A Legacy (7 page)

Julius, Count Bernin, Clara and Gustavus, Gabriel and two grooms were standing in a semicircle. Johannes looked through them with dilated eyes.

"Pull yourself together, Jean. II y a du monde, voyons."

"Jean, please, say something," said Gabriel.

But Johannes only shook.

"Speak to us," said the old Baron.

Clara stepped forward. "Poor little boy," she said and tried to touch him.

Johannes shrank back and bared his teeth at her.

"Oh, do behave yourself, you little fool," said Gustavus and seized him by the collar.

Johannes wheeled and bit his hand.

"Jean —" said his father.

"Jean!" said Julius.

"Jean, please—" said Gabriel and burst into tears.

The bull stood unmoved, licking his own muzzle.

"My dear, I could not be more sorry for this disgraceful scene," said Gustavus.

"Your hand, dearest?" said Clara.

Julius had fetched Zoro. The black dog came bouncing in—looked at his master—looked at the bull—looked at his master, and whimpered.

"Oh you silly," said Johannes and tumbled out of the stall; he threw himself upon the dog and broke into loud sobs.

"I believe the carriage is waiting," said Count Bernin.

hey had little peace that summer at Landen. First there was a terse communication from Benzheim.

Kommandantur

Kadettenanstalt Corps Benzheim

Benzheim am Rhein b/Koln

Konigreich Preussen

Sein. Hochwohlgeboren Den 23. 5. . .

Baron Felden zu Landeney Schloss Landen Grossherzogstum Baden

Sehr geehrter Herr Baron!

Durch Rapport des Major von Grautkopf erfahren wir soeben, dass der am sechzehnten ultimo vom Corps Benzheim entsprungene Zogling Kadett von Felden sich im elterlichen Hause befindet u. ersuchen wir Sie hiermit besagten Zogling unverzuglich in das Corps Benzheim einzuliefern.

Gehorsamst, gez. von Koppen Oberst u. Kommandant

"Quel execrable langage" said the old Baron and tossed the sheet to Julius.

"They say they were told by that major that Jean was at home and would we send him back at once."

"No doubt," said the old Baron, "no doubt. These people seem to have neither sense nor manners."

Benzheim received no answer, but their letter was spoken

of before Johannes; and Johannes, who had been behaving normally again, threw a kind of fit. The first time the old Baron had been shaken, and angry afterwards; now he was only angry. So exaggerated, such lack of tenu, had everybody gone out of their minds?

Then there was a telegram. Telegrams were rare at Landen. The old Baron had an ornithologist crony at Neuchatel who was getting on.

"Voila! on m'appelle au lit de mort de mon pauvre ami. Tout le monde s'en va . . ." He broke the seal with a trembling hand and when he saw the signature, Benzheim Kommandantur, he felt put upon, and accused Johannes of shattering his peace of mind. But Johannes was not there to hear; on sight of the messenger, he had made for the woods. Clara, on the other hand, was constantly at Landen. The old Baron began to take against his children. Puzzling notes of hand obviously signed by Julius began coming in: Julius was told it was high time he were at his books again, and he sped back to Bonn.

Johannes's lost watch also preyed on the old man's mind, and he conceived a bright idea. An advertisement. "We'll put it in the papers!"

"What does one say?" asked Gabriel.

"Jules?" But of course Julius was not there. "Oh, one just tells them what it is about, and they put it in."

So Gabriel took the trap into Breisach, where the Man-heimer Anzeiger and the Badische Landwirt kept an office, and explained.

At the time Benzheim was consulting once more with the War Office. The War Office took another look at Major von Grautkopf's report, and Lieutenant-General von Schimmelpfennig wrote himself to his old acquaintance Count Bernin.

"Lieber Bernin—"

It was a discursive letter. It touched on the pleasant time spent during the negotiation of the Treaty of Gastein.

How well the writer remembered, if he might say so, the brilliant resource, the unfailing tact, Bernin had shown in his mediation. The Schleswig-Holstein Question! It seemed like yesterday. Eight years ago, was it now? Tempus fugit. Well—Germans all now. Certain difficulties still to be ironed out; the South did not always appear to understand. . . . One of their native sons causing something of a small headache just now. Fellow appeared to have taken French leave from one of the new cadet corps. The father must be a neighbour of Bernin's—bit of a rough diamond, they heard.

Count Bernin's support could not always be had for the asking. Under a mass of civilities he returned a barbed question: what was the presence of one small boy at a military school to the German War Office?

The General now dropped Schleswig-Holstein. The authorities at Benzheim, he wrote, were anxious about the effect of a successful escape on morale; the boy's flight was known to his fellow pupils, a number of whom were new, also, and from Southern families. If the boy were allowed to stay away, the fact might be damaging to the very framework of their educational ideology.

Count Bernin wrote back that he could see their point; but what exactly was he supposed to do about it?

The General's next letter was quite straightforward. The Corps were having trouble with some of their parents; Benzheim considered it essential that the boy should be returned before the summer break-up. Nothing could legally be done without the father's consent. Pressure seemed not to meet the case— Would the offer of an Order? His Majesty was rather sparing with crosses for civilians. One might approach the King of Bavaria— Was old Felden likely, though, to insist on an Imperial decoration? Could Bernin suggest a line.

Count Bernin replied, truthfully, that his direct influence with his neighbour was nil. He did not tell, what he should have told at that point, that the Feldens were about to become more to him than that. He told the General not

to bother about the Order, and he volunteered that Major von Grautkopf had been a mistake.

The General took the point. Yes, he wrote, yes, Major von Grautkopf . . . He appreciated Bernin's frankness, but what kind of a man would he suggest?

Count Bernin wrote a description.

Captain Montclair, former Bavarian Military Attache in Paris, was almost a dandy. His clothes were exquisite. The old Baron, to whom friends sent many people, felt guilty about not remembering a letter. "You are interested in barometers?" he said.

"Very much so," said his visitor.

Having thus placed him, the old Baron showed his own collection. "This one was designed by the Abbe Nollet; it has an interesting disposition of the Wheel. This one belonged to Lavoisier himself, poor man. The Spiral, now, such an advantage over the Column. . . . What is your own opinion, Monsieur?"

"The round ones are not so pretty."

"You are so right," said the old Baron. "Nobody seems to know how to make a case any more. All the same, without the Spiral? How would you place your Rods? Perhaps you prefer the Syphon? Surely you agree with our friend Mercier on the interaction of Moisture and Gravity? Allow me to make you a diagram. You have only got to think of the Pendulum Watch—"

Captain Montclair pounced upon this straw. "Talking of watches, I've been admiring yours, sir."

"What?" said the old Baron. "Oh that. That's no Pendulum Watch."

"No, no of course not. But it is beautiful."

"It is a very good watch/' said the Baron. "My father made it. There were two of them. My rascal of a son lost the other. Threw it away; so unbalanced. He thought the Prussians were after him."

"Your son, sir?" said Captain Montclair.

"And so they were. My son is behaving like a lunatic,

most unlike him. And the eldest one has gone and got himself engaged to the girl of that old busybody's over at Sigmundshofen, so unnecessary."

"The boy seems to be a little overwrought."

"Poor Gustavus? Oh no, no."

"I mean your young son, the one you said ran away. Isn't his attitude rather unreasonable?"

"So exaggerated," said the old Baron.

"You know, sir, those Corps aren't nearly so bad as your son seems to make out."

"Oh, I shouldn't say that; you didn't see Jean—shocking state he was in."

"I should very much like to talk to you about your son Jean, sir," said the Captain.

"No, no," said the Baron, "we are going to talk about the Professor's new constructions. You must draw them for me. I feel that your visit is going to cheer me up. A tolerable bit of salmon's come in this morning—we will have some Montrachet with it—'58. Not at all a bad year."

"Alas," said the Captain, and explained that he would hardly have the time.

"Not staying here? The inn at Breisach? We must send for your things at once, my old friend Mercier would never forgive me. . . ."

Once more the Captain made his excuses; he had to be on his way at once.

"So very brief," said the old Baron. "I daresay the Professor needs you."

Captain Montclair went on to Sigmundshofen. Count Bernin was slightly embarrassed by his call. Like the old Baron, he tried to keep it social. He was less successful.

"Well—I was not shown the door," said Captain Montclair.

"Indeed."

"In fact the Baron and I got on like a house on fire."

"Felden is a very charming man."

"Like a house on fire, but I've got nothing to show for it."

How like poor Montclair, Count Bernin later said to Clara. "He always gets on, but he never seems to accomplish his missions." Before his recall, the Empress Eugenie had found him entirely delightful.

"And I couldn't accept to stay at the house/' said the Captain.

"No, I suppose not."

"Oh it wasn't that," said the Captain and explained. "Very silly of me."

But Count Bernin did not smile. "You know, if I were you I'd pack up and go back to Berlin," he said.

Captain Montclair, however, returned to the inn at Breisach. Two men in lounge suits were waiting for him in the taproom.

"Captain—we should be glad to have a statement from you on The Escaped Cadet."

Gustavus rode over at his usual hour to see Clara. He was much annoyed. "Gabriel has some cock-and-bull story about another man from Benzheim. The house is at sixes and sevens."

"I think Papa ought to hear about this," said Clara.

"And does your father think this man came from Benzheim?" said the Count.

"He won't believe a word of it. But Gabriel insists there is a man at the inn at Breisach who has come for Jean. The inn people told our groom that he left a huge silver helmet with feathers and a special case for it on his bed, and he has a white tunic and they saw his sword. Gabriel says it's the same man who came to the house this morning in disguise."

"I see," said Count Bernin.

"Do you believe any of it, sir?"

"It couldn't have been that captain who came to see you today, Papa?" said Clara. "He wore no uniform either."

Count Bernin sat down and wrote once more to Lieu-tenant-General von Schimmelpfennig. The substance of his letter was, My dear Schimmelpfennig, your Captain Mont-clair has managed to turn this business into a farce; nothing further can be gained by making yourselves and your emissaries a local laughingstock, and I think you ought to desist. Why don't you make those people at Benzheim tell their cadets that the boy is ill or has been sent to another corps or a military prison? Surely their imagination will run to that? Besides I believe the boy is ill. A little flexibility, may I remind you, is a useful quality. Always your entire servant, Conrad Bernin.

On the morning of that day, there appeared in two Baden dailies an account of Johannes's escape from Benzheim. As journalism, these copious articles were on the old-fashioned side.

Our Readers will be interested to learn of the gallant escape from the restraint of a certain Military Academy contrived by the intrepid offspring of one of Lower Baden's foremost personalities, Baron F*^* of L*** —

But once under way these narratives told a story, and some of the details—supplied by Gabriel's wide-eyed tale— were harrowing. They attracted the attention of circles outside those of the subscribers to the Badische Landwirt and the Manheimer Anzeiger, and the following morning the facts, in a more astringent form, were published in the Karlsruher Nachrichten and the Sud-Deutsche Courier. Freedom of the Press in Germany was new then and precarious. On principle anything could be printed as long as it was neither untrue, nor presented tendentiously, nor contrary to public order, morality or the interest of the state. Interpretation naturally was wide, and news and papers were often suppressed on a quibble. The liberal Frankfurter Zeitung prepared a leader and sent a man South for confirmation; Bebel's organ, Die Neue Zeit, de-

cided to do the same; the republican Hamburger Fremden-blatt telegraphed their Munich correspondent; the more prudent Kolner Warte inquired of Berlin whether there was already a dementi. The editor of an anti-Czarist revue published in Switzerland arrived himself from Basle. In due course, these gentlemen assembled at the inn at Brei-sach. Captain Montclair ate his supper in his room.

At Landen Gabriel found himself a quill and scrawled an SOS COME AT ONCE. The weekly hamper was leaving for Bonn: he sealed the note with wax, and put it in the basket with the rack of lamb, the ducks and the green peas.

Early next day General von Schimmelpfennig's ADC and a secretary from Bismarck's Chancellery itself, accompanied by Captain Montclair, presented themselves stiff with travel and solemn with officialdom at Count Bernin's gates.

The Count was in his dressing gown. "Gentlemen, what can I do for you?"

It was simple. To the Count, used to thinking on those lines, it was crystal clear. To us, and our perspective as the heirs of this and other more enormous pieces of expediency, it appears futile, shameless and involved. The moves that shape the future seldom shape their own intended ends; the course of self-interest is seen as a beeline only at the moment, and the history of individuals, groups and countries is the sum of these. On that May morning eighty years ago Count Bernin was told that he had the opportunity of rendering a lasting service to the German Government.