Читать книгу The Breaking of the Storm - Spielhagen Friedrich - Страница 13

Table of Contents

The President had remarked in his note that the want of a mistress of the house might be felt by the young lady of their party, but as the want was one that could not be at once made good, he promised the Count absolution beforehand. The Count had immediately sent off a mounted messenger to his neighbour, Herr von Strummin, with the pressing request to come with his wife and daughter to Golmberg and make arrangements for passing the night there. The family were quite ready to do him this neighbourly service, and Frau and Fräulein von Strummin received Elsa in the hall and conducted her to her apartment, which adjoined their own.

The President rubbed his thin white hands together before the fire in his own comfortable room, while Johann arranged his things: "Very nice! very nice indeed! This ought quite to reconcile our self-willed young lady to her mishap, and restore her grumbling old father to a more sociable frame of mind."

Elsa was thoroughly reconciled. Set free from her moving prison, to find a brightly-illuminated castle in the depths of the forest--servants with torches at the entrance--and in the ancient hall, with its curiously-twisted columns, the unexpected appearance of two ladies, who, stepping forward from among the weapons and armour with which the walls and pillars were hung, welcomed her warmly, and led her into the cosiest of rooms, a flaming fire on the hearth, wax candles burning brightly before a tall looking-glass in a rich antique frame, silk hangings of the most wonderful pattern repeated in every possible variety on the heavy curtains over the deep-set windows, the portières to the lofty gilt doors, and the hangings of the old-fashioned bed--all was so strange, so charming, so exactly what an adventure ought to be. Elsa shook the motherly-looking Frau von Strummin by the hand and thanked her for her trouble, and kissing the pretty, mischievous-looking, grey-eyed little girl, asked permission to call her "Meta," as her mother did, who had just left the room. Meta responded with the greatest warmth to her embrace, and declared that nothing in the world could have pleased her more than this evening's invitation. She and mamma had been so dull at Strummin--it was so horribly dull in the country--and then the Count's letter came! She always liked coming to Golmberg, the forest was so beautiful, and the view from the summit of the tower or from the top of the Golmberg over the woods and sea was too enchanting. She did not often come here though; her mother did not much like the trouble of moving, and the gentlemen thought only of their shooting, their horses, and especially of themselves. So that she really had been not a little surprised at the Count being in such a hurry to provide company for the strange young lady, just as if he had known beforehand how sweet and charming the stranger would be, and how pleasant it would be to keep her company, and to chatter all this nonsense to her; and might she call her "du"? because then they could talk twice as comfortably. The permission, readily given and sealed with a kiss, enchanted the excitable little girl.

"You must never go away again," she cried, "or, at any rate, it must be only to return in the autumn! He will never marry me; I have got nothing, and he has nothing, in spite of his great estates, and if we cannot manage to get the railroad and the harbour made here, my papa says we shall all be bankrupts. And your papa and the President have got it all in their own hands, my papa said as we came here, and so if you marry him, of course your papa will agree to the concession--that is what they call it, is not it? And you are already concerned in it in a sort of way, for my papa says that the harbour can only be made on land which belongs to your aunt, and you and your brother will be her heirs, or are already co-heirs with her. My papa says it is the most wonderful will, and he should very much like to know how the matter really stands. Do you not know all about it? Do, do tell me! I will not tell any one."

"I really do not know," answered Elsa, "I only know that we are very poor, and that as far as I am concerned you may still marry your Count."

"I would do it very readily," said the little lady seriously, "but I am not pretty enough for him with my insignificant little face and my snub nose. I shall marry some day a rich city man, who will be impressed with our old nobility--for the Strummins are as old as the island, you know--some Herr Schulze or Müller or Schmidt. By-the-bye, what is the name of the officer who came with you?"

"Schmidt--Reinhold Schmidt."

"No; you are joking!"

"No, really; but he is not an officer."

"Not an officer? But how is he a captain then?"

"He is captain of a ship."

"In the navy?"

"Only a merchant-captain."

"No! you don't say so!"

It came out so comically, and Meta clasped her little hands in such naïve amazement, that Elsa could not help laughing, and laughed all the more to hide the blush of confusion which rose to her cheek.

"But then he will not have supper with us?" said Meta.

"Why not?" asked Elsa, suddenly becoming quite grave again.

"Only a merchant-captain!" repeated Meta. "What a pity! such a good-looking man! I had quite counted upon him for myself! But a merchant-captain!"

Frau von Strummin here came in to accompany the two girls to supper. Meta flew to her mother to communicate her great discovery.

"It has all been arranged," answered her mother. "The Count asked your father and the President if they wished Captain Schmidt to be invited to join the party. Both gentlemen expressed themselves in favour of it, and so he will appear at table. He really seems a very well-mannered sort of person," concluded Frau von Strummin.

"I am really curious to see him," said Meta.

Elsa said nothing; but as, coming into the corridor, she met her father just leaving his room, she whispered to him, "Thank you!"

"One must make the best of a bad job," answered the General in the same tone.

Elsa was a little surprised; she had not thought that he would have taken so seriously the question of etiquette which he had decided according to her view. She did not consider that her father could not understand her words without some explanation, and did not know that he had given them quite another meaning.

He had been put out, and had allowed his annoyance to be seen--even when they were received in the hall. He thought that this had not escaped Elsa, and that she was pleased now to see that he had meanwhile made up his mind to submit quietly and calmly to the inevitable, and therefore met him with a smile. The young sailor had only been recalled to his mind by the Count's question. He had attached no importance to the question or to his own answer, that he did not know why the Count should not invite Captain Schmidt to his table.

Happily for Reinhold himself he had not even a suspicion of the possibility that his appearance or non-appearance at table could be a question to be seriously discussed by the other members of the party.

"What is begun may as well be continued," said he to himself, as with the help of the things he had brought with him in a handbag from the ship in case of accidents, he arranged his dress as well as he could; "and now away with melancholy. If I have got aground by my own stupidity, I shall get off again in time. To go about hanging my head, or losing it, would not make up for my folly, but only make matters worse, and they are quite bad enough already. But where are my shoes?"

At the last moment on board he had changed the shoes he was wearing for a pair of high seaboots. They had been most useful to him since through rain and puddles, in the wet sands on the shore, and on the way to the farm; but now! Where were the shoes? Not in the bag, at any rate, into which he thought he had thrown them, and out of which they would not appear, although at last in his despair he tumbled all the things out and strewed them around him. And this garment which he had taken up a dozen times and let fall again, half the skirt was missing. It was not his blue frockcoat, it was his black tailcoat, the most precious article in his wardrobe, which he had only been in the habit of wearing for a dinner with his owners, or the consul, and on other most solemn occasions.

Reinhold rushed at the bell--the broken rope came away in his hand. He tore open the door and looked into the passage--not a servant to be seen. He called softly at first, then louder, not a servant would hear. What was to be done? The rough pilot-coat which he had worn under his waterproof, and which yet had got wet through in some places, had already been taken away by the servant to be dried. In a quarter of an hour the man had said the Count begged him to come to supper, twenty minutes had already passed; he had distinctly heard the President, whose room was some doors off from his, walk along the passage on his way downstairs. He must either remain here in the most absurd captivity, or appear before the company below in the extraordinary attire of seaboots and a dress-coat! Before the eyes of the President, whose long, thin figure, from the crown of his small aristocratic head to the soles of the polished boots which he had worn even on board, was a model of the most painfully precise neatness; before the stiff, tightly buttoned-up General; before the Count, who already showed some disposition to consider him of small account in society; before the ladies; before her--before her laughter-loving brown eyes! "Well, if I was fool enough to follow a sign from those eyes, this shall be my punishment; thus will I do penance in tailcoat and seaboots."

And with one effort he pulled on the garment which he had still held in his extended left hand, looking at it from time to time with dismay, and again opened the door, this time to pass with steady step along the corridor, down the broad stairs, and into the dining-room below, whose whereabouts he had already ascertained from the servant.