Free The Silence by J. Sydney Jones Page B

to become a landowner.
    To attempt to do so, at any rate.
    It happened this way.
    He and Berthe were avid walkers, and the Vienna Woods afforded them a myriad of favorite hikes. One in particular would take them by the village of Laab im Walde, a pleasant little crossroads with a Gasthaus that served some of the best Reh or venison Werthen had ever eaten. Across the road from this inn was an old four-square: a farmstead from the seventeenth century built in a square like a fort around a Hof or courtyard. The walls of the farm were painted a delicate shade of ochre, reminiscent of the faded golden yellow one saw at the Habsburg summer palace of Schönbrunn. On their last hike, before Berthe grew too close to her delivery date, Werthen had seen a sign posted at the gate to this old farmstead. It was a notice of public sale of the farmhouse and some of the adjoining land. Werthen had just the previous weekend taken another hike to Laab im Walde and discovered that the sign was still there.
    I am a family man now, Werthen had reasoned. How fine to have a place nearby for weekends and summers. He could even imagine the Christmas holidays that could be spent in such an environment, a candle-lit spruce tree giving off flickering shadows in the low rooms of the old farmhouse. He had peeked in a number of windows and could see that the interior of the farm needed a good deal of work, but also that several of the rooms bore exposed beams and one still had a blue ceramic Kachelofen in a corner for heating. He could well imagine fixing up that old farmhouse, and watching his daughter grow into adolescence and adulthood there. There would be other children, too, perhaps a boy with whom he would rough-house in the yard. There was a stable attached to the house; a pair of horses could be kept and his children could learn to ride as he had. An idyllic picture.
    Werthen had duly gotten in touch with an estate agent and was now in the process – with Berthe’s blessing – of proposing an offer for the place.
    The payment from Karl Wittgenstein had finally prodded him into action. Feeling adequately solvent, he decided it was time to make a bid on the farm in Laab im Walde, time to take the first step toward establishing a country house. Grundman, his agent, had spoken with the owners and ascertained that they were eager and ready to sell. All that remained was for Werthen to make a serious bid, a number from which subsequent negotiations could begin. Per Grundman, a serious offer would come in somewhere around sixteen thousand florins. The land agent told Werthen a similar property had sold in nearby Hinterbrühl for that price. Renovations would take another ten thousand, easily. The Wittgenstein payment would be coupled with the belated wedding present of twenty-five thousand florins his parents had presented him and Berthe with.
    The extreme generosity was in part due to the guilt they felt at not recognizing the union at first. Guilt, of course, was a two-way street. Werthen’s own sense of it had in part sent him to his parents’ hotel last week to repair the damage done by his speaking plainly. He would love to have let it go for a time, to buy a portion of peace for his family for just a few more days. Berthe’s father, Herr Meisner, had taken himself off in a huff, back to his home in Linz. The flat was once again theirs and they could enjoy their new baby unimpeded. But in the end, it had been guilt and Berthe – who had shoved his hat in his hand – that had sent Werthen with roses and chocolates to the Hotel zur Josefstadt to beg pardon of his mother and father.
    But to the matter at hand: he would offer fifteen thousand.
    He sighed contentedly after making this decision, luxuriating in the warmth of his office. The room actually felt cozy today, for the talented Fräulein Metzinger had seen to it that the office stove was supplied with just the right amount of coke, so the rooms were warm, but not stifling. She of course did