The Initials. Baroness Jemima Montgomery Tautphoeus
“A judicious management of reflected lights produces extraordinary effect in the representation of fluids,” observed Mr. Schmearer.
A pause ensued. Major Stultz did not seem disposed to discuss reflected lights; the picture had evidently had no value for him excepting as a good representation of a glass of bock; and his attention was now directed towards Hildegarde, whose flushed cheeks and pouting lips rather heightened than detracted from her beauty.
“Perhaps you would like to see the newspapers, madame?” he asked, politely offering the latest arrived to her step-mother.
“Thank you; I never read newspapers, though I join some acquaintances in taking the Eilbote, on condition that it comes to us last of all, and then we can keep the paper for cleaning the looking-glasses and windows.”
“There are, however, sometimes very pretty stories and charades in the Eilbote. Young ladies like such things,” he observed, glancing significantly towards Hildegarde.
“My daughters must read nothing but French, and I have subscribed to a library for them. Their French has occupied more than half their lives at school, and now I intend them to teach the boys.”
“I should have no sort of objection to learn French from such an instructress,” said the Major, gallantly.
“Indeed, I don’t think anyone will ever learn much from her,” said Madame Rosenberg, severely; “but her sister Crescenz is a good girl, and the children are very fond of her.”
“You have two daughters!” exclaimed the Major.
“Step-daughters,” she replied, dryly.
“That I took for granted,” he said, bowing, as if he intended to be very civil. “The young ladies will be of great use to you in the housekeeping.”
“That is exactly what has been neglected in their education; if they could keep a house as well as they can speak French, I should be satisfied. When we return to Munich, they must both learn cookery. I intend afterwards to give the children to one and the housekeeping to the other, alternately.”
“You will prepare the young ladies so well for their destination that I suspect they will not remain long unmarried!”
“There’s not much chance of that! Husbands are not so easily found for portionless daughters!” replied Madame Rosenberg, facetiously; “however, I am quite ready to give my consent, should anything good offer.”
Hamilton looked at Hildegarde to see what impression this conversation had made on her. She had turned away as much as possible from the speakers, and with her head bent down seemed to watch intently the bursting of the bubbles in a glass of beer. Had it been her sister, he would have thought she had chosen the occupation to conceal her embarrassment—but embarrassment was not Hildegarde’s predominant feeling; her compressed lips and quick breathing denoted suppressed anger, which amounted to rage, as her step-mother in direct terms asked Major Stultz if he were married, and received for answer that he was “a bachelor, at her service.” With a sudden jerk, the glass was prostrated on the table, and before Hamilton could raise his arm its contents were deposited in the sleeve of his coat.
“Pardon mille-fois!” cried Hildegarde, looking really sorry for what had occurred.
“You irritable, awkward girl!” commenced her mother; but for some undoubtedly excellent reason, she suddenly changed her manner, and added—“You had better go to bed, child; I see you have not yet recovered from the recent alarm in the church.”
Hildegarde rose quickly from her chair, and with a slight and somewhat haughty obeisance to the company, left the room in silence. Madame Rosenberg continued volubly to excuse her to Hamilton, and, what he thought quite unnecessary, to Major Stultz also!
The Major listened with complacence; but Hamilton’s wet shirt-sleeve induced him to finish his supper as quickly as possible and wish the company good-night.
CHAPTER II.
THE INITIALS.
Hamilton thought there were few things so disagreeable as going to bed, excepting, perhaps, getting up again. He was incorrigibly indolent in this respect, and nothing but the most fresh and beautiful of mornings, aided perhaps by the transparent muslin curtains, which had admitted every ray of light from daybreak, could have induced him to get up and be dressed at six o’clock; and that, too, without any immediate object in view, for three or four hours at least must elapse before he could venture to intrude on “A. Z.” He was not a little surprised to find Crescenz and her sister already in the garden; but having no inclination for a renewal of the organ-loft scene, he turned towards a row of clumsy, flat-bottomed boats, sprung into one of them, and in a few minutes was far out in the lake, where he quietly leaned on his oars, and began to look about him.
Seon was originally built upon an island and received its name from this circumstance, as is quaintly enough recorded in the Introductio ad Annales Monasterii Seonentis, of Benonne Feichtmaejr, Ejusdem Monasterii Professor—“When God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually, he threatened the earth with destruction; and said unto Noah, ‘Make thee an ark,’ etc., etc., etc. So our blessed founder, Aribo, seeing in what unrighteousness mankind had again fallen, resolved also to build an ark, and to receive into it not only his own household, but all others who were willing to quit the wickedness of the world and save themselves from the deluge of sin. Accordingly he changed his castle called Buergel into a monastery under the seal of the holy patriarch Benedictus, and recommended the same to the protection of the holy martyr Lambertus. The monastery was then named Seon, as the letters composing this word being reversed form the name of Noes (Noah); and the monastery representing the ark appeared to float in the midst of the lake, a place of refuge for all willing to seek it.”
Of the original building of 994 nothing remains but the church, now converted into a cellar, and the cloisters—the other parts having been consumed by fire in the year 1561. In the course of time, however, and even before the secularisation of the monastery, it had been found convenient to connect Seon with the mainland by means of a road, over which Hamilton must have driven the evening before. And now, when viewed from the outside, Seon much more resembled a middle-aged German castle than a monastery. This impression it made on Hamilton, too, as he watched the numerous groups of people who had begun to enliven with their presence the pretty garden extending from it to the lake.
Crescenz and her sister continued to walk up and down, talking earnestly, and so often bestowing a look on the “overgrown schoolboy,” that he felt convinced he was the subject of discourse. Their brothers soon after joined them, and a very outrageous game of romps ensued between them and Crescenz. Hildegarde still turned towards the lake, her eyes fixed on him and his boat. “Perhaps,” he thought, with the vanity inherent to very young men—“perhaps she regrets her rudeness to me last night. I like her all the better for not playing with those unmannerly boys; and at supper, too, I observed that, although strongly resembling her sister, she is infinitely handsomer!” He rowed to the landing-place, moored the boat, and approached her quietly; but it did not require long to convince him that he had not been in the least degree an object of interest to her, for she still gazed on the lake, though his bark no longer floated on its surface, and not even the sound of his voice when he spoke to her sister could induce her to turn round. He looked at his watch, and found that by the time he had breakfasted he might prepare to visit A. Z.—that is, learn what chance he had of making a useful or agreeable acquaintance. He inquired for the landlady, and found her in the kitchen sending forth detachments of coffee and rolls to the garden. To his great surprise and pleasure, she ordered his breakfast to be carried to the arbour, where the Countess Zedwitz and her daughter were breakfasting, saying it was the only place unengaged in the whole garden. With mixed feelings of anxiety and curiosity he followed. While it was being deposited on the table, he observed