Part 19 (1/2)
Bertram, too, had heard the warlike sounds. He leaned back in his writing chair and listened with bated breath.
”How her heart is sure to beat!” he said to himself.
He rose and went to the open window. From the elevation on which he was, he could see a considerable portion of the high road, could discern the flash of the bayonets through the clouds of dust which a brisk breeze was scattering at times, so that sections of the columns on the march became visible.
In the village below they were firing cannon; from the mountains yonder the echo came rolling.
”How this will resound within her heart!”
From the adjoining bedroom, where he had already begun to put up his master's things in view of their departure, fixed for the day following, Konski came hurrying in to ask, if the Herr Doctor was not going to dress? It was getting late.
”I am in no hurry,” said Bertram.
”Well, sir,” said Konski, ”My Lady is most anxious you should be present at the reception of the officers. Aurora has twice come to the door with a message about it.”
And he pointed, as he spoke, to the bedroom door and grinned.
”I do not intend to be present at the reception,” Bertram said; ”but I may as well dress now.” And he followed Konski into the bedroom.
As Konski was a.s.sisting him, he said to him--
”Well, on what terms are you with that girl now? You will have to make haste if you wish to settle everything before we go.”
”It is already settled, and settled very nicely,” Konski made answer, ”since last night, sir. With the like of us, such things are settled smartly, Herr Doctor, and I have a favour to ask of you in connection with it. Aurora--it's a strange name that, sir, is it not? and her two others are just as bad: Amanda Rolline--thank you, says I. Well, it is not her fault, though, poor thing, and I won't mind re-baptizing her once we, are in Berlin. But, as I was going to say, Herr Doctor, she insists upon our getting married in the beginning of October, because at the end of October Christine is going to be married to Peter Weissenborn, and she wants to annoy Christina by being married before her, so she says; but I fancy it's meant for Peter, who used to be uncommonly sweet upon her, and, I rather think, promised to marry her at one time. And if the Herr Doctor is not going to Italy at all, or leastways not now, we thought ...”
”You know,” said Bertram, ”how sorry I shall be to part with you; but I will not stand in the way of your happiness.”
”It would be my greatest happiness, sir,” said Konski, ”to remain with you as long as I live. And there's just one way, so Aurora says ...”
”Well?”
Konski hesitated a little, then took heart of grace, and said, with an embarra.s.sed sort of smirk--
”If the Herr Doctor would be so very kind as to marry too!”
”I am afraid,” said Bertram, ”you will have to devise some other way out of the difficulty.”
Konski was meditatively removing some specks of dust from the black waistcoat which he held in his hand, and said--
”No offence, sir! These women are always a-puzzling out something or other in their brains, and Aurora's brains are by no means bad brains.
She thinks it would be uncommon nice, if I would remain the Herr Doctor's valet, and she was to be maid to your lady, sir; and then, whether you went to Italy or elsewhere, we four would always be nice and snug together.”
”I have no idea what you are talking about,” said Bertram. ”Give me my waistcoat.”
”No offence, sir,” Konski repeated, as he handed his master the waistcoat and took up the dress-coat; ”but she leaves me no peace, she does not, and she says that it's all up with the Baron; and from what she heard My Lady say to master this morning about the Herr Doctor, says she, the Herr Doctor need but ask and they'd give him a half dozen daughters, only they have not got more than one; and that one, dear Miss Erna--why, I knows, and no one knows better than me--how fond she is of the Herr Doctor.”
As Bertram had again turned away, the poor fellow, much to his regret, could not see what impression his remarks had made upon his master; and now they heard a heavy, hurried step coming through the study. There was a knock, then Otto put in his head and asked if he might trouble Bertram for a minute. Bertram begged him to come in, and beckoned his man to leave the room.
”I have been repeatedly wis.h.i.+ng to come up and see you,” said Otto; ”Hildegard is so afraid that you mean to go--and--dear me, you have really been packing.”