Part 26 (1/2)

”She seems pleasant and sympathetic,” says Harry, adding, after a short pause, ”I have seldom seen so perfect a beauty.”

”She is as good as gold,” Lato says, quickly, adding, in a rather lower tone, ”and most forlorn, poor thing!”

CHAPTER XV.

COMRADES AND FRIENDS.

The clumsy Komaritz mansion casts its huge shadow upon the old-fas.h.i.+oned garden, upon the large rectangular flower-beds bordered with sage and parsley, wherein bloom in gay companions.h.i.+p sweet-smelling centifolia roses, dark-blue monk's-hood, scarlet verbenas, and lilac phlox; upon the tangle of raspberry- and blackberry-bushes that grow along the garden wall; and upon the badly-mown lawn. Ancient pear-trees and apple-trees mingle their shade with that of the old house.

An afternoon languor broods over it all. The buzz of bees above the flower-beds sounds languid; languid sounds the rustle of the leaves when, after a prolonged slumber, they awake for an instant, s.h.i.+ver, and then fall silent again; languid is the tone of the old piano, upon which the youngest Leskjewitsch is practising the 'Cloches du Monastere,' under the supervision of a teacher engaged for the summer holidays,--a Frulein Laut.

Nothing is for the present to be seen or heard of the other inmates of the castle. Hedwig is consulting with her maid, and the Countess Zriny is endeavouring to repair a great misfortune. On her journey from Vienna to Komaritz she relieved her maid, who was overladen with hand-bags, of two objects particularly dear to her soul,--a carved, partly-painted and partly-gilded St. John, and a large bottle of eau de Lourdes. In changing trains at Pernik, she slipped and fell at full length upon the platform; the bottle of eau de Lourdes flew one way and the St. John another; the bottle was broken, and St. John not only lost his head and one hand, but when the poor Countess gathered up his remains he proved to be injured in every part. His resuscitation is at present the important task of the old lady's life. At this moment she is working away at the folds of his garment with much devotion--and black oil paint.

Harry and Lato have told no one of their arrival. They are lying upon a gra.s.sy slope beneath a huge apple-tree, smoking, and exchanging reminiscences.

”How homelike all this is!” says Treurenberg, in his soft voice, and with a slightly drawling intonation. ”I grow ten years younger here.

The same flowers, the same trees, the same fragrance, the same world-forgotten solitude, and, if I am not mistaken,”--he smiles a little,--”the same music. You used to play the 'Convent Bells' then.”

”Yes,” Harry replies, ”'Les Cloches du Monastere' was the acme and the point of departure of my musical studies. I got rid of my last music-teacher and my last 'coach' at the same time.”

”Do you mean Tuschalek?” asks Treurenberg.

”That was his name.”

”H'm! I can see him now. Heavens! those hands!” Treurenberg gazes reflectively into s.p.a.ce. ”They were always as red as radishes.”

”They reminded me rather of carrots that had just been pulled out of the ground,” Harry mutters.

”How the old times rise up before me!” Lato muses, letting his glance wander anew over the garden, where there is buzzing of innumerable bees; over the clumsy faade of the mansion; over the little eminence where still stand the quarters of Tuschalek and the Pole; then up to the old ruined castle, which stands out against the dark-blue August skies an almost formless shape, brown and grim, with its old scars from fire, and hung about with wreaths of wild climbing vines.

”'Tis odd,--something has seemed to me lacking about the dear old nest,” Lato begins again, after a pause. ”Now I know what it is.”

”Well?”

”The little figure of your cousin Zdena. I am always looking for her to come skipping from among the flowers like a wayward little fairy.”

Harry frowns, plucks a b.u.t.tercup growing in the gra.s.s, and is mute.

Without heeding his friend's mood, Treurenberg goes on: ”As a child, she was most charming and unusually intelligent and gifted. Has the promise of her childhood not been fulfilled?”

Harry pulls another b.u.t.tercup out of the gra.s.s, and carefully deposits it beside the first.

”That is a matter of opinion,” he remarks, carelessly, without looking at his friend.

”'Tis strange! Many a girl's beauty vanishes suddenly at about fourteen without leaving a trace; but I would have wagered my head that your cousin would have been beautiful,” remarks Lato.

”I have not said that she is ugly,” Harry growls.