CHAPTER XV.
A GOOD CONCLUSION TO A BAD RESULT.
Eric had Pranken called, and charged him with the duty of informing hissister; but Pranken insisted that they should let Bella sleep as longas she would, as she needed the strength. So the dawning day grewbrighter and brighter, and the Sister of Mercy sat praying by thebedside of him who had fallen asleep.
Eric went down into the garden, where he met the Banker: he silentlygave him his hand, and they walked on together without speaking. Ericwas called in to Bella, who was upon the sofa, weeping. The Sister ofMercy had broken the news to her when she woke. Bella had been with thecorpse, and now was mourning loud and immoderately. Eric consoled her,requesting that she would excuse his absence for a few hours, as hemust see how they all were at the Villa, and would return by evening.
He rode homewards.
At the foot of the mountain, Claus met him with his son, the Cooper;and the field-guard cried,--
"Good luck, Herr Captain! good luck for you; and you are good luck forus too. We've just bought the Carp Inn for Ferdinand. Could there beany thing better? I'm father of an inn."
Eric hushed him, but could not get in a word; for Claus exclaimed,--
"Do you know that now Sevenpiper's going to let his daughter marryFerdinand? and it's all owing to you."
"Me?"
"Yes, indeed. If the rich Sonnenkamp can let his daughter marry ateacher, Sevenpiper can give his daughter to the Cooper. Isn't that so?O Herr Captain! You are a good luck for us all. And here, Herr Captain,here's my hand: I'll drink not a drop more after to-day, except whenI'm thirsty: mayn't I quench my thirst? Thank heaven, I've got a verygood thirst. But at the wedding I'll have a time of it; for nobody cango it like the Screamer. Come along with me, Herr Captain, put up yourhorse, we've a good stable, it's a first-rate inn."
Eric could not reconcile the contradiction: he comes from a death-bedinto the very midst of jollity. He told Claus nothing of Clodwig'sdecease, and only begged to be allowed to ride on, and so left them.
He reached Villa Eden.
"Has Bella any female friend with her," the Professorin asked, as soonas she learned of Clodwig's death.
Eric said that she had not. It was painful to the Professorin that shecould not render any assistance and consolation to Bella. Bella hadtriumphed in the fact, that, self-contained, she had been more fearedthan loved by women; and now, in her time of affliction, she had no onewhose right and dutiful privilege it was to come to her, that she mightlay her head, weighed down with sorrow and tears, upon a friendlybosom. But Aunt Claudine said to Eric,--
"When you drive to Wolfsgarten again, take me with you."
Manna begged Eric to rest; but Eric saw that there was no rest for him,for he received very soon a note from Bella by a messenger, in whichwere these words, written in great haste,--
"You must come immediately to bear witness for me. I am ruined anddisgraced."
Eric drove to Wolfsgarten. Aunt Claudine accompanied him, and ProfessorEinsiedel had offered his services also; but the Mother and Manna urgedhim to remain with them. The Professor was a consolation and a quietsupport for them at the Villa. Eric promised to return that night. Whatcan have happened at Wolfsgarten in these few hours since Clodwig'sdeath?
They came to Wolfsgarten. The servants stood around, and looked shylyat Eric; one of them saying,--Eric heard it very distinctly,--
"Who knows whether he has not helped do it?"
The Sister of Mercy came to meet Eric, and said to him hurriedly,--
"A horrible thing has happened. The layer-out of the corpse, inremoving the clothes, found a wound upon the Count's neck, and hascalled the coroner: now it is said that Count Clodwig was strangled.You were present until the very last breath, you are involved in themost horrible suspicion. Inconceivable, incomprehensible! If the Doctorwould only come! We have despatched messengers everywhere for him; buthe is not to be found."
Bella had heard of Eric's arrival, and pulled incessantly at the bell:she desired that he would come to her. Eric requested Aunt Claudine toremain in the lower room, where the Banker was still sitting quietly,and went with the Sister of Mercy to Bella.
"Leave us alone together for a moment," begged Bella. "No, that wouldexcite suspicion. Remain."--"Foh! suspicion!" shrieked Bella. "You menare all hypocrites. Let the world say what it will, leave us alone.Every thing is a lie, and he was a liar too."
Eric was alone with Bella who said,--
"I have received a punishment more horrible than the most cunning Devilcould ever have contrived. Herr Dournay, it is said that I, BellaPranken, have strangled my husband,--I have sacrificed my life to benow suspected of this! Here I stand: whatever I have done, whatever Ihave thought, now is it a thousand-fold atoned for. And I curse it thatI have been faithful. He wore the picture of another woman on his heartuntil his heart ceased to beat."
"The Doctor is here," was suddenly called outside.
The Doctor and Pranken entered; and the Doctor said,--
"I know the whole. This blockhead of a coroner! Every ignorant personknows that a wound on a corpse is a very different thing from one on aliving body. There is only a trifling mark, a little abrasion of theskin on the Count's neck. Can't you tell me what made this?"
Bella now narrated that Robert had come to ask her whether they shouldleave the picture, which the Count wore on his heart, to be buried withhim. She asked what sort of a picture it was, and was told that it wasthat of a lady. Hurrying there in her excitement, which she nowlamented, she had snatched from the corpse the picture which was hungby a small cord about the neck.
"It was the miniature of his deceased wife: here it is," said she. Shepointed to a gentle face, on a thin plate of gold.
The Doctor and Eric looked at the picture, and then at Bella. Ericthought to himself, "This was why he had the bust of the Victoriabrought to his bedside. Wonderful likeness!"
The Doctor said that they must not make known publicly this passionateact of the Countess as the occasion of the coroner's mistake. He beggedthem to fall in with his explanation, that some of the caustic medicinewhich the invalid had taken had dropped down about the string, andcaused this abrasion.
To his horror, Eric now recollected that Clodwig had exhorted him totake something from his bosom after he was dead. He told of this now;and the Doctor and Bella shook their heads.
The Doctor requested Bella, Eric, Pranken, the Banker, and the Sisterof Mercy to go with him into the chamber of death. He had all theservants called, and rebuked the coroner sharply, pointing out to himthat only the outer skin had been reddened by a caustic medicine.
Eric cast one more look at the dead body of his friend. Even the statueof the Victoria, that stood opposite, seemed to look in sorrow upon it.
The gentlemen led Bella back into her chamber. Aunt Claudine entered.Bella extended her left hand to her, while with the right she held ahandkerchief pressed to her face. The gentlemen went down to receivethe King's private physician, whose carriage was just driving into thecourt. Doctor Richard stated in few words the cause of Clodwig's death,which was the result of a cold, together with great mental excitement.They then all repaired to the room looking on the garden, whitherDoctor Richard ordered wine to be brought, and insisted on Eric'sdrinking with them, as he would need to use every means to keep up hisstrength.
"Drink," he said, "you cannot do without it. Great demands are makingupon you now, and the machine must be fed with wine."
Eric drank, but he drank a tear with the wine; for tears fell from hiseyes into the glass. He left the room for a moment, and returned with alittle box in which, he said, were Clodwig's orders, which his friendhad commissioned him to return to the Prince. As his presence wasnecessary now at the Villa, he requested the court-physician toundertake the commission for him; to which he readily assented, adding,that in Clodwig a nobleman had been taken away, whose memory was asource of strength to them all: the moderation and p
erfect balance ofhis nature, his repose and gentleness, were characteristics whichbelonged to a generation that was passing away.
Doctor Richard, who was sitting in an arm-chair, with his legs crossedone over the other, exclaimed,--
"All that is true: the expression, 'He was too noble for this world,'might be used with truth of him. He had the advantage, or thedisadvantage, of viewing every individual thing in its connection withhumanity; and, as to the thing itself, it was a matter of perfectindifference to him, whether it was done to-day or to-morrow, by you oranybody else. He might have accomplished great things, have exerted awide-spread influence; but the task seemed to him too hard, and heexcused himself from it. Every event, every experience, was madesubservient to the development of his beautiful character. Good,beautiful, lofty, but a childless, barren existence is that, whosemother is a philosophy which accepts all things, comprehends allthings, only to reduce them afterwards to a system. I have oftenreproached him with that while he lived; and I venture to do the samenow that he is dead."
"He repeated to me once an expression of yours, Captain Dournay," saidthe Banker. "You once said to him, 'Man has to do railway duty on theearth;' and the words made a great impression on him. So it is, we allhave to act more or less as guards on the swiftly-rolling train of ourgeneration; but it is not every one who is fitted for the post."
There was much that Eric wanted to say, and he might have explainedmany points; for what had Clodwig not discussed with him? But he had nochance to speak; for the doctor cried,--
"I do not believe that I am inclined to find fault with this man. Ofall in the wide world who will hear of his death, and mourn for him,not one respected him more than I."
Some reference was made to the horrible suspicion which had fallen uponBella; but the Doctor repeated emphatically that this was a monstrousmistake, and heartily regretted that nothing could be done to effaceall remembrance of it; for men would always hold fast to such acalumny, at least, they would not wholly forget it.
Pranken entered with a clergyman of the neighborhood, who finallyconsented, after much persuasion on the part of Pranken and the royalphysician, to pronounce a benediction over the body.
The Doctor presently drove off with the Court-physician: and, soonafterward, Eric also departed, with the Banker and Aunt Claudine; forBella had requested to be left alone.
They looked back sorrowfully at the mansion, from whose summit a blackflag was now waving.
For two days, Clodwig's body lay upon satin cushions in the greatdrawing-room, exposed to the public gaze. His countenance was peaceful.He was surrounded by palms and flowers, and candles burned at the sideof the coffin.
People from the whole country round flocked to take a last look atClodwig; some from respect, and some from curiosity. Bella could hearthem say as they left the house, "He shows no signs of having beenstrangled."
On the third day, Eric, the Justice, the Banker, the Major, the chiefmen of the city, besides an ambassador from the King, and several highofficers of state, followed Clodwig's body to the tomb of theWolfsgartens.
The bells rang from mountain and valley: it was the funeral of the lastof the Wolfsgartens.
Sonnenkamp had meant to make one of the funeral-procession: he hadactually started for Wolfsgarten; but he was not to be seen among themourners.
The Major said to Eric that Sonnenkamp was right not to be present: hewould have attracted too much attention; and have destroyed thesolemnity of the occasion.
Sonnenkamp spent the whole day in the village inn near by. He knewthat, wherever he showed himself, he would excite curiosity and horror,and hid himself as well as he could, behind a large newspaper, which hepretended to be reading. He could hear the talk of the men in thepublic room without; and the chief speaker among them was a Jew, acattle-dealer, who said,--
"That Herr Sonnenkamp never gave us a chance to earn any thing. Veryfine of him, wonderfully fine! What ill report has not been circulatedof us Jews! But we never trafficked in slaves!"
The conversation, however, soon took a different turn; and they spokeof the report of the Countess having murdered her husband, which wastrue, they said, for all the doctor's maintaining that the red markabout the dead man's throat was caused by a little cord on which healways wore the picture of his first wife.
A sudden light flashed into Sonnenkamp's face at hearing this chargeagainst Bella thus insisted upon. If any thing could drive her to adecision, it was this. Bella's indignation at the suspicion must befavorable to his plans. "The chief thing," he said to himself, "will beto get her to discuss the matter: the moment she does that, she iswon."
Finally, Lootz returned, whom Sonnenkamp had sent to gain intelligenceof every thing that was going on.
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