For Sceptre and Crown Volume II Part 16

"And now I may go to him?" asked Madame von Wendenstein.

"And I?" cried her daughter.

"Yes," said the old gentleman, "and I wish I could go with you, but I should be of no use there."

Helena rose; she walked slowly but with a firm step towards Madame von Wendenstein and said, while her eyes shone brilliantly,--

"May I accompany you? If my father will permit it?"

"You, Helena?" cried the pastor.

"Our brave soldiers want nursing," said the young girl, looking firmly at her father, "and you have taught me to help the suffering. Will you not allow me at such a time as this to do my duty?"

The pastor looked kindly at his daughter. "Go, my child, and G.o.d be with you;" and turning to Madame von Wendenstein, he added, "Will you take my daughter under your protection?"

"With all my heart," cried the old lady, and folded the pastor's daughter in her arms.

Candidate Behrmann had watched the whole of this scene in silence.

He bit his lips, when Helena announced her intention of accompanying Madame von Wendenstein, and a pale ray shot from his eyes, but his face immediately resumed its smooth smiling expression, he stepped forward and said in a gentle voice,--

"I shall also beg permission, madame, to accompany you on your journey; it will be desirable for you to have a male protector, and I think on the site of the b.l.o.o.d.y battle-field spiritual consolation will be needed and welcomed. I believe I can be more useful there than here, where until I return my uncle can so well fulfil all the duties of his sacred office alone."

He looked humbly and modestly at his uncle and the president, awaiting their reply.

"That is a good and right thought, my dear nephew," said the pastor, holding out his hand to him; "on yonder battle-field there is grave and blessed work to be done, and I can get on here in the meantime quite well alone."

The president was glad that the ladies should have a protector, and Madame von Wendenstein thanked the candidate heartily for facilitating her journey to her suffering son.

Helena had looked up, startled for a moment when her cousin said he would accompany the ladies; then in silence, with downcast eyes, she listened to the rest of the conversation, neither word nor look betraying the least interest in it.

The greatest movement and activity suddenly began in the old castle.

Madame von Wendenstein hastened through the well-known rooms ordering and arranging, here showing her daughters what must be packed in the travelling trunks, there sorting out wine, sugar, and nourishment of all kinds, then again giving the servants instructions as to what they were to do in her absence: all the silent abstraction which had altered the old lady during the last few days had vanished, with active step and s.h.i.+ning eyes she hurried about, and anyone so seeing her might have thought she was preparing for some great festival.

Helena had returned to the Pfarrhaus with her father and the candidate to make her rapid preparations for the journey, and not quite two hours after the journey had been decided on the president's comfortable carriage, with its well-bred powerful horses, stood before the large hall door of the castle.

Madame von Wendenstein gave her husband a long and affectionate embrace, it was the first time for years that they had been separated.

He laid his hand on her head and said, "G.o.d bless you! and bring you back with our son!"

Old Deyke was there, and a crowd of villagers were there too, with their wives and daughters, for the news had spread like wild-fire that the president's wife and daughter were going to nurse the wounded lieutenant, and that the pastor's daughter and the new candidate were to accompany them. They all came to take leave, and Madame von Wendenstein shook hands with all, and promised each to gain news of this or that relative who was with the army. What the carriage could still hold was taken up with love offerings that all had brought for their relations, and every head was uncovered when at last the carriage rolled away; but there was no shouting, no loud word was heard, and they all went back quietly to their homes, in great anxiety as to what the next few days must bring, whether the life or death of those dear to them.

The president went quietly back into the castle with the pastor, and the two old gentlemen sat together for a long time. They said but little, and yet each found in these weary times consolation in the society of the other. The president cast his eyes round the drawing-room, which was as quiet and comfortable as ever, but when he looked at the place where his wife usually sat, and thought of the cheerful voices which used to sound through the room, and then turned his thoughts to the distant town where his son lay threatened by death, a mist came before his eyes, he pressed his eyelids together and a hot drop fell on his hand. He stood up quickly, and walked several times up and down the room.

The pastor arose.

"My honoured old friend," he said, "at such a moment as this a man like yourself need not be ashamed of a tear! It is late, let us go to rest, and these days will pa.s.s away!"

The president stood still, held out his hand to the pastor, and looked at him through the blinding tears which ran down his cheeks.

"Pray to G.o.d," he said in a low voice, "to give me back my son."

The pastor went home. All was quiet in the castle and the darkness of night brooded over it, but a light still burned in the president's window, and the servants heard, even until morning dawned, the firm regular step of their old master as he paced up and down in the lonely castle.

CHAPTER XVI.

INTRIGUE.

Whilst in North Germany the catastrophe so disastrous to the House of Guelph was completed, in Vienna everything was expected from the battle which all foresaw must take place in Bohemia almost immediately. The Austrian arms had been successful in Italy, that drill ground for the Austrian general staff officers, the battle of Custozza had been won, and new confidence filled the Viennese, as to their success in Germany.

The Viennese placed full confidence in Field-Marshal Benedek, the man of the people, and from him they expected, in their light-hearted, sanguine fas.h.i.+on, complete success. Those anxious doubts had vanished which a short time before had filled them with uneasiness; the arms of Austria were victorious in Italy, fortune was favourable to the empire, and with excited but joyful confidence they awaited news from Bohemia.

A great victory was certainly expected.

Things were looked at differently, and not with such confidence in the state offices in the Ballhaus Platz, and in the Hofburg.

Count Mensdorff was sad and downcast; the Italian success had not removed his gloomy forebodings, and he could only reply with a feeble smile to the congratulations he received on the victory of Custozza.

The emperor alternated between fear and joyful hope; the victory in Italy awakened in his heart the proud recollection of Novara, and a wide and brilliant future spread before his gaze. But when the doubts, the warnings of Field-Marshal Benedek occurred to him--the plain, straightforward general, who troubled himself little about strategic operations, and only knew how to lead his soldiers against the enemy and to fight; but who continually maintained that with these troops, in the condition in which he found them, he could not beat the enemy--the emperor's heart had deep misgivings, and he waited for the future with great anxiety.

Whilst all Vienna felt the most restless, feverish excitement; whilst everyone wished that time had wings to hasten the events of the future, Madame Antonia Balzer lay on her luxurious couch in her quiet boudoir.

The curtains were closed, notwithstanding the great heat; a soft twilight prevailed, and a mysterious and varied perfume pervaded the room, that perfume which fills the immediate neighbourhood of an elegant and beautiful woman; one cannot tell of what it consists, but it gives the invisible air a magnetic, sympathetic charm.

The young lady lay there as if she courted sleep, and on her features neither the pa.s.sionate _abandon_ appeared with which she had welcomed Herr von Stielow, nor the icy coldness which she had shown to her husband.

Her large eyes gazed gloomily into s.p.a.ce, and her face expressed anxious, mournful weariness.

A number of sealed letters and telegrams lay on a small table near her.

Her pearly hand played carelessly with a small poodle dog which lay curled up in her lap.

"I thought I was strong," she whispered to herself; "and yet I cannot forget him!"

She sprang up, placed the little dog upon the pillow, and walked slowly up and down the room.

"What a wonderful organization is our human nature!" she cried scornfully. "I thought I was strong. I had set it before me as a means to rule, to rise on the aspiring ladder of life, without permitting myself to be kept back by the emotions and motives of the common herd; and now, when my feet touch the very first step of the ladder I look back, my heart weeps; I am sick with love and regret, like any milliner's girl," she added, with an angry look, as she stamped her small foot upon the carpet.

She gazed before her.

"And why," she asked thoughtfully, "why cannot my heart forget one who so scornfully turned from me, who so contemptuously gave me up? This Count Rivero--he offers me what I long for; he is a man who occupies a high place in the world, and guides with powerful hand the threads that weave the fate of men; why do I not love him? I might be happy. And he," she continued, while a soft mist came over her eyes, and her arms were slightly raised, "he, for whom every pulse in my heart beats, he whom I call back in the still hours of the night, whom my arms seek in empty s.p.a.ce, who is he? A boy,--in intellect far beneath me; yet oh! he is so beautiful, so pure!" she cried, stretching out her hands to the picture her mind had called up; "I love him, and I am the slave of my love!"

She sank wearily into a luxurious chair, and covered her face with her hands.

She sat for a long time motionless, and only the panting breath of her heaving bosom interrupted the silence of the darkened room.

Then again she sprang up, and with trembling lips and vehement voice she cried,--