Chapter 40

VINDICATED.

It was a wild night. Driving clouds kept hiding and revealing the stormy-looking moon. I was out-of-doors. I could not remain in the house; it had felt too small for me, but now nature felt too large. I dimly saw the huge pile of the schloss defined against the gray light; sometimes when the moon unveiled herself it started out clear, and black, and grim. I saw a light in a corner window--that was Sigmund's room; and another in a room below--that was the Graf's study, and there the terrible man sat. I heard the wind moan among the trees, heard the great dogs baying from the kennels; from an open window came rich, low, mellow sounds. Old Brunken was in the music-room, playing to himself upon the violoncello. That was a movement from the "Grand Septuor"--the second movement, which is, if one may use such an expression, painfully beautiful. I bethought myself of the woods which lay hidden from me, the vast avenues, the lonely tanks, the grotesques statues, and that terrible figure with its arms cast upward, at the end of the long walk, and I shivered faintly.

I was some short distance down the principal avenue, and dared not go any further. A sudden dread of the loneliness and the night-voices came upon me; my heart beating thickly, I turned to go back to the house. I would try to comfort poor Countess Hildegarde in her watching and her fears.

But there is a step near me. Some one comes up the avenue, with foot that knows its windings, its turns and twists, its ups and downs.

"Eugen!" I said, tremulously.

A sudden pause--a stop; then he said with a kind of laugh:

"Witchcraft--Zauberei!" and was going on.

But now I knew his whereabouts, and coming up to him, touched his arm.

"This, however, is reality!" he exclaimed, infolding me and kissing me as he hurried on. "May, how is he?"

"Just the same," said I, clinging to him. "Oh, thank Heaven that you are come!"

"I drove to the gates, and sent the fellow away. But what art thou doing alone at the Ghost's Corner on a stormy night?"

We were still walking fast toward the schloss. My heart was beating fast, half with fear of what was impending, half with intensity of joy at hearing his voice again, and knowing what that last letter had told me.

As we emerged upon the great terrace before the house Eugen made one (the only one) momentary pause, pressed my arm, and bit his lips. I knew the meaning of it all. Then we passed quickly on. We met no one in the great stone hall--no one on the stairway or along the passages--straight he held his way, and I with him.

We entered the room. Eugen's eyes leaped swiftly to his child's face. I saw him pass his hand over his mouth. I withdrew my hand from his arm and stood aside, feeling a tremulous thankfulness that he was here, and that that restless plaining would at last be hushed in satisfaction.

A delusion! The face over which my lover bent did not brighten; nor the eyes recognize him. The child did not know the father for whom he had yearned out his little heart--he did not hear the half-frantic words spoken by that father as he flung himself upon him, kissing him, beseeching him, conjuring him with every foolish word of fondness that he could think of, to speak, answer, look up once again.

Then fear, terror overcame the man--for the first time I saw him look pale with apprehension.

"Not this cup--not this!" muttered he. "_Gott im Himmel!_ anything short of this--I will give him up--leave him--anything--only let him live!"

He had flung himself, unnerved, trembling, upon a chair by the bedside--his face buried in his hands. I saw the sweat stand upon his brow--I could do nothing to help--nothing but wish despairingly that some blessed miracle would reverse the condition of the child and me--lay me low in death upon that bed--place him safe and sound in his father's arms.

Is it not hard, you father of many children, to lose one of them? Do you not grudge Death his prize? But this man had but the one; the love between them was such a love as one meets perhaps once in a life-time. The child's life had been a mourning to him, the father's a burden, ever since they had parted.

I felt it strange that I should be trying to comfort him, and yet it was so; it was his brow that leaned on my shoulder; it was he who was faint with anguish, so that he could scarce see or speak--his hand that was cold and nerveless. It was I who said:

"Do not despair, I hope still."

"If he is dying," said Eugen, "he shall die in my arms."

With which, as if the idea were a dreary kind of comfort, he started up, folded Sigmund in a shawl, and lifted him out of bed, infolding him in his arms, and pillowing his head upon his breast.

It was a terrible moment, yet, as I clung to his arm, and with him looked into our darling's face, I felt that von Francius' words, spoken long ago to my sister, contained a deep truth. This joy, so like a sorrow--would I have parted with it? A thousand times, no!

Whether the motion and movement roused him, or whether that were the crisis of some change, I knew not. Sigmund's eyes opened. He bent them upon the face above him, and after a pause of reflection, said, in a voice whose utter satisfaction passed anything I had ever heard: "My own father!" released a pair of little wasted arms from his covering, and clasped them round Eugen's neck, putting his face close to his, and kissing him as if no number of kisses could ever satisfy him.

Upon this scene, as Eugen stood in the middle of the room, his head bent down, a smile upon his face which no ultimate griefs could for the moment quench, there entered the countess.

Her greeting after six years of absence, separation, belief in his dishonesty, was a strange one. She came quickly forward, laid her hand on his arm, and said:

"Eugen, it is dreadfully infectious! Don't kiss the child in that way, or you will take the fever and be laid up too."

He looked up, and at his look a shock passed across her face; with pallid cheeks and parted lips she gazed at him speechless.

His mind, too, seemed to bridge the gulf--it was in a strange tone that he answered:

"Ah, Hildegarde! What does it matter what becomes of me? Leave me this!"

"No, not that, Eugen," said I, going up to him, and I suppose something in my eyes moved him, for he gave the child into my arms in silence.

The countess had stood looking at him. She strove for silence; sought tremulously after coldness, but in vain.

"Eugen--" She came nearer, and looked more closely at him. "_Herrgott!_ how you are altered! What a meeting! I--can it be six years ago--and now--oh!" Her voice broke into a very wail. "We loved you--why did you deceive us?"

My heart stood still. Would he stand this test? It was the hardest he had had. Gräfin Hildegarde had been--was dear to him. That he was dear to her, intensely dear, that love for him was intwined about her very heart-strings, stood confessed now. "Why did you deceive us?" It sounded more like, "Tell us we may trust you; make us happy again!" One word from him, and the poor sad lady would have banished from her heart the long-staying, unwelcome guest--belief in his falseness, and closed it away from her forever.

He was spared the dreadful necessity of answering her. A timid summons from her maid at the door told her the count wanted to speak to her, and she left us quickly.

* * * * *

Sigmund did not die; he recovered, and lives now. But with that I am not at present concerned.

It was the afternoon following that never-to-be-forgotten night. I had left Eugen watching beside Sigmund, who was sleeping, his hand jealously holding two of his father's fingers.

I intended to call at Frau Mittendorf's door to say that I could not yet return there, and when I came back, said Eugen, he would have something to tell me; he was going to speak with his brother--to tell him that we should be married, "and to speak about Sigmund," he added, decisively. "I will not risk such a thing as this again. If you had not been here he might have died without my knowing it. I feel myself absolved from all obligation to let him remain. My child's happiness shall not be further sacrificed."

With this understanding I left him. I went toward the countess's room, to speak to her, and tell her of Sigmund before I went out. I heard voices ere I entered the room, and when I entered it I stood still, and a sickly apprehension clutched my very heart. There stood my evil genius--the _böser Geist_ of my lover's fate--Anna Sartorius. And the count and countess were present, apparently waiting for her to begin to speak.

"You are here," said the Gräfin to me. "I was just about to send for you. This lady says she knows you."

"She does," said I, hesitatingly.

Anna looked at me. There was gravity in her face, and the usual cynical smile in her eyes.

"You are surprised to see me," said she. "You will be still more surprised to hear that I have journeyed all the way from Elberthal to Lahnburg on your account, and for your benefit."

I did not believe her, and composing myself as well as I could, sat down. After all, what could she do to harm me? She could not rob me of Eugen's heart, and she had already done her worst against him and his fair name.

Anna had a strong will, she exerted it. Graf Bruno was looking in some surprise at the unexpected guest; the countess sat rigidly upright, with a puzzled look, as if at the sight of Anna she recalled some far-past scene. Anna compelled their attention; she turned to me, saying:

"Please remain here, Miss Wedderburn. What I have to say concerns you as much as any one here. You wonder who I am, and what business I have to intrude myself upon you," she added to the others.

"I confess--" began the countess, and Anna went on:

"You, _gnädige Frau_, have spoken to me before, and I to you. I see you remember, or feel you ought to remember me. I will recall the occasion of our meeting to your mind. You once called at my father's house--he was a music teacher--to ask about lessons for some friend or protégée of yours. My father was engaged at the moment, and I invited you into my sitting-room and endeavored to begin a conversation with you. You were very distant and very proud, scarcely deigning to answer me. When my father came into the room, I left it. But I could not help laughing at your treatment of me. You little knew from your shut-up, _cossue_ existence among the lofty ones of the earth, what influence even such insignificant persons as I might have upon your lot. At the time I was the intimate friend of, and in close correspondence with, a person who afterward became one of your family. Her name was Vittoria Leopardi, and she married your brother-in-law, Graf Eugen."

The plain-spoken, plain-looking woman had her way. She had the same power as that which shone in the "glittering eye" of the Ancient Mariner. Whether we liked or not we gave her our attention. All were listening now, and we listened to the end.

"Vittoria Leopardi was the Italian governess at General von ----'s. At one time she had several music lessons from my father. That was how I became acquainted with her. She was very beautiful--almost as beautiful as you, Miss Wedderburn, and I, dull and plain myself, have a keen appreciation of beauty and of the gentleness which does not always accompany it. When I first knew her she was lonely and strange, and I tried to befriend her. I soon began to learn what a singular mixture of sordid worldliness and vacant weak-mindedness dwelt behind her fair face. She wrote to me often, for she was one of the persons who must have some one to whom to relate their 'triumphs' and conquests, and I suppose I was the only person she could get to listen to her.

"At that time--the time you called at our house, _gnädige Frau_--her epistles were decidedly tedious. What sense she had--there was never too much of it--was completely eclipsed. At last came the announcement that her noble and gallant Uhlan had proposed, and been accepted--naturally. She told me what he was, and his possessions and prospects; his chief merit in her eyes appeared to be that he would let her do anything she liked, and release her from the drudgery of teaching, for which she never had the least affinity. She hated children. She never on any occasion hinted that she loved him very much.

"In due time the marriage, as you all know, came off. She almost dropped me then, but never completely so; I suppose she had that instinct which stupid people often have as to the sort of people who may be of use to them some time. I received no invitations to her house. She used awkwardly to apologize for the negligence sometimes, and say she was so busy, and it would be no compliment to me to ask me to meet all those stupid people of whom the house was always full.

"That did not trouble me much, though I loved her none the better for it. She had become more a study to me now than anything I really cared for. Occasionally I used to go and see her, in the morning, before she had left her room; and once, and once only, I met her husband in the corridor. He was hastening away to his duty, and scarcely saw me as he hurried past. Of course I knew him by sight as well as possible. Who did not? Occasionally she came to me to recount her triumphs and make me jealous. She did not wish to reign supreme in her husband's heart; she wished idle men to pay her compliments. Everybody in ---- knew of the extravagance of that household, and the reckless, neck-or-nothing habits of its master. People were indignant with him that he did not reform. I say it would have been easier for him to find his way alone up the Matterhorn in the dark than to reform--after his marriage.

"There had been hope for him before--there was none afterward. A pretty inducement to reform, she offered him! I knew that woman through and through, and I tell you that there never lived a more selfish, feeble, vain, and miserable thing. All was self--self--self. When she was mated to a man who never did think of self--whose one joy was to be giving, whose generosity was no less a by-word than his recklessness, who was delighted if she expressed a wish, and would move heaven and earth to gratify it; the more eagerly the more unreasonable it was--_mes amis_, I think it is easy to guess the end--the end was ruin. I watched it coming on, and I thought of you, Frau Gräfin. Vittoria was expecting her confinement in the course of a few months. I never heard her express a hope as to the coming child, never a word of joy, never a thought as to the wider cares which a short time would bring to her. She did say often, with a sigh, that women with young children were so tied; they could not do this, and they could not do that. She was in great excitement when she was invited to come here; in great triumph when she returned.

"Eugen, she said, was a fool not to conciliate his brother and that doting old saint (her words, _gnädige Frau_, not mine) more than he did. It was evident that they would do anything for him if he only flattered them, but he was so insanely downright--she called it stupid, she said. The idea of missing such advantages when a few words of common politeness would have secured them. I may add that what she called 'common politeness' was just the same thing that I called smooth hypocrisy.

"Very shortly after this her child was born. I did not see her then. Her husband lost all his money on a race, and came to smash, as you English say. She wrote to me. She was in absolute need of money, she said; Eugen had not been able to give her any. He had said they must retrench. Retrench! was that what she married him for! There was a set of turquoises that she must have, or another woman would get them, and then she would die. And her milliner, a most unreasonable woman, had sent word that she must be paid.

"So she was grumbling in a letter which I received one afternoon, and the next I was frightfully startled to see herself. She came in and said smilingly that she was going to ask a favor of me. Would I take her cab on to the bank and get a check cashed for her? She did not want to go there herself. And then she explained how her brother-in-law had given her a check for a thousand thalers--was it not kind of him? It really did not enter my head at the moment to think there was anything wrong about the check. She had indorsed it, and I took it, received the money for it, and brought it to her. She trembled so as she took it, and was so remarkably quiet about it, that it suddenly flashed upon my mind that there must be something not as it ought to be about it.

"I asked her a question or two, and she said, deliberately contradicting herself, that the Herr Graf had not given it to her, but to her husband, and then she went away, and I was sure I should hear more about it. I