Part 40 (1/2)
The Baron tried to take his place at table, that the moment for explanation might be postponed, but Harry could not wait.
”Something has occurred to-day upon the farm about which I want to consult you, sir,” he said. ”Will you not come with me for a moment?”
And he made a miserably unsuccessful attempt to look as if it were a matter of small importance. The two men went into the next room, where it was already so dark that they could not see each other's faces distinctly. Harry lit a candle, and placed it on the table between his father and himself.
”Well, father?”
”My dear boy, there was nothing to be done,” the Baron replied, hesitating. For a moment the young man's misery made an impression upon him, but then his invincible loquacity burst forth. ”There was nothing to be done, Harry,” he repeated. And, with a wave of his hand implying true n.o.bility of sentiment, he went on: ”A betrothal is a contract sealed by a promise. From a promise one may be released; it cannot be broken. When the Harfinks refused to see the drift of my hints, and release you from your promise, there was nothing left for me save to acquiesce. As a man of honour, a gentleman, I could do no less; I could not possibly demand your release.”
Baron Karl looked apprehensively at his son, with whose quick temper he was familiar, expecting to be overwhelmed by a torrent of reproaches, of bitter, provoking words, sure that the young man would be led into some display of violence; but nothing of the kind ensued. Harry stood perfectly quiet opposite his father, one hand leaning upon the table where burned the candle. His head drooped a little, and he was very pale, but not a finger moved when his father added, ”You understand that I could do nothing further?”
He murmured, merely, ”Yes, I understand.” His voice sounded thin and hoa.r.s.e, like the voice of a sick child; and then he fell silent again.
After a pause, he said, in a still lower tone, ”Uncle Paul has sent the wagon for Zdena, with a note asking me to drive her back to Zirkow. It has been waiting for an hour and a half, because Zdena did not want to leave before your return. Pray, do me the favour to drive her home in my place: I cannot.”
Then the young fellow turned away and went to a window, outside of which the old apricot-trees rustled and sighed.
Baron Karl was very sorry for his son, but what else could he have done? Surely his case was a hard one. He seemed to himself a very Junius Brutus, sacrificing his son to his country. And having succeeded finally in regarding in this magnanimous light the part he had played, he felt perfectly at peace with himself again.
He left the room, promising to attend to Zdena's return to Zirkow. But Harry remained standing by the window, gazing out into the gathering gloom. The very heart within his breast seemed turning to stone. He knew now that what he had at first held to be merely a ridiculous annoyance had come to be bitter earnest,--yes, terrible earnest! No escape was possible; he could see no hope of rescue; a miracle would have to occur to release him, and he did not believe in miracles.
CHAPTER XXVII.
BARON FRANZ.
Every year, towards the end of August, Baron Franz Leskjewitsch, the family scarecrow and Cr[oe]sus, was wont to appear at his estate, Vorhabshen, near Zirkow, to learn the condition of the harvest, to spend a few days in hunting, and to abuse everything and everybody before, at the end of a couple of weeks, vanis.h.i.+ng as suddenly as he had appeared.
On these occasions he avoided his brother Paul with evident determination. If any of the family were at Komaritz, he invited them to dinner once or twice, at such times taking pains to make himself particularly offensive to Heda, whom he could not endure.
He had never spent any length of time at Vorhabshen since the family quarrel, and in consequence the dwelling-house, or castle, upon which, miser that he was, he never would spend a penny for repairs, had come to be tumble-down and sordid in appearance, both inside and out. It was a huge structure, with numerous windows, in which many of the sashes were sprung and some dest.i.tute of panes, never having been reglazed since the last hail-storm had worked ruin among them.
Among the family portraits, which hung in a dark, oak-wainscoted gallery, the pigeons built their nests.
Like many another Bohemian castle, the mansion at Vorhabshen was built close to the farm-yard, and its front faced an immense, light-brown manure-heap.
The inmates of this unpicturesque ruin--whose duty it was to keep it ready for its master's brief visits--were, first, the housekeeper, Lotta Papoushek; then the Baron's court-fool, the former brewer Studnecka, who at times imagined himself the prophet Elisha, and at other times a great musical genius; then the superintendent, with his underlings; and finally, any young man who might be tempted to come hither to study modern agriculture, and whose studies were generally confined to allowing himself to be pampered by the housekeeper Lotta, who had all the admiration of her cla.s.s for courteous young people.
Frau Lotta had been in the Baron's service for more than forty years.
Her large face was red, dotted with brown warts, and her features were hard and masculine. Although she certainly was far from attractive in appearance, there was a report that she had once been handsome, and that Baron Franz, when he received the news of his son's marriage with Marie Duval, had exclaimed, ”I'll marry my housekeeper! I'll marry Lotta!” How this would have aided to re-establish the family prestige it is difficult to say, and it is doubtful whether the speech was made; but twenty years afterwards Lotta used to tell of it, and of how she had replied, ”That would be too nonsensical, Herr Baron!”
Notwithstanding her peculiarities and her overweening self-conceit, she was a thoroughly good creature, and devoted heart and soul to the Leskjewitsch family. Her absolute honesty induced the Baron to make her authority at Vorhabshen paramount, to the annoyance of the superintendent and his men.
It was a clear afternoon,--the 1st of September; the steam thresher was at work in the farm-yard, and its dreary puffing and groaning were audible in Lotta's small sitting-room, on the ground-floor of the mansion, where she was refres.h.i.+ng herself with a cup of coffee, having invited the student of agriculture--a young Herr von Kraschinsky--to share her nectar.
She had been regaling him with choice bits of family history, as he lay back comfortably in an arm-chair, looking very drowsy, when, after a pause, she remarked, as if in soliloquy, ”I should like to know where the master is; I have had no answer to the long letter I sent to him at Franzburg.”
”Oh, you correspond with the Baron, do you?” murmured the student, too lazy to articulate distinctly.
”Of course I do. You must not forget that my position in the Leskjewitsch family is higher than that of a servant. I was once governess to our poor, dear Baron Fritz; and I have always been devoted to them.”