница 11

Elmhorst wore to-day an easy, loose suit bearing some similitude to the dress of a mountaineer, and very like that of his friend, but it became him admirably; he looked like some distinguished tourist making an expedition with his guide. Dr. Reinsfeld with his negligent carriage certainly showed to disadvantage beside that tall, slender figure; his gray jacket and his hat were decidedly weather-worn, but that evidently gave him no concern. His eyes sparkled with pleasure at sight of the young girl, who greeted him with her wonted cordial familiarity.

"You are coming to us, Herr Doctor, are you not?" she asked.

"Of course, Fräulein Erna; are you all well?"

"Papa was not well this morning, but he has nevertheless gone shooting. I have been to meet him with Griff, but we could not find him; he must have taken another way home."

She joined the two gentlemen, who now left the mountain-road and took the somewhat steep path leading to Wolkenstein Court. Griff seemed scarcely reconciled to the presence of the young engineer: he greeted him with a growl and showed his teeth.

"What is the matter with Griff?" Reinsfeld asked. "He is usually kindly and good-humoured with everybody."

"He does not seem to include me in his universal philanthropy," said Elmhorst, with a shrug. "He has made me several such declarations of war, and his good humour cannot always be depended upon; bestirred up a terrible uproar in Heilborn, in the Herr President's drawing-room, where Fräulein von Thurgau achieved a deed of positive heroism in comforting a little child whom the dog had nearly frightened to death."

"And, meanwhile, Herr Elmhorst applied himself to the succour of the fainting ladies," Erna said, ironically. "Upon my return to the drawing-room I observed his courteous attentions to both Alice and Frau von Lasberg,--how impartially he deluged both with cologne. Oh, it was diverting in the extreme!"

She laughed merrily. For an instant Elmhorst compressed his lips with an angry glance at the girl, but the next he rejoined politely: "You took such instant possession of the heroic part in the drama, Fräulein von Thurgau, that nothing was left for me but my insignificant rôle. You cannot accuse me of timidity after meeting me upon the Wolkenstein, although in my entire ignorance of the locality I did not reach the summit."

"And you never will reach it," Reinsfeld interposed. "The summit is inaccessible; even the boldest mountaineers are checked by those perpendicular walls, and more than one foolhardy climber has forfeited his life in the attempt to ascend them."

"Does the mountain-sprite guard her throne so jealously?" Elmhorst asked, laughing. "She seems to be a most energetic lady, tossing about avalanches as if they were snowballs, and requiring as many human sacrifices yearly as any heathen goddess."

He looked up to the Wolkenstein,^[1] which justified its title: while all the other mountain-summits were defined clearly against the sky, its top was hidden in white mists.

"You ought not to jest about it, Wolfgang," said the young physician, with some irritation. "You have never yet spent an autumn and winter here, and you do not know her, our wild mountain-sprite, the fearful elemental force of the Alps, which only too frequently menaces the lives and the dwellings of the poor mountaineers. She is feared, not without reason, here in her realm; but you seem to have become quite familiar with the legend."

"Fräulein von Thurgau had the kindness to make me acquainted with the stern dame," said Wolfgang. "She did indeed receive us very ungraciously on the threshold of her palace, with a furious storm, and I was not allowed the privilege of a personal introduction."

"Take care,--you might have to pay dearly for the favour!" exclaimed Erna, irritated by his sarcasm. Elmhorst's mocking smile was certainly provoking.

"Fräulein von Thurgau, you must not expect from me any consideration for mountain-sprites. I am here for the express purpose of waging war against them. The industries of the nineteenth century have nothing in common with the fear of ghosts. Pray do not look so indignant. Our railway is not going over the Wolkenstein, and your mountain-sprite will remain seated upon her throne undisturbed. Of course she cannot but behold thence how we take possession of her realm and girdle it with our chains. But I have not the remotest intention of interfering with your faith. At your age it is quite comprehensible."

He could not have irritated his youthful antagonist more deeply than by these words, which so distinctly assigned her a place among children. They were the most insulting that could be addressed to the girl of sixteen, and they had their effect. Erna stood erect, as angry and determined as if she herself had been threatened with fetters; her eyes flashed as she exclaimed, with all the wayward defiance of a child, "I wish the mountain-sprite would descend upon her wings of storm from the Wolkenstein and show you her face,--you would not ask to see it again!"

With this she turned and flew, rather than ran, across the meadow, with Griff after her. The slender figure, its curls unbound again to-day, vanished in a few minutes within the house. Wolfgang paused and looked after her; the sarcastic smile still hovered upon his lips, but there was a sharp tone in his voice.

"What is Baron Thurgau thinking of, to let his daughter grow up so? She would be quite impossible in civilized surroundings; she is barely tolerable in this mountain wilderness."

"Yes, she has grown up wild and free as an Alpine rose," said Benno, whose eyes were still fixed upon the door behind which Erna had disappeared. Elmhorst turned suddenly and looked keenly at his friend.

"You are actually poetical! Are you touched there?"

"I?" asked Benno, surprised, almost dismayed. "What are you thinking of?"

"I only thought it strange to have you season your speech with imagery,--it is not your way. Moreover, your 'Alpine rose' is an extremely wayward, spoiled child; you will have to educate her first."

The words were not uttered as an innocent jest; they had a harsh, sarcastic flavour, and apparently offended the young physician, who replied, irritably, "No more of this, Wolf! Rather tell me what takes you to Wolkenstein Court. You wish to speak with the Freiherr?"

"Yes; but our interview can hardly be an agreeable one. You know that we need the estate for our line of railway; it was refused us, and we had to fall back upon our right of compulsion. The obstinate old Baron was not content: he protested again and again, and refused to allow a survey to be made upon his soil. The man positively fancies that his 'no' will avail him. Of course his protest was laid upon the table, and since the time of probation granted him has expired and we are in possession, I am to inform him that the preliminary work is about to begin."

Reinsfeld had listened in silence with an extremely grave expression, and his voice showed some anxiety as he said, "Wolf, let me beg you not to go about this business with your usual luck of consideration. The Freiherr is really not responsible on this head. I have taken pains again and again to explain to him that his opposition must be fruitless, but he is thoroughly convinced that no one either can or will take from him his inheritance. He is attached to it with every fibre of his heart, and if he really must relinquish it, I am afraid it will go nigh to kill him."

"Not at all! He will yield like a reasonable man as soon as he sees the unavoidable necessity. I certainly shall be duly considerate, since he is the president's brother-in-law; otherwise I should not have come hither to-day, but have set the engineers to work. Nordheim wishes that everything should be done to spare the old man's feelings, and so I have undertaken the affair myself."

"There will be a scene," said Benno, "Baron Thurgau is the best man in the world, but incredibly passionate and violent when he thinks his rights infringed upon. You do not know him yet."

"You mistake; I have the honour of knowing him, and his primitive characteristics. He gave me an opportunity of observing them at Heilborn, and I am prepared to-day to meet with the roughest usage. But you are right; the man is irresponsible in matters of grave importance, and I shall treat him accordingly."

They had now reached the house, which they entered. Thurgau had just come in; his gun still lay on the table, and beside it a couple of moor-fowl, the result of his morning's sport. Erna had probably advised him of the coming visitors, for he showed no surprise at sight of the young superintendent.

"Well, doctor," he called out to Reinsfeld, with a laugh, "you are just in time to see how disobedient I have been. There lie my betrayers!" He pointed to his gun and the trophies of his chase.

"Your looks would have informed me," Reinsfeld replied, with a glance at the Freiherr's crimson, heated face. "Moreover, you were not well this morning, I hear."

He would have felt Thurgau's pulse, but the hand was withdrawn: "Time enough for that after a while; you bring me a guest."

"I have taken the liberty of calling upon you, Herr von Thurgau," said Wolfgang, approaching; "and if I am not unwelcome----"

"As a man you are certainly welcome, as a superintendent-engineer you are not," the Freiherr declared, after his blunt fashion. "I am glad to see you, but not a word of your cursed railway, I entreat, or, in spite of the duties of hospitality, I shall turn you out of doors."

He placed a chair for his guest and took his own accustomed seat. Elmhorst saw at a glance how difficult his errand would be; he felt as a tiresome burden the consideration he was compelled by circumstances to pay, but the burden must be shouldered, and so he began at first in a jesting tone.

"I am aware of what a fierce foe you are to our enterprise. My office is the worst of recommendations in your eyes; therefore I did not venture to come alone, but brought my friend with me as a protection."

"Dr. Reinsfeld is a friend of yours?" asked Thurgau, in whose estimation the young official seemed suddenly to rise.

"A friend of my boyhood; we were at the same school, and afterwards studied at the same university, although our professions differed. I hunted up Benno as soon as I came here, and I trust we shall always be good comrades."

"Yes, we all lived here very pleasantly so long as we were by ourselves," the Freiherr said, aggressively. "When you came here with your cursed railway the worry began, and when the shrieking and whistling begin there will be an end of comfort and quiet."

"Now, papa, you are transgressing your own rule and talking of the railway," Erna cried, laughing. "But you must come with me, Herr Doctor. I want to show you what my cousin Alice has sent me from Heilborn; it is charming."

With the eager impatience of a child, who cannot wait to display its treasures, she carried off the young physician into the next room, thus giving the Herr Superintendent fresh occasion to disapprove of her education, or rather of the want of it. On this point he quite agreed with Frau Lasberg. What sort of way was this to behave towards a young man, were he even ten times a physician and the friend of the family!

Benno as he followed her glanced anxiously at the two left behind; he knew what topic would now be discussed, but he relied upon his friend's talent for diplomacy, and, moreover, the door was left open. If the tempest raged too fiercely, he might interfere.

"Yes, yes, the matter cannot be avoided," the Freiherr growled, and Elmhorst, glad to come to business, took up his words.

"You are quite right, Herr Baron, it will not be ignored, and on peril of your fulfilling your threat and really turning me out of doors, I must present myself to you as the agent of the railway company intrusted with imparting to you certain information. The measurements and surveys upon the Wolkenstein estate cannot possibly be delayed any longer, and the engineers will go to work here in the course of a few days."

"They will do no such thing!" Thurgau exclaimed, angrily. "How often must I repeat that I will not allow anything of the kind upon my property!"

"Upon your property? The estate is no longer your property," said Elmhorst, calmly. "The company bought it months ago, and the purchase-money has been lying ready ever since. That business was finished long ago."

"Nothing has been finished!" shouted the Freiherr, his irritation increasing. "Do you imagine I care a button for judgments that outrage all justice, and which your company procured God only knows by what rascality? Do you suppose I am going to leave my house and home to make way for your locomotives? Not one step will I stir, and if----"

"Pray do not excite yourself thus, Herr von Thurgau," Wolfgang interrupted him. "At present there is no idea of driving you away,--it is only that the preliminary surveys must be begun; the house itself will remain entirely at your disposal until next spring."

"Very kind of you!" Thurgau laughed, bitterly. "Till next spring! And what then?"

"Then, of course, it must go."

The Freiherr was about to burst forth again, but there was something in the young man's cool composure that forced him to control himself. He made an effort to do so, but his colour deepened and his breath was short and laboured, as he said, roughly,--

"Does that seem to you a matter 'of course'? But what can you know of the devotion a man feels for his inheritance? You belong, like my brother-in-law, to the century of steam. He builds himself three--four palaces, each more gorgeous than its predecessor, and in none of them is he at home. He lives in them one day and sells them the next, as the whim takes him. Wolkenstein Court has been the home of the Thurgaus for two centuries, and shall remain so until the last Thurgau closes his eyes, rely----"

He broke off in the midst of his sentence, and, as if suddenly attacked by vertigo, grasped the table, but it was only for a few seconds; angry, as it were, at the unwonted weakness, he stood erect again and went on with ever-increasing bitterness: "We have lost all else; we did not understand how to bargain and to hoard, and gradually all has vanished save the old nest where stood the cradle of our line; to that we have held fast through ruin and disaster. We would sooner have starved than have relinquished it. And now comes your railway, and threatens to raze my house to the ground, to trample upon rights hundreds of years old, and to take from me what is mine by the law of justice and of God! Only try it! I say no,--and again no. It is my last word."

He did indeed look ready to make good his refusal with his life, and another man might either have been silent or have postponed further discussion. But Wolfgang had no idea of anything of the kind; he had undertaken to bring the matter to a conclusion, and he persisted.

"Those mountains outside," he said, gravely, "have been standing longer than Wolkenstein Court, and the forests are more firmly rooted in the soil than are you in your home, and yet they must yield. I am afraid Herr von Thurgau, that you have no conception of the gigantic nature of our undertaking, of the means at its disposal, and of the obstacles it must overcome. We penetrate rocks and forests, divert rivers from their course, and bridge across abysses. Whatever is in our path must give way. We come off victorious in our battle with the elements. Ask yourself if the will of one man can bar our progress."

A pause of a few seconds ensued. Thurgau made no reply; his furious anger seemed dissipated by the invincible composure of his opponent, who confronted him with perfect respect and an entire adherence to courtesy. But his clear voice had an inexorable tone, and the look which encountered that of the Freiherr with such cold resolve seemed to cast a spell upon Thurgau. He had hitherto shown himself entirely impervious to all persuasion, all explanation; he had, with all the obstinacy of his character, intrenched himself behind his rights, as impregnable, in his estimation, as the mountains themselves. To-day for the first time it occurred to him that his antagonism might be shattered, that he might be forced to succumb to a power that had laid its iron grasp thus upon the mountains. He leaned heavily upon the table again and struggled for breath, while speech seemed denied him.

"You may rest assured that we shall proceed with all possible regard for you," Wolfgang began again. "The preliminary work which we are about to undertake will scarcely disturb you, and during the winter you will be entirely unmolested; the construction of the road will not begin until the spring, and then, of course----"

"I must yield, you think," Thurgau interposed, hoarsely.

"Yes, you must, Herr Baron," said Elmhorst, coldly.

The fateful word, the truth of which instantly sank into his consciousness, robbed the Freiherr of the last remnant of composure; he rebelled against it with a violence that was almost terrifying, and that might well have caused a doubt as to his mental balance.

"But I will not,--will not, I tell you!" he gasped, almost beside himself "Let rocks and mountains make way before you, I will not yield. Have a care of our mountains, lest, when you are so arrogantly interfering with them, they rush down upon you and shatter all your bridges and structures like reeds. I should like to stand by and see the accursed work a heap of ruins; I should like----"

He did not finish his sentence, but convulsively clutched at his breast; his last word died away in a kind of groan, and on the instant the mighty frame fell prostrate as if struck by lightning.

"Good God!" exclaimed Dr. Reinsfeld, who had appeared at the door of the next room just as the last sentences were being uttered, and who now hurried in. But Erna was before him; she first reached her father, and threw herself down beside him with a cry of terror.

"Do not be distressed, Fräulein Erna," said the young physician, gently pushing her aside, while with Elmhorst's help he raised the unconscious man and laid him on the sofa. "It is a fainting-fit,--an attack of vertigo such as the Herr Baron had a few weeks ago. He will recover from this too."

The young girl had followed him, and stood beside him with her hands convulsively clasped and her eyes riveted upon the face of the speaker. Perhaps she saw there something that contradicted the consoling words.

"No, no!" she gasped. "You are deceiving me; this is something else! Papa! papa! it is I. Do you not know your Erna?"

Benno made no rejoinder, but tore open Thurgau's coat; Elmhorst would have helped him, but Erna thrust away his hand with violence.

"Do not touch him!" she exclaimed, in half-stifled accents. "You have killed him, you have brought ruin to our household. Leave him! I will not let you even touch his hand!"

Wolfgang involuntarily recoiled and looked in dismay that was almost terror at the girl, who at this moment was no longer a child. She had thrown herself before her father with outspread arms as if to shield and defend him, and her eyes flashed with savage hatred as though she were confronting a mortal foe.

"Go, Wolfgang," Reinsfeld said in a low tone, as he led him away. "The poor child in her anguish is unjust, and, moreover, you must not stay. The Baron may possibly recover consciousness, and if so he must not see you."

"May recover?" Elmhorst repeated. "Do you fear----"

"The worst! Go, and send old Vroni here; she must be somewhere in the house. Wait outside, and I will bring you tidings as soon as possible."

With these whispered words he conducted his friend to the door. Wolfgang silently obeyed; he sent into the room the old maid-servant, whom he found in the hall, and then went out into the open air, but there was a dark cloud on his brow. Who could have foreseen such an issue!

A quarter of an hour might have elapsed, when Benno Reinsfeld again made his appearance. He was very pale, and his eyes, usually so clear, were suffused.

"Well?" Wolfgang asked, quickly.

"It is all over!" the young physician replied in an undertone. "A stroke of apoplexy, undoubtedly mortal. I saw that at once."

Wolfgang was apparently unprepared for this reply; his lips quivered as he said in a strained voice, "The affair is intensely painful, Benno, although I am not in the least to blame. I went to work with the greatest caution. The president must be informed."

"Certainly; he is the only near relative, so far as I know. I shall stay with the poor child, who is suffering intensely. Will you undertake to send a messenger to Heilborn?"

"I will drive over myself to inform Nordheim. Farewell."

"Farewell," said Benno, as he returned to the house.

Wolfgang turned to go, but suddenly paused and walked slowly to the window, which was half open.

Within the room Erna was on her knees, with her hands clasped about her father's body. The passionate man who had been standing here but one short quarter of an hour ago in full vigour, obstinately resisting a necessity, now lay motionless, all unconscious of the despairing tears of his orphan child. Fate had decreed that his words should be true; Wolkenstein Court had remained in the possession of the ancient race whose cradle it had been until the last Thurgau had closed his eyes forever.