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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/30302-0.txt b/30302-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cbf3994 --- /dev/null +++ b/30302-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12907 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30302 *** + + The Benefactress + + BY THE AUTHOR OF "ELIZABETH AND HER GERMAN GARDEN" + + +New York +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY +LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. +1901 + +_All rights reserved_ + +Copyright, 1901, +By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. + +Norwood Press +J. S. Gushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith +Norwood Mass. U.S.A. + + + + + Man bedarf der Leitung + Und der männlichen Begleitung. + + WILHELM BUSCH. + + + + +THE BENEFACTRESS + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +When Anna Estcourt was twenty-five, and had begun to wonder whether the +pleasure extractable from life at all counterbalanced the bother of it, +a wonderful thing happened. + +She was an exceedingly pretty girl, who ought to have been enjoying +herself. She had a soft, irregular face, charming eyes, dimples, a +pleasant laugh, and limbs that were long and slender. Certainly she +ought to have been enjoying herself. Instead, she wasted her time in +that foolish pondering over the puzzles of existence, over those +unanswerable whys and wherefores, which is as a rule restricted, among +women, to the elderly and plain. Many and various are the motives that +impel a woman so to ponder; in Anna's case the motive was nothing more +exalted than the perpetual presence of a sister-in-law. The +sister-in-law was rich--in itself a pleasing circumstance; but the +sister-in-law was also frank, and her husband and Anna were entirely +dependent on her, and her richness and her frankness combined urged her +to make fatiguingly frequent allusions to the Estcourt poverty. Except +for their bad taste her husband did not mind these allusions much, for +he considered that he had given her a full equivalent for her money in +bestowing his name on a person who had practically none: he was Sir +Peter Estcourt of the Devonshire Estcourts, and she was a Dobbs of +Birmingham. Besides, he was a philosopher, and philosophers never mind +anything. But Anna was in a less agreeable situation. She was not a +philosopher, she was thin-skinned, she had bestowed nothing and was +taking everything, and she was of an independent nature; and an +independent nature, where there is no money, is a great nuisance to its +possessor. + +When she was younger and more high-flown she sometimes talked of +sweeping crossings; but her sister-in-law Susie would not hear of +crossings, and dressed her beautifully, and took her out, and made her +dance and dine and do as other girls did, being of opinion that a rich +husband of good position was more satisfactory than crossings, and far +more likely to make some return for all the expenses she had had. + +At eighteen Anna was so pretty that the perfect husband seemed to be a +mere question of days. What could the most desirable of men, thought +Susie, considering her, want more than so bewitching a young creature? +But he did not come, somehow, that man of Susie's dreams; and after a +year or two, when Anna began to understand what all this dressing and +dancing really meant, and after she had had offers from people she did +not like, and had herself fallen in love with a youth of no means who +was prudent enough to marry somebody else with money, she shrank back +and grew colder, and objected more and more decidedly to Susie's +strenuous private matrimonial urgings, and sometimes made remarks of a +cynical nature to her admirers, who took fright at such symptoms of +advancing age, and fell off considerably in numbers. + +It was at this period, when she was barely twenty-two, that she spoke of +crossings. Susie had seriously reproved her for not meeting the advances +of an old and rich and single person with more enthusiasm, and had at +the same time alluded to the number of pounds she had spent on her every +year for the last three years, and the necessity for putting an end, by +marrying, to all this outlay; and instead of being sensible, and talking +things over quietly, Anna had poured out a flood of foolish sentiments +about the misery of knowing that she was expected to be nice to every +man with money, the intolerableness of the life she was leading, and the +superior attractions of crossing-sweeping as a means of earning a +livelihood. + +"Why, you haven't enough money for the broom," said Susie impatiently. +"You can't sweep without a broom, you know. I wish you were a little +less silly, Anna, and a little more grateful. Most girls would jump at +the splendid opportunity you've got now of marrying, and taking up a +position of your own. You talk a great deal of stuff about being +independent, and when you get the chance, and I do all I can to help +you, you fly into a passion and want to sweep a crossing. Really," added +Susie, twitching her shoulder, "you might remember that it isn't all +roses for me either, trying to get some one else's daughter married." + +"Of course it isn't all roses," said Anna, leaning against the +mantelpiece and looking down at her with perplexed eyebrows. "I am very +sorry for you. I wish you weren't so anxious to get rid of me. I wish I +could do something to help you. But you know, Susie, you haven't taught +me a trade. I can't set up on my own account unless you'll give me a +last present of a broom, and let me try my luck at the nearest crossing. +The one at the end of the street is badly kept. What do you think if I +started there?" What answer could anyone make to such folly? + +By the time she was twenty-four, nearly all the girls who had come out +when she did were married, and she felt as though she were a ghost +haunting the ball-rooms of a younger generation. Disliking this feeling, +she stiffened, and became more and more unapproachable; and it was at +this period that she invented excuses for missing most of the functions +to which she was invited, and began to affect a simplicity of dress and +hair arrangement that was severe. Susie's exasperation was now at its +height. "I don't know why you should be bent on making the worst of +yourself," she said angrily, when Anna absolutely refused to alter her +hair. + +"I'm tired of being frivolous," said Anna. "Have you an idea how long +those waves took to do? And you know how Hilton talks. It all gets +whisked up now in two minutes, and I'm spared her conversation." + +"But you are quite plain," cried Susie. "You are not like the same girl. +The only thing your best friend could say about you now is that you look +clean." + +"Well, I like to look clean," said Anna, and continued to go about the +world with hair tucked neatly behind her ears; her immediate reward +being an offer from a clergyman within the next fortnight. + +Peter Estcourt was even more surprised than his wife that Anna had not +made a good match years before. Of course she had no money, but she was +a pretty girl of good family, and it ought to be easy enough for her to +find a husband. He wished heartily that she might soon be happily +married; for he loved her, and knew that she and Susie could never, with +their best endeavours, be great friends. Besides, every woman ought to +have a home of her own, and a husband and children. Whenever he thought +of Anna, he thought exactly this; and when he had reached the +proposition at the end he felt that he could do no more, and began to +think of something else. + +His marriage with Susie, a person of whom no one had ever heard, had +brought out and developed stores of unsuspected philosophy in him. +Before that he was quite poor, and very merry; but he loved Estcourt, +and could not bear to see it falling into ruin, and he loved his small +sister, who was then only ten, and wished to give her a decent +education, and what is a man to do? There happened to be no rich +American girls about at that time, so he married Miss Dobbs of +Birmingham, and became a philosopher. + +It was hard on Susie that he should become a philosopher at her expense. +She did not like philosophers. She did not understand their silent ways, +and their evenness of temper. After she had done all that Peter wanted +in regard to the place in Devonshire, and had provided Anna with every +luxury in the shape of governesses, and presented her husband with an +heir to the retrieved family fortunes, she thought that she had a right +to some enjoyment too, to some gratification from her position, and was +surprised to find how little was forthcoming. Really no one could do +more than she had done, and yet nothing was done for her. Peter fished, +and read, and was with difficulty removable from Estcourt. Anna was, of +course, too young to be grateful, but there she was, taking everything +as a matter of course, her very unconsciousness an irritation. Susie +wanted to get on in the world, and nobody helped her. She wanted to bury +the Dobbs part of herself, and develop the Estcourt part; but the Dobbs +part was natural, and the Estcourt superficial, and the Dobbses were one +and all singularly unattractive--a race of eager, restless, wiry little +men and women, anxious to get as much as they could, and keep it as long +as they could, a family succeeding in gathering a good deal of money +together in one place, and failing entirely in the art of making +friends. Susie was the best of them, and had been the pretty one at +home; yet she was not in the least a success in London. She put it down +to Peter's indifference, to his slowness in introducing her to his +friends. It was no more Peter's fault than it was her own. It was not +her fault that she was not pretty--there never had been a beautiful +Dobbs--and it was not her fault that she was so unfortunately frank, and +never could and never did conceal her feverish eagerness to make +desirable acquaintances, and to get into desirable sets. Until Anna came +out she was invited only to the big functions to which the whole world +went; and the hours she passed at them were not among the most blissful +of her life. The people who were at first inclined to be kind to her for +Peter's sake, dropped off when they found how her eagerness to attract +the attention of some one mightier made her unable to fix her thoughts +on the friendly remarks that they were taking pains to make. In society +she was absent-minded, fidgety, obviously on the look-out for a chance +of drawing the biggest fish into her little net; but, wealthy as she +was, she was not wealthy enough in an age of millionnaires, and not once +during the whole of her career was a big fish simple enough to be +caught. + +After a time her natural shrewdness and common sense made her perceive +that her one claim to the scanty attentions she did receive was her +money. Her money had bought her Peter, and a pleasant future for her +children; it had converted a Dobbs into an Estcourt; it had given her +everything she had that was worth anything at all. Once she had +thoroughly realised this, she began to attach a tremendous importance to +the mere possession of money, and grew very stingy, making difficulties +about spending that grieved Peter greatly; not because he ever wanted +her money now that Estcourt had been restored to its old splendour and +set going again for their boy, but because meanness about money in a +woman was something he could not comprehend--something repulsive, +unfeminine, contrary to her nature as he had always understood it. He +left off making the least suggestion about Anna's education or the +household arrangements; everything that was done was done of Susie's own +accord; and he spent more and more time in Devonshire, and grew more and +more philosophical, and when he did talk to his wife, restricted his +conversation to the language of abstract wisdom. + +Now this was very hard on Susie, who had no appreciation of abstract +wisdom, and who lived as lonely a life as it is possible to imagine. +Peter kept out of her way. Anna was subject to prolonged fits of chilly +silence. Susie used, at such times, to think regretfully of the cheerful +Dobbs days, of their frank and congenial vulgarity. + +When Anna was eighteen, Susie's prospects brightened for a time. Doors +that had been shut ever since she married, opened before her on her +appearing with such a pretty _dĂ©butante_ under her wing, and she could +enjoy the reflected glory of Anna's little triumphs. And then, without +any apparent reason, Anna had altered so strangely, and had disappointed +every one's expectations; never encouraging the right man, never ready +to do as she was told, exasperatingly careless on all matters of vital +importance, and ending by showing symptoms of freezing into something of +the same philosophical state as Peter. Their mother had been German----a +lady-in-waiting to one of the German princesses; and their father had +met her and married her while he was secretary at the English Embassy in +St. Petersburg. And Susie, who had heard of German philosophy and German +stolidity, and despised them both with all her heart, concluded that the +German strain was accountable for everything about Peter and Anna that +was beyond her comprehension; and sometimes, when Peter was more than +usually wise and unapproachable, would call him Herr Schopenhauer--which +had an immediate effect of producing a silence that lasted for weeks; +for not only did he like her least when she was playful, but he had, as +a matter of fact, read a great deal of Schopenhauer, and was uneasily +conscious that it had not been good for him. + +While Peter fished, and meditated on the vanity of human wishes at +Estcourt, Anna, with rare exceptions, was wherever Susie was, and Susie +was wherever it was fashionable to be. For a week or two in the summer, +for a day or two at Easter, they went down to Devonshire; and Anna might +wander about the old house and grounds as she chose, and feel how much +better she had loved it in its tumble-down state, the state she had +known as a child, when her mother lived there and was happy. Everything +was aggressively spruce now, indoors and out. Susie's money and Susie's +taste had rubbed off all the mellowness and all the romance. Anna was +glad to leave it again, and be taken to Marienbad, or any place where +there was royalty, for Susie loved royalty. But what a life it was, +going round year after year with Susie! London, Devonshire, Marienbad, +Scotland, London again, following with patient feet wherever the +unconscious royalties led, meeting the same people, listening to the +same music, talking the same talk, eating the same dinners--would no one +ever invent anything new to eat? The inexpressible boredom of riding up +and down the Row every morning, the unutterable hours shopping and +trying on clothes, the weariness of all the new pictures, and all the +concerts, and all the operas, which seemed to grow less pleasing every +year, as her eye and ear grew more critical. She knew at last every note +of the stock operas and concerts, and every note seemed to have got on +to her nerves. + +And then the people they knew--the everlasting sameness of them, content +to go the same dull round for ever. Driving in the Park with Susie, +neither of them speaking a word, she used to watch the faces in the +other carriages, nearly all faces of acquaintances, to see whether any +of them looked cheerful; and it was the rarest thing to come across any +expression but one of blankest boredom. Bored and cross, hardly ever +speaking to the person with them, their friends drove up and down every +afternoon, and she and Susie did the same, as silent and as bored as any +of them. A few unusually beautiful, or unusually witty, or unusually +young persons appeared to find life pleasant and looked happy, but they +avoided Susie. Her set was made up of the dull and plain; and all the +amusing people, and all the interesting people, turned their backs with +one accord on her and it. + +These were the circumstances that drove Anna to reflect on the problems +of life every time she was beyond the sound of Susie's voice. + +She passionately resented her position of dependence on Susie, and she +passionately resented the fact that the only way to get out of it was to +marry. Every time she had an offer, she first of all refused it with an +energy that astonished the unhappy suitor, and then spent days and +nights of agony because she had refused it, and because Susie wanted her +to accept it, and because of an immense pity for Susie that had taken +possession of her heart. How could Peter live so placidly at Susie's +expense, and treat her with such a complete want of tenderness? Anna's +love for her brother diminished considerably directly she began to +understand Susie's life. It was such a pitiful little life of cringing, +and pushing, and heroically smiling in the face of ill-treatment. No one +cared for her in the very least. She had hundreds of acquaintances, who +would eat her dinners and go away and poke fun at her, but not a single +friend. Her husband lived on her and hardly spoke to her. Her boy at +Eton, an amazing prig, looked down on her. Her little daughter never +dreamed of obeying her. Anna herself was prevented by some stubborn +spirit of fastidiousness, evidently not possessed by any of her +contemporaries, from doing the only thing Susie had ever really wanted +her to do--marrying, and getting herself out of the way. What if Susie +were a vulgar little woman of no education and no family? That did not +make it any the more glorious for the Estcourts to take all they could +and ignore her existence. It was, after all, Susie who paid the bills. +Anna pitied her from the bottom of her heart; such a forlorn little +woman, taken out of her proper sphere, and left to shiver all alone, +without a shred of love to cover and comfort her. + +It was when she was away from Susie that she felt this. When she was +with her, she found herself as cold and quiet and contradictory as +Peter. She used, whenever she got the chance, to go to afternoon service +at St. Paul's. It was the only place and time in which all the bad part +of her was soothed into quiet, and the good allowed to prevail in peace. +The privacy of the great place, where she never met anyone she knew, the +beauty of the music, the stateliness of the service offered every day in +equal perfection to any poor wretch choosing to turn his back for an +hour on the perplexities of life, all helped to hush her grievances to +sleep and fill her heart with tenderness for those who were not happy, +and for those who did not know they were unhappy, and for those who +wasted their one precious life in being wretched when they might have +been happy. How little it would need, she thought (for she was young and +imaginative), to turn most people's worries and sadness into joy. Such a +little difference in Susie's ways and ideas would make them all so +happy; such a little change in Peter's habits would make his wife's life +radiant. But they all lived blindly on, each day a day of emptiness, +each of those precious days, so crowded with opportunities, and +possibilities, and unheeded blessings, and presently life would be +behind them, and their chances gone for ever. + +"The world is a dreadful place, full of unhappy people," she thought, +looking out on to the world with unhappy eyes. "Each one by himself, +with no one to comfort him. Each one with more than he can bear, and no +one to help him. Oh, if I could, I would help and comfort everyone that +is sad, or sick at heart, or sorry--oh, if I could!" + +And she dreamed of all that she would do if she were Susie--rich, and +free from any sort of interference--to help others, less fortunate, to +be happy too. But, since she was the very reverse of rich and free, she +shook off these dreams, and made numbers of good resolutions +instead--resolutions bearing chiefly on her future behaviour towards +Susie. And she would come out of the church filled with the sternest +resolves to be ever afterwards kind and loving to her; and the very +first words Susie uttered would either irritate her into speeches that +made her sorry, or freeze her back into her ordinary state of cold +aloofness. + +If Susie had had an idea that Anna was pitying her, and making good +resolutions of which she was the object at afternoon services, and that +in her eyes she had come to be merely a cross which must with heroism be +borne, she probably would have been indignant. Pitying people and being +pitied oneself are two very different things. The first is soothing and +sweet, the second is annoying, or even maddening, according to the +temperament of the patient. Susie, however, never suspected that anyone +could be sorry for her; and when, after a party, before they went to +bed, Anna would put her arms round her and give her a disproportionately +tender kiss, she would show her surprise openly. "Why, what's the +matter?" she would ask. "Another mood, Anna?" For she could not know how +much Anna felt the snubs she had seen her receive. How should she? She +was so used to them that she hardly noticed them herself. + +It was when Anna was twenty-five, and much vexed in body by efforts to +be and to do as Susie wished, and in soul by those unanswerable +questions as to the why and wherefore of the aimless, useless existence +she was leading, that the wonderful thing happened that changed her +whole life. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +There was a German relation of Anna's, her mother's brother, known to +Susie as Uncle Joachim. He had been twice to England; once during his +sister's life, when Anna was little, and Peter was unmarried, and they +were all poor and happy together at Estcourt; and once after Susie's +introduction into the family, just at that period when Anna was +beginning to stiffen and put her hair behind her ears. + +Susie knew all about him, having inquired with her usual frankness on +first hearing of his existence whether he would be likely to leave Anna +anything on his death; and upon being informed that he had a family of +sons, and large estates and little money, looked upon it as a great +hardship to be obliged to have him in her London house. She objected to +all Germans, and thought this particular one a dreadful old man, and +never wearied of making humorous comments on his clothes and the oddness +of his manners at meals. She was vexed that he should be with them in +Hill Street, and refused to give dinners while he was there. She also +asked him several times if he would not enjoy a stay at Estcourt, and +said that the country was now at its best, and the primroses were in +full beauty. + +"I want not primroses," said Uncle Joachim, who seldom spoke at length; +"I live in the country. I will now see London." + +So he went about diligently to all the museums and picture-galleries, +sometimes alone and sometimes with Anna, who neglected her social duties +more than ever in order to be with him, for she loved him. + +They talked together chiefly in German, Uncle Joachim carefully +correcting her mistakes; and while they went frugally in omnibuses to +the different sights, and ate buns in confectioners' shops at +lunch-time, and walked long distances where no omnibuses were to be +found--for besides having a great fear of hansoms he was very +thrifty--he drew her out, saying little himself, and in a very short +time knew almost as much about her life and her perplexities as she did. + +She was very happy during his visit, and told herself contentedly that +blood, after all, was thicker than water. She did not stop to consider +what she meant exactly by this, but she had a vague notion that Susie +was the water. She felt that Uncle Joachim understood her better than +anyone had yet done; and was it not natural that her dear mother's +brother should? And it was only after she had taken him to service at +St. Paul's that she began to perceive that there might perhaps be points +on which their tastes differed. Uncle Joachim had remained seated while +other people knelt or stood; but that did not matter in that liberal +place, where nobody notices the degree of his neighbour's devoutness. +And he had slept during the anthem, one of those unaccompanied anthems +that are sung there with what seem of a certainty to be the voices of +angels. And on coming out, when a fugue was rolling in glorious +confusion down the echoing aisles, and Anna, who preferred her fugues +confused, felt that her spirit was being caught up to heaven, he had +looked at her rapt face and wet eyelashes, and patted her hand very +kindly, and said encouragingly, "In my youth I too cultivated Bach. Now +I cultivate pigs. Pigs are better." + +Anna's mother had been his only sister, and he had come over, not, as he +told Susie, to see London, but to see Susie herself, and to find out how +it was that Anna had reached an age that in Germany is the age of old +maids without marrying. By the time he had spent two evenings in Hill +Street he had formed his opinion of his nephew and his nephew's wife, +and they remained fixed until his death. "The good Peter," he said +suddenly one day to Anna when they were wandering together in the maze +at Hampton Court--for he faithfully went the rounds of sightseeing +prescribed by Baedeker, and Anna followed him wherever he went--"the +good Peter is but a _Quatschkopf_." + +"A _Quatschkopf_?" echoed Anna, whose acquaintance with her +mother-tongue did not extend to the byways of opprobrium. "What in the +world is a _Quatschkopf_?" + +"_Quatschkopf_ is a _Duselfritz_," explained Uncle Joachim, "and also it +is the good Peter." + +"I believe you are calling him ugly names," said Anna, slipping her arm +through his; by this time, if not kindred spirits, they were the best of +friends. + +Uncle Joachim did not immediately reply. They had come to the open space +in the middle of the maze, and he sat down on the seat to recover his +breath, and to wipe his forehead; for though the wind was cold the sun +was fierce. "_Gott, was man Alles durchmacht auf Reisen!_" he sighed. +Then he put his handkerchief back into his pocket, looked up at Anna, +who was standing in front of him leaning on her sunshade, and said, "A +_Quatschkopf_ is a foolish fellow who marries a woman like that." + +"Oh, poor Susie!" cried Anna, at once ready to defend her, and full of +the kindly feelings absence invariably produced. "Peter did a very +sensible thing. But I don't think Susie did, marrying Peter." + +"He is a _Quatschkopf_," said Uncle Joachim, not to be shaken in his +opinions, "and the _geborene_ Dobbs is a vulgar woman who is not rich +enough." + +"Not rich enough? Why, we are all suffocated by her money. We never hear +of anything else. It would be dreadful if she had still more." + +"Not rich enough," persisted Uncle Joachim, pursing up his lips into an +expression of great disapproval, and shaking his head. "Such a woman +should be a millionnaire. Not of marks, but of pounds sterling. Short of +that, a man of birth does not impose her as a mother on his children. +Peter has done it. He is a _Quatschkopf_." + +"It is a great mercy that she isn't a millionnaire," said Anna, appalled +by the mere thought. "Things would be just the same, except that there +would be all that money more to hear about. I hate the very name of +money." + +"Nonsense. Money is very good." + +"But not somebody else's." + +"That is true," said Uncle Joachim approvingly. "One's own is the only +money that is truly pleasant." Then he added suddenly, "Tell me, how +comes it that you are not married?" + +Anna frowned. "Now you are growing like Susie," she said. + +"_Ach_--she asks you that often?" + +"Yes--no, not quite like that. She says she knows why I am not married." + +"And what knows she?" + +"She says that I frighten everybody away," said Anna, digging the point +of her sunshade into the ground. Then she looked at Uncle Joachim, and +laughed. + +"What?" he said incredulously. This pretty creature standing before him, +so soft and young--for that she was twenty-four was hardly +credible--could not by any possibility be anything but lovable. + +"She says that I am disagreeable to people--that I look cross--that I +don't encourage them enough. Now isn't it simply terrible to be expected +to encourage any wretched man who has money? I don't want anybody to +marry me. I don't want to buy my independence that way. Besides, it +isn't really independence." + +"For a woman it is the one life," said Uncle Joachim with great +decision. "Talk not to me of independence. Such words are not for the +lips of girls. It is a woman's pride to lean on a good husband. It is +her happiness to be shielded and protected by him. Outside the narrow +circle of her home, for her happiness is not. The woman who never +marries has missed all things." + +"I don't believe it," said Anna. + +"It is nevertheless true." + +"Look at Susie--is she so happy?" + +"I said a _good_ husband; not a _Duselfritz_." + +"And as for narrow circles, why, how happy, how gloriously happy, I +could be outside them, if only I were independent!" + +"Independent--independent," repeated Uncle Joachim testily, "always this +same foolish word. What hast thou in thy head, child, thy pretty woman's +head, made, if ever head was, to lean on a good man's shoulder?" + +"Oh--good men's shoulders," said Anna, shrugging her own, "I don't want +to lean on anybody's shoulder. I want to hold my head up straight, all +by itself. Do you then admire limp women, dear uncle, whose heads roll +about all loose till a good man comes along and props them up?" + +"These are English ideas. I like them not," said Uncle Joachim, looking +stony. + +Anna sat down on the seat by his side, and laid her cheek for a moment +against his sleeve. "This is the only good man's shoulder it will ever +lean on," she said. "If I were a preacher, do you know what I would +preach?" + +"Thou art not, and never wilt be, a preacher." + +"But if I were? Do you know what I would preach? Early and late? In +season and out of it?" + +"Much nonsense, I doubt not." + +"I would preach independence. Only that. Always that. They would be +sermons for women only; and they would be warnings against props." + +She sat up and looked at him out of the corners of her eyes, but he +continued to stare stonily into space. + +"I would thump the cushions, and cry out, 'Be independent, independent, +independent! Don't talk so much, and do more. Go your own way, and let +your neighbour go his. Don't meddle with other people when you have all +your own work cut out for you being good yourself. Shake off all the +props----'" + +"Anna, thou art talking folly." + +"'--shake them off, the props tradition and authority offer you, and go +alone--crawl, stumble, stagger, but go alone. You won't learn to walk +without tumbles, and knocks, and bruises, but you'll never learn to walk +at all so long as there are props.' Oh," she said fervently, casting up +her eyes, "there is nothing, nothing like getting rid of one's props!" + +"I never yet," observed Uncle Joachim, in his turn casting up his eyes, +"saw a girl who so greatly needs the guidance of a good man. Hast thou +never loved, then?" he added, turning on her suddenly. + +"Yes," replied Anna promptly. If Uncle Joachim chose to ask such direct +questions she would give him straight answers. + +"But----?" + +"He went away and married somebody else. I had no money, and she had a +great deal. So you see he was a very sensible young man." And she +laughed, for she had long ago ceased to be anything but amused by the +remembrance of her one excursion into the rocky regions of love. + +"That," said Uncle Joachim, "was not true love." + +"Oh, but it was." + +"Nay. One does not laugh at love." + +"It was all I had, anyhow. There isn't any more left. It was very bad +while it lasted, and it took at least two years to get over it. What +things I did to please that young man and appear lovely in his eyes! The +hours it took to dress, and get my hair done just right. I endured +tortures if I didn't look as beautiful as I thought I could look, and +was always giving my poor maid notice. And plots--the way I plotted to +get taken to the places where he would be! I never was so artful before +or since. Poor Susie was quite helpless. It is a mercy it all ended as +it did." + +"That," repeated Uncle Joachim, "was not true love." + +"Yes, it was." + +"No, my child." + +"Yes, my uncle. I laugh now, but it was very dreadful at the time." + +"Thou art but a goose," he said, shrugging his shoulders; but +immediately patted her hand lest her feelings should have been hurt. +And, declining further argument, he demanded to be taken to the Great +Vine. + +It was in this fashion, Anna talking and Uncle Joachim making brief +comments, that he came to know her as thoroughly as though he had lived +with her all his life. + +Soon after the excursion to Hampton Court a letter came that hurried his +departure, to Susie's ill-concealed relief. + +"My swines are ill," he informed her, greatly agitated, his fragile +English going altogether to pieces in his perturbation; "my inspector +writes they perpetually die. God keep thee, Anna," and he embraced her +very tenderly, and bending hastily over Susie's hand muttered some +conventionalities, and then disappeared into his four-wheeler and out of +their lives. + +They never saw him again. + +"My swines are ill," mimicked Susie, when Anna, feeling that she had +lost her one friend, came slowly back into the room, "my swines +perpetually die--" + +Anna was obliged to go and pray very hard at St. Paul's before she could +forgive her. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +The old man died at Christmas, and in the following March, when Anna was +going about more sad and listless than ever, the news came that, though +his inherited estates had gone to his sons, he had bought a little place +some years before with the intention of retiring to it in his extreme +old age, and this little place he had left to his dear and only niece +Anna. + +She was alone when the letters bringing the news arrived, sitting in the +drawing-room with a book in her hands at which she did not look, feeling +utterly downcast, indifferent, too hopeless to want anything or mind +anything, accepting her destiny of years of days like this, with herself +going through them lonely, useless, and always older, and telling +herself that she did not after all care. "What does it matter, so long +as I have a comfortable bed, and fires when I am cold, and meals when I +am hungry?" she thought. "Not to have those is the only real misery. All +the rest is purest fancy. What right have I to be happier than other +people? If they are contented by such things, I can be contented too. +And what does a useless being like me deserve, I should like to know? It +was detestably ungrateful of me to have been unhappy all this time." + +She got up aimlessly, and looked out of the window into the sunny +street, where the dust was racing by on the gusty March wind, and the +women selling daffodils at the corner were more battered and blown about +and red-eyed than ever. She had often, in those moments when her whole +body tingled with a wild longing to be up and doing and justifying her +existence before it was too late, envied these poor women, because they +worked. She wondered vaguely now at her folly. "It is much better to be +comfortable," she thought, going back to the fire as aimlessly as she +had gone to the window, "and it is sheer idiocy quarrelling with a life +that other people would think quite tolerable." + +Then the door opened, and the letters were brought in--the wonderful +letters that struck the whole world into radiance--lying together with +bills and ordinary notes on a salver, carried by an indifferent servant, +handed to her as though they were things of naught--the wonderful +letters that changed her life. + +At first she did not understand what it was that they meant, and pored +over the cramped German writing, reading the long sentences over and +over again, till something suddenly seemed to clutch at her heart. Was +this possible? Was this actual truth? Was Uncle Joachim, who had so much +objected to her longing for independence, giving it to her with both +hands, and every blessing along with it? She read them through again, +very carefully, holding them with shaking hands. Yes, it was true. She +began to cry, sobbing over them for very love and tenderness, her whole +being melted into gratitude and humbleness, awestruck by a sense of how +little she had deserved it, dazzled by the thousand lovely colours life, +in the twinkling of an eye, had taken on. + +There were two letters--one from Uncle Joachim's lawyer, and one from +Uncle Joachim himself, written soon after his return from England, with +directions on the envelope that it was to be sent to Anna after his +death. + +Uncle Joachim was not a man to express sentiment otherwise than by +patting those he loved affectionately on the back, and the letter over +which Anna hung with such tender gratitude, and such an extravagance of +humility, was a mere bald statement of facts. Since Anna, with a +perversity that he entirely disapproved, refused to marry, and appeared +to be possessed of the obstinacy that had always been a peculiarity of +her German forefathers, and which was well enough in a man, but +undesirable in a woman, whose calling it was to be gentle and yielding +(_sanft und nachgiebig_), and convinced from what he had seen +during his visit to London that she could never by any possibility be +happy with her brother and sister-in-law, and moreover considering that +it was beneath the dignity of his sister's daughter, a young lady of +good family, for ever to roll herself in the feathers with which the +middle-class goose-born Dobbs had furnished Peter's otherwise defective +nest, he had decided to make her independent altogether of them, +numerous though his own sons were, and angry as they no doubt would be, +by bestowing on her absolutely after his death the only property he +could leave to whomsoever he chose, a small estate near Stralsund, where +he hoped to pass his last years. It was in a flourishing condition, easy +to manage, bringing in a yearly average of forty thousand marks, and +with an experienced inspector whom he earnestly recommended her to keep. +He trusted his dear Anna would go and live there, and keep it up to its +present state of excellence, and would finally marry a good German +gentleman, of whom there were many, and return in this way altogether to +the country of her forefathers. The estate was not so far from Stralsund +as to make it impossible for her to drive there when she wished to +indulge any feminine desire she might have to trim herself (_sich +putzen_), and he recommended her to begin a new life, settling there +with some grave and sober female advanced in years as companion and +protectress, until such time as she should, by marriage, pass into the +care of that natural protector, her husband. + +Then followed a short exposition of his views on women, especially those +women who go to parties all their lives and talk _Klatsch_; a spirited +comparing of such women with those whose interests keep them busy in +their own homes; and a final exhortation to Anna to seize this +opportunity of choosing the better life, which was always, he said, a +life of simplicity, frugality, and hard work. + +Anna wept and laughed together over this letter--the tenderest laughter +and the happiest tears. It seemed by turns the wildest improbability +that she should be well off, and the most natural thing in the world. +Susie was out. Never had her absence been terrible before. Anna could +hardly bear the waiting. She walked up and down the room, for sitting +still was impossible, holding the precious letters tight in her little +cold hands, her cheeks burning, her eyes sparkling, in an agony of +impatience and anxiety lest something should have happened to delay +Susie at this supreme moment. At the window end of the room she stopped +each time she reached it and looked eagerly up and down the street, the +flower-women and the blessedness of selling daffodils having within an +hour become profoundly indifferent to her. At the other end of the room, +where a bureau stood, she came to a standstill too, and snatching up a +pen began a letter to Peter in Devonshire; but, hearing wheels, threw it +down and flew to the window again. It was not Susie's carriage, and she +went back to the letter and wrote another line; then again to the +window; then again to the letter; and it was the letter's turn as Susie, +fagged from a round of calls, came in. + +Susie's afternoon had not been a success. She had made advances to a +woman of enviably high position with the intrepidity that characterised +all her social movements, and she had been snubbed for her pains with +more than usual rudeness. She had had, besides, several minor +annoyances. And to come in worn out, and have your sister-in-law, who +would hardly speak to you at luncheon, fall on your neck and begin +violently to kiss you, is really a little hard on a woman who is already +cross. + +"Now what in the name of fortune is the matter now?" gasped Susie, +breathlessly disengaging herself. + +"Oh, Susie! oh, Susie!" cried Anna incoherently, "what ages you have +been away--and the letters came directly you had gone--and I've been +watching for you ever since, and was so dreadfully afraid something had +happened----" + +"But what are you talking about, Anna?" interrupted Susie irritably. It +was late, and she wanted to rest for a few minutes before dressing to go +out again, and here was Anna in a new mood of a violent nature, and she +was weary beyond measure of all Anna's moods. + +"Oh, such a wonderful thing has happened!" cried Anna; "such a wonderful +thing! What will Peter say? And how glad you will be----" And she thrust +the letters with trembling fingers into Susie's unresponsive hand. + +"What is it?" said Susie, looking at them bewildered. + +"Oh, no--I forgot," said Anna, wildly as it seemed to Susie, pulling +them out of her hand again. "You can't read German--see here----" And +she began to unfold them and smooth out the creases she had made, her +hands shaking visibly. + +Susie stared. Clearly something extraordinary had happened, for the +frosty Anna of the last few months had melted into a radiance of emotion +that would only not be ridiculous if it turned out to be justified. + +"Two German letters," said Anna, sitting down on the nearest chair, +spreading them out on her lap, and talking as though she could hardly +get the words out fast enough, "one from Uncle Joachim----" + +"Uncle Joachim?" repeated Susie, a disagreeable and creepy doubt as to +Anna's sanity coming over her. "You know very well he's dead and can't +write letters," she said severely. + +"--and one from his lawyer," Anna went on, regardless of everything but +what she had to tell. "The lawyer's letter is full of technical words, +difficult to understand, but it is only to confirm what Uncle Joachim +says, and his is quite plain. He wrote it some time before he died, and +left it with his lawyer to send on to me." + +Susie was listening now with all her ears. Lawyers, deceased uncles, and +Anna's sparkling face could only have one meaning. + +"Uncle Joachim was our mother's only brother----" + +"I know, I know," interrupted Susie impatiently. + +"--and was the dearest and kindest of uncles to me----" + +"Never mind what he was," interrupted Susie still more impatiently. +"What has he done for you? Tell me that. You always pretended, both of +you--Peter too--that he had miles of sandy places somewhere in the +desert, and dozens of boys. What could he do for you?" + +"Do for me?" Anna rose up with a solemnity worthy of the great news +about to be imparted, put both her hands on Susie's little shoulders, +and looking down at her with shining eyes, said slowly, "He has left me +an estate bringing in forty thousand marks a year." + +"Forty thousand!" echoed Susie, completely awestruck. + +"Marks," said Anna. + +"Oh, marks," said Susie, chilled. "That's francs, isn't it? I really +thought for a moment----" + +"They're more than francs. It brings in, on an average, two thousand +pounds a year. Two--thousand--pounds--a--year," repeated Anna, nodding +her head at each word. "Now, Susie, what do you think of that?" + +"What do I think of it? Why, that it isn't much. Where would you all +have been, I wonder, if I had only had two thousand a year?" + +"Oh, congratulate me!" cried Anna, opening her arms. "Kiss me, and tell +me you are glad! Don't you see that I am off your hands at last? That we +need never think about husbands again? That you will never have to buy +me any more clothes, and never tire your poor little self out any more +trotting me round? I don't know which of us is to be congratulated +most," she added laughing, looking at Susie with her eyes full of tears. +Then she insisted on kissing her again, and murmured foolish things in +her ear about being so sorry for all her horrid ways, and so grateful to +her, and so determined now to be good for ever and ever. + +"My _dear_ Anna," remonstrated Susie, who disliked sentiment and never +knew how to respond to exhibitions of feeling. "Of course I congratulate +you. It almost seems as if throwing away one's chances in the way you +have done was the right thing to do, and is being rewarded. Don't let us +waste time. You know we go out to dinner. What has he left Peter?" + +"Peter?" said Anna wonderingly. + +"Yes, Peter. He was his nephew, I suppose, just as much as you were his +niece." + +"Well, but Susie, Peter is different. He--he doesn't need money as I do; +and of course Uncle Joachim knew that." + +"Nonsense. He hasn't got a penny. Let me look at the letters." + +"They're in German. You won't be able to read them." + +"Give them to me. I learned German at school, and got a prize. You're +not the only person in the world who can do things." + +She took them out of Anna's hand, and began slowly and painfully to read +the one from Uncle Joachim, determined to see whether there really was +no mention of Peter. Anna looked on, hot and cold by turns with fright +lest by some chance her early studies should not after all have been +quite forgotten. + +"Here's something about Peter--and me," Susie said suddenly. "At least, +I suppose he means me. It is something Dobbs. Why does he call me that? +It hasn't been my name for fifteen years." + +"Oh, it's some silly German way. He says the _geborene_ Dobbs, to +distinguish you from other Lady Estcourts." + +"But there are no others." + +"Oh, well, his sister was one. Give me the letter, Susie--I can tell you +what he says much more quickly than you can read it." + +"'_Unter der WĂĽrde einer jĂĽnge Dame aus guter Familie_,'" read out Susie +slowly, not heeding Anna, and with the most excruciating pronunciation +that was ever heard, "'_sich ewig auf den Federn, mit welchen die +bĂĽrgerliche Gans geborene Dobbs Peters sonst mangelhaftes Nest +ausgestattet hat, zu wälzen_.' What stuff he writes. I can hardly +understand it. Yet I must have been good at it at school, to get the +prize. What is that bit about me and Peter?" + +"Which bit?" said Anna, blushing scarlet. "Let me look." She got the +letter back into her possession. "Oh, that's where he says that--that he +doesn't think it fair that I should be a burden for ever on you and +Peter." + +"Well, that's sensible enough. The old man had some sense in him after +all, absurd though he was, and vulgar. It _isn't_ fair, of course. I +don't mean to say anything disagreeable, or throw all I have done for +you in your face, but really, Anna, few mothers would have made the +sacrifices I have for you, and as for sisters-in-law--well, I'd just +like to see another." + +"Dear Susie," said Anna tenderly, putting her arm round her, ready to +acknowledge all, and more than all, the benefits she had received, "you +have been only too kind and generous. I know that I owe you everything +in the world, and just think how lovely it is for me to feel that now I +can take my weight off your shoulders! You must come and live with _me_ +now, whenever you are sick of things, and I'll feel so proud, having you +in my house!" + +"Live with you?" exclaimed Susie, drawing herself away. "Where are you +going to live?" + +"Why, there, I suppose." + +"Live there! Is that a condition?" + +"No, but Uncle Joachim keeps on saying he hopes I will, and that I'll +settle down and look after the place." + +"Look after the place yourself? How silly!" + +"Yes, you haven't taught me much about farming, have you? He wants me to +turn quite into a German." + +"Good gracious!" cried Susie, genuinely horrified. + +"He seems to think that I ought to work, and not spend my life talking +_Klatsch_." + +"Talking what?" + +"It's what German women apparently talk when they get together. We +don't. I'd never do anything with such an ugly name, and I'm positive +you wouldn't." + +"Where is this place?" + +"Near Stralsund." + +"And where on earth is that?" + +"Ah," said Anna, investigating cobwebby corners of her memory, "that's +what I should like to be able to remember. Perhaps," she added honestly, +"I never knew. Let me call Letty, and ask her to bring her atlas." + +"Letty won't know," said Susie impatiently, "she only knows the things +she oughtn't to." + +"Oh, she isn't as wise as all that," said Anna, ringing the bell. +"Anyhow she has maps, which is more than we have." + +A servant was sent to request Miss Letty Estcourt to attend in the +drawing-room with her atlas. + +"Whatever's in the wind now?" inquired Letty, open-mouthed, of her +governess. "They're not going to examine me this time of night, are +they, Leechy?" For she suffered greatly from having a brother who was +always passing examinations and coming out top, and was consequently +subjected herself, by an ambitious mother who was sure that she must be +equally clever if she would only let herself go, to every examination +that happened to be going for girls of her age; so that she and Miss +Leech spent their days either on the defensive, preparing for these +unprovoked assaults, or in the state of collapse which followed the +regularly recurring defeat, and both found their lives a burden too +great to be borne. + +There was a preliminary scuffle of washing and brushing, and then Letty +marched into the drawing-room, her atlas under her arm and deep +suspicion on her face. But no bland and treacherous examiner was +visible, covering his preliminary movements with ghastly pleasantries; +only her mother and her pretty aunt. + +"Where's Stralsund?" they cried together, as she opened the door. + +Letty stopped short and stared. "What's that?" she asked. + +"It's a place--a place in Germany." + +"Letty, do you mean to tell me that you don't know where Stralsund is?" +asked Susie, in a voice that would have been of thunder if it had been +big enough. "Do you mean to say that after all the money I have spent on +your education you don't know _that_?" + +Was this a new form of torture? Was she to find the examining spirit +lurking even in the familiar and hitherto harmless forms of her mother +and her aunt? She openly showed her disgust. "If it's a place, it's in +this atlas," she said, "and if this is going to be an examination, I +don't think it's fair; and if it's a game, I don't like it." And she +threw her atlas unceremoniously on to the nearest chair; for though her +mother could force her to do many things, she could never, somehow, +force her to be respectful. + +"What a horror the child has of lessons!" cried Susie. "Don't be so +silly. We only want to see if you know where Stralsund is, that's all." + +"Tell us where it is, Letty," said Anna coaxingly, kneeling down in front +of the chair and opening the atlas. "Let us find the map of Germany and +look for it. Why, you did Germany for your last exam.--you must have it +all at your fingers' ends." + +"It didn't stay there, then," said Letty moodily; but she went over to +Anna, who was always kind to her, and began to turn over the +well-thumbed pages. + +Oh, what recollections lurked in those dirty corners! Surely it is hard +on a person of fourteen, who is as fond of enjoying herself as anybody +else, to be made to wrestle with maps upstairs in a dreary room, when +the sun is shining, and the voices of the children passing come up +joyously to the prison windows, and all the world is out of doors! Letty +thought so, and Miss Leech thought it hard on a person of thirty, and +each tried to console the other, but neither knew how, for their case +seemed very hopeless. Did not unending vistas of classes and lectures +stretch away before and behind them, dotted at intervals, oh, so +frequent! with the black spots of examinations? Was not the pavement of +Gower Street, and Kensington Square, and of all those districts where +girls can be lectured into wisdom, quite worn by their patient feet? And +then the accomplishments! Oh, what a life it was! A man came twice a +week and insisted on teaching her to fiddle; a highly nervous man, who +jerked her elbow and rapped her knuckles with his bow whenever she +played out of tune, which was all the time, and made bitter remarks of a +killingly sarcastic nature to Miss Leech when she stumbled over the +accompaniments. On Wednesdays there was a dancing class, where a pinched +young lady played the piano with the energy of despair, and a hot and +agile master with unduly turned-out toes taught the girls the Lancers, +earning his bread in the sweat of his brow. He also was sarcastic, but +he clothed his sarcasms in the garb of kindly fun, laughing gently at +them himself, and expecting his pupils to laugh too; which they did +uneasily, for the fun was of a personal nature, evoked by the clumsiness +or stupidity of one or other of them, and none knew when her own turn +might not come. The lesson ended with what he called the March of Grace +round the room, each girl by herself, no music to drown the noise her +shoes made on the bare boards, the others looking on, and the master +making comments. This march was terrible to Letty. All her nightmares +were connected with it. She was a podgy, dull-looking girl, fat and pale +and awkward, and her mother made her wear cheap shoes that creaked. +"Miss Estcourt has new shoes on again," the dancing master would say, +gently smiling, when Letty was well on her way round the room, cut off +from all human aid, conscious of every inch of her body, desperately +trying to be graceful. And everybody tittered except the victim. "You +know, Miss Estcourt," he would say at every second lesson, "there is a +saying that creaking shoes have not been paid for. I beg your pardon? +Did you say they had been paid for? Miss Estcourt says she does not +know." And he would turn to his other pupils with a shrug and a gentle +smile. + +On Saturday afternoons there were the Popular Concerts at St. James's +Hall to be gone to--Susie regarded them as educational, and +subscribed--and Letty, who always had chilblains on her feet in winter, +suffered tortures trying not to rub them; for as surely as she moved one +foot and began to rub the other with it, however gently, fierce +enthusiasts in the row in front would turn on her--old gentlemen of an +otherwise humane appearance, rapt ladies with eyeglasses and loose +clothes--and sh-sh her with furious hissings into immobility. "Oh, +Letty, _try_ and sit still," Miss Leech, who dreaded publicity, would +implore in a whisper; but who that has not had them can know the torture +of chilblains inside thick boots, where they cannot be got at? As soon +as the chilblains went, the Saturday concerts left off, and it seemed as +though Fate had nothing better to do than to be spiteful. + +It was indeed a dreadful thing, thought Letty, as she bent over the map +of Germany, to be young and to have to be made clever at all costs. Here +was her aunt even, her pretty, kind aunt, asking her geography questions +at seven o'clock at night, when she thought that she had really done +with lessons for one more day, and had been so much enjoying Leechy's +description of the only man she ever loved, while she comfortably +toasted cheese at the schoolroom fire. Anna, who spent such lofty hours +of spiritual exaltation at St. Paul's, and came away with her soul +melted into pity for the unhappy, and yearned with her whole being to +help them, never thought of Letty as a creature who might perhaps be +helped to cheerfulness with a little trouble. Letty was too close at +hand; and enthusiastic philanthropists, casting about for objects of +charity, seldom see what is at their feet. + +It was so difficult to find Stralsund that by the time Letty's wandering +finger had paused upon it Susie could only give one glance of horror at +its position, and hurry away with Anna to dress. Anna, too, would have +preferred it to be farther south, in the Black Forest, or some other +romantic region, where it would have amused her to go occasionally, at +least, for a few weeks in the summer. But there it was, as far north as +it could be, in a part of the world she had hardly heard of, except in +connection with dogs. + +It did not, however, matter where it was. Uncle Joachim had merely +recommended and not enjoined. It would be rather extraordinary for her +to go there and set up housekeeping alone. She need not go; she was +almost sure she would not go. Anyhow there was no necessity to decide at +once. The money was what she wanted, and she could spend it where she +chose. Let Uncle Joachim's inspector, of whom he wrote in such praise, +go on getting forty thousand marks a year out of the place, and she +would be perfectly content. + +She ran upstairs to put on her prettiest dress, and to have her hair +done in the curls and waves she had so long eschewed. Should she not +make herself as charming as possible for this charming world, where +everybody was so good and kind, and add her measure of beauty and +kindness to the rest? She beamed on Letty as she passed her on the +stairs, climbing slowly up with her big atlas, and took it from her and +would carry it herself; she beamed on Miss Leech, who was watching for +her pupil at the schoolroom door; she beamed on her maid, she beamed on +her own reflection in the glass, which indeed at that moment was that of +a very beautiful young woman. Oh happy, happy world! What should she do +with so much money? She, who had never had a penny in her life, thought +it an enormous, an inexhaustible sum. One thing was certain--it was all +to be spent in doing good; she would help as many people with it as she +possibly could, and never, never, never let them feel that they were +under obligations. Did she not know, after fifteen years of dependence +on Susie, what it was like to be under obligations? And what was more +cruelly sad and crushing and deadening than dependence? She did not yet +know what sort of people she would help, or in what way she would help, +but oh, she was going to make heaps of people happy forever! While +Hilton was curling her hair, she thought of slums; but remembered that +they would bring her into contact with the clergy, and most of her +offers of late had been from the clergy. Even the vicar who had prepared +her for confirmation, his first wife being then alive, and a second +having since been mourned, had wanted to marry her. "It's because I am +twenty-five and staid that they think me suitable," she thought; but she +could not help smiling at the face in the glass. + +When she was dressed and ready to go down she was forced to ask herself +whether the person that she saw in the glass looked in the least like a +person who would ever lead the simple, frugal, hard-working life that +Uncle Joachim had called the better life, and in which he seemed to +think she would alone find contentment. Certainly she knew him to be +very wise. Well, nothing need be decided yet. Perhaps she would +go--perhaps she would not. "It's this white dress that makes me look +so--so unsuitable," she said to herself, "and Hilton's wonderful waves." + +And she went downstairs trying not to sing, the sweetest of feminine +creatures, happiness and love and kindness shining in her eyes, a lovely +thing saved from the blight of empty years, and brought back to beauty, +by Uncle Joachim's timely interference. + +Letty and Miss Leech heard the singing, and stopped involuntarily in +their conversation. It was a strange sound in that dull and joyless +house. + +"I don't know what's the matter, Leechy," Letty had said, on her return +from the drawing-room, "but mamma and Aunt Anna are too weird to-night +for anything. What do you think they had me down for? They didn't know +where Stralsund was, and wanted to find out. They pretended they wanted +to see if _I_ knew, but I soon saw through that game. And Aunt Anna +looks frightfully happy. I believe she's going to be married, and wants +to go to Stralsund for the honeymoon." + +And Letty took up her toasting fork, while Miss Leech, as in duty bound, +refreshed her pupil's memory in regard to Stralsund and Wallenstein and +the Hansa cities generally. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Peter, meditating on the banks of the river at Estcourt, came to the +conclusion that a journey to London would be made unnecessary by the +equal efficacy of a congratulatory letter. + +He had been greatly moved by the news of his sister's good fortune, and +in the first flush of pleasure and sympathy had ordered his things to be +packed in readiness for his departure by the night train. Then he had +gone down to the river, and there, thinking the matter over quietly, +amid the soothing influences of grey sky, grey water, and green grass, +he gradually perceived that a letter would convey all that he felt quite +well, perhaps better than any verbal expressions of joy, and as he would +in any case only stay a few hours in town the long journey seemed hardly +worth while. He sent a letter, therefore, that very evening--a kind, +brotherly letter, in which, after heartily congratulating his dear +little sister, he said that it would be necessary for her to go over to +Germany, see the lawyer, and take possession of her property. When she +had done that, and made all arrangements as to the future payment of the +income derived from the estate, she would of course come back to them; +for Estcourt was always to be her home, and now that she was independent +she would no longer be obliged to be wherever Susie was, but would, he +hoped, come to him, and they could go fishing together,--"and there's +nothing to beat fishing," concluded Peter, "if you want peace." + +But Anna did not want peace; at least, not that kind of peace just at +that moment. Sitting in a punt was not what she wanted. She was thrilled +by the love of her less fortunate fellow-creatures, and the sense of +power to help them, and the longing to go and do it. What she really +wanted of Peter was that he should take her to Germany and help her +through the formalities; for before his letter arrived she too had seen +that that was the first thing to be done. + +Of this, however, he did not write a word. She thought he must have +forgotten, so natural did it appear to her that her brother should go +with her; and she wrote him a little note, asking when he would be able +to get away. She received a long letter in reply, full of regrets, +excuses, and good reasons, which she read wonderingly. Had she been +selfish, or was Peter selfish? She thought it all out carefully, and +found that it was she who had been selfish to expect Peter, always a +hater of business and a lover of quiet, to go all that way and worry +himself with tiresome money arrangements. Besides, perhaps he was not +feeling well. She knew he suffered from rheumatism; and when you have +rheumatism the mere thought of a long journey is appalling. + +Susie, whose head was very clear on all matters concerning money, had +also recognised the necessity of Anna's going to Germany, and had also +regarded Peter as the most natural companion and guide; but she was not +surprised when Anna told her that he could not go. "It was too much to +expect," apologised Anna. "He often has rheumatism in the spring, and +perhaps he has it now." + +Susie sniffed. + +"The question is," said Anna after a pause, "what am I to do, helpless +virgin, in spite of my years,--never able to do a thing for myself?" + +"I'll go with you." + +"You? But what about your engagements?" + +"Oh, I'll throw them over, and take you. Letty can come too. It will do +her German good. Herr Schumpf says he's ashamed of her." + +Susie had various reasons for offering herself so amiably, one being +certainly curiosity. But the chief one was that the same woman who had +been so rude to her the day Anna's news came, had sent out invitations +to all the world to her daughter's wedding after Easter, and had not +sent one to Susie. + +This was one of those trials that cannot be faced. If she, being in +London at the time, carefully explained to her friends that she was ill +that day, and did actually stay in bed and dose herself the days +preceding and following, who would believe her? Not if she waved a +doctor's certificate in their faces would they believe her. They would +know that she had not been invited, and would rejoice. She felt that she +could not bear it. An unavoidable business journey to the Continent was +exactly what she wanted to help her out of this desperate situation. On +her return she would be able to hear the wedding discussed and express +her disappointment at having missed it with a serene brow and a quiet +mind. + +It is doubtful whether she would have gone with Anna, however urgent +Anna's need, if she had been included in those invitations. But Anna, +who could not know the secret workings of her mind, once more remembered +her former treatment of Susie, so kind and willing to do all she could, +and hung her head with shame. + +They left London a day or two before Easter, Letty and Miss Leech, both +of them nearly ill with suppressed delight at the unexpected holiday, +going with them. They had announced their coming to Uncle Joachim's +lawyer, and asked him to make arrangements for their accommodation at +Kleinwalde, Anna's new possession. Susie proposed to stay a day in +Berlin, which would give Anna time to talk everything over with the +lawyer, and would enable Letty to visit the museums. She had a hopeful +idea that Letty would absorb German at every pore once she was in the +country itself, and that being brought face to face with the statues of +Goethe and Schiller on their native soil would kindle the sparks of +interest in German literature that she supposed every well-taught child +possessed, into the roaring flame of enthusiasm. She could not believe +that Letty had no sparks. One of her children being so abnormally +clever, it must be sheer obstinacy on the part of the other that +prevented it from acquiring the knowledge offered daily in such +unstinted quantities. She had no illusions in regard to Letty's person, +and felt that as she would never be pretty it was of importance that she +should at least be cultured. She sat opposite her daughter in the train, +and having nothing better to do during the long hours that they were +jolting across North Germany, looked at her; and the more she looked the +more unreasoningly angry she became that Peter's sister should be so +pretty and Peter's daughter so plain. And then so fat! What a horrible +thing to have to take a fat daughter about with you in society. Where +did she get it from? She herself and Peter were the leanest of mortals. +It must be that Letty ate too much, which was not only a disgusting +practice but an expensive one, and should be put down at once with +rigour. Susie had not had such an opportunity of thoroughly inspecting +her child for years, and the result of this prolonged examination of her +weak points was that she would not let any of the party have anything to +eat at all, declaring that it was vulgar to eat in trains, expressing +amazement that people should bring themselves to touch the +horrid-looking food offered, and turning her back in impatient disgust +on two stout German ladies who had got in at Oberhausen, and who were +enjoying their lunch quite unmoved by her contempt--one eating a chicken +from beginning to end without a fork, and the other taking repeated sips +of an obviously satisfactory nature from a big wine bottle, which was +used, in the intervals, as a support to her back. + +By the time Berlin was reached, these ladies, having been properly fed +all day, were very cheerful, whereas Susie's party was speechless from +exhaustion; especially poor Miss Leech, who was never very strong, and +so nearly fainted that Susie was obliged to notice it, and expressed a +conviction to Anna in a loud and peevish aside that Miss Leech was going +to be a nuisance. + +"It is strange," thought Anna, as she crept into bed, "how travelling +brings out one's worst passions." + +It is indeed strange; for it is certain that nothing equals the +expectant enthusiasm and mutual esteem of the start except the cold +dislike of the finish. Many are the friendships that have found an +unforeseen and sudden end on a journey, and few are those that survive +it. But if Horace Walpole and Grey fell out, if Byron and Leigh Hunt +were obliged to part, if a host of other personages, endowed with every +gift that makes companionship desirable, could not away with each other +after a few weeks together abroad, is it to be wondered at that weaker +vessels such as Susie and Anna, Letty and Miss Leech, should have found +the short journey from London to Berlin sufficient to enable them to see +one another's failings with a clearness of vision that was startling? + +On the lawyer, a keen-eyed man with a conspicuously fine face, Anna made +an entirely favourable impression. When he saw this gracious young lady, +so simple and so friendly, and looked into her frank and charming eyes, +he perfectly understood that old Joachim should have been bewitched. But +after a little conversation, it appeared that she had no present +intention of carrying out her uncle's wishes, but, setting them coolly +aside, proposed to spend all the good German money she could extract +from her property in that replete and bloated land, England. + +This annoyed him; first because he hated England and then because his +father had managed old Joachim's affairs before he himself had stepped +into the paternal shoes, and the feeling of both father and son for the +old man had been considerably warmer than is usual between lawyer and +client. Still he could not believe, judging after the manner of men, +that anything so pretty could also be unkind; and scrutinising Lady +Estcourt, because she was unattractive and had a sharp little face and a +restless little body, he was convinced that she it was who was the cause +of this setting aside of a dead benefactor's wishes. Susie, for her +part, patronised him because his collar turned down. + +Whenever Letty thought afterwards of Berlin, she thought of it as a +place where all the houses are museums, and where you drink so many cups +of chocolate with whipped cream on the top that you see things double +for the rest of the time. + +Anna thought of it as a charming place, where delightful lawyers fill +your purse with money. + +Susie thought of it with satisfaction as the one place abroad where, by +dint of sternest economy, walks from sight to sight in the rain, and +promiscuous cakes instead of the more satisfactory but less cheap meals +Letty called square, she had successfully defended herself from being, +as she put it, fleeced. + +To Miss Leech, it was merely a place where your feet get wet, and your +clothes are spoilt. + +Early the next morning they started for Kleinwalde. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Stralsund is an old town of gabled houses, ancient churches, and quaint, +roughly paved streets, forming an island, and joined to the mainland by +dikes. It looks its best in the early summer, when the green and marshy +plains on whose edge it stands are strewn with kingcups, and the little +white clouds hang over them almost motionless, and the cattle are out, +and the larks sing, and the orange and red sails of the fishing-smacks +on the narrow belt of sea that divides the town from the island of RĂĽgen +make brilliant points of contrasting colour between the blue of water +and sky. There is a divine freshness and brightness about the +surrounding stretches of coarse grass and common flowers at that blest +season of the year. The air is full of the smell of the sea. The sun +beats down fiercely on plain and city. The people come out of the rooms +in which most of their life is spent, and stand in the doorways and +remark on the heat. An occasional heavy cart bumps over the stones, +heard in that sleepy place for several minutes before and after its +passing. There is an honest, tarry, fishy smell everywhere; and the +traveller of poetic temperament in search of the picturesque, and not +too nice about his comforts, could not fail, visiting it for the first +time in the month of June, to be wholly delighted that he had come. + +But in winter, and especially in those doubly gloomy days at the end of +winter, when spring ought to have shown some signs of its approach and +has not done so, those days of howling winds and driving rain and +frequent belated snowstorms, this plain is merely a bleak expanse of +dreariness, with a forlorn old town huddling in its farthest corner. + +It was at its very bleakest and dreariest on the morning that Susie and +her three companions travelled across it. "What a place!" exclaimed +Susie, as mile after mile was traversed, and there was still the same +succession of flat ploughed fields, marshes, and ploughed fields again, +with a rare group of furiously swaying pine trees or of silver birches +bent double before the wind. "What a part of the world to come and live +in! That old uncle of yours was as cracked as he could be to think you'd +ever stay here for good. And imagine spending even a single shilling +buying land here. I wouldn't take a barrowful at a gift." + +"Well, I am taking a great many barrowfuls," said Anna, "and I am sure +Uncle Joachim was right to buy a place here--he was always right." + +"Oh, of course, it's your duty now to praise him up. Perhaps it gets +better farther on, but I don't see how anybody can squeeze two thousand +a year out of a desert like this." + +The prospect from the railway that day was certainly not attractive; but +Anna told herself that any place would look dreary such weather, and was +much too happy in the first flush of independence to be depressed by +anything whatever. Had she not that very morning given the chambermaid +at the Berlin hotel so bounteous a reward for services not rendered that +the woman herself had said it was too much? Thus making amends for those +innumerable departures from hotels when Susie had escaped without giving +anything at all. Had she not also asked, and readily obtained, +permission of Susie at the station in Berlin to pay for the tickets of +the whole party? And had it not been a delightful and warming feeling, +buying those tickets for other people instead of having tickets bought +by other people for herself? At Pasewalk, a little town half way between +Berlin and Stralsund, where the train stopped ten minutes, she insisted +on getting out, defying the sleet and the puddles, and went into the +refreshment room, and bought eggs and rolls and cakes,--everything she +could find that was least offensive. Also a guidebook to Stralsund, +though she was not going to stop in Stralsund; also some postcards with +views on them, though she never used postcards with views on them, and +came back loaded with parcels, her face glowing with childish pleasure +at spending money. + +"My _dear_ Anna," said Susie; but she was hungry, and ate a roll with +perfect complacency, allowing Letty to do the same, although only two +days had elapsed since she had so energetically lectured her on the +grossness of eating in trains. + +Susie was in a particularly amiable frame of mind, and in spite of the +weather was looking forward to seeing the place Uncle Joachim had +thought would be a fit home for his niece; and as she and Anna were +sitting together at one end of the carriage, and Letty and Miss Leech +were at the other, and there was no one else in the compartment, she was +neither upset by the too near contemplation of her daughter, nor by the +aspect of other travellers lunching. Miss Leech, always mindful of her +duties, was making the most of her five hours' journey by endeavouring, +in a low voice, to clear away the haze that hung in her pupil's mind +round the details of her last winter's German studies. "Don't you +remember anything of Professor Smith's lectures, Letty?" she inquired. +"Why, they were all about just this part of Germany, and it makes it so +much more interesting if one knows what happened at the different +places. Stralsund, you know, where we shall be presently, has had a most +turbulent and interesting past." + +"Has it?" said Letty. "Well, I can't help it, Leechy." + +"No; but my dear, you should try to recollect something at least of what +you heard at the lectures. Have you forgotten the paper you wrote about +Wallenstein?" + +"I remember I did a paper. Beastly hard it was, too." + +"Oh, Letty, don't say beastly--it really isn't a ladylike word." + +"Why, mamma's always saying it." + +"Oh, well. Don't you know what Wallenstein said when he was besieging +Stralsund and found it such a difficult task?" + +"I suppose he said too that it was beastly hard." + +"Oh, Letty--it was something about chains. Now do you remember?" + +"Chains?" repeated Letty, looking bored. "Do _you_ know, Leechy?" + +"Yes, I still remember that, though I confess that I have forgotten the +greater part of what I heard." + +"Then what do you ask me for, when you know I don't know? What did he +say about chains?" + +"He said that he'd take the city, if it were rivetted to heaven with +chains of iron," said Miss Leech dramatically. + +"What a goat." + +"Oh, hush--don't say those horrible words. Where do you learn them? Not +from me, certainly not from me," said Miss Leech, distressed. She had a +profound horror of slang, and was bewildered by the way in which these +weeds of rhetoric sprang up on all occasions in Letty's speech. + +"Well, and was it?" + +"Was it what, my dear?" + +"Chained to heaven?" + +"The city? Why, how can a city be chained to heaven, Letty?" + +"Then what did he say it for?" + +"He was using a metaphor." + +"Oh," said Letty, who did not know what a metaphor was, but supposed it +must be something used in sieges, and preferred not to inquire too +closely. + +"He was obliged to retire," said Miss Leech, "leaving enormous numbers +of slain on the field." + +"Poor beasts. I say, Leechy," she whispered, "don't let's bother about +history now. Go on with Mr. Jessup. You'd got to where he called you Amy +for the first time." + +Mr. Jessup was the person already alluded to in these pages as the only +man Miss Leech had ever loved, and his history was of absorbing interest +to Letty, who never tired of hearing his first appearance on Miss +Leech's horizon described, with his subsequent advances before the stage +of open courting was reached, the courting itself, and its melancholy +end; for Mr. Jessup, a clergyman of the Church of England, with a +vicarage all ready to receive his wife, had suddenly become a prey to +new convictions, and had gone over to the Church of Rome; whereupon Miss +Leech's father, also a clergyman of the Church of England, had talked a +great deal about the Scarlet Woman of Babylon, and had shut the door in +Mr. Jessup's face when next he called to explain. This had happened when +Miss Leech was twenty. Now, at thirty, an orphan resigned to the world's +buffets, she found a gentle consolation in repeating the story of her +ill-starred engagement to her keenly interested friend and pupil; and +the oftener she repeated it the less did it grieve her, till at last she +came actually to enjoy the remembrance of it, pleased to have played the +principal part even in a drama that was hissed off her little stage, +glad to find a sympathetic listener, dwelling much and fondly on every +incident of that short period of importance and glory. + +It is doubtful whether she would ever have extracted the same amount of +pleasure from Mr. Jessup had he remained fixed in the faith of his +fathers and married her in due season. By his secession he had +unconsciously become a sort of providence to Letty and herself, saving +them from endless hours of dulness, furnishing their lonely schoolroom +life with romance and mystery; and if in Miss Leech's mind he gradually +took on the sweet intangibility of a pleasant dream, he was the very +pith and marrow of Letty's existence. She glowed and thrilled at the +thought that perhaps she too would one day have a Mr. Jessup of her own, +who would have convictions, and give up everything, herself included, +for what he believed to be right. + +As usual, they at once became absorbed in Mr. Jessup, forgetting in the +contemplation of his excellencies everything else in the world, till +they were roused to realities by their arrival at Stralsund; and Susie, +thrusting books and bags and umbrellas into their passive hands, pushed +them out of the carriage into the wet. + +Hilton, the maid shared by Susie and Anna, had then to be found and +urged to clamber down quickly on to the low platform, where she stood +helplessly, the picture of injured superiority, hustled by the hurrying +porters and passengers, out of whose way she scorned to move, while Anna +went to look for the luggage and have it put into the cart that had been +sent for it. + +This cart was an ordinary farm cart, used for bringing in the hay in +June, but also used for carrying out the manure in November; and on a +sack of straw lying in the bottom it was expected that Hilton should +sit. The farm boy who drove it, and who helped the porter to tie the +trunks to its sides lest they should too violently bump against each +other and Hilton on the way, said so; the coachman of the carriage +waiting for the _Herrschaften_ pointed with his whip first at Hilton and +then at the cart, and said so; the porter, who seemed to think it quite +natural, said so; and everybody was waiting for Hilton to get in, who, +when she had at length grasped the situation, went to Susie, who was +looking frightened and pretending to be absorbed by the sky, and with a +voice shaken by passion, and a face changing from white to red, +announced her intention of only going in that cart as a corpse, when +they might do with her as they pleased, but as a living body with breath +in it, never. + +Here was a difficulty. And idlers, whose curiosity was not +extinguishable by wind and sleet, began to press round, and people who +had come by the same train stopped on their way out to listen. The farm +boy patted the sack and declared that it was clean straw, the coachman +stood up on his box and swore that it was a new sack, the porter assured +the Fräulein that it was as comfortable as a feather bed, and nobody +seemed to understand that what she was being offered was an insult. + +Susie was afraid of Hilton, who had been in the service of duchesses, +and who held these duchesses over her mistress's head whenever her +mistress wanted to do anything that was inconvenient to herself; quoting +their sayings, pointing out how they would have acted in any given case, +and always, it appeared, they had done exactly what Hilton desired. +Susie's admiration for duchesses was slavish, and Hilton was treated +with an indulgent liberality that was absurd compared to the stinginess +displayed towards everyone else. Hilton was not more horrified than her +mistress when she saw the farm cart, and understood that it was for the +luggage and the maid. It was impossible to take her with them in what +the porter called the _herrschaftliche Wagen_, for it was a kind of +victoria, and how to get their four selves into it was a sufficient +puzzle. "What shall we do?" said Susie, in despair, to Anna. + +"Do? Why, she'll have to go in it. Hilton, don't be a foolish person, +and don't keep us here in the wet. This isn't England, and nobody thinks +anything here of driving in farm carts. It is patriarchal simplicity, +that's all. People are staring at you now because you are making such a +fuss. Get in like a good soul, and let us start." + +"Only as a corpse, m'm," reiterated Hilton with chattering teeth, "never +as a living body." + +"Nonsense," said Anna impatiently. + +"What shall we do?" repeated Susie. "Poor Hilton--what barbarians they +must be here." + +"We must send her in a _Droschky_, then, if it isn't too far, and we can +get one to go." + +"A _Droschky_ all that distance! It will be ruinous." + +"Well, we can't stand here amusing these people for ever." + +"Oh, I wish we had never come to this horrible place!" cried Susie, +really made miserable by Hilton's rage. + +But Anna did not stay to listen either to her laments or to Hilton's +monotonous "Only as a corpse, m'lady," and was already arranging with an +unwilling driver, who had no desire whatever to drive to Kleinwalde, but +consented to do so on being promised twenty marks, a rest and feed of +oats for his horses, and any little addition in the shape of refreshment +and extra money that might suggest itself to Anna's generosity. + +"You know, Anna, you can't expect _me_ to pay for the fly," said Susie +uneasily, when the appeased Hilton had been put into it and was out of +earshot. "That dreadful cart is your property, I suppose." + +"Of course it is," said Anna, smiling, "and of course the fly is my +affair. How magnificent I feel, disposing of carts and _Droschkies_. +Now, will you please to get into my carriage? And do you observe the +extreme respectfulness of my coachman?" + +The coachman, a strange-looking, round-shouldered being, with a long +grizzled beard, a dark-blue cloth cap on his head, and a body clothed in +a fawn-coloured suit and gaiters, on which a great many tarnished silver +buttons adorned with Uncle Joachim's coat of arms were fastened at short +intervals, removed his cap while his new mistress and her party were +entering the carriage, and did not put it on again till they were ready +to start. + +"Quite as though we were royalties," said Susie. + +"But the rest of him isn't," replied Anna, who was greatly amused by the +turn-out. "Do you like my horses, Susie? Or do you suspect them of +having been ploughing all the morning? Oh, well," she added quickly, +ashamed of laughing at any part of her dear uncle's gift, "I suppose one +has to have heavily built horses in this part of the world, where the +roads are probably frightfully bad." + +"Their tails might be a little shorter," said Susie. + +"They might," agreed Anna serenely. + +With the aid of the porter, who knew all about Uncle Joachim's will and +was deeply interested, they were at last somehow packed into the +carriage, and away they rattled over the rough stones, threading the +outskirts of the town on the mainland, the hail and wind in their faces, +out into the open country, with their horses' heads turned towards the +north. The fly containing Hilton followed more leisurely behind, and the +farm cart containing the unused sack of straw followed the fly. + +"We can't see much of Stralsund," said Anna, trying to peep round the +hood at the old town across the lakes separating it from the mainland. + +"It's a very historical town," observed Susie, who had happened to +notice, as she idly turned over the pages of her Baedeker on the way +down, that there was a long description of it with dates. "As of course +you know," she added, turning sharply to her daughter. + +"Rather," said Letty. "Wallenstein said he'd take it if it were chained +to heaven, and when he found it wasn't he was frightfully sick, and went +away and left them all in the fields." + +Miss Leech, who was on the little seat, struggling to defend herself +from the fury of the elements with an umbrella, looked anxious, but +Susie only said in a gratified voice, "I'm glad you remember what you've +been taught." To which Letty, who was in great spirits, and thought this +drive in the wet huge fun, again replied heartily, "Rather," and her +mother congratulated herself on having done the right thing in bringing +her to Germany, home of erudition and profundity, already evidently +beginning to do its work. + +The carriage smelt of fish, which presently upset Susie, who, +unfortunately for her, had a nose that smelt everything. While they were +in the town she thought the smell was in the streets, and bore it; but +out in the open, where there was not a house to be seen, she found that +it was in the carriage. + +She fidgeted, and looked about, feeling with her foot under the opposite +seat, expecting to find a basket somewhere, and determined if she found +one to push it out quietly and say nothing; for that she should drive +for two hours with her handkerchief up to her nose was more than anybody +could expect of her. Already she had done more than anybody ought to +expect of her, she reflected, in going to the expense of the journey and +the inconvenience of the absence from home for Anna's sake, and she +hoped that Anna felt grateful. She had never yet shrunk from her duty +towards Anna, or indeed from her duty towards anyone, and she was sure +she never would; but her duty certainly did not include the passive +endurance of offensive smells. + +"What are you looking for?" asked Anna. + +"Why, the fish." + +"Oh, do you smell it too?" + +"Smell it? I should think I did. It's killing me." + +"Oh, poor Susie!" laughed Anna, who was possessed by an uncontrollable +desire to laugh at everything. The conveyance (it could hardly be called +a carriage) in which they were seated, and which she supposed was the +one destined for her use if she lived at Kleinwalde, was unlike anything +she had yet seen. It was very old, with enormous wheels, and bumped +dreadfully, and the seat was so constructed that she was continually +slipping forward and having to push herself back again. It was lined +throughout, including the hood, with a white and black shepherd's plaid +in large squares, the white squares mellowed by the stains of use and +time to varying shades of brown and yellow; when Miss Leech's umbrella +was blown aside by a gust of wind Anna could see her coachman's drab +coat, with a little end of white tape that he had forgotten to tie, and +whose uses she was unable to guess, fluttering gaily between its tails +in the wind; on the left side of the box was a very big and gorgeous +coat of arms in green and white, Uncle Joachim's colours; and whichever +way she turned her head, there was the overpowering smell of fish. "We +must be taking our dinner home with us," she said, "but I don't see it +anywhere." + +"There isn't anything under the seats. Perhaps the man has got it on the +box. Ask him, Anna; I really can't stand it." + +Anna did not quite know how to attract his attention. It seemed +undignified to poke him, but she did not know his name, and the wind +blew her voice back in the direction of Stralsund when she had cleared +it, and coughed, and called out rather shyly, "Oh, _Kutscher! +Kutscher!_" + +Then she remembered that oh was not German, and that Uncle Joachim had +used sonorous achs in its place, and she began again, "_Ach, Kutscher! +Kutscher!_" + +Letty giggled. "Go it, Aunt Anna," she said encouragingly, "dig him in +the ribs with your umbrella--or I will, if you like." + +Her mother, with her handkerchief to her nose, exhorted her not to be +vulgar. Letty explained at some length that she was only being nice, and +offering assistance. + +"I really shall have to poke him," said Anna, her faint cries of +_Kutscher_ quite lost in the rattling of the carriage and the howling of +the wind. "Or perhaps you would touch his arm, Miss Leech." + +Miss Leech turned, and very gingerly touched his sleeve. He at once +whistled to his horses, who stopped dead, snatched off his cap, and +looking down at Anna inquired her commands. + +It was done so quickly that Anna, whose conversational German was +exceedingly rusty, was quite unable to remember the word for fish, and +sat looking up at him helplessly, while she vainly searched her brains. + +"What _is_ fish in German?" she said, appealing to Susie, distressed +that the man should be waiting capless in the rain. + +"Letty, what's the word for fish?" inquired Susie sternly. + +"Fish?" repeated Letty, looking stupid. + +"Fish?" echoed Miss Leech, trying to help. + +"_Fisch?_" said the coachman himself, catching at the word. + +"Oh, yes; how utterly silly I am," cried Anna blushing and showing her +dimples, "it's _Fisch_, of course. _Kutscher, wo ist Fisch?_" + +The man looked blank; then his face brightened, and pointing with his +whip to the rolling sea on their right, visible across the flat +intervening fields, he said that there was much fish in it, especially +herrings. + +"What does he say?" asked Susie from behind her handkerchief. + +"He says there are herrings in the sea." + +"Is the man a fool?" + +Letty laughed uproariously. The coachman, seeing Letty and Anna laugh, +thought he must have said the right thing after all, and looked very +pleasant. + +"_Aber im Wagen_," persisted Anna, "_wo ist Fisch im Wagen?_" + +The coachman stared. Then he said vaguely, in a soothing voice, not in +the least knowing what she meant, "_Nein, nein, gnädiges Fräulein_," and +evidently hoped she would be satisfied. + +"_Aber es riecht, es riecht!_" cried Anna, not satisfied at all, and +lifting up her nose in unmistakeable displeasure. + +His face brightened again. "_Ach so--jawohl, jawohl_," he exclaimed +cheerfully; and hastened to explain that there were no fish nearer than +the sea, but that the grease he had used that morning to make the +leather of the hood and apron shine certainly had a fishy smell, as he +himself had noticed. "The gracious Miss loves not the smell?" he +inquired anxiously; for he had seven children, and was very desirous +that his new mistress should be pleased. + +Anna laughed and shook her head, and though she said with great emphasis +that she did not love it at all, she looked so friendly that he felt +reassured. + +"What does he say?" asked Susie. + +"Why, I'm afraid we shall have it all the way. It's the grease he's been +rubbing the leather with." + +"Barbarian!" cried Susie angrily, feeling sick already, and certain that +she would be quite ill by the end of the drive. "And you laugh at him +and encourage him, instead of taking up your position at once and +showing him that you won't stand any nonsense. He ought to be--to be +unboxed!" she added in great wrath; for she had heard of delinquent +clergymen being unfrocked, and why should not delinquent coachmen be +unboxed? + +Anna laughed again. She tried not to, but she could not help it; and +Susie, made still more angry by this childish behaviour, sulked during +the rest of the drive. + +"Go on--_avanti_!" said Anna, who knew hardly any Italian, and when she +was in Italy and wanted her words never could find them, but had been +troubled the last two days by the way in which these words came to her +lips every time she opened them to speak German. + +The coachman understood her, however, and they went on again along the +straight high-road, that stretched away before them to a distant bend. +The high-road, or _chaussĂ©e_, was planted on either side with maples, +and between the maples big whitewashed stones had been set to mark the +way at night, and behind the rows of trees and stones, ditches had been +dug parallel with the road as a protection to the crops in summer from +the possible wanderings of erring carts. If a cart erred, it tumbled +into the ditch. The arrangement was simple and efficacious. On the +right, across some marshy land, they could see the sea for a little +while, with the flat coast of RĂĽgen opposite; and then some rising +ground, bare of trees and brilliantly green with winter corn, hid it +from view. On the left was the dreary plain, dotted at long intervals +with farms and their little groups of trees, and here and there with +windmills working furiously in the gale. The wind was icy, and the +December snow still lay in drifts in the ditches. In that leaden +landscape, made up of grey and brown and black, the patches of winter +rye were quite startling in their greenness. + +Susie thought it the most God-forsaken country she had ever seen, and +expressed this opinion plainly on her face and in her attitudes without +any need for opening her lips, shuddering back ostentatiously into her +corner, wrapping herself with elaborate care in her furs, and behaving +as slaves to duty sometimes do when the paths they have to tread are +rough. + +After driving along the _chaussĂ©e_ for about an hour, they passed a big +house standing among trees back from the road on the right, and a little +farther on came to a small village. The carriage, pulled up with a jerk, +and looking eagerly round the hood Anna found they had come to a +standstill in front of a new red-brick building, whose steps were +crowded with children. Two or three men and some women were with the +children. Two of the men appeared to be clergymen, and the elder, a +middle-aged, mild-faced man, came down the steps, and bowing profoundly +proceeded to welcome Anna solemnly, on behalf of those children from +Kleinwalde who attended this school, to her new home. He concluded that +Anna was the person to be welcomed because he could see nothing of the +lady in the other corner but her eyes, and they looked anything but +friendly; whereas the young lady on the left was leaning forward and +smiling and holding out her hand. + +He took it, and shook it slowly up and down, while he begged her to +allow the hood of the carriage to be put back, so that the children from +her village, who had walked three miles to welcome her, might be able to +see her; and on Anna's readily agreeing to this, himself helped the +coachman with his own white-gloved hands to put it down. Susie was +therefore exposed to the full fury of the blast, and shrank still +farther into her corner--an interesting and tantalising object to the +school-children, a dark, mysterious combination of fur, cocks' feathers, +and black eyebrows. + +Then the clergyman, hat in hand, made a speech. He spoke distinctly, as +one accustomed to speaking often and long, and Anna understood every +word. She was wholly taken aback by these ceremonies, and had no idea of +what she should say in reply, but sat smiling vaguely at him, looking +very pretty and very shy. She soon found that her smiles were +inappropriate, and they died away; for, warming as he proceeded, the +parson, it appeared, was taking it for granted that she intended to live +on her property, and was eloquently descanting on the comfort she was +going to be to the poor, assuring those present that she would be a +mother to the sick, nursing them with her tender woman's hands, an angel +of mercy to the hungry, feeding them in the hour of their distress, a +friend and sister to the little children, succouring them, caring for +them, pitiful of their weakness and their sins. His face lit up with +enthusiasm as he went on, and Anna was thankful that Susie could not +understand. This crowd of children, the women, the young parson, her +coachman, were all hearing promises made on her behalf that she had no +thought of fulfilling. She looked down, and twisted her fingers about +nervously, and felt uncomfortable. + +At the end of his speech, the parson, his eyes full of the tears drawn +forth by his own eloquence, held up his hand and solemnly blessed her, +rounding off his blessing with a loud Amen, after which there was an +awkward pause. Susie heard the Amen, and guessed that something in the +nature of a blessing was being invoked, and made a movement of +impatience. The parson was odious in her eyes, first because he looked +like the ministers of the Baptist chapels of her unmarried youth, but +principally because he was keeping her there in the gale and prolonging +the tortures she was enduring from the smell of fish. Anna did not know +what to say after the Amen, and looked up more shyly than ever, and +stammered in her confusion _Danke sehr_, hoping that it was a proper +remark to make; whereupon the parson bowed again, as one who should say +Pray don't mention it. Then another man, evidently the schoolmaster, +took out a tuning-fork, gave out a note, and the children sang a +_chorale_, following it up with other more cheerful songs, in which the +words _FrĂĽhling_ and _Willkommen_ were repeated a great many times, +while the wind howled flattest contradiction. + +When this was over, the parson begged leave to introduce the other +clerical-looking person, a tall narrow youth, also in white kid gloves, +buttoned up tightly in a long coat of broadcloth, with a pallid face and +thick, upright flaxen hair. + +"Herr Vicar Klutz," said the elder parson, with a wave of the hand; and +the Herr Vicar, making his bow, and having his limp hand heartily +grasped by that other little hand, and his furtive eyes smiled into by +those other friendly eyes, became on the spot desperately enamoured; +which was very natural, seeing that he had not spoken to a woman under +forty for six months, and was himself twenty and a poet. He spent the +rest of the afternoon shut up in his bedroom, where, refusing all +nourishment, he composed a poem in which _berauschten Sinn_ was made to +rhyme with _Engländerin_, while the elder parson, in whose house he +lived, thought he was writing his Good Friday sermon. + +Then the schoolmaster was introduced, and then came the two women--the +schoolmaster's wife and the parson's wife; and when Anna had smiled and +murmured polite and incoherent little speeches to each in turn, and had +nodded and bowed at least a dozen times to each of these ladies, who +could by no means have done with their curtseys, and had introduced them +to the dumb figure in the corner, during which ceremonies Letty stared +round-eyed and open-mouthed at the school-children, and the +school-children stared round-eyed and open-mouthed at Letty, and Miss +Leech looked demure, and Susie's brows were contracted by suffering, she +wondered whether she might not now with propriety continue her journey, +and if so whether it were expected that she should give the signal. + +Everybody was smiling at everybody else by way of filling up this pause +of hesitation, except Susie, who shut her eyes with great dignity, and +shivered in so marked a manner that the parson himself came to the +rescue, and bade the coachman help him put up the hood again, explaining +to Anna as he did so that her _Frau Schwester_ was not used to the +climate. + +Evidently the moment had come for going on, and the bows that had but +just left off began again with renewed vigour. Anna was anxious to say +something pleasant at the finish, so she asked the parson's wife, as she +bade her good-bye, whether she and her husband would come to Kleinwalde +the next day to dinner. + +This invitation produced a very deep curtsey and a flush of +gratification, but the recipient turned to her lord before accepting it, +to inquire his pleasure. + +"I fear not to-morrow, gracious Miss," said the parson, "for it is Good +Friday." + +"_Ach ja_," stammered Anna, ashamed of herself for having forgotten. + +"_Ach ja_," exclaimed the parson's wife, still more ashamed of herself +for having forgotten. + +"Perhaps Saturday, then?" suggested Anna. + +The parson murmured something about quiet hours preparatory to the +Sabbath; but his wife, a person who struck Anna as being quite +extraordinarily stout, was burning with curiosity to examine those +foreign ladies more conveniently, and especially to see what manner of +being would emerge from the pile of fur and feathers in the corner; and +she urged him, in a rapid aside, to do for once without quiet hours. +Whereupon he patted her on the cheek, smiled indulgently, and said he +would make an exception and do himself the honour of appearing. + +This being settled, Anna said _Gehen Sie_ to her coachman, who again +showed his intelligence by understanding her; and in a cloud of smiles +and bows they drove away, the school-girls making curtseys, the +schoolboys taking off their caps, and the parson standing hat in hand +with his arm round his wife's waist as serenely as though it had been a +summer's day and no one looking. + +Anna became used to these displays of conjugal regard in public later +on; but this first time she turned to Susie with a laugh, when the hood +had hidden the group from view, and asked her if she had seen it. But +Susie had seen nothing, for her eyes were shut, and she refused to +answer any questions otherwise than by a feeble shake of the head. + +On the other side of the village the _chaussĂ©e_ came to an end, and two +deep, sandy roads took its place. There was a sign-post at their +junction, one arm of which, pointing to the right-hand road that ran +down close to the sea, had Kleinwalde scrawled on it; and beside this +sign-post a man on a horse was waiting for them. + +"Good gracious! More rot?" ejaculated Susie as the carriage stopped +again, shaken out of the dignity of sulks by these repeated shocks. + +"Oberinspector Dellwig," said the man, introducing himself, and sweeping +off his hat and bowing lower and more obsequiously than anyone had yet +done. + +"This must be the inspector Uncle Joachim hoped I'd keep," said Anna in +an undertone. + +"I don't care who he is, but for heaven's sake don't let him make a +speech. I can't stand this sort of thing any longer. You'll have me ill +on your hands if you're not careful, and you won't like _that_, so you +had better stop him." + +"I can't stop him," said Anna, perplexed. She also had had enough of +speeches. + +"_Gestatten gnädiges Fräulein dass ich meine gehorsamste Ehrerbietung +ausspreche_," began the glib inspector, bowing at every second word over +his horse's ears. + +There was no escape, and they had to hear him out. The man had prepared +his speech, and say it he would. It was not so long as the parson's, but +was quite as flowery in another way, overflowing with respectful +allusions to the deceased master, and with expressions of unbounded +loyalty, obedience, and devotion to the new mistress. + +Susie shut her eyes again when she found he was not to be stopped, and +gave herself up for lost. What could Hilton, who must be close behind +waiting in the cold, uncomforted by any food since leaving Berlin, think +of all this? Susie dreaded the moment when she would have to face her. + +The inspector finished all he had intended saying, and then, assuming a +more colloquial tone, informed Anna that from the sign-post onward she +would be driving through her own property, and asked permission to ride +by her side the rest of the way. So they had his company for the last +two miles and his conversation, of which there was much; for he had a +ready tongue, and explained things to Anna in a very loud voice as they +went along, expatiating on the magnificence of the crops the previous +summer, and assuring her that the crops of the coming summer would be +even more magnificent, for he had invented a combination of manures +which would give such results that all Pomerania's breath would be taken +away. + +The road here was terrible, and the horses could hardly drag the +carriage through the sand. It lurched and heaved from side to side, +creaking and groaning alarmingly. Miss Leech was in imminent peril. Anna +held on with both hands, and hardly had leisure to put in appropriate +_achs_ and _jas_ and questions of a becoming intelligence when the +inspector paused to take breath. She did not like his looks, and wished +that she could follow Susie's example and avoid the necessity of seeing +him by the simple expedient of shutting her eyes. But somehow, she did +not quite know how, responsibilities and obligations were suddenly +pressing heavily upon her. These people had all made up their minds that +she was going to be and do certain things; and though she assured +herself that it did not in the least matter how they had made up their +minds, yet she felt obliged to behave in the way that was expected of +her. She did not want to talk to this unpleasant-looking man, and what +he told her about the crops and their marvellousness was half +unintelligible to her and wholly a bore. Yet she did talk to him, and +looked friendly, and affected to understand and be deeply interested in +all he said. + +They passed through a plantation of young beeches, planted, Dellwig +explained, by Uncle Joachim on his last visit; and after a few more +yards of lurching in the sand came to some woods and got on to a fair +road. + +"The park," said Dellwig superbly, with a wave of the hand. + +Susie opened her eyes at the word park, and looked about. "It isn't a +park," she said peevishly, "it's a forest--a horrid, gloomy, damp +wilderness." + +"Oh, it's lovely!" cried Letty, giving a jump of delight as she peered +down the serried ranks of pine trees. + +It was a thick wood of pines and beeches, railed off from the road on +either side by wooden rails painted in black and white stripes. Uncle +Joachim had been the loyalest of Prussians, and his loyalty overflowed +even into his fences. Æsthetic instincts he had none, and if he had been +brought to see it, would not have cared at all that the railings made +the otherwise beautiful avenue look like the entrance to a restaurant or +a railway station. The stripes, renewed every year, and of startling +distinctness, were an outward and visible sign of his staunch devotion +to the King of Prussia, the very lining of the carriage with its white +and black squares was symbolic; and when they came to the gate within +which the house itself stood, two Prussian eagles frowned down at them +from the gate-posts. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +A low, white, two-storied house, separated from the forest only by a +circular grass plot and a ditch with half-melted snow in it and muddy +water, a house apparently quite by itself among the creaking pines, +neither very old nor very new, with a great many windows, and a +brown-tiled roof, was the home bestowed by Uncle Joachim on his dear and +only niece Anna. + +"So _this_ is where I was to lead the better life?" she thought, as the +carriage drew up at the door, and the moaning of the uneasy trees, and +all the lonely sounds of a storm-beaten forest replaced the rattling of +the wheels in her ears. "The better life, then, is a life of utter +solitude, Uncle Joachim thought? I wish I knew--I wish I knew----" But +what it was she wished she knew was hardly clear in her mind; and her +thoughts were interrupted by a very untidy, surprised-looking +maid-servant, capless, and in felt slippers, who had darted down the +steps and was unfastening the leather apron and pulling out the rugs +with hasty, agitated hands, and trying to pull Susie out as well. + +The doorway was garlanded with evergreen wreaths, over which a green and +white flag flapped; and curtseying and smiling beneath the wreaths stood +Dellwig's wife, a short lady with smooth hair, weather-beaten face, and +brown silk gloves, who would have been the stoutest person Anna had ever +seen if she had not just come from the presence of the parson's wife. + +"I never saw so many bows in my life," grumbled Susie, pushing the +servant aside, and getting out cautiously, feeling very stiff and cold +and miserable. "Letty, you are on my dress--oh, how d'you do--how d'you +do," she murmured frostily, as the Frau Inspector seized her hand and +began to talk German to her. "Anna, are you coming? This--er--person +thinks I'm you, and is making me a speech." + +Dellwig, who had sent his horse away in charge of a small boy, rapidly +explained to his wife that the young lady now getting out of the +carriage was their late master's niece, and that the other one must be +the sister-in-law mentioned in the lawyer's letter; upon which Frau +Dellwig let Susie go, and transferred her smiles and welcome to Anna. +Susie went into the house to get out of the cold, only to find herself +in a square hall whose iciness was the intolerable iciness of a place in +which no sun had been allowed to shine and no windows had been opened +for summers without number. When Uncle Joachim came down he lived in two +rooms at the back of the house, with a door leading into the garden +through which he went to the farm, and the hall had never been used, and +the closed shutters never opened. There was no fireplace, or stove, or +heating arrangement of any sort. Glass doors divided it from an inner +and still more spacious hall, with a wide wooden staircase, and doors +all round it. The walls in both halls were painted grass green; and from +little chains in the ceiling stuffed hawks and eagles, shot by Uncle +Joachim, and grown with years very dusty and moth-eaten, hung swinging +in the draught. The floor was boarded, and was still damp from a recent +scrubbing. There was no carpet. A wooden bracket on the wall, with brass +hooks, held a large assortment of whips and hunting crops; and in one +corner stood an arrangement for coats, with Uncle Joachim's various +waterproofs and head-coverings hanging monumentally on its pegs. + +"Oh, how dreadful!" thought Susie, shivering more violently than ever. +"And what a musty smell--it's damp, of course, and I shall be laid up. +Poor Hilton! What will she think of this? Oh, how d'you do," she added +aloud, as a female figure in a white apron suddenly emerged from the +gloom and took her hand and kissed it; "Anna, who's this? Anna! Aren't +you coming? Here's somebody kissing my hand." + +"It's the cook," said Anna, coming into the inner hall with the others, +Dellwig and his wife keeping one on either side of her, and both talking +at once in their anxiety to make a good impression. + +"The cook? Then tell her to give us some food. I shall die if I don't +have something soon. Do you know what time it is? Past four. Can't you +get rid of these people? And where's Hilton?" + +Susie hardly seemed to see the Dellwigs, and talked to Anna while they +were talking to her as though they did not exist. If Anna felt an +obligation to be polite to these different persons she felt none at all. +They did not understand English, but if they had it would not have +mattered to her, and she would have gone on talking about them as though +they had not been there. + +Both the Dellwigs had very loud voices, so Susie had to raise hers in +order to be heard, and there was consequently such a noise in the empty, +echoing house, that after looking round bewildered, and trying to answer +everybody at once, Anna gave it up, and stood and laughed. + +"I don't see anything to laugh at," said Susie crossly, "we are all +starving, and these people won't go." + +"But how can I make them go?" + +"They're your servants, I suppose. I should just say that I'd send for +them when I wanted them." + +"They'd be very much astonished. The man is so far from being my servant +that I believe he means to be my master." + +The two Dellwigs, perplexed by Anna's laughter when nobody had said +anything amusing, and uneasy lest she should be laughing at something +about themselves, looked from her to Susie suspiciously, and for that +brief moment were quiet. + +"_Wir sind hungrig_," said Anna to the wife. + +"The food comes immediately," she replied; and hastened away with the +cook and the other servant through a door evidently leading to the +kitchen. + +"_Und kalt_," continued Anna plaintively to the husband, who at once +flung open another door, through which they saw a table spread for +dinner. "_Bitte, bitte_," he said, ushering them in as though the place +belonged to him. + +"Does this person live in the house?" inquired Susie, eying him with +little goodwill. + +"He told me he lives at the farm. But of course he has always looked +after everything here." + +When they were all in the dining-room, driven in by Dellwig, as Susie +remarked, like a flock of sheep by a shepherd determined to stand no +nonsense, he helped them with officious politeness to take off their +wraps, and then, bowing almost to the ground, asked permission to +withdraw while the _Herrschaften_ ate, a permission that was given with +alacrity, Anna's face falling, however, upon his informing her that he +would come round later on in order to lay his plans for the summer +before her. + +"What does he say?" asked Susie, as the door shut behind him. + +"He's coming round again later on." + +"That man's going to be a nuisance--you see if he isn't," said Susie +with conviction. + +"I believe he is," agreed Anna, going over to the white porcelain stove +to warm her hands. + +"He's the limpet, and you're going to be the rock. Don't let him fleece +you too much." + +"But limpets don't fleece rocks," said Anna. + +"He wouldn't be able to fleece me, _I_ know, if I could talk German as +well as you do. But you'll be soft and weak and amiable, and he'll do as +he likes with you." + +"Soft, and weak, and amiable!" repeated Anna, smiling at Susie's +adjectives, "why, I thought I was obstinate--you always said I was." + +"So you are. But you won't be to that man. He'll get round you." + +"Uncle Joachim said he was excellent." + +"Oh, I daresay he wasn't bad with a man over him who knew all about +farming, but mark my words, _you_ won't get two thousand a year out of +the place." + +Anna was silent. Susie was invariably shrewd and sensible, if inclined, +Anna thought, to be over suspicious, in matters where money was +concerned. Dellwig's face was not one to inspire confidence: and his way +of shouting when he talked, and of talking incessantly, was already +intolerable to her. She was not sure, either, that his wife was any more +satisfactory. She too shouted, and Anna detested noise. The wife did not +appear again, and had evidently gone home with her husband, for a great +silence had fallen upon the house, broken only by the monotonous sighing +of the forest, and the pattering of rain against the window. + +The dining-room was a long narrow room, with one big window forming its +west end looking out on to the grass plot, the ditch, and the gate-posts +with the eagles on them. It was a study in chocolate--brown paper, brown +carpet, brown rep curtains, brown cane chairs. There were two wooden +sideboards painted brown facing each other down at the dark end, with a +collection of miscellaneous articles on them: a vinegar cruet that had +stood there for years, with remains of vinegar dried up at the bottom; +mustard pots containing a dark and wicked mixture that had once been +mustard; a broken hand-bell used at long-past dinners, to summon +servants long since dead; an old wine register with entries in it of a +quarter of a century back; a mouldy bottle of Worcester sauce, still +boasting on its label that it would impart a relish to viands otherwise +dull; and some charming Dresden china fruit-dishes, adorned with +cheerful shepherds and shepherdesses, incurable optimists, persistently +pleased with themselves and their surroundings through all the days and +nights of all the cold silent years that they had been smiling at each +other in the dark. On the round dinner-table was a pot of lilies of the +valley, enveloped in crinkly pink tissue paper tied round with pink +satin ribbon, with ears of the paper drawn up between the flower-stalks +to produce a pleasing contrast of pink and white. + +"Well, it's warm enough here, isn't it?" said Susie, going round the +room and examining these things with an interest far exceeding that +called forth by the art treasures of Berlin. + +"Rather," said Letty, answering for everybody, and rubbing her hands. +She frolicked about the room, peeping into all the corners, opening the +cupboards, trying the sofa, and behaving in so frisky a fashion that her +mother, who seldom saw her at home, and knew her only as a naughty +gloomy girl, turned once or twice from the interesting sideboards to +stare at her inquiringly through her lorgnette. + +The servant with the surprised eyebrows, who presently brought in the +soup, had put on a pair of white cotton gloves for the ceremony of +waiting, but still wore her felt slippers. She put the plates in a pile +on the edge of the table, murmured something in German, and ran out +again; nor did she come back till she brought the next course, when she +behaved in a precisely similar manner, and continued to do so throughout +the meal; the diners, having no bell, being obliged to sit patiently +during the intervals, until she thought that they might perhaps be ready +for some more. + +It was an odd meal, and began with cold chocolate soup with frothy white +things that tasted of vanilla floating about in it. Susie was so much +interested in this soup that she forgot all about Hilton, who had been +driven ignominiously to the back door and was left sitting in the +kitchen till the two servants should have time to take her upstairs, and +was employing the time composing a speech of a spirited nature in which +she intended giving her mistress notice the moment she saw her again. + +Her mistress meanwhile was meditatively turning over the vanilla balls +in her soup. "Well, I don't like it," she said at last, laying down her +spoon. + +"Oh, it's ripping!" cried her daughter ecstatically. "It's like having +one's pudding at the other end." + +"How can you look at chocolate after Berlin, greedy girl?" asked her +mother, disgusted by her child's obvious tendency towards a too free +indulgence in the pleasures of the table. But Letty was feeling so +jovial that in the face of this question she boldly asked for more--a +request that was refused indignantly and at once. + +There was such a long pause after the soup that in their hunger they +began to eat the stewed apples and bottled cherries that were on the +table. The brown bread, arranged in thin slices on a white crochet mat +in a japanned dish, felt so damp and was so full of caraway seeds that +it was uneatable. After a while some roach, caught on the estate, and +with a strong muddy flavour and bewildering multitudes of bones, was +brought in; and after that came cutlets from Anna's pigs; and after that +a queer red gelatinous pudding that tasted of physic; and after that, +the meal being evidently at an end, Susie, who was very hungry, remarked +that if all the food were going to be like those specimens they had +better return at once to England, or they would certainly be starved. +"It's a good thing you are not going to stay here, Anna," she said, "for +you'd have to make a tremendous fuss before you'd get them to leave off +treating you like a pig. Look here--teaspoons to eat the pudding with, +and the same fork all the way through. It's a beastly hole"--Letty's +eyebrows telegraphed triumphantly across to Miss Leech, "Well, did you +hear that?"--"and we ought to have stayed in Berlin. There was nothing +to be gained at all by coming here." + +"Perhaps the dinner to-night will be better," said Anna, trying to +comfort her, and little knowing that they had just eaten the dinner; but +people who are hungry are surprisingly impervious to the influence of +fair words. "It couldn't be worse, anyhow, so it really will probably be +better. I'm very glad though that we did come, for I like it." + +"Oh, yes, so do I, Aunt Anna!" cried Letty. "It's frightfully nice. It's +like a picnic that doesn't leave off. When are we going over the house, +and out into the garden? I do so want to go--oh, I do so want to go!" +And she jumped up and down impatiently on her chair, till her ardour was +partially quenched by her mother's forbidding her to go out of doors in +the rain. "Well, let's go over the house, then," said Letty, dying to +explore. + +"Oh, yes, you may go over the house," said her mother with a shrug of +displeasure; though why she should be displeased it would have puzzled +anyone who had dined satisfactorily to explain. Then she suddenly +remembered Hilton, and with an exclamation started off in search of her. + +The others put on their furs before going into the Arctic atmosphere of +the hall, and began to explore, spending the next hour very pleasantly +rambling all over the house, while Susie, who had found Hilton, remained +shut up in the bedroom allotted her till supper time. + +The cook showed Anna her bedroom, and when she had gone, Anna gave one +look round at the evergreen wreaths with which it was decorated and +which filled it with a pungent, baked smell, and then ran out to see +what her house was like. Her heart was full of pride and happiness as +she wandered about the rooms and passages. The magic word _mine_ rang in +her ears, and gave each piece of furniture a charm so ridiculously great +that she would not have told any one of it for the world. She took up +the different irrelevant ornaments that were scattered through the +rooms, collected as such things do collect, nobody knew when or why, and +she put them down again somewhere else, only because she had the right +to alter things and she loved to remind herself of it. She patted the +walls and the tables as she passed; she smoothed down the folds of the +curtains with tender touches; she went up to every separate +looking-glass and stood in front of it a moment, so that there should be +none that had not reflected the image of its mistress. She was so +childishly delighted with her scanty possessions that she was thankful +Susie remained invisible and did not come out and scoff. + +What if it seemed an odd, bare place to eyes used to the superfluity of +hangings and stuffings that prevailed at Estcourt? These bare boards, +these shabby little mats by the side of the beds, the worn foxes' skins +before the writing-tables, the cane or wooden chairs, the white calico +curtains with meek cotton fringes, the queer little prints on the walls, +the painted wooden bedsteads, seemed to her in their very poorness and +unpretentiousness to be emblematical of all the virtues. As she lingered +in the quiet rooms, while Letty raced along the passages, Anna said to +herself that this Spartan simplicity, this absence of every luxury that +could still further soften an already languid and effeminate soul, was +beautiful. Here, as in the whitewashed praying-places of the Puritans, +if there were any beauty and any glory it must all come from within, be +all of the spirit, be only the beauty of a clean life and the glory of +kind thoughts. She pictured herself waking up in one of those unadorned +beds with the morning sun shining on her face, and rising to go her +daily round of usefulness in her quiet house, where there would be no +quarrels, and no pitiful ambitions, and none of those many bitter +heartaches that need never be. Would they not be happy days, those days +of simple duties? "The better life--the better life," she repeated +musingly, standing in the middle of the big room through whose tall +windows she could see the garden, and a strip of marshy land, and then +the grey sea and the white of the gulls and the dark line of the RĂĽgen +coast over which the dusk was gathering; and she counted on her fingers +mechanically, "Simplicity, frugality, hard work. Uncle Joachim said +_that_ was the better life, and he was wise--oh, he was very wise--but +still----And he loved me, and understood me, but still----" + +Looking up she caught sight of herself in a long glass opposite, a slim +figure in a fur cloak, with bare head and pensive eyes, lost in +reflection. It reminded her of the day the letter came, when she stood +before the glass in her London bedroom dressed for dinner, with that +same sentence of his persistently in her ears, and how she had not been +able to imagine herself leading the life it described. Now, in her +travelling dress, pale and tired and subdued after the long journey, +shorn of every grace of clothes and curls, she criticised her own +fatuity in having held herself to be of too fine a clay, too delicate, +too fragile, for a life that might be rough. "Oh, vain and foolish one!" +she said aloud, apostrophising the figure in the glass with the familiar +_Du_ of the days before her mother died, "Art thou then so much better +than others, that thou must for ever be only ornamental and an expense? +Canst thou not live, except in luxury? Or walk, except on carpets? Or +eat, except thy soup be not of chocolate? Go to the ants, thou sluggard; +consider their ways, and be wise." And she wrapped herself in her cloak, +and frowned defiance at that other girl. + +She was standing scowling at herself with great disapproval when the +housemaid, who had been searching for her everywhere, came to tell her +that the Herr Oberinspector was downstairs, and had sent up to know if +his visit were convenient. + +It was not at all convenient; and Anna thought that he might have spared +her this first evening at least. But she supposed that she must go down +to him, feeling somehow unequal to sending so authoritative a person +away. + +She found him standing in the inner hall with a portfolio under his arm. +He was blowing his nose, making a sound like the blast of a trumpet, and +waking the echoes. Not even that could he do quietly, she thought, her +new sense of proprietorship oddly irritated by a nose being blown so +aggressively in her house. Besides, they were her echoes that he was +disturbing. She smiled at her own childishness. + +She greeted him kindly, however, in response to his elaborate +obeisances, and shook hands on seeing that he expected to be shaken +hands with, though she had done so twice already that afternoon; and +then she let herself be ushered by him into the drawing-room, a room on +the garden side of the house, with French windows, and bookshelves, and +a huge round polished table in the middle. + +It had been one of the two rooms used by Uncle Joachim, and was full of +traces of his visits. She sat down at a big writing-table with a green +cloth top, her feet plunged in the long matted hairs of a grey rug, and +requested Dellwig to sit down near her, which he did, saying +apologetically, "I will be so free." + +The servant, Marie, brought in a lamp with a green shade, shut the +shutters, and went out again on tiptoe; and Anna settled herself to +listen with what patience she could to the loud voice that jarred so on +her nerves, fortifying herself with reminders that it was her duty, and +really taking pains to understand him. Nor did she say a word, as she +had done to the lawyer, that might lead him to suppose she did not +intend living there. + +But Dellwig's ceaseless flow of talk soon wearied her to such an extent +that she found steady attention impossible. To understand the mere words +was in itself an effort, and she had not yet learned the German for rye +and oats and the rest, and it was of these that he chiefly talked. What +was the use of explaining to her in what way he had ploughed and manured +and sown certain fields, how they lay, how big they were, and what their +soil was, when she had not seen them? Did he imagine that she could keep +all these figures and details in her head? "I know nothing of farming," +she said at last, "and shall understand your plans better when I have +seen the estate." + +"_NatĂĽrlich, natĂĽrlich_," shouted Dellwig, his voice in strangest +contrast to hers, which was particularly sweet and gentle. "Here I have +a map--does the gracious Miss permit that I show it?" + +The gracious Miss inclined her tired head, and he unrolled it and spread +it out on the table, pointing with his fat forefinger as he explained +the boundaries, and the divisions into forest, pasture, and arable. + +"It seems to be nearly all forest," said Anna. + +"Forest! The forest covers two-thirds of the estate. It is the only +forest on the entire promontory. Such care as I have bestowed on the +forest has seldom been seen. It is _grossartig--colossal_!" And he +lifted his hands the better to express his admiration, and was about to +go into lengthy raptures when the map rolled itself up again with loud +cracklings, and cut him short. He spread it out once more, and securing +its corners began to describe the effects of the various sorts of +artificial manure on the different crops, his cleverness in combining +them, and his latest triumphant discovery of the superlative mixture +that was to strike all Pomerania with awe. + +"_Ja_," said Anna, balancing a paper-knife on one finger, and profoundly +bored. "Whose land is that next to mine?" she asked, pointing. + +"The land on the north and west belongs to peasants," said Dellwig. "On +the east is the sea. On the south it is all Lohm. The gracious one +passed through the village of Lohm this afternoon." + +"The village where the school is?" + +"Quite correct. The pastor, Herr Manske, a worthy man, but, like all +pastors, taking ells when he is offered inches, serves both that church +and the little one in Kleinwalde village, of which the gracious Miss is +patroness. Herr von Lohm, who lives in the house standing back from the +road, and perhaps noticed by the gracious Miss, is Amtsvorsteher in both +villages." + +"What is Amtsvorsteher?" asked Anna, languidly. She was leaning back in +her chair, idly balancing the paper-knife, and listening with half an +ear only to Dellwig, throwing in questions every now and then when she +thought she ought to say something. She did not look at him, preferring +much to look at the paper-knife, and he could examine her face at his +ease in the shadow of the lamp-shade, her dark eyelashes lowered, her +profile only turned to him, with its delicate line of brow and nose, and +the soft and gracious curves of the mouth and chin and throat. One hand +lay on the table in the circle of light, a slender, beautiful hand, full +of character and energy, and the other hung listlessly over the arm of +the chair. Anna was very tired, and showed it in every line of her +attitude; but Dellwig was not tired at all, was used to talking, enjoyed +at all times the sound of his voice, and on this occasion felt it to be +his duty to make things clear. So he went into the lengthiest details as +to the nature and office of Amtsvorstehers, details that were perfectly +incomprehensible and wholly indifferent to Anna, and spared neither +himself nor her. While he talked, however, he was criticising her, +comparing the laziness of her attitude with the brisk and respectful +alertness of other women when he talked. He knew that these other women +belonged to a different class; his wife, the parson's wife, the wives of +the inspectors on other estates, these were not, of course, in the same +sphere as the new mistress of Kleinwalde; but she was only a woman, and +dress up a woman as you will, call her by what name you will, she is +nothing but a woman, born to help and serve, never by any possibility +even equal to a clever man like himself. Old Joachim might have lounged +as he chose, and put his feet on the table if it had seemed good to him, +and Dellwig would have accepted it with unquestioning respect as an +eccentricity of _Herrschaften_; but a woman had no sort of right, he +said to himself, while he so fluently discoursed, to let herself go in +the presence of her natural superior. Unfortunately, old Joachim, so +level-headed an old gentleman in all other respects, had placed the +power over his fortunes in the hands of this weak female leaning back so +unbecomingly in her chair, playing with the objects on the table, never +raising her eyes to his, and showing indeed, incredible as it seemed, +every symptom of thinking of something else. The women of his +acquaintance were, he was certain, worth individually fifty such +affected, indifferent young ladies. They worked early and late to make +their husbands comfortable; they were well practised in every art +required of women living in the country; they were models of thrift and +diligence; yet, with all their virtues and all their accomplishments, +they never dreamed of lounging or not listening when a man was speaking, +but sat attentively on the edge of their chairs, straight in the back +and seemly, and when he had finished said _Jawohl_. + +Anna certainly did sit very much at her ease, and instead of attending, +as she ought to have done, to his description of Amtsvorstehers, was +thinking of other things. Dellwig had thick lips that could not be +hidden entirely by his grizzled moustache and beard, and he had the sort +of eyes known to the inelegant but truthful as fishy, and a big +obstinate nose, and a narrow obstinate forehead, and a long body and +short legs; and though all this, Anna told herself, was not in the least +his fault and should not in any way prejudice her against him, she felt +that she was justified in wishing that his manners were less offensive, +less boastful and boisterous, and that he did not bite his nails. "I +wonder," she thought, her eyes carefully fixed on the paper-knife, but +conscious of his every look and movement, "I wonder if he is as artful +as he looks. Surely Uncle Joachim must have known what he was like, and +would never have told me to keep him if he had not been honest. Perhaps +he is perfectly honest, and when I meet him in heaven how ashamed I +shall be of myself for having had doubts!" And then she fell to musing +on what sort of an appearance a chastened and angelic Dellwig would +probably present, and looked up suddenly at him with new interest. + +"I trust I have made myself comprehensible?" he was asking, having just +come to the end of what he felt was a masterly _rĂ©sumĂ©_ of Herr von +Lohm's duties. + +"I beg your pardon?" said Anna, bringing her thoughts back with +difficulty from the consideration of nimbuses, "Oh, about +Amtsvorstehers--no," she said, shaking her head, "you have not. But that +is my fault. I can't understand everything at once. I shall do better +later on." + +"_NatĂĽrlich, natĂĽrlich_," Dellwig vehemently assured her, while he made +inward comments on the innate incapacity of all _Weiber_, as he called +them, to grasp the simplest fact connected with law and justice. + +"Tell me about the livestock," said Anna, remembering Uncle Joachim's +frequent and affectionate allusions to his swine. "Are there many pigs?" + +"Pigs?" repeated Dellwig, lifting up his hands as though mere words were +insufficient to express his feelings, "such pigs as the gracious Miss +now possesses are nowhere else to be found in Pomerania. They are the +pride, and at the same time the envy, of the whole province. 'Let my +sausages,' said the Herr Landrath last winter, when the time for killing +drew near, 'let my sausages consist solely of the pigs reared at +Kleinwalde by my friend the Oberinspector Dellwig.' The Frau Landräthin +was deeply injured, for she too breeds and fattens pigs, but not like +ours--not like ours." + +"Who is the Herr Landrath?" asked Anna absently; but immediately +remembering the description of the Amtsvorsteher she added quickly, +"Never mind--don't explain. I suppose he is some sort of an official, +and I shall not be quite clear about these different officials till I +have lived here some time." + +"_NatĂĽrlich, natĂĽrlich_," agreed Dellwig; and leaving the Landrath +unexplained he launched forth into a dissertation on Anna's pigs, whose +excellencies, it appeared, were wholly due to the unrivalled skill he +had for years displayed in their treatment. "I have no children," he +said, with a resigned and pious upward glance, "and my wife's maternal +instincts find their satisfaction in tending and fattening these fine +animals. She cannot listen to their cries the day they are killed, and +withdraws into the cellar, where she prepares the stuffing. The gracious +Miss ate the cutlets of one this very day. It was killed on purpose." + +"Was it? I wish it hadn't been," said Anna, frowning at the remembrance +of that meal. "I--I don't want things killed on my account. I--don't +like pig." + +"Not like pig?" echoed Dellwig, dropping his lower jaw in his amazement. +"Did I understand aright that the gracious one does not eat pig's flesh +gladly? And my wife and I who thought to prepare a joy for her!" He +clasped his hands together and stared at her in dismay. Indeed, he was +so much overcome by this extraordinary and wilful spurning of nature's +best gifts that for a moment he was silent, and knew not how he should +proceed. Were there not concentrated in the body of a single pig a +greater diversity of joys than in any other form of pleasure that he +could call to mind? Did it not include, besides the profounder delights +of its roasted ribs, such solid satisfactions as hams, sausages, and +bacon? Did not its liver, discreetly manipulated, rival the livers of +Strasburg geese in delicacy? Were not its brains a source of mutual +congratulation to an entire family at supper? Did not its very snout, +boiled with peas, make an otherwise inferior soup delicious? The ribs of +this particular pig were reposing at that moment in a cool place, +carefully shielded from harm by his wife, reserved for the Easter Sunday +dinner of their new mistress, who, having begun at her first meal with +the lesser joys of cutlets, was to be fed with different parts in the +order of their excellence till the climax of rejoicing was reached on +Easter Day in the dish of _Schweinebraten_, and who was now declaring, +in a die-away, affected sort of voice, that she did not want to eat pig +at all. Where, then, was her vulnerable point? How would he ever be able +to touch her, to influence her, if she was indifferent to the chief +means of happiness known to the dwellers in those parts? That was the +real aim and end of his labours, of the labours, as far as he could see, +of everyone else--to make as much money as possible in order to live as +well as possible; and what did living well mean if it did not mean the +best food? And what was the best food if not pig? Not to be killed on +her account! On whose account, then, could they be killed? With an owner +always about the place, and refusing to have pigs killed, how would he +and his wife be able to indulge, with satisfactory frequency, in their +favourite food, or offer it to their expectant friends on Sundays? He +mourned old Joachim, who so seldom came down, and when he did ate his +share of pork like a man, more sincerely at that moment than he would +have thought possible. "_Mein seliger Herr_," he burst out brokenly, +completely upset by the difference between uncle and niece, "_mein +seliger Herr_----" And then, unable to go on, fell to blowing his nose +with violence, for there were real tears in his eyes. + +Anna looked up, surprised. She thought he had been speaking of pigs, and +here he was on a sudden bewailing his late master. When she saw the +tears she was deeply touched. "Poor man," she said to herself, "how +unjust I have been. Of course he loved dear Uncle Joachim; and my coming +here, an utter stranger, taking possession of everything, must be very +dreadful for him." She got up, at once anxious, as she always was, to +comfort and soothe anyone who was sad, and put her hand gently on his +arm. "I loved him too," she said softly, "and you who knew him so long +must feel his death dreadfully. We will try and keep everything just as +he would have liked it, won't we? You know what his wishes were, and +must help me to carry them out. You cannot have loved him more than I +did--dear Uncle Joachim!" + +She felt very near tears herself, and condoned the sonorous nose-blowing +as the expression of an honourable emotion. + +And Dellwig, when he presently reached his home and was met at the door +by his wife's eager "Well, how was she?" laconically replied "Mad." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +When Anna woke next morning she had a confused idea that something +annoying had happened the evening before, but she had slept so heavily +that she could not at once recollect what it was. Then, the sun on her +face waking her up more thoroughly, she remembered that Susie had stayed +upstairs with Hilton till supper time, had then come down, glanced with +unutterable disgust at the raw ham, cold sausage, eggs, and tepid coffee +of which the evening meal was composed, refused to eat, refused to +speak, refused utterly to smile, and afterwards in the drawing-room had +announced her fixed intention of returning to England the next day. + +Anna had protested and argued in vain; nothing could shake this sudden +determination. To all her expostulations and entreaties Susie replied +that she had never yet dwelt among savages and she was not going to +begin now; so Anna was forced to conclude that Hilton had been making a +scene, and knowing the effect of Hilton's scenes she gave up attempting +to persuade, but told her with outward firmness and inward quakings that +she herself could not possibly go too. + +Susie had been very angry at this, and still more angry at the reason +Anna gave, which was that, having invited the parson and his wife to +dinner on Saturday, she could not break her engagement. Susie told her +that as she would never see either of them again--for surely she would +never again want to come to this place?--it was absurd to care twopence +what they thought of her. What on earth did it matter if two inhabitants +of the desert were offended or not offended once she was on the other +side of the sea? And what did it matter at all how she treated them? She +heaped such epithets as absurd, stupid, and idiotic on Anna's head, but +Anna was not to be moved. She threatened to take Miss Leech and Letty +away with her, and leave Anna a prey to the criticisms of Mrs. Grundy, +and Anna said she could not prevent her doing so if she chose. Susie +became more and more excited, more and more Dobbs, goaded by the +recollection of what she had gone through with Hilton, and Anna, as +usual under such circumstances, grew very silent. Letty sat listening in +an agony of fright lest this cup of new experiences were about to be +dashed prematurely from her eager lips; and Miss Leech discreetly left +the room, though not in the least knowing where to go, finally seeking +to drive away the nervous fears that assailed her in her lonely, +creaking bedroom, where rats were gnawing at the woodwork, by thinking +hard of Mr. Jessup, who on this occasion proved to be but a broken reed, +pitted against the stern reality of rats. + +The end of it, after Susie had poured out the customary reproaches of +gross ingratitude and forgetfulness of all she had done for Anna for +fifteen long years, was that Miss Leech and Letty were to stay on as +originally intended, and come home with Anna towards the end of the +holidays, and Susie would leave with Hilton the very next day. + +Anna's attempt to make it up when she said good-night was repulsed with +energy. Anna was for ever doing aggravating things, and then wanting to +make it up; but makings up without having given in an inch seemed to +Susie singularly unsatisfactory ceremonies. Oh, these Estcourts and +their obstinacy! She marched off to bed in high indignation, an +indignation not by any means allowed to cool by Hilton during the +process of undressing; and Anna, worn out, fell asleep the moment she +lay down, and woke up, as she had pictured herself doing in that odd +wooden bed, with the morning sun shining full on her face. + +It was a bright and lovely day, and on the side of the house where she +slept she could not hear the wind, which was still blowing from the +north-west. She opened one of her three big windows and let the cold air +rush into her room, where the curious perfume of the baked evergreen +wreaths festooned round the walls and looking-glass and dressing-table, +joined to the heat from the stove, produced a heavy atmosphere that made +her gasp. Somebody must already have been in her room, for the stove had +been lit again, and she could see the peat blazing inside its open door. +But outside, what a divine coldness and purity! She leaned out, drinking +it in in long breaths, the warm March sun shining on her head. The +garden, a mere uncared-for piece of rough grass with big trees, was +radiant with rain-drops; the strip of sea was a deep blue now, with +crests of foam; the island coast opposite was a shadowy streak stretched +across the feet of the sun. Oh, it was beautiful to stand at that open +window in the freshness, listening to the robin on the bare lilac bush a +few yards away, to the quarrelling of the impudent sparrows on the path +below, to the wind in the branches of the trees, to all the happy +morning sounds of nature. A joyous feeling took possession of her heart, +a sudden overpowering delight in what are called common things--mere +earth, sky, sun, and wind. How lovely life was on such a morning, in +such a clean, rain-washed, wind-scoured world. The wet smell of the +garden came up to her, a whiff of marshy smell from the water, a long +breath from the pines in the forest on the other side of the house. How +had she ever breathed at Estcourt? How had she escaped suffocation +without this life-giving smell of sea and forest? She looked down with +delight at the wildness of the garden; after the trim Estcourt lawns, +what a relief this was. This was all liberty, freedom from +conventionality, absolute privacy; that was an everlasting clipping, and +trimming, and raking, a perpetual stumbling upon gardeners at every +step, for Susie would not be outdone by her greater neighbours in these +matters. What was Hill Street looking like this fine March morning? All +the blinds down, all the people in bed--how far away, how shadowy it +was; a street inhabited by sleepy ghosts, with phantom milkmen rattling +spectral cans beneath their windows. What a dream that life lived up to +three days ago seemed in this morning light of reality. White clouds, +like the clouds in Raphael's backgrounds, were floating so high overhead +that they could not be hurried by the wind; a black cat sat in a patch +of sunshine on the path washing itself; somebody opened a lower window, +and there was a noise of sweeping, presently made indistinguishable by +the chorale sung by the sweeper, no doubt Marie, in a pious, Good Friday +mood. "_Lob Gott ihr Christen allzugleich_," chanted Marie, keeping time +with her broom. Her voice was loud and monotonous, but Anna listened +with a smile, and would have liked to join in, and so let some of her +happiness find its way out. + +She dressed quickly. There was no hot water, and no bell to ring for +some, and she did not choose to call down from the window and interrupt +the hymn, so she used cold water, assuring herself that it was bracing. +Then she put on her hat and coat and stole out, afraid of disturbing +Susie, who was lying a few yards away filled with smouldering wrath, +anxious to have at least one quiet hour before beginning a day that she +felt sure was going to be a day of worries. "There will be great peace +to-night when she is gone," she thought, and immediately felt ashamed +that she should look forward to being without her. "But I have never +been without her since I was ten," she explained apologetically to her +offended conscience, "and I want to see how I feel." + +"_Guten Morgen_," said Marie, as Anna came into the drawing-room on her +way out through its French windows. + +"_Guten Morgen_," said Anna cheerfully. + +Marie leaned on her broom and watched her go down the garden, greedily +taking in every detail of her clothes, profoundly interested in a being +who went out into the mud where nobody could see her with such a dress +on, and whose shoes would not have been too big for Marie's small sister +aged nine. + +The evening before, indeed, Marie had beheld such a vision as she had +never yet in her life seen, or so much as imagined; her new mistress had +appeared at supper in what was evidently a _herrschaftliche Ballkleid_, +with naked arms and shoulders, and the other ladies were attired in much +the same way. The young Fräulein, it is true, showed no bare flesh, but +even she was arrayed in white, and her hair magnificently tied up with +ribbons. Marie had rushed out to tell the cook, and the cook, refusing +to believe it, had carried in a supererogatory dish of compot as an +excuse for securing the assurance of her own eyes; and Bertha from the +farm, coming round with a message from the Frau Oberinspector, had seen +it too through the crack of the kitchen door as the ladies left the +dining-room, and had gone off breathlessly to spread the news; and the +post cart just leaving with the letters had carried it to Lohm, and +every inhabitant of every house between Kleinwalde and Stralsund knew +all about it before bedtime. "What did I tell thee, wife?" said Dellwig, +who, in spite of his superiority to the sex that served, listened as +eagerly as any member of it to gossip; and his wife was only too ready +to label Anna mad or eccentric as a slight private consolation for +having passed out of the service of a comprehensible German gentleman +into that of a woman and a foreigner. + +Unconscious of the interest and curiosity she was exciting for miles +round, pleased by Marie's artless piety, and filled with kindly feelings +towards all her neighbours, Anna stood at the end of the garden looking +over the low hedge that divided it from the marsh and the sea, and +thought that she had never seen a place where it would be so easy to be +good. Complete freedom from the wearisome obligations of society, an +ideal privacy surrounded by her woods and the water, a scanty population +of simple and devoted people--did not Dellwig shed tears at the +remembrance of his master?--every day spent here would be a day that +made her better, that would bring her nearer to that heaven in which all +good and simple souls dwelt while still on earth, the heaven of a serene +and quiet mind. Always she had longed to be good, and to help and +befriend those who had the same longing but in whom it had been +partially crushed by want of opportunity and want of peace. The healthy +goodness that goes hand in hand with happiness was what she meant; not +that tragic and futile goodness that grows out of grief, that lifts its +head miserably in stony places, that flourishes in sick rooms and among +desperate sorrows, and goes to God only because all else is lost. She +went round the house and crossed the road into the forest. The fresh +wind blew in her face, and shook down the drops from the branches on her +as she passed. The pine needles of other years made a thick carpet for +her feet. The sun gleamed through the straight trunks and warmed her. +The restless sighing overheard in the tree tops filled her ears with +sweetest music. "I do believe the place is pleased that I have come!" +she thought, with a happy laugh. She came to a clearing in the trees, +opening out towards the north, and she could see the flat fields and the +wide sky and the sunshine chasing the shadows across the vivid green +patches that she had learned were winter rye. A hole at her feet, where +a tree had been uprooted, still had snow in it; but the larks were +singing above in the blue, as though from those high places they could +see Spring far away in the south, coming up slowly with the first +anemones in her hands, her face turned at last towards the patient +north. + +The strangest feeling of being for the first time in her life at home +came over Anna. This poor country, how sweet and touching it was. After +the English country, with its thickly scattered villages, and gardens, +and fields that looked like parks, it did seem very poor and very empty, +but intensely lovable. Like the furniture of her house, it struck her as +symbolic in its bareness of the sturdier virtues. The people who lived +in it must of necessity be frugal and hard-working if they would live at +all, wresting by sheer labour their life from the soil, braced by the +long winters to endurance and self-denial, their vices and their +languors frozen out of them whether they would or no. At least so +thought Anna, as she stood gazing out across the clearing at the fields +and sky. "Could one not be good here? Could one not be so, so good?" she +kept on murmuring. Then she remembered that she had been asking herself +vague questions like this ever since her arrival; and with a sudden +determination to face what was in her mind and think it out honestly, +she sat down on a tree stump, buttoned her coat up tight, for the wind +was blowing full on her, and fell to considering what she meant to do. + + * * * * * + +Susie did not go down to breakfast, but stayed in her bedroom on the +sofa drinking a glass of milk into which an egg had been beaten, and +listening to Hilton's criticisms of the German nation, delivered with +much venom while she packed. But Hilton, though her contempt for German +ways was so great as to be almost unutterable, was reconciled to a +mistress who had so quickly given in to her wish to be taken back to +Hill Street, and the venom was of an abstract nature, containing no +personal sting of unfavourable comparisons with duchesses; so that Susie +was sipping her milk in a fairly placid frame of mind when there was a +knock at the door, and Anna asked if she might come in. + +"Oh, yes, come in. Have you looked out the trains?" + +"Yes. There's only one decent one, and you'll have to leave directly +after luncheon. Won't you stay, Susie? You'll be so tired, going home +without resting." + +"Can't we leave before luncheon?" + +"Yes, of course, if you prefer to lunch at Stralsund." + +"Much. Have you ordered the shandrydan?" + +"Yes, for half-past one." + +"Then order it for half-past twelve. Hilton can drive with me." + +"So I thought." + +"Has that wretch been rubbing fish oil on it again?" + +"I don't think so, after what I said yesterday." + +"I shouldn't think what you said yesterday could have frightened him +much. You beamed at him as though he were your best friend." + +"Did I?" + +Anna was looking odd, Susie thought, and answering her remarks with a +nervous, abstracted air. She had apparently been out, for her dress was +muddy, and she was quite rosy, and her hair was not so neat as usual. +She stood about in an undecided sort of way, and glanced several times +at Hilton on her knees before a trunk. + +"Is that all the breakfast you are going to have?" she asked, becoming +aware of the glass of milk. + +"What other breakfast is there to have?" snapped Susie, who was hungry, +and would have liked a great deal more. + +"Well, the eggs and butter are very nice, anyway," said Anna, quite +evidently thinking of other things. + +"Now what has she got into her head?" Susie asked herself, watching her +sister-in-law with misgiving. Anna's new moods were never by any chance +of a sort to give Susie pleasure. Aloud she said tartly, "I can't eat +eggs and butter by themselves. I shouldn't have had anything at all if +it hadn't been for Hilton, who went into the kitchen and made me this +herself." + +"Excellent Hilton," said Anna absently. "Haven't you done packing yet, +Hilton?" + +"No, m'm." + +Anna sat down on the end of the sofa and began to twist the frills of +Susie's dressing-gown round her fingers. + +"I haven't closed my eyes all night," said Susie, putting on her martyr +look, "nor has Hilton." + +"Haven't you? Why not? I slept the sleep of the just--better, indeed, +than any just that I ever heard of." + +"What, didn't that man go into your room?" + +"What man? Oh, yes, Miss Leech was telling me about it. He lit the +stoves, didn't he? I never heard a sound." + +"You must have slept like a log then. Any one in the least sensitive +would have been frightened out of their senses. I was, and so was +Hilton. I wouldn't spend another night in this house for anything you +could give me." + +It appeared that Susie really had just cause for complaint. She had been +nervous the night before after Hilton had left her, unable to sleep, and +scared by the thought of their defencelessness--six women alone in that +wild place. She wished then with all her heart that Dellwig did live in +the house. Rats scampering about in the attic above added to her +terrors. The wind shook the windows of her room and howled +disconsolately up and down. She bore it as long as she could, which was +longer than most women would have borne it, and then knocked on the wall +dividing her room from Hilton's. But Hilton, with the bedclothes over +her head and all the candles she had been able to collect alight, would +not have stirred out of her room to save her mistress from dying; and +Susie, desperate at the prospect of the awful hours round midnight, made +one great effort of courage and sallied out to fetch her. Poor Susie, +standing shivering before her maid's bolted door, scantily clothed, +anxiously watching the flame of her candle that threatened each second +to be blown out, alone on the wide, draughty landing, frightened at the +sound of her own calls mingling weirdly with the creakings and hangings +of the tempest-shaken house, was an object deserving of pity. It took +some minutes to induce Hilton to open the door, and such minutes Susie +had not, in the course of an ordered and normal existence, yet passed. +They both went into Susie's room, locked themselves in, and Hilton lay +down on the sofa; and after a long time they fell into an uneasy sleep. +At half-past three Susie started up in bed; some one was trying to open +the door and knocking. The candles had burnt themselves out, and she +could not tell what time it was, but thought it must be early morning +and that the servant wanted to bring her hot water; and she woke Hilton +and bade her open the door. Hilton did so, gave a faint scream, and +flung herself back on the sofa, where she lay as one dead, her face +buried in the pillow. A man with a lantern and no shoes on was at the +door, and came in noiselessly. Susie was never nearer fainting in her +life. She sat in her bed, her cold hands clasped tightly round her +knees, her eyes fixed on this dreadful apparition, unable to speak or +move, paralysed by terror. This was the end, then, of all her hopes and +ambitions--to come to Pomerania and die like a dog. Then the sickening +feeling of fear gave way to one of overwhelming wrath when she found +that all the man wanted was to light her stove. On the same principle +that a child is shaken who has not after all been lost or run over, she +was speechless with rage now that she found that she was not, after all, +to be murdered. He was a very old man, and the light from the lantern +cast strange reflections on his face and figure as he crouched before +the stove. He mumbled as he worked, talking to the fire he was making as +though it were a person. "_Du willst nicht, brennen, Lump? Was? Na, +warte mal!_" And when he had finished, crept out again without glancing +at the occupants of the room, still mumbling. + +"It's the custom of the country, I suppose," said Anna. + +"Is it? Well the sooner we get out of such a country the better. You are +determined to stay in spite of everything? I can tell you I don't at all +like my child being here, but you force me to leave her because you know +very well that I can't let you stay here alone." + +Anna glanced at Hilton, folding a dress with immense deliberation. + +"Oh, Hilton knows what I think," said Susie, with a shrug. + +"But she doesn't know what _I_ think," said Anna. "I must talk to you +before you leave, so please let her finish packing afterwards. Go and +have your breakfast, Hilton." + +"Did you say breakfast, m'm?" inquired Hilton with an innocent look. + +"Breakfast?" repeated Susie; "poor thing, I'd like to know how and where +she is to get any." + +"Well, then, go and don't have your breakfast," said Anna impatiently. +She had something to tell Susie that must be told soon, and was not in a +mood to bear with Hilton's ways. + +"How hospitable," remarked Susie as the door closed. "Really you are a +delightful hostess." + +Anna laughed. "I don't mean to be brutal," she said, "but if we can +exist on the food without looking tragic I suppose she can too, +especially as it is only for one day." + +"My one consolation in leaving Letty here is that she will be dieted in +spite of herself. I expect you to bring her back quite thin." + +Anna got up restlessly and went to the window. + +"And whatever you do, don't forget that the return tickets only last +till the 24th. But you'll be sick of it long before then." + +Anna turned round and leaned her back against the window. The strong +morning light was on her hair, and her face was in shadow, yet Susie had +a feeling that she was looking guilty. + +"Susie, I've been thinking," she said with an effort. + +"Really? How nice." + +"Yes, it was, for I found out what it is that I must do if I mean to be +happy. But I'm afraid that _you_ won't think it nice, and will scold me. +Now don't scold me." + +"Well, tell me what it is." Susie lay staring at Anna's form against the +light, bracing herself to hear something disagreeable. She knew very +well from past experience that Anna's new plan, whatever it was, was +certain to be wild and foolish. + +"I am going to stay here." + +"I know you are, and I know that nothing I can say will make you change +your mind. Peter is just like you--the more I show him what a fool he's +going to make of himself the more he insists on doing it. He calls it +determination. Average people like myself, with smaller and more easily +managed brains than you two wonders have got, call it pigheadedness." + +"I don't mean only for Letty's holidays; I mean for good." + +"For good?" Susie opened her mouth and stared in much the same blank +consternation that Dellwig had shown on hearing that she did not like +eating pig. + +"Don't be angry with me," said Anna, coming over to the sofa and sitting +on the floor by Susie's side; and she caught hold of her hand and began +to talk fast and eagerly. "I always intended spending this money in +helping poor people, but didn't quite know in what way--now I see my way +clearly, and I must, _must_ go it. Don't you remember in the catechism +there's the duty towards God and the duty towards one's neighbour----" + +"Oh, if you're going to talk religion----" said Susie, pulling away her +hand in great disgust. + +"No, no, do listen," said Anna, catching it again and stroking it while +she talked, to Susie's intense irritation, who hated being stroked. + +"If you are going into the catechism," she said, "Hilton had better come +in again. It might do her good." + +"No, no--I only wanted to say that there's another duty not in the +catechism, greater than the duty towards one's neighbour----" + +"My dear Anna, it isn't likely that you can improve on the catechism. +And fancy wanting to, at breakfast time. Don't stroke my hand--it gives +me the fidgets." + +"But I want to explain things--do listen. The duty the catechism leaves +out is the duty towards oneself. You can't get away from your duties, +you know, Susie----" And she knit her brows in her effort to follow out +her thought. + +"My goodness, as though I ever tried! If ever a poor woman did her duty, +I'm that woman." + +"--and I believe that if I do those two duties, towards my neighbour and +myself, I shall be doing my duty towards God." + +Susie gave her body an impatient twist. She thought it positively +indecent to speak of sacred things so early in the morning in cold +blood. "What has this drivel to do with your stopping here?" she asked +angrily. + +"It has everything to do with it--my duty towards myself is to be as +happy and as good as possible, and my duty towards my neighbour----" + +"Oh, bother your neighbour and your duty!" cried Susie in exasperation. + +"--is to help him to be good and happy too." + +"Him? Her, I hope. Don't forget decency, my dear. A girl has no duties +whatever towards male neighbours." + +"Well, I do mean her," said Anna, looking up and laughing. + +"So you think that by living here you'll make yourself happy?" + +"Yes, I do--I do think so. Perhaps I am wrong, and shall find out I'm +wrong, but I must try." + +"You'll leave all your friends and relations and stay in this +God-forsaken place where you can't even live like a lady?" + +"Uncle Joachim said it was my one chance of leading the better life." + +"Unutterable old fool," said Susie with bitterest contempt. "That money, +then, is going to be thrown away on Germans? As though there weren't +poor people enough in England, if your ambition is to pose as a +benefactress!" + +"Oh, I don't want to pose as anything--I only want to help unhappy +wretches," cried Anna, laying her cheek caressingly on Susie's unwilling +hand. "Now don't scold me--forgive me if I'm silly, and be patient with +me till I find out that I've made a goose of myself and come creeping +back to you and Peter. But I _must_ do it--I _must_ try--I _will_ do +what I think is right." + +"And who are the wretches, pray, who are to be made happy?" + +"Oh, those I am sorriest for--that no one else helps--the genteel ones, +if I can only get at them." + +"I never heard of genteel wretches," said Susie. + +Anna laughed again. "I was thinking it all out in the forest this +morning," she said, "and it suddenly flashed across me that this big +roomy house was never meant not to be used, and that instead of going to +see poor people and giving them money in the ordinary way, it would be +so much better to let women of the better classes, who have no money, +and who are dependent and miserable, come and live with me and share +mine, and have everything that I have--exactly the same, with no +difference of any sort. There is room for twelve at least, and wouldn't +it be beautiful to make twelve people, who had lost all hope and all +courage, happy for the rest of their days?" + +"Oh, the girl's mad!" cried Susie, springing up from the sofa, no longer +able to bear herself. She began to walk about the room, not knowing what +to say or do, absolutely without sympathy for beneficent impulses, at +all times possessed of a fine scorn for ideals, feeling that no argument +would be of any avail with an Estcourt whose mind was made up, shocked +that good money, so hard to get, and so very precious when got, should +be thrown away in such a manner, bewildered by the difficulties of the +situation, for how could a girl of Anna's age live alone, and direct a +house full of objects of charity? Would the objects themselves be a +sufficient chaperonage? Would her friends at home think so? Would they +not blame her, Susie, for having allowed all this? As though she could +prevent it! Or would they expect her to stay with Anna in this place +till she should marry? As though anybody would ever marry such a +lunatic! "Mad, mad, mad!" cried Susie, wringing her hands. + +"I was afraid that you wouldn't like it," said the culprit on the floor, +watching her with a distressed face. + +"Like it? Oh--mad, mad!" And she continued to walk and wring her hands. + +"Well, you'll stay, then," she said, suddenly stopping in front of Anna, +"I know you well enough, and shall waste no breath arguing. That +infatuated old man's money has turned your head--I didn't know it was so +weak. But look into your heart when I am gone--you'll have time enough +and quiet enough--and ask yourself honestly whether what you are going +to do is a proper way of paying back all I have done for you, and all +the expense you have been. You know what my wishes are about you, and +you don't care one jot. Gratitude! There isn't a spark of it in your +whole body. Never was there a more selfish creature, and I can't believe +that ingratitude and selfishness are the stuff that makes saints. Don't +dare to talk any more rot about duty to your neighbour to me. An +Englishwoman to come and spend her money on German charities----" + +"It's German money," murmured Anna. + +"And to _live_ here--to live _here_--oh, mad, mad!" And Susie's +indignation threatening to choke her, she resumed her walk and her +gesticulations, her high heels tapping furiously on the bare boards. + +She longed to take Letty and Miss Leech away with her that very morning, +and punish Anna by leaving her entirely alone; but she did not dare +because of Peter. Peter was always on Anna's side when there were +differences, and would be sure to do something dreadful when he heard of +it--perhaps come and live here too, and never go back to his wife any +more. Oh, these half Germans! Why had she married into a family with +such a taint in its blood? "You will have to have some one here," she +said, turning on Anna, who still sat on the floor by the sofa, a look on +her face of apology and penitence mixed with firmness that Susie well +knew. "How can you stay here alone? I shall leave Miss Leech with you +till the end of the holidays, though I hate to seem to encourage you; +but then you see I do my duty and always have, though I don't talk about +it. When I get home I shall look for some elderly woman who won't mind +coming here and seeing that you don't make yourself too much of a +by-word, and the day she comes you are to send me back my child." + +"It is good of you to let me keep Letty, dear Susie----" + +"Dear Susie!" + +"But I don't mean to be a by-word, as you call it," continued Anna, the +ghost of a smile lurking in her eyes, "and I don't want an Englishwoman. +What use would she be here? She wouldn't understand if it was a German +by-word that I turned into. I thought about asking the parson how I had +better set about getting a German lady--a grave and sober female, +advanced in years, as Uncle Joachim wrote." + +"Oh, Uncle Joachim----" Susie could hardly endure to hear the name. It +was that odious old man who had filled Anna's head with these ideas. To +leave her money was admirable, but to influence a weak girl's mind with +his wishy-washy German philosophy about the better life and such +rubbish, as he evidently had done during those excursions with her, was +conduct so shameful that she found no words strong enough to express her +opinion of it. Everyone would blame her for what had happened, everyone +would jeer at her, and say that the moment an opportunity of escape had +presented itself Anna had seized it, preferring an existence of +loneliness and hardship--any sort of existence--to all the pleasures of +civilised life in Susie's company. Peter would certainly be very angry +with her, and reproach her with not having made Anna happy enough. Happy +enough! The girl had cost her at least three hundred a year, what with +her expensive education and all her clothes since she came out; and if +three hundred good pounds spent on a girl could not make her happy, +she'd like to know what could. And no one--not one of those odious +people in London whom she secretly hated--would have a single word of +censure for Anna. No one ever had. All her vagaries and absurdities +during the last few years when she had been so provoking had been smiled +at, had been, Susie knew, put down to her treatment of her. Treatment of +her, indeed! The thought of these things made Susie writhe. She had been +looking forward to the next season, to having her pretty sister-in-law +with her in the happy mood she had been in since she heard of her good +fortune, and had foreseen nothing but advantages to herself from Anna's +presence in her house--an Anna spending and not being spent upon, and no +doubt to be persuaded to share the expenses of housekeeping. And now she +must go home by herself to blame, scoldings, and derision. The prospect +was almost more than she could bear. She went to the door, opened it, +and turning to Anna fired a parting shot. "Let no one," she said, her +voice shaken by deepest disgust, "who wants to be happy, ever spend a +penny on her husband's relations." + +And then she called Hilton; nor did she leave off calling till Hilton +appeared, and so prevented Anna from saying another word. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +But if Susie's rage was such that she refused to say good-bye, and +terrified Miss Leech while she was waiting in the hall for the carriage +by dark allusions to strait-waistcoats, when the parson was taken into +Anna's confidence after dinner on the following night his raptures knew +no bounds. "_Liebes, edeldenkendes Fräulein!_" he burst out, clasping +his hands and gazing with a moist, ecstatic eye at this young sprig of +piety. He was a good man, not very learned, not very refined, +sentimental exceedingly, and much inclined to become tearfully eloquent +on such subjects as _die liebe kleine Kinder, die herrliche Natur, die +Frau als Schutzengel_, and the sacredness of _das Familienleben_. + +Anna felt that he was the only person at hand who could perhaps help her +to find twelve dejected ladies willing to be made happy, and had +unfolded her plan to him as tersely as possible in her stumbling German, +with none of those accompanying digressions into the question of +feelings that Susie stigmatised as drivel; and she sat uncomfortable +enough while he burst forth into praises that would not end of her +goodness and nobleness. It is hard to look anything but fatuous when +somebody is extolling your virtues to your face, and she could not help +both looking and feeling foolish during his extravagant glorification. +She did not doubt his sincerity, and indeed he was absolutely sincere, +but she wished that he would be less flowery and less long, and would +skip the raptures and get on to the main subject, which was practical +advice. + +She wore the simple white dress that had caused such a sensation in the +neighbourhood, a garment that hung in long, soft folds, accentuating her +slender length of limb. Her bright hair was parted and tucked behind her +ears. Everything about her breathed an absolute want of +self-consciousness and vanity, a perfect freedom from the least thought +of the impression she might be making; yet she was beautiful, and the +good man observing her beauty, and supposing from what she had just told +him an equal beauty of character, for ever afterwards when he thought of +angels on quiet Sunday evenings in his garden, clothed them as Anna was +clothed that night, not even shrinking from the pretty, bare shoulders +and scantily sleeved arms, but facing them with a courage worthy of a +man, however doubtfully it might become a pastor. + +His wife, in her best dress, which was also her tightest, sat on the +edge of a chair some way off, marvelling greatly at many things. She +could not hear what it was Anna had said to set her husband off +exclaiming, because the governess persisted in trying to talk German to +her, and would not be satisfied with vague replies. She was disappointed +by the sudden disappearance of the sister-in-law, gone before she had +shown herself to a single soul; astonished that she had not been +requested to sit on the sofa, in which place of honour the young +Fräulein sprawled in a way that would certainly ruin her clothes; +disgusted that she had not been pressed at table, nay, not even asked, +to partake of every dish a second time; indeed, no one had seemed to +notice or care whether she ate anything at all. These were strange ways. +And where were the Dellwigs, those great people accustomed to patronise +her because she was the parson's wife? Was it possible that they had not +been invited? Were there then quarrels already? She could not of course +dream that Anna would never have thought of asking her inspector and his +wife to dinner, and that in her ignorance she regarded the parson as a +person on an altogether higher social level than the inspector. These +things, joined to conjectures as to the probable price by the yard of +Anna's, Letty's, and Miss Leech's clothes, gave Frau Manske more food +for reflection than she had had for years; and she sat turning them over +slowly in her mind in the intervals between Miss Leech's sentences, +while her dress, which was of silk, creaked ominously with every painful +breath she drew. + +"The best way to act," said the parson, when he had exhausted the +greater part of his raptures, "will be to advertise in a newspaper of a +Christian character." + +"But not in my name," said Anna. + +"No, no, we must be discreet--we must be very discreet. The +advertisement must be drawn up with skill. I will make, simultaneously, +inquiries among my colleagues in the holy office, but there must also be +an advertisement. What would the gracious Miss's opinion be of the +desirability of referring all applicants, in the first instance, to me?" + +"Why, I think it would be an excellent plan, if you do not mind the +trouble." + +"Trouble! Joy fills me at the thought of taking part in this good work. +Little did I think that our poor corner of the fatherland was to become +a holy place, a blessed refuge for the world-worn, a nook fragrant with +charity----" + +"No, not charity," interposed Anna. + +"Whose perfume," continued the parson, determined to finish his +sentence, "whose perfume will ascend day and night to the attentive +heavens. But such are the celestial surprises Providence keeps in +reserve and springs upon us when we least expect it." + +"Yes," said Anna. "But what shall we put in the advertisement?" + +"_Ach ja_, the advertisement. In the contemplation of this beautiful +scheme I forget the advertisement." And again the moisture of ecstasy +suffused his eyes, and again he clasped his hands and gazed at her with +his head on one side, almost as though the young lady herself were the +beautiful scheme. + +Anna got up and went to the writing-table to fetch a pencil and a sheet +of paper, anxious to keep him to the point; and the parson watching the +graceful white figure was more than ever struck by her resemblance to +his idea of angels. He did not consider how easy it was to look like a +being from another world, a creature purified of every earthly +grossness, to eyes accustomed to behold the redundant exuberance of his +own excellent wife. + +She brought the paper, and sat down again at the table on which the lamp +stood. "How does one write any sort of advertisement in German?" she +said. "I could not write one for a housemaid. And this one must be done +so carefully." + +"Very true; for, alas, even ladies are sometimes not all that they +profess to be. Sad that in a Christian country there should be +impostors. Doubly sad that there should be any of the female sex." + +"Very sad," said Anna, smiling. "You must tell me which are the +impostors among those that answer." + +"_Ach_, it will not be easy," said the parson, whose experience of +ladies was limited, and who began to see that he was taking upon himself +responsibilities that threatened to become grave. Suppose he recommended +an applicant who afterwards departed with the gracious Miss's spoons in +her bag? "_Ach_, it will not be easy," he said, shaking his head. + +"Oh, well," said Anna, "we must risk the impostors. There may not be any +at all. How would you begin?" + +The parson threw himself back in his chair, folded his hands, cast up +his eyes to the ceiling, and meditated. Anna waited, pencil in hand, +ready to write at his dictation. Frau Manske at the other end of the +room was straining her ears to hear what was going on, but Miss Leech, +desirous both of entertaining her and of practising her German, would +not cease from her spasmodic talk, even expecting her mistakes to be +corrected. And there were no refreshments, no glasses of cooling beer +being handed round, no liquid consolation of any sort, not even seltzer +water. She regarded her evening as a failure. + +"A Christian lady of noble sentiments," dictated the parson, apparently +reading the words off the ceiling, "offers a home in her house----" + +"Is this the advertisement?" asked Anna. + +"--offers a home in her house----" + +"I don't quite like the beginning," hesitated Anna. "I would rather +leave out about the noble sentiments." + +"As the gracious one pleases. Modesty can never be anything but an +ornament. 'A Christian lady----'" + +"But why a _Christian_ lady? Why not simply a lady? Are there, then, +heathen ladies about, that you insist on the Christian?" + +"Worse, worse than heathen," replied the parson, sitting up straight, +and fixing eyeballs suddenly grown fiery on her; and his voice fell to a +hissing whisper, in strange contrast to his previous honeyed tones. "The +heathen live in far-off lands, where they keep quiet till our +missionaries gather them into the Church's fold--but here, here in our +midst, here everywhere, taking the money from our pockets, nay, the very +bread from our mouths, are the _Jews_." + +Impossible to describe the tone of fear and hatred with which this word +was pronounced. + +Anna gazed at him, mystified. "The Jews?" she echoed. One of her +greatest friends at home was a Jew, a delightful person, the mere +recollection of whom made her smile, so witty and charming and kind was +he. And of Jews in general she could not remember to have heard anything +at all. + +"But not only money from our pockets and bread from our mouths," +continued the parson, leaning forward, his light grey eyes opened to +their widest extent, and speaking in a whisper that made her flesh begin +the process known as creeping, "but blood--blood from our veins." + +"Blood from your veins?" she repeated faintly. It sounded horrid. It +offended her ears. It had nothing to do with the advertisement. The +strange light in his eyes made her think of fanaticism, cruelty, and the +Middle Ages. The mildest of men in general, as she found later on, +rabidness seized him at the mere mention of Jews. + +"Blood," he hissed, "from the veins of Christians, for the performance +of their unholy rites. Did the gracious one never hear of ritual +murders?" + +"No," said Anna, shrinking back, the nearer he leaned towards her, +"never in my life. Don't tell me now, for it--it sounds interesting. I +should like to hear about it all another time. 'A Christian lady offers +her home,'" she went on quickly, scribbling that much down, and then +looking at him inquiringly. + +"_Ach ja_," he said in his natural voice, leaning back in his chair and +reducing his eyes to their normal size, "I forgot again the +advertisement. 'A Christian lady offers her home to others of her sex +and station who are without means----'" + +"And without friends, and without hope," added Anna, writing. + +"_Gut, gut, sehr gut._" + +"She has room in her house in the country," Anna went on, writing as she +spoke, "for twelve such ladies, and will be glad to share with them all +that she possesses of fortune and happiness." + +"_Gut, gut, sehr gut._" + +"Is the German correct?" + +"Quite correct. I would add, 'Strictest inquiries will be made before +acceptance of any application by Herr Pastor Manske of Lohm, to whom all +letters are to be addressed. Applicants must be ladies of good family, +who have fallen on evil days by the will of God.'" + +Anna wrote this down as far as "days," after which she put a full stop. + +"It pleases me not entirely," said Manske, musing; "the language is not +sufficiently noble. Noble schemes should be alluded to in noble words." + +"But not in an advertisement." + +"Why not? We ought not to hide our good thoughts from our fellows, but +rather open our hearts, pour out our feelings, spend freely all that we +have in us of virtue and piety, for the edification and exhilaration of +others." + +"But not in an advertisement. I don't want to exhilarate the public." + +"And why not exhilarate the public, dear Miss? Is it not composed of +units of like passions to ourselves? Units on the way to heaven, units +bowed down by the same sorrows, cheered by the same hopes, torn asunder +by the same temptations as the gracious one and myself?" And immediately +he launched forth into a flood of eloquence about units; for in Germany +sermons are all extempore, and the clergy, from constant practice, +acquire a fatal fluency of speech, bursting out in the week on the least +provocation into preaching, and not by any known means to be stopped. + +"Oh--words, words, words!" thought Anna, waiting till he should have +finished. His wife, hearing the well-known rapid speech of his inspired +moments, glowed with pride. "My Adolf surpasses himself," she thought; +"the Miss must wonder." + +The Miss did wonder. She sat and wondered, her elbows on the arms of the +chair, her finger tips joined together, and her eyes fixed on her finger +tips. She did not like to look at him, because, knowing how different +was the effect produced on her to that which he of course imagined, she +was sorry for him. + +"It is so good of you to help me," she said with gentle irrelevance when +the longed-for pause at length came. "There was something else that I +wanted to consult you about. I must look for a companion--an elderly +German lady, who will help me in the housekeeping." + +"Yes, yes, I comprehend. But would not the twelve be sufficient +companions, and helps in the housekeeping?" + +"No, because I would not like them to think that I want anything done +for me in return for their home. I want them to do exactly what makes +them happiest. They will all have had sad lives, and must waste no more +time in doing things they don't quite like." + +"Ah--noble, noble," murmured the parson, quite as unpractical as Anna, +and fascinated by the very vagueness of her plan of benevolence. + +"The companion I wish to find would be another sort of person, and would +help me in return for a salary." + +"Certainly, I comprehend." + +"I thought perhaps you would tell me how to advertise for such a +person?" + +"Surely, surely. My wife has a sister----" + +He paused. Anna looked up quickly. She had not reckoned with the +possibility of his wife's having sisters. + +"_Lieber Schatz_," he called to his wife, "what does thy sister Helena +do now?" + +Frau Manske got up and came over to them with the alacrity of relief. +"What dost thou say, dear Adolf?" she asked, laying her hand on his +shoulder. He took it in his, stroked it, kissed it, and finally put his +arm round her waist and held it there while he talked; all to the +exceeding joy of Letty, to whom such proceedings had the charm of +absolute freshness. + +"Thy sister Helena--is she at present in the parental house?" he asked, +looking up at her fondly, warmed into an affection even greater than +ordinary by the circumstance of having spectators. + +Frau Manske was not sure. She would write and inquire. Anna proposed +that she should sit down, but the parson playfully held her closer. +"This is my guardian angel," he explained, smiling beatifically at her, +"the faithful mother of my children, now grown up and gone their several +ways. Does the gracious Miss remember the immortal lines of Schiller, +'_Ehret die Frauen, sie flechten und weben himmlische Rosen in's +irdische Leben_'? Such has been the occupation of this dear wife, only +interrupted by her occasional visits to bathing resorts, since the day, +more than twenty-five years ago, when she consented to tread with me the +path leading heavenwards. Not a day has there been, except when she was +at the seaside, without its roses." + +"Oh," said Anna. She felt that the remark was not at the height of the +situation, and added, "How--how interesting." This also struck her as +inadequate; but all further inspiration failing her, she was reduced to +the silent sympathy of smiles. + +"Ten children did the Lord bless us with," continued the parson, +expanding into confidences, "and six it was His will again to remove." + +"The drains--" murmured Frau Manske. + +"Yes, truly the drains in the town where we lived then were bad, very +bad. But one must not question the wisdom of Providence." + +"No, but one might mend----" Anna stopped, feeling that under some +circumstances even the mending of drains might be impious. She had heard +so much about piety and Providence within the last two hours that she +was confused, and was no longer clear as to the exact limit of conduct +beyond which a flying in the face of Providence might be said to begin. + +But the parson, clasping his wife to his side, paid no heed to anything +she might be saying, for he was already well on in a detailed account of +the personal appearance, habits, and career of his four remaining +children, and dwelt so fondly on each in turn that he forgot sister +Helena and the second advertisement; and when he had explained all their +numerous excellencies and harmless idiosyncrasies, including their +preferences in matters of food and drink, he abruptly quitted this +topic, and proceeded to expound Anna's scheme to his wife, who had +listened with ill-concealed impatience to the first part of his +discourse, consumed as she was with curiosity to hear what it was that +Anna had confided to him. + +So Anna had to listen to the raptures all over again. The eager interest +of the wife disturbed her. She doubted whether Frau Manske had any real +sympathy with her plan. Her inquisitiveness was unquestionable; but Anna +felt that opening her heart to the parson and opening it to his wife +were two different things. Though he was wordy, he was certainly +enthusiastic; his wife, on the other hand, appeared to be chiefly +interested in the question of cost. "The cost will be colossal," she +said, surveying Anna from head to foot. "But the gracious Miss is rich," +she added. + +Anna began to examine her finger tips again. + +On the way home through the dark fields, after having criticised each +dish of the dinner and expressed the opinion that the entertainment was +not worthy of such a wealthy lady, Frau Manske observed to her husband +that it was true, then, what she had always heard of the English, that +they were peculiarly liable to prolonged attacks of craziness. + +"Craziness! Thou callest this craziness? It is my wife, the wife of a +pastor, that I hear applying such a word to so beautiful, so Christian, +a scheme?" + +"But the good money--to give it all away. Yes, it is very Christian, but +it is also crazy." + +"Woman, shut thy mouth!" cried the parson, beside himself with +indignation at hearing such sentiments from such lips. + +Clearly Frau Manske was not at that moment engaged with her roses. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +The next morning early, Anna went over to the farm to ask Dellwig to +lend her any newspapers he might have. She was anxious to advertise as +soon as possible for a companion, and now that she knew of the existence +of sister Helena, thought it better to write this advertisement without +the parson's aid, copying any other one of the sort that she might see +in the papers. Until she had secured the services of a German lady who +would tell her how to set about the reforms she intended making in her +house, she was perfectly helpless. She wanted to put her home in order +quickly, so that the twelve unhappy ones should not be kept waiting; and +there were many things to be done. Servants, furniture, everything, was +necessary, and she did not know where such things were to be had. She +did not even know where washerwomen were obtainable, and Frau Dellwig +never seemed to be at home when she sent for her, or went to her seeking +information. On Good Friday, after Susie's departure, she had sent a +message to the farm desiring the attendance of the inspector's wife, +whom she wished to consult about the dinner to be prepared for the +Manskes, all provisions apparently passing through Frau Dellwig's hands; +and she had been told that the lady was at church. On Saturday morning, +disturbed by the emptiness of her larder and the imminence of her +guests, she had gone herself to the farm, but was told that the lady was +in the cow-sheds--in which cow-shed nobody exactly knew. Anna had been +forced to ask Dellwig about the food. On Sunday she took Letty with her, +abashed by the whisperings and starings she had had to endure when she +went alone. Nor on this occasion did she see the inspector's wife, and +she began to wonder what had become of her. + +The Dellwigs' wrath and amazement when they found that the parson and +his wife had been invited to dinner and they themselves left out was +indescribable. Never had such an insult been offered them. They had +always been the first people of their class in the place, always held +their heads up and condescended to the clergy, always been helped first +at table, gone first through doors, sat in the right-hand corners of +sofas. If he was furious, she was still more so, filled with venom and +hatred unutterable for the innocent, but it must be added overjoyed, +Frau Manske; and though her own interest demanded it, she was altogether +unable to bring herself to meet Anna for the purpose, as she knew, of +being consulted about the menu to be offered to the wretched upstart. +Indeed, Frau Dellwig's position was similar to that painful one in which +Susie found herself when her influential London acquaintance left her +out of the invitations to the wedding; on which occasion, as we know, +Susie had been constrained to flee to Germany in order to escape the +comments of her friends. Frau Dellwig could not flee anywhere. She was +obliged to stay where she was and bear it as best she might, humiliated +in the eyes of the whole neighbourhood, an object of derision to her +very milkmaids. Philosophers smile at such trials; but to persons who +are not philosophers, and at Kleinwalde these were in the majority, they +are more difficult to endure than any family bereavement. There is no +dignity about them, and friends, instead of sympathising, rejoice more +or less openly according to the degree of their civilisation. The degree +of civilisation among Frau Dellwig's friends was not great, and the +rejoicings on the next Sunday when they all met would be but +ill-concealed; there was no escape from them, they had to be faced, and +the malicious condolences accepted with what countenance she could. +Instead of making sausages, therefore, she shut herself in her bedroom +and wept. + +And so it came about that the unconscious Anna, whose one desire was to +live at peace with her neighbours, made two enemies within two days. +"All women," said Dellwig to his wife, "high and low, are alike. Unless +they have a husband to keep them in their right places, they become +religious and run after pastors. Manske has wormed himself in very +cleverly, truly very cleverly. But we will worm him out again with equal +cleverness. As for his wife, what canst thou expect from so great a +fool?" + +"No, indeed, from her I expect nothing," replied his wife, tossing her +head, "but from the niece of our late master I expected the behaviour of +a lady." And at that moment, the niece of her late master being +announced, she fled into her bedroom. + +Anna, friendly as ever, specially kind to Dellwig since his tears on the +night of her arrival, came with Letty into the gloomy little office +where he was working, with all the morning sunshine in her face. Though +she was perplexed by many things, she was intensely happy. The perfect +freedom, after her years of servitude, was like heaven. Here she was in +her own home, from which nobody could take her, free to arrange her life +as she chose. Oh, it was a beautiful world, and this the most beautiful +corner of it! She was sure the sky was bluer at Kleinwalde than in other +places, and that the larks sang louder. And then was she not on the very +verge of realising her dreams of bringing the light of happiness into +dark and hopeless lives? Oh, the beautiful, beautiful world! She came +into Dellwig's room with the love of it shining in her eyes. + +He was as obsequious as ever, for unfortunately his bread and butter +depended on this perverse young woman; but he was also graver and less +talkative, considering within himself that he could not be expected to +pass over such a slight without some alteration in his manner. He ought, +he felt, to show that he was pained, and he ought to show it so +unmistakably that she would perhaps be led to offer some explanation of +her conduct. Accordingly he assumed the subdued behaviour of one whose +feelings have been hurt, and Anna thought how greatly he improved on +acquaintance. + +He would have given much to know why she wanted the papers, for surely +it was unusual for women to read newspapers? When there was a murder, or +anything of that sort, his wife liked to see them, but not at other +times. "Is the gracious Miss interested in politics?" he inquired, as he +put several together. + +"No, not particularly," said Anna; "at least, not yet in German +politics. I must live here a little while first." + +"In--in literature, perhaps?" + +"No, not particularly. I know so little about German books." + +"There are some well-written articles occasionally on the modes in +ladies' dresses." + +"Really?" + +"My wife tells me she often gets hints from them as to what is being +worn. Ladies, we know," he added with a superior smile, checked, +however, on his remembering that he was pained, "are interested in these +matters." + +"Yes, they are," agreed Anna, smiling, and holding out her hand for the +papers. + +"Ah, then, it is that that the gracious Miss wishes to read?" he said +quickly. + +"No, not particularly," said Anna, who began to see that he too suffered +from the prevailing inquisitiveness. Besides, she was too much afraid of +his having sisters, or of his wife's having sisters, eager to come and +be a blessing to her, to tell him about her advertisement. + +On the steps of his house, to which Dellwig accompanied the two girls, +stood a man who had just got off his horse. He was pulling off his +gloves as he watched it being led away by a boy. He had his back to +Anna, and she looked at it interested, for it was unlike any back she +had yet seen in Kleinwalde, in that it was the back of a gentleman. + +"It is Herr von Lohm," said Dellwig, "who has business here this +morning. Some of our people unfortunately drink too much on holidays +like Good Friday, and there are quarrels. I explained to the gracious +one that he is our Amtsvorsteher." + +Herr von Lohm turned at the sound of Dellwig's voice, and took off his +hat. "Pray present me to these ladies," he said to Dellwig, and bowed as +gravely to Letty as to Anna, to her great satisfaction. + +"So this is my neighbour?" thought Anna, looking down at him from the +higher step on which she stood with her papers under her arm. + +"So this is old Joachim's niece, of whom he was always talking?" thought +Lohm, looking up at her. "Wise old man to leave the place to her instead +of to those unpleasant sons." And he proceeded to make a few +conventional remarks, hoping that she liked her new home and would soon +be quite used to the country life. "It is very quiet and lonely for a +lady not used to our kind of country, with its big estates and few +neighbours," he said in English. "May I talk English to you? It gives me +pleasure to do so." + +"Please do," said Anna. Here was a person who might be very helpful to +her if ever she reached her wits' end; and how nice he looked, how +clean, and what a pleasant voice he had, falling so gratefully on ears +already aching with Dellwig's shouts and the parson's emphatic oratory. + +He was somewhere between thirty and forty, not young at all, she +thought, having herself never got out of the habit of feeling very +young; and beyond being long and wiry, with not even a tendency to fat, +as she noticed with pleasure, there was nothing striking about him. His +top boots and his green Norfolk jacket and green felt hat with a little +feather stuck in it gave him an air of being a sportsman. It was +refreshing to come across him, if only because he did not bow. Also, +considering him from the top of the steps, she became suddenly conscious +that Dellwig and the parson neglected their persons more than was +seemly. They were both no doubt very excellent; but she did like nicely +washed men. + +Herr von Lohm began to talk about Uncle Joachim, with whom he had been +very intimate. Anna came down the steps and he went a few yards with +her, leaving Dellwig standing at the door, and followed by the eyes of +Dellwig's wife, concealed behind her bedroom curtain. + +"I shall be with you in one moment," called Lohm over his shoulder. + +"_Gut_," said Dellwig; and he went in to tell his wife that these +English ladies were very free with gentlemen, and to bid her mark his +words that Lohm and Kleinwalde would before long be one estate. + +"And us? What will become of us?" she asked, eying him anxiously. + +"I too would like to know that," replied her husband. "This all comes of +leaving land away from the natural heirs." And with great energy he +proceeded to curse the memory of his late master. + +Lohm's English was so good that it astonished Anna. It was stiff and +slow, but he made no mistakes at all. His manner was grave, and looking +at him more attentively she saw traces on his face of much hard work and +anxiety. He told her that his mother had been a cousin of Uncle +Joachim's wife. "So that there is a slight relationship by marriage +existing between us," he said. + +"Very slight," said Anna, smiling, "faint almost beyond recognition." + +"Does your niece stay with you for an indefinite period?" he asked. "I +cannot avoid knowing that this young lady is your niece," he added with +a smile, "and that she is here with her governess, and that Lady +Estcourt left suddenly on Good Friday, because all that concerns you is +of the greatest interest to the inhabitants of this quiet place, and +they talk of little else." + +"How long will it take them to get used to me? I don't like being an +object of interest. No, Letty is going home as soon as I have found a +companion. That is why I am taking the inspector's newspapers home with +me. I can't construct an advertisement out of my stores of German, and +am going to see if I can find something that will serve as model." + +"Oh, may I help you? What difficulties you must meet with every hour of +the day!" + +"I do," agreed Anna, thinking of all there was to be done before she +could open her doors and her arms to the twelve. + +"Any service that I can render to my oldest friend's niece will give me +the greatest pleasure. Will you allow me to send the advertisement for +you? You can hardly know how or where to send it." + +"I don't," said Anna. "It would be very kind--I really would be +grateful. It is so important that I should find somebody soon." + +"It is of the first importance," said Lohm. + +"Has the parson told him of my plans already?" thought Anna. But Lohm +had not seen Manske that morning, and was only picturing this little +thing to himself, this dainty little lady, used to such a different +life, alone in the empty house, struggling with her small supply of +German to make the two raw servants understand her ways. Anna was not a +little thing at all, and she would have been half-amused and +half-indignant if she had known that that was the impression she had +made on him. + +"My sister, Gräfin Hasdorf," he began--"Heavens," she thought, "has _he_ +got an unattached sister?"--"sometimes stays with me with her children, +and when she is here will be able to help you in many ways if you will +allow her to. She too knew your uncle from her childhood. She will be +greatly interested to know that you have had the courage to settle +here." + +"Courage?" echoed Anna. "Why, I love it. It's the most beautiful place +in the world." + +Lohm looked doubtfully at her for a moment; but there was no mistaking +the sincerity of those eyes. "It is pleasant to hear you say so," he +said. "My sister Trudi would scarcely credit her ears if she were +present. To her it is a terrible place, and she pities me with all her +heart because my lot is cast in it." + +Anna laughed. She thought she knew very well what sister Trudis were +like. "I do not pity you," she said; "I couldn't pity any being who +lived in this air, and under this sky. Look how blue it is--and the +geese--did you ever see such white geese?" + +A flock of geese were being driven across the sunny yard, dazzling in +their whiteness. Anna lifted up her face to the sun and drew in a long +breath of the sharp air. She forgot Lohm for a moment--it was such a +glorious Easter Sunday, and the world was so full of the abundant gifts +of God. + +Dellwig, who had been watching them from his wife's window, thought that +the brawlers who were going to be fined had been kept waiting long +enough, and came out again on to the steps. + +Lohm saw him, and felt that he must go. "I must do my business," he +said, "but as you have given me permission I will send an advertisement +to the papers to-night. Of course you desire to have an elderly lady of +good family?" + +"Yes, but not too elderly--not so elderly that she won't be able to +work. There will be so much to do, so very much to do." + +Lohm went away wondering what work there could possibly be, except the +agreeable and easy work of seeing that this young lady was properly fed, +and properly petted, and in every way taken care of. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +He sent the advertisement by the evening post to two or three of the +best newspapers. He had seen the pastor after morning church, who had at +once poured into his ears all about Anna's twelve ladies, garnishing the +story with interjections warmly appreciative of the action of Providence +in the matter. Lohm had been considerably astonished, but had said +little; it was not his way to say much at any time to the parson, and +the ecstasies about the new neighbour jarred on him. Miss Estcourt's +need of advice must have been desperate for her to have confided in +Manske. He appreciated his good qualities, but his family had never been +intimate with the parson; perhaps because from time immemorial the Lohms +had been chiefly males, and the attitude of male Germans towards parsons +is, at its best, one of indulgence. This Lohm restricted his dealings +with him, as his father had done before him, to the necessary +deliberations on the treatment of the sick and poor, and to official +meetings in the schoolhouse. He was invariably kind to him, and lent as +willing an ear as his slender purse allowed to applications for +assistance; but the idea of discussing spiritual experiences with him, +or, in times of personal sorrow, of dwelling conversationally on his +griefs, would never have occurred to him. The easy familiarity with +which Manske spoke of the Deity offended his taste. These things, these +sacred and awful mysteries, were the secrets between the soul and its +God. No man, thought Lohm, should dare to touch with profane questioning +the veil shrouding his neighbour's inner life. Manske, however, knew no +fear and no compunction. He would ask the most tremendous questions +between two mouthfuls of pudding, backing himself up with the whole +authority of the Lutheran Church, besides the Scriptures; and if the +poor people and the partly educated liked it, and were edified, and +enjoyed stirring up and talking over their religious emotions almost as +much as they did the latest village scandal, Lohm, who had no taste +either for scandal or emotions, kept the parson at arm's length. + +He thought a good deal about what Manske had told him during the +afternoon. She had gone to the parson, then, for help, because there was +no one else to go to. Poor little thing. He could imagine the sort of +speeches Manske had made her, and the sort of advertisement he would +have told her to write. Poor little thing. Well, what he could do was to +put her in the way of getting a companion as quickly as possible, and a +very sensible, capable woman it ought to be. No wonder she was not to be +past hard work. Work there would certainly be, with twelve women in the +house undergoing the process of being made happy. Lohm could not help +smiling at the plan. He thought of Miss Estcourt courageously trying to +demolish the crust of dejection that had formed in the course of years +over the hearts of her patients, and he trusted that she would not +exhaust her own youth and joyousness in the effort. Perhaps she would +succeed. He did not remember having heard of any scheme quite analogous, +and possibly she would override all obstacles in triumph, and the +patients who entered her home with the burden of their past misery heavy +upon them, would develop in the sunshine of her presence into twelve +riotously jovial ladies. But would not she herself suffer? Would not her +own strength and hopefulness be sapped up by those she benefited? He +could not think that it would be to the advantage of the world at large +to substitute twelve, nay fifty, nay any number of jolly old ladies, for +one girl with such sweet and joyous eyes. + +This, of course, was the purely masculine point of view. The women to be +benefited--why he thought of them as old is not clear, for you need not +be old to be unhappy--would have protested, probably, with indignant +cries that individually they were well worth Miss Estcourt, in any case +were every bit as good as she was, and collectively--oh, absurd. + +He thought of his sister Trudi. Perhaps she knew of some one who would +be both kind and clever, and protect Miss Estcourt in some measure from +the twelve. Trudi's friends, it is true, were not the sort among whom +staid companions are found. Their husbands were chiefly lieutenants, and +they spent their time at races. They lived in flats in Hanover, where +the regiment was quartered, and flats are easy to manage, and none of +these young women would endure, he supposed, to have an elderly +companion always hanging round. Still, there was a remote possibility +that some one of them might be able to recommend a suitable person. If +Trudi were staying with him now she would be a great help; not so much +because of what she would do, but because he could go with her to +Kleinwalde, and Miss Estcourt could come to his house when she wanted +anything, and need not depend solely on the parson. It was his duty, +considering old Joachim's unchanging kindness towards him, and the pains +the old man had taken to help him in the management of his estate, and +to encourage him at a time when he greatly needed help and +encouragement, to do all that lay in his power for old Joachim's niece. +When he heard that she was coming he had decided that this was his plain +duty: that she was so pretty, so adorably pretty and simple and friendly +only made it an unusually pleasant one. "I will write to Trudi," he +thought, "and ask her to come over for a week or two." + +He sat down at his writing-table in the big window overlooking the +farmyard, and began the letter. But he felt that it would be absurd to +ask her to come on Miss Estcourt's account. Why should she do anything +for Miss Estcourt, and why should he want his sister to do anything for +her? That would be the first thing that would strike the astute Trudi. +So he merely wrote reminding her that she had not stayed with him since +the previous summer, and suggested that she should come for a few days +with her children, now that the spring was coming and the snow had gone. +"The woods will soon be blue with anemones," he wrote, though he well +knew that Trudi's attitude towards anemones was cold. Perhaps her little +boys would like to pick them; anyhow, some sort of an inducement had to +be held out. + +Outside his window was a duck-pond, thin sheets of ice still floating in +broken pieces on its surface; behind the duck-pond was the dairy; and on +either side of the yard were cow-sheds and pig-styes. The farm carts +stood in a peaceful Sunday row down one side, and at the other end of +the yard, shutting out the same view of the sea and island that Anna saw +from her bedroom window, was a mountainous range of manure. When Trudi +came, she never entered the rooms on this side of the house, because, as +she explained, it was one of her peculiarities not to like manure; and +she slept and ate and aired her opinions on the west side, where the +garden lay between the house and the road. She never would have come to +Lohm at all, not being burdened with any undue sentiment in regard to +ties of blood, if it had not been necessary to go somewhere in the +summer, and if the other places had not been beyond the resources of the +family purse, always at its emptiest when the racing season was over and +the card-playing at an end. As it was, this was a cheap and convenient +haven, and her brother Axel was kind to the little boys, and not too +angry when they plundered his apple-trees, damaged the knees of his +ponies, and did their best to twist off the tails of his disconcerted +sucking-pigs. + +He was the eldest of three brothers, and she came last. She was +twenty-six, and he was ten years older. When the father died, the land +ought properly to have been divided between the four children, but such +a proceeding would have been extremely inconvenient, and the two younger +brothers, and the sister just married, agreed to accept their share in +money, and to leave the estate entirely to Axel. It was the best course +to take, but it threw Axel into difficulties that continued for years. +His father, with four times the money, had lived very comfortably at +Lohm, and the children had been brought up in prosperity. For eight +years his eldest son had farmed the estate with a quarter the means, and +had found it so far from simple that his hair had turned grey in the +process. It needed considerable skill and vigilance to enable a man to +extract a decent living from the soil of Lohm. Part of it was too boggy, +and part of it too sandy, and the trees had all been cut down thirty +years before by a bland grandfather, serenely indifferent to the opinion +of posterity. Axel's first work had been to make plantations of young +firs and pines wherever the soil was poorest, and when he rode through +the beautiful Kleinwalde forest he endeavoured to extract what pleasure +he could from the thought that in a hundred years Lohm too would have a +forest. But the pleasure to be extracted from this thought was of a +surprisingly subdued quality. All his pleasures were of a subdued +quality. His days were made up of hard work, of that effort to induce +both ends to meet which knocks the savour out of life with such a +singular completeness. He was born with an uncomfortably exact +conception of duty; and now at the end of the best half of his life, +after years of struggling on that poor soil against the odds of that +stern climate, this conception had shaped itself into a fixed belief +that the one thing entirely beautiful, the one thing wholly worthy of a +man's ambition, is the right doing of his duty. So, he thought, shall a +man have peace at the last. + +It is a way of thinking common to the educated dwellers in solitary +places, who have not been very successful. Trudi scorned it. "Peace," +she said, "at the last, is no good at all. What one wants is peace at +the beginning and in the middle. But you only think stuff like that +because you haven't got enough money. Poor people always talk about the +beauty of duty and peace at the last. If somebody left you a fortune +you'd never mention either of them again. Or if you married a girl with +money, now. I wish, I do wish, that _that_ duty would strike you as the +one thing wholly worth doing." + +But a man who is all day and every day in his fields, who farms not for +pleasure but for his bare existence, has no time to set out in search of +girls with money, and none came up his way. Besides, he had been engaged +a few years before, and the girl had died, and he had not since had the +least inclination towards matrimony. After that he had worked harder +than ever; and the years flew by, filled with monotonous labour. +Sometimes they were good years, and the ends not only met but lapped +over a little; but generally the bare meeting of the ends was all that +he achieved. His wish was that his brother Gustav who came after him +should find the place in good order; if possible in better order than +before. But the working up of an estate for a brother Gustav, with +whatever determination it may be carried on, is not a labour that evokes +an unflagging enthusiasm in the labourer; and Axel, however beautiful a +life of duty might be to him in theory, found it, in practice, of an +altogether remarkable greyness. Two-thirds of his house were shut up. In +the evenings his servants stole out to court and be courted, and left +the place to himself and echoes and memories. It was a house built for a +large family, for troops of children, and frequent friends. Axel sat in +it alone when the dusk drove him indoors, defending himself against his +remembrances by prolonged interviews with his head inspector, or a +zealous study of the latest work on potato diseases. + +"I see that Bibi Bornstedt is staying with your Regierungspräsident," +Trudi had written a little while before. "Now, then, is your chance. She +is a true gold-fish. You cannot continue to howl over Hildegard's memory +for ever. Bibi will have two hundred thousand marks a year when the old +ones die, and is quite a decent girl. Her nose is a fiasco, but when you +have been married a week you will not so much as see that she has a +nose. And the two hundred thousand marks will still be there. _Ach_, +Axel, what comfort, what consolation, in two hundred thousand marks! You +could put the most glorious wreaths on Hildegard's tomb, besides keeping +racehorses." + +Lohm suddenly remembered this letter as he sat, having finished his own, +looking out of the window at two girls in Sunday splendour kissing one +of the stable boys behind a farm cart. They were all three apparently +enjoying themselves very much, the girls laughing, the boy with an +expression at once imbecile and beatific. They thought the master's eye +could not see them there, but the master's eye saw most things. He took +up his pen again and added a postscript. "If you come soon you will be +able to enjoy the society of your friend Bibi. She came on Wednesday, I +believe." Then, feeling slightly ashamed of using the innocent Miss Bibi +as a bait to catch his sister, he wrote the advertisement for Anna, and +put both letters in the post-bag. + +The effect of his postscript was precisely the one he had expected. +Trudi was drinking her morning coffee in her bedroom at twelve o'clock, +when the letter came. Her hair was being done by a _Friseur_, an artist +in hairdressing, who rode about Hanover every day on a bicycle, his +pockets bulging out with curling-tongs, and for three marks decorated +the heads of Trudi and her friends with innumerable waves. Trudi was +devoted to him, with the devotion naturally felt for the person on whom +one's beauty depends, for he was a true artist, and really did work +amazing transformations. "What! You have never had Herr Jungbluth?" +Trudi cried, on the last occasion on which she met Bibi, the daughter of +a Hanover banker, and quite outside her set but for the riches that +ensured her an enthusiastic welcome wherever she went, "_aber_ Bibi!" +There was so much genuine surprise and compassion in this "_aber_ Bibi" +that the young person addressed felt as though she had been for years +missing a possibility of happiness. Trudi added, as a special +recommendation, that Jungbluth smelt of soap. He had carefully studied +the nature of women, and if he had to do with a pretty one would find an +early opportunity of going into respectful raptures over what he +described as her _klassisches Profil_; and if it was a woman whose face +was not all she could have wished, he would tell her, in a tone of +subdued enthusiasm, that her profile, as to which she had long been in +doubt, was _höchst interessant_. The popularity of this young man in +Trudi's set was enormous; and as all the less aristocratic Hanoverian +ladies hastened to imitate, Jungbluth lived in great contentment and +prosperity with a young wife whose hair was reposefully straight, and a +baby whose godmother was Trudi. + +"Blue woods! Anemones!" read Trudi with immense contempt. "Is the boy in +his senses? The idea of expecting me to go to that dreary place now. Ah, +now I understand," she added, turning the page, "it is Bibi--he is +really after her, and of course can get along quicker if I am there to +help. Excellent Axel! And why did he go to the pains of trotting out the +anemones? What is the use of not being frank with me? I can see through +him, whatever he does. He is so good-natured that I am sure he will lend +us heaps of Bibi's money once he has got it. _So, lieber Jungbluth_," +she said aloud, "that will do to-day. Beautiful--beautiful--better than +ever. I am in a hurry. I travel to Berlin this very afternoon." + +And the next day she arrived at Stralsund, and was met by her brother at +the station. + +She greeted him with enthusiasm. "As we are here," she said, when they +were driving through the town, "let us pay our respects to the +Regierungspräsidentin. It will save our coming in again to-morrow." + +"No, I cannot to-day. I must get back as quickly as possible. The hands +had their Easter ball yesterday, and when I left Lohm this morning half +of them were still in bed." + +"Well, then, the horses will have to do the journey again to-morrow, for +no time should be lost." + +"Yes, you can come in to-morrow, if you long so much to see your +friend." + +"And you?" asked Trudi, in a tone of astonishment. + +"And I? I am up to my ears now in work. Last week was the first week for +four months that we could plough. Now we have lost these three days at +Easter. I cannot spare a single hour." + +"But, my dear Axel, Bibi is of far greater importance for the future of +Lohm than any amount of ploughing." + +"I confess I do not see how." + +"I don't understand you." + +"Why didn't you bring the little boys?" + +"What have you asked me to come here for?" + +"Come, Trudi, you've not been near me for eight months. Isn't it natural +that you should pay me a little visit?" + +"No, it isn't natural at all to come to such a place in winter, and +leave all the fun at home. I came because of Bibi." + +"What! You'll come for Bibi, but not for your own brother?" + +"Now, Axel, you know very well that I have come for you both." + +"For us both? What would Miss Bibi say if she heard you talking of +herself and of me as 'you both'?" + +"I wish you would not bother to go on like this. It's a great waste of +time." + +"So it is, my dear. Any talk about Bibi Bornstedt, as far as I am +concerned, is a hopeless waste of time." + +"Axel!" + +"Trudi?" + +"You don't mean to say that you are not thinking of her?" + +"Thinking of her? I never let my thoughts linger round strange young +ladies." + +"Then what in heaven's name have you got me here for?" + +"The anemones are coming out----" + +"_Ach_----" + +"They really are." + +"Suppose instead of teasing me as though I were still ten and you a +great bully, you talked sensibly. The Hohensteins give a _bal masquĂ©_ +to-night, and I gave it up to come to you." + +"Oh, my dear, that was really kind," said Lohm, touched by the +tremendousness of this sacrifice. + +"Then be a good boy," said Trudi caressingly, edging herself closer to +him, "and tell me you are going to be wise about Bibi. Don't throw such +a chance away--it's positively wicked." + +"My dear Trudi, you'll have us in the ditch. It is very nice when you +lean against me, but I can't drive. By the way, you remember my old +Kleinwalde neighbour? The old man who spoilt you so atrociously?" + +"Bibi will make a most excellent wife," said Trudi, ungratefully +indifferent to the memory of old Joachim. "Oh, what a cold wind there is +to-day. Do drive faster, Axel. What a taste, to live here and to like it +into the bargain!" + +"You know that I must live here." + +"But you needn't like it." + +"You've heard that old Joachim left Kleinwalde to his English niece?" + +"You have only seen Bibi once, and she grows on one tremendously." + +"I want to talk about old Joachim." + +"And I want to talk about Bibi." + +"Well, Bibi can wait. She is the younger. You know about the old man's +will?" + +"I should think I did. One of his unfortunate sons has just joined our +regiment. You should hear him on the subject." + +"A most disagreeable, grasping lot," said Lohm decidedly. "They received +every bit of their dues, and are all well off. Surely the old man could +do as he liked with the one place that was not entailed?" + +"It isn't the usual thing to leave one's land to a foreigner. Is she +coming to live in it?" + +"She came last week." + +"Oh?" This in a tone of sudden interest. + +There was a pause. Then Trudi said, "Is she young?" + +"Quite young." + +"Pretty?" + +"Exceedingly pretty." + +Trudi looked up at him and smiled. + +"Well?" said Axel, smiling back at her. + +"Well?" said Trudi, continuing to smile. + +Axel laughed outright. "My dear Trudi, your astuteness terrifies me. You +not only know already why I wrote to you, but you know more reasons for +the letter than I myself dream of. I want to be able to help this +extremely helpless young lady, and I can hardly be of any use to her +because I have no woman in the house. If I had a wife I could be of the +greatest assistance." + +"Only then you wouldn't want to be." + +"Certainly I should." + +"Pray, why?" + +"Because I have a greater debt of obligations to her uncle than I can +ever repay to his niece." + +"Oh, nonsense--nobody pays their debts of obligations. The natural thing +to do is to hate the person who has forced you to be grateful, and to +get out of his way." + +"My dear Trudi, this shrewdness----" murmured her brother. Then he +added, "I know perfectly well that your thoughts have already flown to a +wedding. Mine don't reach farther than an elderly companion." + +"Who for? For you?" + +"Miss Estcourt is looking for an elderly companion, and I would be +grateful to you if you would help her." + +"But the elderly companion does not exclude the wedding." + +"When you see Miss Estcourt you will understand how completely such a +possibility is outside her calculations. You won't of course believe +that it is outside mine. Why should you want to marry me to every girl +within reach? Five minutes ago it was Bibi, and now it is Miss Estcourt. +You do not in the least consider what views the girls themselves might +have. Miss Estcourt is absorbed at this moment in a search for twelve +old ladies." + +"Twelve----?" + +"Her ambition is to spend herself and her money on twelve old ladies. +She thinks happiness and money are as good for them as for herself, and +wants to share her own with persons who have neither." + +"My dear Axel--is she mad?" + +"She did not give me that impression." + +"And you say she is young?" + +"Yes." + +"And really pretty?" + +"Yes." + +"And could be so well off in that flourishing place!" + +"Of course she could." + +"I'll go and call on her to-morrow," said Trudi decidedly. + +"It will be kind of you," said Lohm. + +"Kind! It isn't kindness, it's curiosity," said Trudi with a laugh. "Let +us be frank, and call things by their right names." + +Anna was in the garden, admiring the first crocus, when Trudi appeared. +She drove Axel's cobs up to the door in what she felt was excellent +style, and hoped Miss Estcourt was watching her from a window and would +see that Englishwomen were not the only sportswomen in the world. But +Anna saw nothing but the crocus. + +The wilderness down to the marsh that did duty as a garden was so +sheltered and sunny that spring stopped there first each year before +going on into the forest; and Anna loved to walk straight out of the +drawing-room window into it, bare-headed and coatless, whenever she had +time. Trudi saw her coming towards the house upon the servant's telling +her that a lady had called. "Nothing on, on a cold day like this!" she +thought. She herself wore a particularly sporting driving-coat, with an +immense collar turned up over her ears. "I wonder," mused Trudi, +watching the approaching figure, "how it is that English girls, so tidy +in the clothes, so trim in the shoes, so neat in the tie and collar, +never apparently brush their hair. A German Miss Estcourt vegetating in +this quiet place would probably wear grotesque and disconnected +garments, doubtful boots and striking stockings, her figure would +rapidly give way before the insidiousness of _Schweinebraten_, but her +hair would always be beautifully done, each plait smooth and in its +proper place, each little curl exactly where it ought to be, the parting +a model of straightness, and the whole well deserving to be dignified by +the name _Frisur_. English girls have hair, but they do not have +_Frisurs_." + +Anna came in through the open window, and Trudi's face expanded into the +most genial smiles. "How glad I am to make your acquaintance!" she cried +enthusiastically. She spoke English quite as correctly as her brother, +and much more glibly. "I hope you will let me help you if I can be of +any use. My brother says your uncle was so good to him. When I lived +here he was very kind to me too. How brave of you to stay here! And what +wonderful plans you have made! My brother has told me about your twelve +ladies. What courage to undertake to make twelve women happy. I find it +hard enough work making one person happy." + +"One person? Oh, Graf Hasdorf." + +"Oh no, myself. You see, if each person devoted his energies to making +himself happy, everybody would be happy." + +"No, they wouldn't," said Anna, "because they do, but they're not." + +They looked at each other and laughed. "She only needs Jungbluth to be +perfect," thought Trudi; and with her usual impulsiveness began +immediately to love her. + +Anna was delighted to meet someone of her own class and age after the +severe though short course she had had of Dellwigs and Manskes; and +Trudi was so much interested in her plans, and so pressing in her offers +of help, that she very soon found herself telling her all her +difficulties about servants, sheets, wall-papers, and whitewash. "Look +at this paper," she said, "could you live in the same room with it? No +one will ever be able to feel cheerful as long as it is here. And the +one in the dining-room is worse." + +"It isn't beautiful," said Trudi, examining it, "but it is what we call +_praktisch_." + +"Then I don't like what you call _praktisch_." + +"Neither do I. All the hideous things are _praktisch_--oil-cloth, black +wall-papers, handkerchiefs a yard square, thick boots, ugly women--if +ever you hear a woman praised as a _praktische Frau_, be sure she's +frightful in every way--ugly and dull. The uglier she is the +_praktischer_ she is. Oh," said Trudi, casting up her eyes, "how +terrible, how tragic, to be an ugly woman!" Then, bringing her gaze down +again to Anna's face, she added, "My flat in Hanover is all pinks and +blues--the most becoming rooms you can imagine. I look so nice in them." + +"Pinks and blues? That is just what I want here. Can't I get any in +Stralsund?" + +Trudi was doubtful. She could not think it possible that anybody should +ever get anything in Stralsund. + +"But I must do my shopping there. I am in such a hurry. It would be +dreadful to have to keep anyone waiting only because my house isn't +ready." + +"Well, we can try," said Trudi. "You will let me go with you, won't +you?" + +"I shall be more than grateful if you will come." + +"What do you think if we went now?" suggested Trudi, always for prompt +action, and quickly tired of sitting still. "My brother said I might +drive into Stralsund to-day if I liked, and I have the cobs here now. +Don't you think it would be a good thing, as you are in such a hurry?" + +"Oh, a very good thing," exclaimed Anna. "How kind you are! You are sure +it won't bore you frightfully?" + +"Oh, not a bit. It will be rather amusing to go into those shops for +once, and I shall like to feel that I have helped the good work on a +little." + +Anna thought Trudi delightful. Trudi's new friends always did think her +delightful; and she never had any old ones. + +She drove recklessly, and they lurched and heaved through the sand +between Kleinwalde and Lohm at an alarming rate. They passed Letty and +Miss Leech, going for their afternoon walk, who stood on one side and +stared. + +"Who's that?" asked Trudi. + +"My brother's little girl and her governess." + +"Oh yes, I heard about them. They are to stay and take care of you till +you have a companion. Your sister-in-law didn't like Kleinwalde?" + +"No." + +Trudi laughed. + +They passed Dellwig, riding, who swept off his hat with his customary +deference, and stared. + +"Do you like him?" asked Trudi. + +"Who?" + +"Dellwig. I know him from the days before I married." + +"I don't know him very well yet," said Anna, "but he seems to be +very--very polite." + +Trudi laughed again, and cracked her whip. + +"My uncle had great faith in him," said Anna, slightly aggrieved by the +laugh. + +"Your uncle was one of the best farmers in Germany, I have always heard. +He was so experienced, and so clever, that he could have led a hundred +Dellwigs round by the nose. Dellwig was naturally quite small, as we +say, in the presence of your uncle. He knew very well it would be +useless to be anything but immaculate under such a master. Perhaps your +uncle thought he would go on being immaculate from sheer habit, with +nobody to look after him." + +"I suppose he did," said Anna doubtfully. "He told me to keep him. It's +quite certain that _I_ can't look after him." + +They passed Axel Lohm, also riding. He was on Trudi's side of the road. +He looked pleased when he saw Anna with his sister. Trudi whipped up the +cobs, regardless of his feelings, and tore past him, scattering the sand +right and left. When she was abreast of him, she winked her eye at him +with perfect solemnity. + +Axel looked stony. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Neither Trudi nor Anna had ever worked so hard as they did during the +few days that ended March and began April. Everything seemed to happen +at once. The house was in a sudden uproar. There were people +whitewashing, people painting, people putting up papers, people bringing +things in carts from Stralsund, people trimming up the garden, people +coming out to offer themselves as servants, Dellwig coming in and +shouting, Manske coming round and glorifying--Anna would have been +completely bewildered if it had not been for Trudi, who was with her all +day long, going about with a square of lace and muslin tucked under her +waist-ribbon which she felt was becoming and said was an apron. + +Trudi was enjoying herself hugely. She saw Jungbluth's waves slowly +straightening themselves out of her hair, and for the first time in her +life remained calm as she watched them go. She even began to have +aspirations towards Uncle Joachim's better life herself, and more than +once entered into a serious consideration of the advantages that might +result from getting rid at one stroke of Bill her husband, and Billy and +Tommy her two sons, and from making a fresh start as one of Anna's +twelve. + +Frau Manske and Frau Dellwig could not face her infinite +superciliousness more than once, and kept out of the way in spite of +their burning curiosity. When Dellwig's shouts became intolerable, she +did not hesitate to wince conspicuously and to put up her hand to her +head. When Manske forgot that it was not Sunday, and began to preach, +she would interrupt him with a brisk "_Ja, ja, sehr schön, sehr schön, +aber lieber Herr Pastor_, you must tell us all this next Sunday in +church when we have time to listen--my friend has not a minute now in +which to appreciate the opinions of the _Apostel Paulus_." + +"I believe you are being unkind to my parson," said Anna, who could not +always understand Trudi's rapid German, but saw that Manske went away +dejected. + +"My dear, he must be kept in his place if he tries to come out of it. +You don't know what a set these pastors are. They are not like your +clergymen. If you are too kind to that man you'll have no peace. I +remember in my father's time he came to dinner every Sunday, sat at the +bottom of the table, and when the pudding appeared made a bow and went +away." + +"He didn't like pudding?" + +"I don't know if he liked it or not, but he never got any. It was a good +old custom that the pastor should withdraw before the pudding, and Axel +has not kept it up. My father never had any bother with him." + +"But what has the pudding that he didn't get ten years ago to do with +your being unkind to him now?" + +"I wanted to explain the proper footing for him to be on." + +"And the proper footing is a puddingless one? Well, in my house neither +pudding nor kindness in suitable quantities shall be withheld from him, +so don't ill-use him more than you feel is absolutely necessary for his +good." + +"Oh, you are a dear little thing!" said Trudi, putting her hands on +Anna's shoulders and looking into her eyes--they were both tall young +women, and their eyes were on a level--"I wonder what the end of you +will be. When you know all these people better you'll see that my way of +treating them, which you think unkind, is the only way. You must turn up +your nose as high as it will go at them, and they will burst with +respect. Don't be too friendly and confiding--they won't understand it, +and will be sure to think that something must be wrong about you, and +will begin to backbite you, and invent all sorts of horrid stories about +you. And as for the pastor, why should he be allowed to treat your rooms +as though they were so many pulpits, and you as though you had never +heard of the _Apostel Paulus_?" + +Anna admitted that she was not always in the proper frame of mind for +these unprovoked sermons, but refused to believe in the necessity for +turning up her nose. She ostentatiously pressed Manske, the very next +time he came, to stay to the evening meal, which was rather of the +nature of a picnic in those unsettled days, but at which, for Letty's +sake, there was always a pudding; and she invited him to eat pudding +three times running, and each time he accepted the offer; and each time, +when she had helped him, she fixed her eyes with a defiant gravity on +Trudi's face. + +Axel came in sometimes when he had business at the farm, and was shown +what progress had been made. Trudi was as interested as though it had +been her own house, and took him about, demanding his approval and +admiration with an enthusiasm that spread to Anna, and she and Axel soon +became good friends. The Stralsund wall-papers were so dreadful that +Anna had declared she would have most of the rooms whitewashed; the hall +had been done, exchanging its pea-green coat for one of virgin purity, +and she had thought it so fresh and clean, and so appropriate to the +simplicity of the better life, that to the amazement of the workmen she +insisted on the substitution of whitewash in both dining and +drawing-room for the handsome chocolate-coloured papers already in those +rooms. + +"The twelve will think it frightful," said Trudi. + +"But why?" asked Anna, who had fallen in love with whitewash. "It is +purity itself. It will be symbolical of the innocence and cleanliness +that will be in our hearts when we have got used to each other, and are +happy." + +Trudi looked again at the hall, into which the afternoon sun was +streaming. It did look very clean, certainly, and exceedingly cheerful; +she was sure, however, that it would never be symbolical of any heart +that came into it. But then Trudi was sceptical about hearts. + +At the end of Easter week, when Trudi was beginning to feel slightly +tired of whitewash and scrambled meals, and to have doubts as to the +permanent becomingness of aprons, and misgivings as to the effect on her +complexion of running about a cold house all day long, answers to the +advertisements began to arrive, and soon arrived in shoals. These +letters acted as bellows on the flickering flame of her zeal. She found +them extraordinarily entertaining, and would meet Manske in the hall +when he brought them round, and take them out of his hands, and run with +them to Anna, leaving him standing there uncertain whether he ought to +stay and be consulted, or whether it was expected of him that he should +go home again without having unburdened himself of all the advice he +felt that he contained. He deplored what he called _das impulsive +Temperament_ of the Gräfin. Always had she been so, since the days she +climbed his cherry-trees and helped the birds to strip them; and when, +with every imaginable precaution, he had approached her father on the +subject, and carefully excluding the word cherry hinted that the +climbing of trees was a perilous pastime for young ladies, old Lohm had +burst into a loud laugh, and had sworn that neither he nor anyone else +could do anything with Trudi. He actually had seemed proud that she +should steal cherries, for he knew very well why she climbed the trees, +and predicted a brilliant future for his only daughter; to which Manske +had listened respectfully as in duty bound, and had gone home +unconvinced. + +But Anna did not let him stand long in the hall, and came to fetch him +and beg him to help her read the letters and tell her what he thought of +them. In spite of Trudi's advice and example she continued to treat the +pastor with the deference due to a good and simple man. What did it +matter if he talked twice as much as he need have done, and wearied her +with his habit of puffing Christianity as though it were a quack +medicine of which he was the special patron? He was sincere, he really +believed something, and really felt something, and after five days with +Trudi Anna turned to Manske's elementary convictions with relief. In +five days she had come to be very glad that Trudi stood in no need of a +place among the twelve. + +Most of the women who wrote in answer to the advertisement sent +photographs, and their letters were pitiful enough, either because of +what they said or because of what they tried to hide; and Anna's +appreciation of Trudi received a great shock when she found that the +letters amused her, and that the photographs, especially those of the +old ones or the ugly ones, moved her to a mirth little short of +unseemly. After all, Trudi was taking a great deal upon herself, Anna +thought, reading the letters unasked, helping her to open them unasked, +hurrying down to fetch them unasked, and deluging her with advice about +them unasked. She saw she had made a mistake in allowing her to see them +at all. She had no right to expose the petitions of these unhappy +creatures to Trudi's inquisitive and diverted eyes. This fact was made +very patent to her when one of the letters that Trudi opened turned out +to be from a person she had known. "Why," cried Trudi, her face +twinkling with excitement, "here's one from a girl who was at school +with me. And her photo, too--what a shocking scarecrow she has grown +into! She is only two years older than I am, but might be forty. Just +look at her--and she used to think none of us were good enough for her. +Don't have her, whatever you do--she married one of the officers in +Bill's first regiment, and treated him so shamefully that he shot +himself. Imagine her boldness in writing like this!" And she began +eagerly to read the letter. + +Anna got up and took it out of her hands. It was an unexpected action, +or Trudi would have held on tighter. "She never dreamed you would see +what she wrote," said Anna, "and it would be dishonourable of me to let +you. And the other letters too--I have been thinking it over--they are +only meant for me; and no one else, except perhaps the parson, ought to +see them." + +"Except perhaps the parson!" cried Trudi, greatly offended. "And why +except perhaps the parson?" + +"I can't always read the German writing," explained Anna. + +"But surely a woman of your own age, who isn't such a simpleton as the +parson, is the best adviser you can have." + +"But you laugh at the letters, and they are all so unhappy." + +Trudi went back to Lohm early that day. "She has taken it into her head +that I am not to read the letters," she said to her brother with no +little indignation. + +"It would be a great breach of confidence if she allowed you to," he +replied; which was so unsatisfactory that she drove into Stralsund that +very afternoon, and consoled herself with the pliable Bibi. + +Bibi's nose seemed more unsuccessful than ever after having had Anna's +before her for nearly a week; but then the richness of the girl! And +such a good-natured, generous girl, who would adore her sister-in-law +and make her presents. Contemplating the good Bibi in her afternoon +splendour from Paris, Trudi's heart stirred within her at the thought of +all that was within Axel's reach if only he could be induced to put out +his hand and take it. Anna would never marry him, Trudi was +certain--would never marry anyone, being completely engrossed by her +philanthropic follies; but if she did, what was her probable income +compared to Bibi's? And Axel would never look at Bibi so long as that +other girl lived next door to him; nobody could expect him to. Anna was +too pretty; it was not fair. And Bibi was so very plain; which was not +fair either. + +The Regierungspräsidentin, a cousin by marriage of Bibi's, but a member +of an ancient family of the Mark, was delighted to see Trudi and to +question her about the new and eccentric arrival. Trudi had offered to +take Anna to call on this lady, and had explained that it was her duty +to call; but Anna had said there was no hurry, and had talked of some +day, and had been manifestly bored by the prospect of making new +acquaintances. + +"Is she quite--quite in her right senses?" asked the +Regierungspräsidentin, when Trudi had described all they had been doing +in Anna's house, and all Anna meant to do with her money, and had made +her description so smart and diverting that the Regierungspräsidentin, +an alert little lady, with ears perpetually pricked up in the hope of +catching gossip, felt that she had not enjoyed an afternoon so much for +years. + +Bibi sat listening with her mouth wide open. It was an artless way of +hers when she was much interested in a conversation, and was deplored by +those who wished her well. + +"Oh, yes, she is quite in her senses. Rather too sure she knows best, +always, but quite in her senses." + +"Then she is very religious?" + +"Not in the ordinary way, I should think. She goes in for nature. _Gott +in der Natur_, and that sort of thing. If the sun shines more than usual +she goes and stands in it, and turns up her eyes and gushes. There's a +crocus in the garden, and when we came to it yesterday she stopped in +front of it and rhapsodised for ten minutes about things that have +nothing to do with crocuses--chiefly about the _lieben Gott_. And all in +English, of course, and it sounds worse in English." + +"But then, my dear, she _is_ religious?" + +"Oh, well, the pastor would not call it religion. It's a sort of +huddle-muddle pantheism as far as it is anything at all." From which it +will be seen that Trudi was even more frank about her friends behind +their backs than she was to their faces. + +She drove back to Lohm in a discontented frame of mind. "What's the good +of anything?" was the mood she was in. She had over-tired herself +helping Anna, and she was afraid that being so much in cold rooms and +passages, and washing in hard water, had made her skin coarse. She had +caught sight of herself in a glass as she was leaving the +Regierungspräsidentin, and had been disconcerted by finding that she did +not look as pretty as she felt. Nor was she consoled for this by the +consciousness that she had been unusually amusing at Anna's expense; for +she was only too certain that the Regierungspräsidentin, when repeating +all she had told her to her friends, would add that Trudi Hasdorf had +terribly _eingepackt_--dreadful word, descriptive of the faded state +immediately preceding wrinkles, and held in just abhorrence by every +self-respecting woman. Of what earthly use was it to be cleverer and +more amusing than other people if at the same time you had _eingepackt_? + +"What a stupid world it is," thought Trudi, driving along the _chaussĂ©e_ +in the early April twilight. A mist lay over the sea, and the pale +sickle of the young moon rose ghost-like above the white shroud. Inland +the stars were faintly shining, and all the earth beneath was damp and +fragrant. It was Saturday evening, and the two bells of Lohm church were +plaintively ringing their reminder to the countryside that the week's +work was ended and God's day came next. "Oh, the stupid world," thought +Trudi. "If I stay here I shall be bored to death--that Estcourt child +and her governess have got on to my nerves--horrid fat child with +turned-in toes, and flabby, boneless woman, only held together by her +hairpins. I am sick of governesses and children--wherever one goes, +there they are. If I go home, there are those noisy little boys and +Fräulein Schultz worrying all day, and then there's that tiresome Bill +coming in to meals. Anna and Bibi are just in the position I would like +to be in--no husbands and children, and lots of money." And staring +straight before her, with eyes dark with envy, she fell into gloomy +musings on the beauty of Bibi's dress, and the blindness of fate, +throwing away a dress like that on a Bibi, when it was so eminently +suited to tall, slim women like herself; and it was fortunate for Axel's +peace that when she reached Lohm the first thing she saw was a letter +from the objectionable Bill telling her to come home, because the +foreign prince who was honorary colonel of the regiment was expected +immediately in Hanover, and there were to be great doings in his honour. + +She left, all smiles, the next morning by the first train. + +"Miss Estcourt will miss you," said Axel, "and will wonder why you did +not say good-bye. I am afraid your journey will be unpleasant, too, +to-day. I wish you had stayed till to-morrow." + +"Oh, I don't mind the Sunday people once in a way," said Trudi gaily. +"And please tell Anna how it was I had to go so suddenly. I have started +her, at least, with the workmen and people she wants. I shall see her in +a few weeks again, you know, when Bill is at the man[oe]uvres." + +"A few weeks! Six months." + +"Well, six months. You must both try to exist without me for that time." + +"You seem very pleased to be off," he said, smiling, as she climbed +briskly into the dog-cart and took the reins, while her maid, with her +arms full of bags, was hoisted up behind. + +"Oh, so pleased!" said Trudi, looking down at him with sparkling eyes. +"Princes and parties are jollier any day than whitewash and the better +life." + +"And brothers." + +"Oh--brothers. By the way, I never saw Bibi look better than she did +yesterday. She has improved so much nobody would know----" + +"You will miss your train," said Axel, pulling out his watch. + +"Well, good-bye then, _alter Junge_. Work hard, do your duty, and don't +let your thoughts linger too much round strange young ladies. They never +do, I think you said? Well, so much the better, for it's no good, no +good, no good!" And Trudi, who was in tremendous spirits, put her whip +to the brim of her hat by way of a parting salute, touched up the cobs, +and rattled off down the drive on the road to Jungbluth and glory. She +turned her head before she finally disappeared, to call back her +oracular "No good!" once again to Axel, who stood watching her from the +steps of his solitary house. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +So Anna was left to herself again. She was astonished at the rapidity of +Trudi's movements. Within one week she had heard of her, met her, liked +her, begun to like her less, and lost her. She had flashed across the +Kleinwalde horizon, and left a trail of workmen and new servants behind, +with whom Anna was now occupied, unaided, from morning till night. Miss +Leech and Letty did all they could, but their German being restricted to +quotations from the _Erl-König_ and the _Lied von der Glocke_, it could +not be brought to bear with any profitable results on the workmen. The +servants, too, were a perplexity to Anna. Their cheapness was +extraordinary, but their quality curious. Her new parlourmaid--for she +felt unequal to coping with German men-servants--wore her arms naked all +day long. Anna thought she had tucked up her sleeves in her zeal for +thoroughness, but when she appeared with the afternoon coffee--the local +tea was undrinkable--she still had bare arms; and, examining her more +closely, Anna saw that it was her usual state, for her dress was +sleeveless. Nor was her want of sleeves her only peculiarity. Anna began +to wonder whether her house would ever be ready for the twelve. + +The answers to the philanthropic advertisement were in a proportion of +fifty to one answer to the advertisement for a companion. There were +fifty ladies without means willing to be idle, to one lady without means +willing to work. It worried Anna terribly, being obliged by want of room +and money to limit the number to twelve. She could hardly bear to read +the letters, knowing that nearly all had to be rejected. "See how many +sad lives are being dragged through while we are so comfortable," she +said to Manske, when he brought round fresh piles of letters to add to +those already heaped on her table. + +He shook his head in perplexity. He was bewildered by the masses of +answers, by the apparent universality of impoverishment and hopelessness +among Christian ladies of good family. + +He could not come himself more than once a day, and the letters arrived +by every post; so in the afternoon he sent Herr Klutz, the young cleric +of poetic promptings, who had celebrated Anna on her arrival in a poem +which for freshness and spontaneousness equalled, he considered, the +best sonnets that had ever been written. What a joy it was to a youth of +imagination, to a poet who thought his features not unlike Goethe's, and +who regarded it as by no means an improbability that his brain should +turn out to be stamped with the same resemblance, to walk daily through +the gleaming, whispering forest, swinging his stick and composing +snatches not unworthy of her of whom they treated, his face towards the +magic _Schloss_ and its enchanted princess, and his pockets full of her +letters! Herr Klutz's coat was clerical, but his brown felt hat and the +flower in his buttonhole were typical of the worldliness within. "A +poet," he assured himself often, "is a citizen of the world, and is not +to be narrowed down to any one circle or creed." But he did not expound +this view to the good man who was helping him to prepare for the +examination that would make him a full-fledged pastor, and received his +frequent blessings, and assisted at prayers and intercessions of which +he was the subject, with outward decorum. + +The first time he brought the letters, Anna received him with her usual +kindness; but there was something in his manner that displeased her, +whether it was self-assurance, or conceit, or a way he had of looking at +her, she could not tell, nor did she waste many seconds trying to +decide; but the next day when he came he was not admitted to her +presence, nor the next after that, nor for some time to come. This +surprised Herr Klutz, who was of Dellwig's opinion that the most +superior woman was not equal to the average man; and take away any +advantage of birth or position or wealth that she might possess, why, +there she was, only a woman, a creature made to be conquered and brought +into obedience to man. Being young and poetic he differed from Dellwig +on one point: to Dellwig, woman was a servant; to Klutz, an admirable +toy. Clearly such a creature could only be gratified by opportunities of +seeing and conversing with members of the opposite sex. The Miss's +conduct, therefore, in allowing her servant to take the letters from him +at the door, puzzled him. + +He often met Miss Leech and Letty on his way to or from Kleinwalde, and +always stopped to speak to them and to teach them a few German sentences +and practise his own small stock of English; and from them he easily +discovered all that the young woman he favoured with his admiration was +doing. Lohm, riding over to Kleinwalde to settle differences between +Dellwig and the labourers, or to try offenders, met these three several +times, and supposed that Klutz must be courting the governess. + +The day Trudi left, Lohm had gone round to Anna and delivered his +sister's message in a slightly embellished form. "You will have +everything to do now unassisted," he said. "I do trust that in any +difficulty you will let me help you. If the workmen are insolent, for +instance, or if your new servants are dishonest or in any way give you +trouble. You know it is my duty as Amtsvorsteher to interfere when such +things happen." + +"You are very kind," said Anna gratefully, looking up at the grave, good +face, "but no one is insolent. And look--here is some one who wants to +come as companion. It is the first of the answers to that advertisement +that pleases me." + +Lohm took the letter and photograph and examined them. "She is a +Penheim, I see," he said. "It is a very good family, but some of its +branches have been reduced to poverty, as so many of our old families +have been." + +"Don't you think she would do very well?" + +"Yes, if she is and does all she says in her letter. You might propose +that she should come at first for a few weeks on trial. You may not like +her, and she may not appreciate philanthropic housekeeping." + +Anna laughed. "I am doubly anxious to get someone soon," she said, +"because my sister-in-law wants Letty and Miss Leech." + +Letty and Miss Leech heaved tragic sighs at this; they had no desire +whatever to go home. + +"Will you not feel rather forlorn when they are gone, and you are quite +alone among strangers?" + +"I shall miss them, but I don't mean to be forlorn," said Anna, smiling. + +"The courage of the little thing!" thought Lohm. "Ready to brave +anything in pursuit of her ideals. It makes one ashamed of one's own +grumblings and discouragements." + +Anna arranged with Frau von Penheim that she should come at once on a +three months' trial; and immediately this was settled she wrote to Susie +to ask what day Letty was to be sent home. She had had no communication +with Susie since that angry lady's departure. To Peter she had written, +explaining her plans and her reasons, and her hopes and yearnings, and +had received a hasty scrawl in reply dated from Estcourt, conveying his +blessing on herself and her scheme. "Susie came straight down here," he +wrote, "because of the Alderton wedding to which she was not asked, and +went to bed. You know, my dear little sister, anything that makes you +happy contents me. I wish you could have seen your way to benefiting +reduced English ladies, for you are a long way off; but of course you +have the house free over there. Don't let Miss Leech leave you till you +are perfectly satisfied with your companion. Yesterday I landed the +biggest----" etc. In a word, Peter, in accordance with his invariable +custom, was on her side. + +The day before Frau von Penheim was to arrive, Susie's answer to Anna's +letter came. Here it is:-- + + "DEAR ANNA,--Your letter surprised me, though I might have known by + now what to expect of you.--Still, I was surprised that you should + not even offer to make the one return in your power for all I have + done for you. As I feel I have a right to some return I don't + hesitate to tell you that I think you ought to keep Letty for a + year or two, or even longer. Even if you kept her till she is + eighteen, and dressed her and fed her (don't feed her too much), it + would only be four years; and what are four years I should like to + know, compared to the fifteen I had you on my hands? I was talking + to Herr Schumpf about her the other day--his bills were so absurd + that I made him take something off--and he said by all means let + her stay in Germany. Everybody speaks German nowadays, and Letty + will pick it up at once in that awful place of yours. I was so ill + when I got back that I went to Estcourt, and had to stay in bed for + days, the doctor coming every day, and sometimes twice. He said he + didn't wonder, when I told him all I had gone through. Peter was + quite sorry for me. Send Miss Leech back. Give her a month's notice + for me the day you get this, and see if you can't find some German + who will go to your place--I can't remember its wretched name + without looking in my address book--and give Letty lessons every + day. The rest of the time she can talk German to your twelve + victims. I believe masters in Germany only charge about 6d. an + hour, so it won't ruin you. Make her take lots of exercise, and let + her ride. She has outgrown her old habit, but German tailors are so + cheap that a new one will cost next to nothing, and any horse that + shakes her up well will do. I shall be quite happy about her diet, + because I know you don't have anything to eat. I was at the + Ennistons' last night. They seemed very sorry for me being so + nearly related to somebody cracked; but after all, as I tell + people, I'm not responsible for my husband's relations.--Your + affectionate, SUSIE ESTCOURT. + + "I have never seen Hilton so upset as she was after that German + trip. She cried if anyone looked at her. Poor thing, no wonder. The + doctor says she is all nerves." + +The evening meal was in progress at Kleinwalde when this letter came. +The dining-room was finished, and it was the first meal served there +since its transformation. No one who had seen it on that dark day of +Anna's arrival would have recognised it, so cheerful did it look with +its whitewashed walls. There were no dark corners now where china +shepherds smiled in vain; the western light filled it, and to a person +lately come from Susie's Hill Street house, it was a refreshment to sit +in any place so simple and so clean. Reforms, too, had been made in the +food, and the bread was no longer disfigured by caraway seeds. A great +bowl of blue hepaticas, fresh from the forest, stood on the table; and +the hepaticas were the exact colour of Anna's eyes. When Letty saw her +mother's handwriting she turned cold. It was the warrant that was to +banish her from Eden, casting her back into the outer darkness of the +Popular Concerts and the literature lectures. She was in the act of +raising a spoonful of pudding to her already opened mouth, when she +caught sight of the well-known writing. She hesitated, her hand shook, +and finally she laid her spoon down again and pushed her plate back. At +the great crises of life who can go on eating pudding? What then was her +relief and joy to see her aunt get up, come round to where she was +sitting braced to hear the worst, put her arms round her neck, and to +feel herself being kissed. "You are going to stay with me after all!" +cried Anna delightedly. "Dear little Letty--I should have missed you +horribly. Aren't you glad? Your mother says I'm to keep you for ever so +long." + +"Oh, I say--how ripping!" exclaimed Letty; and being a practical person +at once resumed and finished her pudding. + +Miss Leech, too, looked exceedingly pleased. How could she be anything +but pleased at the prospect of staying with a person who was always so +kind and thoughtful as Anna? Her feelings, somehow, were never hurt by +Anna; Lady Estcourt seemed to have a special knack of jumping on them +every time she spoke to her. She knew she ought not to have such +sensitive feelings, and felt that it was more her fault than anyone +else's if they were hurt; yet there they were, and being hurt was +painful, and living with someone so even tempered as Anna was very +peaceful and pleasant. Mr. Jessup would have liked Anna. She wished he +could have known her. A higher compliment it was not in Miss Leech's +power to pay. + +And when Anna saw the pleasure on Miss Leech's face, and saw that she +thought she was to stay too, she felt that for no sister-in-law in the +world would she wipe it out with that month's notice. She decided to say +nothing, but simply to keep her as well as Letty. Her two thousand a +year was in her eyes of infinite elasticity. Never having had any money, +she had no notion of how far it would go; and she did not hesitate to +come to a decision which would probably ultimately oblige her to reduce +the number of those persons Susie described as victims. + +The next day the companion arrived. Anna went out into the hall to meet +her when she heard the approaching wheels of the shepherd-plaid chariot. +She felt rather nervous as she watched her emerging from beneath the +hood, for she knew how much of the comfort and peace of the twelve would +depend on this lady. She felt exceedingly nervous when the lady, +immediately upon shaking hands, asked if she could speak to her alone. + +"_NatĂĽrlich,_" said Anna, a vague fear lest Fritz, the coachman, +should have insulted her on the way coming over her, though she only +knew Fritz as the mildest of men. + +She led the way into the drawing-room. "Now what is she going to tell me +dreadful?" she thought, as she invited her to sit on the sofa, having +been instructed by Trudi that that was the place where strangers +expected to sit. "Suppose she isn't going to stay, and I shall have to +look for someone all over again? Perhaps the lining of the carriage has +been too much for her. _Bitte_" she said aloud, with an uneasy smile, +motioning Frau von Penheim towards the sofa. + +The new companion was a big, elderly lady with a sensible face. Her +boots were thick, and she wore a mackintosh. She sat down, and looking +more attentively at Anna, smiled. Most people who saw her for the first +time did that. It was such a change and a pleasure after seeing plain +faces, and dull faces, and vain, pretty faces for an indefinite period, +to rest one's eyes on a person so charming yet manifestly preoccupied by +other matters than her charms. + +"I feel it my duty," said the lady in German, "before we go any further +to tell you the truth." + +This was alarming. The lady's manner was solemn. Anna inclined her head, +and felt scared. She wished that Axel Lohm were somewhere near. + +"I see you are young," continued the lady, "and I presume that you are +inexperienced." + +"Not so young," murmured Anna, who felt particularly young and +uncomfortable at that moment, and very unlike the mistress of a house +interviewing a companion. "Not so young--twenty-five." + +"Twenty-five? You do not look it. But what is twenty-five?" + +Anna did not know, so said nothing. + +"My position here would be a responsible one," continued the lady, +scrutinising Anna's face, and smiling again at what she saw there. +"Taking charge of a motherless girl always is. And the circumstances in +this case are peculiar." + +"Yes," said Anna, "they are even more peculiar than you imagine----" And +she was about to explain the approaching advent of the victims, when the +lady held up her hand in a masterful way, as though enjoining silence, +and said, "First hear me. Through a series of misfortunes I have been +reduced to poverty since my husband's death. But I do not choose to live +on the charity of relatives, which is the most unbearable form of +charity calling itself by that holy name, and I am determined to work +for my bread." + +She paused. Anna could find nothing better to say than "Oh." + +"Out of consideration for my relatives, who are enraged at my +resolution, and think I ought to starve quietly on what they choose to +give me sooner than make myself conspicuous by working, I have called +myself Frau von Penheim. I will not come here under false pretences, and +to you, privately, I will confess that my proper title is the Princess +Ludwig, of that house." + +She stopped to observe the effect of this announcement. Anna was +confounded. A princess was not at all what she wanted. She felt that she +had no use whatever for princesses. How could she ever expect one to get +up early and see that the twelve received their meat in due season? +"Oh," she said again, and then was silent. + +The princess watched her closely. She was very poor, and very anxious to +have the place. "'Oh' is so English," she said, smiling to hide her +anxiety. "We say '_ach_!" + +Anna laughed. + +"And do not think that all German princesses are like your English +ones," she went on eagerly. "My father-in-law was raised to the rank of +FĂĽrst for services rendered to the state. He had a large family, and my +husband was a younger son." + +Still Anna was silent. Then she said "I--I wish----" and then stopped. + +"What do you wish, my dear child?" + +"I wish--that I--that you----" + +"That you had known it beforehand? Then you would never have taken me, +even on trial," was the prompt reply. + +Anna's eyes said plainly, "No, I would not." + +"And it is so important that I should find something to do. At first I +answered advertisements in my real name, and received my photograph back +by the next post. This, and the anger of my family, decided me to drop +the title altogether. But I had always resolved that if I did find a +place I would confess to my employer. It is a terrible thing to be very +poor," she added, staring straight before her with eyes growing dim at +her remembrances. + +"Yes," said Anna, under her breath. + +"To have nothing, nothing at all, and to be burdened at the same time by +one's birth." + +"Oh," murmured Anna, with a little catch in her voice. + +"And to be dependent on people who only wish that you were safely out of +the way--dead." + +"Married," whispered Anna. + +"Why, what do you know about it?" said the princess, turning quickly to +her; for she had been thinking aloud rather than addressing anyone. + +"I know everything about it," said Anna; and in a rush of bad but eager +German she told her of those old days when even the sweeping of +crossings had seemed better than living on relations, and how since then +all her heart had been filled with pity for the type of poverty called +genteel, and how now that she was well off she was going to help women +who were in the same sad situation in which she had been. Her eyes were +wet when she finished. She had spoken with extraordinary enthusiasm, a +fresh wave of passionate sympathy with such lives passing over her; and +not until she had done did she remember that she had never before seen +this lady, and that she was saying things to her that she had not as yet +said to the most intimate of her friends. + +She felt suddenly uncomfortable; her eyelashes quivered and drooped, and +she blushed. + +The princess contemplated her curiously. "I congratulate you," she said, +laying her hand lightly for a moment on Anna's. "The idea and the good +intentions will have been yours, whatever the result may be." + +This was not very encouraging as a response to an outburst. "I have told +you more than I tell most people," Anna said, looking up shamefacedly, +"because you have had much the same experiences that I have." + +"Except the uncle at the end. He makes such a difference. May I ask if +many of the ladies answered _both_ advertisements?" + +"No, they did not." + +"Not one?" + +"Not one." + +The princess thought that working for one's bread was distinctly +preferable to taking Anna's charity; but then she was of an unusually +sturdy and independent nature. "I can assure you," she said after a +short silence, "that I would do my best to look after your house and +your--your friends and yourself." + +"But I want someone who will do _everything_--order the meals, train the +servants--everything. And get up early besides," said Anna, her voice +full of doubt. The princess really belonged, she felt, to the category +of sad, sick, and sorry; and if she had asked for a place among the +twelve there would have been little difficulty in giving her one. But +the companion she had imagined was to be a real help, someone she could +order about as she chose, certainly not a person unused to being ordered +about. Even the parson's sister-in-law Helena would have been better +than this. + +"I would do all that, naturally. Do you think if I am not too proud to +take wages that I shall be too proud to do the work for which they are +paid?" + +"Would you not prefer----" began Anna, and hesitated. + +"Would I not prefer what, my child?" + +"Prefer to--would it not be more agreeable for you to come and live here +without working? I could find another companion, and I would be happy if +you will stay here as--as one of the others." + +The princess laughed; a hearty, big laugh in keeping with her big +person. + +"No," she said. "I would not like that at all. But thank you, dear +child, for making the offer. Let me stay here and do what work you want +done, and then you pay me for it, and we are quits. I assure you there +is a solid satisfaction in being quits. I shall certainly not expect any +more consideration than you would give to a Frau Schultz. And I will be +able to take care of you; and I think, if you will not be angry with me +for saying so, that you greatly need taking care of." + +"Well, then," said Anna, with an effort, "let us try it for three +months." + +An immense load was lifted off the princess's heart by these words. "You +will not regret it," she said emphatically. + +But Anna was not so sure. Though she did her best to put a cheerful face +on her new bargain, she could not help fearing that her enterprise had +begun badly. She was unusually pensive throughout the evening. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +What the Princess Ludwig thought of her new place it would be difficult +to say. She accepted her position as minister to the comforts of the +hitherto comfortless without remark and entirely as a matter of course. +She got up at hours exemplary in their earliness, and was about the +house rattling a bunch of keys all day long. She was wholly practical, +and as destitute of illusions as she was of education in the ordinary +sense. Her knowledge of German literature was hardly more extensive than +Letty's, and of other tongues and other literatures she knew and cared +nothing. As for illusions, she saw things as they are, and had never at +any period of her life possessed enthusiasms. Nor had she the least +taste for hidden meanings and symbols. Maeterlinck, if she had heard of +him, would have been dismissed by her with an easy smile. Anna's +whitewash to her was whitewash; a disagreeable but economical +wall-covering. She knew and approved of it as cheap; how could she dream +that it was also symbolic? She never dreamed at all, either sleeping or +waking. If by some chance she had fallen into musings, she would have +mused blood and iron, the superiority of the German nation, cookery in +its three forms _feine_, _bĂĽrgerliche_, and _Hausmannskost_, in all +which forms she was preĂ«minent in skill--she would have mused, that is, +on facts, plain and undisputed. If she had had children she would have +made an excellent mother; as it was she made excellent cakes--also a +form of activity to be commended. She was a Dettingen before her +marriage, and the Dettingens are one of the oldest Prussian families, +and have produced more first-rate soldiers and statesmen and a larger +number of mothers of great men than any other family in that part. The +Penheims and Dettingens had intermarried continually, and it was to his +mother's Dettingen blood that the first FĂĽrst Penheim owed the +energy that procured him his elevation. Princess Ludwig was a good +example of the best type of female Dettingen. Like many other +illiterates, she prided herself particularly on her sturdy common sense. +Regarding this quality, which she possessed, as more precious than +others which she did not possess, she was not likely to sympathise much +either with Anna's plan for making people happy, or with those who were +willing to be made happy in such a way. A sensible woman, she thought, +will always find work, and need not look far for a home. She herself had +been handicapped in the search by her unfortunate title, yet with +patience even she had found a haven. Only the lazy and lackadaisical, +the morally worthless, that is, would, she was convinced, accept such an +offer as Anna's. It was not, however, her business. Her business was to +look after Anna's house; and she did it with a zeal and thoroughness +that struck terror into the hearts of the maid-servants. Trudi's fitful +energy was nothing to it. Trudi had introduced workmen and chaos; the +princess, with a rapidity and skill little short of amazing to anyone +unacquainted with the capabilities of the well-trained German +_Hausfrau_, cleared out the workmen and reduced the chaos to order. +Within three weeks the house was ready, and Anna, palpitating, saw the +moment approaching when the first batch of unhappy ones might be +received. + +Manske's time was entirely taken up writing letters of inquiry +concerning the applicants, and it was surprising in what huge batches +they had to be weeded out. Of fifty applications received in one day, +three or four, after due inquiry, would alone remain for further +consideration; and of these three or four, after yet closer inquiry, +sometimes not one would be left. + +At first Anna asked the princess's advice as well as Manske's, and it +was when she was present at the consultations that the heap into which +the letters of the unworthy were gathered was biggest. All those ladies +belonging to the _bĂĽrgerliche_ or middle classes were in her eyes wholly +unworthy. If Anna had proposed to take washerwomen into her home, and +required the princess's help in brightening their lives, it would have +been given in the full measure, pressed down and running over, that +befits a Christian gentlewoman; but for the _BĂĽrgerlichen_, those +belonging to the class more immediately below her own, the princess's +feeling was only Christian so long as they kept a great way off. There +was so much good sense in the objections she made that Anna, who did her +best to keep an open mind and listen attentively to advice, was forced +to agree with her, and added letters to the ever-increasing heap of the +rejected which she might otherwise have reserved for riper +consideration. After two or three days, however, it became clear to her +that if she continued to consult the princess, no one would be accepted +at all, for Manske's respect for that lady was so profound that he was +invariably of her opinion. She did not, therefore, invite her again to +assist at the interviews. Still, all she had said, and the knowledge +that she must know her own countrywomen fairly thoroughly, made Anna +prudent; and so it came about that the first arrivals were to be only +three in number, chosen without reference to the princess, and one of +them was _bĂĽrgerlich_. + +"We can meanwhile proceed with our inquiries about the remaining nine," +said Manske, "and the gracious Miss will be always gaining experience." + +She trod on air during the days preceding the arrival of the chosen. To +say that she was blissful would be but an inadequate description of her +state of mind. The weather was beautiful, and it increased her happiness +tenfold to know that their new life was to begin in sunshine. She had +never a doubt as to their delight in the sun-chequered forest, in the +freshness of the glittering sea, in the peacefulness of the quiet +country life, so quiet that the week seemed to be all Sundays. Were not +these things sufficient for herself? Did she ever tire of those long +pine vistas, with the narrow strip of clearest blue between the gently +waving tree-tops? The dreamy murmur of the forest gave her an exquisite +pleasure. To see the bloom on the pink and grey trunks of the pines, and +the sun on the moss and lichen beneath, was so deep a satisfaction to +her soul that the thought that others who had been knocked about by life +would not feel it too, would not enter with profoundest thankfulness +into this other world of peace, never struck her at all. When these poor +tired women, freed at last from every care and every anxiety, had +refreshed themselves with the music and fragrance of the forest, there +was the garden across the road to enjoy, with the marsh already strewn +with kingcups on the other side of the hedge already turning green; and +the sea with the fishing-smacks passing up and down, and the silver +gleam of gulls' wings circling round the orange sails, and eagles +floating high up aloft, specks in the infinite blue; and then there were +drives along the coast towards the north, where the wholesome wind blew +fresher than in the woods; and quiet evenings in the roomy house, where +all that was asked of them was that they should be happy. + +"It's a lovely plan, isn't it, Letty?" she said joyously, the evening +before they were to arrive, as she stood with her arm round Letty's +shoulder at the bottom of the garden, where they had both been watching +the sails of the fishing-smacks during those short sunset moments when +they looked like the bright wings of spirits moving over the face of the +placid waters. + +"I should rather think it was," replied Letty, who was profoundly +interested. + +They got up at sunrise the next morning, and went out into the forest in +search of hepaticas and windflowers with which to decorate the three +bedrooms. These bedrooms were the largest and pleasantest in the house. +Anna had given up her own because she thought the windows particularly +pleasing, and had gone into a little one in the fervour of her desire to +lavish all that was best on her new friends. The rooms were furnished +with special care, an immense amount of thought having been bestowed on +the colour of the curtains, the pattern of the porcelain, and the books +filling the shelves above each writing-table. The colours and patterns +were the nearest approach Berlin could produce to Anna's own favourite +colours and patterns. She wasted half her time, when the rooms were +ready, sitting in them and picturing what her own delight would have +been if she, like the poor ladies for whom they were intended, had come +straight out of a cold, unkind world into such pretty havens. + +The choice of books had been a great difficulty, and there had been much +correspondence on the subject with Berlin before a selection had been +made. Books there must be, for no room, she thought, was habitable +without them; and she had tried to imagine what manner of literature +would most appeal to her unhappy ones. It was to be presumed that their +ages were such as to exclude frivolity; therefore she bought very few +novels. She thought Dickens translated into German would be a safe +choice; also Schlegel's Shakespeare for loftier moments. The German +classics were represented by Goethe in one room, Schiller in another, +and Heine in the third. In each room also there was a German-English +dictionary, for the facilitation of intercourse. Finally, she asked the +princess to recommend something they would be sure to like, and she +recommended cookery books. + +"But they are not going to cook," said Anna, surprised. + +"_Es ist egal_--it is always interesting to read good recipes. No other +reading affords me the same pleasure." + +"But only when you want something new cooked." + +"No, no, at all times," insisted the princess. + +Anna could not quite believe that such a taste was general; but in case +one of the three should share it, she put a cookery book in one +bookcase. In the other two severally to balance it, she slipt at the +last moment a volume of Maeterlinck, to which at that period she was +greatly attached; and Matthew Arnold's poems, to which also at that +period she was greatly attached. + +The princess went about with pursed lips while these preparations were +in progress; and when, at sunrise on the last morning, she was awakened +by stealthy footsteps and smothered laughter on the landing outside her +room, and, opening her door an inch and peering out as in duty bound in +case the sounds should be emanating from some unaccountably mirthful +maid-servant, she saw Anna and Letty creeping downstairs with their hats +on and baskets in their hands, she guessed what they were going to do, +and got back into bed with lips more pursed than ever. Did she not know +who had been chosen, and that one of the three was a _BĂĽrgerliche_? + +About eight o'clock, when the two girls were coming out of the forest +with their baskets full and their faces happy, Axel Lohm was riding +thoughtfully past, having just settled an unpleasant business at +Kleinwalde. Dellwig had sent him an urgent message in the small hours; +there had been a brawl among the labourers about a woman, and a man had +been stabbed. Axel had ordered the aggressor to be locked up in the +little room that served as a temporary prison till he could be handed +over to the Stralsund authorities. His wife, a girl of twenty, was ill, +and she and her three small children depended entirely on the man's +earnings. The victim appeared to be dying, and the man would certainly +be punished. What, then, thought Axel, was to become of the wife and the +children? Frau Dellwig had told him that she sent soup every day at +dinner-time, but soup once a day would neither comfort them nor make +them fat. Besides, he had a notion that the soup of Frau Dellwig's +charity was very thin. He was riding dejectedly enough down the road on +his way home, looking straight before him, his mouth a mere grim line, +thinking how grievous it was that the consequences of sin should fall +with their most terrific weight nearly always on the innocent, on the +helpless women-folk and the weak little children, when Anna and Letty +appeared, talking and laughing, on the edge of the forest. + +Letty, we know, had not been kindly treated by nature, but even she was +a pleasing object in her harmless morning cheerfulness after the faces +he had just seen; and Anna's beauty, made radiant by happiness and +contentment, startled him. He had a momentary twinge, gone almost before +he had realised it, a sudden clear conception of his great loneliness. +The satisfaction he strove to extract from improving his estate for the +benefit of his brother Gustav appeared to him at that moment to bear a +singular resemblance, in its thinness, to Frau Dellwig's charitable +soup. He got off his horse to speak to her, and rested his eyes, tired +by looking at the hideous passions on the brawler's face, on hers. +"To-day is the important day, is it not?" he asked, glancing from her +flower-like face to the flowers. + +"The first three come this afternoon." + +"So Manske told me. You are very happy, I can see," he said, smiling. + +"I never was so happy before." + +"Your uncle was a wise man. He told me he was going to leave you +Kleinwalde because he felt sure you would be happy leading the simple +life here." + +"Did he talk about me to you?" + +"After his last visit to England he talked about you all the time." + +"Oh?" said Anna, looking at him thoughtfully. Uncle Joachim, she +remembered perfectly, had urged two things--the leading of the better +life, and the marrying of a good German gentleman. A faint flush came +into her face and faded again. She had suddenly become aware that Axel +was the good German gentleman he had meant. Well, the wisest uncle was +subject to errors of judgment. + +"I trust those women will not worry you too much," he said, thinking how +immense would be the pity if those happy eyes ever lost their +joyousness. + +"Worry me? Poor things, they won't have any energy of any sort left +after all they have gone through. I never read such pitiful letters." + +"Well, I don't know," said Axel doubtfully. "Manske says one of them is +a Treumann. It is a family distinguished by its size and its +disagreeableness." + +"Oh, but she only married a Treumann, and isn't one herself." + +"But a woman generally adopts the peculiarities of the family she +marries into, especially if they are unpleasant." + +"But she has been a widow for years. And is so poor. And is so crushed." + +"I never yet heard of a permanently crushed Treumann," said Axel, +shaking his head. + +"You are trying to make me uneasy," said Anna, a slight touch of +impatience in her voice. She was singularly sensitive about her chosen +ones; sensitive in the way mothers are about a child that is deformed. + +"No, no," he said quickly, "I only wish to warn you. You maybe +disappointed--it is just possible." He could not bear to think of her as +disappointed. + +"Pray, do you know anything against the other two?" she asked with some +defiance. "One of them is a Baroness Elmreich, and the other is a +Fräulein Kuhräuber." + +Axel looked amused. "I never heard of Fräulein Kuhräuber," he said. +"What does Princess Ludwig say to her coming?" + +"Nothing at all. What should she say?" + +It was Fräulein Kuhräuber's coming that had more particularly occasioned +the pursing of the princess's lips. + +"I know some Elmreichs," said Axel. "A few of them are respectable; but +one branch at least of the family is completely demoralised. A Baron +Elmreich shot himself last year because he had been caught cheating at +cards. And one of his sisters--oh, well, some of them are harmless, I +believe." + +"Thank you." + +"You are angry with me?" + +"Very." + +"And why?" + +"You want to prejudice me against these poor things. They can't help +what distant relations do. They will get away from them in my house, at +least, and have peace." + +"Miss Letty, is your aunt often--what is the word--so fractious?" + +"Oh, I don't know," said Letty, who found it dull waiting in silence +while other people talked. "It's breakfast time, you know, and people +can't stand much just about then." + +"Oh, youthful philosopher!" exclaimed Axel. "So young, and of the female +sex, and yet to have pierced to the very root of human weakness!" + +"Stuff," said Letty, offended. + +"What, are you going to be angry too? Then let me get on my horse and +go." + +"It's the best thing you can do," said Letty, always frank, but doubly +so when she was hungry. + +"Shall you come and see us soon?" Anna asked, gathering up her skirts in +her one free hand, preparatory to crossing the muddy road. + +"But you are angry with me." + +She looked up and laughed. "Not now," she said; "I've finished. Do you +think I'm going to be angry long this pleasant April morning?" + +"I smell the coffee," observed Letty, sniffing. + +"Then I will come to-morrow if I may," said Axel, "and make the +acquaintance of Frau von Treumann and Baroness Elmreich." + +"And Fräulein Kuhräuber," said Anna, with emphasis. She thought she saw +the same tendency in him that was so manifest in the princess, a +tendency to ignore the very existence of any one called Kuhräuber. + +"And Fräulein Kuhräuber," repeated Axel gravely. + +"They've burnt the toast again," said Letty; "I can hear them scraping +off the black." + +"I wish you good luck, then," said Axel, taking off his hat; "with all +my heart I wish you good luck, and that these ladies may very soon be as +happy as you are yourself." + +"That's nice," said Anna, approvingly; "so much, much nicer than the +other things you have been saying." And she nodded to him, all smiles, +as she crossed over to the house and he rode away. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +Long before the carriage bringing the three chosen ones from the station +could possibly arrive, Anna and Letty began to wait in the hall, +standing at the windows, going out on to the steps, looking into the +different rooms every few minutes to make sure that everything was +ready. The bedrooms were full of the hepaticas of the morning; the +coffee had been set out with infinite care and an eye to effect by Anna +herself on a little table in the drawing-room by the open window, +through which the mild April air came in and gently fanned the curtains +to and fro; and the princess had baked her best cakes for the occasion, +inwardly deploring, as she did so, that such cakes should be offered to +such people. When she had seen that all was as it should be, she +withdrew into her own room, where she remained darning sheets, for she +had asked Anna to excuse her from being present at the arrival. "It is +better that you should make their acquaintance by yourself," she said. +"The presence of too many strangers at first might disconcert them under +the circumstances." + +Miss Leech profited by this remark, made in her hearing, and did not +appear either; so that when the carriage drove in at the gate only Anna +and Letty were standing at the door in the sunshine. + +Anna's heart bumped so as the three slowly disentangled themselves and +got out, that she could hardly speak. Her face flushed and grew pale by +turns, and her eyes were shining with something suspiciously like tears. +What she wanted to do was to put her arms right round the three poor +ladies, and kiss them, and comfort them, and make up for all their +griefs. What she did was to put out a very cold, shaking hand, and say +in a voice that trembled, "_Guten Tag_." + +"_Guten Tag_," said the first lady to descend; evidently, from her +mourning, the widowed Frau von Treumann. + +Anna took her extended hand in both hers, and clasping it tight looked +at its owner with all her heart in her eyes. "_Es freut mich so--es +freut mich so_," she murmured incoherently. + +"_Ach_--you are Miss Estcourt?" asked the lady in German. + +"Yes, yes," said Anna, still clinging to her hand, "and so happy, so +very happy to see you." + +Frau von Treumann hereupon made some remarks which Anna supposed were of +a grateful nature, but she spoke so rapidly and in such subdued tones, +glancing round uneasily as she did so at the coachman and at the others, +and Anna herself was so much agitated, that what she said was quite +incomprehensible. Again Anna longed to throw her arms round the poor +woman's neck, and interrupt her with kisses, and tell her that gratitude +was not required of her, but only that she should be happy; but she felt +that if she did so she would begin to cry, and tears were surely out of +place on such a joyful occasion, especially as nobody else looked in the +least like crying. + +"You are Frau von Treumann, I know," she said, holding her hand, and +turning to the next one and beaming on her, "and this is Baroness +Elmreich?" + +"No, no," said the third lady quickly, "_I_ am Baroness Elmreich." + +Fräulein Kuhräuber, an ample person whose body, swathed in travelling +cloaks, had blotted out the other little woman, looked frightened and +apologetic, and made deep curtseys. + +Anna shook their hands one after the other with all the warmth that was +glowing in her heart. Her defective German forsook her almost +completely. She did nothing but repeat disconnected ejaculations, "_so +reizend--so glĂĽcklich--so erfreut_----" and fill in the gaps with happy, +quivering smiles at each in turn, and timid little pats on any hand +within her reach. + +Letty meanwhile stood in the shadow of the doorway, wishing that she +were young enough to suck her thumb. It kept on going up to her mouth of +its own accord, and she kept on pulling it down again. This was one of +the occasions, she felt, when the sucking of thumbs is a relief and a +blessing. It gives one's superfluous hands occupation, and oneself a +countenance. She shifted from one foot to the other uneasily, and held +on tight to the rebellious thumb, for the tall lady who had got out +first was fixing her with a stare that chilled her blood. The tall lady, +who was very tall and thin, and had round unblinking dark eyes set close +together like an owl's, and strongly marked black eyebrows, said +nothing, but examined her slowly from the tip of the bow of ribbon +trembling on her head to the buckles of the shoes creaking on her feet. +Ought she to offer to shake hands with her, or ought she to wait to be +shaken hands with, Letty asked herself distractedly. Anyhow it was +rather rude to stare like that. She had always been taught that it was +rude to stare like that. + +Anna had forgotten all about her, and only remembered her when they were +in the drawing-room and she had begun to pour out the coffee. "Oh, +Letty, where are you? This is my niece," she said; and Letty was at last +shaken hands with. + +"Ah--she keeps you company," said the baroness. "You found it lonely +here, naturally." + +"Oh no, I am never lonely," said Anna cheerfully, filling the cups and +giving them to Letty to carry round. + +"How pleasant the air is to-day," observed Frau von Treumann, edging her +chair away from the window. "Damp, but pleasant. You like fresh air, I +see." + +"Oh, I love it," said Anna; "and it is so beautiful here--so pure, and +full of the sea." + +"You are not afraid of catching cold, sitting so near an open window?" + +"Oh, is it too much for you? Letty, shut the window. It is getting +chilly. The days are so fine that one forgets it is only April." + +Anna talked German and poured out the coffee with a nervous haste +unusual to her. The three women sitting round the little table staring +at her made her feel terribly nervous. She was happy beyond words to +have got them safely under her own roof at last, but she was nervous. +She was determined that there should be no barriers of conventionality +from the first between themselves and her; not a minute more of their +lives was to be wasted; this was their home, and she was all ready to +love them; she had made up her mind that however shy she felt she was +going to behave as though they were her dear friends--which indeed, she +assured herself, was exactly what they were. Therefore she struggled +bravely against her nervousness, addressing them collectively and +singly, saying whatever came first into her head in her anxiety to say +something, smiling at them, pressing the princess's cakes on them, +hardly letting them drink their coffee before she wanted to give them +more. But it was no good; she was and remained nervous, and her hand +shook so when she lifted it that she was ashamed. + +Fräulein Kuhräuber was the one who stared least. If she caught Anna's +eye her own drooped, whereas the eyes of the other two never wavered. +She sat on the edge of her chair in a way made familiar to Anna by +intercourse with Frau Manske, and whatever anybody said she nodded her +head and murmured "_Ja, eben_." She was obviously ill at ease, and +dropped the sugar-tongs when she was offered sugar with a loud clatter +on to the varnished floor, nearly sweeping the cups off the table in her +effort to pick them up again. + +"Oh, do not mind," said Anna, "Letty will pick them up. They are stupid +things--much too big for the sugar-basin." + +"_Ja, eben_," said Fräulein Kuhräuber, sitting up and looking perturbed. +The other two removed their eyes from Anna's face for a moment to stare +at the Fräulein. The baroness, a small, fair person with hair arranged +in those little flat curls called kiss-me-quicks on each cheek, and +wide-open pale blue eyes, and a little mouth with no lips, or lips so +thin that they were hardly visible, sat very still and straight, and had +a way of moving her eyes round from one face to the other without at the +same time moving her head. She was unmarried, and was probably about +thirty-five, Anna thought, but she had always evaded questions in the +correspondence about her age. Fräulein Kuhräuber was also thirty-five, +and as large and blooming as the baroness was small and pale. Frau von +Treumann was over fifty, and had had more sorrows, judging from her +letters, than the other two. She sat nearest Anna, who every now and +then laid her hand gently on hers and let it rest there a moment, in her +determination to thaw all frost from the very beginning. "Oh, I quite +forgot," she said cheerfully--the amount of cheerfulness she put into +her voice made her laugh at herself--"I quite forgot to introduce you to +each other." + +"We did it at the station," said Frau von Treumann, "when we found +ourselves all entering your carriage." + +"The Elmreichs are connected with the Treumanns," observed the baroness. + +"We are such a large family," said Frau von Treumann quickly, "that we +are connected with nearly everybody." + +The tone was cold, and there was a silence. Neither of them, apparently, +was connected with Fräulein Kuhräuber, who buried her face in her cup, +in which the tea-spoon remained while she drank, and heartily longed for +connections. + +But she had none. She was absolutely without relations except deceased +ones. She had been an orphan since she was two, cared for by her one +aunt till she was ten. The aunt died, and she found a refuge in an +orphanage till she was sixteen, when she was told that she must earn her +bread. She was a lazy girl even in those days, who liked eating her +bread better than earning it. No more, however, being forthcoming in the +orphanage, she went into a pastor's family as _StĂĽtze der Hausfrau_. +These _StĂĽtze_, or supports, are common in middle-class German families, +where they support the mistress of the house in all her manifold duties, +cooking, baking, mending, ironing, teaching or amusing the +children--being in short a comfort and blessing to harassed mothers. But +Fräulein Kuhräuber had no talent whatever for comforting mothers, and +she was quickly requested to leave the busy and populous parsonage; +whereupon she entered upon the series of driftings lasting twenty years, +which landed her, by a wonderful stroke of fortune, in Anna's arms. + +When she saw the advertisement, her future was looking very black. She +was, as usual, under notice to quit, and had no other place in view, and +had saved nothing. It is true the advertisement only offered a home to +women of good family; but she got over that difficulty by reflecting +that her family was all in heaven, and that there could be no relations +more respectable than angels. She wrote therefore in glowing terms of +the paternal Kuhräuber, "_gegenwärtig mit Gott_," as she put it, +expatiating on his intellect and gifts (he was a man of letters, she +said), while he yet dwelt upon earth. Manske, with all his inquiries, +could find out nothing about her except that she was, as she said, an +orphan, poor, friendless, and struggling; and Anna, just then impatient +of the objections the princess made to every applicant, quickly decided +to accept this one, against whom not a word had been said. So Fräulein +Kuhräuber, who had spent her life in shirking work, who was quite +thriftless and improvident, who had never felt particularly unhappy, and +whose father had been a postman, found herself being welcomed with an +enthusiasm that astonished her to Anna's home, being smiled upon and +patted, having beautiful things said to her, things the very opposite to +those to which she had been used, things to the effect that she was now +to rest herself for ever and to be sure and not do anything except just +that which made her happiest. + +It was very wonderful. It seemed much, much too good to be true. And the +delight that filled her as she sat eating excellent cakes, and the +discomfort she endured because of the stares of the other two women, and +the consciousness that she had never learned how to behave in the +society of persons with _von_ before their names, produced such mingled +feelings of ecstasy and fright in her bosom that it was quite natural +she should drop the sugar-tongs, and upset the cream-jug, and choke over +her coffee--all of which things she did, to Anna's distress, who +suffered with her in her agitation, while the eyes of the other two +watched each successive catastrophe with profoundest attention. + +It was an uncomfortable half hour. "I am shy, and they are shy," Anna +said to herself, apologising as it were for the undoubted flatness that +prevailed. How could it be otherwise, she thought? Did she expect them +to gush? Heaven forbid. Yet it was an important crisis in their lives, +this passing for ever from neglect and loneliness to love, and she +wondered vaguely that the obviously paramount feeling should be interest +in the awkwardness of Fräulein Kuhräuber. + +Her German faltered, and threatened to give out entirely. The inevitable +pause came, and they could hear the sparrows quarrelling in the golden +garden, and the creaking of a distant pump. + +"How still it is," observed the baroness with a slight shiver. + +"You have no farmyard near the house to make it more cheerful," said +Frau von Treumann. "My father's house had the garden at the back, and +the farmyard in the front, and one did not feel so cut off from +everything. There was always something going on in the yard--always life +and noises." + +"Really?" said Anna; and again the pump and the sparrows became audible. + +"The stillness is truly remarkable," observed the baroness again. + +"_Ja, eben_," said Fräulein Kuhräuber. + +"But it is beautiful, isn't it," said Anna, gazing out at the light on +the water. "It is so restful, so soothing. Look what a lovely sunset +there must be this evening. We can't see it from this side of the house, +but look at the colour of the grass and the water." + +"_Ach_--you are a friend of nature," said Frau von Treumann, turning her +head for a brief moment towards the window, and then examining Anna's +face. "I am also. There is nothing I like more than nature. Do you +paint?" + +"I wish I could." + +"Ah, then you sing--or play?" + +"I can do neither." + +"_So?_ But what have you here, then, in the way of distractions, of +pastimes?" + +"I don't think I have any," said Anna, smiling. "I have been very busy +till now making things ready for you, and after this I shall just enjoy +being alive." + +Frau von Treumann looked puzzled for a moment. Then she said "_Ach so._" + +There was another silence. + +"Have some more coffee," said Anna, laying hold of the pot persuasively. +She was feeling foolish, and had blushed stupidly after that _Ach so_. + +"No, no," said Frau von Treumann, putting up a protesting hand, "you are +very kind. Two cups are a limit beyond which voracity itself could not +go. What do you say? You have had three? Oh, well, you are young, and +young people can play tricks with their digestions with less danger than +old ones." + +At this speech Fräulein Kuhräuber's four cups became plainly written on +her guilty face. The thought that she had been voracious at the very +first meal was appalling to her. She hastily pushed away her half-empty +cup--too hastily, for it upset, and in her effort to save it it fell on +to the floor and was broken. "_Ach, Herr Je!_" she cried in her +distress. + +The other two looked at each other; the expression is an unusual one on +the lips of gentle-women. + +"Oh, it does not matter--really it does not," Anna hastened to assure +her. "Don't pick it up--Letty will. The table is too small really. There +is no room on it for anything." + +"_Ja, eben_," said Fräulein Kuhräuber, greatly discomfited. + +"You would like to go upstairs, I am sure," said Anna hurriedly, turning +to the others. "You must be very tired," she added, looking at Frau von +Treumann. + +"I am," replied that lady, closing her eyes for a moment with a little +smile expressive of patient endurance. + +"Then we will go up. Come," she said, holding out her hand to Fräulein +Kuhräuber. "No, no--let Letty pick up the pieces----" for the Fräulein, +in her anxiety to repair the disaster, was about to sweep the remaining +cups off the table with the sleeve of her cloak. + +Anna drew her hand through her arm, and gave it a furtive and +encouraging stroke. "I will go first and show you the way," she said +over her shoulder to the others. + +And so it came about that Frau von Treumann and Baroness Elmreich +actually found themselves going through doors and up stairs behind a +person called Kuhräuber. They exchanged glances again. Whatever might be +their private objections to each other, they had one point already on +which they agreed, for with equal heartiness they both disapproved of +Fräulein Kuhräuber. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +As soon as Baroness Elmreich found herself alone in her bedroom, she +proceeded to examine its contents with minute care. Supper, she had been +told, was not till eight o'clock, and she had not much to unpack; so +laying aside her hat and cloak, and glancing at the reflection of her +little curls in the glass to see whether they were as they should be, +she began her inspection of each separate article in her room, taking +each one up and scrutinising it, holding the jars of hepaticas high +above her head in order to see whether the price was marked underneath, +untidying the bed to feel the quality of the sheets, poking the mattress +to discover the nature of the stuffing, and investigating with special +attention the embroidery on the pillow-cases. But everything was as +dainty and as perfect as enthusiasm could make it. Nowhere, with her +best endeavours, could she discover the signs she was looking for of +cheapness and shabbiness in less noticeable things that would have +helped her to understand her hostess. "This embroidery has cost at least +two marks the meter," she said to herself, fingering it. "She must roll +in money. And the wall-paper--how unpractical! It is so light that every +mark will be seen. The flies alone will ruin it in a month." + +She shrugged her shoulders, and smiled; strange to say, the thought of +Anna's paper being spoiled pleased her. + +Never had she been in a room the least like this one. If whitewash +prevailed downstairs, and in Anna's special haunts, it had not been +permitted to invade the bedrooms of the Chosen. Anna's reflections had +led her to the conclusion that the lives of these ladies had till then +probably been spent in bare places, and that they would accordingly feel +as much pleasure in the contemplation of carpets, papered walls, and +stuffed chairs, as she herself did in the severity of her whitewashed +rooms after the lavishly upholstered years of her youth. But the +daintiness and luxury only filled the baroness with doubts. She stood in +the middle of it looking round her when she had finished her tour of +inspection and had made guesses at the price of everything, and asked +herself who this Miss Estcourt could be. Anna would have been +considerably disappointed, and perhaps even moved to tears, if she had +known that the room she thought so pretty struck the baroness, whose +taste in furniture had not advanced beyond an appreciation for the dark +and heavy hangings and walnut-wood tables of her more prosperous years, +merely as odd. Odd, and very expensive. Where did the money come from +for this reckless furnishing with stuffs and colours that were bound to +show each stain? Her eye wandered along the shelves above the +writing-table--hers was the Heine and Maeterlinck room--and she wondered +what all the books were there for. She did not touch them as she had +touched everything else, for except an occasional novel, and, more +regularly, a journal beloved of German woman called the _Gartenlaube_, +she never read. + +On the writing-table lay a blotter, a pretty, embroidered thing that +said as plainly as blotter could say that it had been chosen with +immense care; and opening it she found notepaper and envelopes stamped +with the Kleinwalde address and her own monogram. This was Anna's little +special gift, a childish addition, the making of which had given her an +absurd amount of pleasure. The happy idea, as she called it, had come to +her one night when she lay awake thinking about her new friends and +going through the familiar process of discovering their tastes by +imagining herself in their place. "_Sonderbar_," was the baroness's +comment; and she decided that the best thing she could do would be to +ring the bell and endeavour to obtain private information about Miss +Estcourt by means of a prolonged cross-examination of the housemaid. + +She rang it, and then sat very straight and still on the sofa with her +hands folded in her lap, and waited. Her soul was full of doubts. Who +was this Miss, and where were the proofs that she was, as she had +pretended, of good birth? That she was not so very pious was evident; +for if she had been, some remark of a religious nature would inevitably +have been forthcoming when she first welcomed them to her house. No such +word, not the least approach to any such word, had been audible. There +had not even been an allusion, a sigh, or an upward glance. Yet the +pastor who had opened the correspondence had filled many pages with +expatiations on her zeal after righteousness. And then she was so young. +The baroness had expected to see an elderly person, or at least a person +of the age of everybody else, which was her own age; but this was a mere +girl, and a girl, too, who from the way she dressed, clearly thought +herself pretty. Surely it was strange that so young a woman should be +living here quite unattached, quite independent apparently of all +control, with a great deal of money at her disposal, and only one little +girl to give her a countenance? Suppose she were not a proper person at +all, suppose she were an outcast from society, a being on whom her own +countrypeople turned their backs? This desire to share her fortune with +respectable ladies could only be explained in two ways: either she had +been moved thereto by an enthusiastic piety of which not a trace had as +yet appeared, or she was an improper person anxious to rebuild her +reputation with the aid and countenance of the ladies of good family she +had entrapped into her house. + +The baroness stiffened as she sat. It was her brother who had cheated at +cards and shot himself, and it was her sister of whom Axel Lohm had +heard strange tales; and few people are more savagely proper than the +still respectable relations of the demoralised. "The service in this +house is very bad," she said aloud and irascibly, getting up to ring +again. "No doubt she has trouble with her servants." + +But there was a knock at the door while her hand was on the bell, and on +her calling "Come in," instead of the servant her hostess appeared, +dressed to the baroness's eye in a truly amazing and reprehensible +fashion, and looking as cheerful as an innocent infant for whom no such +thing as evil-doing exists. Also she seemed quite unconscious of her +clothes and bare neck, nor did she offer to explain why she was arrayed +as though she were going to a ball; and she stood a moment in the +doorway trying to say something in German and pretending to laugh at her +own ineffectual efforts, but really laughing, the baroness felt sure, in +order to show that she had dimples; which were not, after all, very +wonderful things to have--before she had grown so thin she almost had +one herself. + +"May I come in?" said Anna at last, giving up the other and more +complicated speech. + +"_Bitte_," said the baroness, with the smile the French call _pincĂ©_. + +"Has no one been to unpack your things?" + +"I rang." + +"And no one came? Oh, I shall scold Marie. It is the only thing I can do +well in German. Can you speak English?" + +"No." + +"Nor understand it?" + +"No." + +"French?" + +"No." + +"Oh, well, you must be patient then with my bad German. When I am alone +with anyone it goes better, but if there are many people listening I am +nervous and can hardly speak at all. How glad I am that you are here!" + +Anna's shyness, now that she was by herself with one of her forlorn +ones, had vanished, and she prattled happily for some time, putting as +many mistakes into her sentences as they would hold, before she became +aware that the baroness's replies were monosyllabic, and that she was +examining her from head to foot with so much attention that there was +obviously none left over for the appreciation of her remarks. + +This made her feel shy again. Clothes to her were such secondary +considerations, things of so little importance. Susie had provided them, +and she had put them on, and there it had ended; and when she found that +it was her dress and not herself that was interesting the baroness, she +longed to have the courage to say, "Don't waste time over it now--I'll +send it to your room to-night, if you like, and you can look at it +comfortably--only don't waste time now. I want to talk to you, to _you_ +who have suffered so much; I want to make friends with you quickly, to +make you begin to be happy quickly; so don't let us waste the precious +time thinking of clothes." But she had neither sufficient courage nor +sufficient German. + +She put out her hand rather timidly, and making an effort to bring her +companion's thoughts back to the things that mattered, said, "I hope you +will like living with me. I hope we shall be very happy together. I +can't tell you how happy it makes me to think that you are safely here, +and that you are going to stay with me always." + +The baroness's hands were clasped in front of her, and they did not +unclasp to meet Anna's; but at this speech she left off eyeing the +dress, and began to ask questions. "You are very lonely, I can see," she +said with another of the pinched smiles. "Have you then no relations? No +one of your own family who will live with you? Will not your _Frau Mama_ +come to Germany?" + +"My mother is dead." + +"_Ach_--mine also. And the _Herr Papa_?" + +"He is dead." + +"_Ach_--mine also." + +"I know, I know," said Anna, stroking the unresponsive hands--a trick of +hers when she wanted to comfort that had often irritated Susie. "You +told me how lonely you were in your letters. I lived with my brother and +his wife till I came here. You have no brothers or sisters, I think you +wrote." + +"None," said the baroness with a rigid look. + +"Well, I am going to be your sister, if you will let me." + +"You are very good." + +"Oh, I am not good, only so happy--I have everything in the world that I +have ever wished to have, and now that you have come to share it all +there is nothing more I can think of that I want." + +"_Ach_," said the baroness. Then she added, "Have you no aunts, or +cousins, who would come and stay with you?" + +"Oh, heaps. But they are all well off and quite pleased, and they +wouldn't like staying here with me at all." + +"They would not like staying with you? How strange." + +"Very strange," laughed Anna. "You see they don't know how pleasant I +can be in my own house." + +"And your friends--they too will not come?" + +"I don't know if they would or not. I didn't ask them." + +"You have no one, no one at all who would come and live with you so that +you should not be so lonely?" + +"But I am not lonely," said Anna, looking down at the little woman with +a slightly amused expression, "and I don't in the least want to be lived +with." + +"Then why do you wish to fill your house with strangers?" + +"Why?" repeated Anna, a puzzled look coming into her eyes. Had not the +correspondence with the ultimately chosen been long? And were not all +her reasons duly set forth therein? "Why, because I want you to have +some of my nice things too." + +"But not your own friends and relations?" + +"They have everything they want." + +There was a silence. Anna left off stroking the baroness's hands. She +was thinking that this was a queer little person--outside, that is. +Inside, of course, she was very different, poor little lonely thing; but +her outer crust seemed thick; and she wondered how long it would take +her to get through it to the soul that she was sure was sweet and +lovable. She was also unable to repress a conviction that most people +would call these questions rude. + +But this train of thought was not one to be encouraged. "I am keeping +you here talking," she said, resuming her first cheerfulness, "and your +things are not unpacked yet. I shall go and scold Marie for not coming +when you rang, and I'll send her to you." And she went out quickly, +vexed with herself for feeling chilled, and left the baroness more full +of doubts than ever. + +When she had rebuked Marie, who looked gloomy, she tapped at Frau von +Treumann's door. No one answered. She knocked again. No one answered. +Then she opened the door softly and looked in. + +These were precious moments, she felt, these first moments of being +alone with each of her new friends, precious opportunities for breaking +ice. It is true she had not been able to break much of the ice encasing +the baroness, but she was determined not to be cast down by any of the +little difficulties she was sure to encounter at first, and she looked +into Frau von Treumann's room with fresh hope in her heart. + +What, then, was her dismay to find that lady walking up and down with +the long strides of extreme excitement, her face bathed in tears. + +"Oh--what's the matter?" gasped Anna, shutting the door quickly and +hurrying in. + +Frau von Treumann had not heard the gentle taps, and when she saw her, +started, and tried to hide her face in her handkerchief. + +"Tell me what is the matter," begged Anna, her voice full of tenderness. + +"_Nichts, nichts_," was the hasty reply. "I did not hear you knock----" + +"Tell me what is the matter," begged Anna again, fairly putting her arms +round the poor lady. "Our letters have said so much already--surely +there is nothing you cannot tell me now? And if I can help you----" + +Frau von Treumann freed herself by a hasty movement, and began to walk +up and down again. "No, no, you can do nothing--you can do nothing," she +said, and wept as she walked. + +Anna watched her in consternation. + +"See to what I have come--see to what I have come!" said the agitated +lady under her breath but with passionate intensity, as she passed and +repassed her dismayed hostess; "oh, to have fallen so low! oh, to have +fallen so low!" + +"So low?" echoed Anna, greatly concerned. + +"At my age--I, a Treumann--I, a _geborene_ Gräfin Ilmas-Kadenstein--to +live on charity--to be a member of a charitable institution!" + +"Institution? Charity? Oh no, no!" cried Anna. "It is a home here, and +there is no charity in it from the attic to the cellar." And she went +towards her with outstretched hands. + +"A home! Yes, that is it," cried Frau von Treumann, waving her back, "it +is a home, a charitable home!" + +"No, not a home like that--a real home, my home, your home--_ein Heim_," +Anna protested; but vainly, because the German word _Heim_ and the +English word "home" have little meaning in common. + +"_Ein Heim, ein Heim_," repeated Frau von Treumann with extraordinary +bitterness, "_ein Frauenheim_--yes, that is what it is, and everybody +knows it." + +"Everybody knows it?" + +"How could I think," she said, wringing her hands, "how could I think +when I decided to come here that the whole world was to be made +acquainted with your plans? I thought they were to be kept private, that +the world was to think we were your friends----" + +"And so you are." + +"--your guests----" + +"Oh, more than guests--this is home." + +"Home! Home! Always that word----" And she burst into a fresh torrent of +tears. + +Anna stood helpless. What she said appeared only to aggravate Frau von +Treumann's sorrow and rage--for surely there was anger as well as +sorrow? She was at a complete loss for the reason of this outburst. Had +not every detail been discussed in the correspondence? Had not that +correspondence been exhaustive even to boredom? + +"You have told your servants----" + +"My servants?" + +"You have told them that we are objects of charity----" + +"I----" began Anna, and then was silent. + +"It is not true--I have come here from very different motives--but they +think me an object of charity. I rang the bell--I cannot unstrap my +trunks--I never have been expected to unstrap trunks." The sobs here +interfered for a moment with further speech. "After a long while--your +servant came--she was insolent--the trunks are there still +unstrapped--you see them--she knows--everything." + +"She shall go to-morrow." + +"The others think the same thing." + +"They shall go to-morrow--that is, have they been rude to you?" + +"Not yet, but they will be." + +"When they are, they shall go." + +"I went into the corridor to seek other assistance, and I met--I +met----" + +"Who?" + +"Oh, to have fallen so low!" cried Frau von Treumann, clasping her +hands, and raising her streaming eyes to the ceiling. + +"But who did you meet?" + +"I met--I met the Penheim." + +"The Penheim? Do you mean Princess Ludwig?" + +"You never said she was here----" + +"I did not know that it would interest you." + +"--living on charity--she was always shameless--I was at school with +her. Oh, I would not have come for any inducement if I had known she was +here! She holds nothing sacred, she will boast of her own degradation, +she will write to all her friends that I am here too--I told them I was +coming only on a visit to you--they knew I knew your uncle--but the +Penheim--the Penheim----" and Frau von Treumann threw herself into a +chair and covered her face with her hands to shut out the horrid vision. + +The corners of Anna's mouth began to take the upward direction that +would end in a smile; and feeling how ill-placed such a contortion would +be in the presence of this tumultuous grief, she brought them carefully +back to a position of proper solemnity. Besides, why should she smile? +The poor lady was clearly desperately unhappy about something, though +what it was Anna did not quite know. She had looked forward to this +first evening with her new friends as to a thing apart, a thing beyond +the ordinary experience of life, profound in its peace, perfect in its +harmony, the first taste of rest after war, of port after stormy seas; +and here was Frau von Treumann plunged in a very audible grief, and in +the next room was the baroness, a disconcerting combination of +inquisitiveness and ice, and farther down the passage was Fräulein +Kuhräuber--in what state, Anna wondered, would she find Fräulein +Kuhräuber? Anyhow she had little reason to smile. But the horror with +which Princess Ludwig had been mentioned seemed droll beside her own +knowledge of the sterling qualities of that excellent woman. She went +over to the chair in which Frau von Treumann lay prostrate, and sat down +beside her. She was glad that they had reached the stage of sitting +down, for talking is difficult to a person who will not keep still. + +"How sorry I am," she said, in her pretty, hesitating German, "that you +should have been made unhappy the very first evening. Marie is a little +wretch. Don't let her stupidity make you miserable. You shall not see +her again, I promise you." And she patted Frau von Treumann's arm. "But +about Princess Ludwig, now," she went on cheerfully, "she has been here +some weeks and you soon learn to know a person you are with every day, +and really I have found her nothing but good and kind." + +"_Ach_, she is shameless--she recoils before no degradation!" burst out +Frau von Treumann, suddenly removing her hands from her face. "The +trouble she has given her relations! She delights in dragging her name +in the dirt. She has tried to get places in the most impossible +families, and made no attempt to hide what she was doing. She has broken +the old FĂĽrst's heart. And she talks about it all, and has no shame, no +decency----" + +"But is it not admirable----" began Anna. + +"She will gloat over me, and tell everyone that I am here in the same +way as she is. If she is not ashamed for herself, do you think she will +spare me?" + +"But why should you think there is anything to be ashamed of in coming +to live with me and be my dear friend?" + +"No, there is nothing, so long as my motives in coming are known. But +people talk so cruelly, and will distort the facts so gladly, and we +have always held our heads so high. And now the Penheim!" She sobbed +afresh. + +"I shall ask the princess not to write to anyone about your being here." + +"_Ach_, I know her--she will do it all the same." + +"No, I don't think so. She does everything I ask. You see, she takes +care of my house for me. She is not here in the same way that--that you +and Baroness Elmreich are, and her interest is to stay here." + +Frau von Treumann's bowed head went up with a jerk. "_Ach?_ She has +found a place at last? She is your paid companion? Your housekeeper?" + +"Yes, and she is goodness itself, and I don't believe she would be +unkind and make mischief for worlds." + +"_Ach so!_" said Frau von Treumann, "_ach so-o-o-o!_"--a long drawn out +_so_ of complete comprehension. Her tears ceased as if by magic. She +dried her eyes. Yes, of course the Penheim would hold her tongue if Miss +Estcourt ordered her to do so. She had heard all about her efforts to +find places, and she would probably be very careful not to lose this +one. The poor Penheim. So she was actually working for wages. What a +come-down for a Dettingen! And the Dettingens had always treated the +Treumanns as though they belonged merely to the _kleine Adel_. Well, +well, each one in turn. She was the dear friend, and the Penheim was the +housekeeper. Well, well. + +She sat up straight, smoothed her hair, and resumed her first manner of +quiet dignity. "I am sorry that you should have witnessed my agitation," +she said, with a faint smile. "I am not easily betrayed into exhibitions +of feeling, but there are limits to one's endurance, there are certain +things the bravest cannot bear." + +"Yes," said Anna. + +"And for a Treumann, social disgrace, any action that in the least soils +our honour and makes us unable to hold up our heads, is worse than +death." + +"But I don't see any disgrace." + +"No, no, there is none so long as facts are not distorted. It is quite +simple--you need friends and I am willing to be your friend. That was +how my son looked at it. He said '_Liebe Mama_, she evidently needs +friends and sympathy--why should you hesitate to make yourself of use? +You must regard it as a good work.' You would like my son; his brother +officers adore him." + +"Really?" said Anna. + +"He is so sensible, so reasonable; he is beloved and respected by the +whole regiment. I will show you his photograph--_ach_, the trunks are +still unstrapped." + +"I'll go and send someone--but not Marie," said Anna, getting up +quickly. She had no desire to see the photograph, and the son's way of +looking at things had considerably astonished her. "It must be nearly +supper time. Would you not rather lie down and let me send you something +here? Your head must ache after crying so much. You have baptised our +new life with tears. I hope it is a good omen." + +"Oh, I will come down. You will do as you promised, will you not, and +forbid the Penheim to gossip?" + +"I shall tell the princess your wishes." + +"Or, if she must gossip, let her tell the truth at least. If my son had +not pressed me to come here I really do not think----" + +Anna went slowly and meditatively down the passage to Fräulein +Kuhräuber's room. For a moment she thought of omitting this last visit +altogether; she was afraid lest the Fräulein should be in some +unlooked-for and perplexing condition of mind. Discouraged? Oh no; she +was surely not discouraged already. How had the word come into her head? +She quickened her steps. When she reached the door she remembered the +cup and the sugar-tongs. Perhaps something in the bedroom was already +broken, and the Fräulein would be disclosed sitting in the ruins in +tears, for she was unexpectedly large, and the contents of her room were +frail. But then woe of that sort was as easily assuaged as broken +furniture was mended. It was the more complicated grief of Frau von +Treumann that she felt unable to soothe. As to that, she preferred not +to think about it at present, and barricaded her thoughts against its +image with that consoling sentence, _Tout comprendre c'est tout +pardonner._ It was a sentence she was fond of; but she had not expected +that she would need its reassurance so soon. + +She opened the door, and the puckers smoothed themselves out of her +forehead at once, for here, at last, was peace. There had been no +difficulties here with bells, and straps, and Marie. The trunks had been +opened and unpacked without assistance; and when Anna came in the +contents were all put away and Fräulein Kuhräuber, washed and combed and +in her Sunday blouse, was sitting in an easy chair by the window +absorbed in a book. Satisfaction was written broadly on her face; +content was expressed by every lazy line of her attitude. When she saw +Anna, she got up and made a curtsey and beamed. The beams were instantly +reflected in Anna's face, and they beamed at each other. + +"Well," said Anna, who felt perfectly at her ease with this member of +her trio, "are you happy?" + +Fräulein Kuhräuber blushed, and beamed more than ever. She was far less +shy of Anna than she was of those two terrible _adelige Damen_, her +travelling companions; but at no time had she had much conversation. +Hers had been a ruminative existence, for its uncertainty but rarely +disturbed her. Had she not an excellent digestion, and a fixed belief +that the righteous, of whom she was one, would never be forsaken? And +are not these the primary conditions of happiness? Indeed, if everything +else is wanting, these two ingredients by themselves are sufficient for +the concoction of a very palatable life. + +"You have found an interesting book already?" Anna asked, pleased that +the literature chosen with such care should have met with instant +appreciation. She took it up to see what it was, but put it down again +hastily, for it was the cookery book. + +"I read much," observed Fräulein Kuhräuber. + +"Yes?" said Anna, a flicker of hope reviving in her heart. Perhaps the +cookery book was an accident. + +"I know by heart more than a hundred recipes for sweet dishes alone." + +"Really?" said Anna, the flicker expiring. + +"So you can have an idea of the number of books I have read." + +"Here are a great many more for you to read." + +"_Ach ja, ach ja_," said Fräulein Kuhräuber, glancing doubtfully at the +shelves; "but one must not waste too much time over it--there are other +things in life. I read only useful books." + +"Well, that is very praiseworthy," said Anna, smiling. "If you like +cookery books, I must get you some more." + +"How good you are--how very, very good!" said the Fräulein, gazing at +the charming figure before her with heartfelt admiration and gratitude. +"This beautiful room--I cannot look at it enough. I cannot believe it is +really for me--for me to sleep in and be in whenever I choose. What have +I done to deserve all this?" + +What had she done, indeed? She had not even been unhappy, although of +course she had had every opportunity of being so, sent from place to +place, from one indignant _Hausfrau_ to another, ever since she left +school. But Anna, persuaded that she had rescued her from depths of +unspeakable despair, was overjoyed by this speech. "Don't talk about +deserving," she said tenderly. "You have had such a life that if you +were to be happy now without stopping once for the next fifty years it +would only be just and right." + +Fräulein Kuhräuber's approval of this sentiment was so entire that she +seized Anna's hand and kissed it fervently. Anna laughed while this was +going on, and her eyes grew brighter. She had not wanted gratitude, but +now that it had come it was very encouraging after all, and very +warming. She put one arm impulsively round the Fräulein's neck and +kissed her, and this was practically the first kiss that lady had ever +received, for the perfunctory embraces of reluctantly dutiful aunts can +hardly be called by that pretty name. + +"Now," said Anna, with a happy laugh, "we are going to be friends for +ever. Come, let us go down. That was the supper bell." + +And they went downstairs together, appearing in the doorway of the +drawing-room arm in arm, as though they had loved each other for years. + +"As though they were twins," muttered the baroness to Frau von Treumann, +who shrugged one shoulder slightly by way of reply. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +But in spite of this little outburst of gratitude and appreciation from +Fräulein Kuhräuber, the first evening of the new life was a +disappointment. The Fräulein, who entered the room so happily under the +impression of that recent kiss, became awkward and uncomfortable the +moment she caught sight of the others; lapsing, indeed, into a quite +pitiful state of nervous flutter on being brought for the first time +within the range of the princess's critical and unsympathetic eye. Her +experience had not included princesses, and, as she made a series of +agitated curtseys, deeming one altogether insufficient for so great a +lady, she felt as though that cold eye were piercing her through easily, +and had already discovered the inmost recess of her soul, where lay, so +carefully hidden, the memory of the postman. Every time the princess +looked at her, a sudden vivid consciousness of the postman flamed up +within her, utterly refusing to be extinguished by the soothing +recollection that he had been angelic for thirty years. That obviously +experienced eye and those pursed lips upset her so completely that she +made no remark whatever during the meal that followed, but sat next to +Anna and ate _Leberwurst_ in a kind of uneasy dream; and she ate it with +a degree of emphasis so unusual among the polite and so disastrous to +the peace of the ultra-fastidious that Anna felt there really was some +slight excuse for the frequent and lengthy stares that came from the +other end of the table. "Yet she is an immortal soul--what does it +matter how she eats _Leberwurst_?" said Anna to herself. "What do such +trifles, such little mannerisms, really matter? I should indeed be a +miserable creature if I let them annoy me." But she turned her head +away, nevertheless, and talked assiduously to Letty. + +There was no one else for her to talk to. Frau von Treumann and the +baroness had seated themselves at once one on either side of the +princess, and devoted their conversation entirely to her. In the +drawing-room later on, the same thing happened,--the three German ladies +clustering together near the sofa, and the three English being left +somehow to themselves, except for Fräulein Kuhräuber, who clung to them. +To avoid this division into what looked like hostile camps Anna pushed +her chair to a place midway between the groups, and tried to join, +though not very successfully, in the talk of each in turn. Outward calm +prevailed in the room, subdued voices, the tranquillity of fancy-work, +and the peace of albums; yet Anna could not avoid a chilled impression, +a feeling as though each person present were distrustful of the others, +and more or less on the defensive. Frau von Treumann, it is true, was +graciousness itself to the princess, conversing with her constantly and +amiably, and showing herself kind; but, on the other hand, the princess +was hardly gracious to Frau von Treumann. An unbiassed observer would +have said that she disapproved of Frau von Treumann, but was +endeavouring to conceal her disapproval. She busied herself with her +embroidery and talked as little as she could, receiving both the +advances of Frau von Treumann and the attentions of the baroness with +equal coldness. + +As for the baroness, her doubts as to Anna's respectability were blown +away completely and forever when, on opening the drawing-room door +before supper, she had beheld no less a person than the _geborene_ +Dettingen seated on the sofa. The baroness had spent her life in a +remote and tiny provincial town, but she knew the great Dettingen and +Penheim families well by name, and a princess in her opinion was a +princess, an altogether precious and admirable creature, whatever she +might choose to do. Her scruples, then, were set at rest, but her ice as +far as Anna was concerned showed no signs of thawing. All her amiability +and her efforts to produce a good impression were lavished on the +princess, who besides being by birth and marriage the grandest person +the baroness had yet met, spoke her own tongue properly, had no dimples, +and did not try to stroke her hand. She looked on with mingled awe and +irritation at the easy manner in which Frau von Treumann treated this +great lady. It almost seemed as though she were patronising her. Really +these Treumanns were a brazen-faced race; audacious East Prussian +Junkers, who thought themselves as good as or better than the best. And +this one was not even a true Treumann, but an Ilmas, and of the inferior +Kadenstein branch; and the baroness's brother--that brother whose end +was so abrupt--had been quartered once during the man[oe]uvres at +Kadenstein, and had told her that it was a wretched place, with a +fowl-run that wanted mending within a few yards of the front door, and +that, the door standing open all day long, he had frequently met fowls +walking about in the hall and passages. Yet remembering the brother's +story, and how there was no shadow of the sort resting at present on +Frau von Treumann, though as she had a son there was no telling how long +her shadowless state would last, she tried to ingratiate herself with +that lady, who met her advances coolly, only warming into something like +responsiveness when Fräulein Kuhräuber was in question. + +Fräulein Kuhräuber sat behind Letty and Miss Leech, as far away from the +others as she could. She had a stocking in her hand, but she did not +knit. She never knitted if she could avoid it, and was conscious that +from want of practice her needles moved more slowly than is usual--so +slowly, indeed, as to be conspicuous. Letty showed her photographs and +was very kind to her, instinctively perceiving that here was someone who +was as uneasy under the tall lady's stares as she was herself. She +privately thought her by far the best of the new arrivals, and wished +she knew enough German to inquire into her views respecting Schiller; +there was something in the Fräulein's looks and manner that made her +think they would agree about Schiller. + +Anna, too, ended by talking exclusively to this group. Her attempts to +join in what the others were saying had been unsuccessful; and with a +little twinge of disappointment, and a feeling of being for some +unexplained reason curiously out of it, she turned to Fräulein +Kuhräuber, and devoted herself more and more to her. + +"They are inseparables already," remarked the baroness in a low voice to +Frau von Treumann. "The Miss finds her congenial, it seems." She could +not forgive those doors she had gone through last. + +The princess looked up for a moment over the spectacles she wore when +she worked, at Anna. + +"Fräulein Kuhräuber makes an excellent foil," said Frau von Treumann. +"Miss Estcourt looks quite ethereal next to her." + +"Do you think her pretty?" asked the baroness. + +"She is very distinguished-looking." + +A servant came in at that moment and announced Dellwig's usual evening +visit, and Anna got up and went out. They watched her as she walked down +the long room, and when she had disappeared began to discuss her more at +their ease, their rapid German being quite incomprehensible to Letty and +Miss Leech. + +"Where has she gone?" asked the baroness. + +"She has gone to talk to her inspector," said the princess. + +"_Ach so_," said the baroness. + +"_Ach so_," said Frau von Treumann. + +"Is the inspector young?" asked the baroness. + +"Oh no, quite old," said the princess. + +"These English are a strange race," said Frau von Treumann. "What German +girl of that age would you find with so much energy and enterprise?" + +"Is she so very young?" inquired the baroness, with a look of mild +surprise. + +"Why, she is plainly little more than a child," said Frau von Treumann. + +"She is twenty-five," said the princess. + +"Rather an old child," observed the baroness. + +"She looks much younger. But twenty-five is surely young enough for this +life, away from her own people," said Frau von Treumann. + +"Yes--why does she lead it?" asked the baroness eagerly. "Can you tell +us, Frau Prinzessin? Has she then quarrelled with all her friends?" + +"Miss Estcourt has not told me so." + +"But she must have quarrelled. Eccentric as the English are, there are +limits to their eccentricity, and no one leaves home and friends and +country without some good reason." And Frau von Treumann shook her head. + +"She has quarrelled, I am sure," said the baroness. + +"I think so too," said Frau von Treumann; "I thought so from the first. +My son also thought so. You remember Karlchen, princess?" + +"Perfectly." + +"I discussed the question thoroughly with him, of course, as to whether +I should come here or not. I confess I did not want to come. It was a +great wrench, giving up everything, and going so far from my son. But +after all one must not be selfish." And Frau von Treumann sighed and +paused. + +No one said anything, so she continued: "One feels, as one grows older, +how great are the claims of others. And a widow with only one son can do +so much, can make herself of so much use. That is what Karlchen said. +When I hesitated--for I fear one does hesitate before inconvenience--he +said, '_Liebste Mama_, it would be a charity to go to the poor young +lady. You who have always been the first to extend a sympathetic hand to +the friendless, how is it that you hesitate now? Depend upon it, she has +had differences at home and needs countenance and help. You have no +encumbrances. You can go more easily than others. You must regard it as +a good work.' And that decided me." + +The princess let her work drop for a moment into her lap, and gazed over +her spectacles at Frau von Treumann. "_Wirklich?_" she said in a voice +of deep interest. "Those were your reasons? _Aber herrlich._" + +"Yes, those were my reasons," replied Frau von Treumann, returning her +gaze with pensive but steady eyes. "Those were my chief reasons. I +regard it as a work of charity." + +"But this is noble," murmured the princess, resuming her work. + +"That is how _I_ have regarded it," put in the baroness. "I agree with +you entirely, dear Frau von Treumann." + +"I do not pretend to disguise," went on Frau von Treumann, "that it is +an economy for me to live here, but poor as I have been since my dear +husband's death--you remember Karl, princess?" + +"Perfectly." + +"Poor as I have been, I always had sufficient for my simple wants, and +should not have dreamed of altering my life if Miss Estcourt's letters +had not been so appealing." + +"_Ach_--they were appealing?" + +"Oh, a heart of stone would have been melted by them. And a widow's +heart is not of stone, as you must know yourself. The orphan appealing +to the widow--it was irresistible." + +"Well, you see she is not by any means alone," said the princess +cheerfully. "Here we are, five of us counting the little Letty, +surrounding her. So you must not sacrifice yourself unnecessarily." + +"Oh, I am not one of those who having put their hand to the plough----" + +"But where is the plough, dear Frau von Treumann? You see there is, +after all, no plough." + +"Dear princess, you always were so literal." + +"Ah, you used to reproach me with that in the old days, when you wrote +poetry and read it to me and I was rude enough to ask if it meant +anything. We did not think then that we should meet here, did we?" + +"No, indeed. And I cannot tell you how much I admire your courage." + +"My courage? What fine qualities you invest me with!" + +"Miss Estcourt has told me how admirably you discharge your duties here. +It is wonderful to me. You are an example to us all, and you make me +feel ashamed of my own uselessness." + +"Oh, you underrate yourself. People who leave everything to go and help +others cannot talk of being useless. Yes, I look after her house for +her, and I hope to look after her as well." + +"After her? Is that one of your duties? Did she stipulate for personal +supervision when she engaged you? How times are changed! When my Karl +was alive, and we lived at Sommershof, I certainly would not have +tolerated that my housekeeper should keep me in order as well as my +house." + +"The case was surely different, dear Frau von Treumann. Here is an +unusually pretty young thing, with money. She will need all the +protection I can give her, and it is a satisfaction to me to feel that I +am here and able to give it." + +"But she may any day turn round and request you to go." + +"That of course may happen, but I hope it will not until she is safe." + +"But do you think her so pretty?" put in the baroness wonderingly. + +"Safe? What special dangers do you then apprehend for her?" asked Frau +von Treumann with a look of amusement. "Dear princess, you always did +take your duties so seriously. What a treasure you would have been to me +in many ways. It is admirable. But do your duties really include +watching over Miss Estcourt's heart? For I suppose you are thinking of +her heart?" + +"I am thinking of adventurers," said the princess. "Any young man with +no money would naturally be delighted to secure this young lady and +Kleinwalde. And those who instead of money have debts, would naturally +be still more delighted." And the princess in her turn gazed pensively +but steadily at Frau von Treumann. "No," she said, taking up her work +again, "I was not thinking of her heart, but of the annoyance she might +be put to. I do not fancy that her heart would easily be touched." + +Anna came in at that moment for a paper she wanted, and heard the last +words. "What," she said, smiling, as she unlocked the drawer of her +writing-table and rummaged among the contents, "you are talking about +hearts? You see it is true that women can't be together half an hour +without getting on to subjects like that. If you were three men, now, +you would talk of pigs." Then, a sudden recollection of Uncle Joachim +coming into her mind, she added with conviction, "And pigs are better." + +Nor was it till she had closed the door behind her that it struck her +that when she came into the room both the princess and Frau von Treumann +were looking preternaturally bland. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +Axel Lohm was in the hall, having his coat taken from him by a servant. + +"You here?" exclaimed Anna, holding out both hands. She was more than +usually pleased to see him. + +"Manske had a pile of letters for you, and could not get them to you +because he has a pastors' conference at his house. I was there and saw +the letters, and thought you might want them." + +"Oh, I don't want them--at least, there is no hurry. But the letters are +only an excuse. Now isn't it so?" + +"An excuse?" he repeated, flushing. + +"You want to see the new arrivals." + +"Not in the very least." + +"Oh, oh! But as you have come one minute too soon, and happened to meet +me outside the door, your plan is spoilt. Are those the letters? What a +pile!" Her face fell. + +"But you are looking for nine more ladies. You want a wide choice. You +have still the greater part of your work before you." + +"I know. Why do you tell me that?" + +"Because you do not seem pleased to get them." + +"Oh yes, I am; but I am tired to-night, and the idea of nine more ladies +makes me feel--feel sleepy." + +She stood under the lamp, holding the packet loosely by its string and +smiling up to him. There were shadows in her eyes, he thought, where he +was used to seeing two cheerful little lights shining, and a faint +ruefulness in the smile. + +"Well, if you are tired you must go to bed," he said, in such a matter +of fact tone that they both laughed. + +"No, I mustn't," said Anna; "I am on my way to Herr Dellwig at this very +moment. He's in there," she said, with a motion of her head towards the +dining-room door. "Tell me," she added, lowering her voice, "have you +got a brick-kiln at Lohm?" + +"A brick-kiln? No. Why do you want to know?" + +"But why haven't you got a brick-kiln?" + +"Because there is nothing to make bricks with. Lohm is almost entirely +sand." + +"He says there is splendid clay here in one part, and wants to build +one." + +"Who? Dellwig?" + +"Sh--sh." + +"Your uncle would have built one long ago if there really had been clay. +I must look at the place he means. I cannot remember any such place. And +it is unlikely that it should be as he says. Pray do not agree to any +propositions of the kind hastily." + +"It would cost heaps to set it going, wouldn't it?" + +"Yes, and probably bring in nothing at all." + +"But he tries to make out that it would be quite cheap. He says the +timber could all be got out of the forest. I can't bear the thought of +cutting down a lot of trees." + +"If you can't bear the thought of anything he proposes, then simply +refuse to consider it." + +"But he talks and talks till it really seems that he is right. He told +me just now that it would double the value of the estate." + +"I don't believe it." + +"If I made bricks, according to him I could take in twice as many poor +ladies." + +"I believe you will be happier with fewer ladies and no bricks," said +Axel with great positiveness. + +Anna stood thinking. Her eyes were fixed on the tip of the finger she +had passed through the loop of string that tied the letters together, +and she watched it as the packet twisted round and round and pinched it +redder and redder. "I suppose you never wanted to be a woman," she said, +considering this phenomenon with apparent interest. + +Axel laughed. + +"The mere question makes you laugh," she said, looking up quickly. "I +never heard of a man who did want to. But lots of women would give +anything to be men." + +"And you are one of them?" + +"Yes." + +He laughed again. + +"You think I would make a queer little man?" she said, laughing too; but +her face became sober immediately, and with a glance at the shut +dining-room door she continued: "It is so horrid to feel weak. My sister +Susie says I am very obstinate. Perhaps I was with her, but different +people have different effects on one." She sank her voice to a whisper, +and looked at him anxiously. "You can't think what an _effort_ it is to +me to say No to that man." + +"What, to Dellwig?" + +"Sh--sh." + +"But if that is how you feel, my dear Miss Estcourt, it is very evident +that the man must go." + +"How easy it is to say that! Pray, who is to tell him to go?" + +"I will, if you wish." + +"If you were a woman, do you suppose you would be able to turn out an +old servant who has worked here so many years?" + +"Yes, I am sure I would, if I felt that he was getting beyond my +control." + +"No, you wouldn't. All sorts of things would stop you. You would +remember that your uncle specially told you to keep him on, that he has +been here ages, that he was faithful and devoted----" + +"I do not believe there was much devotion." + +"Oh yes, there was. The first evening he cried about dear Uncle +Joachim." + +"He cried?" repeated Axel incredulously. + +"He did indeed." + +"It was about something else, then." + +"No, he really cried about Uncle Joachim. He really loved him." + +Axel looked profoundly unconvinced. + +"But after all those are not the real reasons," said Anna; "they ought +to be, but they're not. The simple truth is that I am a coward, and I am +frightened--dreadfully frightened--of possible scenes." And she looked +at him and laughed ruefully. "There--you see what it is to be a woman. +If I were a man, how easy things would be. Please consider the +mortification of knowing that if he persuades long enough I shall give +in, against my better judgment. He has the strongest will I think I ever +came across." + +"But you have not yet given in, I hope, on any point of importance?" + +"Up to now I have managed to say No to everything I don't want to do. +But you would laugh if you knew what those Nos cost me. Why cannot the +place go on as it was? I am perfectly satisfied. But hardly a day passes +without some wonderful new plan being laid before me, and he talks--oh, +how he talks! I believe he would convince even you." + +"The man is quite beyond your control," said Axel in a voice of anger; +and voices of anger commonly being loud voices, this one produced the +effect of three doors being simultaneously opened: the door leading to +the servants' quarters, through which Marie looked and vanished again, +retreating to the kitchen to talk prophetically of weddings; the +dining-room door, behind which Dellwig had grown more and more impatient +at being kept waiting so long; and the drawing-room door, on the other +side of which the baroness had been lingering for some moments, desiring +to go upstairs for her scissors, but hesitating to interrupt Anna's +business with the inspector, whose voice she thought it was that she +heard. + +The baroness shut her door again immediately. "_Aha_--the admirer!" she +said to herself; and went back quickly to her seat. "The Miss is talking +to a _jĂĽnge Herr_," she announced, her eyes wider open than ever. + +"A _jĂĽnge Herr_?" echoed Frau von Treumann. "I thought the inspector was +old?" + +"It must be Axel Lohm," said the princess, not raising her eyes from her +work. "He often comes in." + +"He comes courting, evidently," said the baroness with a sub-acid smile. + +"It has not been evident to me," said the princess coldly. + +"I thought it looked like it," said the baroness, with more meekness. + +"Is that the Lohm who was engaged to one of the Kiederfels girls some +years ago?" asked Frau von Treumann. + +"Yes, and she died." + +"But did he not marry soon afterwards? I heard he married." + +"That was the second brother. This one is the eldest, and lives next to +us, and is single." + +Frau von Treumann was silent for a moment. Then she said blandly, "Now +confess, princess, that _he_ is the perilous person from whom you think +it necessary to defend Miss Estcourt." + +"Oh no," said the princess with equal blandness; "I have no fears about +him." + +"What, is he too possessed of an invulnerable heart?" + +"I know nothing of his heart. I said, I believe, adventurers. And no one +could call Axel Lohm an adventurer. I was thinking of men who have run +through all their own and all their relations' money in betting and +gambling, and who want a wife who will pay their debts." + +"_Ach so_," said Frau von Treumann with perfect urbanity. And if this +talk about protecting Miss Estcourt from adventurers in a place where +there were apparently no human beings of any kind, but only trees and +marshes, might seem to a bystander to be foolishness, to the speakers it +was luminousness itself, and in no way increased their love for each +other. + +Meanwhile Dellwig, looking through the door and seeing Lohm, brought his +heels together and bowed with his customary exaggeration. "I beg a +thousand times pardon," he said; "I thought the gracious Miss was +engaged and would not return, and I was about to go home." + +"I have found the paper, and am coming," said Anna coldly. "Well, +good-night," she added in English, holding out her hand to Axel. + +"If you will allow me, I should like to pay my respects to Princess +Ludwig before I go," he said, thinking thus to see her later. + +"Ah! wasn't I right?" she said, smiling. "You are determined to look at +the new arrivals. How can a man be so inquisitive? But I will say +good-night all the same. I shall be ages with Herr Dellwig, and shall +not see you again." She shook hands with him, and went into the +dining-room, Dellwig standing aside with deep respect to let her pass. +But she turned to say something to him as he shut the door, and Axel +caught the expression of her face, the intense boredom on it, the +profound distrust of self; and he went in to the princess with an +unusually severe and determined look on his own. + +Dellwig went home that night in a savage mood. "That young man," he said +to his wife, flinging his hat and coat on to a chair and himself on to a +sofa, "is thrusting himself more and more into our affairs." + +"That Lohm?" she asked, rolling up her work preparatory to fetching his +evening drink. + +"I had almost got the Miss to consent to the brick-kiln. She was quite +reasonable, and went out to get the plan I had made. Then she met +him--he is always hanging about." + +"And then?" inquired Frau Dell wig eagerly. + +"Pah--this petticoat government--having to beg and pray for the smallest +concession--it makes an honest man sick." + +"She will not consent?" + +"She came back as obstinate as a mule. It all had to be gone into again +from the beginning." + +"She will not consent?" + +"She said Lohm would look at the place and advise her." + +"_Aber so was!_" cried Frau Dellwig, crimson with wrath. "Advise her? +Did you not tell her that you were her adviser?" + +"You may be sure I did. I told her plainly enough, I fancy, that Lohm +had nothing to say here, and that her uncle had always listened to me. +She sat without speaking, as she generally does, not even looking at +me--I never can be sure that she is even listening." + +"And then?" + +"I asked her at last if she had lost confidence in me." + +"And then?" + +"She said _oh nein_, in her affected foreign way--in the sort of voice +that might just as well mean _oh ja_." And he imitated, with great +bitterness, Anna's way of speaking German. "Mark my words, Frau, she is +as weak as water for all her obstinacy, and the last person who talks to +her can always bring her round." + +"Then you must be the last person." + +"If it were not for that prig Lohm, that interfering ass, that +incomparable rhinoceros----" + +"He wants to marry her, of course." + +"If he marries her----" Dellwig stopped short, and stared gloomily at +his muddy boots. + +"If he marries her----" repeated his wife; but she too stopped short. +They both knew well enough what would happen to them if he married her. + +The building of the brick-kiln had come to be a point of honour with the +Dellwigs. Ever since Anna's arrival, their friends the neighbouring +farmers and inspectors had been congratulating them on their complete +emancipation from all manner of control; for of course a young ignorant +lady would leave the administration of her estate entirely in her +inspector's hands, confining her activities, as became a lady of birth, +to paying the bills. Dellwig had not doubted that this would be so, and +had boasted loudly and continually of the different plans he had made +and was going to carry out. The estate of which he was now practically +master was to become renowned in the province for its enterprise and the +extent, in every direction, of its operations. The brick-kiln was a +long-cherished scheme. His oldest friend and rival, the head inspector +of a place on the other side of Stralsund, had one, and had constantly +urged him to have one too; but old Joachim, without illusions as to the +quality of the clay, and by no manner of means to be talked into +disbelieving the evidence of his own eyes, would not hear of it, and +Dellwig felt there was nothing to be done in the face of that curt +refusal. The friend, triumphing in his own brick-kiln and his own more +pliable master, jeered, dug him in the ribs at the Sunday gatherings, +and talked of dependence, obedience, and restricted powers. Such friends +are difficult to endure with composure; and Dellwig, and still less his +wife, for many months past had hardly been able to bear the word "brick" +mentioned in their presence. When Anna appeared on the scene, so young, +so foreign, and so obviously foolish, Dellwig, certain now of success, +told his friend on the very first Sunday night that the brick-kiln was +now a mere matter of weeks. Always a boaster, he could not resist +boasting a little too soon. Besides, he felt very sure; and the friend, +too, had taken it for granted, when he heard of the impending young +mistress, that the thing was as good as built. + +That was in March. It was now the end of April, and every Sunday the +friend inquired when the building was to be begun, and every Sunday +Dellwig said it would begin when the days grew longer. The days had +grown longer, would have grown in a few weeks to their longest, as the +friend repeatedly pointed out, and still nothing had been done. To the +many people who do not care what their neighbours think of them, the +torments of the two Dellwigs because of the unbuilt brick-kiln will be +incomprehensible. Yet these torments were so acute that in the weaker +moments immediately preceding meals they both felt that it would almost +be better to leave Kleinwalde than to stay and endure them; indeed, +before dinner, or during wakeful nights, Frau Dellwig was convinced that +it would be better to die outright. The good opinion of their +neighbours--more exactly, the envy of their neighbours--was to them the +very breath of their nostrils. In their set they must be the first, the +undisputedly luckiest, cleverest, and best off. Any position less mighty +would be unbearable. And since Anna came there had been nothing but +humiliations. First the dinner to the Manskes, from which they had been +excluded--Frau Dellwig grew hot all over at the recollection of the +Sunday gathering succeeding it; then the renovation of the _Schloss_ +without the least reference to them, without the smallest asking for +advice or help; then the frequent communications with the pastor, +putting him quite out of his proper position, the confidence placed in +him, the ridiculous respect shown him, his connection with the mad +charitable scheme; and now, most dreadful of all, this obstinacy in +regard to the brick-kiln. It was becoming clear that they were fairly on +the way to being pitied by the neighbours. Pitied! Horrid thought. The +great thing in life was to be so situated that you can pity others. But +to be pitied yourself? Oh, thrice-accursed folly of old Joachim, to +leave Kleinwalde to a woman! Frau Dellwig could not sleep that night for +hating Anna. She lay awake staring into the darkness with hot eyes, and +hating her with a heartiness that would have petrified that unconscious +young woman as she sat about a stone's throw off in her bedroom, +motionless in the chair into which she had dropped on first coming +upstairs, too tired even to undress, after her long struggle with Frau +Dellwig's husband. "The _Engländerin_ will ruin us!" cried Frau Dellwig +suddenly, unable to hate in silence any longer. + +"_Wie? Was?_" exclaimed Dellwig, who had dozed off, and was startled. + +"She will--she will!" cried his wife. + +"Will what? Ruin us? The _Engländerin_? _Ach was--Unsinn._ _She_ can be +managed. It is Lohm who is the danger. It is Lohm who will ruin us. If +we could get rid of him----" + +"_Ach Gott_, if he would die!" exclaimed Frau Dellwig, with fervent +hands raised heavenwards. "_Ach Gott_, if he would only die!" + +"_Ach Gott, ach Gott!_" mimicked her husband irritably, for he disliked +being suddenly awakened. "People never die when anything depends on it," +he grumbled, turning over on his side. And he cursed Axel several times, +and went to sleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +The philosopher tells us that, after the healing interval of sleep, we +are prepared to meet each other every morning as gods and goddesses; so +fresh, so strong, so lusty, so serene, did he consider the newly-risen +and the some-time separated must of necessity be. It is a pleasing +belief; and Experience, that hopelessly prosaic governess who never +gives us any holidays, very quickly disposes of it. For what is to +become of the god-like mood if only one in a company possess it? The +middle-aged and old, who abound in all companies, are seldom god-like, +and are never so at breakfast. + +The morning after the arrival of the Chosen, Anna woke up in the true +Olympian temper. She had been brought back to the happy world of +realities from the happy world of dreams by the sun of an unusually +lovely April shining on her face. She had only to open her window to be +convinced that all which she beheld was full of blessings. Just beneath +her window on the grass was a double cherry tree in flower, an exquisite +thing to look down on with the sunshine and the bees busy among its +blossoms. The unreasoning joyfulness that invariably took possession of +her heart whenever the weather was fine, filled it now with a rapture of +hope and confidence. This world, this wonderful morning world that she +saw and smelt from her window, was manifestly a place in which to be +happy. Everything she saw was very good. Even the remembrance of Dellwig +was transfigured in that clear light. And while she dressed she took +herself seriously to task for the depression of the night before. +Depressed she had certainly been; and why? Simply because she was +over-excited and over-tired, and her spirit was still so mortifyingly +unable to rise superior to the weakness of her tiresome flesh. And to +let herself be made wretched by Dellwig, merely because he talked loud +and had convictions which she did not share! The god-like morning mood +was strong upon her, and she contemplated her listless self of the +previous evening, the self that had sat so long despondently thinking +instead of going to bed, with contempt. These evening interviews with +Dellwig, she reflected, were a mistake. He came at hours when she was +least able to bear his wordiness and shouting, and it was the knowledge +of his impending visit that made her irritable beforehand and ruffled +the absolute serenity that she felt was alone appropriate in a house +dedicated to love. But it was not only Dellwig and the brick-kiln that +had depressed her; she had actually had doubts about her three new +friends, doubts as to the receptivity of their souls, as to the capacity +of their souls for returning love. At one awful moment she had even +doubted whether they had souls at all, but had hastily blown out the +candle at this point, extinguishing the doubt at the same time, +smothering it beneath the bedclothes, and falling asleep at once, after +the fashion of healthy young people. + +Now, at the beginning of the new day, with all her misgivings healed by +sleep, she thought calmly over the interview she had had with Frau von +Treumann before supper; for it was that interview that had been the +chief cause of her dejection. Frau von Treumann had told her an untruth, +a quite obvious and absurd untruth in the face of the correspondence, as +to the reason of her coming to Kleinwalde. She had said she had only +come at the instigation of her son, who looked upon Anna as a deserving +object of help. And Anna had been hurt, had been made miserable, by the +paltriness of this fib. Her great desire was to reach her friends' souls +quickly, to attain the beautiful intimacy in which the smallest fiction +is unnecessary; and so little did Frau von Treumann understand her, that +she had begun a friendship that was to be for life with an untruth that +would not have misled a child. But see the effect of sleep and a +gracious April morning. The very shabbiness and paltriness of the fib +made Anna's heart yearn over the poor lady. Surely the pride that tried +to hide its wounds with rags of such pitiful flimsiness was profoundly +pathetic? With such pride, all false from Anna's point of view, but real +and painful enough to its possessor, the necessity that drove her to +accept Anna's offer must have been more cruel than necessity, always +cruel, generally is. Her heart yearned over her friend as she dressed, +and she felt that the weakness that must lie was a weakness greatly +requiring love. For nobody, she argued, would ever lie unless driven to +it by fear of some suffering. If, then, it made her happy, and made her +life easier, let her think that Anna believed she had come for her sake. +What did it matter? No one was perfect, and many people were +surprisingly pathetic. + +Meanwhile the day was glorious, and she went downstairs with the springy +step of hope. She was thinking exhilarating thoughts, thinking that +there were to be no ripples of misgivings and misunderstandings on the +clear surface of this first morning. They would all look into each +others' candid eyes at breakfast, and read a mutual consciousness of +interests henceforward to be shared, of happiness to be shared, of life +to be shared,--the life of devoted and tender sisters. + +The hall door stood open, and the house was full of the smell of April; +the smell of new leaves budding, of old leaves rotting, of damp earth, +pine needles, wet moss, and marshes. "Oh, the lovely, lovely morning!" +whispered Anna, running out on to the steps with outstretched arms and +upturned face, as though she would have clasped all the beauty round and +held it close. She drew in a long breath, and turned back into the house +singing in an impassioned but half-suppressed voice the first verse of +the Magnificat. The door leading to the kitchen opened, and to her +surprise Baroness Elmreich emerged from those dark regions. The +Magnificat broke off abruptly. Anna was surprised. Why the kitchen? The +baroness saw her hostess's figure motionless against the light of the +open door; but the light behind was strong and the hall was dark, and +she thought it was Anna's back. Hoping that she had not been noticed she +softly closed the door again and waited behind it till she could come +out unseen. + +Anna supposed that the princess must be showing her the servants' +quarters, and went into the breakfast room; but in it sat the princess, +making coffee. + +"There you are," said the princess heartily. "That is nice. Now we can +drink our coffee comfortably together before the others come down. Have +you been out? You smell of fresh air." + +"Only a moment on the doorstep." + +"Come, sit next to me. You have slept well, I can see. Notice the +advantage of coming straight in to breakfast, and not running about the +forest--you get here first, and so get the best cup of coffee." + +"But it isn't proper for me to have the best," said Anna, smiling as she +took the cup, "when I have guests here." + +"Yes, it is--very proper indeed. Besides, you told me they were +sisters." + +"So they are. Has the baroness not been here?" + +"No, she is still in bed." + +"No, I saw her a moment ago. I thought you were with her." + +"Oh, my dear--so early in the morning!" protested the princess. "When +did I see her last? Less than nine hours ago. She followed me into my +bedroom and talked much. I could not begin again with her the first +thing in the morning, even to please you." And she looked at Anna very +affectionately. "You were tired last night, were you not?" she +continued. "Axel Lohm stayed so late, I think he wanted to speak to you. +But you went straight up to bed." + +"I had seen him before he went in to you. He didn't want to speak to me. +He was consumed by curiosity about our new friends." + +"Was he? He did not show much interest in them. He talked to me nearly +all the time. He thought for a moment that he knew the baroness--at +least, he stared at her at first and seemed surprised. But it turned out +that she was only like someone he knew. She had evidently never seen him +before. It is a great pleasure to me to talk to that young man," the +princess went on, while Anna ate her toast. + +"So it is to me," said Anna. + +"I have met many people in my life, and have often wondered at the +dearth of nice ones--how few there are that one likes to be with and +wishes to see again and again. Axel is one of the few, decidedly." + +"So he is," agreed Anna. + +"There is goodness written on every line of his face." + +"Oh, he has the kindest face. And so strong. I feel that if anything +happened here, anything dreadful, that he would make it right again at +once. He would mend us if we got smashed, and build us up again if we +got burned, and protect us, this houseful of lone women, if ever anybody +tried to run away with us." And Anna nodded reassuringly at the +princess, and took another piece of toast "That is how I feel about +him," she said. "So agreeably certain, not only of his willingness to +help, but of his power to do it." Talking about Axel she quite forgot +the apparition of the baroness that she had just seen. He was so kind, +so good, so strong. How much she admired strength of purpose, +independence, the character that was determined to find its happiness in +doing its best. + +"If I had a daughter," said the princess, filling Anna's cup, "she +should marry Axel Lohm." + +"If _I_ had a daughter," said Anna, "she should marry him, so yours +couldn't. I wouldn't even ask her if she liked it. I'd be so sure that +it was a good thing for her that I'd just say: 'My dear, I have chosen +my son-in-law. Get your hat, and come to church and marry him.' And +there'd be an end of _that_." + +The princess felt that it was an unprofitable employment, trying to help +on Axel's cause. She could not but see what he thought of Anna; and +after the touching manner of widows, was convinced of the superiority of +marriage, as a means of real happiness for a woman, over any and every +other form of occupation. Yet whenever she talked of him she was met by +the same hearty agreement and frank enthusiasm, the very words being +taken out of her mouth and her own praises of him doubled and trebled. +It was a promising friendship, but it was a singularly unpromising +prelude to love. + +"Please make some fresh coffee," begged Anna; "the others will be coming +down soon, and must not have cold stuff." Her voice grew tender at the +mere mention of "the others." For the princess and Axel, both of whom +she liked so much, it never took on those tender tones, as the princess +had already noted. There was nothing in either of them to appeal to that +side of her nature, the tender, mother side, which is in all good women +and most bad ones. They were her friends, staunch friends, she felt, and +of course she liked and respected them; but they were sturdy, capable +people, firmly planted on their own feet, able to battle successfully +with life--as different as possible from these helpless ones who needed +her, whom she had saved, to whom she was everything, between whom and +want and sorrow she was fixed as a shield. + +Two of the helpless ones came in at that moment, with frosty, +early-morning faces. Anna put the vision she had seen at the kitchen +door from her mind, and went to meet them with happy smiles and +greetings. Frau von Treumann did her best to respond warmly, but it was +very early to be enthusiastic, and at that hour of the day she was +accustomed to being a little cross. Besides, she had had no coffee yet, +and her hostess evidently had, and that made a great difference to one's +sentiments. The baroness looked pinched and bloodless; she was as frigid +as ever to Anna, said nothing about having seen her before, and seemed +to want to be left alone. So that the mutual gazing into each other's +eyes did not, after all, take place. + +The princess waited to see that they had all they wanted, and then went +out rattling her keys; and after an interval, during which Anna +chattered cheerful and ungrammatical German, and the window was shut, +and warming food eaten, Frau von Treumann became amiable and began to +talk. + +She drew from her pocket a letter and a photograph. "This is my son," +she said. "I brought it down to show you. And I have had a long letter +from him already. He never neglects his mother. Truly a good son is a +source of joy." + +"I suppose so," said Anna. + +The baroness turned her eyes slowly round and fixed them on the +photograph. "Aha," she thought, "the son again. Last night the son, this +morning the son--always the son. The excellent Treumann loses no time." + +"He is good-looking, my Karlchen, is he not?" + +"Yes," said Anna. "It is a becoming uniform." + +"Oh--becoming! He looks adorable in it. Especially on his horse. I would +not let him be anything but a hussar because of the charming uniform. +And he suits it exactly--such a lightly built, graceful figure. _He_ +never stumbles over people's feet. Herr von Lohm nearly crushed my poor +foot last night. It was difficult not to scream. I never did admire +those long men made by the meter, who seem as though they would go on +for ever if there were no ceilings." + +"He _is_ rather long," agreed Anna, smiling. + +"Heartwhole," thought Frau von Treumann. "Tell me, dear Miss +Estcourt----" she said, laying her hand on Anna's. + +"Oh, don't call me Miss Estcourt." + +"But what, then?" + +"Oh, you must call me Anna. We are to be like sisters here--and you, +too, please, call me Anna," she said, turning to the baroness. + +"You are very good," said the baroness. + +"Well, my little sister," said Frau von Treumann, smiling, "my baby +sister----" + +"Baby sister!" thought the baroness. "Excellent Treumann." + +"--you know an old woman of my age could not really have a sister of +yours." + +"Yes, she could--not a whole sister, perhaps, but a half one." + +"Well, as you please. The idea is sweet to me. I was going to ask +you--but Karlchen's letter is too touching, really--such thoughts in +it--such high ideals----" And she turned over the sheets, of which there +were three, and began to blow her nose. + +"He has written you a very long letter," said Anna pleasantly; the +extent to which the nose blowing was being carried made her uneasy. Was +there to be crying? + +"You have a cold, dear Frau von Treumann?" inquired the baroness with +solicitude. + +"_Ach nein--doch nein_," murmured Frau von Treumann, turning the sheets +over, and blowing her nose harder than ever. + +"It will come off," thought Letty, who had slipped in unnoticed, and was +eating bread and butter alone at the further end of the table. + +"Poor thing," thought Anna, "she adores that Karlchen." + +There was a pause, during which the nose continued to be blown. + +"His letter is beautiful, but sad--very sad," said Frau von Treumann, +shaking her head despondingly. "Poor boy--poor dear boy--he misses his +mother, of course. I knew he would, but I did not dream it would be as +bad as this. Oh, my dear Miss Estcourt--well, Anna then"--smiling +faintly--"I could never describe to you the wrench it was, the terrible, +terrible wrench, leaving him who for five years--I am a widow five +years--has been my all." + +"It must have been dreadful," murmured Anna sympathetically. + +The baroness sat straight and motionless, staring fixedly at Frau von +Treumann. + +"'When shall I see you again, my dearest mamma?' were his last words. +And I could give him no hope--no answer." The handkerchief went up to +her eyes. + +"What _is_ she gassing about?" wondered Letty. + +"I can see him now, fading away on the platform as my train bore me off +to an unknown life. An only son--the only son of a widow--is everything, +everything to his mother." + +"He must be," said Anna. + +There was another silence. Then Frau von Treumann wiped her eyes and +took up the letter again. "Now he writes that though I have only been +away two days from Rislar, the town he is stationed at, it seems already +like years. Poor boy! He is quite desperate--listen to this--poor +boy----" And she smiled a little, and read aloud, "'I must see you, +_liebste, beste Mama_, from time to time. I had no idea the separation +would be like this, or I could never have let you go. Pray beg Miss +Estcourt----'" + +"Aha," thought the baroness. + +"'--to allow me to visit my mother occasionally. There must be an inn in +the village. If not, I could stay at Stralsund, and would in no way +intrude on her. But I must see my dearest mother, the being I have +watched over and cared for ever since my father's death.' Poor, dear, +foolish boy--he is desperate----" And she folded up the letter, shook +her head, smiled, and suddenly buried her face in her handkerchief. + +"Excellent Treumann," thought the unblinking baroness. + +Anna sat in some perplexity. Sons had not entered into her calculations. +In the correspondence, she remembered, the son had been lightly passed +over as an officer living on his pay and without a superfluous penny for +the support of his parent. Not a word had been said of any unusual +affection existing between them. Now it appeared that the mother and son +were all in all to each other. If so, of course the separation was +dreadful. A mother's love was a sentiment that inspired Anna with +profound respect. Before its unknown depths and heights she stood in awe +and silence. How could she, a spinster, even faintly comprehend that +sacred feeling? It was a mysterious and beautiful emotion that she could +only reverence from afar. Clearly she must not come between parent and +child; but yet--yet she wished she had had more time to think it over. + +She looked rather helplessly at Frau von Treumann, and gave her hand a +little squeeze. The hand did not return the squeeze, and the face +remained buried in the handkerchief. Well, it would be absurd to want to +cut off the son entirely from his mother. If he came occasionally to see +her it could not matter much. She gave the hand a firmer squeeze, and +said with an effort that she did her best to conceal, "But he must come +then, when he can. It is rather a long way--didn't you say you had to +stay a night in Berlin?" + +"Oh, my dear Miss Estcourt--my dear Anna!" cried Frau von Treumann, +snatching the handkerchief from her face and seizing Anna's hand in both +hers, "what a weight from my heart--what a heavy, heavy weight! All +night I was thinking how shall I bear this? I may write to him, then, +and tell him what you say? A long journey? You are afraid it will tire +him? Oh, it will be nothing, nothing at all to Karlchen if only he can +see his mother. How can I thank you! You will say my gratitude is +excessive for such a little thing, and truly only a mother could +understand it----" + +In short, Karlchen's appearance at Kleinwalde was now only a matter of +days. + +"_Unverschämt_," was the baroness's mental comment. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +Anna put on her hat and went out to think it over. Fräulein Kuhräuber +was apparently still asleep. Letty, accompanied by Miss Leech, had to go +to Lohm parsonage for her first lesson with Herr Klutz, who had +undertaken to teach her German. Frau von Treumann said she must write at +once to Karlchen, and shut herself up to do it. The baroness was vague +as to her intentions, and disappeared. So Anna started off by herself, +crossed the road, and walked quickly away into the forest. "If it makes +her so happy, then I am glad," she said to herself. "She is here to be +happy; and if she wants Karlchen so badly, why then she must have him +from time to time. I wonder why I don't like Karlchen." + +She walked quickly, with her eyes on the ground. The mood in which she +sang magnificats had left her, nor did she look to see what the April +morning was doing. Frau von Treumann had not been under her roof +twenty-four hours, and already her son had been added--if only +occasionally, still undoubtedly added--to the party. Suppose the +baroness and Fräulein Kuhräuber should severally disclose an inability +to live without being visited by some cherished relative? Suppose the +other nine, the still Unchosen, should each turn out to have a relative +waiting tragically in the background for permission to make repeated +calls? And suppose these relatives should all be male? + +These were grave questions; so grave that she was quite at a loss how to +answer them. And then she felt that somebody was looking at her; and +raising her eyes, she saw Axel on the mossy path quite close to her. + +"So deep in thought?" he asked, smiling at her start. + +Anna wondered how it was that he so often went through the forest. Was +it a short cut from Lohm to anywhere? She had met him three or four +times lately, in quite out of the way parts. He seemed to ride through +it and walk through it at all hours of the day. + +"How is your potato-planting getting on?" she asked involuntarily. She +knew what a rush there was just then putting the potatoes in, for she +did not drive every day about her fields in a cart without springs with +Dellwig for nothing. Axel must have potatoes to plant too; why didn't he +stay at home, then, and do it? + +"What a truly proper question for a country lady to ask," he said, +looking amused. "You waste no time in conventional good mornings or +asking how I do, but begin at once with potatoes. Well, I do not believe +that you are really interested in mine, so I shall tell you nothing +about them. You only want to remind me that I ought to be seeing them +planted instead of walking about your woods." + +Anna smiled. "I believe I did mean something like that," she said. + +"Well, I am not so aimless as you suppose," he returned, walking by her +side. "I have been looking at that place." + +"What place?" + +"Where Dellwig wants to build the brick-kiln." + +"Oh! What do you think of it?" + +"What I knew I would think of it. It is a fool's plan. The clay is the +most wretched stuff. It has puzzled me, seeing how very poor it is, that +he should be so eager to have the thing. I should have credited him with +more sense." + +"He is quite absurdly keen on it. Last night I thought he would never +stop persuading." + +"But you did not give in?" + +"Not an inch. I said I would ask you to look at it, and then he was +simply rude. I do believe he will have to go. I don't really think we +shall ever get on together. Certainly, as you say the clay is bad, I +shall refuse to build a brick-kiln." + +Axel smiled at her energy. In the morning she was always determined +about Dellwig. "You are very brave to-day," he said. "Last night you +seemed afraid of him." + +"He comes when I am tired. I am not going to see him in the evening any +more. It is too dreadful as a finish to a happy day." + +"It was a happy day, then, yesterday?" he asked quickly. + +"Yes--that is, it ought to have been, and probably would have been +if--if I hadn't been tired." + +"But the others--the new arrivals--they must have been happy?" + +"Yes--oh yes--" said Anna, hesitating, "I think so. Fräulein Kuhräuber +was, I am sure, at intervals. I think the other two would have been if +they hadn't had a journey." + +"By the way, do you remember what I said yesterday about the Elmreichs?" + +"Yes, I do. You said horrid things." Her voice changed. + +"About a Baron Elmreich. But he had a sister who made a hash of her +life. I saw her once or twice in Berlin. She was dancing at the +Wintergarten, and under her own name." + +"Poor thing. But it doesn't interest me." + +"Don't get angry yet." + +"But it doesn't interest me. And why shouldn't she dance? I knew several +people who ended by dancing at London Wintergartens." + +"You admit, then, that it is an end?" + +"It is hardly a beginning," conceded Anna. + +"She was so amazingly like your baroness would be if she painted and +wore a wig----" + +"That you are convinced they must be sisters. Thank you. Now what do you +suppose is the good of telling me that?" And she stood still and faced +him, her eyes flashing. + +Do what he would, Axel could not help smiling at her wrath. It was the +wrath of a mother whose child has been hurt by someone on purpose, "I +wish," he said, "that you would not be so angry when I tell you things +that might be important for you to know. If your baroness is really the +sister of the dancing baroness----" + +"But she is not. She told me last night that she has no brothers and +sisters. And she wrote it in the letters before she came. Do you think +it is a praiseworthy occupation for a man, doing his best to find out +disgraceful things about a very poor and very helpless woman?" + +"No, I do not," said Axel decidedly. "Under any other circumstances I +would leave the poor lady to take her chance. But do consider," he said, +following her, for she had begun to walk on quickly again, "do consider +your unusual position. You are so young to be living away from your +friends, and so young and inexperienced to be at the head of a home for +homeless women--you ought to be quite extraordinarily particular about +the antecedents of the people you take in. It would be most unpleasant +if it got about that they were not respectable." + +"But they are respectable," said Anna, looking straight before her. + +"A sister who dances at the Wintergarten----" + +"Did I not tell you that she has no sister?" + +Axel shrugged his shoulders. "The resemblance is so striking that they +might be twins," he said. + +"Then you think she says what is not true?" + +"How can I tell?" + +Anna stopped again and faced him. "Well, suppose it were true--suppose +it is her sister, and she has tried to hide it--do you know how I should +feel about it?" + +"Properly scandalised, I hope." + +"I should love her all the more. Oh, I should love her twice as much! +Why, think of the misery and the shame--poor, poor little woman--trying +to hide it all, bearing it all by herself--she must have loved her +sister, she must have loved her brother. It isn't true, of course, but +supposing it were, could you tell me _any_ reason why I should turn my +back on her?" + +She stood looking at him, her eyes full of angry tears. + +He did not answer. If that was the way she felt, what could he do? + +"I never understood," she went on passionately, "why the innocent should +be punished. Do you suppose a woman would _like_ her brother to cheat +and then shoot himself? Or _like_ her sister to go and dance? But if +they do do these things, besides her own grief and horror, she is to be +shunned by everybody as though she were infectious. Is that fair? Is +that right? Is it in the least Christian?" + +"No, of course it is not. It is very hard and very ugly, but it is quite +natural. An old woman in a strong position might take such a person up, +perhaps, and comfort her and love her as you propose to do, but a young +girl ought not to do anything of the sort." + +Anna turned away with a quick movement of impatience and walked on. "If +you argue on the young girl basis," she said, "we shall never be able to +talk about a single thing. When will you leave off about my young +girlishness? In five years I shall be thirty--will you go on till I have +reached that blessed age?" + +"I have no right to go on to you about anything," said Axel. + +"Precisely," said Anna. + +"But please remember that I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to your +uncle, and make allowances for me if I am over-zealous in my anxiety to +shield his niece from possible unpleasantness." + +"Then don't keep telling me I am too young to do good. It is ludicrous, +considering my age, besides being dreadful. You will say that, I +believe, till I am thirty or forty, and then when you can't decently say +it any more, and I still want to do things, you'll say I'm old enough to +know better." + +Axel laughed. Anna's dimples appeared for an instant, but vanished +again. + +"Now," she said, "I am not going to talk about poor little Else any +more. Let her distant relations dance till they are tired--it concerns +nobody here at all." + +"Little Else?" + +"The baroness. Of course we shall call each other by our Christian +names. We are sisters." + +"I see." + +"You don't see at all," she said, with a swift sideward glance at him. + +"My dear Miss Estcourt----" + +"If my plan succeeds it will certainly not be because I have been +encouraged." + +"I think," he said with sudden warmth, "that the plan is beautiful, and +could only have been made by a beautiful nature." + +"Oh?" ejaculated Anna, surprised. A flush of gratification came into her +face. The heartiness of the tone surprised her even more than the words. +She stood still to look at him. "It is a pity," she said softly, "that +nearly always when we are together we get angry, for you can be so kind +when you choose. Say nice things to me. Let us be happy. I love being +happy." + +She held out her hand, smiling. He took it and gave it a hearty, matter +of fact shake, and dropped it. It was very awkward, but he was +struggling with an overpowering desire to take her in his arms and kiss +her, and not let her go again till she had said she would marry him. It +was exceedingly awkward, for he knew quite well that if he did so it +would be the end of all things. + +He turned rather white, and thrust his hands deep into his pockets. +"Yes, the plan is beautiful," he said cheerfully, "but very unpractical. +And the nature that made it is, I am sure, beautiful, but of course +quite as unpractical as the plan." And he smiled down at her, a broad, +genial smile. + +"I know I don't set about things the right way," she said. "If only you +wouldn't worry about the pasts of my poor friends and what their +relations may have done in pre-historic times, you could help me so +much." + +To his relief she began to walk on again. "Princess Ludwig is a sensible +and experienced woman," he said, "and can help you in many ways that I +cannot." + +"But she only looks at the _praktische_ side of a question, and that is +really only one side. I am too unpractical, I know, but she isn't +unpractical enough. But I don't want to talk about her. What I wanted to +say was, that once these poor ladies have been chosen and are here, the +time for making inquiries is over, isn't it? As far as I am concerned, +anyhow, it is. I shall never forsake them, never, _never_. So please +don't try to tell me things about them--it doesn't change my feelings +towards them, and only makes me angry with you. Which is a pity. I want +to live at peace with my neighbour." + +"Well?" he said, as she paused. "That, I take it, is a prelude to +something else." + +"Yes, it is. It's a prelude to Karlchen." + +"To Karlchen?" + +She looked at him, and laughed rather nervously. "I am afraid," she +said, "that Karlchen is coming to stay with me." + +"And who, pray, is Karlchen?" + +"The only son of his mother, and she is a widow." + +He came to a standstill again. "What," he said, "Frau von Treumann has +asked you to invite her son to Kleinwalde?" + +"She didn't actually ask, but she got a sad letter from him, and seemed +to feel the separation so much, and cried about it, and so--and so I +did." + +Axel was silent. + +"I don't yearn to see Karlchen," said Anna in rather a small voice. She +could not help feeling that the invitation had been wrung from her. + +Axel bored a hole in the moss with his stick, and did not answer. + +"But naturally his poor mother clings to him, and he to her." + +Axel was intent on his hole and did not answer. + +"They are all the world to each other." + +Axel filled up his hole again, and pressed the moss carefully over it +with his foot. Then he said, "I never yet heard of two Treumanns being +all the world to each other." + +"You appear to have a down on the Treumanns." + +"Not in the least. I do not think they interest me enough. It is an East +Prussian Junker family that has spread beyond its natural limits, and +one meets them everywhere, and knows their characteristics. What is this +young man? I do not remember having heard of him." + +"He is an officer at Rislar." + +"At Rislar? Those are the red hussars. Do you wish me to make inquiries +about him?" + +"Oh, no. It's no use. His mother can't be happy without him, so he must +come." + +"Then may I ask why, if I am not to help you in the matter, we are +talking about him at all?" + +"I wanted to ask you whether--whether you think he will come often." + +"I should think," said Axel positively, "that he will come very often +indeed." + +"Oh!" said Anna. + +They walked on in silence. + +"Have you considered," he said presently, "what you would do if your +other--sisters want their relations asked down to stay with them? +Christmas, for instance, is a time of general rejoicing, when the +coldest hearts grow warm. Relations who have quarrelled all the year, +seek each other out at Christmas and talk tearfully of ties of blood. +And birthdays--will your twelve sisters be content to spend their twelve +birthdays remote from all members of their family? Birthdays here are +important days. There will be one a month now for you to celebrate at +Kleinwalde." + +"I have not got farther than considering Karlchen," said Anna with some +impatience. + +"A male Kuhräuber," said Axel musingly, swinging his stick and gazing up +at the fleecy clouds floating over the pine tops, "a male Kuhräuber +would be quite unlike anything you have yet seen." + +"There are no male Kuhräubers," said Anna. "At least," she added, +correcting herself, "Fräulein Kuhräuber said so. She said she had no +relations at all, but perhaps--perhaps she has forgotten some, and will +remember them by and by. Oh, I wish they would tell me exactly how they +stand, and not try to hide anything! I thought we had left nothing +unexplained in the letters, but now Karlchen--it seems----" She stopped +and bit her lip. She was actually on the verge of criticising, to Axel, +the behaviour of her sisters. "Look," she said, catching sight of red +roofs through the thinning trees, "isn't that Lohm? I have seen you home +without knowing it." + +She held out her hand. "It isn't much good talking, is it?" she said, +moved by a sudden impulse, and looking up at him with a slightly wistful +smile. "How we talk and talk and never get any nearer anything or each +other. Such an amount of explaining oneself, and all no use. I don't +mean you and me especially--it is always so, with everyone and +everywhere. It is very weird. Good-bye." + +But he held her hand and would not let her go. "No," he said, in a voice +she did not know, "wait one moment. Why will you not let me really help +you? Do you think you will ever achieve anything by shutting your eyes +to what is true? Is it not better to face it, and then to do one's +best--after that, knowing the truth? Why are you angry whenever I try to +tell you the truth, or what I believe to be the truth about these +ladies? You are certain to find it out for yourself one day. You force +me to look on and see you being disappointed, and grieved, and perhaps +cheated--anyhow your confidence abused--and you reduce our talks +together to a sort of sparring match unworthy, quite unworthy of either +of us----" He broke off abruptly and released her hand. The passion in +his voice was unmistakable, and she was listening with astonished eyes. +"I am lecturing you," he said in his usual even tones, "Forgive me for +thinking that you are setting about your plan in a way that can never be +successful. As you say, we talk and talk, and the more we talk the less +do we understand each other. It is a foolish world, and a pre-eminently +lonely one." + +He lifted his hat and turned away. Anna opened her lips to say +something, but he was gone. + +She went home and meditated on volcanoes. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +The May that year in Northern Germany was the May of a poet's dream. The +days were like a chain of pearls, increasing in beauty and preciousness +as the chain lengthened. The lilacs flowered a fortnight earlier than in +other years. The winds, so restless usually on those flat shores, seemed +all asleep, and hardly stirred. About the middle of the month the moon +was at the full, and the forest became enchanted ground. It was a time +for love and lovers, for vows and kisses, for all pretty, happy, hopeful +things. Only those farmers who were too old to love and vow, looked at +their rye fields and grumbled because there was no rain. + +Karlchen, arriving on the first Saturday of that blessed month, felt all +disposed to love, if the _Engländerin_ should turn out to be in the +least degree lovable. He did not ask much of a young woman with a +fortune, but he inwardly prayed that she might not be quite so ugly as +wives with money sometimes are. He was a man used to having what he +wanted, and had spent his own and his mother's money in getting it. +There was a little bald patch on the top of his head, and there were +many debts on his mind, and he was nearing the critical point in an +officer's career, the turning of which is reserved exclusively for the +efficient; and so he had three excellent reasons for desiring to marry. +He had desired it, indeed, for some time, had attempted it often, and +had not achieved it. The fathers of wealthy German girls knew the state +of his finances with an exactitude that was unworthy; and they knew, +besides, every one of his little weaknesses. As a result, they gave +their daughters to other suitors. But here was a girl without a father, +who knew nothing about him at all. There was, of course, some story in +the background to account for her living in this way; but that was +precisely what would make her glad of a husband who would relieve her of +the necessity of building up the weaker parts of her reputation on a +foundation of what Karlchen, when he saw the inmates of the house, +rudely stigmatised as _alte Schachteln_. Reputations, he reflected, +staring at Fräulein Kuhräuber, may be too dearly bought. Naturally she +would prefer an easy-going husband, who would let her see life with all +its fun, to this dreary and aimless existence. + +The Treumanns, he thought, were in luck. What a burden his mother had +been on him for the last five years! Miss Estcourt had relieved him of +it. Now there were his debts, and she would relieve him of those; and +the little entanglement she must have had at home would not matter in +Germany, where no one knew anything about her, except that she was the +highly respectable Joachim's niece. Anyway, he was perfectly willing to +let bygones be bygones. He left his bag at the inn at Kleinwalde, an +impossible place as he noted with pleasure, sent away his _Droschke_, +and walked round to the house; but he did not see Anna. She kept out of +the way till the evening, and he had ample time to be happy with his +mother. When he did see her, he fell in love with her at once. He had +quite a simple nature, composed wholly of instincts, and fell in love +with an ease acquired by long practice. Anna's face and figure were far +prettier than he had dared to hope. She was a beauty, he told himself +with much satisfaction. Truly the Treumanns were in luck. He entirely +forgot the _rĂ´le_ he was to play of loving son, and devoted himself, +with his habitual artlessness, to her. Indeed, if he had not forgotten +it, he and his mother were so little accustomed to displays of affection +that they would have been but clumsy actors. There is a great difference +between affectionate letters written quietly in one's room, and +affectionate conversation that has to sound as though it welled up from +one's heart. Nothing of the kind ever welled up from Karlchen's heart; +and Anna noticed at once that there were no signs of unusual attachment +between mother and son. Karlchen was not even commonly polite to his +mother, nor did she seem to expect him to be. When she dropped her +scissors, she had to pick them up for herself. When she lost her +thimble, she hunted for it alone. When she wanted a footstool, she got +up and fetched one from under his very nose. When she came into the room +and looked about for a chair, it was Letty who offered her hers. +Karlchen sat comfortably with his legs crossed, playing with the +paper-knife he had taken out of the book Anna had been reading, and +making himself pleasant. He had his mother's large black eyes, and very +long thick black eyelashes of which he was proud, conscious that they +rested becomingly on his cheeks when he looked down at the paper-knife. +Letty was greatly struck by them, and inquired of Miss Leech in a +whisper whether she had ever seen their like. + +"Mr. Jessup had silken eyelashes too," replied Miss Leech dreamily. + +"These aren't silk--they're cotton eyelashes," said Letty scornfully. + +"My dear Letty," murmured Miss Leech. + +Anna was at a disadvantage because of her imperfect German. She could +not repress Karlchen when he was unduly kind as she would have done in +English, and with his mother presiding, as it were, at their opening +friendship, she did not like to begin by looking lofty. Luckily the +princess was unusually chatty that evening. She sat next to Karlchen, +and continually joined in the talk. She was cheerful amiability itself, +and insisted upon being told all about those sons of her acquaintances +who were in his regiment. When he half turned his back on her and +dropped his voice to a rapid undertone, thereby making himself +completely incomprehensible to Anna, the princess pleasantly advised him +to speak very slowly and distinctly, for unless he did Miss Estcourt +would certainly not understand. In a word, she took him under her wing +whether he would or no, and persisted in her friendliness in spite of +his mother's increasingly desperate efforts to draw her into +conversation. + +"Why do we not go out, dear Anna?" cried Frau von Treumann at last, +unable to endure Princess Ludwig's behaviour any longer. "Look what a +fine evening it is--and quite warm." And she who till then had gone +about shutting windows, and had been unable to bear the least breath of +air, herself opened the glass doors leading into the garden and went +out. + +But although they all followed her, nothing was gained by it. She +could have stamped her foot with rage at the princess's conduct. +Here was everything needful for the beginning of a successful +courtship--starlight, a murmuring sea, warm air, fragrant bushes, a girl +who looked like Love itself in the dusk in her pale beauty, a young man +desiring nothing better than to be allowed to love her, and a mother +only waiting to bless. But here too, unfortunately, was the princess. + +She was quite appallingly sociable--"The spite of the woman!" thought +Frau von Treumann, for what could it matter to her?--and remained fixed +at Anna's side as they paced slowly up and down the grass, monopolising +Karlchen's attention with her absurd questions about his brother +officers. Anna walked between them, thinking of other things, holding up +her trailing white dress with one hand, and with the other the edges of +her blue cloak together at her neck. She was half a head taller than +Karlchen, and so was his mother, who walked on his other side. Karlchen, +becoming more and more enamoured the longer he walked, looked up at her +through his eyelashes and told himself that the Treumanns were certainly +in luck, for he had stumbled on a goddess. + +"The grass is damp," cried Frau von Treumann, interrupting the endless +questions. "My dear princess--your rheumatism--and I who so easily get +colds. Come, we will go off the grass--we are not young enough to risk +wet feet." + +"I do not feel it," said the princess, "I have thick shoes. But you, +dear Frau von Treumann, do not stay if you have fears." + +"It _is_ damp," said Anna, turning up the sole of her shoe. "Shall we go +on to the path?" + +On the path it was obvious that they must walk in couples. Arrived at +its edge, the princess stopped and looked round with an urbane smile. +"My dear child," she said to Anna, taking her arm, "we have been keeping +Herr von Treumann from his mother regardless of his feelings. I beg you +to pardon my thoughtlessness," she added, turning to him, "but my +interest in hearing of my old friends' sons has made me quite forget +that you took this long journey to be with your dear mother. We will not +interrupt you further. Come, my dear, I wanted to ask you----" And she +led Anna away, dropping her voice to a confidential questioning +concerning the engaging of a new cook. + +There was nothing to be done. The only crumb of comfort Karlchen +obtained--but it was a big one--was a reluctantly given invitation, on +his mother's vividly describing at the hour of parting the place where +he was to spend the night, to remove his luggage from the inn to Anna's +house, and to sleep there. + +"You are too good, _meine Gnädigste_," he said, consoled by this for the +_tĂŞte-Ă -tĂŞte_ he had just had with his mother; "but if it in any way +inconveniences you--we soldiers are used to roughing it----" + +"But not like that, not like that, _lieber Junge_," interrupted his +mother anxiously. "It is not fit for a dog, that inn, and I heard this +very evening from the housemaid that one of the children there has the +measles." + +That quite settled it. Anna could not expose Karlchen to measles. Why +did he not stay, as he had written he would, at Stralsund? As he was +here, however, she could not let him fall a prey to measles, and she +asked the princess to order a room to be got ready. + +It is a proof of her solemnity on that first evening with Karlchen that +when his mother, praising her beauty, mentioned her dimples as specially +bewitching, he should have said, surprised, "What dimples?" + +It is a proof, too, of the duplicity of mothers, that the very next day +in church the princess, sitting opposite the innkeeper's rosy family, +and counting its members between the verses of the hymn, should have +found that not one was missing. + +Karlchen left on Sunday evening after a not very successful visit. He +had been to church, believing that it was expected of him, and had found +to his disgust that Anna had gone for a walk. So there he sat, between +his mother and Princess Ludwig, and extracted what consolation he could +from a studied neglect of the outer forms of worship and an elaborate +slumber during the sermon. + +The morning, then, was wasted. At luncheon Anna was unapproachable. +Karlchen was invited to sit next to his mother, and Anna was protected +by Letty on the one hand and Fräulein Kuhräuber on the other, and she +talked the whole time to Fräulein Kuhräuber. + +"Who _is_ Fräulein Kuhräuber?" he inquired irritably of his mother, when +they found themselves alone together again in the afternoon. + +"Well, you can see who she is, I should think," replied his mother +equally irritably. "She is just Fräulein Kuhräuber, and nothing more." + +"Anna talks to her more than to anyone," he said; she was already "Anna" +to him, _tout court_. + +"Yes. It is disgusting." + +"It is very disgusting. It is not right that Treumanns should be forced +to associate on equal terms with such a person." + +"It is scandalous. But you will change all that." + +Karlchen twisted up the ends of his moustache and looked down his nose. +He often looked down his nose because of his eyelashes. He began to hum +a tune, and felt happy again. Axel Lohm was right when he doubted +whether there had ever been a permanently crushed Treumann. + +"She has a strange assortment of _alte Schachteln_ here," he said, after +a pause during which his thoughts were rosy. "That Elmreich, now. What +relation does she say she is to Arthur Elmreich?" + +"The man who shot himself? Oh, she is no relation at all. At most a +distant cousin." + +"_Na, na_," was Karlchen's reply; a reply whose English equivalent would +be a profoundly sceptical wink. + +His mother looked at him, waiting for more. + +"What do you really think----?" she began, and then stopped. + +He stood before the glass readjusting his moustache into the regulation +truculent upward twist. "Think?" he said. "You know Arthur's sister +Lolli was engaged at the Wintergarten this winter. She was not much of a +success. Too old. But she was down on the bills as Baroness Elmreich, +and people went to see her because of that, and because of her brother." + +"Oh--terrible," murmured Frau von Treumann. + +"Well, I know her; and I shall ask her next time I see her if she has a +sister." + +"But this one has no relations living at all," said his mother, +horrified at the bare suggestion that Lolli was the sister of a person +with whom she ate her dinner every day. + +"_Na, na_," said Karlchen. + +"But my dear Karlchen, it is so unlikely--the baroness is the veriest +pattern of primness. She has such very strict views about all such +things--quite absurdly strict. She even had doubts, she told me, when +first she came here, as to whether Anna were a fit companion for her." + +Karlchen stopped twisting his moustache, and stared at his mother. Then +he threw back his head and shrieked with laughter. He laughed so much +that for some moments he could not speak. His mother's face, as she +watched him without a smile, made him laugh still more. "_Liebste +Mama_," he said at last, wiping his eyes, "it may of course not be true. +It is just possible that it is not. But I feel sure it _is_ true, for +this Elmreich and the little Lolli are as alike as two peas. Anna not a +fit companion for Lolli's sister! _Ach Gott, ach Gott!_" And he shrieked +again. + +"If it is true," said Frau von Treumann, drawing herself up to her full +height, "it is my duty to tell Anna. I cannot stay under the same roof +with such a woman. She must go." + +"Take care," said her son, illumined by an unaccustomed ray of sapience, +"take care, _Mutti_. It is not certain that Anna would send her away." + +"What! if she knew about this--this Lolli, as you call her?" + +Karlchen shook his head. "It is better not to begin with ultimatums," he +said sagely. "If you say you cannot stay under the same roof with the +Elmreich, and she does not after that go, why then you must. And that," +he added, looking alarmed, "would be disastrous. No, no, leave it alone. +In any case leave it alone till I have seen Lolli. I shall come down +soon again, you may be sure. I wish we could get rid of the Penheim. Now +that really would be a good thing. Think it over." + +But Frau von Treumann felt that by no amount of thinking it over would +they ever get rid of the Penheim. + +"You do not like my Karlchen?" she said plaintively to Anna that +evening, coming out into the dusky garden where she stood looking at the +stars. Karlchen was well on his way to Berlin by that time. + +"I am sure I should like him very much if I knew him," replied Anna, +putting all the heartiness she could muster into her voice. + +Frau von Treumann shook her head sadly. "But now? I see you do not like +him now. You hardly spoke to him. He was hurt. A mother"--"Oh," thought +Anna, "I am tired of mothers,"--"a mother always knows." + +Her handkerchief came out. She had put one hand through Anna's arm, and +with the other began to wipe her eyes. Anna watched her in silence. + +"What? What? Tears? Do I see tears? Are we then missing our son so +much?" exclaimed a cheery voice behind them. And there was the princess +again. + +"Serpent," thought Frau von Treumann; but what is the use of thinking +serpent? She had to submit to being consoled all the same, while Anna +walked away. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +Anna seemed always to be walking away during the days that separated +Karlchen's first visit from his second. Frau von Treumann noticed it +with some uneasiness, and hoped that it was only her fancy. The girl had +shown herself possessed of such an abnormally large and warm heart at +first, had been so eager in her offers of affection, so enthusiastic, so +sympathetic, so--well, absurd; was it possible that there was no warmth +and no affection left over from those vast stores for such a +good-looking, agreeable man as Karlchen? But she set such thoughts aside +as ridiculous. Her son's simple doctrine from his fourteenth year on had +been that all girls like all men. It had often been laid down by him in +their talks together, and her own experience of girls had sufficiently +proved its soundness. "The Penheim must have poisoned her mind against +him," she decided at last, unable otherwise to explain the apathy with +which Anna received any news of Karlchen. Was there ever such sheer +spite? For what could it matter to a woman with no son of her own, who +married Anna? Somebody would marry her, for certain, and the Penheim +would lose her place; then why should it not be Karlchen? + +The princess, however, most innocent of excellent women, had never +spoken privately to Anna of Karlchen except once, when she inquired +whether he were to have the best sheets on his bed, or the second best +sheets; and Anna had replied, "The worst." + +But if Frau von Treumann was uneasy about Anna, Anna was still more +uneasy about Frau von Treumann. Whenever she could, she went away into +the forest and tried to think things out. She objected very much to the +feeling that life seemed somehow to be thickening round her--yet, after +Karlchen's visit there it was. Each day there were fewer and fewer quiet +pauses in the trivial bustle of existence; clear moments, like windows +through which she caught glimpses of the serene tranquillity with which +the real day, nature's day, the day she ought to have had, was passing. +Frau von Treumann followed her about and talked to her of Karlchen. +Fräulein Kuhräuber followed her about, with a humble, dog-like +affection, and seemed to want to tell her something, and never got +further than dark utterances that perplexed her. Baroness Elmreich +repulsed all her advances, carefully called her Miss Estcourt, and made +acid comments on everything that was said and done. "I believe she +dislikes me," thought Anna, puzzled. "I wonder why?" The baroness did; +and the reason was simplicity itself. She disliked her because she was +younger, prettier, richer, healthier than herself. For this she disliked +her heartily; but with far greater heartiness did she dislike her +because she knew she ought to be grateful to her. The baroness detested +having to feel grateful--it is a detestation not confined to +baronesses--and in this case the burden of the obligations she was under +was so great that it was almost past endurance. And there was no escape. +She had been starving when Anna took her in, and she would starve again +if Anna turned her out. She owed her everything; and what more natural, +then, than to dislike her? The rarest of loves is the love of a debtor +for his creditor. + +At night, alone in her room, Anna would wonder at the day lived through, +at the unsatisfactoriness of it, and the emptiness. When were they going +to begin the better life, the soul to soul life she was waiting for? How +busy they had all been, and what had they done? Why, nothing. A little +aimless talking, a little aimless sewing, a little aimless walking +about, a few letters to write that need not have been written, a +newspaper to glance into that did not really interest anybody, meals in +rapid succession, night, and oblivion. That was what was on the surface. +What was beneath the surface she could only guess at; for after a whole +fortnight with the Chosen she was still confronted solely by surfaces. +In the hot forest, drowsy and aromatic, where the white butterflies, +like points of light among the shadows of the pine-trunks, fluttered up +and down the unending avenues all day long, she wandered, during the +afternoon hour when the Chosen napped, to the most out-of-the-way nooks +she could find; and sitting on the moss where she could see some special +bit of loveliness, some distant radiant meadow in the sunlight beyond +the trees, some bush with its delicate green shower of budding leaves at +the foot of a giant pine, some exquisite effect of blue and white +between the branches so far above her head, she would ponder and ponder +till she was weary. + +There was no mistaking Karlchen's looks; she had not been a pretty girl +for several seasons at home in vain. Karlchen meant to marry her. She, +of course, did not mean to marry Karlchen, but that did not smooth any +of the ruggedness out of the path she saw opening before her. She would +have to endure the preliminary blandishments of the wooing, and when the +wooing itself had reached the state of ripeness which would enable her +to let him know plainly her own intentions, there would be a grievous +number of scenes to be gone through with his mother. And then his mother +would shake the Kleinwalde dust from her offended feet and go, and +failure number one would be upon her. In the innermost recesses of her +heart, offensive as Karlchen's wooing would certainly be, she thought +that once it was over it would not have been a bad thing; for, since his +visit, it was clear that Frau von Treumann was not the sort of inmate +she had dreamed of for her home for the unhappy. Unhappy she had +undoubtedly been, poor thing, but happy with Anna she would never be. +She had forgiven the first fibs the poor lady had told her, but she +could not go on forgiving fibs for ever. All those elaborate untruths, +written and spoken, about Karlchen's visit, how dreadful they were. +Surely, thought Anna, truthfulness was not only a lovely and a pleasant +thing but it was absolutely indispensable as the basis to a real +friendship. How could any soul approach another soul through a network +of lies? And then more painful still--she confessed with shame that it +was more painful to her even than the lies--Frau von Treumann evidently +took her for a fool. Not merely for a person wanting in intelligence, or +slow-witted, but for a downright fool. She must think so, or she would +have taken more pains, at least some pains, to make her schemes a little +less transparent. Anna hated herself for feeling mortified by this; but +mortified she certainly was. Even a philosopher does not like to be +honestly mistaken during an entire fortnight for a fool. Though he may +smile, he will almost surely wince. Not being a philosopher, Anna winced +and did not smile. + +"I think," she said to Manske, when he came in one morning with a list +of selected applications, "I think we will wait a little before choosing +the other nine." + +"The gracious one is not weary of well-doing?" he asked quickly. + +"Oh no, not at all; I like well-doing," Anna said rather lamely, "but it +is not quite--not quite as simple as it looks." + +"I have found nine most deserving cases," he urged, "and later there may +not be----" + +"No, no," interrupted Anna, "we will wait. In the autumn, perhaps--not +now. First I must make the ones who are here happy. You know," she said, +smiling, "they came here to be made happy." + +"Yes, truly I know it. And happy indeed must they be in this home, +surrounded by all that makes life fair and desirable." + +"One would think so," said Anna, musing. "It is pretty here, isn't +it--it should be easy to be happy here,--yet I am not sure that they +are." + +"Not sure----?" Manske looked at her, startled. + +"What do people--most people, ordinary people, need, to make them +happy?" she asked wistfully. She was speaking to herself more than to +him, and did not expect any very illuminating answer. + +"The fear of the Lord," he replied promptly; which put an end to the +conversation. + +But besides her perplexities about the Chosen, Anna had other worries. +Dellwig had received the refusal to let him build the brick-kiln with +such insolence, and had, in his anger, said such extraordinary things +about Axel Lohm, that Anna had blazed out too, and had told him he must +go. It had been an unpleasant scene, and she had come out from it white +and trembling. She had intended to ask Axel to do the dismissing for her +if she should ever definitely decide to send him away; but she had been +overwhelmed by a sudden passion of wrath at the man's intolerable +insinuations--only half understood, but sounding for that reason worse +than they were--and had done it herself. Since then she had not seen +him. By the agreement her uncle had made with him, he was entitled to +six months' notice, and would not leave until the winter, and she knew +she could not continue to refuse to see him; but how she dreaded the +next interview! And how uneasy she felt at the thought that the +management of her estate was entirely in the hands of a man who must now +be her enemy. Axel was equally anxious, when he heard what she had done. +It had to be done, of course; but he did not like Dellwig's looks when +he met him. He asked Anna to allow him to ride round her place as often +as he could, and she was grateful to him, for she knew that not only her +own existence, but the existence of her poor friends, depended on the +right cultivation of Kleinwalde. And she was so helpless. What creature +on earth could be more helpless than an English girl in her position? +She left off reading Maeterlinck, borrowed books on farming from Axel, +and eagerly studied them, learning by heart before breakfast long pages +concerning the peculiarities of her two chief products, potatoes and +pigs. + +"He cannot do much harm," Axel assured her; "the potatoes, I see, are +all in, and what can he do to the pigs? His own vanity would prevent his +leaving the place in a bad state. I have heard of a good man--shall I +have him down and interview him for you?" + +"How kind you are," said Anna gratefully; indeed, he seemed to her to be +a tower of strength. + +"Anyone would do what they could to help a forlorn young lady in the +straits you are in," he said, smiling at her. + +"I don't feel like a forlorn young lady with you next door to help me +out of the difficulties." + +"People in these lonely country places learn to be neighbourly," he +replied in his most measured tones. + +He had not again spoken of the Chosen since his walk with her through +the forest; and though he knew that Karlchen had been and gone he did +not mention his name. Nor did Anna. The longer she lived with her +sisters the less did she care to talk about them, especially to Axel. As +for Frau von Treumann's plans, how could she ever tell him of those? + +And just then Letty, the only being who was really satisfactory, became +a cause to her of fresh perplexity. Letty had been strangely content +with her German lessons from Herr Klutz. Every day she and Miss Leech +set out without a murmur, and came back looking placid. They brought +back little offerings from the parsonage, a bunch of narcissus, the +first lilac, cakes baked by Frau Manske, always something. Anna took the +flowers, and ate the cakes, and sent pleased messages in return. If she +had been less preoccupied by Dellwig and the eccentricities of her three +new friends, she would certainly have been struck by Letty's silence +about her lessons, and would have questioned her. There was no grumbling +after the first day, and no abuse of Schiller and the muses. Once Anna +met Klutz walking through Kleinwalde, and asked him how the studies were +progressing. "Colossal," was the reply, "the progress made is colossal." +And he crushed her rings into her fingers when she gave him her hand to +shake, and blushed, and looked at her with eyes that he felt must burn +into her soul. But Anna noticed neither his eyes nor his blush; for his +eyes, whatever he might feel them to be doing, were not the kind that +burn into souls, and he was a pale young man who, when he blushed, did +it only in his ears. They certainly turned crimson as he crushed Anna's +fingers, but she was not thinking of his ears. + +"Frau Manske is too kind," she said, as the nosegays, at first +intermittent, became things of daily occurrence. They grew bigger, too, +every day, attaining such a girth at last that Letty could hardly carry +them. "She must not plunder her garden like this." + +"It is very full of flowers," said Miss Leech. "Really a wonderful +display. The bunch is always ready, tied together and lying on the table +when we arrive. I tried to tell her yesterday that you were afraid she +was spoiling her garden, sending so much, but she did not seem to +understand. She is showing me how to make those cakes you said you +liked." + +"I wish I had some of these in my garden," said Anna, laying her cheek +against the posy of wallflowers Letty had just given her. There was +nothing in her garden except grass and trees; Uncle Joachim had not been +a man of flowers. + +She took them up to her room, kissing them on the way, and put them in a +jar on the window-sill; and it was not until two or three days later, +when they began to fade, that she saw the corner of an envelope peeping +out from among them. She pulled it out and opened it. It was addressed +to _Ihr Hochwohlgeboren Fräulein Anna Estcourt_; and inside was a sheet +of notepaper with a large red heart painted on it, mangled, and pierced +by an arrow; and below it the following poem in a cramped, hardly +readable writing:-- + + The earth am I, and thou the heaven, + The mass am I, and thou the leaven, + No other heaven do I want but thee, + Oh Anna, Anna, Anna, pity me! + + AUGUST KLUTZ, Kandidat. + +In an instant Letty's unnatural cheerfulness about her lessons flashed +across her. _What_ had they been doing, and where was Miss Leech, that +such things could happen? + +It was a very terrible, stern-browed aunt who met Letty that day on the +stairs when she came home. + +"Hullo, Aunt Anna, seen a ghost?" Letty inquired pleasantly; but her +heart sank into her boots all the same as she followed her into her +room. + +"Look," said Anna, showing her the paper, "how could you do it? For of +course you did it. Herr Klutz doesn't speak English." + +"Doesn't he though--he gets on like anything. He sits up all night----" + +"How is it that _this_ was possible?" interrupted Anna, striking the +paper with her hand. + +"It's pretty, isn't it," said Letty, faintly grinning. "The last line +had to be changed a little. It isn't original, you know, except the +Annas. I put in those. That footman mother got cheap because he had one +finger too few sent it to Hilton on her birthday last year--she liked it +awfully. The last line was 'Oh Hilton, Hilton, Hilton----'" + +"_How_ came you to talk such hideous nonsense with Herr Klutz, and about +me?" + +"I didn't. He began. He talked about you the whole time, and started +doing it the very first day Leechy cooked." + +"Cooked?" + +"She is always in the kitchen with Frau Manske. We brought you some of +the cakes one day, and you seemed as pleased as anything." + +"And instead of learning German you and he have been making up this sort +of thing?" + +Anna's voice and eyes frightened Letty. She shifted from one foot to the +other and looked down sullenly. "What's the good of being angry?" she +said, addressing the carpet; "it's only Mr. Jessup over again. Leechy +wasn't angry with Mr. Jessup. She was frightfully pleased. She says it's +the greatest compliment a person can pay anybody, going on about them +like Herr Klutz does, and talking rot." + +Anna stared at her, bewildered. "Mr. Jessup?" she repeated. "And do you +mean to tell me that Miss Leech knows of this--this disgusting +nonsense?" She held the mangled heart at arm's length, crushing it in +her hand. + +"I say, you'll spoil it. He worked at it for days. There weren't any +paints red enough for the wound, and he had to go to Stralsund on +purpose. He thought no end of it." And Letty, scared though she was, +could not resist giggling a little. + +"Do you mean to tell me that Miss Leech knows about this?" insisted +Anna. + +"Rather not. It's a secret. He made me promise faithfully never to tell +a soul. Of course it doesn't matter talking to you, because you're one +of the persons concerned. You can't be married, you know, without +knowing about it, so I'm not breaking my promise talking to you----" + +"Married? What unutterable rubbish have you got into your head?" + +"That's what I said--or something like it. I said it was jolly rot. He +said, 'What's rot?' I said 'That.'" + +"But what?" asked Anna angrily. She longed to shake her. + +"Why, that about marrying you. I told him it was rot, and I was sure you +wouldn't, but as he didn't know what rot was, it wasn't much good. He +hunted it out in the dictionary, and still he didn't know." + +Anna stood looking at her with indignant eyes. "You don't know what you +have done," she said, "evidently you don't. It is a dreadful thing that +the moment Miss Leech leaves you you should begin to talk of such +things--such horrid things--with a stranger. A little girl of your +age----" + +"I didn't begin," whimpered Letty, overcome by the wrath in Anna's +voice. + +"But all this time you have been going on with it, instead of at once +telling Miss Leech or me." + +"I never met a--a lover before--I thought it--great fun." + +"Then all those flowers were from him?" + +"Ye--es." Letty was in tears. + +"He thought I knew they were from him?" + +No answer. + +"Did he?" insisted Anna. + +"Ye--es." + +"You are a very wicked little girl," said Anna, with awful sternness. +"You have been acting untruths every day for ages, which is just as bad +as telling them. I don't believe you have an idea of the horridness of +what you have done--I hope you have not. Of course your lessons at Lohm +have come to an end. You will not go there again. Probably I shall send +you home to your mother. I am nearly sure that I shall. Go away." And +she pointed to the door. + +That night neither Letty nor Miss Leech appeared at supper; both were +shut up in their rooms in tears. Miss Leech was quite unable to forgive +herself. It was all her fault, she felt. She had been appalled when Anna +showed her the heart and told her what had been going on while she was +learning to cook in Frau Manske's kitchen. "Such a quiet, +respectable-looking young man!" she exclaimed, horror-stricken. "And +about to take holy orders!" + +"Well, you see he isn't quiet and respectable at all," said Anna. "He is +unusually enterprising, and quite without morals. Only a demoralised +person would take advantage of a poor little pupil in that way." + +She lit a candle, and burnt the heart. "There," she said, when it was in +ashes, "that's the end of that. Heaven knows what Letty has been led +into saying, or what ideas he has put into her head. I can't bear to +think of it. I hadn't the courage to cross-question her much--I was +afraid I should hear something that would make me too angry, and I'd +have to tell the parson. Anyhow, dear Miss Leech, we will not leave her +alone again, ever, will we? I don't suppose a thing like this will +happen twice, but we won't let it have a chance, will we? Now don't be +too unhappy. Tell me about Mr. Jessup." + +It was Miss Leech's fault, Anna knew; but she so evidently knew it +herself, and was so deeply distressed, that rebukes were out of the +question. She spent the evening and most of the night in useless +laments, while, in the room adjoining, Letty lay face downwards on her +bed, bathed in tears. For Letty's conscience was in a grievous state of +tumult. She had meant well, and she had done badly. She had not thought +her aunt would be angry--was she not in full possession of the facts +concerning Mr. Jessup's courtship? And had not Miss Leech said that no +higher honour could be paid to a woman than to fall in love with her and +make her an offer of marriage? Herr Klutz, it is true, was not the sort +of person her aunt could marry, for her aunt was stricken in years, and +he looked about the same age as her brother Peter; besides, he was +clearly, thought Letty, of the guttersnipe class, a class that bit its +nails and never married people's aunts. But, after all, her aunt could +always say No when the supreme moment arrived, and nobody ought to be +offended because they had been fallen in love with, and he was +frightfully in love, and talked the most awful rot. Nor had she +encouraged him. On the contrary, she had discouraged him; but it was +precisely this discouragement, so virtuously administered, that lay so +heavily on her conscience as she lay so heavily on her bed. She had been +proud of it till this interview with her aunt; since then it had taken +on a different complexion, and she was sure, dreadfully sure, that if +her aunt knew of it she would be very angry indeed--much, much angrier +than she was before. Letty rolled on her bed in torments; for the +discouragement administered to Klutz had been in the form of poetry, and +poetry written on her aunt's notepaper, and purporting to come from her. +She had meant so well, and what had she done? When no answer came by +return to his poem hidden in the wallflowers, he had refused to believe +that the bouquet had reached its destination. "There has been +treachery," he cried; "you have played me false." And he seemed to fold +up with affliction. + +"I gave it to her all right. She hasn't found the letter yet," said +Letty, trying to comfort, and astonished by the loudness of his grief. +"It's all right--you wait a bit. She liked the flowers awfully, and +kissed them." + +"Poor young lover," she thought romantically, "his heart must not bleed +too much. Aunt Anna, if she ever does find the letter, will only send +him a rude answer. I will answer it for her, and gently discourage him." +For if the words that proceeded from Letty's mouth were inelegant, her +thoughts, whenever they dwelt on either Mr. Jessup or Herr Klutz, were +invariably clothed in the tender language of sentiment. + +And she had sat up till very late, composing a poem whose mission was +both to discourage and console. It cost her infinite pains, but when it +was finished she felt that it had been worth them all. She copied it out +in capital letters on Anna's notepaper, folded it up carefully, and tied +it with one of her own hair-ribbons to a little bunch of +lilies-of-the-valley she had gathered for the purpose in the forest. + +This was the poem:-- + + It is a matter of regret + That circumstances won't + Allow me to call thee my pet, + But as it is they don't. + + For why? My many years forbid, + And likewise thy position. + So take advice, and strive amid + Thy tears for meek submission. + + ANNA. + +And this poem was, at that very moment, as she well knew, in Herr +Klutz's waistcoat pocket. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +The ordinary young man, German or otherwise, hungrily emerging from +boyhood into a toothsome world made to be eaten, cures himself of his +appetite by indulging it till he is ill, and then on a firm foundation +of his own foolish corpse, or, as the poet puts it, of his dead self, +begins to build up the better things of his later years. + +Klutz was an ordinary young man, and arrived at early manhood as hungry +as his fellows; but his father was a parson, his grandfather had been a +parson, his uncles were all parsons, and Fate, coming cruelly to him in +the gloomy robes of the Lutheran Church, his natural follies had had no +opportunity of getting out, developing, and dissolving, but remained +shut up in his heart, where they amused themselves by seething +uninterruptedly, to his great discomfort, while the good parson, in +whose care he was, talked to him of the world to come. + +"The world to come," thought Klutz, hungering and thirsting for a taste +of the world in which he was, "may or may not be very well in its way; +but its way is not my way." And he listened in a silence that might be +taken either for awed or bored to Manske's expatiations. Manske, of +course, interpreted it as awed. "Our young vicar," he said to his wife, +"thinks much. He is serious and contemplative beyond his years. He is +not a man of many and vain words." To which his wife replied only by a +sniff of scepticism. + +She had no direct proofs that Klutz was not serious and contemplative, +but during his first winter in their house he had fallen into her bad +graces because of a certain indelicately appreciative attitude he +displayed towards her apple jelly. Not that she grudged him apple jelly +in just quantities; both she and her husband were fond of it, and the +eating of it was luckily one of those pleasures whose indulgence is +innocent. But there are limits beyond which even jelly becomes vicious, +and these limits Herr Klutz continually overstepped. Every autumn she +made a sufficient number of pots of it to last discreet appetites a +whole year. There had always been vicars in their house, and there had +never been a dearth of jelly. But this year, so early as Easter, there +were only two pots left. She could not conveniently lock it up and +refuse to produce any, for then she and her husband would not have it +themselves; so all through the winter she had watched the pots being +emptied one after the other, and the thinner the rows in her storeroom +grew, the more pronounced became her conviction that Klutz's piety was +but skin deep. A young man who could behave in so unbridled a fashion +could not be really serious; there was something, she thought, that +smacked suspiciously of the flesh and the devil about such conduct. +Great, then, was her astonishment when, the penultimate pot being placed +at Easter on the table, Klutz turned from it with loathing. Nor did he +ever look at apple jelly again; nor did he, of other viands, eat enough +to keep him in health. He who had been so voracious forgot his meals, +and had to be coaxed before he would eat at all. He spent his spare time +writing, sitting up sometimes all night, and consuming candles at the +same head-long rate with which he had previously consumed the jelly; and +when towards May her husband once more commented on his seriousness, +Frau Manske's conscience no longer permitted her to sniff. + +"You must be ill," she said to him at last, on a day when he had sat +through the meals in silence and had refused to eat at all. + +"Ill!" burst out Klutz, whose body and soul seemed both to be in one +fierce blaze of fever, "I am sick--sick even unto death." + +And he did feel sick. Only two days had elapsed since he had received +Anna's poem and had been thrown by it into a tumult of delight and +triumph; for the discouragement it contained had but encouraged him the +more, appearing to be merely the becoming self-depreciation of a woman +before him who has been by nature appointed lord. He was perfectly ready +to overlook the obstacles to their union to which she alluded. She could +not help her years; there were, truly, more of them than he would have +wished, but luckily they were not visible on that still lovely face. As +to position, he supposed she meant that he was not _adelig_; but a man, +he reflected, compared to a woman, is always _adelig_, whatever his name +may be, by virtue of his higher and nobler nature. He had been for +rushing at once to Kleinwalde; but his pupil and confidant had said +"Don't," and had said it with such energy that for that day at least he +had resisted. And now, the very morning of the day on which the Frau +Pastor was asking him whether he were ill, he had received a curt note +from Miss Leech, informing him that Miss Letty Estcourt would for the +present discontinue her German studies. What had happened? Even the +poem, lying warm on his heart, was not able to dispel his fears. He had +flown at once to Kleinwalde, feeling that it was absurd not to follow +the dictates of his heart and cast himself in person at Anna's no doubt +expectant feet, and the door had been shut in his face--rudely shut, by +a coarse servant, whose manner had so much enraged him that he had +almost shown her the precious verses then and there, to convince her of +his importance in that house; indeed, the only consideration that +restrained him was a conviction of her ignorance of the English tongue. + +"Would you like to see the doctor?" inquired Frau Manske, startled by +his looks and words; perhaps he had caught something infectious; an +infectious vicar in the house would be horrible. + +"The doctor!" cried Klutz; and forthwith quoted the German rendering of +the six lines beginning, Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased. + +Frau Manske was seriously alarmed. Not aware that he was quoting, she +was horrified to hear him calling her _Du_, a privilege confined to +lovers, husbands, and near relations, and asking her questions that she +was sure no decent vicar would ever ask the respectable mother of a +family. "I am sure you ought to see the doctor," she said nervously, +getting up hastily and going to the door. + +"No, no," said Klutz; "the doctor does not exist who can help me." + +His hand went to the breast-pocket containing the poem, and he fingered +it feverishly. He longed to show it to Frau Manske, to translate it for +her, to let her see what the young Kleinwalde lady, joint patron with +Herr von Lohm of her husband's living, thought of him. + +"I will ask my husband about the doctor," persisted Frau Manske, +disappearing with unusual haste. If she had stayed one minute longer he +would have shown her the poem. + +Klutz did not wait to hear what the pastor said, but crushed his felt +hat on to his head and started for a violent walk. He would go through +Kleinwalde, past the house; he would haunt the woods; he would wait +about. It was a hot, gusty May afternoon, and the wind that had been +quiet so long was blowing up the dust in clouds; but he hurried along +regardless of heat and wind and dust, with an energy surprising in one +who had eaten nothing all day. Love had come to him very turbulently. He +had been looking for it ever since he left school; but his watchful +parents had kept him in solitary places, empty, uninhabited places like +Lohm, places where the parson's daughters were either married or were +still tied on the cushions of infancy. Sometimes he had been invited, as +a great condescension, to the Dellwigs' Sunday parties; and there too he +had looked around for Love. But the company consisted solely of stout +farmers' wives, ladies of thirty, forty, fifty--of a dizzy antiquity, +that is, and their talk was of butter-making and sausages, and they +cared not at all for Love. "Oh, Love, Love, Love, where shall I find +thee?" he would cry to the stars on his way home through the forest +after these evenings; but the stars twinkled coldly on, obviously +profoundly indifferent as to whether he found it or not. His chest of +drawers was full of the poems into which he had poured the emotions of +twenty, the emotions and longings that well-fed, unoccupied twenty +mistakes for soul. And then the English Miss had burst upon his gaze, +sitting in her carriage on that stormy March day, smiling at him from +the very first, piercing his heart through and through with eyes that +many persons besides Klutz saw were lovely, and so had he found Love, +and for ever lost his interest in apple jelly. + +It was a confident, bold Love, with more hopes than fears, more +assurance than misgivings. The poem seemed to burn his pocket, so +violently did he long to show it round, to tell everyone of his good +fortune. The lilies-of-the-valley to which it had been tied and that he +wore since all day long in his coat, were hardly brown, and yet he was +tired already of having such a secret to himself. What advantage was +there in being told by the lady of Kleinwalde that she regretted not +being able to call him _Lämmchen_ or _Schätzchen_ (the alternative +renderings his dictionary gave of "pet") if no one knew it? + +When he reached the house he walked past it at a snail's pace, staring +up at the blank, repellent windows. Not a soul was to be seen. He went +on discontentedly. What should he do? The door had been shut in his face +once already that day, why he could not imagine. He hesitated, and +turned back. He would try again. Why not? The Miss would have scolded +the servant roundly when she heard that the person who dwelt in her +thoughts as a _Lämmchen_ had been turned away. He went boldly round the +grass plot in front of the house and knocked. + +The same servant appeared. Instantly on seeing him she slammed the door, +and called out "_Nicht zu Haus!_" + +"_Ekelhaftes Benehmen!_" cried Klutz aloud, flaming into sudden passion. +His mind, never very strong, had grown weaker along with his body during +these exciting days of love and fasting. A wave of fury swept over him +as he stood before the shut door and heard the servant going away; and +hardly knowing what he did, he seized the knocker, and knocked and +knocked till the woods rang. + +There was a sound of hurried footsteps on the path behind him, and +turning his head, his hand still knocking, he saw Dellwig running +towards him. + +"_Nanu!_" cried Dellwig breathlessly, staring in blankest astonishment. +"What in the devil's name are you making this noise for? Is the parson +on fire?" + +Klutz stared back in a dazed sort of way, his fury dying out at once in +the presence of the stronger nature; then, because he was twenty, and +because he was half-starved, and because he felt he was being cruelly +used, there on Anna's doorstep, in the full light of the evening sun, +with Dellwig's eyes upon him, he burst into a torrent of tears. + +"Well of all--what's wrong at Lohm, you great sheep?" asked Dellwig, +seizing his arm and giving him a shake. + +Klutz signified by a movement of his head that nothing was wrong at +Lohm. He was crying like a baby, into a red pocket-handkerchief, and +could not speak. + +Dellwig, still gripping his arm, stared at him a moment in silence; then +he turned him round, pushed him down the steps, and walked him off. +"Come along, young man," he said, "I want some explanation of this. If +you are mad you'll be locked up. We don't fancy madmen about our place. +And if you're not mad you'll be fined by the Amtsvorsteher for +disorderly conduct. Knocking like that at a lady's door! I wonder you +didn't kick it in, while you were about it. It's a good thing the +_Herrschaften_ are out." + +Klutz really felt ill. He leaned on Dellwig's arm and let himself be +helped along, the energy gone out of him with the fury. "You have never +loved," was all he said, wiping his eyes. + +"Oh that's it, is it? It is love that made you want to break the +knocker? Why didn't you go round to the back? Which of them is it? The +cook, of course. You look hungry. A Kandidat crying after a cook!" And +Dellwig laughed loud and long. + +"The cook!" cried Klutz, galvanised by the word into life. "The cook!" +He thrust a shaking hand into his breast-pocket and dragged it out, the +precious paper, unfolding it with trembling fingers, and holding it +before Dellwig's eyes. "So much for your cooks," he said, tremulously +triumphant. They were in the road, out of sight of the house. Dellwig +took the paper and held it close to his eyes. "What's this?" he asked, +scrutinising it. "It is not German." + +"It is English," said Klutz. + +"What, the governess----?" + +Klutz merely pointed to the name at the end. Oh, the sweetness of that +moment! + +"Anna?" read out Dellwig, "Anna? That is Miss Estcourt's name." + +"It is," said Klutz, his tears all dried up. + +"It seems to be poetry," said Dellwig slowly. + +"It is," said Klutz. + +"Why have you got it?" + +"Why indeed! It's mine. She sent it to me. She wrote it for me. These +flowers----" + +"Miss Estcourt? Sent it to you? Poetry? To _you_?" Dellwig looked up +from the paper at Klutz, and examined him slowly from head to foot as if +he had never seen him before. His expression while he did it was not +flattering, but Klutz rarely noticed expressions. "What's it all about?" +he asked, when he had reached Klutz's boots, by which he seemed struck, +for he looked at them twice. + +"Love," said Klutz proudly. + +"Love?" + +"Let me come home with you," said Klutz eagerly, "I'll translate it +there. I can't here where we might be disturbed." + +"Come on, then," said Dellwig, walking off at a great pace with the +paper in his hand. + +Just as they were turning into the farmyard the rattle of a carriage was +heard coming down the road. "Stop," said Dellwig, laying his hand on +Klutz's arm, "the _Herrschaften_ have been drinking coffee in the +woods--here they are, coming home. You can get a greeting if you wait." + +They both stood on the edge of the road, and the carriage with Anna and +a selection from her house-party drove by. Dellwig and Klutz swept off +their hats. When Anna saw Klutz she turned scarlet--undeniably, +unmistakably scarlet--and looked away quickly. Dellwig's lips shaped +themselves into a whistle. "Come in, then," he said, glancing at Klutz, +"come in and translate your poem." + +Seldom had Klutz passed more delicious moments than those in which he +rendered Letty's verses into German, with both the Dellwigs drinking in +his words. The proud and exclusive Dellwigs! A month ago such a thing +would have been too wild a flight of fancy for the most ambitious dream. +In the very room in which he had been thrust aside at parties, forgotten +in corners, left behind when the others went in to supper, he was now +sitting the centre of interest, with his former supercilious hosts +hanging on his words. When he had done, had all too soon come to the end +of his delightful task, he looked round at them triumphantly; and his +triumph was immediately dashed out of him by Dellwig, who said with his +harshest laugh, "Put aside all your hopes, young man--Miss Estcourt is +engaged to Herr von Lohm." + +"Engaged? To Herr von Lohm?" Klutz echoed stupidly, his mouth open and +the hand holding the verses dropping limply to his side. + +"Engaged, engaged, engaged," Dellwig repeated in a loud sing-song, "not +openly, but all the same engaged." + +"It is truly scandalous!" cried his wife, greatly excited, and firmly +believing that the verses were indeed Anna's. Was she not herself of the +race of _Weiber_, and did she not therefore well know what they were +capable of? + +"Silence, Frau!" commanded Dellwig. + +"And she takes my flowers--my daily offerings, floral and poetical, and +she sends me these verses--and all the time she is betrothed to someone +else?" + +"She is," said Dellwig with another burst of laughter, for Klutz's face +amused him intensely. He got up and slapped him on the shoulder. "This +is your first experience of _Weiber_, eh? Don't waste your heartaches +over her. She is a young lady who likes to have her little joke and +means no harm----" + +"She is a person without shame!" cried his wife. + +"Silence, Frau!" snapped Dellwig. "Look here, young man--why, what does +he look like, sitting there with all the wind knocked out of him? Get +him a glass of brandy, Frau, or we shall have him crying again. Sit up, +and be a man. Miss Estcourt is not for you, and never will be. Only a +vicar could ever have dreamed she was, and have been imposed upon by +this poetry stuff. But though you're a vicar you're a man, eh? Here, +drink this, and tell us if you are not a man." + +Klutz feebly tried to push the glass away, but Dellwig insisted. Klutz +was pale to ghastliness, and his eyes were brimming again with tears. + +"Oh, this person! Oh, this Englishwoman! Oh, the shameful treatment of +an estimable young man!" cried Frau Dellwig, staring at the havoc Anna +had wrought. + +"Silence, Frau!" shouted Dellwig, stamping his foot. "You can't be +treated like this," he went on to Klutz, who, used to drinking much milk +at the abstemious parsonage, already felt the brandy running along his +veins like liquid fire, "you can't be made ridiculous and do nothing. A +vicar can't fight, but you must have some revenge." + +Klutz started. "Revenge! Yes, but what revenge?" he asked. + +"Nothing to do with Miss Estcourt, of course. Leave her alone----" + +"Leave her alone?" cried his wife, "what, when she it is----" + +"Silence, Frau!" roared Dellwig. "Leave her alone, I say. You won't gain +anything there, young man. But go to her _Bräutigam_ Lohm and tell him +about it, and show him the stuff. He'll be interested." + +Dellwig laughed boisterously, and took two or three rapid turns up and +down the room. He had not lived with old Joachim and seen much of old +Lohm and the surrounding landowners without having learned something of +their views on questions of honour. Axel Lohm he knew to be specially +strict and strait-laced, to possess in quite an unusual degree the +ideals that Dellwig thought so absurd and so unpractical, the ideals, +that is, of a Christian gentleman. Had he not known him since he was a +child? And he had always been a prig. How would he like Miss Estcourt to +be talked about, as of course she would be talked about? Klutz's mouth +could not be stopped, and the whole district would know what had been +going on. Axel Lohm could not and would not marry a young lady who wrote +verses to vicars; and if all relations between Lohm and Kleinwalde +ceased, why then life would resume its former pleasant course, he, +Dellwig, staying on at his post, becoming, as was natural, his +mistress's sole adviser, and certainly after due persuasion achieving +all he wanted, including the brick-kiln. The plainness and clearness of +the future was beautiful. He walked up and down the room making odd +sounds of satisfaction, and silencing his wife with vigour every time +she opened her lips. Even his wife, so quick as a rule of comprehension, +had not grasped how this poem had changed their situation, and how it +behoved them now not to abuse their mistress before a mischief-making +young man. She was blinded, he knew, by her hatred of Miss Estcourt. +Women were always the slaves, in defiance of their own interests, to +some emotion or other; if it was not love, then it was hatred. Never +could they wait for anything whatever. The passing passion must out and +be indulged, however fatal the consequences might be. What a set they +were! And the best of them, what fools. He glanced angrily at his wife +as he passed her, but his glance, travelling from her to Klutz, who sat +quite still with head sunk on his chest, legs straight out before him, +the hand with the paper loosely held in it hanging down out of the +cuffless sleeve nearly to the floor, and vacant eyes staring into space, +his good humour returned, and he gave another harsh laugh. "Well?" he +said, standing in front of this dejected figure. "How long will you sit +there? If I were you I'd lose no time. You don't want those two to be +making love and enjoying themselves an hour longer than is necessary, do +you? With you out in the cold? With you so cruelly deceived? And made to +look so ridiculous? I'd spoil that if I were you, at once." + +"Yes, you are right. I'll go to Herr von Lohm and see if I can have an +interview." + +Klutz got up with a great show of determination, put the paper in his +pocket, and buttoned his coat over it for greater security. Then he +hesitated. + +"It _is_ a shameful thing, isn't it?" he said, his eyes on Dellwig's +face. + +"Shameful? It's downright cruel." + +"Shameful?" began his wife. + +"Silence, I tell thee! Young ladies' jokes are sometimes cruel, you see. +I believe it was a joke, but a very heartless one, and one that has made +you look more foolish even than half-fledged pastors of your age +generally do look. It is only fair in return to spoil her game for her. +Take another glass of brandy, and go and do it." + +Klutz stared hard for a moment at Dellwig. Then he seized the brandy, +gulped it down, snatched up his hat, and taking no farewell notice of +either husband or wife, hurried out of the room. They saw him pass +beneath the window, his hat over his eyes, his face white, his ears +aflame. + +"There goes a fool," said Dellwig, rubbing his hands, "and as useful a +one as ever I saw. But here's another fool," he added, turning sharply +to his wife, "and I don't want them in my own house." + +And he proceeded to tell her, in the vigorous and convincing language of +a justly irritated husband, what he thought of her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +Klutz sped, as fast as his shaking limbs allowed, to Lohm. When he +passed Anna's house he flung it a look of burning contempt, which he +hoped she saw and felt from behind some curtain; and then, trying to put +her from his mind, he made desperate efforts to arrange his thoughts a +little for the coming interview. He supposed that it must be the brandy +that made it so difficult for him to discern exactly why he was to go to +Herr von Lohm instead of to the person principally concerned, the person +who had treated him so scandalously; but Herr Dellwig knew best, of +course, and judged the matter quite dispassionately. Certainly Herr von +Lohm, as an insolently happy rival, ought in mere justice to be annoyed +a little; and if the annoyance reached such a pitch of effectiveness as +to make him break off the engagement, why then--there was no +knowing--perhaps after all----? The ordinary Christian was bound to +forgive his erring brother; how much more, then, was it incumbent on a +pastor to forgive his erring sister? But Klutz did wish that someone +else could have done the annoying for him, leaving him to deal solely +with Anna, a woman, a member of the sex in whose presence he was always +at his ease. The brandy prevented him from feeling it as acutely as he +would otherwise have done, but the plain truth, the truth undisguised by +brandy, was that he looked up to Axel Lohm with a respect bordering on +fear, had never in his life been alone with him, or so much as spoken to +him beyond ordinary civilities when they met, and he was frightened. + +By the time he reached Axel's stables, which stood by the roadside about +five minutes' walk from Axel's gate, he found himself obliged to go over +his sufferings once again one by one, to count the dinners he had +missed, to remember the feverish nights and the restless days, to +rehearse what Dellwig had just told him of his present ridiculousness, +or he would have turned back and gone home. But these thoughts gave him +the courage necessary to get him through the gate; and by the time he +had rounded the bend in the avenue escape had become impossible, for +Axel was standing on the steps of the house. Axel had a cigar in his +mouth; his hands were in his pockets, and he was watching the paces of a +young mare which was being led up and down. Two pointers were sitting at +his feet, and when Klutz appeared they rushed down at him barking. Klutz +did not as a rule object to being barked at by dogs, but he was in a +highly nervous state, and shrank aside involuntarily. The groom leading +the mare grinned; Axel whistled the dogs off; and Klutz, with hot ears, +walked up and took off his hat. + +"What can I do for you, Herr Klutz?" asked Axel, his hands still in his +pockets and his eyes on the mare's legs. + +"I wish to speak with you privately," said Klutz. + +"_Gut._ Just wait a moment." And Klutz waited, while Axel, with great +deliberation, continued his scrutiny of the mare, and followed it up by +a lengthy technical discussion of her faults and her merits with the +groom. + +This was intolerable. Klutz had come on business of vital importance, +and he was left standing there for what seemed to him at least half an +hour, as though he were rather less than a dog or a beggar. As time +passed, and he still was kept waiting, the fury that had possessed him +as he stood helpless before Anna's shut door in the afternoon, returned. +All his doubts and fears and respect melted away. What a day he had had +of suffering, of every kind of agitation! The ground alone that he had +covered, going backwards and forwards between Lohm and Kleinwalde, was +enough to tire out a man in health; and he was not in health, he was +ill, fasting, shaking in every limb. While he had been suffering +(_leidend und schwitzend_, he said to himself, grinding his teeth), this +comfortable man in the gaiters and the aggressively clean cuffs had no +doubt passed very pleasant and easy hours, had had three meals at least +where he had had none, had smoked cigars and examined horses' legs, had +ridden a little, driven a little, and would presently go round, now that +the cool of the evening had come, to Kleinwalde, and sit in the twilight +while Miss Estcourt called him _Schatz_. Oh, it was not to be borne! +Dellwig was right--he must be annoyed, punished, at all costs shaken out +of his lofty indifference. "Let me remind you," Klutz burst out in a +voice that trembled with passion, "that I am still here, and still +waiting, and that I have only two legs. Your horse, I see, has four, and +is better able to stand and wait than I am." + +Axel turned and stared at him. "Why, what is the matter?" he asked, +astonished. "You _are_ Manske's vicar? Yes, of course you are. I did not +know you had anything very pressing to tell me. I am sorry I have kept +you--come in." + +He sent the mare to the stables, and led the way into his study. "Sit +down," he said, pushing a chair forward, and sitting down himself by his +writing-table. "Have a cigar?" + +"No." + +"No?" Axel stared again. "'No thank you' is the form prejudice prefers," +he said. + +"I care nothing for that." + +"What is the matter, my dear Herr Klutz? You are very angry about +something." + +"I have been shamefully treated by a woman." + +"It is what sometimes happens to young men," said Axel, smiling. + +"I do not want cheap wisdom like that," cried Klutz, his eyes ablaze. + +Axel's brows went up. "You are rude, my good Herr Klutz," he said. "Try +to be polite if you wish me to help you. If you cannot, I shall ask you +to go." + +"I will not go." + +"My dear Herr Klutz." + +"I say I will not go till I have told you what I came to tell you. The +woman is Miss Estcourt." + +"Miss Estcourt?" repeated Axel, amazed. Then he added, "Call her a +lady." + +"She is a woman to all intents and purposes----" + +"Call her a lady. It sounds better from a young man of your station." + +"Of my station! What, a man with the brains of a man, the mind of a man, +the sinews of a man, is not equal, is not superior, whatever his station +may be, to a mere woman?" + +"I will not discuss your internal arrangements. Has there, then, been +some mistake about the salary you are to receive?" + +"What salary?" + +"For teaching Miss Letty Estcourt?" + +"Pah--the salary. Love does not look at salaries." + +"That sounds magnificent. Did you say love?" + +"For weeks past, all the time that I have taught the niece, she has +taken my flowers, my messages, at first verbal and at last written----" + +"One moment. Of whom are we talking? I have met you with Miss Leech----" + +"The governess? _Ich danke._ It is Miss Estcourt who has encouraged me +and led me on, and now, after calling me her _Lämmchen_, takes away her +niece and shuts her door in my face----" + +"You have been drinking?" + +"Certainly not," cried Klutz, the more indignantly because of his +consciousness of the brandy. + +"Then you have no excuse at all for talking in this manner of my +neighbour?" + +"Excuse! To hear you, one would think she must be a queen," said Klutz, +laughing derisively. "If she were, I should still talk as I pleased. A +cat may look at a king, I suppose?" And he laughed again, very bitterly, +disliking even for one moment to imagine himself in the rĂ´le of the cat. + +"A cat may look as long and as often as it likes," said Axel, "but it +must not get in the king's way. I am sure you can guess why." + +"I have not come here to guess why about anything." + +"Oh, it is not very abstruse--the cat would be kicked by somebody, of +course." + +"Oh, ho! Not if it could bite, and had what I have in its pocket." + +"Cats do not have pockets, my dear Herr Klutz. You must have noticed +that yourself. Pray, what is it that you have in yours?" + +"A little poem she sent me in answer to one of mine. A little, sweet +poem. I thought you might like to see how your future wife writes to +another man." + +"Ah--that is why you have called so kindly on me? Out of pure +thoughtfulness. My future wife, then, is Miss Estcourt?" + +"It is an open secret." + +"It is, most unfortunately, not true." + +"_Ach_--I knew you would deny it," cried Klutz, slapping his leg and +grinning horribly. "I knew you would deny it when you heard she had been +behaving badly. But denials do not alter anything--no one will believe +them----" + +Axel shrugged his shoulders. "Am I to see the poem?" he asked. + +Klutz took it out and handed it to him. The twilight had come into the +room, and Axel put the paper down a moment while he lit the candles on +his table. Then he smoothed out its creases, and holding it close to the +light read it attentively. Klutz leaned forward and watched his face. +Not a muscle moved. It had been calm before, and it remained calm. Klutz +could hardly keep himself from leaping up and striking that impassive +face, striking some sort of feeling into it. He had played his big card, +and Axel was quite unmoved. What could he do, what could he say, to hurt +him? + +"Shall we burn it?" inquired Axel, looking up from the paper. + +"Burn it? Burn my poem?" + +"It is such very great nonsense. It is written by a child. We know what +child. Only one in this part can write English." + +"Miss Estcourt wrote it, I tell you!" cried Klutz, jumping to his feet +and snatching the paper away. + +"Your telling me so does not in the very least convince me. Miss +Estcourt knows nothing about it." + +"She does--she did----" screamed Klutz, beside himself. "Your Miss +Estcourt--your _Braut_--you try to brazen it out because you are ashamed +of such a _Braut_. It is no use--everyone shall see this, and be told +about it--the whole province shall ring with it--_I_ will not be the +laughing-stock, but _you_ will be. Not a labourer, not a peasant, but +shall hear of it----" + +"It strikes me," said Axel, rising, "that you badly want kicking. I do +not like to do it in my house--it hardly seems hospitable. If you will +suggest a convenient place, neutral ground, I shall be pleased to come +and do it." + +He looked at Klutz with an encouraging smile. Then something in the +young man's twitching face arrested his attention. "Do you know what I +think?" he said quickly, in a different voice. "It is less a kicking +that you want than a good meal. You really look as though you had had +nothing to eat for a week. The difference a beefsteak would make to your +views would surprise you. Come, come," he said, patting him on the +shoulder, "I have been taking you too seriously. You are evidently not +in your usual state. When did you have food last? What has Frau Pastor +been about? And your eyelids are so red that I do believe----" Axel +looked closer--"I do believe you have been crying." + +"Sir," began Klutz, struggling hard with a dreadful inclination to cry +again, for self-pity is a very tender and tearful sentiment, "Sir----" + +"Let me order that beefsteak," said Axel kindly. "My cook will have it +ready in ten minutes." + +"Sir," said Klutz, with the tremendous dignity that immediately precedes +tears, "Sir, I am not to be bribed." + +"Well, take a cigar at least," said Axel, opening his case. "That will +not corrupt you as much as the beefsteak, and will soothe you a little +on your way home. For you must go home and get to bed. You are as near +an illness as any man I ever saw." + +The tears were so near, so terribly near, that, hardly knowing what he +did, and sooner than trust himself to speak, Klutz took a cigar and lit +it at the match Axel held for him. His hand shook pitifully. + +"Now go home, my dear Klutz," said Axel very kindly. "Tell Frau Pastor +to give you some food, and then get to bed. I wish you would have taken +the beefsteak--here is your hat. If you like, we will talk about this +nonsense later on. Believe me, it is nonsense. You will be the first to +say so next week." + +And he ushered him out to the steps, and watched him go down them, +uneasy lest he should stumble and fall, so weak did he seem to be. "What +a hot wind!" he exclaimed. "You will have a dusty walk home. Go slowly. +Good-night." + +"Poor devil," he thought, as Klutz without speaking went down the avenue +into the darkness with unsteady steps, "poor young devil--the highest +possible opinion of himself, and the smallest possible quantity of +brains; a weak will and strong instincts; much unwholesome study of the +Old Testament in Hebrew with Manske; a body twenty years old, and the +finest spring I can remember filling it with all sorts of anti-parsonic +longings. I believe I ought to have taken him home. He looked as though +he would faint." + +This last thought disturbed Axel. The image of Klutz fainting into a +ditch and remaining in it prostrate all night, refused to be set aside; +and at last he got his hat and went down the avenue after him. + +But Klutz, who had shuffled along quickly, was nowhere to be seen. Axel +opened the avenue gate and looked down the road that led past the +stables to the village and parsonage, and then across the fields to +Kleinwalde; he even went a little way along it, with an uneasy eye on +the ditches, but he did not see Klutz, either upright or prostrate. +Well, if he were in a ditch, he said to himself, he would not drown; the +ditches were all as empty, dry, and burnt-up as four weeks' incessant +drought and heat could make them. He turned back repeating that +eminently consolatory proverb, _Unkraut vergeht nicht_, and walked +quickly to his own gate; for it was late, and he had work to do, and he +had wasted more time than he could afford with Klutz. A man on a horse +coming from the opposite direction passed him. It was Dellwig, and each +recognised the other; but in these days of mutual and profound distrust +both were glad of the excuse the darkness gave for omitting the usual +greetings. Dellwig rode on towards Kleinwalde in silence, and Axel +turned in at his gate. + +But the poor young devil, as Axel called him, had not fainted. Hurrying +down the dark avenue, beyond Axel's influence, far from fainting, it was +all Klutz could do not to shout with passion at his own insufferable +weakness, his miserable want of self-control in the presence of the man +he now regarded as his enemy. The tears in his eyes had given Lohm an +opportunity for pretending he was sorry for him, and for making +insulting and derisive offers of food. What could equal in humiliation +the treatment to which he had been subjected? First he had been treated +as a dog, and then, far worse, far, far worse and more difficult to bear +with dignity, as a child. A beefsteak? Oh, the shame that seared his +soul as he thought of it! This revolting specimen of the upper class had +declared, with a hateful smile of indulgent superiority, that all his +love, all his sufferings, all his just indignation, depended solely for +their existence on whether he did or did not eat a beefsteak. Could +coarse-mindedness and gross insensibility go further? "Thrice miserable +nation!" he cried aloud, shaking his fist at the unconcerned stars, +"thrice miserable nation, whose ruling class is composed of men so +vile!" And, having removed his cigar in order to make this utterance, he +remembered, with a great start, that it was Axel's. + +He was in the road, just passing Axel's stables. The gate to the +stableyard stood open, and inside it, heaped against one of the +buildings, was a waggon-load of straw. Instantly Klutz became aware of +what he was going to do. A lightning flash of clear purpose illumined +the disorder of his brain. It was supper time, and no one was about. He +ran inside the gate and threw the lighted cigar on to the straw; and +because there was not an instantaneous blaze fumbled for his matchbox, +and lit one match after the other, pushing them in a kind of frenzy +under the loose ends of straw. + +There was a puff of smoke, and then a bright tongue of flame; and +immediately he had achieved his purpose he was terrified, and fled away +from the dreadful light, and hid himself, shuddering, in the darkness of +the country road. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +"It's in Stralsund," cried the princess, hurrying out into the +Kleinwalde garden when first the alarm was given. + +"It's in Lohm," cried someone else. + +Anna watched the light in silence, her face paler than ordinary, her +hair blown about by the hot wind. The trees in the dark garden swayed +and creaked, the air was parching and full of dust, the light glared +brighter each moment. Surely it was very near? Surely it was nearer than +Stralsund? "It's in Lohm," cried someone with conviction; and Anna +turned and began to run. + +"Where are you running to, Aunt Anna?" asked Letty, breathlessly +following her; for since the affair with Klutz she followed her aunt +about like a conscience-stricken dog. + +"The fire-engine--there is one at the farm--it must go----" + +They took each other's hands and ran in silence. Between the gusts of +wind they could hear the Lohm church-bells ringing; and almost +immediately the single Kleinwalde bell began to toll, to toll with a +forlorn, blood-curdling sound altogether different from its unmeaning +Sunday tinkle. + +In front of her house Frau Dellwig stood, watching the sky. "It is +Lohm," she said to Anna as she came up panting. + +"Yes--the fire-engine--is it ordered? Has it gone? No? Then at once--at +once----" + +"_Jawohl, jawohl_," said Frau Dellwig with great calm, the philosophic +calm of him who contemplates calamities other than his own. She said +something to one of the maids, who were standing about in pleased and +excited groups laughing and whispering, and the girl shuffled off in her +clattering wooden shoes. "My husband is not here," she explained, "and +the men are at supper." + +"Then they must leave their supper," cried Anna. "Go, go, you girls, and +tell them so--look how terrible it is getting----" + +"Yes, it is a big fire. The girl I sent will tell them. They say it is +the _Schloss_." + +"Oh, go yourself and tell the men--see, there is no sign of them--every +minute is priceless----" + +"It is always a business with the engine. It has not been required, +thank God, for years. Mietze, go and hurry them." + +The girl called Mietze went off at a trot. The others put their heads +together, looked at their young mistress, and whispered. A stable-boy +came to the pump and filled his pail. Everyone seemed composed, and yet +there was that bloody sky, and there was that insistent cry for help +from the anxious bell. + +Anna could hardly bear it. What was happening down there to her kind +friend? + +"It is the _Schloss_," said the stable-boy in answer to a question from +Frau Dellwig as he passed with his full pail, spilling the water at +every step. + +"_Ach_, I thought so," she said, glancing at Anna. + +Anna made a passionate movement, and ran down the steps after the girl +Mietze. Frau Dellwig could not but follow, which she did slowly, at a +disapproving distance. + +But Dellwig galloped into the yard at that moment, his horse covered +with sweat, and his loud and peremptory orders extracted the ancient +engine from its shed, got the horses harnessed to it, and after what +Anna thought an eternity it rattled away. When it started, the whole sky +to the south was like one dreadful sheet of blood. + +"It is the stables," he said to Anna. + +"Herr von Lohm's?" + +"Yes. They cannot be saved." + +"And the house?" + +He shrugged his shoulders. "It's a windy night," he said, "and the wind +is blowing that way. There are pine-trees between. Everything is as dry +as cinders." + +"The stables--are they insured?" + +But Dellwig was off again, after the engine. + +"What can we do, Letty? What can we _do_?" cried Anna, turning to Letty +when the sound of the wheels had died away and only the hurried bell was +heard above the whistling and banging of the wind. "It's horrible here, +listening to that bell tolling, and looking at the sky. If I could throw +one single bucketful of water on the fire I should not feel so useless, +so utterly, utterly of no use or good for anything." + +Neither of them had ever seen a fire, and horror had seized them both. +The night seemed so dark, the world all round so black, except in that +one dreadful spot. Anna knew Axel could not afford to lose money. From +things Trudi had said, from things the princess had said, she knew it. +There was at Lohm, she felt rather than knew, an abundance of everything +necessary to ordinary comfortable living, as there generally is in the +country on farms; but money was scarce, and a series of bad seasons, +perhaps even one bad season, or anything out of the way happening, might +make it very scarce, might make the further proper farming of the place +impossible. Suppose the stables were not insured, where would the money +come from to rebuild them? And the horses--she had heard that horses +went mad with fright in a fire, and refused to leave their stables. And +the house--suppose this cruel wind made the checking of the fire +impossible, and it licked its way across the trees to Axel's house? "Oh, +what can we _do_?" she cried to the frightened Letty. + +"Let's go there," said Letty. + +"Yes!" cried Anna, striking her hands together. "Yes! The carriage--Frau +Dellwig, order the carriage--order Fritz to bring the carriage out at +once. Tell him to be quick--quick!" + +"The gracious Miss will go to Lohm?" + +"Yes--call him, send for him--Fritz! Fritz!" She herself began to call. + +"But----" + +"Fritz! Fritz! Run, Letty, and see if you can find him." + +"If I may be permitted to advise----" + +"Fritz! Fritz! Fritz!" + +"Call the _herrschaftliche Kutscher_ Fritz," Frau Dellwig then commanded +a passing boy in a loud and stern voice. "Not only mad, but improper," +was her private comment. "She goes by night to her _Bräutigam_--to her +unacknowledged _Bräutigam_." Even a possible burning _Bräutigam_ did +not, in her opinion, excuse such a step. + +The darkness concealed the anger on her face, and Anna neither noticed +nor cared for the anger in her voice, but began herself to run in the +direction of the stables, leaving Frau Dellwig to her reflections. + +"Princess Ludwig is looking for you everywhere, Aunt Anna," said Letty, +coming towards her, having found Fritz and succeeded in making him +understand what she wanted. + +"Where is she? Is the carriage coming?" + +"He said five minutes. She was at the house, asking the servants if they +had seen you." + +"Come along then, we'll go to her." + +"I was afraid I should not find you here," said the princess as Anna +came up the steps of the house into the light of the entry, "and that +you had run off to Lohm to put the fire out. My dear child, what do you +look like? Come and look at yourself in the glass." + +She led her to the glass that hung above the Dellwig hat-stand. + +"I am just going there," said Anna, looking at her reflection without +seeing it. "The carriage is being got ready now." + +"Then I am coming too. What has the wind been doing to your hair? See, I +knew you were running about bare-headed, and have brought you a scarf. +Come, let me tie it over all these excited little curls, and turn you +into a sober and circumspect young woman." + +Anna bent her head and let the princess do as she pleased. "Herr Dellwig +is afraid the fire will spread to the house," she said breathlessly. +"Our engine has only just gone----" + +"I heard it." + +"It is such a lumbering thing, it will be hours getting there----" + +"Oh, not hours. Half a one, perhaps." + +"Are they insured?" + +"The buildings? They are sure to be. But there is always a loss that +cannot be covered--_ach_, Frau Dellwig, good-evening--you see we have +taken possession of your house. To have no stables and probably no +horses just when the busy time is beginning is terrible. Poor Axel. +There--now you are tidy. Wait, let me fasten your cloak and cover up +your pretty dress. Is Letty to come too?" + +"Oh--if she likes. Why doesn't the carriage come?" + +"It will be much better if Letty goes to bed," said the princess. + +"Oh!" said Letty. + +"It is long past her bedtime, and she has no hat, and nothing round her. +Shall we not ask Frau Dellwig to send a servant with her home?" + +"_Aber gewiss_----" began Frau Dellwig. + +But Anna was out again on the steps, was shutting out the flaming sky +with one hand while she strained her eyes into the darkness of the +corner where the coach-house was. She could hear Fritz's voice, and the +horses' hoofs on the cobbles, and she could see the light of a lantern +jogging up and down as the stable-boy who held it hurried to and fro. +"Quick, quick, Fritz," she cried. + +"_Jawohl, gnädiges Fräulein_," came back the answer in the old man's +cheery, reassuring tones. But it was like a nightmare, standing there +waiting, waiting, the precious minutes slipping by, terrible things +happening to Axel, and she herself unable to stir a step towards him. + +"Take me with you--let me come too," pleaded Letty from behind her, +slipping her hand into Anna's. + +"Then tie a handkerchief or something round your head," said Anna, her +eyes on the lantern moving about before the coach-house. Then the +carriage lamps flashed out, and in another moment the carriage rattled +up. + +It was a ghostly drive. As the tops of the pine-trees swayed aside they +caught glimpses of the red horror of the sky; and when they got out into +the open Anna cried out involuntarily, for it seemed as if the whole +world were on fire. The spire of Lohm church and the roofs of the +cottages stood out clear and sharp in the fierce light. The horses, more +and more frightened the nearer they drew, plunged and reared, and old +Fritz could hardly hold them in. On turning the corner by the parsonage +they were not to be induced to advance another yard, but swerved aside, +kicking and terrified, and threatening every moment to upset the +carriage into the ditch. + +Anna jumped out and ran on. The princess, slower and more bulky, was +helped out by Letty and followed after as quickly as she could. In the +road and in the field opposite the stables the whole population was +gathered, illuminated figures in eager, chattering groups. From the pump +on the green in front of the schoolhouse, a chain of helpers had been +formed, and buckets of water were being passed along from hand to hand +to the engines; and there was no other water. The engines were working +farther down the road, keeping the hose turned on to the trees between +the stables and the house. There were clumps of pine-trees among them, +and these were the trees that would carry the fire across to Axel's +house. Men in the garden were hacking at them, the blows of their axes +indistinguishable in the uproar, but every now and then one of the +victims fell with a crash among its fellows still standing behind it. + +"Oh, poor Axel, poor Axel!" murmured Anna, drawing her scarf across her +face as she passed along to protect it from the intolerable heat. But +she was an unmistakable figure in her blue cloak and white dress, +stumbling on to where the engines were; and the groups of onlookers +nudged each other and turned to stare after her as she passed. + +"How did it happen?" she asked, suddenly stopping before a knot of +women. They were in the act of discussing her, and started and looked +foolish. + +"No one knows," said the eldest, when Anna repeated her question. "They +say it was done on purpose." + +"Done on purpose!" echoed Anna, staring at the speaker. "Why, who would +set fire to a place on purpose?" + +But to this question no reply at all was forthcoming. They fidgeted and +looked at each other, and one of the younger ones tittered and then put +her hand before her mouth. + +In the potato field across the road, two storks, whose nest for many +springs had been on one of the roofs now burning, had placed their young +ones in safety and were watching over them. The young storks were only a +few days old, and had been thrown out of the nest by the parents, and +then dragged away out of danger into the field, the parents mounting +guard over their bruised and dislocated offspring, and the whole group +transformed in the glow into a beautiful, rosy, dazzling white, into a +family of spiritualised, glorified storks, as they huddled ruefully +together in their place of refuge. Anna saw them without knowing that +she saw them; there were three little ones, and one was dead. The +princess and Letty found her standing beside them, watching the roaring +furnace of the stableyard with parted lips and wide-open, +horror-stricken eyes. + +"Most of the horses were got out in time," said the princess, taking +Anna's arm, determined that she should not again slip away, "and they +say the buildings are fully insured, and he will be able to have much +better ones." + +"But the time lost--they can't be built in a day----" + +"The man I spoke to said they were such old buildings and in such a bad +state that Axel can congratulate himself that they have been burned. But +of course there will always be the time lost. Have you seen him? Let us +go on a little--we shall be scorched to cinders here." + +Both Axel and Dellwig were superintending the working of the hose. "I do +not want my trees destroyed," he said to Dellwig, with whom in the +stress of the moment he had resumed his earlier manner; "they are not +insured." He had watched the stables go with an impassiveness that +struck several of the bystanders as odd. Dellwig and many others of the +dwellers in that district were used to making a great noise on all +occasions great and small, and they could by no means believe that it +was natural to Axel to remain so calm at such a moment. "It is a great +nuisance," Axel said more than once; but that also was hardly an +adequate expression of feelings. + +"They are well insured, I believe?" said Dellwig. + +"Oh yes. I shall be able to have nice tight buildings in their place." + +"They were certainly rather--rather dilapidated," said Dellwig, eyeing +him. + +"They were very dilapidated," said Axel. + +Anna and the princess stood a little way from the engines watching the +efforts to check the spread of the fire for some time before Axel +noticed them. Manske, who had been the first to volunteer as a link in +the human chain to the pump, bowed and smiled from his place at them, +and was stared at in return by both women, who wondered who the begrimed +and friendly individual could be. "It is the pastor," then said the +princess, smiling back at him; on which Manske's smiles and bows +redoubled, and he spilt half the contents of the bucket passing through +his hands. + +"So it is," said Anna. + +"Take care there, No. 3!" roared Dellwig, affecting not to know who No. +3 was, and glad of an opportunity of calling the parson to order. +Dellwig was making so much noise flinging orders and reprimands about, +that a stranger would certainly have taken him for the frantic owner of +the burning property. + +"You see the pastor looks anything but alarmed," said the princess. "If +Axel were losing much by this, Manske would be weeping into his bucket +instead of smiling so kindly at us." + +"So he would," said Anna, a little reassured by that cheerful and grimy +countenance. Her eyes wandered to Axel, so cool and so vigilant, giving +the necessary orders so quietly, losing no precious moments in trying to +save what was past saving, and without any noise or any abuse getting +what he wanted done. "It _can't_ be a good thing, a fire like this," she +said to herself. "Whatever they say, it _can't_ be a good thing." + +A huge pine-tree was dragged down at that moment, dragged in a direction +away from its fellows, against a beech, whose branches it tore down in +its fall, ruining the beech for ever, but smothering a few of its own +twigs that had begun to burn among the fresh young leaves. Anna watched +the havoc going on among poor Axel's trees in silence. "He _can't_ not +care," she said to herself. He turned round quickly at that moment, as +though he heard her thinking of him, and looked straight into her eyes. +"You here!" he exclaimed, striding across the road to her at once. + +"Yes, we are here," replied the princess. "We cannot let our neighbour +burn without coming to see if we can do anything. But seriously, I hear +that it is a good thing for you." + +"I prefer the less good thing that I had before, just now. But it is +gone. I shall not waste time fretting over it." + +He ran back again to stop something that was being done wrong, but +returned immediately to tell them to go into his house and not stand +there in the heat. "You look so tired--and anxious," he said, his eyes +searching Anna's face. "Why are you anxious? The fire has frightened +you? It is all insured, I assure you, and there is only the bother of +having to build just now." + +He could not stay, and hurried back to his men. + +"We can go indoors a moment," said the princess, "and see what is going +on in his house. It will be standing empty and open, and it is not +necessary that he should suffer losses from thieves as well as from +fire. His Mamsell is like all bachelors' Mamsells--losing, I am sure, no +opportunity of feathering her nest at his expense." + +Anna thought this a practical way of helping Axel, since the throwing of +water on the flames was not required of her. She turned to call Letty, +and found that no Letty was to be seen. "Why, where is Letty?" she +asked, looking round. + +"I thought she was behind us," said the princess. + +"So did I," said Anna anxiously. + +They went back a few steps, looking for her among the bystanders. They +saw her at last a long way off, her handkerchief still round her head +and her long thick hair blowing round her shoulders, rapt in +contemplation of the fiery furnace. Then a shout went up from the people +in the road, and they all ran back into the potato field. Anna and the +princess stood rooted to the spot, clutching each other's hands. Letty +looked round when she heard the shout, and began to run too. The flaming +outer wall of the yard swayed and tottered and then fell outwards with a +terrific crash and crackling, filling the road with a smoking heap of +rubbish, and sending a shower of sparks on a puff of wind after the +flying spectators. + +The princess had certainly not run so fast since her girlhood as she did +with Anna towards the spot in the field where they had last seen Letty. +A crowd had gathered round it, they could see, an excited, gesticulating +crowd. But they found her apparently unhurt, sitting on the ground, +surrounded by sympathisers, and with someone's coat over her head. She +looked up, very pale, but smiling apologetically at her aunt. "It's all +gone," she said, pointing to her head. + +"What is gone?" cried Anna, dropping on her knees beside her. + +"_Ach Gott, die Haare--die herrlichen Haare!_" lamented a woman in the +crowd. The smell of burnt hair explained what had happened. + +Anna seized her in her arms. "You might have been killed--you might have +been killed," she panted, rocking her to and fro. "Oh, Letty--who saved +you?" + +"Somebody put this beastly thing over my head--it smells of herrings. +Sparks got into my hair, and it all frizzled up. Can't I take this off? +It's out now--and off too." + +The princess felt all over her head through the coat, patting and +pressing it carefully; then she took the coat off, and restored it with +effusive thanks to its sheepish owner. There was a murmur of sympathy +from the women as Letty emerged, shorn of those flowing curls that were +her only glory. "_Oh Weh, die herrlichen Haare!_" sighed the women to +one another, "_Oh Weh, oh Weh!_" But the handkerchief tied so tightly +round her head had saved her from a worse fate; she had been an ugly +little girl before--all that had happened was that she looked now like +an ugly little boy. + +"I say, Aunt Anna, don't mind," said Letty; for her aunt was crying, and +kissing her, and tying and untying the handkerchief, and arranging and +rearranging it, and stroking and smoothing the singed irregular wisps of +hair that were left as though she loved them. "I'm frightfully sorry--I +didn't know you were so fond of my hair." + +"Come, we'll go to the house," was all Anna said, stumbling on to her +feet and putting her arm round Letty. And they clung to each other so +close that they could hardly walk. + +"We are going indoors a moment," called the princess, who was very pale, +to Axel as they passed the engines. + +He smiled across at her, and lifted his hat. + +"I never saw anyone quite so composed," she observed to Anna, trying to +turn her attention to other things. "Your man Dellwig, who has nothing +to do with it all, is displaying the kind of behaviour the people expect +on these occasions. I am sure that Axel has puzzled a great many people +to-night." + +Anna did not answer. She was thinking only of Letty. What a slender +thread of chance had saved her from death, from a dreadful death, the +little Letty who was under her care, for whom she was responsible, and +whom she had quite forgotten in her stupid interest in Axel Lohm's +affairs. Woman-like, she felt very angry with Axel. What did it matter +to her whether his place burnt to ashes or not? But Letty mattered to +her, her own little niece, poor solitary Letty, practically motherless, +so ugly, and so full of good intentions. She had scolded her so much +about Klutz; wretched Klutz, it was entirely his fault that Letty had +been so silly, and yet only Letty had had the scoldings. Anna held her +closer. In the light of that narrow escape how trivial, how indifferent, +all this folly of love-talk and messages and anger seemed. For a short +space she touched the realities, she saw life and death in their true +proportion; and even while she was looking at them with clear and +startled vision they were blurred again into indistinctness, they faded +away and were gone--rubbed out by the inevitable details of the passing +hour. + +"I thought as much," said the princess, as they drew near the house. +"All the doors wide open and the place deserted." And Anna came back +with a start from the reality to the well-known dream of daily life, and +immediately felt as though that other flash had been the dream and only +this were real. + +The hall was in darkness, but there was light shining through the chinks +of a door, and they groped their way towards it. The house was as quiet +as death. They could hear the distant shouts of the men cutting down the +trees in the garden, and the blows of the axes. The princess pushed open +the door behind which the light was, and they found themselves in Axel's +study, where the candles he had lit in order to read Letty's poem were +still guttering and flaring in the draught from the open window. A clock +on the writing-table showed that it was past midnight. The room looked +very untidy and ill-cared for. + +"A man without a wife," said the princess, gazing round at the litter, +composed chiefly of cigar-ashes and old envelopes, "is a truly miserable +being. What condition can be more wretched than to be at the mercy of a +Mamsell? I shall go and inquire into the whereabouts of this one. Axel +will want some food when he comes in." + +She took up one of the candles and went out. Letty had sat down at once +on the nearest chair, and was looking very pale. Anna untied the +handkerchief, and tried to arrange what was left of her hair. "I must +cut off these uneven ends," she said, "but there won't be any scissors +here." + +"I say," began Letty, staring very hard at her. + +"I believe you were terribly scared, you poor little creature," said +Anna, struck by her pale face, and passing her hand tenderly over the +singed head. + +"Oh, not much. A bit, of course. But it was soon over. Don't worry. What +will mamma say to my head?" And Letty's mouth widened into a grin at +this thought. "I say," she began again, relapsing into solemnity. + +"Well, what?" smiled Anna, sitting down on the same chair and putting +her arm round her. + +"You don't know the whole of that poetry business." + +"That silly business with Herr Klutz? Oh, was there more of it? Oh, +Letty, what did you do more? I am so tired of it, and of him, and of +everything. Tell me, and then we'll forget it for ever." + +"I'm afraid you won't forget it. I'm afraid I'm a bigger beast than you +think, Aunt Anna," said Letty, with a conviction that frightened Anna. + +"Oh, Letty," she said faintly, "what did you do?" + +"Why, I--I _will_ get it out--I--he was so miserable, and went on so +when you didn't answer that poetry--that he sent with the heart, you +know----" + +"Oh yes, I know." + +"Well, he was in such a state about it that I--that I made up a poem, +just to comfort him, you know, and keep him quiet, and--and pretended it +came from you." She threw back her head and looked up at her aunt. +"There now, it's out," she said defiantly. + +Anna was silent for a moment. "Was it--was it very affectionate?" she +asked under her breath. Then she slipped down on to the floor, and put +both her arms round Letty. "Don't tell me," she cried, laying her face +on Letty's knees, "I don't want to know. Suppose you had been dreadfully +hurt just now, burnt, or--or dead, what would it have mattered? Oh, we +will forget all that ridiculous nonsense, and only never, never be so +silly again. Let us be happy together, and finish with Herr Klutz for +ever--it was all so stupid, and so little worth while." And she put up +her face, and they both began to cry and kiss each other through their +tears. And so it came about that Letty was in the same hour relieved of +the burden on her conscience, of most of her hair, and was taken once +again, and with redoubled enthusiasm, into Anna's heart. Logic had never +been Anna's strong point. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +When Axel came in two hours later, bringing Dellwig and Manske and two +or three other helpers, farmers, who had driven across the plain to do +what they could, he found his house lit up and food and drink set out +ready in the dining-room. + +Letty and Anna had had time to recover from their tears and vows, sundry +small blisters on the back of Letty's neck had been treated with cotton +wool, and they had emerged from their agitation to a calmer state in +which the helping of the princess in the middle of the night to make +somebody else's house comfortable was not without its joys. The Mamsell, +no more able than the Kleinwalde servants to withstand the authority of +the princess's name and eye, had collected the maids and worked with a +will; and when, all danger of the fire spreading being over, Axel came +in dirty and smoky and scorched, prepared to have to hunt himself in the +dark house for the refreshment he could not but offer his helpers, he +was agreeably surprised to find the lamp in the hall alight, and to be +met by a wide-awake Mamsell in a clean apron who proposed to provide the +gentlemen with hot water. This was very attentive. Axel had never known +her so thoughtful. The gentlemen, however, with one accord refused the +hot water; they would drink a glass of wine, perhaps, as Herr von Lohm +so kindly suggested, and then go to their homes and beds as quickly as +possible. Manske, by far the grimiest, was also the most decided in his +refusal; he was a godly man, but he did not love supererogatory +washings, under which heading surely a washing at two o'clock in the +morning came. Axel left them in the hall a moment, and went into his +study to fetch cigars; and there he found Letty, hiding behind the door. + +"You here, young lady?" he exclaimed surprised, stopping short. + +"Don't let anyone see me," she whispered. "Princess Ludwig and Aunt Anna +are in the dining-room. I ran in here when I heard people with you. My +hair is all burnt off." + +"What, you went too near?" + +"Sparks came after me. Don't let them come in----" + +"You were not hurt?" + +"No. A little--on the back of my neck, but it's hardly anything." + +"I am very glad your hair was burnt off," said Axel with great severity. + +"So am I," was the hearty reply. "The tangles at night were something +awful." + +He stood silent for a moment, the cigar-boxes under his arm, uncertain +whether he ought not to enlighten her as to the reprehensibility of her +late conduct in regard to her aunt and Klutz. Evidently her conscience +was cloudless, and yet she had done more harm than was quite calculable. +Axel was fairly certain that Klutz had set fire to the stables. +Absolutely certain he could not be, but the first blaze had occurred so +nearly at the moment when Klutz must have reached them on his way home, +that he had hardly a doubt about it. It was his duty as Amtsvorsteher to +institute inquiries. If these inquiries ended in the arrest of Klutz, +the whole silly story about Anna would come out, for Klutz would be only +too eager to explain the reasons that had driven him to the act; and +what an unspeakable joy for the province, and what a delicious +excitement for Stralsund! He could only hope that Klutz was not the +culprit, he could only hope it fervently with all his heart; for if he +was, the child peeping out at him so cheerfully from behind the door had +managed to make an amount of mischief and bring an amount of trouble on +Anna that staggered him. Such a little nonsense, and such far-reaching +consequences! He could not speak when he thought of it, and strode past +her indignantly, and left the room without a word. + +"Now what's the row with _him_?" Letty asked herself, her finger in her +mouth; for Axel had looked at her as he passed with very grave and angry +eyes. + +The men waiting in the hall were slightly disconcerted, on being taken +into the dining-room, to find the Kleinwalde ladies there. None of them, +except Manske, liked ladies; and ladies in the small hours of the +morning were a special weariness to the flesh. Dellwig, having made his +two deep bows to them, looked meaningly at his friends the other +farmers; Miss Estcourt's private engagement to Lohm seemed to be placed +beyond a doubt by her presence in his house on this occasion. + +"How delightful of you," said Axel to her in English. + +"I am glad to hear," she replied stiffly in German, for she was still +angry with him because of Letty's hair, "I am glad to hear that you will +have no losses from this." + +"Losses!" cried Manske. "On the contrary, it is the best thing that +could happen--the very best thing. Those stables have long been almost +unfit for use, Herr von Lohm, and I can say from my heart that I was +glad to see them go. They were all to pieces even in your father's +time." + +"Yes, they ought to have been rebuilt long ago, but one has not always +the money in one's pocket. Help yourself, my dear pastor." + +"Who is the enemy?" broke in Dellwig's harsh voice. + +"Ah, who indeed?" said Manske, looking sad. "That is the melancholy side +of the affair--that someone, presumably of my parish, should commit such +a crime." + +"He has done me a great service, anyhow," said Axel, filling the +glasses. + +"He has imperilled his immortal soul," said Manske. + +"Have you such an enemy?" asked Anna, surprised. + +"I did not know it. Most likely it was some poor, half-witted devil, or +perhaps--perhaps a child." + +"But I saw the blaze immediately after I passed you," said Dellwig. "You +were within a stone's throw of the stables, going home. I had hardly +reached them when the fire broke out. Did you then see no one on the +road?" + +"No, I did not," said Axel shortly. There was an aggressive note in +Dellwig's voice that made him fear he was going to be very zealous in +helping to bring the delinquent to justice. + +"It was the supper hour," said Dellwig, musing, "and the men would all +be indoors. Had you been to the stables, _gnädiger Herr_?" + +"No, I had not. Take another glass of wine. A cigar? Whoever it was, he +has done me a good turn." + +"Beyond all doubt he has," said Dellwig, his eyes fixed on Axel with an +odd expression. + +"Some of us would have no objection to the same thing happening at our +places," remarked one of the farmers jocosely. + +"No objection whatever," agreed another with a laugh. + +"If the man could be trusted to display the same discrimination +everywhere," said the third. + +"Joke not about crime," said Manske, rebuking them. + +"The discrimination was certainly remarkable," said Dellwig. + +"That is why I think it must have been done by some person more or less +imbecile," said Axel; "otherwise one of the good buildings, whose +destruction would really have harmed me, would have been chosen." + +"He must be hunted down, imbecile or not," said Dellwig. + +"I shall do my duty," said Axel stiffly. + +"You may rely on my help," said Dellwig. + +"You are very good," said Axel. + +Dellwig's voice had something ominous about it that made Anna shiver. +What a detestable man he was, always and at all times. His whole manner +to-night struck her as specially offensive. "What will be done to the +poor wretch when he is caught?" she asked Axel. + +"He will be imprisoned," Dellwig answered promptly. + +She turned her back on him. "Even though he is half-witted?" she said to +Axel. "Are you obliged to look for him? Can't you leave him alone? He +has done you a service, after all." + +"I must look for him," said Axel; "it is my duty as Amtsvorsteher." + +"And the gracious Miss should consider----" shouted Dellwig from behind. + +"I'll consider nothing," said Anna, turning to him quickly. + +"--should consider the demands of justice----" + +"First the demands of humanity," said Anna, her back to him. + +"Noble," murmured Manske. + +"The gracious Miss's sentiments invariably do credit to her heart," said +Dellwig, bowing profoundly. + +"But not to her head, he thinks," said Anna to Axel in English, faintly +smiling. + +"Don't talk to him," Axel replied in a low voice; "the man so palpably +hates us both. You must go home. Where is your carriage? Princess, take +her home." + +"_Ach, Herr Dellwig, seien Sie so freundlich_----" began the princess +mellifluously; and despatched him in search of Fritz. + +When they reached Kleinwalde, silent, wornout, and only desiring to +creep upstairs and into their beds, they were met by Frau von Treumann +and the baroness, who both wore injured and disapproving faces. Letty +slipped up to her room at once, afraid of criticisms of her +hairlessness. + +"We have waited for you all night, Anna," said Frau von Treumann in an +aggrieved voice. + +"You oughtn't to have," said Anna wearily. + +"We could not suppose that you were really looking at the fire all this +time," said the baroness. + +"And we were anxious," said Frau von Treumann. "My dear, you should not +make us anxious." + +"You might have left word, or taken us with you," said the baroness. + +"We are quite as much interested in Herr von Lohm as Letty or Princess +Ludwig can be," said Frau von Treumann. + +"Nobody could tell us here for certain whether you had really gone there +or not." + +"Nor could anybody give us any information as to the extent of the +disaster." + +"We presumed the princess was with you, but even that was not certain." + +"My dear baroness," murmured the princess, untying her shawl, "only you +would have had a doubt of it." + +"The reflection in the sky faded hours ago," said Frau vein Treumann. + +"And yet you did not return," said the baroness. "Where did you go +afterwards?" + +"Oh, I'll tell you everything to-morrow. Good-night," said Anna, candle +in hand. + +"What! Now that we have waited, and in such anxiety, you will tell us +nothing?" + +"There really is nothing to tell. And I am so tired--good-night." + +"We have kept the servants up and the kettle boiling in case you should +want coffee." + +"That was very kind, but I only want bed. Good-night." + +"We too were weary, but you see we have waited in spite of it." + +"Oh, you shouldn't have. You will be so tired. Good-night." + +She went upstairs, pulling herself up each step by the baluster. +The clock on the landing struck half-past three. Was it not +Napoleon, she thought, who said something to the point about +three-o'clock-in-the-morning courage? Had no one ever said anything to +the point about three-o'clock-in-the-morning love for one's +fellow-creatures? "Good-night," she said once more, turning her head and +nodding wearily to them as they watched her from below with indignant +faces. + +She glanced at the clock, and went into her room dejectedly; for she had +made a startling discovery: at three o'clock in the morning her feeling +towards the Chosen was one of indifference verging on dislike. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +Looking up from her breakfast the morning after the fire to see who it +was riding down the street, Frau Manske beheld Dellwig coming towards +her garden gate. Her husband was in his dressing-gown and slippers, a +costume he affected early in the day, and they were taking their coffee +this fine weather at a table in their roomy porch. There was, therefore, +no possibility of hiding the dressing-gown, nor yet the fact that her +cap was not as fresh as a cap on which the great Dellwig's eyes were to +rest, should be. She knew that Dellwig was not a star of the first +magnitude like Herr von Lohm, but he was a very magnificent specimen of +those of the second order, and she thought him much more imposing than +Axel, whose quiet ways she had never understood. Dellwig snubbed her so +systematically and so brutally that she could not but respect and admire +him: she was one of those women who enjoy kissing the rod. In a great +flutter she hurried to the gate to open it for him, receiving in return +neither thanks nor greeting. "Good-morning, good-morning," she said, +bowing repeatedly. "A fine morning, Herr Dellwig." + +"Where's Klutz?" he asked curtly, neither getting off his horse nor +taking off his hat. + +"Oh, the poor young man, Herr Dellwig!" she began with uplifted hands. +"He has had a letter from home, and is much upset. His father----" + +"Where is he?" + +"His father? In bed, and not expected to----" + +"Where's Klutz, I say--young Klutz? Herr Manske, just step down here a +minute--good-morning. I want to see your vicar." + +"My vicar has had bad news from home, and is gone." + +"Gone?" + +"This very morning. Poor fellow, his aged father----" + +"I don't care a curse for his aged father. What train?" + +"The half-past nine train. He went in the post-cart at seven." + +Dellwig jerked his horse round, and without a word rode away in the +direction of Stralsund. "I'll catch him yet," he thought, and rode as +hard as he could. + +"What can he want with the vicar?" wondered Frau Manske. + +"A rough manner, but I doubt not a good heart," said her husband, +sighing; and he folded his flapping dressing-gown pensively about his +legs. + +Klutz was on the platform waiting for the Berlin train, due in five +minutes, when Dellwig came up behind and laid a hand on his shoulder. + +"What! Are you going to jump out of your skin?" Dellwig inquired with a +burst of laughter. + +Klutz stared at him speechlessly after that first start, waiting for +what would follow. His face was ghastly. + +"Father so bad, eh?" said Dellwig heartily. "Nerves all gone, what? +Well, it's enough to make a boy look pale to have his father on his +last----" + +"What do you _want_?" whispered Klutz with pale lips. Several persons +who knew Dellwig were on the platform, and were staring. + +"Why," said Dellwig, sinking his voice a little, "you have heard of the +fire--I did not see you helping, by the way? You were with Herr von Lohm +last night--don't look so frightened, man--if I did not know about your +father I'd think there was something on your mind. I only want to ask +you--there is a strange rumour going about----" + +"I am going home--_home_, do you hear?" said Klutz wildly. + +"Certainly you are. No one wants to stop you. Who do you think they say +set fire to the stables?" + +Klutz looked as though he would faint. + +"They say Lohm did it himself," said Dellwig in a low voice, his eyes +fixed on the young man's face. + +Klutz's ears burnt suddenly bright red. He looked down, looked up, +looked over his shoulder in the direction from whence the train would +come. Small cold beads of agitation stood out on his narrow forehead. + +"The point is," said Dellwig, who had not missed a movement of that +twitching face, "that you must have been with Lohm nearly till the time +when--you went straight to him after leaving us?" + +Klutz bowed his head. + +"Then you couldn't have left him long before it broke out. I met him +myself between the stables and his gate five minutes, two minutes, +before the fire. He went past without a word, in a great hurry, as +though he hoped I had not recognised him. Now tell me what you know +about it. Just tell me if you saw anything. It is to both our interests +to cut his claws." + +Klutz pressed his hands together, and looked round again for the train. + +"Do you know what will certainly happen if you try to be generous and +shield him? He'll say _you_ did it, and so get rid of you and hush up +the affair with Miss Estcourt. I can see by your face you know who did +it. Everyone is saying it is Lohm." + +"But why? Why should he? Why should he burn his own----" stammered +Klutz, in dreadful agitation. + +"Why? Because they were in ruins, and well insured. Because he had no +money for new ones; and because now the insurance company will give him +the money. The thing is so plain--I am so convinced that he did it----" + +They heard the train coming. Klutz stooped down quickly and clutched his +bag. "No, no," said Dellwig, catching his arm and gripping it tight, "I +shall not let you go till you say what you know. You or Lohm to be +punished--which do you prefer?" + +Klutz gave Dellwig a despairing, hunted look. "He--he----" he began, +struggling to get the words over his dry lips. + +"He did it? You know it? You saw it?" + +"Yes, yes, I saw it--I saw him----" + +Klutz burst into a wild fit of sobbing. + +"_Armer Junge_," cried Dellwig very loud, patting his back very hard. +"It is indeed terrible--one's father so ill--on his death-bed--and such +a long journey of suspense before you----" + +And sympathising at the top of his voice he looked for an empty +compartment, hustled him into it, pushing him up the high steps and +throwing his bag in after him, and then stood talking loudly of sick +fathers till the last moment. "I trust you will find the _Herr Papa_ +better than you expect," he shouted after the moving train. "Don't give +way--don't give way. That is our vicar," he exclaimed to an acquaintance +who was standing near; "an only son, and he has just heard that his +father is dying. He is overwhelmed, poor devil, with grief." + +To his wife on his arrival home he said, "My dear Theresa,"--a mode of +address only used on the rare occasions of supremest satisfaction--"my +dear Theresa, you may set your mind at rest about our friend Lohm. The +Miss will never marry him, and he himself will not trouble us much +longer." And they had a short conversation in private, and later on at +dinner they opened a bottle of champagne, and explaining to the servant +that it was an aunt's birthday, drank the aunt's health over and over +again, and were merrier than they had been for years. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +It was an odd and a nearly invariable consequence of Anna's cold morning +bath that she made resolutions in great numbers. The morning after the +fire there were more of them than ever. In a glow she assured herself +that she was not going to allow dejection and discouragement to take +possession of her so easily, that she would not, in future, be so much +the slave of her bodily condition, growing selfish, indifferent, unkind, +in proportion as she grew tired. What, she asked, tying her waist-ribbon +with great vigour, was the use of having a soul and its longings after +perfection if it was so absolutely the slave of its encasing body, if it +only received permission from the body to flutter its wings a little in +those rare moments when its master was completely comfortable and +completely satisfied? She was ashamed of herself for being so easily +affected by the heat and stress of the days with the Chosen. How was it +that her ideals were crushed out of sight continually by the mere weight +of the details of everyday existence? She would keep them more carefully +in view, pursue them with a more unfaltering patience--in a word, she +was going to be wise. Life was such a little thing, she reflected, so +very quickly done; how foolish, then, to forget so constantly that +everything that vexed her and made her sorry was flying past and away +even while it grieved her, dwindling in the distance with every hour, +and never coming back. What she had done and suffered last year, how +indifferent, of what infinitely little importance it was, now; and yet +she had been very strenuous about it at the time, inclined to resist and +struggle, taking it over-much to heart, acting as though it were always +going to be there. Oh, she would be wise in future, enjoying all there +was to enjoy, loving all there was to love, and shutting her eyes to the +rest. She would not, for instance, expect more from her Chosen than +they, being as they were, could give. Obviously they could not give her +more than they possessed, either of love, or comprehension, or +charitableness, or anything else that was precious; and it was because +she looked for more that she was for ever feeling disappointed. She +would take them as they were, being happy in what they did give her, and +ignoring what was less excellent. She herself was irritating, she was +sure, and often she saw did produce an irritating effect on the Chosen. +Of sundry minor failings, so minor that she was ashamed of having +noticed them, but which had yet done much towards making the days +difficult, she tried not to think. Indeed, they could hardly be made the +subject of resolutions at all, they were so very trivial. They included +a habit Frau von Treumann had of shutting every window and door that +stood open, whatever the weather was, and however pointedly the others +gasped for air; the exceedingly odd behaviour, forced upon her notice +four times a day, of Fräulein Kuhräuber at table; and an insatiable +curiosity displayed by the baroness in regard to other people's +correspondence and servants--every postcard she read, every envelope she +examined, every telegram, for some always plausible reason, she thought +it her duty to open: and her interest in the doings of the maids was +unquenchable. "These are little ways," thought Anna, "that don't +matter." And she thought it impatiently, for the little ways persisted +in obtruding themselves on her remembrance in the middle of her fine +plans of future wisdom. "If we could all get outside our bodies, even +for one day, and simply go about in our souls, how nice it would be!" +she sighed; but meanwhile the souls of the Chosen were still enveloped +in aggressive bodies that continued to shut windows, open telegrams, and +convey food into their mouths on knives. + +The one belonging to Frau von Treumann was at that moment engaged in +writing with feverish haste to Karlchen, bidding him lose no time in +coming, for mischief was afoot, and Anna was showing an alarming +interest in the affairs of that specious hypocrite Lohm. "Come +unexpectedly," she wrote; "it will be better to take her by surprise; +and above all things come at once." + +She gave the letter herself to the postman, and then, having nothing to +do but needlework that need not be done, and feeling out of sorts after +the long night's watch, and uneasy about Axel Lohm's evident attraction +for Anna, she went into the drawing-room and spent the morning +elaborately differing from the baroness. + +They differed often; it could hardly be called quarrelling, but there +was a continual fire kept up between them of remarks that did not make +for peace. Over their needlework they addressed those observations to +each other that were most calculated to annoy. Frau von Treumann would +boast of her ancestral home at Kadenstein, its magnificence, and the +style in which, with a superb disregard for expense, her brother kept it +up, well knowing that the baroness had had no home more ancestral than a +flat in a provincial town; and the baroness would retort by relating, as +an instance of the grievous slanderousness of so-called friends, a +palpably malicious story she had heard of manure heaps before the +ancestral door, and of unprevented poultry in the _Schloss_ itself. +Once, stirred beyond the bounds of prudence enjoined by Karlchen, Frau +von Treumann had begun to sympathise with the Elmreich family's +misfortune in including a member like Lolli; but had been so much +frightened by her victim's immediate and dreadful pallor that she had +turned it off, deciding to leave the revelation of her full knowledge of +Lolli to Karlchen. + +The only occasions on which they agreed were when together they attacked +Fräulein Kuhräuber; and more than once already that hapless young woman +had gone away to cry. Anna's thoughts had been filled lately by other +things, and she had not paid much attention to what was being talked +about; but yet it seemed to her that Frau von Treumann and the baroness +had discovered a subject on which Fräulein Kuhräuber was abnormally +sensitive and secretive, and that again and again when they were tired +of sparring together they returned to this subject, always in amiable +tones and with pleasant looks, and always reducing the poor Fräulein to +a pitiable state of confusion; which state being reached, and she gone +out to hide her misery in her bedroom, they would look at each other and +smile. + +In all that concerned Fräulein Kuhräuber they were in perfect accord, +and absolutely pitiless. It troubled Anna, for the Fräulein was the one +member of the trio who was really happy--so long, that is, as the others +left her alone. Invigorated by her cold tub into a belief in the +possibility of peace-making, she made one more resolution: to establish +without delay concord between the three. It was so clearly to their own +advantage to live together in harmony; surely a calm talking-to would +make them see that, and desire it. They were not children, neither were +they, presumably, more unreasonable than other people; nor could they, +she thought, having suffered so much themselves, be intentionally +unkind. That very day she would make things straight. + +She could not of course dream that the periodical putting to confusion +of Fräulein Kuhräuber was the one thing that kept the other two alive. +They found life at Kleinwalde terribly dull. There were no neighbours, +and they did not like forests. The princess hardly showed herself; Anna +was English, besides being more or less of a lunatic--the combination, +when you came to think of it, was alarming,--and they soon wearied of +pouring into each other's highly sceptical ears descriptions of the +splendours of their prosperous days. The visits of the parson had at +first been a welcome change, for they were both religious women who +loved to impress a new listener with the amount of their faith and +resignation; but when they knew him a little better, and had said the +same things several times, and found that as soon as they paused he +began to expatiate on the advantages and joys of their present mode of +life with Miss Estcourt, of which no one had been talking, they were +bored, and left off being pleased to see him, and fell back for +amusement on their own bickerings, and the probing of Fräulein +Kuhräuber's tender places. + +About midday Anna, who had been writing German letters all the morning +helped by the princess, letters of inquiry concerning a new teacher for +Letty, came round by the path outside the drawing-room window looking +for the Chosen, and prepared to talk to them of concord. The window was +shut, and she knocked on the pane, trying to see into the shady room. It +was a broiling day, and she had no hat; therefore she knocked again, and +held her hands above her head, for the sun was intolerable. She wore one +of her last summer's dresses, a lilac muslin that in spite of its age +seemed in Kleinwalde to be quite absurdly pretty. She herself looked +prettier than ever out there in the light, the sun beating down on her +burnished hair. + +"Anna wants to come in," said Frau von Treumann, looking up from her +embroidery at the figure in the sun. + +"I suppose she does," said the baroness tranquilly. + +Neither of them moved. + +Anna knocked again. + +"She will be sunstruck," observed Frau von Treumann. + +"I think she will," agreed the baroness. + +Neither of them moved. + +Anna stooped down, and tried to look into the room, but could see +nothing. She knocked again; waited a moment; and then went away. + +The two ladies embroidered in silence. + +"Absurd old maid," Frau von Treumann thought, glancing at the baroness. +"As though a married woman of my age and standing could get up and open +windows when she is in the room." + +"Ridiculous old Treumann," thought the baroness, outwardly engrossed by +her work. "What does she think, I wonder? I shall teach her that I am as +good as herself, and am not here to open windows any more than she is." + +"Why, you _are_ here," said Anna, surprised, coming in at the door. + +"Where have you been all the morning?" inquired Frau von Treumann +amiably. "We hardly ever see you, dear Anna. I hope you have come now to +sit with us a little while. Come, sit next to me, and let us have a nice +chat." + +She made room for her on the sofa. + +"Where is Emilie?" Anna asked; Emilie was Fräulein Kuhräuber, and Anna +was the only person in the house who called her so. + +"She came in some time ago, but went away at once. She does not, I fear, +feel at ease with us." + +"That is exactly what I want to talk about," said Anna. + +"Is it? Why, how strange. Last night, while we were waiting for you, the +baroness and I had a serious conversation about Fräulein Kuhräuber, and +we decided to tell you what conclusions we came to on the first +opportunity." + +"Certainly," said the baroness. + +"It is surprising that Princess Ludwig should not have opened your +eyes." + +"It is truly surprising," said the baroness. + +"But they are open. And they have seen that you are not very--not +quite--well, not _very_ kind to poor Emilie. Don't you like her?" + +"My dear Anna, we have found it quite impossible to like Fräulein +Kuhräuber." + +"Or even endure her," amended the baroness. + +"And yet I never saw a kinder, more absolutely amiable creature," said +Anna. + +"You are deceived in her," said Frau von Treumann. + +"We have found out that she is here under false pretences," said the +baroness. + +"Which," said Frau von Treumann, unable to forbear glancing at the +baroness, "is a very dreadful thing." + +"Certainly," agreed the baroness. + +Anna looked from one to the other. "Well?" she said, as they did not go +on. Then the thought of her peace-making errand came into her mind, and +her certainty that she only needed to talk quietly to these two in order +to convince. "What do you think I came in to say to you?" she said, with +a low laugh in which there was no mirth. "I was going to propose that +you should both begin now to love Emilie. You have made her cry so +often--I have seen her coming out of this room so often with red +eyes--that I was sure you must be tired of that now, and would like to +begin to live happily with her, loving her for all that is so good in +her, and not minding the rest." + +"My dear Anna," said Frau von Treumann testily, "it is out of the +question that ladies of birth and breeding should tolerate her." + +"Certainly it is," emphatically agreed the baroness. + +"And why? Isn't she a woman like ourselves? Wasn't she poor and +miserable too? And won't she go to heaven by and by, just as we, I hope, +shall?" + +They thought this profane. + +"We shall all, I trust, meet in heaven," said Frau von Treumann gently. +Then she went on, clearing her throat, "But meanwhile we think it our +duty to ask you if you know what her father was." + +"He was a man of letters," said Anna, remembering the very words of +Fräulein Kuhräuber's reply to her inquiries. + +"Exactly. But of what letters?" + +"She tried to give us that same answer," said the baroness. + +"Of what letters?" repeated Anna, looking puzzled. + +"He carried all the letters he ever had in a bag," said Frau von +Treumann. + +"In a bag?" + +"In a word, dear child, he was a postman, and she has told you +untruths." + +There was a silence. Anna pushed at a neighbouring footstool with the +toe of her shoe. "It is not pretty," she said after a while, her eyes on +the footstool, "to tell untruths." + +"Certainly it is not," agreed the baroness. + +"Especially in this case," said Frau von Treumann. + +"Yes, especially in this case," said Anna, looking up. + +"We thought you could not know the truth, and felt certain you would be +shocked. Now you will understand how impossible it is for ladies of +family to associate with such a person, and we are sure that you will +not ask us to do so, but will send her away." + +"No," said Anna, in a low voice. + +"No what, dear child?" inquired Frau von Treumann sweetly. + +"I cannot send her away." + +"You cannot send her away?" they cried together. Both let their work +drop into their laps, and both stared blankly at Anna, who looked at the +footstool. + +"Have you made a lifelong contract with her?" asked Frau von Treumann, +with great heat, no such contract having been made in her own case. + +"I did not quite say what I mean," said Anna, looking up again. "I do +not mean that I cannot really send her away, for of course I can if I +choose. Exactly what I mean is that I will not." + +There was a pause. Neither of the ladies had expected such an attitude. + +"This is very serious," then observed Frau von Treumann helplessly. She +took up her work again and pulled at the stitches, making knots in the +thread. Both she and the baroness had felt so certain that Anna would be +properly incensed when she heard the truth. Her manner without doubt +suggested displeasure, but the displeasure, strangely enough, seemed to +be directed against themselves instead of Fräulein Kuhräuber. What could +they, with dignity, do next? Frau von Treumann felt angry and perplexed. +She remembered Karlchen's advice in regard to ultimatums, and wished she +had remembered it sooner; but who could have imagined the extent of +Anna's folly? Never, she reflected, had she met anyone quite so foolish. + +"It is a case for the police," burst out the baroness passionately, all +the pride of all the Elmreichs surging up in revolt against a fate +threatening to condemn her to spend the rest of her days with the +progeny of a postman. "Your advertisement specially mentioned good birth +as essential, and she is here under false pretences. You have the proofs +in her letters. She is within reach of the arm of the law." + +Anna could not help smiling. "Don't denounce her," she said. "I should +be appalled if anything approaching the arm of the law got into my +house. I'll burn the proofs after dinner." Then she turned to Frau von +Treumann. "If you think it over," she said, "I _know_ you will not wish +me to be so merciless, so pitiless, as to send Emilie back to misery +only because her father, who has been dead thirty years, was a postman." + +"But, Anna, you must be reasonable--you must look at the other side. No +Treumann has ever yet been required to associate----" + +"But if he was a good man? If he did his work honestly, and said his +prayers, and behaved himself? We have no reason for doubting that he was +a most excellent postman," she went on, a twinkle in her eye; "punctual, +diligent, and altogether praiseworthy." + +"Then you object to nothing?" cried the baroness with extraordinary +bitterness. "You draw the line nowhere? All the traditions and +prejudices of gentlefolk are supremely indifferent to you?" + +"Oh, I object to a great many things. I would have liked it better if +the postman had really been the literary luminary poor Emilie said he +was--for her sake, and my sake, and your sakes. And I don't like +untruths, and never shall. But I do like Emilie, and I forgive it all." + +"Then she is to remain here?" + +"Yes, as long as she wants to. And do, _do_ try to see how good she is, +and how much there is to love in her. You have done her a real service," +Anna added, smiling, "for now she won't have it on her mind any more, +and will be able to be really happy." + +The baroness gathered up her work and rose. Frau von Treumann looked at +her nervously, and rose too. + +"Then----" began the baroness, pale with outraged pride and propriety. + +"Then really----" began Frau von Treumann more faintly, but feeling +bound in this matter to follow her example. After all, they could always +allow themselves to be persuaded to change their minds again. + +Anna got up too, and they stood facing each other. Something awful was +going to happen, she felt, but what? Were they, she wondered, both going +to give her notice? + +The baroness, drawn up to her full height, looked at her, opened her +lips to complete her sentence, and shut them again. She was exceedingly +agitated, and held her little thin, claw-like hands tightly together to +hide how they were shaking. All she had left in the world was the pride +of being an Elmreich and a baroness; and as, with the relentless years, +she had grown poorer, plainer, more insignificant, so had this pride +increased and strengthened, until, together with her passionate +propriety and horror of everything in the least doubtful in the way of +reputations, it had come to be the very mainspring of her being. +"Then----" she began again, with a great effort; for she remembered how +there had actually been no food sometimes when she was hungry, and no +fire when she was cold, and no doctor when she was sick, and how severe +weather had seemed to set in invariably at those times when she had +least money, making her first so much hungrier than usual, and +afterwards so much more sick, as though nature itself owed her a grudge. + +"Oh, these ultimatums!" inwardly deplored Frau von Treumann; the +baroness was very absurd, she thought, to take the thing so tragically. + +And at that instant the door was thrown open, and without waiting to be +announced, Karlchen, resplendent in his hussar uniform, and beaming from +ear to ear, hastened, clanking, into the room. + +"Karlchen! _Du engelsgute Junge!_" shrieked his mother, in accents of +supremest relief and joy. + +"I could not stay away longer," cried Karlchen, returning her embrace +with vigour, "I felt impelled to come. I obtained leave after many +prayers. It is for a few hours only. I return to-night. You forgive me?" +he added, turning to Anna and bowing over her hand. + +"Yes," she said, smiling; Karlchen had come this time, she felt, exactly +at the right moment. + +"I wrote this very morning----" began his mother in her excitement; but +she stopped in time, and covered her confusion by once again folding him +in her arms. + +Karlchen was so much delighted by this unexpectedly cordial reception +that he lost his head a little. Anna stood smiling at him as she had not +done once last time. Yes, there were the dimples--oh, sweet +vision!--they were, indeed, glorious dimples. He seized her hand a +second time and kissed it. The pretty hand--so delicate and slender. And +the dress--Karlchen had an eye for dress--how dainty it was! "Your kind +welcome quite overcomes me," he said enthusiastically; and he looked so +gay, and so intensely satisfied with himself and the whole world, that +Anna laughed again. Besides, the uniform was really surprisingly +becoming; his civilian clothes on his first visit had been melancholy +examples of what a military tailor cannot do. + +"Ah, baroness," said Karlchen, catching sight of the small, silent +figure. He brought his heels together, bowed, and crossing over to her +shook hands. "I have come laden with greetings for you," he said. + +"Greetings?" repeated the baroness, surprised. Then an odd look of fear +came into her eyes. + +He had not meant to do it then; he had not been certain whether he would +do it this time at all; but he was feeling so exhilarated, so buoyant, +that he could not resist. "I was at the Wintergarten last night," he +said, "and had a talk with your sister, Baroness Lolli. She dances +better than ever. She sends you her love, and says she is coming down to +see you." + +The baroness made a queer little sound, shut her eyes, spread out her +hands, and dropped on to the carpet as though she had been shot. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +"Is Herr von Treumann gone?" + +It was late the same afternoon, and Princess Ludwig had come into the +bedroom where the Stralsund doctor was still vainly endeavouring to +bring the baroness back to life, to ask Anna whether she would see Axel +Lohm, who was waiting downstairs and hoped to be allowed to speak to +her. "But is Herr von Treumann gone?" inquired Anna; and would not move +till she was sure of that. + +"Yes, and his mother has gone with him to the station." + +Anna had not left the baroness's side since the catastrophe. She could +not see the unconscious face on the pillow for tears. Was there ever +such barbarous, such gratuitous cruelty as young Treumann's? His mother +had been in once or twice on tiptoe, the last time to tell Anna that he +was leaving, and would she not come down so that he might explain how +sorry he was for having unwittingly done so much mischief? But Anna had +merely shaken her head and turned again to the piteous little figure on +the bed. Never again, she told herself, would she see or speak to +Karlchen. + +The movement with which she turned away was expressive; and Frau von +Treumann went out and heaped bitter reproaches on Karlchen, driving with +him to Stralsund in order to have ample time to heap all that were in +her mind, and doing it the more thoroughly that he was in a crushed +condition and altogether incapable of defending himself. For what had he +really cared about the baroness's relationship to Lolli? He had thought +it a huge joke, and had looked forward with enjoyment to seeing Anna +promptly order her out of the house. How could he, thick of skin and +slow of brain, have foreseen such a crisis? He was very much in love +with Anna, and shivered when he thought of the look she had given him as +she followed the people who were carrying the baroness out of the room. +Certainly he was exceedingly wretched, and his mother could not reproach +him more bitterly than he reproached himself. While she was vehemently +pointing out the obvious, he meditated sadly on the length of the +journey he had taken for worse than nothing. All the morning he had been +roasted in trains, and he was about to be roasted again for a dreary +succession of hours. His hot uniform, put on solely for Anna's +bedazzlement, added enormously to his torments; and the distance between +Rislar and Stralsund was great, and the journey proportionately +expensive--much too expensive, if all you got for it was one +intoxicating glimpse of dimples, followed by a flashing look of wrath +that made you feel cold with the thermometer at ninety. He had not felt +so dejected since the eighties, he reflected, in which dark ages he had +been forced to fight a duel. Karlchen had a prejudice against duelling; +he thought it foolish. But, being an officer--he was at that time a +conspicuously gay lieutenant--whatever he might think about it, if +anyone wanted to fight him fight he must, or drop into the awful ranks +of Unknowables. He had made a joke of a personal nature, and the other +man turned out to have no sense of humour, and took it seriously, and +expressed a desire for Karlchen's blood. Driving with his justly +incensed mother through the dust and heat to the station, he remembered +the dismal night he had passed before the duel, and thought how much his +dejection then had resembled in its profundity his dejection now; for he +had been afraid he was going to be hurt, and whatever people may say +about courage nobody really likes being hurt. Well, perhaps after all, +this business with Anna would turn out all right, just as that business +had turned out all right; for he had killed his man, and, instead of +wounds, had been covered with glory. Thus Karlchen endeavoured to snatch +comfort as he drove, but yet his heart was very heavy. + +"I hope," said his mother bitingly when he was in the train, patiently +waiting to be taken beyond the sound of her voice, "I do hope that you +are ashamed of yourself. It is a bitter feeling, I can tell you, the +feeling that one is the mother of a fool." + +To which Karlchen, still dazed, replied by unhooking his collar, wiping +his face, and appealing with a heart-rending plaintiveness to a passing +beer-boy to give him, _um Gottes Willen_, beer. + +Axel was in the drawing-room, where the remains of Karlchen's +valedictory coffee and cakes were littered on a table, when Anna came +down. "I am so sorry for you," he said. "Princess Ludwig has been +telling me what has happened." + +"Don't be sorry for me. Nothing is the matter with me. Be sorry for that +most unfortunate little soul upstairs." + +Axel kissed Anna's right hand, which was, she knew, the custom; and +immediately proceeded to kiss her other hand, which was not the custom +at all. She was looking woebegone, with red eyelids and white cheeks; +but a faint colour came into her face at this, for he did it with such +unmistakable devotion that for the first time she wondered uneasily +whether their pleasant friendship were not about to come to an end. + +"Don't be too kind," she said, drawing her hands away and trying to +smile. "I--I feel so stupid to-day, and want to cry dreadfully." + +"Well then, I should do it, and get it over." + +"I did do it, but I haven't got it over." + +"Well, don't think of it. How is the baroness?" + +"Just the same. The doctor thinks it serious. And she has no +constitution. She has not had enough of anything for years--not enough +food, or clothes, or--or anything." + +She went quickly across to the coffee table to hide how much she wanted +to cry. "Have some coffee," she said with her back to him, moving the +cups aimlessly about. + +"Don't forget," said Axel, "that the poor lady's past misery is over now +and done with. Think what luck has come in her way at last. When she +gets over this, here she is, safe with you, surrounded by love and care +and tenderness--blessings not given to all of us." + +"But she doesn't like love and care and tenderness. At least, if it +comes from me. She dislikes me." + +Axel could not exclaim in surprise, for he was not surprised. The +baroness had appeared to him to be so hopelessly sour; and how, he +thought, shall the hopelessly sour love the preternaturally sweet? He +looked therefore at Anna arranging the cups with restless, nervous +fingers, and waited for more. + +"Why do you say that?" she asked, still with her back to him. + +"Say what?" + +"That when she gets over this she will have all those nice things +surrounding her. You told me when first she came, that if she really +were the poor dancing woman's sister I ought on no account to keep her +here. Don't you remember?" + +"Quite well. But am I not right in supposing that you _will_ keep her? +You see, I know you better now than I did then." + +"If she liked being here--if it made her happy--I would keep her in +defiance of the whole world." + +"But as it is----?" + +She came to him with a cup of cold coffee in her hands. He took it, and +stirred it mechanically. + +"As it is," she said, "she is very ill, and has to get well again before +we begin to decide things. Perhaps," she added, looking up at him +wistfully, "this illness will change her?" + +He shook his head. "I am afraid it won't," he said. "For a little while, +perhaps--for a few weeks at first while she still remembers your +nursing, and then--why, the old self over again." + +He put the untasted coffee down on the nearest table. "There is no +getting away," he said, coming back to her, "from one's old self. That +is why this work you have undertaken is so hopeless." + +"Hopeless?" she exclaimed in a startled voice. He was saying aloud what +she had more than once almost--never quite--whispered in her heart of +hearts. + +"You ought to have begun with the baroness thirty years ago, to have had +a chance of success." + +"Why, she was five years old then, and I am sure quite cheerful. And I +wasn't there at all." + +"Five ought really to be the average age of the Chosen. What is the use +of picking out unhappy persons well on in life, and thinking you are +going to make them happy? How can you _make_ them be happy? If it had +been possible to their natures they would have been so long ago, however +poor they were. And they would not have been so poor or so unhappy if +they had been willing to work. Work is such an admirable tonic. The +princess works, and finds life very tolerable. You will never succeed +with people like Frau von Treumann and the baroness. They belong to a +class of persons that will grumble even in heaven. You could easily make +those who are happy already still happier, for it is in them--the +gratitude and appreciation for life and its blessings; but those of +course are not the people you want to get at. You think I am preaching?" +he asked abruptly. + +"But are you not?" + +"It is because I cannot stand by and watch you bruising yourself." + +"Oh," said Anna, "you are a man, and can fight your way well enough +through life. You are quite comfortable and prosperous. How can you +sympathise with women like Else? Because she is not young you haven't a +feeling for her--only indifference. You talk of my bruising myself--you +don't mind her bruises. And if I were forty, how sure I am that you +wouldn't mind mine." + +"Yes, I would," said Axel, with such conviction that she added quickly, +"Well--I don't want to talk about bruises." + +"I hope the baroness will soon get over the cruel ones that singularly +brutal young man has inflicted. You agree with me that he _is_ a +singularly brutal young man?" + +"Absolutely." + +"And I hope that when she is well again you will make her as happy as +she is capable of being." + +"If I knew how!" + +"Why, by letting her go away, and giving her enough to live on decently +by herself. It would be quite the best course to take, both for you and +for her." + +Anna looked down. "I have been thinking the same thing," she said in a +low voice; she felt as though she were hauling down her flag. + +"Perhaps you will let me help." + +"Help?" + +"Let me contribute. Why may I not be charitable too? If we join together +it will be to her advantage. She need not know. And you are not a +millionaire." + +"Nor are you," said Anna, smiling up at him. + +"We unfortunates who live by our potatoes are never millionaires. But +still we can be charitable." + +"But why should _you_ help the baroness? I found her out, and brought +her here, and I am the only person responsible for her." + +"It will be much more costly than just having her here." + +"I don't mind, if only she is happy. And I will not have you pay the +cost of my experiments in philanthropy." + +"Is Frau von Treumann happy?" he asked abruptly. + +"No," said Anna, with a faint smile. + +"Is Fräulein Kuhräuber happy?" + +"No." + +"Tell me one thing more," he said; "are _you_ happy?" + +Anna blushed. "That is a queer question," she said. "Why should I not be +happy?" + +"But are you?" + +She looked at him, hesitating. Then she said, in a very small voice, +"No." + +Axel took two or three turns up and down the room. "I knew it," he said; +and added something in German under his breath about _Weiber_. "After +this, you will not, I suppose, receive young Treumann again?" he asked, +coming to a halt in front of her. + +"Never again." + +"You have a difficult time before you, then, with his mother." + +Anna blushed. "I am afraid I have," she admitted. + +"You have a very difficult few weeks before you," he said. "The baroness +probably dangerously ill, and Frau von Treumann very angry with you. I +know Princess Ludwig does all she can, but still you are alone--against +odds." + +The odds, too, were greater than she knew. All day he had been +officially engaged in making inquiries into the origin of the fire the +night before, and every circumstance pointed to Klutz as the culprit. He +had sent for Klutz, and Klutz, they said, had gone home. Then he sent a +telegram after him, and his father replied that he was neither expecting +his son nor was he ill. Klutz, then, had disappeared in order to avoid +the consequences of what he had done; but it was only a question of days +before the police brought him back again, and then he would tell the +whole absurd story, and Pomerania would chuckle at Anna's expense. The +thought of this chuckling made Axel cold with rage. + +He stood looking out of the window at the parched garden, the drooping +lilac-bushes, the hazy island across the water. The wind had dropped, +and a gray film had drawn across the sky. At the bottom of the garden, +under a chestnut-tree, Miss Leech was sewing, while Letty read aloud to +her. The monotonous drone of Letty's reading, interrupted by her loud +complaints each time a mosquito stung her, reached Axel's ears as he +stood there in silence. A grim struggle was going on within him. He +loved Anna with a passion that would no longer be hidden; and he knew +that he must somehow hide it. He was so certain that she did not care +about him. He was so certain that she would never dream of marrying him. +And yet if ever a woman needed the protection of an all-enfolding love +it was Anna at that moment "That child down there has made a pretty fair +amount of mischief for a person of her age," he burst out with a +vehemence that startled Anna. + +"What child?" she said, coming up behind him and looking over his +shoulder. + +He turned round quickly. The feeling that she was so close to him tore +away the last shred of his self-control. "You know that I love you," he +said, his voice shaking with passion. + +Her face in an instant was colourless. She stood quite still, almost +touching him, as though she did not dare move. Her eyes were fixed on +his with a frightened, fascinated look. + +"You know it. You have known it a long time. Now what are you going to +say to me?" + +She looked at him without speaking or moving. + +"Anna, what are you going to say to me?" he cried; and he caught up her +hands and kissed them one after the other, hardly knowing what he did, +beside himself with love of her. + +She watched him helplessly. She felt faint and sick. She had had a +miserable day, and was completely overwhelmed by this last misfortune. +Her good friend Axel was gone, gone for ever. The pleasant friendship +was done. In place of the friend she so much needed, of the friendship +she had found so comforting, there was--this. + +"Won't you--won't you let my hands go?" she said faintly. She did not +know him again. Was it possible that this agony of love was for her? She +knew herself so well, she knew so well what it was for which he was +evidently going to break his heart. How wonderful, how pitiful beyond +expression, that a good man like Axel should suffer anything because of +her. And even in the midst of her fright and misery the thought would +not be put from her that if she had happened to look like the baroness +or Fräulein Kuhräuber, while inwardly remaining exactly as she was, he +would not have broken his heart for her. "Oh, let me go----" she +whispered; and turned her head aside, and shut her eyes, unable to look +any longer at the love and despair in his. + +"But what are you going to say to me?" + +"Oh, you know--you know----" + +"But you are so sorry always for people who suffer----" + +"Oh, stop--oh, stop!" + +"No, I won't stop; here have I been condemned to look on at you +lavishing love on people who don't want it, don't like it, are wearied +by it--who don't know how precious it is, how priceless it is, and how I +am hungering and thirsting--oh, starving, starving, for one drop of +it----" His voice shook, and he fell once more to covering her hands +with kisses that seemed to scorch her soul. + +This was very dreadful. Her soul had never been scorched before. +Something must be done to stop him. She could not stand there with her +eyes shut and her hands being kissed for ever. "_Please_ let me go," she +entreated faintly; and in her helplessness began to cry. + +He instantly released her, and she stood before him crying. What a +horrible thing it was to lose her friend, to be forced to hurt him. "I +never dreamt that you--that you----" she wept. + +"What, that I loved you?" he asked incredulously; but more gently, +subdued by her deep distress. His face grew very hopeless. She was +crying because she was sorry for him. + +"I don't know--I think I did dream that--lately--once or twice--but I +never dreamt that it was so bad--that you were such a--such a--such a +volcano. Oh, Axel, why are you a volcano?" she cried, looking up at him, +the tears rolling down her cheeks. "Why have you spoilt everything? It +was so nice before. We were such friends. And now--how can I be friends +with a volcano?" + +"Anna, if you make fun of me----" + +"Oh no, no--as though I would--as though I could do anything so +unutterable. But don't let us be tragic. Oh, don't let us be tragic. You +know my plans--you know my plans inside out, from beginning to end--how +can I, how _can_ I marry anybody?" + +"Good God, those women--those women who are not happy, who have spoilt +your happiness, they are to spoil mine now--ours, Anna?" He seized her +arm as though he would wake her at all costs from a fatal sleep. "Do you +mean to say that if it were not for those women you would be my wife?" + +"Oh, if only you wouldn't be tragic----" + +"Do you mean to say that is the reason?" + +"Oh, isn't it sufficient----" + +"No. If you cared for me it would be no reason at all." + +She cried bitterly. "But I don't," she sobbed. "Not like that--not in +that way. It is atrocious of me not to--I know how good you are, how +kind, how--how everything. And still I don't. I don't know why I don't, +but I don't. Oh, Axel, I am so sorry--don't look so wretched--I can't +bear it." + +"But what can it matter to you how I look if you don't care about me?" + +"Oh, oh," sobbed Anna, wringing her hands. + +He caught hold of her wrist. "See here, Anna. Look at me." + +But she would not look at him. + +"Look at me. I don't believe you know your own mind. I want to see into +your eyes. They were always honest--look at me." + +But she would not look at him. + +"Surely you will do that--only that--for me." + +"There isn't anything to see," she wept, "there really isn't. It is +dreadful of me, but I can't help it." + +"Well, but look at me." + +"Oh, Axel, what _is_ the use of looking at you?" she cried in despair; +and pulled her handkerchief away and did it. + +He searched her face for a moment in silence, as though he thought that +if only he could read her soul he might understand it better than she +did herself. Those dear eyes--they were full of pity, full of distress; +but search as he might he could find nothing else. + +He turned away without a word. + +"Don't, don't be tragic," she begged, anxiously following him a few +steps. "If only you are not tragic we shall still be able to be +friends----" + +But he did not look round. + +A servant with a tray was outside coming in to take the coffee away. +"Oh," exclaimed Anna, seeing that it was impossible to hide her +tear-stained face from the girl's calm scrutiny, "oh, Johanna, the poor +baroness--she is so ill--it is so dreadful----" And she dropped into a +chair and hid herself in the cushions, weeping hysterically with an +abandonment of woe that betokened a quite extraordinary affection for +the baroness. + +"_Gott, die arme Baronesse_," sympathised Johanna perfunctorily. To +herself she remarked, "This very moment has the Miss refused to marry +_gnädiger Herr_." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +What Anna most longed for in the days that followed was a mother. "If I +had a mother," she thought, not once, but again and again, and her eyes +had a wistful, starved look when she thought it, "if I only had a +mother, a sweet mother all to myself, of my very own, I'd put my head on +her dear shoulder and cry myself happy again. First I'd tell her +everything, and she wouldn't mind however silly it was, and she wouldn't +be tired however long it was, and she'd say 'Little darling child, you +are only a baby after all,' and would scold me a little, and kiss me a +great deal, and then I'd listen so comfortably, all the time with my +face against her nice soft dress, and I would feel so safe and sure and +wrapped round while she told me what to do next. It is lonely and cold +and difficult without a mother." + +The house was in confusion. The baroness had come out of her +unconsciousness to delirium, and the doctors, knowing that she was not +related to anyone there, talked openly of death. There were two doctors, +now, and two nurses; and Anna insisted on nursing too, wearing herself +out with all the more passion because she felt that it was of so little +importance really to anyone whether the baroness lived or died. + +They were all strangers, the people watching this frail fighter for +life, and they watched with the indifference natural to strangers. Here +was a middle-aged person who would probably die; if she died no one lost +anything, and if she lived it did not matter either. The doctors and +nurses, accustomed to these things, could not be expected to be +interested in so profoundly uninteresting a case; Frau von Treumann +observed once at least every day that it was _schrecklich_, and went on +with her embroidery; Fräulein Kuhräuber cried a little when, on her way +to her bedroom, she heard the baroness raving, but she cried easily, and +the raving frightened her; the princess felt that death in this case +would be a blessing; and Letty and Miss Leech avoided the house, and +spent the burning days rambling in woods that teemed with prodigal, +joyous life. + +As for Anna, to see her in the sick-room was to suppose her the nearest +and tenderest relative of the baroness; and yet the passion that +possessed her was not love, but only an endless, unfathomable pity. "If +she gets well, she shall never be unhappy again," vowed Anna in those +days when she thought she could hear Death's footsteps on the stairs. +"Here or somewhere else--anywhere she likes--she shall live and be +happy. She will see that her poor sister has made no difference, except +that there will be no shadow between us now." + +But what is the use of vowing? When June was in its second week the +baroness slowly and hesitatingly turned the corner of her illness; and +immediately the corner was turned and the exhaustion of turning it got +over, she became fractious. "You will have a difficult time," Axel had +said on the day he spoilt their friendship; and it was true. The +difficult time began after that corner was turned, and the farther the +baroness drew away from it, the nearer she got to complete +convalescence, the more difficult did life for Anna become. For it +resumed the old course, and they all resumed their old selves, the same +old selves, even to the shadow of an unmentioned Lolli between them, +that Axel had said they would by no means get away from; but with this +difference, that the peculiarities of both Frau von Treumann and the +baroness were more pronounced than before, and that not one of the trio +would speak to either of the other two. + +Frau von Treumann was still firmly fixed in the house, without the least +intention apparently of leaving it, and she spent her time lying in wait +for Anna, watching for an opportunity of beginning again about Karlchen. +Anna had avoided the inevitable day when she would be caught, but it +came at last, and she was caught in the garden, whither she had retired +to consider how best to approach the baroness, hitherto quite +unapproachable, on the burning question of Lolli. + +Frau von Treumann appeared suddenly, coming softly across the grass, so +that there was no time to run away. "Anna," she called out +reproachfully, seeing Anna make a movement as though she wanted to run, +which was exactly what she did want to do, "Anna, have I the plague?" + +"I hope not," said Anna. + +"You treat me as if I had it." + +Anna said nothing. "Why does she stay here? How can she stay here, after +what has happened?" she had wondered often. Perhaps she had come now to +announce her departure. She prepared herself therefore to listen with a +willing ear. + +She was sitting in the shade of a copper beech facing the oily sea and +the coast of RĂĽgen quivering opposite in the heat-haze. She was not +doing anything; she never did seem to do anything, as these ladies of +the busy fingers often noticed. + +"Blue and white," said Anna, looking up at the gulls and the sky to give +Frau von Treumann time, "the Pomeranian colours. I see now where they +come from." + +But Frau von Treumann had not come out to talk about the Pomeranian +colours. "My Karlchen has been ill," she said, her eyes on Anna's face. + +Anna watched the gulls overhead in the deep blue. "So has Else," she +remarked. + +"Dear me," thought Frau von Treumann, "what rancour." + +She laid her hand on Anna's knee, and it was taken no notice of. "You +cannot forgive him?" she said gently. "You cannot pardon a momentary +indiscretion?" + +"I have nothing to forgive," said Anna, watching the gulls; one dropped +down suddenly, and rose again with a fish in its beak, the sun for an +instant catching the silver of the scales. "It is no affair of mine. It +is for Else to forgive him." + +Frau von Treumann began to weep; this way of looking at it was so +hopelessly unreasonable. She pulled out her handkerchief. "What a heap +she must use," thought Anna; never had she met people who cried so much +and so easily as the Chosen; she was quite used now to red eyes; one or +other of her sisters had them almost daily, for the farther their old +bodily discomforts and real anxieties lay behind them the more tender +and easily lacerated did their feelings become. + +"He could not bear to see you being imposed upon," said Frau von +Treumann. "As soon as he knew about this terrible sister he felt he must +hasten down to save you. 'Mother,' he said to me when first he suspected +it, 'if it is true, she must not be contaminated.'" + +"Who mustn't?" + +"Oh, Anna, you know he thinks only of you!" + +"Well, you see," said Anna, "I don't mind being contaminated." + +"Oh, dear child, a young pretty girl ought to mind very much." + +"Well, I don't. But what about yourself? Are you not afraid of--of +contamination?" She was frightened by her own daring when she had said +it, and would not have looked at Frau von Treumann for worlds. + +"No, dear child," replied that lady in tones of tearful sweetness, "I am +too old to suffer in any way from associating with queer people." + +"But I thought a Treumann----" murmured Anna, more and more frightened +at herself, but impelled to go on. + +"Dear Anna, a Treumann has never yet flinched before duty." + +Anna was silenced. After that she could only continue to watch the +gulls. + +"You are going to keep the baroness?" + +"If she cares to stay, yes." + +"I thought you would. It is for you to decide who you will have in your +house. But what would you do if this--this Lolli came down to see her +sister?" + +"I really cannot tell." + +"Well, be sure of one thing," burst out Frau von Treumann +enthusiastically, "I will not forsake you, dear Anna. Your position now +is exceedingly delicate, and I will not forsake you." + +So she was not going. Anna got up with a faint sigh. "It is frightfully +hot here," she said; "I think I will go to Else." + +"Ah--and I wanted to tell you about my poor Karlchen--and you avoid +me--you do not want to hear. If I am in the house, the house is too hot. +If I come into the garden, the garden is too hot. You no longer like +being with me." + +Anna did not contradict her. She was wondering painfully what she ought +to do. Ought she meekly to allow Frau von Treumann to stay on at +Kleinwalde, to the exclusion, perhaps, of someone really deserving? Or +ought she to brace herself to the terrible task of asking her to go? She +thought, "I will ask Axel"--and then remembered that there was no Axel +to ask. He never came near her. He had dropped out of her life as +completely as though he had left Lohm. Since that unhappy day, she had +neither seen him nor heard of him. Many times did she say to herself, "I +will ask Axel," and always the remembrance that she could not came with +a shock of loneliness; and then she would drop into the train of thought +that ended with "if I had a mother," and her eyes growing wistful. + +"Perhaps it is the hot weather," she said suddenly, an evening or two +later, after a long silence, to the princess. They had been speaking of +servants before that. + +"You think it is the hot weather that makes Johanna break the cups?" + +"That makes me think so much of mothers." + +The princess turned her head quickly, and examined Anna's face. It was +Sunday evening, and the others were at church. The baroness, whose +recovery was slow, was up in her room. + +"What mothers?" naturally inquired the princess. + +"I think this everlasting heat is dreadful," said Anna plaintively. "I +have no backbone left. I am all limp, and soft, and silly. In cold +weather I believe I wouldn't want a mother half so badly." + +"So you want a mother?" said the princess, taking Anna's hand in hers +and patting it kindly. She thought she knew why. Everyone in the house +saw that something must have been said to Axel Lohm to make him keep +away so long. Perhaps Anna was repenting, and wanted a mother's help to +set things right again. + +"I always thought it would be so glorious to be independent," said Anna, +"and now somehow it isn't. It is tiring. I want someone to tell me what +I ought to do, and to see that I do it. Besides petting me. I long and +long sometimes to be petted." + +The princess looked wise. "My dear," she said, shaking her head, "it is +not a mother that you want. Do you know the couplet:-- + + _Man bedarf der Leitung + Und der männlichen Begleitung?_ + +A truly excellent couplet." + +Anna smiled. "That is the German idea of female bliss--always to be led +round by the nose by some husband." + +"Not _some_ husband, my dear--one's own husband. You may call it leading +by the nose if you like. I can only say that I enjoyed being led by +mine, and have missed it grievously ever since." + +"But you had found the right man." + +"It is not very difficult to find the right man." + +"Yes it is--very difficult indeed." + +"I think not," said the princess. "He is never far off. Sometimes, even, +he is next door." And she gazed over Anna's head at the ceiling with +elaborate unconsciousness. + +"And besides," said Anna, "why does a woman everlastingly want to be led +and propped? Why can't she go about the business of life on her own +feet? Why must she always lean on someone?" + +"You said just now it is because it is hot." + +"The fact is," said Anna, "that I am not clever enough to see my way +through puzzles. And that depresses me." + +"I well know that you must be puzzled." + +"Yes, it is puzzling, isn't it? I can talk to you about it, for of +course you see it all. It seems so absurd that the only result of my +trying to make people happy is to make everyone, including myself, +wretched. That is waste, isn't it. Waste, I mean, of happiness. For I, +at least, was happy before." + +"And, my dear, you will be happy again." + +Anna knit her brows in painful thought. "If by being wretched I had +managed to make the others happy it wouldn't have been so bad. At least +it wouldn't have been so completely silly. The only thing I can think of +is that I must have hit upon the wrong people." + +"_I Gott bewahre!_" cried the princess with energy. "They are all alike. +Send these away, you get them back in a different shape. Faces and names +would be different, never the women. They would all be Treumanns and +Elmreichs, and not a single one worth anything in the whole heap." + +"Well, I shall not desert them--Else and Emilie, I mean. They need help, +both of them. And after all, it is simple selfishness for ever wanting +to be happy oneself. I have begun to see that the chief thing in life is +not to be as happy as one can, but to be very brave." + +The princess sighed. "Poor Axel," she said. + +Anna started, and blushed violently. "Pray what has my being brave to do +with Herr von Lohm?" she inquired severely. + +"Why, you are going to be brave at his expense, poor man. You must not +expect anything from me, my dear, but common sense. You give up all hope +of being happy because you think it your duty to go on sacrificing him +and yourself to a set of thankless, worthless women, and you call it +being brave. I call it being unnatural and silly." + +"It has never been a question of Herr von Lohm," said Anna coldly, +indeed freezingly. "What claims has he on me? My plans were all made +before I knew that he existed." + +"Oh, my dear, your plans are very irritating things. The only plan a +sensible young woman ought to make is to get as good a husband as +possible as quickly as she can." + +"Why," said Anna, rising in her indignation, and preparing to leave a +princess suddenly become objectionable, "why, you are as bad as Susie!" + +"Susie?" said the princess, who had not heard of her by that name. "Was +Susie also one who told you the truth?" + +But Anna walked out of the room without answering, in a very dignified +manner; went into the loneliest part of the garden; sat down behind some +bushes; and cried. + +She looked back on those childish tears afterwards, and on all that had +gone before, as the last part of a long sleep; a sleep disturbed by +troubling and foolish dreams, but still only a sleep and only dreams. +She woke up the very next day, and remained wide awake after that for +the rest of her life. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +Anna drove into Stralsund the next morning to her banker, accompanied by +Miss Leech. When they passed Axel's house she saw that his gate-posts +were festooned with wreaths, and that garlands of flowers were strung +across the gateway, swaying to and fro softly in the light breeze. "Why, +how festive it looks," she exclaimed, wondering. + +"Yesterday was Herr von Lohm's birthday," said Miss Leech. "I heard +Princess Ludwig say so." + +"Oh," said Anna. Her tone was piqued. She turned her head away, and +looked at the hay-fields on the opposite side of the road. Axel must +have birthdays, of course, and why should he not put things round his +gate-posts if he wanted to? Yet she would not look again, and was silent +the rest of the way; nor was it of any use for Miss Leech to attempt to +while away the long drive with pleasant conversation. Anna would not +talk; she said it was too hot to talk. What she was thinking was that +men were exceedingly horrid, all of them, and that life was a snare. + +Far from being festive, however, Axel's latest birthday was quite the +most solitary he had yet spent. The cheerful garlands had been put up by +an officious gardener on his own initiative. No one, except Axel's own +dependents, had passed beneath them to wish him luck. Trudi had +telegraphed her blessings, administering them thus in their easiest +form. His Stralsund friends had apparently forgotten him; in other years +they had been glad of the excuse the birthday gave for driving out into +the country in June, but this year the astonished Mamsell saw her +birthday cake remain untouched and her baked meats waiting vainly for +somebody to come and eat them. + +Axel neither noticed nor cared. The haymaking season had just begun, and +besides his own affairs he was preoccupied by Anna's. If she had not +been shut up so long in the baroness's sick-room she would have met him +often enough. She thought he never intended to come near her again, and +all the time, whenever he could spare a moment and often when he could +not, he was on her property, watching Dellwig's farming operations. She +should not suffer, he told himself, because he loved her; she should not +be punished because she was not able to love him. He would go on doing +what he could for her, and was certainly, at his age, not going to sulk +and leave her to face her difficulties alone. + +The first time he met Dellwig on these incursions into Anna's domain, he +expected to be received with a scowl; but Dellwig did not scowl at all; +was on the contrary quite affable, even volunteering information about +the work he had in hand. Nor had he been after all offensively zealous +in searching for the person who had set the stables on fire; and luckily +the Stralsund police had not been very zealous either. Klutz was looked +for for a little while after Axel had denounced him as the probable +culprit, but the matter had been dropped, apparently, and for the last +ten days nothing more had been said or done. Axel was beginning to hope +that the whole thing had blown over, that there was to be no +unpleasantness after all for Anna. Hearing that the baroness was nearly +well, he decided to go and call at Kleinwalde as though nothing had +happened. Some time or other he must meet Anna. They could not live on +adjoining estates and never see each other. The day after his birthday +he arranged to go round in the afternoon and take up the threads of +ordinary intercourse again, however much it made him suffer. + +Meanwhile Anna did her business in Stralsund, discovered on interviewing +her banker that she had already spent more than two-thirds of a whole +year's income, lunched pensively after that on ices with Miss Leech, +walked down to the quay and watched the unloading of the fishing-smacks +while Fritz and the horses had their dinner, was very much stared at by +the inhabitants, who seldom saw anything so pretty, and finally, about +two o'clock, started again for home. + +As they drew near Axel's gate, and she was preparing to turn her face +away from its ostentatious gaiety, a closed _Droschke_ came through it +towards them, followed at a short distance by a second. + +Miss Leech said nothing, strange though this spectacle was on that quiet +road, for she felt that these were the departing guests, and, like Anna, +she wondered how a man who loved in vain could have the heart to give +parties. Anna said nothing either, but watched the approaching +_Droschkes_ curiously. Axel was sitting in the first one, on the side +near her. He wore his ordinary farming clothes, the Norfolk jacket, and +the soft green hat. There were three men with him, seedy-looking +individuals in black coats. She bowed instinctively, for he was looking +out of the window full at her, but he took no notice. She turned very +white. + +The second _Droschke_ contained four more queer-looking persons in black +clothes. When they had passed, Fritz pulled up his horses of his own +accord, and twisting himself round stared after the receding cloud of +dust. + +Anna had been cut by Axel; but it was not that that made her turn so +white--it was something in his face. He had looked straight at her, and +he had not seen her. + +"Who are those people?" she asked Fritz in a voice that faltered, she +did not know why. + +Fritz did not answer. He stared down the road after the _Droschkes_, +shook his head, began to scratch it, jerked himself round again to his +horses, drove on a few yards, pulled them up a second time, looked back, +shook his head, and was silent. + +"Fritz, do you know them?" Anna asked more authoritatively. + +But Fritz only mumbled something soothing and drove on. + +Anna had not failed to notice the old man's face as he watched the +departing _Droschkes_; it wore an oddly amazed and scared expression. +Her heart seemed to sink within her like a stone, yet she could give +herself no reason for it. She tried to order him to turn up the avenue +to Axel's house, but her lips were dry, and the words would not come; +and while she was struggling to speak the gate was passed. Then she was +relieved that it was passed, for how could she, only because she had a +presentiment of trouble, go to Axel's house? What did she think of doing +there? Miss Leech glanced at her, and asked if anything was the matter. + +"No," said Anna in a whisper, looking straight before her. Nor was there +anything the matter; only that blind look on Axel's face, and the +strange feeling in her heart. + +A knot of people stood outside the post office talking eagerly. They all +stopped talking to stare at Anna when the carriage came round the +corner. Fritz whipped up his horses and drove past them at a gallop. + +"Wait--I want to get out," cried Anna as they came to the parsonage. "Do +you mind waiting?" she asked Miss Leech. "I want to speak to Herr +Pastor. I will not be a moment." + +She went up the little trim path to the porch. The maid-of-all-work was +clearing away the coffee from the table. Frau Manske came bustling out +when she heard Anna's voice asking for her husband. She looked +extraordinarily excited. "He has not come back yet," she cried before +Anna could speak, "he is still at the _Schloss_. _Gott Du Allmächtiger_, +did one ever hear of anything so terrible?" + +Anna looked at her, her face as white as her dress. "Tell me," she tried +to say; but no sound passed her lips. She made a great effort, and the +words came in a whisper: "Tell me," she said. + +"What, the gracious Miss has not heard? Herr von Lohm has been +arrested." + +It was impossible not to enjoy imparting so tremendous a piece of news, +however genuinely shocked one might be. Frau Manske brought it out with +a ring of pride. It would not be easy to beat, she felt, in the way of +news. Then she remembered the gossip about Anna and Axel, and observed +her with increased interest. Was she going to faint? It would be the +only becoming course for her to take if it were true that there had been +courting. + +But Anna, whose voice had failed her before, when once she had heard +what it was that had happened, seemed curiously cold and composed. + +"What was he accused of?" was all she asked; so calmly, Frau Manske +afterwards told her friends, that it was not even womanly in the face of +so great a misfortune. + +"He set fire to the stables," said Frau Manske. + +"It is a lie," said Anna; also, as Frau Manske afterwards pointed out to +her friends, an unwomanly remark. + +"He did it himself to get the insurance money." + +"It is a lie," repeated Anna, in that cold voice. + +"Eye-witnesses will swear to it." + +"They will lie," said Anna again; and turned and walked away. "Go on," +she said to Fritz, taking her place beside Miss Leech. + +She sat quite silent till they were near the house. Then she called to +the coachman to stop. "I am going into the forest for a little while," +she said, jumping out "You drive on home." And she crossed the road +quickly, her white dress fluttering for a moment between the +pine-trunks, and then disappearing in the soft green shadow. + +Miss Leech drove on alone, sighing gently. Something was troubling her +dear Miss Estcourt. Something out of the ordinary had happened. She +wished she could help her. She drove on, sighing. + +Directly the road was out of sight, Anna struck back again to the left, +across the moss and lichen, towards the place where she knew there was a +path that led to Lohm. She walked very straight and very quickly. She +did not miss her way, but found the path and hastened her steps to a +run. What were they doing to Axel? She was going to his house, alone. +People would talk. Who cared? And when she had heard all that could be +told her there, she was going to Axel himself. People would talk. Who +cared? The laughable indifference of slander, when big issues of life +and death were at stake! All the tongues of all the world should not +frighten her away from Axel. Her eyes had a new look in them. For the +first time she was wide awake, was facing life as it is without dreams, +facing its absolute cruelty and pitilessness. This was life, these were +the realities--suffering, injustice, and shame; not to be avoided +apparently by the most honourable and innocent of men; but at least to +be fought with all the weapons in one's power, with unflinching courage +to the end, whatever that end might be. That was what one needed most, +of all the gifts of the gods--not happiness--oh, foolish, childish +dream! how could there be happiness so long as men were wicked?--but +courage. That blind look on Axel's face--no, she would not think of +that; it tore her heart. She stumbled a little as she ran--no, she would +not think of that. + +Out in the open, between the forest and Lohm, she met Manske. "I was +coming to you," he said. + +"I am going to him," said Anna. + +"Oh, my dear young lady!" cried Manske; and two big tears rolled down +his face. + +"Don't cry," she said, "it does not help him." + +"How can I not do so after seeing what I have this day seen?" + +She hurried on. "Come," she said, "we must not waste time. He needs +help. I am going to his house to see what I can do. Where did they take +him?" + +"They took him to prison." + +"Where?" + +"Stralsund." + +"Will he be there long?" + +"Till after the trial." + +"And that will be?" + +"God knows." + +"I am going to him. Come with me. We will take his horses." + +"Oh, dear Miss, dear Miss," cried Manske, wringing his hands, "they will +not let us see him--you they will not let in under any circumstances, +and me only across mountains of obstacles. The official who conducted +the arrest, when I prayed for permission to visit my dear patron, was +brutality itself. 'Why should you visit him?' he asked, sneering. 'The +prison chaplain will do all that is needful for his soul.' 'Let it be, +Manske,' said my dear patron, but still I prayed. 'I cannot give you +permission,' said the man at last, weary of my importunity, 'it rests +with my chief. You must go to him.'" + +"Who is the chief?" + +"I know not. I know nothing. My head is in a whirl." + +"He must be somewhere in Stralsund. We will find him, if we have to ask +from door to door. And I'll get permission for myself." + +"Oh, dearest Miss, none will be given you. The man said only his nearest +relatives, and those only very seldom--for I asked all I could, I felt +the moments were priceless--my dear patron spoke not a word. 'His wife, +if he has one,' said the man, making hideous pleasantries--he well knew +there is no wife--or his _Braut_, if there is one, or a brother or a +sister, but no one else." + +"Do his brothers and Trudi know?" + +"I at once telegraphed to them." + +"Then they will be here to-night." + +The women and children in the village ran out to look at Anna as she +passed. She did not see them. Axel's house stood open. The Mamsell, +overcome by the shame of having been in such a service, was in hysterics +in the kitchen, and the inspector, a devoted servant who loved his +master, was upbraiding her with bitterest indignation for daring to say +such things of such a master. The Mamsell's laments and the inspector's +furious reproaches echoed through the empty house. The door, like the +gate, was garlanded with flowers. Little more than an hour had gone by +since Axel passed out beneath them to ruin. + +Anna went straight to the study. His papers were lying about in +disorder; the drawer of the writing-table was unlocked, and his keys +hung in it He had been writing letters, evidently, for an unfinished one +lay on the table. She stood a moment quite still in the silent room. +Manske had gone to find the coachman, and she could hear his steps on +the stones beneath the open windows. The desolation of the deserted +room, the terrible sense of misfortune worse than death that brooded +over it, struck her like a blow that for ever destroyed her cheerful +youth. She never forgot the look and the feeling of that room. She went +to the writing-table, dropped on her knees, and laid her cheek, with an +abandonment of tenderness, on the open, unfinished letter. "How are such +things possible--how are they possible----" she murmured passionately, +shutting her eyes to press back the useless tears. "So useless to cry, +so useless," she repeated piteously, as she felt the scalding tears, in +spite of all her efforts to keep them back, stealing through her +eyelashes. And everything else that she did or could do--how useless. +What could she do for him, who had no claim on him at all? How could she +reach him across this gulf of misery? Yes, it was good to be brave in +this world, it was good to have courage, but courage without weapons, of +what use was it? She was a woman, a stranger in a strange land, she had +no friends, no influence--she was useless. Manske found her kneeling +there, holding the writing-table tightly in her outstretched arms, +pressing her bosom against it as though it were something that could +feel, her eyes shut, her face a desolation. "Do not cry," he begged in +his turn, "dearest Miss, do not cry--it cannot help him." + +They locked up his papers and everything that they thought might be of +value before they left. Manske took the keys. Anna half put out her hand +for them, then dropped it at her side. She had less claim than Manske: +he was Axel's pastor; she was nothing to him at all. + +They left the dog-cart at the entrance to the town and went in search of +a _Droschke_. Manske's weather-beaten face flushed a dull red when he +gave the order to drive to the prison. The prison was in a by-street of +shabby houses. Heads appeared at the windows of the houses as the +_Droschke_ rattled up over the rough stones, and the children playing +about the doors and gutters stopped their games and crowded round to +stare. + +They went up the dirty steps and rang the bell. The door was immediately +opened a few inches by an official who shouted "The visiting hour is +past," and shut it again. + +Manske rang a second time. + +"Well, what do you want?" asked the man angrily, thrusting out his head. + +Manske stated, in the mildest, most conciliatory tones, that he would be +infinitely obliged if he would tell him what steps he ought to take to +obtain permission to visit one of the inmates. + +"You must have a written order," snapped the man, preparing to shut the +door again. The street children were clustering at the bottom of the +steps, listening eagerly. + +"To whom should I apply?" asked Manske. + +"To the judge who has conducted the preliminary inquiries." + +The door was slammed, and locked from within with a great noise of +rattling keys. The sound of the keys made Anna feel faint; Axel was on +the other side of that ostentation of brute force. She leaned against +the wall shivering. The children tittered; she was a very fine lady, +they thought, to have friends in there. + +"The judge who conducted the preliminary inquiries," repeated Manske, +looking dazed. "Who may he be? Where shall we find him? I fear I am +sadly inexperienced in these matters." + +There was nothing to be done but to face the official's wrath once more. +He timidly rang the bell again. This time he was kept waiting. There was +a little round window in the door, and he could see the man on the other +side leaning against a table trimming his nails. The man also could see +him. Manske began to knock on the glass in his desperation. The man +remained absorbed by his nails. + +Anna was suffering a martyrdom. Her head drooped lower and lower. The +children laughed loud. Just then heavy steps were heard approaching on +the pavement, and the children fled with one accord. Immediately +afterwards an official, apparently of a higher grade than the man +within, came up. He glanced curiously at the two suppliants as he thrust +his hand into his pocket and pulled out a key. Before he could fit it in +the lock the man on the other side had seen him, had sprung to the door, +flung it open, and stood at attention. + +Manske saw that here was his opportunity. He snatched off his hat. +"Sir," he cried, "one moment, for God's sake." + +"Well?" inquired the official sharply. + +"Where can I obtain an order of admission?" + +"To see----?" + +"My dear patron, Herr von Lohm, who by some incomprehensible and +appalling mistake----" + +"You must go to the judge who conducted the preliminary inquiries." + +"But who is he, and where is he to be found?" + +The official looked at his watch. "If you hurry you may still find him +at the Law Courts. In the next street. Examining Judge Schultz." + +And the door was shut. + +So they went to the Law Courts, and hurried up and down staircases and +along endless corridors, vainly looking for someone to direct them to +Examining Judge Schultz. The building was empty; they did not meet a +soul, and they went down one passage after the other, anguish in Anna's +heart, and misery hardly less acute in Manske's. At last they heard +distant voices echoing through the emptiness. They followed the sound, +and found two women cleaning. + +"Can you direct me to the room of the Examining Judge Schultz?" asked +Manske, bowing politely. + +"The gentlemen have all gone home. Business hours are over," was the +answer. Could they perhaps give his private address? No, they could not; +perhaps the porter knew. Where was the porter? Somewhere about. + +They hurried downstairs again in search of the porter. Another ten +minutes was wasted looking for him. They saw him at last through the +glass of the entrance door, airing himself on the steps. + +The porter gave them the address, and they lost some more minutes trying +to find their _Droschke_, for they had come out at a different entrance +to the one they had gone in by. By this time Manske was speechless, and +Anna was half dead. + +They climbed three flights of stairs to the Examining Judge's flat, and +after being kept waiting a long while--"_Der Herr Untersuchungsrichter +ist bei Tisch_," the slovenly girl had announced--were told by him very +curtly that they must go to the Public Prosecutor for the order. Anna +went out without a word. Manske bowed and apologised profusely for +having disturbed the _Herr Untersuchungsrichter_ at his repast; he felt +the necessity of grovelling before these persons whose power was so +almighty. The Examining Judge made no reply whatever to these piteous +amiabilities, but turned on his heel, leaving them to find the door as +best they could. + +The Public Prosecutor lived at the other end of the town. They neither +of them spoke a word on the way there. In answer to their anxious +inquiry whether they could speak to him, the woman who opened the door +said that her master was asleep; it was his hour for repose, having just +supped, and he could not possibly be disturbed. + +Anna began to cry. Manske gripped hold of her hand and held it fast, +patting it while he continued to question the servant. "He will see no +one so late," she said. "He will sleep now till nine, and then go out. +You must come to-morrow." + +"At what time?" + +"At ten he goes to the Law Courts. You must come before then." + +"Thank you," said Manske, and drew Anna away. "Do not cry, _liebes +Kind_," he implored, his own eyes brimming with miserable tears. "Do not +let the coachman see you like this. We must go home now. There is +nothing to be done. We will come early to-morrow, and have more +success." + +They stopped a moment in the dark entrance below, trying to compose +their faces before going out. They did not dare look at each other. Then +they went out and drove away. + +The stars were shining as they passed along the quiet country road, and +all the way was drenched with the fragrance of clover and freshly-cut +hay. The sky above the rye fields on the left was still rosy. Not a leaf +stirred. Once, when the coachman stopped to take a stone out of a +horse's shoe, they could hear the crickets, and the cheerful humming of +a column of gnats high above their heads. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +Gustav von Lohm found Manske's telegram on his table when he came in +with his wife from his afternoon ride in the Thiergarten. + +"What is it?" she inquired, seeing him turn pale; and she took it out of +his hand and read it. "Disgraceful," she murmured. + +"I must go at once," he said, looking round helplessly. + +"Go?" + +When a wife says "Go?" in that voice, if she is a person of +determination and her husband is a person of peace, he does not go; he +stays. Gustav stayed. It is true that at first he decided to leave +Berlin by the early train next morning; but his wife employed the hours +of darkness addressing him, as he lay sleepless, in the language of +wisdom; and the wisdom being of that robust type known as worldly, it +inevitably produced its effect on a mind naturally receptive. + +"Relations," she said, "are at all times bad enough. They do less for +you and expect more from you than anyone else. They are the last to +congratulate if you succeed, and the first to abandon if you fail. They +are at one and the same time abnormally truthful, and abnormally +sensitive. They regard it as infinitely more blessed to administer +home-truths than to receive them back again. But, so long as they do not +actually break the laws, prejudice demands that they shall be borne +with. In my family, no one ever broke the laws. It has been reserved for +my married life, this connection with criminals." + +She was a woman of ready and frequent speech, and she continued in this +strain for some time. Towards morning, nature refusing to endure more, +Gustav fell asleep; and when he woke the early train was gone. + +In the same manner did his wife prevent his writing to his unhappy +brother. "It is sad that such things should be," she said, "sad that a +man of birth should commit so vulgar a crime; but he has done it, he has +disgraced us, he has struck a blow at our social position which may +easily, if we are not careful, prove fatal. Take my advice--have nothing +to do with him. Leave him to be dealt with as the law shall demand. We +who abide by the laws are surely justified in shunning, in abhorring, +those who deliberately break them. Leave him alone." + +And Gustav left him alone. + +Trudi was at a picnic when the telegram reached her flat. With several +of her female friends and a great many lieutenants she was playing at +being frisky among the haycocks beyond the town. Her two little boys, +Billy and Tommy, who would really have enjoyed haycocks, were left +sternly at home. She invited the whole party to supper at her flat, and +drove home in the dog-cart of the richest of the young men, making +immense efforts to please him, and feeling that she must be looking very +picturesque and sweet in her flower-trimmed straw hat and muslin dress, +silhouetted against the pale gold of the evening sky. + +Her eye fell on the telegram as the picnic party came crowding in. + +"Bill coming home?" inquired somebody. + +"I'm afraid he is," she said, opening it. + +She read it, and could not prevent a change of expression. There was a +burst of laughter. The young men declared they would never marry. The +young women, prone at all times to pity other women's husbands, +criticised Trudi's pale face, and secretly pitied Bill. She lit a +cigarette, flung herself into a chair, and became very cheerful. She had +never been so amusing. She kept them in a state of uproarious mirth till +the small hours. The richest lieutenant, who had found her distinctly a +bore during the drive home, went away feeling quite affectionate. When +they had all gone, she dropped on to her bed, and cried, and cried. + +It was in the papers next morning, and at breakfast Trudi and her family +were in every mouth. Bibi came running round, genuinely distressed. She +had not been invited to the picnic, but she forgot that in her sympathy. +"I wanted to catch you before you start," she said, vigorously embracing +her poor friend. + +"Where should I start for?" asked Trudi, offering a cold cheek to Bibi's +kisses. + +"Are you not going to Herr von Lohm?" exclaimed Bibi, open-mouthed. + +"What, when he tries to cheat insurance companies?" + +"But he never, never set fire to those buildings himself." + +"Didn't he, though?" Trudi turned her head, and looked straight into +Bibi's eyes. "I know him better than you do," she said slowly. + +She had decided that that was the only way--to cast him off altogether; +and it must be done at once and thoroughly. Indeed, how was it possible +not to hate him? It was the most dreadful thing to happen to her. She +would suffer by it in every way. If he were guilty or not guilty, he was +anyhow a fool to let himself get into such a position, and how she hated +such fools! She registered a solemn vow that she had done with Axel for +ever. + +At Kleinwalde the effect of the news was to make Frau Dellwig slay a pig +and send out invitations for an unusually large Sunday party. She and +her husband could hardly veil their beaming satisfaction with a decent +appearance of dismay. "What would his poor father, our gracious master's +oldest friend, have said!" ejaculated Dellwig at dinner, when the +servant was in the room. + +"It is truly merciful that he did not live to see it," said his wife, +with pious head-shakings. + +What Anna was doing at Stralsund, no one knew. She said she was having +some bother with her bank. Miss Leech related how they had been to the +bank on the Monday. "I must go again," Anna said on the evening of the +fruitless Tuesday, when she had been the whole day again with Manske, +vainly trying to obtain permission to visit Axel; and she added, her +head drooping, her voice faint, that it was a great bore. Certainly she +looked profoundly unhappy. + +"One cannot be too careful in money matters," remarked Frau von +Treumann, alarmed by Anna's white looks, and afraid lest by some foolish +neglect on her part supplies should cease. She enthusiastically +encouraged these visits to the bank. "Take care of your bank," she said, +"and your bank will take care of you. That is what we say in Germany." + +But Anna did not hear. There was but one thought in her mind, one cry in +her heart--how could she reach, how could she help, Axel? + +He was in a cell about five yards long by three wide. There was just +room to pass between the camp bedstead and the small deal table standing +against the opposite wall. Besides this furniture, there was one chair, +an empty wooden box turned up on end, with a tin basin on it--that was +his washstand--a little shelf fixed on the wall, and on the little shelf +a tin mug, a tin plate, a pot of salt, a small loaf of black bread, and +a Bible. The walls were painted brown, and the window, fitted with +ground glass, was high up near the ceiling; it was barred on the +outside, and could only be opened a few inches at the top. On the door a +neat printed card was fastened, giving, besides information for the +guidance of the habitually dirty as to the cleansing properties of +water, the quantity of oakum the occupant of the cell would be expected +to pick every day. The cell was used sometimes for condemned criminals, +hence the mention of the oakum; but the card caught Axel's eye whenever +he reached that end of the room in his pacings up and down, and without +knowing it he learnt its rules by heart. + +At first he had been completely dazed, absolutely unable to understand +the meaning and extent of the misfortune that had overtaken him; but +there was a grim, uncompromising reality about the prison, about the +heavy doors he passed through, each one barred and locked behind him, +each one cutting him off more utterly from the common free life outside, +about the look of the miserable beings he met being taken to or from +their work by armed warders, about the warders themselves with their +great keys, polished by frequent use--there was about these things an +inexorable reality that shook him out of the blind apathy into which he +had fallen after his arrest. Some extraordinary mistake had been made; +and, knowing that he had done nothing, when first he began to think +connectedly he was certain that it could only be a matter of hours +before he was released. But the horror of his position was there. +Released or not released, who would make good to him what he was +suffering and what he would have lost? He had been searched on his +arrival--his money, watch, and a ring he wore of his mother's taken from +him. The young official who arrested him--he was the Junior Public +Prosecutor--presided at these operations with immense zeal. Being young +and obscure, he thirsted to make a name for himself, and opportunities +were few in that little town. To be put in charge, therefore, of this +sensational case, was to behold opening out before him the rosiest +prospects for the future. His name, which was Meyer, would flare up in +flames of glory from the ashes of Axel's honour. Stralsund, ringing with +the ancient name of Lohm, would be forced to ring simultaneously with +the less ancient and not in itself interesting name of Meyer. He had +arrested Lohm, he had special charge of the case, he could not but be +talked about at last. His zeal and satisfaction accordingly were great, +carrying him far beyond the limits usual on such occasions. Axel stood +amazed at the trick of fortune that had so suddenly flung him into the +power of a young man called Meyer. + +Soon after he was locked in his cell, a warder came in with a great pot +of liquid food, a sort of thick soup made chiefly of beans, with other +bodies, unknown to Axel, floating about among them. + +"Your plate," said the warder, jerking his head in the direction of the +little shelf on which stood Axel's dining facilities; and he raised the +pot preparatory to pouring out some of its contents. + +"Thank you," said Axel, "I don't want any." + +"You'll be hungry then," said the man, going away. "There is no more +food to-day." + +Axel said nothing, and he went out. The smell of the soup, which was +apparently of great potency, filled the little room. Axel tried to open +the window wider, but though he was tall and he stood on his table, he +could not reach it. + +It began to get dark. The lamps in the street below were lit, and the +shouts of the children at play came up to him. He guessed that it must +be past nine, and wondered how long he was to be left there without a +light. As it grew darker, his thoughts grew very dark. He paced up and +down more and more restlessly, trying to force them into clearness. In +the hurry and dismay he had left his keys at Lohm, he remembered, and +all his money and papers were at the mercy of the first-comer. And he +was poor; he could not afford to lose any money, or any time. Supposing +he were to be kept here more than a few hours, what would become of his +farming, just now at its busiest season, his people used to his constant +direction and control, his inspector accustomed to do nothing without +the master's orders? And what would be the moral effect on them of his +arrest? If he had a pencil and paper he would write some hasty messages +to keep them all at their posts till his return; but he had no writing +materials, he was quite helpless. He had sent urgent word to his lawyer +in Stralsund, telegraphing to him through Manske before leaving home, +and he had expected to find him waiting for him at the prison. But he +had not come. Why did he not come? Why did he leave him helpless at such +a moment? Axel was determined to face his misfortune quietly; yet the +feeling of absolute impotence, of being as it were bound hand and foot +when there was such dire necessity for immediate action, almost broke +down his resolution. + +But it was only for a few hours, he assured himself, walking faster, +thrusting his hands deeper into his pockets, and he could bear anything +for a few hours. His brothers would come to him--to-morrow the first +thing his lawyer would certainly come. It was all so extremely absurd; +yet it was amazing the amount of suffering one such absurd mistake could +inflict. "Thank God," he exclaimed aloud, stopping in his walk, struck +by a new thought, "thank God that I have neither wife nor children." And +he paced up and down again more slowly, his shoulders bent, his head +sunk, a dull flush on his face; he was thinking of Anna. + +The door was unlocked, and a warder with a bull's-eye lantern came in +quickly. "The Public Prosecutor is coming up," he said breathlessly. +"When he comes in, you stand at attention and recite your name and the +crime of which you are accused." + +He had hardly finished when the Public Prosecutor appeared. The warder +sprang to attention. Axel slowly and unwillingly did the same. + +"Well?" snarled the great man, as Axel did not speak. He was an old man, +with a face grown sly and hard during years of association with +criminals, of experiences confined solely to the ugly sides of life. + +"My name is Lohm," said Axel, feeling the folly of attempting to defy +anyone so absolutely powerful in the place where he was; and he +proceeded to explain the crime of which he was suspected. + +The Public Prosecutor, who knew perfectly well everything about him, +having himself arranged every detail of the arrest, said something +incomprehensible and was going away. + +"May I have a light of some sort?" asked Axel, "and writing materials? I +absolutely must be able to----" + +"You cannot expect the luxuries of a _Schloss_ here," said the Public +Prosecutor with a scowl, turning on his heel and signing to the warder +to lock the door again. And he continued his rounds, congratulating +himself on having demonstrated that in his independent eye the bearer of +the most ancient name and the offscourings of the street, tried or +untried, were equal--sinners, that is, all of them--and would receive +exactly the same treatment at his hands. Indeed, he was so anxious to +impress this laudable impartiality on the members of the little +prison-world, which was the only world he knew, that he overshot the +mark, refusing Axel small conveniences that he would have unhesitatingly +granted a suppliant called Schmidt, Schultz, or Meyer. + +It was now quite dark, except for the faint light from the lamps in the +street below. Weary to death, Axel flung himself down on the little bed. +He had brought a few necessaries, hastily thrown into a bag by his +servant, necessaries that had first been carefully handled and inspected +with every symptom of distrust by the Junior Public Prosecutor Meyer; +but he did not unpack them. Judging from the shortness of the bed, he +concluded that criminals must be a stunted race. Sleeping was not made +easy by this bed, and he lay awake staring at the shadows cast by the +iron bars outside his window on to the ceiling. These shadows affected +him oddly. He shut his eyes, but still he saw them; he turned his head +to the wall and tried not to think of them, but still he saw them. They +expressed the whole misery of his situation. + +He had dozed off, worn out, when a bright light on his face woke him. He +started up in bed, confused, hardly remembering where he was. A feeling +very nearly resembling horror came over him. A bull's-eye lantern was +being held close to his face. He could see nothing but the bright light. +The man holding it did not speak, and presently backed out again, +bolting the door behind him. Axel lay down, reflecting that such +surprises, added to anxiety and bad food, must wear out a suspected +culprit's nerves with extraordinary rapidity and thoroughness. There +could not, he thought, be much left of a man in the way of brains and +calmness by the time he was taken before the judge to clear himself. The +incident completely banished all tendency to sleep. He remained wide +awake after that, tormented by anxious thoughts. + +Towards dawn, for which he thanked God when it came, the silence of the +prison was broken by screams. He started up again and listened, his +blood frozen by the sound of them. They were terrible to hear, echoing +through that place. Again a feeling of sheer horror came over him. How +long would he be able to endure these things? The screams grew more and +more appalling. He sprang up and went to the door, and listened there. +He thought he heard steps outside, and knocked. "What is that +screaming?" he cried out. But no one answered. The shrieks reached a +climax of anguish, and suddenly stopped. Death-like stillness fell again +upon the prison. Axel spent what was left of the night pacing up and +down. + +The prison day did not begin till six. Axel, used to his busy country +life that got him out of his bed and on to his horse at four these fine +summer mornings, heard sounds of life below in the street--early carts +and voices--long before life stirred within the walls. He understood +afterwards why the inmates were allowed to lie in bed so long: it was +convenient for the warders. The prisoners rose at six, and went to bed +again at six, in the full sunshine of those June afternoons. Thus +disposed of, the warders could relax their vigilance and enjoy some +hours of rest. The effect, moralising or the reverse, on the prisoners, +who could by no means get themselves off to sleep at six o'clock, was of +the supremest indifference to everyone concerned. Axel, not yet having +been tried, and not yet therefore having been placed in the common +dormitory, was not forced into bed at any particular time. He might +enjoy evenings as long as those of the warders if he chose, and he might +get up as early as though his horse were waiting below to take him to +his hay-fields if he liked; but this privilege, without the means of +employing the extra hours, was valueless. He watched anxiously for the +broad daylight that would bring his lawyer and put an end to this first +martyrdom of helpless waiting. Towards seven, one of the prisoners, +whose good conduct had procured him promotion to cleaning the passages +and doing other work of the kind, brought him another loaf of bread and +a pot of coffee. From this young man, a white-faced, artful-looking +youth, with closely-cropped hair and wearing the coarse, brown prison +dress, Axel heard that the ghastly screams in the night came from a +prisoner who had _delirium tremens_; he had been put in the cellar to +get over the attack; he could scream as loud as he liked there, and no +one would hear him; they always put him in the cellar when the attacks +came on. The young man grinned. Evidently he thought the arrangement +both good and funny. + +"Poor wretch," said Axel, profoundly pitying those other wretched human +beings, his fellow-prisoners. + +"Oh, he is very happy there. He plays all day long at catching the +rats." + +"The rats?" + +"They say there are no rats--that he only thinks he sees them. But +whether the rats are real or not it amuses him trying to catch them. +When he is quiet again, he is brought back to us." + +A warder appeared and said there was too much talking. The young man +slid away swiftly and silently. He was a thief by profession, of +superior skill and intelligence. + +Axel ate part of the bread, and succeeded in swallowing some of the +coffee, and then began his walk again, up and down, up and down, +listening intently at the door each time he came to it for sounds of his +lawyer's approach. The morning must be halfway through, he thought; why +did he not come? How could he let him wait at such a crisis? How could +any of them--Gustav, Trudi, Manske--let him wait at such a crisis? He +grew terribly anxious. He had expected Gustav by the first train from +Berlin; he might have been with him by nine o'clock. The other brother, +he knew, would be less easily reached by the telegram--he was attached +to the person of a prince whose movements were uncertain; but Gustav? +Well, he must be patient; he may not have been at home; the next train +arrived in the afternoon; he would come by that. + +The door opened, and he turned eagerly; but it was the Public Prosecutor +again. + +"Name, name, and crime!" frantically whispered the accompanying warder, +as Axel stood silent. Axel repeated the formula of the night before. +Every time these visits were made he had to go through this performance, +his heels together, his body rigid. + +"Bed not made," said the Public Prosecutor. + +"Bed not made," repeated the warder, glaring at Axel. + +"Make it," ordered the chief; and went out. + +"Make it," hissed the warder; and followed him. + +His lawyer came in simultaneously with his dinner. + +"Plate," said the warder with the pot. + +"This is a sad sight, Herr von Lohm," said the lawyer. + +"It is," agreed Axel, reaching down his plate. He allowed some of the +mess to be poured into it; he was not going to starve only because the +soup was potent. + +"I expected you yesterday," he said to the lawyer. + +"Ah--I was engaged yesterday." + +The lawyer's manner was so peculiar that Axel stared at him, doubtful if +he really were the right man. He was a native of Stralsund, and Axel had +employed him ever since he came into his estate, and had found his work +satisfactory, and his manners exceedingly polite--so polite, indeed, as +to verge on cringing; but then, as Manske would have pointed out, he was +a Jew. Now the whole man was changed. The ingratiating smiles, the bows, +the rubbed hands, where were they? The lawyer sat at his ease on the one +chair, his hands in his pockets, a toothpick in his mouth, and +scrutinised Axel while he told him his case, with an insolent look of +incredulity. + +"He actually believes I set the place on fire," thought Axel, struck by +the look. + +He did actually believe it. He always believed the worst, for his +experience had been that the worst is what comes most often nearest the +truth; but then, as Manske would have explained, he was a Jew. + +The interview was extremely unsatisfactory. "I have an appointment," +said the lawyer, pulling out his watch before they had half discussed +the situation. + +"You appear to forget that this is a matter of enormous importance to +me," said Axel, wrath in his eyes and voice. + +"That is what each of my clients invariably says," replied the lawyer, +stretching across the table for his gloves. + +"How can we arrange anything in a ten minutes' conversation?" inquired +Axel indignantly. + +The lawyer shrugged his shoulders. "I cannot neglect all my other +business." + +"I do not remember your having been so pressed for time formerly. I +shall expect you again this afternoon." + +"An impossibility." + +"Then to-morrow the first thing. That is, if I am still here." + +The lawyer grinned. "It is not so easy to get out of these places as it +is to get in," he said, drawing on his gloves. "By the way, my fees in +such cases are payable beforehand." + +Axel flushed. He could hardly believe the evidence of his senses that +this was the obsequious person who had for so long managed his affairs. +"My brother Gustav will arrange all that," he said stiffly. "You know I +can do nothing here. He is coming this afternoon." + +"Oh, is he?" said the lawyer sceptically. "Is he indeed, now? That will +be a remarkable instance of brotherly devotion. I am truly glad to hear +that. Good-afternoon," he nodded; and went out, leaving Axel in a fury. + +The one good result of his visit was that some time later Axel was +provided with writing materials. He immediately fell to writing letters +and telegrams; urgent letters and telegrams, of a desperate importance +to himself. When his coffee was brought he gave them to the warder, and +begged him to see that they were despatched at once; then he paced up +and down again, relieved at least by feeling that he could now +communicate with the outer world. + +"They have gone?" he asked anxiously, next time he saw the warder. +"_Jawohl_," was the reply. And gone they had, but only by slow stages to +the office of the Examining Judge Schultz, where they lay in a heap +waiting till he should have leisure and inclination to read them, and, +if he approved of their contents, order them to be posted. There they +lay for three days, and most of them were not passed after all, because +the Examining Judge disliked the tone of the assurances in them that the +writer was innocent. He knew that trick; every prisoner invariably +protested the same thing. But these protestations were unusually strong. +They were of such strength that they actually produced in his own +hardened and experienced mind a passing doubt, absurd of course, and not +for one moment to be considered, whether the Stralsund authorities might +not have blundered. It was a dangerous notion to put into people's +heads, that the Stralsund authorities, of whom he was one, could +blunder. Blunders meant a reproof from headquarters and a retarded +career; their possibility, therefore, was not to be entertained for a +moment. Even should they have been made, it must not get about that they +had been made. He accordingly suppressed nearly all the letters. + +Gustav must have missed the second train as well, for when the sky grew +rosy, and Axel knew that the sun was setting, he was still alone. + +The few hours he had thought to stay in that place were lengthening out +into days, he reflected. If Gustav did not come soon, what should he do? +Someone he must have to look after his affairs, to arrange with the +lawyer, to be a link connecting him with outside. And who but his +brother and heir? Still, he would certainly come soon, and Trudi too. +Poor little Trudi--he was afraid she would be terribly upset. + +But the hours passed, and no one came. + +That evening he was given a lamp. It burnt badly and smelt atrociously. +He asked if the window might be opened a little wider. The request had +to be made in writing, said the warder, and submitted through the usual +channels to the Public Prosecutor, without whose permission no window +might be touched. Axel wrote the request, and the warder took it away. +It came back two days later with an intimation scrawled across it that +if the prisoner von Lohm were not satisfied with his cell he would be +given a worse one. + +The night came, and had to be gone through somehow. Axel sat for hours +on the side of his bed, his head supported in his hands, struggling with +despair. A profound gloom was settling down on him. The knowledge that +he had done nothing had ceased to reassure him. The lawyer was right +when he said that it was easier to get into such a place than to get out +again. Klutz had denounced him, to save himself; of that he had not a +doubt. And Dellwig, well known and greatly respected, had supported +Klutz. This explained Dellwig's conduct lately completely. Axel's +courage was perilously near giving way as he recognised the difficulty +he would have in proving that he was innocent. If no one helped him from +outside, his case was indeed desperate. He did not remember ever to have +turned his back on a friend in distress; how was it, then, that not a +friend was to be found to come to him in his extremity? Where were they +all, those jovial companions who shot over his estate with him so often, +driving any distance for the pleasure of killing his game? What was +keeping Gustav back? Why did he not even send a message? How was it that +Manske, who professed so much attachment to his house, besides such +stores of Christian charity, did not make an effort to reach him? He had +never asked or wanted anything of anyone in his life; but this was so +terrible, his need was so extreme. What a failure his whole life was. He +had been alone, always. During all the years when other men have wives +and children he had been working hard, alone. He had had no happy days, +as the old Romans would have said. And now total ruin was upon him. +Sitting there through the night, he began to understand the despair that +impels unhappy beings in a like situation, forsaken of God and men, to +make wild efforts to get out of such places, conscious that they avail +nothing, but at least bruising and crushing themselves into the blessed +indifference of exhaustion. + +The hours dragged by, each one a lifetime, each one so packed with +opportunities for going mad, he thought, as he counted how many of them +separated him already from his free, honourable past life. By the time +morning came, added to his other torturing anxieties, was the fear lest +he should fall ill in there before any steps had been taken for his +release. He sat leaning his head against the wall, indifferent to what +went on around him, hardly listening any more for Gustav's footsteps. He +had ceased to expect him. He had ceased to expect anyone. He sat +motionless, suffering bodily now, a strange feeling in his head, his +thoughts dwelling dully on his physical discomforts, on the closeness of +the cell, on the horrible nights. He made a great effort to eat some +dinner, but could not. What would become of him if he could neither eat +nor sleep? On what stores of energy would he be able to draw when the +time came for defending himself? He was sitting by the table, leaning +his head against the wall, his eyes closed, when the prisoner-attendant +came to take away his dinner. "Ill?" inquired the young man cheerfully. +Axel did not move or answer. It was too much trouble to speak. + +The warder, upon the attendant's remarking that No. 32 seemed unwell, +examined him through the peep-hole in the door, but decided that he was +not ill yet; not ill enough, that is. In another week he would be ready +for the prison doctor, but not yet. These things must take their course. +It was always the same course; he had been a warder twenty years, and +knew almost to an hour the date on which, after the arrest, the doctor +would be required. + +Axel was sitting in the same position when, about three o'clock, the +door was unlocked again. He did not move or open his eyes. + +"_Ihr Fräulein Braut ist hier_," said the warder. + +The word _Braut_, betrothed, sent Axel's thoughts back across the years +to Hildegard. His betrothed? Had he heard the mocking words, or had he +been dreaming? He turned his head and looked vaguely towards the door. +All the sunlight was out there in the wide corridor, and in it, on the +threshold, stood Anna. + +What had she meant to say? She never could remember. It had been +something deeply apologetic, ashamed. But her fears and her shame fell +from her like a garment when she saw him. "Oh, poor Axel--oh, poor +Axel----" she murmured with a quick sob. + +He tried to get up to come to her. In an instant she was at his side, +and, stumbling, he fell on his knees, holding her by the dress, clinging +to her as to his salvation. "It is not pity, Anna?" he asked in a voice +sharp with an intolerable fear. + +And Anna, half blinded by her tears, deliberately put her arms round his +neck, relinquishing by that one action herself and her future entirely +to him, hauling down for ever her flag of independent womanhood, and +bending down her face to that upturned face of agonised questioning laid +her lips on his. "No," she whispered, and she kissed him with a +passionate tenderness between the words, "it is only love--only +love----" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + +There was a grave beauty, an austerity almost, about this betrothal in +the prison. Here was no room for the archnesses and coynesses of +ordinary lovemaking. All that was not simple truth fell away from them +both like tawdry ornaments, for which there was no use in that sad +place. Soul to soul, unseparated by even the flimsiest veil of +conventionality, of custom; soul to soul, clear-visioned, steadfast, as +those may be who are quietly watching the approach of death, they looked +into each other's eyes and knew that they were alone, he and she, +against the world. To cleave to one another, to stand together, he and +she, against the whole world,--that was what their betrothal meant. +Axel, cut off for ever from his kind if he should not be able to clear +himself, Anna, cutting herself off for ever to follow him. Her feet had +found the right path at last. Her eyes were open. As two friends on the +eve of a battle in which both must fight and whose end may be death, or +as two friends starting on a long journey, whose end too, after tortuous +ways of suffering, may well be death, they quietly made their plans, +talked over what was best to be done, gravely encouraging each other, +always with the light of perfect trustfulness in their eyes. How strong +they felt together! How able to go fearlessly towards the future to meet +any pain, any sorrow, together! The warder standing by, the miserable +little room, the wretched details of the situation, no longer existed +for either of them. Nothing could harm them, nothing could hurt them any +more, if only they might be together. They were safe within a circle +drawn round them by love--safe, and warm, and blest. So long as he had +her and she him, though they saw how great their misery would be if they +came to be less brave, they could not but believe in the benevolence of +the future, they could not but have hope. If he were sentenced, she +said, what, at the worst, would it mean? Two years', three years', +waiting, and then together for the rest of their life. Was not that +worth looking forward to? Would not that take away every sting? she +asked, her hands on his shoulders, her face beautiful with confidence +and courage. When he told her that she ought not now to cast in her lot +with his, she only smiled, and laid her cheek against his sleeve. All +her childish follies, and incertitudes, and false starts were done with +now. Life had grown suddenly simple. It was to be a cleaving to him till +death. Yet they both knew that when that golden hour was over, and she +must go, the suffering would begin again. She was only to come twice a +week; and the days between would be days of torture. And when the moment +had come, and they had said good-bye with brave eyes, each telling the +other that so short a separation was nothing, that they did not mind it, +that it would be over before they had had time to feel it, and the door +was shut, and he was left behind, she went out to find misery again, +waiting for her there where she had left it, taking entire possession of +her, brooding heavily, immovably over her, a desolation of misery that +threatened by its dreadful weight to break her heart. + +A sense of physical cold crept over her as she drove home with +Letty--the bodily expression of the unutterable forlornness within. Away +from him, how weak she was, how unable to be brave. Would Letty +understand? Would she say some kind word, some little word, something, +anything, that might make her feel less terribly alone? With many pauses +and falterings she told her the story, looking at her with eyes tortured +by the thought of him waiting so patiently there till she should come +again. Letty was awestruck, as much by the profound grief of Anna's face +as by the revelation. She knew of course that Axel had been +arrested--did anyone at Kleinwalde talk of anything else all day +long?--but she had not dreamt of this. She could find nothing to say, +and put out her hand timidly and laid it on Anna's. "I am so cold," was +all Anna said, her head drooping; and she did not speak again. + +As they passed between his fields, by his open gate, through the village +that belonged, all of it, to him, she shut her eyes. She could not look +at the happy summer fields, at the placid faces, knowing him where he +was. Not the poorest of his servants, not a ragged child rolling in the +dust, not a wretched, half-starved dog sunning itself in a doorway, +whose lot was not blessed compared to his. The haymakers were piling up +his hay on the waggons. Girls in white sun-bonnets, with bare arms and +legs, stood on the top of the loads catching the fragrant stuff as the +men tossed it up. Their figures were sharply outlined against the serene +sky; their shouts and laughter floated across the fields. Freedom to +come and go at will in God's liberal sunlight--just that--how precious +it was, how unspeakably precious it was. Of all God's gifts, surely the +most precious. And how ordinary, how universal. Only for Axel there was +none. + +When they reached the house, the hall seemed to be full of people. The +supper bell had lately rung, and the inmates, talking and laughing, were +going into the dining-room. Dellwig, his hands full of papers, not +having found Anna at home, was in the act of making elaborate farewell +bows to the assembled ladies. After the two silent hours of suffering +that lay between herself and Axel, how strange it was, this noisy bustle +of daily life. She caught fragments of what they were saying, fragments +of the usual prattle, the same nothings that they said every day, +accompanied by the same vague laughs. How strange it was, and how awful, +the tremendousness of life, the nearness of death, the absolute +relentlessness of suffering, and all the prattle. + +"_Um Gottes Willen!_" shrieked Frau von Treumann, when she caught sight +of this white image of grief set suddenly in their midst. "It has +smashed up, then, your bank?" And she made a hasty movement towards the +hall table, on which lay a letter for Anna from Karlchen, containing, as +she knew, an offer of marriage. + +Anna turned with a blind sort of movement, and stretched out her hand +for Letty, drawing her to her side, instinctively seeking any comfort, +any support; and she stood a moment clinging to her, gazing at the +little crowd with sombre, unseeing eyes. + +"What has happened, Anna?" asked the princess uneasily. + +"You must congratulate me," said Anna slowly in German, her head held +very high, her face of a deathly whiteness. + +A lightening look of comprehension flashed into Dellwig's eyes; he +scarcely needed to hear the words that came next. + +"Herr von Lohm and I were to-day," she said. Then she looked round at +them with a vague, piteous look, and put her hand up to her throat. "We +shall be married--we shall be married--when--when it pleases God." + + + + +CONCLUSION + + +The moral of this story, as Manske, wise after the event, pointed out +when relating those parts of it that he knew on winter evenings to a +dear friend, plainly is that all females--_alle Weiber_--are best +married. "Their aspirations," he said, "may be high enough to do credit +to the noblest male spirit; indeed, our gracious lady's aspirations were +nobility itself. But the flesh of females is very weak. It cannot stand +alone. It cannot realise the aspirations formed by its own spirit. It +requires constant guidance. It is an excellent material, but it is only +material in the raw." + +"What?" cried his wife. + +"Peace, woman. I say it is only material in the raw. And it is never of +any practical use till the hand of the master has moulded it into +shape." + +"_Sehr richtig_," agreed the friend; with the more heartiness that he +was conscious of a wife at home who had successfully withstood moulding +during a married life of twenty years. + +"That," said Manske, "is the most obvious moral. But there is yet +another." + +"The story is full of them," said the friend, who had had them all +pointed out to him, different ones each time, during those evenings of +howling tempests and indoor peace--the perfect peace of pipes, hot +stoves, and _GlĂĽhwein_. + +"The other," said Manske, "is, that it is very sinful for little girls +to write love-poetry in the name of their aunts." + +"To write love-poetry is at no time the function of little girls," said +the friend. + +"Such conduct cannot be too strongly censured," said Manske. "But to do +it in the name of someone else is not only not _mädchenhaft_, it is +sinful." + +"These English little girls appear to know no shame," said his wife. + +"Truly they might learn much from our own female youth," said the +friend. + +Letty's poems had undoubtedly been the indirect cause of the fire, of +Axel's arrest, and of his marriage with Anna. But if they had brought +about Anna's happiness, a happiness more complete and perfect than any +of which she had dreamed, they had also brought about Klutz's ruin. For +Klutz, shattered in nerves, weak of will, overcome by the state of his +conscience and the possible terrors of the next world, with the blood of +three generations of pastors in his veins, every drop of which cried out +to him day and night to save his soul at least, whatever became of his +body, Klutz had confessed. He was only twenty, he knew himself to be +really harmless, he had never had any intentions worse than foolish, and +here he was, ruined. The act had been an act of temporary madness; and +influenced by Dellwig, he had saved his skin afterwards as best he +could. Now there was the price to pay, the heavy price, so tremendous +when compared to the smallness of the follies that had led him on step +by step. His bad genius, Dellwig, went free; and later on lived +sufficiently far away from Kleinwalde to be greatly respected to the end +of his days. Manske's eyes filled with tears when he came to the action +of Providence in this matter--the mysteriousness of it, the utter +inscrutableness of it, letting the morally responsible go unpunished, +and allowing the poor young vicar, handicapped from his very entrance +into the world by his weakness of character, to be overtaken on the +threshold of life by so terrific a fate. "Truly the ways of Providence +are past finding out," said Manske, sorrowfully shaking his head. + +"I never did believe in Klutz," said his wife, thinking of her apple +jelly. + +"Woman, kick not him who is down," said her husband, turning on her with +reproachful sternness. + +"Kick!" echoed his wife, tossing her head at this rebuke, administered +in the presence of the friend; "I am not, I hope, so unwomanly as to +kick." + +"It is a figure of speech," mildly explained the friend. + +"I like it not," said Frau Manske gloomily. + +"Peace," said her husband. + + + + +BY THE SAME AUTHOR + + +Elizabeth and Her German Garden + + "What a captivating book it is--how merry and gentle and sunny, how + whimsically wise and tender! There is real humor in these pages, + and for that reason, if for no other, it deserves to live. The new + chapter, describing the author's pious pilgrimage to the garden of + her childhood, is inimitable in its way, and should not be missed + by any admirer of this most winning Elizabeth."--_New York + Tribune._ + + "Elizabeth is pure sunshine and without a shadow, the reflection, + as it were, of a quiet existence, and never a commonplace one; for, + without knowing it or suspecting it, she is an idealist. Elizabeth + never tires, for has she not her husband, her little ones, and her + books to talk about? These passages, as found in 'Elizabeth' in the + quiet history of a woman's life, act as useful tonics or are the + necessary sedatives in our somewhat fevered existence."--_New York + Times._ + + +The Solitary Summer + + "'The Solitary Summer' affords a generous harvest of beautiful and + poetic thoughts, together with some keen observations of life, all + of which are expressed in a graceful and supple prose.... It is a + privilege to have stood for a time upon the veranda steps and to + have caught a glimpse of that sane refuge."--_Chicago Tribune._ + + "Full of sunshine and fresh breezes, riotous with the bloom and + fragrance of flowers, spicy with the damp cool breath of pines.... + The quaint, whimsical fancies of a cultivated, lovable woman create + a golden atmosphere through which we see her life, and we dream + with her on her bench in her garden, in the fields where the yellow + lupins grow, and in the mossy deeps of the pine forest. We feel we + have made another friend, one who sees life with gentle, smiling + eyes and from a deliciously humorous point of view."--_Recreation._ + + "A garden of absorbing interest to its owner, a library full of + books to comfort rainy days, a hamlet of German peasants, three + delightful babies, and a 'man of wrath' who by no means merits the + title,--these are the simple elements from which a bright woman, + too cosmopolitan to be thought wholly German, as she calls herself, + has evolved a charming little book."--_The Nation._ + + "She has a depth of feeling, a sense of humor, and an impetuous and + ardent manner that make her chronicles thoroughly alive. Beside + this lovable book other feminine essays on nature, literature, and + life seem only tame and artificial performances."--_New York + Tribune._ + + +The April Baby's Book of Tunes + +WITH THE STORY OF HOW THEY CAME TO BE WRITTEN + +Illustrated by KATE GREENAWAY + +A running commentary in the quaintly humorous style characteristic of +the writer, describes the teaching of a dozen or more popular nursery +songs to the author's three little maids, the April, May, and June Baby +respectively. The music for each is given, and charming illustrations in +color complete an unusually attractive holiday book. + +Full of the sayings of three of the most delightfully amusing and +original children in the book world--the June Baby who loudly sings "The +King of Love My Shepherd is," swinging her kitten around by its tail to +emphasize the rhythm,--the loving little May Baby who says, "Directly +you comes home, the fun begins," sitting very close to her mother,--and +the quaint April Baby, concerning whom there are fears that she may turn +out a genius and thus disgrace her parents, Elizabeth and "The Man of +Wrath." + +Readers of the charming companion volumes whose authorship has been the +subject of so much recent discussion will delight in this little sequel, +which will make a most appropriate gift during the coming season to many +a mother of little ones who has had at some time to meet the problem of +how the babies can be saved from corners when there are no lessons, and +storms have forbidden exercise for them and their nurses, too. Its +pictures of a German nursery and the delicious discussions of these +toddlers over the various songs are extremely bright and entertaining, +and most aptly supplemented by Kate Greenaway's quaint and daintily +colored illustrations, of which there are sixteen, besides decorative +designs, chapter headings, etc. + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Benefactress, by Elizabeth Beauchamp + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30302 *** diff --git a/30302-h/30302-h.htm b/30302-h/30302-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..94479eb --- /dev/null +++ b/30302-h/30302-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,13060 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Benefactress, by Elizabeth. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .sidenote {width: 20%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em; margin-left: 1em; + float: right; clear: right; margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: dashed 1px;} + + .bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + .bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + .bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + .br {border-right: solid 2px;} + .bbox {border: solid 2px;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .u {text-decoration: underline;} + + .caption {font-weight: bold;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .figleft {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: + 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .figright {float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + +div.poetry {text-align:center;} +div.poem {font-size:90%;margin:auto auto;text-indent:0%; +display: inline-block; text-align: left;} +.poem .stanza {margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom:1em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i14 {display: block; margin-left: 14em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i12 {display: block; margin-left: 12em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i10 {display: block; margin-left: 10em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i18 {display: block; margin-left: 18em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i30 {display: block; margin-left: 30em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i9 {display: block; margin-left: 9em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} +--> + </style> + </head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30302 ***</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + + +<h1>The Benefactress</h1> + +<h2>BY THE AUTHOR OF "ELIZABETH AND HER GERMAN GARDEN"</h2> + + +<h4>New York<br /> +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY<br /> +LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., <span class="smcap">Ltd.</span><br /> +1901</h4> + +<h4><i>All rights reserved</i></h4> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Copyright</span>, 1901,<br /> +<span class="smcap">By</span> THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.</h4> + +<h4>Norwood Press<br /> +J. S. Gushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith<br /> +Norwood Mass. U.S.A.</h4> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">Man bedarf der Leitung<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Und der männlichen Begleitung.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4"><span class="smcap">Wilhelm Busch</span>.<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<p> +<a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">CHAPTER XXIX</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">CHAPTER XXX</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">CHAPTER XXXI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">CHAPTER XXXII</a><br /> +<a href="#CONCLUSION">CONCLUSION</a><br /><br /> +<a href="#BY_THE_SAME_AUTHOR">BY THE SAME AUTHOR</a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE BENEFACTRESS</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + + +<p>When Anna Estcourt was twenty-five, and had begun to wonder whether the +pleasure extractable from life at all counterbalanced the bother of it, +a wonderful thing happened.</p> + +<p>She was an exceedingly pretty girl, who ought to have been enjoying +herself. She had a soft, irregular face, charming eyes, dimples, a +pleasant laugh, and limbs that were long and slender. Certainly she +ought to have been enjoying herself. Instead, she wasted her time in +that foolish pondering over the puzzles of existence, over those +unanswerable whys and wherefores, which is as a rule restricted, among +women, to the elderly and plain. Many and various are the motives that +impel a woman so to ponder; in Anna's case the motive was nothing more +exalted than the perpetual presence of a sister-in-law. The +sister-in-law was rich—in itself a pleasing circumstance; but the +sister-in-law was also frank, and her husband and Anna were entirely +dependent on her, and her richness and her frankness combined urged her +to make fatiguingly frequent allusions to the Estcourt poverty. Except +for their bad taste her husband did not mind these allusions much, for +he considered that he had given her a full equivalent for her money in +bestowing his name on a person who had practically none: he was Sir +Peter Estcourt of the Devonshire Estcourts, and she was a Dobbs of +Birmingham. Besides, he was a philosopher, and philosophers never mind +anything. But Anna was in a less agreeable situation. She was not a +philosopher, she was thin-skinned, she had bestowed nothing and was +taking everything, and she was of an independent nature; and an +independent nature, where there is no money, is a great nuisance to its +possessor.</p> + +<p>When she was younger and more high-flown she sometimes talked of +sweeping crossings; but her sister-in-law Susie would not hear of +crossings, and dressed her beautifully, and took her out, and made her +dance and dine and do as other girls did, being of opinion that a rich +husband of good position was more satisfactory than crossings, and far +more likely to make some return for all the expenses she had had.</p> + +<p>At eighteen Anna was so pretty that the perfect husband seemed to be a +mere question of days. What could the most desirable of men, thought +Susie, considering her, want more than so bewitching a young creature? +But he did not come, somehow, that man of Susie's dreams; and after a +year or two, when Anna began to understand what all this dressing and +dancing really meant, and after she had had offers from people she did +not like, and had herself fallen in love with a youth of no means who +was prudent enough to marry somebody else with money, she shrank back +and grew colder, and objected more and more decidedly to Susie's +strenuous private matrimonial urgings, and sometimes made remarks of a +cynical nature to her admirers, who took fright at such symptoms of +advancing age, and fell off considerably in numbers.</p> + +<p>It was at this period, when she was barely twenty-two, that she spoke of +crossings. Susie had seriously reproved her for not meeting the advances +of an old and rich and single person with more enthusiasm, and had at +the same time alluded to the number of pounds she had spent on her every +year for the last three years, and the necessity for putting an end, by +marrying, to all this outlay; and instead of being sensible, and talking +things over quietly, Anna had poured out a flood of foolish sentiments +about the misery of knowing that she was expected to be nice to every +man with money, the intolerableness of the life she was leading, and the +superior attractions of crossing-sweeping as a means of earning a +livelihood.</p> + +<p>"Why, you haven't enough money for the broom," said Susie impatiently. +"You can't sweep without a broom, you know. I wish you were a little +less silly, Anna, and a little more grateful. Most girls would jump at +the splendid opportunity you've got now of marrying, and taking up a +position of your own. You talk a great deal of stuff about being +independent, and when you get the chance, and I do all I can to help +you, you fly into a passion and want to sweep a crossing. Really," added +Susie, twitching her shoulder, "you might remember that it isn't all +roses for me either, trying to get some one else's daughter married."</p> + +<p>"Of course it isn't all roses," said Anna, leaning against the +mantelpiece and looking down at her with perplexed eyebrows. "I am very +sorry for you. I wish you weren't so anxious to get rid of me. I wish I +could do something to help you. But you know, Susie, you haven't taught +me a trade. I can't set up on my own account unless you'll give me a +last present of a broom, and let me try my luck at the nearest crossing. +The one at the end of the street is badly kept. What do you think if I +started there?" What answer could anyone make to such folly?</p> + +<p>By the time she was twenty-four, nearly all the girls who had come out +when she did were married, and she felt as though she were a ghost +haunting the ball-rooms of a younger generation. Disliking this feeling, +she stiffened, and became more and more unapproachable; and it was at +this period that she invented excuses for missing most of the functions +to which she was invited, and began to affect a simplicity of dress and +hair arrangement that was severe. Susie's exasperation was now at its +height. "I don't know why you should be bent on making the worst of +yourself," she said angrily, when Anna absolutely refused to alter her +hair.</p> + +<p>"I'm tired of being frivolous," said Anna. "Have you an idea how long +those waves took to do? And you know how Hilton talks. It all gets +whisked up now in two minutes, and I'm spared her conversation."</p> + +<p>"But you are quite plain," cried Susie. "You are not like the same girl. +The only thing your best friend could say about you now is that you look +clean."</p> + +<p>"Well, I like to look clean," said Anna, and continued to go about the +world with hair tucked neatly behind her ears; her immediate reward +being an offer from a clergyman within the next fortnight.</p> + +<p>Peter Estcourt was even more surprised than his wife that Anna had not +made a good match years before. Of course she had no money, but she was +a pretty girl of good family, and it ought to be easy enough for her to +find a husband. He wished heartily that she might soon be happily +married; for he loved her, and knew that she and Susie could never, with +their best endeavours, be great friends. Besides, every woman ought to +have a home of her own, and a husband and children. Whenever he thought +of Anna, he thought exactly this; and when he had reached the +proposition at the end he felt that he could do no more, and began to +think of something else.</p> + +<p>His marriage with Susie, a person of whom no one had ever heard, had +brought out and developed stores of unsuspected philosophy in him. +Before that he was quite poor, and very merry; but he loved Estcourt, +and could not bear to see it falling into ruin, and he loved his small +sister, who was then only ten, and wished to give her a decent +education, and what is a man to do? There happened to be no rich +American girls about at that time, so he married Miss Dobbs of +Birmingham, and became a philosopher.</p> + +<p>It was hard on Susie that he should become a philosopher at her expense. +She did not like philosophers. She did not understand their silent ways, +and their evenness of temper. After she had done all that Peter wanted +in regard to the place in Devonshire, and had provided Anna with every +luxury in the shape of governesses, and presented her husband with an +heir to the retrieved family fortunes, she thought that she had a right +to some enjoyment too, to some gratification from her position, and was +surprised to find how little was forthcoming. Really no one could do +more than she had done, and yet nothing was done for her. Peter fished, +and read, and was with difficulty removable from Estcourt. Anna was, of +course, too young to be grateful, but there she was, taking everything +as a matter of course, her very unconsciousness an irritation. Susie +wanted to get on in the world, and nobody helped her. She wanted to bury +the Dobbs part of herself, and develop the Estcourt part; but the Dobbs +part was natural, and the Estcourt superficial, and the Dobbses were one +and all singularly unattractive—a race of eager, restless, wiry little +men and women, anxious to get as much as they could, and keep it as long +as they could, a family succeeding in gathering a good deal of money +together in one place, and failing entirely in the art of making +friends. Susie was the best of them, and had been the pretty one at +home; yet she was not in the least a success in London. She put it down +to Peter's indifference, to his slowness in introducing her to his +friends. It was no more Peter's fault than it was her own. It was not +her fault that she was not pretty—there never had been a beautiful +Dobbs—and it was not her fault that she was so unfortunately frank, and +never could and never did conceal her feverish eagerness to make +desirable acquaintances, and to get into desirable sets. Until Anna came +out she was invited only to the big functions to which the whole world +went; and the hours she passed at them were not among the most blissful +of her life. The people who were at first inclined to be kind to her for +Peter's sake, dropped off when they found how her eagerness to attract +the attention of some one mightier made her unable to fix her thoughts +on the friendly remarks that they were taking pains to make. In society +she was absent-minded, fidgety, obviously on the look-out for a chance +of drawing the biggest fish into her little net; but, wealthy as she +was, she was not wealthy enough in an age of millionnaires, and not once +during the whole of her career was a big fish simple enough to be +caught.</p> + +<p>After a time her natural shrewdness and common sense made her perceive +that her one claim to the scanty attentions she did receive was her +money. Her money had bought her Peter, and a pleasant future for her +children; it had converted a Dobbs into an Estcourt; it had given her +everything she had that was worth anything at all. Once she had +thoroughly realised this, she began to attach a tremendous importance to +the mere possession of money, and grew very stingy, making difficulties +about spending that grieved Peter greatly; not because he ever wanted +her money now that Estcourt had been restored to its old splendour and +set going again for their boy, but because meanness about money in a +woman was something he could not comprehend—something repulsive, +unfeminine, contrary to her nature as he had always understood it. He +left off making the least suggestion about Anna's education or the +household arrangements; everything that was done was done of Susie's own +accord; and he spent more and more time in Devonshire, and grew more and +more philosophical, and when he did talk to his wife, restricted his +conversation to the language of abstract wisdom.</p> + +<p>Now this was very hard on Susie, who had no appreciation of abstract +wisdom, and who lived as lonely a life as it is possible to imagine. +Peter kept out of her way. Anna was subject to prolonged fits of chilly +silence. Susie used, at such times, to think regretfully of the cheerful +Dobbs days, of their frank and congenial vulgarity.</p> + +<p>When Anna was eighteen, Susie's prospects brightened for a time. Doors +that had been shut ever since she married, opened before her on her +appearing with such a pretty <i>débutante</i> under her wing, and she could +enjoy the reflected glory of Anna's little triumphs. And then, without +any apparent reason, Anna had altered so strangely, and had disappointed +every one's expectations; never encouraging the right man, never ready +to do as she was told, exasperatingly careless on all matters of vital +importance, and ending by showing symptoms of freezing into something of +the same philosophical state as Peter. Their mother had been German——a +lady-in-waiting to one of the German princesses; and their father had +met her and married her while he was secretary at the English Embassy in +St. Petersburg. And Susie, who had heard of German philosophy and German +stolidity, and despised them both with all her heart, concluded that the +German strain was accountable for everything about Peter and Anna that +was beyond her comprehension; and sometimes, when Peter was more than +usually wise and unapproachable, would call him Herr Schopenhauer—which +had an immediate effect of producing a silence that lasted for weeks; +for not only did he like her least when she was playful, but he had, as +a matter of fact, read a great deal of Schopenhauer, and was uneasily +conscious that it had not been good for him.</p> + +<p>While Peter fished, and meditated on the vanity of human wishes at +Estcourt, Anna, with rare exceptions, was wherever Susie was, and Susie +was wherever it was fashionable to be. For a week or two in the summer, +for a day or two at Easter, they went down to Devonshire; and Anna might +wander about the old house and grounds as she chose, and feel how much +better she had loved it in its tumble-down state, the state she had +known as a child, when her mother lived there and was happy. Everything +was aggressively spruce now, indoors and out. Susie's money and Susie's +taste had rubbed off all the mellowness and all the romance. Anna was +glad to leave it again, and be taken to Marienbad, or any place where +there was royalty, for Susie loved royalty. But what a life it was, +going round year after year with Susie! London, Devonshire, Marienbad, +Scotland, London again, following with patient feet wherever the +unconscious royalties led, meeting the same people, listening to the +same music, talking the same talk, eating the same dinners—would no one +ever invent anything new to eat? The inexpressible boredom of riding up +and down the Row every morning, the unutterable hours shopping and +trying on clothes, the weariness of all the new pictures, and all the +concerts, and all the operas, which seemed to grow less pleasing every +year, as her eye and ear grew more critical. She knew at last every note +of the stock operas and concerts, and every note seemed to have got on +to her nerves.</p> + +<p>And then the people they knew—the everlasting sameness of them, content +to go the same dull round for ever. Driving in the Park with Susie, +neither of them speaking a word, she used to watch the faces in the +other carriages, nearly all faces of acquaintances, to see whether any +of them looked cheerful; and it was the rarest thing to come across any +expression but one of blankest boredom. Bored and cross, hardly ever +speaking to the person with them, their friends drove up and down every +afternoon, and she and Susie did the same, as silent and as bored as any +of them. A few unusually beautiful, or unusually witty, or unusually +young persons appeared to find life pleasant and looked happy, but they +avoided Susie. Her set was made up of the dull and plain; and all the +amusing people, and all the interesting people, turned their backs with +one accord on her and it.</p> + +<p>These were the circumstances that drove Anna to reflect on the problems +of life every time she was beyond the sound of Susie's voice.</p> + +<p>She passionately resented her position of dependence on Susie, and she +passionately resented the fact that the only way to get out of it was to +marry. Every time she had an offer, she first of all refused it with an +energy that astonished the unhappy suitor, and then spent days and +nights of agony because she had refused it, and because Susie wanted her +to accept it, and because of an immense pity for Susie that had taken +possession of her heart. How could Peter live so placidly at Susie's +expense, and treat her with such a complete want of tenderness? Anna's +love for her brother diminished considerably directly she began to +understand Susie's life. It was such a pitiful little life of cringing, +and pushing, and heroically smiling in the face of ill-treatment. No one +cared for her in the very least. She had hundreds of acquaintances, who +would eat her dinners and go away and poke fun at her, but not a single +friend. Her husband lived on her and hardly spoke to her. Her boy at +Eton, an amazing prig, looked down on her. Her little daughter never +dreamed of obeying her. Anna herself was prevented by some stubborn +spirit of fastidiousness, evidently not possessed by any of her +contemporaries, from doing the only thing Susie had ever really wanted +her to do—marrying, and getting herself out of the way. What if Susie +were a vulgar little woman of no education and no family? That did not +make it any the more glorious for the Estcourts to take all they could +and ignore her existence. It was, after all, Susie who paid the bills. +Anna pitied her from the bottom of her heart; such a forlorn little +woman, taken out of her proper sphere, and left to shiver all alone, +without a shred of love to cover and comfort her.</p> + +<p>It was when she was away from Susie that she felt this. When she was +with her, she found herself as cold and quiet and contradictory as +Peter. She used, whenever she got the chance, to go to afternoon service +at St. Paul's. It was the only place and time in which all the bad part +of her was soothed into quiet, and the good allowed to prevail in peace. +The privacy of the great place, where she never met anyone she knew, the +beauty of the music, the stateliness of the service offered every day in +equal perfection to any poor wretch choosing to turn his back for an +hour on the perplexities of life, all helped to hush her grievances to +sleep and fill her heart with tenderness for those who were not happy, +and for those who did not know they were unhappy, and for those who +wasted their one precious life in being wretched when they might have +been happy. How little it would need, she thought (for she was young and +imaginative), to turn most people's worries and sadness into joy. Such a +little difference in Susie's ways and ideas would make them all so +happy; such a little change in Peter's habits would make his wife's life +radiant. But they all lived blindly on, each day a day of emptiness, +each of those precious days, so crowded with opportunities, and +possibilities, and unheeded blessings, and presently life would be +behind them, and their chances gone for ever.</p> + +<p>"The world is a dreadful place, full of unhappy people," she thought, +looking out on to the world with unhappy eyes. "Each one by himself, +with no one to comfort him. Each one with more than he can bear, and no +one to help him. Oh, if I could, I would help and comfort everyone that +is sad, or sick at heart, or sorry—oh, if I could!"</p> + +<p>And she dreamed of all that she would do if she were Susie—rich, and +free from any sort of interference—to help others, less fortunate, to +be happy too. But, since she was the very reverse of rich and free, she +shook off these dreams, and made numbers of good resolutions +instead—resolutions bearing chiefly on her future behaviour towards +Susie. And she would come out of the church filled with the sternest +resolves to be ever afterwards kind and loving to her; and the very +first words Susie uttered would either irritate her into speeches that +made her sorry, or freeze her back into her ordinary state of cold +aloofness.</p> + +<p>If Susie had had an idea that Anna was pitying her, and making good +resolutions of which she was the object at afternoon services, and that +in her eyes she had come to be merely a cross which must with heroism be +borne, she probably would have been indignant. Pitying people and being +pitied oneself are two very different things. The first is soothing and +sweet, the second is annoying, or even maddening, according to the +temperament of the patient. Susie, however, never suspected that anyone +could be sorry for her; and when, after a party, before they went to +bed, Anna would put her arms round her and give her a disproportionately +tender kiss, she would show her surprise openly. "Why, what's the +matter?" she would ask. "Another mood, Anna?" For she could not know how +much Anna felt the snubs she had seen her receive. How should she? She +was so used to them that she hardly noticed them herself.</p> + +<p>It was when Anna was twenty-five, and much vexed in body by efforts to +be and to do as Susie wished, and in soul by those unanswerable +questions as to the why and wherefore of the aimless, useless existence +she was leading, that the wonderful thing happened that changed her +whole life.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + + +<p>There was a German relation of Anna's, her mother's brother, known to +Susie as Uncle Joachim. He had been twice to England; once during his +sister's life, when Anna was little, and Peter was unmarried, and they +were all poor and happy together at Estcourt; and once after Susie's +introduction into the family, just at that period when Anna was +beginning to stiffen and put her hair behind her ears.</p> + +<p>Susie knew all about him, having inquired with her usual frankness on +first hearing of his existence whether he would be likely to leave Anna +anything on his death; and upon being informed that he had a family of +sons, and large estates and little money, looked upon it as a great +hardship to be obliged to have him in her London house. She objected to +all Germans, and thought this particular one a dreadful old man, and +never wearied of making humorous comments on his clothes and the oddness +of his manners at meals. She was vexed that he should be with them in +Hill Street, and refused to give dinners while he was there. She also +asked him several times if he would not enjoy a stay at Estcourt, and +said that the country was now at its best, and the primroses were in +full beauty.</p> + +<p>"I want not primroses," said Uncle Joachim, who seldom spoke at length; +"I live in the country. I will now see London."</p> + +<p>So he went about diligently to all the museums and picture-galleries, +sometimes alone and sometimes with Anna, who neglected her social duties +more than ever in order to be with him, for she loved him.</p> + +<p>They talked together chiefly in German, Uncle Joachim carefully +correcting her mistakes; and while they went frugally in omnibuses to +the different sights, and ate buns in confectioners' shops at +lunch-time, and walked long distances where no omnibuses were to be +found—for besides having a great fear of hansoms he was very +thrifty—he drew her out, saying little himself, and in a very short +time knew almost as much about her life and her perplexities as she did.</p> + +<p>She was very happy during his visit, and told herself contentedly that +blood, after all, was thicker than water. She did not stop to consider +what she meant exactly by this, but she had a vague notion that Susie +was the water. She felt that Uncle Joachim understood her better than +anyone had yet done; and was it not natural that her dear mother's +brother should? And it was only after she had taken him to service at +St. Paul's that she began to perceive that there might perhaps be points +on which their tastes differed. Uncle Joachim had remained seated while +other people knelt or stood; but that did not matter in that liberal +place, where nobody notices the degree of his neighbour's devoutness. +And he had slept during the anthem, one of those unaccompanied anthems +that are sung there with what seem of a certainty to be the voices of +angels. And on coming out, when a fugue was rolling in glorious +confusion down the echoing aisles, and Anna, who preferred her fugues +confused, felt that her spirit was being caught up to heaven, he had +looked at her rapt face and wet eyelashes, and patted her hand very +kindly, and said encouragingly, "In my youth I too cultivated Bach. Now +I cultivate pigs. Pigs are better."</p> + +<p>Anna's mother had been his only sister, and he had come over, not, as he +told Susie, to see London, but to see Susie herself, and to find out how +it was that Anna had reached an age that in Germany is the age of old +maids without marrying. By the time he had spent two evenings in Hill +Street he had formed his opinion of his nephew and his nephew's wife, +and they remained fixed until his death. "The good Peter," he said +suddenly one day to Anna when they were wandering together in the maze +at Hampton Court—for he faithfully went the rounds of sightseeing +prescribed by Baedeker, and Anna followed him wherever he went—"the +good Peter is but a <i>Quatschkopf</i>."</p> + +<p>"A <i>Quatschkopf</i>?" echoed Anna, whose acquaintance with her +mother-tongue did not extend to the byways of opprobrium. "What in the +world is a <i>Quatschkopf</i>?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Quatschkopf</i> is a <i>Duselfritz</i>," explained Uncle Joachim, "and also it +is the good Peter."</p> + +<p>"I believe you are calling him ugly names," said Anna, slipping her arm +through his; by this time, if not kindred spirits, they were the best of +friends.</p> + +<p>Uncle Joachim did not immediately reply. They had come to the open space +in the middle of the maze, and he sat down on the seat to recover his +breath, and to wipe his forehead; for though the wind was cold the sun +was fierce. "<i>Gott, was man Alles durchmacht auf Reisen!</i>" he sighed. +Then he put his handkerchief back into his pocket, looked up at Anna, +who was standing in front of him leaning on her sunshade, and said, "A +<i>Quatschkopf</i> is a foolish fellow who marries a woman like that."</p> + +<p>"Oh, poor Susie!" cried Anna, at once ready to defend her, and full of +the kindly feelings absence invariably produced. "Peter did a very +sensible thing. But I don't think Susie did, marrying Peter."</p> + +<p>"He is a <i>Quatschkopf</i>," said Uncle Joachim, not to be shaken in his +opinions, "and the <i>geborene</i> Dobbs is a vulgar woman who is not rich +enough."</p> + +<p>"Not rich enough? Why, we are all suffocated by her money. We never hear +of anything else. It would be dreadful if she had still more."</p> + +<p>"Not rich enough," persisted Uncle Joachim, pursing up his lips into an +expression of great disapproval, and shaking his head. "Such a woman +should be a millionnaire. Not of marks, but of pounds sterling. Short of +that, a man of birth does not impose her as a mother on his children. +Peter has done it. He is a <i>Quatschkopf</i>."</p> + +<p>"It is a great mercy that she isn't a millionnaire," said Anna, appalled +by the mere thought. "Things would be just the same, except that there +would be all that money more to hear about. I hate the very name of +money."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense. Money is very good."</p> + +<p>"But not somebody else's."</p> + +<p>"That is true," said Uncle Joachim approvingly. "One's own is the only +money that is truly pleasant." Then he added suddenly, "Tell me, how +comes it that you are not married?"</p> + +<p>Anna frowned. "Now you are growing like Susie," she said.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach</i>—she asks you that often?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—no, not quite like that. She says she knows why I am not married."</p> + +<p>"And what knows she?"</p> + +<p>"She says that I frighten everybody away," said Anna, digging the point +of her sunshade into the ground. Then she looked at Uncle Joachim, and +laughed.</p> + +<p>"What?" he said incredulously. This pretty creature standing before him, +so soft and young—for that she was twenty-four was hardly +credible—could not by any possibility be anything but lovable.</p> + +<p>"She says that I am disagreeable to people—that I look cross—that I +don't encourage them enough. Now isn't it simply terrible to be expected +to encourage any wretched man who has money? I don't want anybody to +marry me. I don't want to buy my independence that way. Besides, it +isn't really independence."</p> + +<p>"For a woman it is the one life," said Uncle Joachim with great +decision. "Talk not to me of independence. Such words are not for the +lips of girls. It is a woman's pride to lean on a good husband. It is +her happiness to be shielded and protected by him. Outside the narrow +circle of her home, for her happiness is not. The woman who never +marries has missed all things."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe it," said Anna.</p> + +<p>"It is nevertheless true."</p> + +<p>"Look at Susie—is she so happy?"</p> + +<p>"I said a <i>good</i> husband; not a <i>Duselfritz</i>."</p> + +<p>"And as for narrow circles, why, how happy, how gloriously happy, I +could be outside them, if only I were independent!"</p> + +<p>"Independent—independent," repeated Uncle Joachim testily, "always this +same foolish word. What hast thou in thy head, child, thy pretty woman's +head, made, if ever head was, to lean on a good man's shoulder?"</p> + +<p>"Oh—good men's shoulders," said Anna, shrugging her own, "I don't want +to lean on anybody's shoulder. I want to hold my head up straight, all +by itself. Do you then admire limp women, dear uncle, whose heads roll +about all loose till a good man comes along and props them up?"</p> + +<p>"These are English ideas. I like them not," said Uncle Joachim, looking +stony.</p> + +<p>Anna sat down on the seat by his side, and laid her cheek for a moment +against his sleeve. "This is the only good man's shoulder it will ever +lean on," she said. "If I were a preacher, do you know what I would +preach?"</p> + +<p>"Thou art not, and never wilt be, a preacher."</p> + +<p>"But if I were? Do you know what I would preach? Early and late? In +season and out of it?"</p> + +<p>"Much nonsense, I doubt not."</p> + +<p>"I would preach independence. Only that. Always that. They would be +sermons for women only; and they would be warnings against props."</p> + +<p>She sat up and looked at him out of the corners of her eyes, but he +continued to stare stonily into space.</p> + +<p>"I would thump the cushions, and cry out, 'Be independent, independent, +independent! Don't talk so much, and do more. Go your own way, and let +your neighbour go his. Don't meddle with other people when you have all +your own work cut out for you being good yourself. Shake off all the +props——'"</p> + +<p>"Anna, thou art talking folly."</p> + +<p>"'—shake them off, the props tradition and authority offer you, and go +alone—crawl, stumble, stagger, but go alone. You won't learn to walk +without tumbles, and knocks, and bruises, but you'll never learn to walk +at all so long as there are props.' Oh," she said fervently, casting up +her eyes, "there is nothing, nothing like getting rid of one's props!"</p> + +<p>"I never yet," observed Uncle Joachim, in his turn casting up his eyes, +"saw a girl who so greatly needs the guidance of a good man. Hast thou +never loved, then?" he added, turning on her suddenly.</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied Anna promptly. If Uncle Joachim chose to ask such direct +questions she would give him straight answers.</p> + +<p>"But——?"</p> + +<p>"He went away and married somebody else. I had no money, and she had a +great deal. So you see he was a very sensible young man." And she +laughed, for she had long ago ceased to be anything but amused by the +remembrance of her one excursion into the rocky regions of love.</p> + +<p>"That," said Uncle Joachim, "was not true love."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but it was."</p> + +<p>"Nay. One does not laugh at love."</p> + +<p>"It was all I had, anyhow. There isn't any more left. It was very bad +while it lasted, and it took at least two years to get over it. What +things I did to please that young man and appear lovely in his eyes! The +hours it took to dress, and get my hair done just right. I endured +tortures if I didn't look as beautiful as I thought I could look, and +was always giving my poor maid notice. And plots—the way I plotted to +get taken to the places where he would be! I never was so artful before +or since. Poor Susie was quite helpless. It is a mercy it all ended as +it did."</p> + +<p>"That," repeated Uncle Joachim, "was not true love."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it was."</p> + +<p>"No, my child."</p> + +<p>"Yes, my uncle. I laugh now, but it was very dreadful at the time."</p> + +<p>"Thou art but a goose," he said, shrugging his shoulders; but +immediately patted her hand lest her feelings should have been hurt. +And, declining further argument, he demanded to be taken to the Great +Vine.</p> + +<p>It was in this fashion, Anna talking and Uncle Joachim making brief +comments, that he came to know her as thoroughly as though he had lived +with her all his life.</p> + +<p>Soon after the excursion to Hampton Court a letter came that hurried his +departure, to Susie's ill-concealed relief.</p> + +<p>"My swines are ill," he informed her, greatly agitated, his fragile +English going altogether to pieces in his perturbation; "my inspector +writes they perpetually die. God keep thee, Anna," and he embraced her +very tenderly, and bending hastily over Susie's hand muttered some +conventionalities, and then disappeared into his four-wheeler and out of +their lives.</p> + +<p>They never saw him again.</p> + +<p>"My swines are ill," mimicked Susie, when Anna, feeling that she had +lost her one friend, came slowly back into the room, "my swines +perpetually die—"</p> + +<p>Anna was obliged to go and pray very hard at St. Paul's before she could +forgive her.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + + +<p>The old man died at Christmas, and in the following March, when Anna was +going about more sad and listless than ever, the news came that, though +his inherited estates had gone to his sons, he had bought a little place +some years before with the intention of retiring to it in his extreme +old age, and this little place he had left to his dear and only niece +Anna.</p> + +<p>She was alone when the letters bringing the news arrived, sitting in the +drawing-room with a book in her hands at which she did not look, feeling +utterly downcast, indifferent, too hopeless to want anything or mind +anything, accepting her destiny of years of days like this, with herself +going through them lonely, useless, and always older, and telling +herself that she did not after all care. "What does it matter, so long +as I have a comfortable bed, and fires when I am cold, and meals when I +am hungry?" she thought. "Not to have those is the only real misery. All +the rest is purest fancy. What right have I to be happier than other +people? If they are contented by such things, I can be contented too. +And what does a useless being like me deserve, I should like to know? It +was detestably ungrateful of me to have been unhappy all this time."</p> + +<p>She got up aimlessly, and looked out of the window into the sunny +street, where the dust was racing by on the gusty March wind, and the +women selling daffodils at the corner were more battered and blown about +and red-eyed than ever. She had often, in those moments when her whole +body tingled with a wild longing to be up and doing and justifying her +existence before it was too late, envied these poor women, because they +worked. She wondered vaguely now at her folly. "It is much better to be +comfortable," she thought, going back to the fire as aimlessly as she +had gone to the window, "and it is sheer idiocy quarrelling with a life +that other people would think quite tolerable."</p> + +<p>Then the door opened, and the letters were brought in—the wonderful +letters that struck the whole world into radiance—lying together with +bills and ordinary notes on a salver, carried by an indifferent servant, +handed to her as though they were things of naught—the wonderful +letters that changed her life.</p> + +<p>At first she did not understand what it was that they meant, and pored +over the cramped German writing, reading the long sentences over and +over again, till something suddenly seemed to clutch at her heart. Was +this possible? Was this actual truth? Was Uncle Joachim, who had so much +objected to her longing for independence, giving it to her with both +hands, and every blessing along with it? She read them through again, +very carefully, holding them with shaking hands. Yes, it was true. She +began to cry, sobbing over them for very love and tenderness, her whole +being melted into gratitude and humbleness, awestruck by a sense of how +little she had deserved it, dazzled by the thousand lovely colours life, +in the twinkling of an eye, had taken on.</p> + +<p>There were two letters—one from Uncle Joachim's lawyer, and one from +Uncle Joachim himself, written soon after his return from England, with +directions on the envelope that it was to be sent to Anna after his +death.</p> + +<p>Uncle Joachim was not a man to express sentiment otherwise than by +patting those he loved affectionately on the back, and the letter over +which Anna hung with such tender gratitude, and such an extravagance of +humility, was a mere bald statement of facts. Since Anna, with a +perversity that he entirely disapproved, refused to marry, and appeared +to be possessed of the obstinacy that had always been a peculiarity of +her German forefathers, and which was well enough in a man, but +undesirable in a woman, whose calling it was to be gentle and yielding +(<i>sanft und nachgiebig</i>), and convinced from what he had seen +during his visit to London that she could never by any possibility be +happy with her brother and sister-in-law, and moreover considering that +it was beneath the dignity of his sister's daughter, a young lady of +good family, for ever to roll herself in the feathers with which the +middle-class goose-born Dobbs had furnished Peter's otherwise defective +nest, he had decided to make her independent altogether of them, +numerous though his own sons were, and angry as they no doubt would be, +by bestowing on her absolutely after his death the only property he +could leave to whomsoever he chose, a small estate near Stralsund, where +he hoped to pass his last years. It was in a flourishing condition, easy +to manage, bringing in a yearly average of forty thousand marks, and +with an experienced inspector whom he earnestly recommended her to keep. +He trusted his dear Anna would go and live there, and keep it up to its +present state of excellence, and would finally marry a good German +gentleman, of whom there were many, and return in this way altogether to +the country of her forefathers. The estate was not so far from Stralsund +as to make it impossible for her to drive there when she wished to +indulge any feminine desire she might have to trim herself (<i>sich +putzen</i>), and he recommended her to begin a new life, settling there +with some grave and sober female advanced in years as companion and +protectress, until such time as she should, by marriage, pass into the +care of that natural protector, her husband.</p> + +<p>Then followed a short exposition of his views on women, especially those +women who go to parties all their lives and talk <i>Klatsch</i>; a spirited +comparing of such women with those whose interests keep them busy in +their own homes; and a final exhortation to Anna to seize this +opportunity of choosing the better life, which was always, he said, a +life of simplicity, frugality, and hard work.</p> + +<p>Anna wept and laughed together over this letter—the tenderest laughter +and the happiest tears. It seemed by turns the wildest improbability +that she should be well off, and the most natural thing in the world. +Susie was out. Never had her absence been terrible before. Anna could +hardly bear the waiting. She walked up and down the room, for sitting +still was impossible, holding the precious letters tight in her little +cold hands, her cheeks burning, her eyes sparkling, in an agony of +impatience and anxiety lest something should have happened to delay +Susie at this supreme moment. At the window end of the room she stopped +each time she reached it and looked eagerly up and down the street, the +flower-women and the blessedness of selling daffodils having within an +hour become profoundly indifferent to her. At the other end of the room, +where a bureau stood, she came to a standstill too, and snatching up a +pen began a letter to Peter in Devonshire; but, hearing wheels, threw it +down and flew to the window again. It was not Susie's carriage, and she +went back to the letter and wrote another line; then again to the +window; then again to the letter; and it was the letter's turn as Susie, +fagged from a round of calls, came in.</p> + +<p>Susie's afternoon had not been a success. She had made advances to a +woman of enviably high position with the intrepidity that characterised +all her social movements, and she had been snubbed for her pains with +more than usual rudeness. She had had, besides, several minor +annoyances. And to come in worn out, and have your sister-in-law, who +would hardly speak to you at luncheon, fall on your neck and begin +violently to kiss you, is really a little hard on a woman who is already +cross.</p> + +<p>"Now what in the name of fortune is the matter now?" gasped Susie, +breathlessly disengaging herself.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Susie! oh, Susie!" cried Anna incoherently, "what ages you have +been away—and the letters came directly you had gone—and I've been +watching for you ever since, and was so dreadfully afraid something had +happened——"</p> + +<p>"But what are you talking about, Anna?" interrupted Susie irritably. It +was late, and she wanted to rest for a few minutes before dressing to go +out again, and here was Anna in a new mood of a violent nature, and she +was weary beyond measure of all Anna's moods.</p> + +<p>"Oh, such a wonderful thing has happened!" cried Anna; "such a wonderful +thing! What will Peter say? And how glad you will be——" And she thrust +the letters with trembling fingers into Susie's unresponsive hand.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" said Susie, looking at them bewildered.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no—I forgot," said Anna, wildly as it seemed to Susie, pulling +them out of her hand again. "You can't read German—see here——" And +she began to unfold them and smooth out the creases she had made, her +hands shaking visibly.</p> + +<p>Susie stared. Clearly something extraordinary had happened, for the +frosty Anna of the last few months had melted into a radiance of emotion +that would only not be ridiculous if it turned out to be justified.</p> + +<p>"Two German letters," said Anna, sitting down on the nearest chair, +spreading them out on her lap, and talking as though she could hardly +get the words out fast enough, "one from Uncle Joachim——"</p> + +<p>"Uncle Joachim?" repeated Susie, a disagreeable and creepy doubt as to +Anna's sanity coming over her. "You know very well he's dead and can't +write letters," she said severely.</p> + +<p>"—and one from his lawyer," Anna went on, regardless of everything but +what she had to tell. "The lawyer's letter is full of technical words, +difficult to understand, but it is only to confirm what Uncle Joachim +says, and his is quite plain. He wrote it some time before he died, and +left it with his lawyer to send on to me."</p> + +<p>Susie was listening now with all her ears. Lawyers, deceased uncles, and +Anna's sparkling face could only have one meaning.</p> + +<p>"Uncle Joachim was our mother's only brother——"</p> + +<p>"I know, I know," interrupted Susie impatiently.</p> + +<p>"—and was the dearest and kindest of uncles to me——"</p> + +<p>"Never mind what he was," interrupted Susie still more impatiently. +"What has he done for you? Tell me that. You always pretended, both of +you—Peter too—that he had miles of sandy places somewhere in the +desert, and dozens of boys. What could he do for you?"</p> + +<p>"Do for me?" Anna rose up with a solemnity worthy of the great news +about to be imparted, put both her hands on Susie's little shoulders, +and looking down at her with shining eyes, said slowly, "He has left me +an estate bringing in forty thousand marks a year."</p> + +<p>"Forty thousand!" echoed Susie, completely awestruck.</p> + +<p>"Marks," said Anna.</p> + +<p>"Oh, marks," said Susie, chilled. "That's francs, isn't it? I really +thought for a moment——"</p> + +<p>"They're more than francs. It brings in, on an average, two thousand +pounds a year. Two—thousand—pounds—a—year," repeated Anna, nodding +her head at each word. "Now, Susie, what do you think of that?"</p> + +<p>"What do I think of it? Why, that it isn't much. Where would you all +have been, I wonder, if I had only had two thousand a year?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, congratulate me!" cried Anna, opening her arms. "Kiss me, and tell +me you are glad! Don't you see that I am off your hands at last? That we +need never think about husbands again? That you will never have to buy +me any more clothes, and never tire your poor little self out any more +trotting me round? I don't know which of us is to be congratulated +most," she added laughing, looking at Susie with her eyes full of tears. +Then she insisted on kissing her again, and murmured foolish things in +her ear about being so sorry for all her horrid ways, and so grateful to +her, and so determined now to be good for ever and ever.</p> + +<p>"My <i>dear</i> Anna," remonstrated Susie, who disliked sentiment and never +knew how to respond to exhibitions of feeling. "Of course I congratulate +you. It almost seems as if throwing away one's chances in the way you +have done was the right thing to do, and is being rewarded. Don't let us +waste time. You know we go out to dinner. What has he left Peter?"</p> + +<p>"Peter?" said Anna wonderingly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Peter. He was his nephew, I suppose, just as much as you were his +niece."</p> + +<p>"Well, but Susie, Peter is different. He—he doesn't need money as I do; +and of course Uncle Joachim knew that."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense. He hasn't got a penny. Let me look at the letters."</p> + +<p>"They're in German. You won't be able to read them."</p> + +<p>"Give them to me. I learned German at school, and got a prize. You're +not the only person in the world who can do things."</p> + +<p>She took them out of Anna's hand, and began slowly and painfully to read +the one from Uncle Joachim, determined to see whether there really was +no mention of Peter. Anna looked on, hot and cold by turns with fright +lest by some chance her early studies should not after all have been +quite forgotten.</p> + +<p>"Here's something about Peter—and me," Susie said suddenly. "At least, +I suppose he means me. It is something Dobbs. Why does he call me that? +It hasn't been my name for fifteen years."</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's some silly German way. He says the <i>geborene</i> Dobbs, to +distinguish you from other Lady Estcourts."</p> + +<p>"But there are no others."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, his sister was one. Give me the letter, Susie—I can tell you +what he says much more quickly than you can read it."</p> + +<p>"'<i>Unter der Würde einer jünge Dame aus guter Familie</i>,'" read out Susie +slowly, not heeding Anna, and with the most excruciating pronunciation +that was ever heard, "'<i>sich ewig auf den Federn, mit welchen die +bürgerliche Gans geborene Dobbs Peters sonst mangelhaftes Nest +ausgestattet hat, zu wälzen</i>.' What stuff he writes. I can hardly +understand it. Yet I must have been good at it at school, to get the +prize. What is that bit about me and Peter?"</p> + +<p>"Which bit?" said Anna, blushing scarlet. "Let me look." She got the +letter back into her possession. "Oh, that's where he says that—that he +doesn't think it fair that I should be a burden for ever on you and +Peter."</p> + +<p>"Well, that's sensible enough. The old man had some sense in him after +all, absurd though he was, and vulgar. It <i>isn't</i> fair, of course. I +don't mean to say anything disagreeable, or throw all I have done for +you in your face, but really, Anna, few mothers would have made the +sacrifices I have for you, and as for sisters-in-law—well, I'd just +like to see another."</p> + +<p>"Dear Susie," said Anna tenderly, putting her arm round her, ready to +acknowledge all, and more than all, the benefits she had received, "you +have been only too kind and generous. I know that I owe you everything +in the world, and just think how lovely it is for me to feel that now I +can take my weight off your shoulders! You must come and live with <i>me</i> +now, whenever you are sick of things, and I'll feel so proud, having you +in my house!"</p> + +<p>"Live with you?" exclaimed Susie, drawing herself away. "Where are you +going to live?"</p> + +<p>"Why, there, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"Live there! Is that a condition?"</p> + +<p>"No, but Uncle Joachim keeps on saying he hopes I will, and that I'll +settle down and look after the place."</p> + +<p>"Look after the place yourself? How silly!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, you haven't taught me much about farming, have you? He wants me to +turn quite into a German."</p> + +<p>"Good gracious!" cried Susie, genuinely horrified.</p> + +<p>"He seems to think that I ought to work, and not spend my life talking +<i>Klatsch</i>."</p> + +<p>"Talking what?"</p> + +<p>"It's what German women apparently talk when they get together. We +don't. I'd never do anything with such an ugly name, and I'm positive +you wouldn't."</p> + +<p>"Where is this place?"</p> + +<p>"Near Stralsund."</p> + +<p>"And where on earth is that?"</p> + +<p>"Ah," said Anna, investigating cobwebby corners of her memory, "that's +what I should like to be able to remember. Perhaps," she added honestly, +"I never knew. Let me call Letty, and ask her to bring her atlas."</p> + +<p>"Letty won't know," said Susie impatiently, "she only knows the things +she oughtn't to."</p> + +<p>"Oh, she isn't as wise as all that," said Anna, ringing the bell. +"Anyhow she has maps, which is more than we have."</p> + +<p>A servant was sent to request Miss Letty Estcourt to attend in the +drawing-room with her atlas.</p> + +<p>"Whatever's in the wind now?" inquired Letty, open-mouthed, of her +governess. "They're not going to examine me this time of night, are +they, Leechy?" For she suffered greatly from having a brother who was +always passing examinations and coming out top, and was consequently +subjected herself, by an ambitious mother who was sure that she must be +equally clever if she would only let herself go, to every examination +that happened to be going for girls of her age; so that she and Miss +Leech spent their days either on the defensive, preparing for these +unprovoked assaults, or in the state of collapse which followed the +regularly recurring defeat, and both found their lives a burden too +great to be borne.</p> + +<p>There was a preliminary scuffle of washing and brushing, and then Letty +marched into the drawing-room, her atlas under her arm and deep +suspicion on her face. But no bland and treacherous examiner was +visible, covering his preliminary movements with ghastly pleasantries; +only her mother and her pretty aunt.</p> + +<p>"Where's Stralsund?" they cried together, as she opened the door.</p> + +<p>Letty stopped short and stared. "What's that?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"It's a place—a place in Germany."</p> + +<p>"Letty, do you mean to tell me that you don't know where Stralsund is?" +asked Susie, in a voice that would have been of thunder if it had been +big enough. "Do you mean to say that after all the money I have spent on +your education you don't know <i>that</i>?"</p> + +<p>Was this a new form of torture? Was she to find the examining spirit +lurking even in the familiar and hitherto harmless forms of her mother +and her aunt? She openly showed her disgust. "If it's a place, it's in +this atlas," she said, "and if this is going to be an examination, I +don't think it's fair; and if it's a game, I don't like it." And she +threw her atlas unceremoniously on to the nearest chair; for though her +mother could force her to do many things, she could never, somehow, +force her to be respectful.</p> + +<p>"What a horror the child has of lessons!" cried Susie. "Don't be so +silly. We only want to see if you know where Stralsund is, that's all."</p> + +<p>"Tell us where it is, Letty," said Anna coaxingly, kneeling down in front +of the chair and opening the atlas. "Let us find the map of Germany and +look for it. Why, you did Germany for your last exam.—you must have it +all at your fingers' ends."</p> + +<p>"It didn't stay there, then," said Letty moodily; but she went over to +Anna, who was always kind to her, and began to turn over the +well-thumbed pages.</p> + +<p>Oh, what recollections lurked in those dirty corners! Surely it is hard +on a person of fourteen, who is as fond of enjoying herself as anybody +else, to be made to wrestle with maps upstairs in a dreary room, when +the sun is shining, and the voices of the children passing come up +joyously to the prison windows, and all the world is out of doors! Letty +thought so, and Miss Leech thought it hard on a person of thirty, and +each tried to console the other, but neither knew how, for their case +seemed very hopeless. Did not unending vistas of classes and lectures +stretch away before and behind them, dotted at intervals, oh, so +frequent! with the black spots of examinations? Was not the pavement of +Gower Street, and Kensington Square, and of all those districts where +girls can be lectured into wisdom, quite worn by their patient feet? And +then the accomplishments! Oh, what a life it was! A man came twice a +week and insisted on teaching her to fiddle; a highly nervous man, who +jerked her elbow and rapped her knuckles with his bow whenever she +played out of tune, which was all the time, and made bitter remarks of a +killingly sarcastic nature to Miss Leech when she stumbled over the +accompaniments. On Wednesdays there was a dancing class, where a pinched +young lady played the piano with the energy of despair, and a hot and +agile master with unduly turned-out toes taught the girls the Lancers, +earning his bread in the sweat of his brow. He also was sarcastic, but +he clothed his sarcasms in the garb of kindly fun, laughing gently at +them himself, and expecting his pupils to laugh too; which they did +uneasily, for the fun was of a personal nature, evoked by the clumsiness +or stupidity of one or other of them, and none knew when her own turn +might not come. The lesson ended with what he called the March of Grace +round the room, each girl by herself, no music to drown the noise her +shoes made on the bare boards, the others looking on, and the master +making comments. This march was terrible to Letty. All her nightmares +were connected with it. She was a podgy, dull-looking girl, fat and pale +and awkward, and her mother made her wear cheap shoes that creaked. +"Miss Estcourt has new shoes on again," the dancing master would say, +gently smiling, when Letty was well on her way round the room, cut off +from all human aid, conscious of every inch of her body, desperately +trying to be graceful. And everybody tittered except the victim. "You +know, Miss Estcourt," he would say at every second lesson, "there is a +saying that creaking shoes have not been paid for. I beg your pardon? +Did you say they had been paid for? Miss Estcourt says she does not +know." And he would turn to his other pupils with a shrug and a gentle +smile.</p> + +<p>On Saturday afternoons there were the Popular Concerts at St. James's +Hall to be gone to—Susie regarded them as educational, and +subscribed—and Letty, who always had chilblains on her feet in winter, +suffered tortures trying not to rub them; for as surely as she moved one +foot and began to rub the other with it, however gently, fierce +enthusiasts in the row in front would turn on her—old gentlemen of an +otherwise humane appearance, rapt ladies with eyeglasses and loose +clothes—and sh-sh her with furious hissings into immobility. "Oh, +Letty, <i>try</i> and sit still," Miss Leech, who dreaded publicity, would +implore in a whisper; but who that has not had them can know the torture +of chilblains inside thick boots, where they cannot be got at? As soon +as the chilblains went, the Saturday concerts left off, and it seemed as +though Fate had nothing better to do than to be spiteful.</p> + +<p>It was indeed a dreadful thing, thought Letty, as she bent over the map +of Germany, to be young and to have to be made clever at all costs. Here +was her aunt even, her pretty, kind aunt, asking her geography questions +at seven o'clock at night, when she thought that she had really done +with lessons for one more day, and had been so much enjoying Leechy's +description of the only man she ever loved, while she comfortably +toasted cheese at the schoolroom fire. Anna, who spent such lofty hours +of spiritual exaltation at St. Paul's, and came away with her soul +melted into pity for the unhappy, and yearned with her whole being to +help them, never thought of Letty as a creature who might perhaps be +helped to cheerfulness with a little trouble. Letty was too close at +hand; and enthusiastic philanthropists, casting about for objects of +charity, seldom see what is at their feet.</p> + +<p>It was so difficult to find Stralsund that by the time Letty's wandering +finger had paused upon it Susie could only give one glance of horror at +its position, and hurry away with Anna to dress. Anna, too, would have +preferred it to be farther south, in the Black Forest, or some other +romantic region, where it would have amused her to go occasionally, at +least, for a few weeks in the summer. But there it was, as far north as +it could be, in a part of the world she had hardly heard of, except in +connection with dogs.</p> + +<p>It did not, however, matter where it was. Uncle Joachim had merely +recommended and not enjoined. It would be rather extraordinary for her +to go there and set up housekeeping alone. She need not go; she was +almost sure she would not go. Anyhow there was no necessity to decide at +once. The money was what she wanted, and she could spend it where she +chose. Let Uncle Joachim's inspector, of whom he wrote in such praise, +go on getting forty thousand marks a year out of the place, and she +would be perfectly content.</p> + +<p>She ran upstairs to put on her prettiest dress, and to have her hair +done in the curls and waves she had so long eschewed. Should she not +make herself as charming as possible for this charming world, where +everybody was so good and kind, and add her measure of beauty and +kindness to the rest? She beamed on Letty as she passed her on the +stairs, climbing slowly up with her big atlas, and took it from her and +would carry it herself; she beamed on Miss Leech, who was watching for +her pupil at the schoolroom door; she beamed on her maid, she beamed on +her own reflection in the glass, which indeed at that moment was that of +a very beautiful young woman. Oh happy, happy world! What should she do +with so much money? She, who had never had a penny in her life, thought +it an enormous, an inexhaustible sum. One thing was certain—it was all +to be spent in doing good; she would help as many people with it as she +possibly could, and never, never, never let them feel that they were +under obligations. Did she not know, after fifteen years of dependence +on Susie, what it was like to be under obligations? And what was more +cruelly sad and crushing and deadening than dependence? She did not yet +know what sort of people she would help, or in what way she would help, +but oh, she was going to make heaps of people happy forever! While +Hilton was curling her hair, she thought of slums; but remembered that +they would bring her into contact with the clergy, and most of her +offers of late had been from the clergy. Even the vicar who had prepared +her for confirmation, his first wife being then alive, and a second +having since been mourned, had wanted to marry her. "It's because I am +twenty-five and staid that they think me suitable," she thought; but she +could not help smiling at the face in the glass.</p> + +<p>When she was dressed and ready to go down she was forced to ask herself +whether the person that she saw in the glass looked in the least like a +person who would ever lead the simple, frugal, hard-working life that +Uncle Joachim had called the better life, and in which he seemed to +think she would alone find contentment. Certainly she knew him to be +very wise. Well, nothing need be decided yet. Perhaps she would +go—perhaps she would not. "It's this white dress that makes me look +so—so unsuitable," she said to herself, "and Hilton's wonderful waves."</p> + +<p>And she went downstairs trying not to sing, the sweetest of feminine +creatures, happiness and love and kindness shining in her eyes, a lovely +thing saved from the blight of empty years, and brought back to beauty, +by Uncle Joachim's timely interference.</p> + +<p>Letty and Miss Leech heard the singing, and stopped involuntarily in +their conversation. It was a strange sound in that dull and joyless +house.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what's the matter, Leechy," Letty had said, on her return +from the drawing-room, "but mamma and Aunt Anna are too weird to-night +for anything. What do you think they had me down for? They didn't know +where Stralsund was, and wanted to find out. They pretended they wanted +to see if <i>I</i> knew, but I soon saw through that game. And Aunt Anna +looks frightfully happy. I believe she's going to be married, and wants +to go to Stralsund for the honeymoon."</p> + +<p>And Letty took up her toasting fork, while Miss Leech, as in duty bound, +refreshed her pupil's memory in regard to Stralsund and Wallenstein and +the Hansa cities generally.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + + +<p>Peter, meditating on the banks of the river at Estcourt, came to the +conclusion that a journey to London would be made unnecessary by the +equal efficacy of a congratulatory letter.</p> + +<p>He had been greatly moved by the news of his sister's good fortune, and +in the first flush of pleasure and sympathy had ordered his things to be +packed in readiness for his departure by the night train. Then he had +gone down to the river, and there, thinking the matter over quietly, +amid the soothing influences of grey sky, grey water, and green grass, +he gradually perceived that a letter would convey all that he felt quite +well, perhaps better than any verbal expressions of joy, and as he would +in any case only stay a few hours in town the long journey seemed hardly +worth while. He sent a letter, therefore, that very evening—a kind, +brotherly letter, in which, after heartily congratulating his dear +little sister, he said that it would be necessary for her to go over to +Germany, see the lawyer, and take possession of her property. When she +had done that, and made all arrangements as to the future payment of the +income derived from the estate, she would of course come back to them; +for Estcourt was always to be her home, and now that she was independent +she would no longer be obliged to be wherever Susie was, but would, he +hoped, come to him, and they could go fishing together,—"and there's +nothing to beat fishing," concluded Peter, "if you want peace."</p> + +<p>But Anna did not want peace; at least, not that kind of peace just at +that moment. Sitting in a punt was not what she wanted. She was thrilled +by the love of her less fortunate fellow-creatures, and the sense of +power to help them, and the longing to go and do it. What she really +wanted of Peter was that he should take her to Germany and help her +through the formalities; for before his letter arrived she too had seen +that that was the first thing to be done.</p> + +<p>Of this, however, he did not write a word. She thought he must have +forgotten, so natural did it appear to her that her brother should go +with her; and she wrote him a little note, asking when he would be able +to get away. She received a long letter in reply, full of regrets, +excuses, and good reasons, which she read wonderingly. Had she been +selfish, or was Peter selfish? She thought it all out carefully, and +found that it was she who had been selfish to expect Peter, always a +hater of business and a lover of quiet, to go all that way and worry +himself with tiresome money arrangements. Besides, perhaps he was not +feeling well. She knew he suffered from rheumatism; and when you have +rheumatism the mere thought of a long journey is appalling.</p> + +<p>Susie, whose head was very clear on all matters concerning money, had +also recognised the necessity of Anna's going to Germany, and had also +regarded Peter as the most natural companion and guide; but she was not +surprised when Anna told her that he could not go. "It was too much to +expect," apologised Anna. "He often has rheumatism in the spring, and +perhaps he has it now."</p> + +<p>Susie sniffed.</p> + +<p>"The question is," said Anna after a pause, "what am I to do, helpless +virgin, in spite of my years,—never able to do a thing for myself?"</p> + +<p>"I'll go with you."</p> + +<p>"You? But what about your engagements?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'll throw them over, and take you. Letty can come too. It will do +her German good. Herr Schumpf says he's ashamed of her."</p> + +<p>Susie had various reasons for offering herself so amiably, one being +certainly curiosity. But the chief one was that the same woman who had +been so rude to her the day Anna's news came, had sent out invitations +to all the world to her daughter's wedding after Easter, and had not +sent one to Susie.</p> + +<p>This was one of those trials that cannot be faced. If she, being in +London at the time, carefully explained to her friends that she was ill +that day, and did actually stay in bed and dose herself the days +preceding and following, who would believe her? Not if she waved a +doctor's certificate in their faces would they believe her. They would +know that she had not been invited, and would rejoice. She felt that she +could not bear it. An unavoidable business journey to the Continent was +exactly what she wanted to help her out of this desperate situation. On +her return she would be able to hear the wedding discussed and express +her disappointment at having missed it with a serene brow and a quiet +mind.</p> + +<p>It is doubtful whether she would have gone with Anna, however urgent +Anna's need, if she had been included in those invitations. But Anna, +who could not know the secret workings of her mind, once more remembered +her former treatment of Susie, so kind and willing to do all she could, +and hung her head with shame.</p> + +<p>They left London a day or two before Easter, Letty and Miss Leech, both +of them nearly ill with suppressed delight at the unexpected holiday, +going with them. They had announced their coming to Uncle Joachim's +lawyer, and asked him to make arrangements for their accommodation at +Kleinwalde, Anna's new possession. Susie proposed to stay a day in +Berlin, which would give Anna time to talk everything over with the +lawyer, and would enable Letty to visit the museums. She had a hopeful +idea that Letty would absorb German at every pore once she was in the +country itself, and that being brought face to face with the statues of +Goethe and Schiller on their native soil would kindle the sparks of +interest in German literature that she supposed every well-taught child +possessed, into the roaring flame of enthusiasm. She could not believe +that Letty had no sparks. One of her children being so abnormally +clever, it must be sheer obstinacy on the part of the other that +prevented it from acquiring the knowledge offered daily in such +unstinted quantities. She had no illusions in regard to Letty's person, +and felt that as she would never be pretty it was of importance that she +should at least be cultured. She sat opposite her daughter in the train, +and having nothing better to do during the long hours that they were +jolting across North Germany, looked at her; and the more she looked the +more unreasoningly angry she became that Peter's sister should be so +pretty and Peter's daughter so plain. And then so fat! What a horrible +thing to have to take a fat daughter about with you in society. Where +did she get it from? She herself and Peter were the leanest of mortals. +It must be that Letty ate too much, which was not only a disgusting +practice but an expensive one, and should be put down at once with +rigour. Susie had not had such an opportunity of thoroughly inspecting +her child for years, and the result of this prolonged examination of her +weak points was that she would not let any of the party have anything to +eat at all, declaring that it was vulgar to eat in trains, expressing +amazement that people should bring themselves to touch the +horrid-looking food offered, and turning her back in impatient disgust +on two stout German ladies who had got in at Oberhausen, and who were +enjoying their lunch quite unmoved by her contempt—one eating a chicken +from beginning to end without a fork, and the other taking repeated sips +of an obviously satisfactory nature from a big wine bottle, which was +used, in the intervals, as a support to her back.</p> + +<p>By the time Berlin was reached, these ladies, having been properly fed +all day, were very cheerful, whereas Susie's party was speechless from +exhaustion; especially poor Miss Leech, who was never very strong, and +so nearly fainted that Susie was obliged to notice it, and expressed a +conviction to Anna in a loud and peevish aside that Miss Leech was going +to be a nuisance.</p> + +<p>"It is strange," thought Anna, as she crept into bed, "how travelling +brings out one's worst passions."</p> + +<p>It is indeed strange; for it is certain that nothing equals the +expectant enthusiasm and mutual esteem of the start except the cold +dislike of the finish. Many are the friendships that have found an +unforeseen and sudden end on a journey, and few are those that survive +it. But if Horace Walpole and Grey fell out, if Byron and Leigh Hunt +were obliged to part, if a host of other personages, endowed with every +gift that makes companionship desirable, could not away with each other +after a few weeks together abroad, is it to be wondered at that weaker +vessels such as Susie and Anna, Letty and Miss Leech, should have found +the short journey from London to Berlin sufficient to enable them to see +one another's failings with a clearness of vision that was startling?</p> + +<p>On the lawyer, a keen-eyed man with a conspicuously fine face, Anna made +an entirely favourable impression. When he saw this gracious young lady, +so simple and so friendly, and looked into her frank and charming eyes, +he perfectly understood that old Joachim should have been bewitched. But +after a little conversation, it appeared that she had no present +intention of carrying out her uncle's wishes, but, setting them coolly +aside, proposed to spend all the good German money she could extract +from her property in that replete and bloated land, England.</p> + +<p>This annoyed him; first because he hated England and then because his +father had managed old Joachim's affairs before he himself had stepped +into the paternal shoes, and the feeling of both father and son for the +old man had been considerably warmer than is usual between lawyer and +client. Still he could not believe, judging after the manner of men, +that anything so pretty could also be unkind; and scrutinising Lady +Estcourt, because she was unattractive and had a sharp little face and a +restless little body, he was convinced that she it was who was the cause +of this setting aside of a dead benefactor's wishes. Susie, for her +part, patronised him because his collar turned down.</p> + +<p>Whenever Letty thought afterwards of Berlin, she thought of it as a +place where all the houses are museums, and where you drink so many cups +of chocolate with whipped cream on the top that you see things double +for the rest of the time.</p> + +<p>Anna thought of it as a charming place, where delightful lawyers fill +your purse with money.</p> + +<p>Susie thought of it with satisfaction as the one place abroad where, by +dint of sternest economy, walks from sight to sight in the rain, and +promiscuous cakes instead of the more satisfactory but less cheap meals +Letty called square, she had successfully defended herself from being, +as she put it, fleeced.</p> + +<p>To Miss Leech, it was merely a place where your feet get wet, and your +clothes are spoilt.</p> + +<p>Early the next morning they started for Kleinwalde.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + + +<p>Stralsund is an old town of gabled houses, ancient churches, and quaint, +roughly paved streets, forming an island, and joined to the mainland by +dikes. It looks its best in the early summer, when the green and marshy +plains on whose edge it stands are strewn with kingcups, and the little +white clouds hang over them almost motionless, and the cattle are out, +and the larks sing, and the orange and red sails of the fishing-smacks +on the narrow belt of sea that divides the town from the island of Rügen +make brilliant points of contrasting colour between the blue of water +and sky. There is a divine freshness and brightness about the +surrounding stretches of coarse grass and common flowers at that blest +season of the year. The air is full of the smell of the sea. The sun +beats down fiercely on plain and city. The people come out of the rooms +in which most of their life is spent, and stand in the doorways and +remark on the heat. An occasional heavy cart bumps over the stones, +heard in that sleepy place for several minutes before and after its +passing. There is an honest, tarry, fishy smell everywhere; and the +traveller of poetic temperament in search of the picturesque, and not +too nice about his comforts, could not fail, visiting it for the first +time in the month of June, to be wholly delighted that he had come.</p> + +<p>But in winter, and especially in those doubly gloomy days at the end of +winter, when spring ought to have shown some signs of its approach and +has not done so, those days of howling winds and driving rain and +frequent belated snowstorms, this plain is merely a bleak expanse of +dreariness, with a forlorn old town huddling in its farthest corner.</p> + +<p>It was at its very bleakest and dreariest on the morning that Susie and +her three companions travelled across it. "What a place!" exclaimed +Susie, as mile after mile was traversed, and there was still the same +succession of flat ploughed fields, marshes, and ploughed fields again, +with a rare group of furiously swaying pine trees or of silver birches +bent double before the wind. "What a part of the world to come and live +in! That old uncle of yours was as cracked as he could be to think you'd +ever stay here for good. And imagine spending even a single shilling +buying land here. I wouldn't take a barrowful at a gift."</p> + +<p>"Well, I am taking a great many barrowfuls," said Anna, "and I am sure +Uncle Joachim was right to buy a place here—he was always right."</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course, it's your duty now to praise him up. Perhaps it gets +better farther on, but I don't see how anybody can squeeze two thousand +a year out of a desert like this."</p> + +<p>The prospect from the railway that day was certainly not attractive; but +Anna told herself that any place would look dreary such weather, and was +much too happy in the first flush of independence to be depressed by +anything whatever. Had she not that very morning given the chambermaid +at the Berlin hotel so bounteous a reward for services not rendered that +the woman herself had said it was too much? Thus making amends for those +innumerable departures from hotels when Susie had escaped without giving +anything at all. Had she not also asked, and readily obtained, +permission of Susie at the station in Berlin to pay for the tickets of +the whole party? And had it not been a delightful and warming feeling, +buying those tickets for other people instead of having tickets bought +by other people for herself? At Pasewalk, a little town half way between +Berlin and Stralsund, where the train stopped ten minutes, she insisted +on getting out, defying the sleet and the puddles, and went into the +refreshment room, and bought eggs and rolls and cakes,—everything she +could find that was least offensive. Also a guidebook to Stralsund, +though she was not going to stop in Stralsund; also some postcards with +views on them, though she never used postcards with views on them, and +came back loaded with parcels, her face glowing with childish pleasure +at spending money.</p> + +<p>"My <i>dear</i> Anna," said Susie; but she was hungry, and ate a roll with +perfect complacency, allowing Letty to do the same, although only two +days had elapsed since she had so energetically lectured her on the +grossness of eating in trains.</p> + +<p>Susie was in a particularly amiable frame of mind, and in spite of the +weather was looking forward to seeing the place Uncle Joachim had +thought would be a fit home for his niece; and as she and Anna were +sitting together at one end of the carriage, and Letty and Miss Leech +were at the other, and there was no one else in the compartment, she was +neither upset by the too near contemplation of her daughter, nor by the +aspect of other travellers lunching. Miss Leech, always mindful of her +duties, was making the most of her five hours' journey by endeavouring, +in a low voice, to clear away the haze that hung in her pupil's mind +round the details of her last winter's German studies. "Don't you +remember anything of Professor Smith's lectures, Letty?" she inquired. +"Why, they were all about just this part of Germany, and it makes it so +much more interesting if one knows what happened at the different +places. Stralsund, you know, where we shall be presently, has had a most +turbulent and interesting past."</p> + +<p>"Has it?" said Letty. "Well, I can't help it, Leechy."</p> + +<p>"No; but my dear, you should try to recollect something at least of what +you heard at the lectures. Have you forgotten the paper you wrote about +Wallenstein?"</p> + +<p>"I remember I did a paper. Beastly hard it was, too."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Letty, don't say beastly—it really isn't a ladylike word."</p> + +<p>"Why, mamma's always saying it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well. Don't you know what Wallenstein said when he was besieging +Stralsund and found it such a difficult task?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose he said too that it was beastly hard."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Letty—it was something about chains. Now do you remember?"</p> + +<p>"Chains?" repeated Letty, looking bored. "Do <i>you</i> know, Leechy?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I still remember that, though I confess that I have forgotten the +greater part of what I heard."</p> + +<p>"Then what do you ask me for, when you know I don't know? What did he +say about chains?"</p> + +<p>"He said that he'd take the city, if it were rivetted to heaven with +chains of iron," said Miss Leech dramatically.</p> + +<p>"What a goat."</p> + +<p>"Oh, hush—don't say those horrible words. Where do you learn them? Not +from me, certainly not from me," said Miss Leech, distressed. She had a +profound horror of slang, and was bewildered by the way in which these +weeds of rhetoric sprang up on all occasions in Letty's speech.</p> + +<p>"Well, and was it?"</p> + +<p>"Was it what, my dear?"</p> + +<p>"Chained to heaven?"</p> + +<p>"The city? Why, how can a city be chained to heaven, Letty?"</p> + +<p>"Then what did he say it for?"</p> + +<p>"He was using a metaphor."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Letty, who did not know what a metaphor was, but supposed it +must be something used in sieges, and preferred not to inquire too +closely.</p> + +<p>"He was obliged to retire," said Miss Leech, "leaving enormous numbers +of slain on the field."</p> + +<p>"Poor beasts. I say, Leechy," she whispered, "don't let's bother about +history now. Go on with Mr. Jessup. You'd got to where he called you Amy +for the first time."</p> + +<p>Mr. Jessup was the person already alluded to in these pages as the only +man Miss Leech had ever loved, and his history was of absorbing interest +to Letty, who never tired of hearing his first appearance on Miss +Leech's horizon described, with his subsequent advances before the stage +of open courting was reached, the courting itself, and its melancholy +end; for Mr. Jessup, a clergyman of the Church of England, with a +vicarage all ready to receive his wife, had suddenly become a prey to +new convictions, and had gone over to the Church of Rome; whereupon Miss +Leech's father, also a clergyman of the Church of England, had talked a +great deal about the Scarlet Woman of Babylon, and had shut the door in +Mr. Jessup's face when next he called to explain. This had happened when +Miss Leech was twenty. Now, at thirty, an orphan resigned to the world's +buffets, she found a gentle consolation in repeating the story of her +ill-starred engagement to her keenly interested friend and pupil; and +the oftener she repeated it the less did it grieve her, till at last she +came actually to enjoy the remembrance of it, pleased to have played the +principal part even in a drama that was hissed off her little stage, +glad to find a sympathetic listener, dwelling much and fondly on every +incident of that short period of importance and glory.</p> + +<p>It is doubtful whether she would ever have extracted the same amount of +pleasure from Mr. Jessup had he remained fixed in the faith of his +fathers and married her in due season. By his secession he had +unconsciously become a sort of providence to Letty and herself, saving +them from endless hours of dulness, furnishing their lonely schoolroom +life with romance and mystery; and if in Miss Leech's mind he gradually +took on the sweet intangibility of a pleasant dream, he was the very +pith and marrow of Letty's existence. She glowed and thrilled at the +thought that perhaps she too would one day have a Mr. Jessup of her own, +who would have convictions, and give up everything, herself included, +for what he believed to be right.</p> + +<p>As usual, they at once became absorbed in Mr. Jessup, forgetting in the +contemplation of his excellencies everything else in the world, till +they were roused to realities by their arrival at Stralsund; and Susie, +thrusting books and bags and umbrellas into their passive hands, pushed +them out of the carriage into the wet.</p> + +<p>Hilton, the maid shared by Susie and Anna, had then to be found and +urged to clamber down quickly on to the low platform, where she stood +helplessly, the picture of injured superiority, hustled by the hurrying +porters and passengers, out of whose way she scorned to move, while Anna +went to look for the luggage and have it put into the cart that had been +sent for it.</p> + +<p>This cart was an ordinary farm cart, used for bringing in the hay in +June, but also used for carrying out the manure in November; and on a +sack of straw lying in the bottom it was expected that Hilton should +sit. The farm boy who drove it, and who helped the porter to tie the +trunks to its sides lest they should too violently bump against each +other and Hilton on the way, said so; the coachman of the carriage +waiting for the <i>Herrschaften</i> pointed with his whip first at Hilton and +then at the cart, and said so; the porter, who seemed to think it quite +natural, said so; and everybody was waiting for Hilton to get in, who, +when she had at length grasped the situation, went to Susie, who was +looking frightened and pretending to be absorbed by the sky, and with a +voice shaken by passion, and a face changing from white to red, +announced her intention of only going in that cart as a corpse, when +they might do with her as they pleased, but as a living body with breath +in it, never.</p> + +<p>Here was a difficulty. And idlers, whose curiosity was not +extinguishable by wind and sleet, began to press round, and people who +had come by the same train stopped on their way out to listen. The farm +boy patted the sack and declared that it was clean straw, the coachman +stood up on his box and swore that it was a new sack, the porter assured +the Fräulein that it was as comfortable as a feather bed, and nobody +seemed to understand that what she was being offered was an insult.</p> + +<p>Susie was afraid of Hilton, who had been in the service of duchesses, +and who held these duchesses over her mistress's head whenever her +mistress wanted to do anything that was inconvenient to herself; quoting +their sayings, pointing out how they would have acted in any given case, +and always, it appeared, they had done exactly what Hilton desired. +Susie's admiration for duchesses was slavish, and Hilton was treated +with an indulgent liberality that was absurd compared to the stinginess +displayed towards everyone else. Hilton was not more horrified than her +mistress when she saw the farm cart, and understood that it was for the +luggage and the maid. It was impossible to take her with them in what +the porter called the <i>herrschaftliche Wagen</i>, for it was a kind of +victoria, and how to get their four selves into it was a sufficient +puzzle. "What shall we do?" said Susie, in despair, to Anna.</p> + +<p>"Do? Why, she'll have to go in it. Hilton, don't be a foolish person, +and don't keep us here in the wet. This isn't England, and nobody thinks +anything here of driving in farm carts. It is patriarchal simplicity, +that's all. People are staring at you now because you are making such a +fuss. Get in like a good soul, and let us start."</p> + +<p>"Only as a corpse, m'm," reiterated Hilton with chattering teeth, "never +as a living body."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense," said Anna impatiently.</p> + +<p>"What shall we do?" repeated Susie. "Poor Hilton—what barbarians they +must be here."</p> + +<p>"We must send her in a <i>Droschky</i>, then, if it isn't too far, and we can +get one to go."</p> + +<p>"A <i>Droschky</i> all that distance! It will be ruinous."</p> + +<p>"Well, we can't stand here amusing these people for ever."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I wish we had never come to this horrible place!" cried Susie, +really made miserable by Hilton's rage.</p> + +<p>But Anna did not stay to listen either to her laments or to Hilton's +monotonous "Only as a corpse, m'lady," and was already arranging with an +unwilling driver, who had no desire whatever to drive to Kleinwalde, but +consented to do so on being promised twenty marks, a rest and feed of +oats for his horses, and any little addition in the shape of refreshment +and extra money that might suggest itself to Anna's generosity.</p> + +<p>"You know, Anna, you can't expect <i>me</i> to pay for the fly," said Susie +uneasily, when the appeased Hilton had been put into it and was out of +earshot. "That dreadful cart is your property, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"Of course it is," said Anna, smiling, "and of course the fly is my +affair. How magnificent I feel, disposing of carts and <i>Droschkies</i>. +Now, will you please to get into my carriage? And do you observe the +extreme respectfulness of my coachman?"</p> + +<p>The coachman, a strange-looking, round-shouldered being, with a long +grizzled beard, a dark-blue cloth cap on his head, and a body clothed in +a fawn-coloured suit and gaiters, on which a great many tarnished silver +buttons adorned with Uncle Joachim's coat of arms were fastened at short +intervals, removed his cap while his new mistress and her party were +entering the carriage, and did not put it on again till they were ready +to start.</p> + +<p>"Quite as though we were royalties," said Susie.</p> + +<p>"But the rest of him isn't," replied Anna, who was greatly amused by the +turn-out. "Do you like my horses, Susie? Or do you suspect them of +having been ploughing all the morning? Oh, well," she added quickly, +ashamed of laughing at any part of her dear uncle's gift, "I suppose one +has to have heavily built horses in this part of the world, where the +roads are probably frightfully bad."</p> + +<p>"Their tails might be a little shorter," said Susie.</p> + +<p>"They might," agreed Anna serenely.</p> + +<p>With the aid of the porter, who knew all about Uncle Joachim's will and +was deeply interested, they were at last somehow packed into the +carriage, and away they rattled over the rough stones, threading the +outskirts of the town on the mainland, the hail and wind in their faces, +out into the open country, with their horses' heads turned towards the +north. The fly containing Hilton followed more leisurely behind, and the +farm cart containing the unused sack of straw followed the fly.</p> + +<p>"We can't see much of Stralsund," said Anna, trying to peep round the +hood at the old town across the lakes separating it from the mainland.</p> + +<p>"It's a very historical town," observed Susie, who had happened to +notice, as she idly turned over the pages of her Baedeker on the way +down, that there was a long description of it with dates. "As of course +you know," she added, turning sharply to her daughter.</p> + +<p>"Rather," said Letty. "Wallenstein said he'd take it if it were chained +to heaven, and when he found it wasn't he was frightfully sick, and went +away and left them all in the fields."</p> + +<p>Miss Leech, who was on the little seat, struggling to defend herself +from the fury of the elements with an umbrella, looked anxious, but +Susie only said in a gratified voice, "I'm glad you remember what you've +been taught." To which Letty, who was in great spirits, and thought this +drive in the wet huge fun, again replied heartily, "Rather," and her +mother congratulated herself on having done the right thing in bringing +her to Germany, home of erudition and profundity, already evidently +beginning to do its work.</p> + +<p>The carriage smelt of fish, which presently upset Susie, who, +unfortunately for her, had a nose that smelt everything. While they were +in the town she thought the smell was in the streets, and bore it; but +out in the open, where there was not a house to be seen, she found that +it was in the carriage.</p> + +<p>She fidgeted, and looked about, feeling with her foot under the opposite +seat, expecting to find a basket somewhere, and determined if she found +one to push it out quietly and say nothing; for that she should drive +for two hours with her handkerchief up to her nose was more than anybody +could expect of her. Already she had done more than anybody ought to +expect of her, she reflected, in going to the expense of the journey and +the inconvenience of the absence from home for Anna's sake, and she +hoped that Anna felt grateful. She had never yet shrunk from her duty +towards Anna, or indeed from her duty towards anyone, and she was sure +she never would; but her duty certainly did not include the passive +endurance of offensive smells.</p> + +<p>"What are you looking for?" asked Anna.</p> + +<p>"Why, the fish."</p> + +<p>"Oh, do you smell it too?"</p> + +<p>"Smell it? I should think I did. It's killing me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, poor Susie!" laughed Anna, who was possessed by an uncontrollable +desire to laugh at everything. The conveyance (it could hardly be called +a carriage) in which they were seated, and which she supposed was the +one destined for her use if she lived at Kleinwalde, was unlike anything +she had yet seen. It was very old, with enormous wheels, and bumped +dreadfully, and the seat was so constructed that she was continually +slipping forward and having to push herself back again. It was lined +throughout, including the hood, with a white and black shepherd's plaid +in large squares, the white squares mellowed by the stains of use and +time to varying shades of brown and yellow; when Miss Leech's umbrella +was blown aside by a gust of wind Anna could see her coachman's drab +coat, with a little end of white tape that he had forgotten to tie, and +whose uses she was unable to guess, fluttering gaily between its tails +in the wind; on the left side of the box was a very big and gorgeous +coat of arms in green and white, Uncle Joachim's colours; and whichever +way she turned her head, there was the overpowering smell of fish. "We +must be taking our dinner home with us," she said, "but I don't see it +anywhere."</p> + +<p>"There isn't anything under the seats. Perhaps the man has got it on the +box. Ask him, Anna; I really can't stand it."</p> + +<p>Anna did not quite know how to attract his attention. It seemed +undignified to poke him, but she did not know his name, and the wind +blew her voice back in the direction of Stralsund when she had cleared +it, and coughed, and called out rather shyly, "Oh, <i>Kutscher! +Kutscher!</i>"</p> + +<p>Then she remembered that oh was not German, and that Uncle Joachim had +used sonorous achs in its place, and she began again, "<i>Ach, Kutscher! +Kutscher!</i>"</p> + +<p>Letty giggled. "Go it, Aunt Anna," she said encouragingly, "dig him in +the ribs with your umbrella—or I will, if you like."</p> + +<p>Her mother, with her handkerchief to her nose, exhorted her not to be +vulgar. Letty explained at some length that she was only being nice, and +offering assistance.</p> + +<p>"I really shall have to poke him," said Anna, her faint cries of +<i>Kutscher</i> quite lost in the rattling of the carriage and the howling of +the wind. "Or perhaps you would touch his arm, Miss Leech."</p> + +<p>Miss Leech turned, and very gingerly touched his sleeve. He at once +whistled to his horses, who stopped dead, snatched off his cap, and +looking down at Anna inquired her commands.</p> + +<p>It was done so quickly that Anna, whose conversational German was +exceedingly rusty, was quite unable to remember the word for fish, and +sat looking up at him helplessly, while she vainly searched her brains.</p> + +<p>"What <i>is</i> fish in German?" she said, appealing to Susie, distressed +that the man should be waiting capless in the rain.</p> + +<p>"Letty, what's the word for fish?" inquired Susie sternly.</p> + +<p>"Fish?" repeated Letty, looking stupid.</p> + +<p>"Fish?" echoed Miss Leech, trying to help.</p> + +<p>"<i>Fisch?</i>" said the coachman himself, catching at the word.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes; how utterly silly I am," cried Anna blushing and showing her +dimples, "it's <i>Fisch</i>, of course. <i>Kutscher, wo ist Fisch?</i>"</p> + +<p>The man looked blank; then his face brightened, and pointing with his +whip to the rolling sea on their right, visible across the flat +intervening fields, he said that there was much fish in it, especially +herrings.</p> + +<p>"What does he say?" asked Susie from behind her handkerchief.</p> + +<p>"He says there are herrings in the sea."</p> + +<p>"Is the man a fool?"</p> + +<p>Letty laughed uproariously. The coachman, seeing Letty and Anna laugh, +thought he must have said the right thing after all, and looked very +pleasant.</p> + +<p>"<i>Aber im Wagen</i>," persisted Anna, "<i>wo ist Fisch im Wagen?</i>"</p> + +<p>The coachman stared. Then he said vaguely, in a soothing voice, not in +the least knowing what she meant, "<i>Nein, nein, gnädiges Fräulein</i>," and +evidently hoped she would be satisfied.</p> + +<p>"<i>Aber es riecht, es riecht!</i>" cried Anna, not satisfied at all, and +lifting up her nose in unmistakeable displeasure.</p> + +<p>His face brightened again. "<i>Ach so—jawohl, jawohl</i>," he exclaimed +cheerfully; and hastened to explain that there were no fish nearer than +the sea, but that the grease he had used that morning to make the +leather of the hood and apron shine certainly had a fishy smell, as he +himself had noticed. "The gracious Miss loves not the smell?" he +inquired anxiously; for he had seven children, and was very desirous +that his new mistress should be pleased.</p> + +<p>Anna laughed and shook her head, and though she said with great emphasis +that she did not love it at all, she looked so friendly that he felt +reassured.</p> + +<p>"What does he say?" asked Susie.</p> + +<p>"Why, I'm afraid we shall have it all the way. It's the grease he's been +rubbing the leather with."</p> + +<p>"Barbarian!" cried Susie angrily, feeling sick already, and certain that +she would be quite ill by the end of the drive. "And you laugh at him +and encourage him, instead of taking up your position at once and +showing him that you won't stand any nonsense. He ought to be—to be +unboxed!" she added in great wrath; for she had heard of delinquent +clergymen being unfrocked, and why should not delinquent coachmen be +unboxed?</p> + +<p>Anna laughed again. She tried not to, but she could not help it; and +Susie, made still more angry by this childish behaviour, sulked during +the rest of the drive.</p> + +<p>"Go on—<i>avanti</i>!" said Anna, who knew hardly any Italian, and when she +was in Italy and wanted her words never could find them, but had been +troubled the last two days by the way in which these words came to her +lips every time she opened them to speak German.</p> + +<p>The coachman understood her, however, and they went on again along the +straight high-road, that stretched away before them to a distant bend. +The high-road, or <i>chaussée</i>, was planted on either side with maples, +and between the maples big whitewashed stones had been set to mark the +way at night, and behind the rows of trees and stones, ditches had been +dug parallel with the road as a protection to the crops in summer from +the possible wanderings of erring carts. If a cart erred, it tumbled +into the ditch. The arrangement was simple and efficacious. On the +right, across some marshy land, they could see the sea for a little +while, with the flat coast of Rügen opposite; and then some rising +ground, bare of trees and brilliantly green with winter corn, hid it +from view. On the left was the dreary plain, dotted at long intervals +with farms and their little groups of trees, and here and there with +windmills working furiously in the gale. The wind was icy, and the +December snow still lay in drifts in the ditches. In that leaden +landscape, made up of grey and brown and black, the patches of winter +rye were quite startling in their greenness.</p> + +<p>Susie thought it the most God-forsaken country she had ever seen, and +expressed this opinion plainly on her face and in her attitudes without +any need for opening her lips, shuddering back ostentatiously into her +corner, wrapping herself with elaborate care in her furs, and behaving +as slaves to duty sometimes do when the paths they have to tread are +rough.</p> + +<p>After driving along the <i>chaussée</i> for about an hour, they passed a big +house standing among trees back from the road on the right, and a little +farther on came to a small village. The carriage, pulled up with a jerk, +and looking eagerly round the hood Anna found they had come to a +standstill in front of a new red-brick building, whose steps were +crowded with children. Two or three men and some women were with the +children. Two of the men appeared to be clergymen, and the elder, a +middle-aged, mild-faced man, came down the steps, and bowing profoundly +proceeded to welcome Anna solemnly, on behalf of those children from +Kleinwalde who attended this school, to her new home. He concluded that +Anna was the person to be welcomed because he could see nothing of the +lady in the other corner but her eyes, and they looked anything but +friendly; whereas the young lady on the left was leaning forward and +smiling and holding out her hand.</p> + +<p>He took it, and shook it slowly up and down, while he begged her to +allow the hood of the carriage to be put back, so that the children from +her village, who had walked three miles to welcome her, might be able to +see her; and on Anna's readily agreeing to this, himself helped the +coachman with his own white-gloved hands to put it down. Susie was +therefore exposed to the full fury of the blast, and shrank still +farther into her corner—an interesting and tantalising object to the +school-children, a dark, mysterious combination of fur, cocks' feathers, +and black eyebrows.</p> + +<p>Then the clergyman, hat in hand, made a speech. He spoke distinctly, as +one accustomed to speaking often and long, and Anna understood every +word. She was wholly taken aback by these ceremonies, and had no idea of +what she should say in reply, but sat smiling vaguely at him, looking +very pretty and very shy. She soon found that her smiles were +inappropriate, and they died away; for, warming as he proceeded, the +parson, it appeared, was taking it for granted that she intended to live +on her property, and was eloquently descanting on the comfort she was +going to be to the poor, assuring those present that she would be a +mother to the sick, nursing them with her tender woman's hands, an angel +of mercy to the hungry, feeding them in the hour of their distress, a +friend and sister to the little children, succouring them, caring for +them, pitiful of their weakness and their sins. His face lit up with +enthusiasm as he went on, and Anna was thankful that Susie could not +understand. This crowd of children, the women, the young parson, her +coachman, were all hearing promises made on her behalf that she had no +thought of fulfilling. She looked down, and twisted her fingers about +nervously, and felt uncomfortable.</p> + +<p>At the end of his speech, the parson, his eyes full of the tears drawn +forth by his own eloquence, held up his hand and solemnly blessed her, +rounding off his blessing with a loud Amen, after which there was an +awkward pause. Susie heard the Amen, and guessed that something in the +nature of a blessing was being invoked, and made a movement of +impatience. The parson was odious in her eyes, first because he looked +like the ministers of the Baptist chapels of her unmarried youth, but +principally because he was keeping her there in the gale and prolonging +the tortures she was enduring from the smell of fish. Anna did not know +what to say after the Amen, and looked up more shyly than ever, and +stammered in her confusion <i>Danke sehr</i>, hoping that it was a proper +remark to make; whereupon the parson bowed again, as one who should say +Pray don't mention it. Then another man, evidently the schoolmaster, +took out a tuning-fork, gave out a note, and the children sang a +<i>chorale</i>, following it up with other more cheerful songs, in which the +words <i>Frühling</i> and <i>Willkommen</i> were repeated a great many times, +while the wind howled flattest contradiction.</p> + +<p>When this was over, the parson begged leave to introduce the other +clerical-looking person, a tall narrow youth, also in white kid gloves, +buttoned up tightly in a long coat of broadcloth, with a pallid face and +thick, upright flaxen hair.</p> + +<p>"Herr Vicar Klutz," said the elder parson, with a wave of the hand; and +the Herr Vicar, making his bow, and having his limp hand heartily +grasped by that other little hand, and his furtive eyes smiled into by +those other friendly eyes, became on the spot desperately enamoured; +which was very natural, seeing that he had not spoken to a woman under +forty for six months, and was himself twenty and a poet. He spent the +rest of the afternoon shut up in his bedroom, where, refusing all +nourishment, he composed a poem in which <i>berauschten Sinn</i> was made to +rhyme with <i>Engländerin</i>, while the elder parson, in whose house he +lived, thought he was writing his Good Friday sermon.</p> + +<p>Then the schoolmaster was introduced, and then came the two women—the +schoolmaster's wife and the parson's wife; and when Anna had smiled and +murmured polite and incoherent little speeches to each in turn, and had +nodded and bowed at least a dozen times to each of these ladies, who +could by no means have done with their curtseys, and had introduced them +to the dumb figure in the corner, during which ceremonies Letty stared +round-eyed and open-mouthed at the school-children, and the +school-children stared round-eyed and open-mouthed at Letty, and Miss +Leech looked demure, and Susie's brows were contracted by suffering, she +wondered whether she might not now with propriety continue her journey, +and if so whether it were expected that she should give the signal.</p> + +<p>Everybody was smiling at everybody else by way of filling up this pause +of hesitation, except Susie, who shut her eyes with great dignity, and +shivered in so marked a manner that the parson himself came to the +rescue, and bade the coachman help him put up the hood again, explaining +to Anna as he did so that her <i>Frau Schwester</i> was not used to the +climate.</p> + +<p>Evidently the moment had come for going on, and the bows that had but +just left off began again with renewed vigour. Anna was anxious to say +something pleasant at the finish, so she asked the parson's wife, as she +bade her good-bye, whether she and her husband would come to Kleinwalde +the next day to dinner.</p> + +<p>This invitation produced a very deep curtsey and a flush of +gratification, but the recipient turned to her lord before accepting it, +to inquire his pleasure.</p> + +<p>"I fear not to-morrow, gracious Miss," said the parson, "for it is Good +Friday."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach ja</i>," stammered Anna, ashamed of herself for having forgotten.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach ja</i>," exclaimed the parson's wife, still more ashamed of herself +for having forgotten.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps Saturday, then?" suggested Anna.</p> + +<p>The parson murmured something about quiet hours preparatory to the +Sabbath; but his wife, a person who struck Anna as being quite +extraordinarily stout, was burning with curiosity to examine those +foreign ladies more conveniently, and especially to see what manner of +being would emerge from the pile of fur and feathers in the corner; and +she urged him, in a rapid aside, to do for once without quiet hours. +Whereupon he patted her on the cheek, smiled indulgently, and said he +would make an exception and do himself the honour of appearing.</p> + +<p>This being settled, Anna said <i>Gehen Sie</i> to her coachman, who again +showed his intelligence by understanding her; and in a cloud of smiles +and bows they drove away, the school-girls making curtseys, the +schoolboys taking off their caps, and the parson standing hat in hand +with his arm round his wife's waist as serenely as though it had been a +summer's day and no one looking.</p> + +<p>Anna became used to these displays of conjugal regard in public later +on; but this first time she turned to Susie with a laugh, when the hood +had hidden the group from view, and asked her if she had seen it. But +Susie had seen nothing, for her eyes were shut, and she refused to +answer any questions otherwise than by a feeble shake of the head.</p> + +<p>On the other side of the village the <i>chaussée</i> came to an end, and two +deep, sandy roads took its place. There was a sign-post at their +junction, one arm of which, pointing to the right-hand road that ran +down close to the sea, had Kleinwalde scrawled on it; and beside this +sign-post a man on a horse was waiting for them.</p> + +<p>"Good gracious! More rot?" ejaculated Susie as the carriage stopped +again, shaken out of the dignity of sulks by these repeated shocks.</p> + +<p>"Oberinspector Dellwig," said the man, introducing himself, and sweeping +off his hat and bowing lower and more obsequiously than anyone had yet +done.</p> + +<p>"This must be the inspector Uncle Joachim hoped I'd keep," said Anna in +an undertone.</p> + +<p>"I don't care who he is, but for heaven's sake don't let him make a +speech. I can't stand this sort of thing any longer. You'll have me ill +on your hands if you're not careful, and you won't like <i>that</i>, so you +had better stop him."</p> + +<p>"I can't stop him," said Anna, perplexed. She also had had enough of +speeches.</p> + +<p>"<i>Gestatten gnädiges Fräulein dass ich meine gehorsamste Ehrerbietung +ausspreche</i>," began the glib inspector, bowing at every second word over +his horse's ears.</p> + +<p>There was no escape, and they had to hear him out. The man had prepared +his speech, and say it he would. It was not so long as the parson's, but +was quite as flowery in another way, overflowing with respectful +allusions to the deceased master, and with expressions of unbounded +loyalty, obedience, and devotion to the new mistress.</p> + +<p>Susie shut her eyes again when she found he was not to be stopped, and +gave herself up for lost. What could Hilton, who must be close behind +waiting in the cold, uncomforted by any food since leaving Berlin, think +of all this? Susie dreaded the moment when she would have to face her.</p> + +<p>The inspector finished all he had intended saying, and then, assuming a +more colloquial tone, informed Anna that from the sign-post onward she +would be driving through her own property, and asked permission to ride +by her side the rest of the way. So they had his company for the last +two miles and his conversation, of which there was much; for he had a +ready tongue, and explained things to Anna in a very loud voice as they +went along, expatiating on the magnificence of the crops the previous +summer, and assuring her that the crops of the coming summer would be +even more magnificent, for he had invented a combination of manures +which would give such results that all Pomerania's breath would be taken +away.</p> + +<p>The road here was terrible, and the horses could hardly drag the +carriage through the sand. It lurched and heaved from side to side, +creaking and groaning alarmingly. Miss Leech was in imminent peril. Anna +held on with both hands, and hardly had leisure to put in appropriate +<i>achs</i> and <i>jas</i> and questions of a becoming intelligence when the +inspector paused to take breath. She did not like his looks, and wished +that she could follow Susie's example and avoid the necessity of seeing +him by the simple expedient of shutting her eyes. But somehow, she did +not quite know how, responsibilities and obligations were suddenly +pressing heavily upon her. These people had all made up their minds that +she was going to be and do certain things; and though she assured +herself that it did not in the least matter how they had made up their +minds, yet she felt obliged to behave in the way that was expected of +her. She did not want to talk to this unpleasant-looking man, and what +he told her about the crops and their marvellousness was half +unintelligible to her and wholly a bore. Yet she did talk to him, and +looked friendly, and affected to understand and be deeply interested in +all he said.</p> + +<p>They passed through a plantation of young beeches, planted, Dellwig +explained, by Uncle Joachim on his last visit; and after a few more +yards of lurching in the sand came to some woods and got on to a fair +road.</p> + +<p>"The park," said Dellwig superbly, with a wave of the hand.</p> + +<p>Susie opened her eyes at the word park, and looked about. "It isn't a +park," she said peevishly, "it's a forest—a horrid, gloomy, damp +wilderness."</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's lovely!" cried Letty, giving a jump of delight as she peered +down the serried ranks of pine trees.</p> + +<p>It was a thick wood of pines and beeches, railed off from the road on +either side by wooden rails painted in black and white stripes. Uncle +Joachim had been the loyalest of Prussians, and his loyalty overflowed +even into his fences. Æsthetic instincts he had none, and if he had been +brought to see it, would not have cared at all that the railings made +the otherwise beautiful avenue look like the entrance to a restaurant or +a railway station. The stripes, renewed every year, and of startling +distinctness, were an outward and visible sign of his staunch devotion +to the King of Prussia, the very lining of the carriage with its white +and black squares was symbolic; and when they came to the gate within +which the house itself stood, two Prussian eagles frowned down at them +from the gate-posts.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + + +<p>A low, white, two-storied house, separated from the forest only by a +circular grass plot and a ditch with half-melted snow in it and muddy +water, a house apparently quite by itself among the creaking pines, +neither very old nor very new, with a great many windows, and a +brown-tiled roof, was the home bestowed by Uncle Joachim on his dear and +only niece Anna.</p> + +<p>"So <i>this</i> is where I was to lead the better life?" she thought, as the +carriage drew up at the door, and the moaning of the uneasy trees, and +all the lonely sounds of a storm-beaten forest replaced the rattling of +the wheels in her ears. "The better life, then, is a life of utter +solitude, Uncle Joachim thought? I wish I knew—I wish I knew——" But +what it was she wished she knew was hardly clear in her mind; and her +thoughts were interrupted by a very untidy, surprised-looking +maid-servant, capless, and in felt slippers, who had darted down the +steps and was unfastening the leather apron and pulling out the rugs +with hasty, agitated hands, and trying to pull Susie out as well.</p> + +<p>The doorway was garlanded with evergreen wreaths, over which a green and +white flag flapped; and curtseying and smiling beneath the wreaths stood +Dellwig's wife, a short lady with smooth hair, weather-beaten face, and +brown silk gloves, who would have been the stoutest person Anna had ever +seen if she had not just come from the presence of the parson's wife.</p> + +<p>"I never saw so many bows in my life," grumbled Susie, pushing the +servant aside, and getting out cautiously, feeling very stiff and cold +and miserable. "Letty, you are on my dress—oh, how d'you do—how d'you +do," she murmured frostily, as the Frau Inspector seized her hand and +began to talk German to her. "Anna, are you coming? This—er—person +thinks I'm you, and is making me a speech."</p> + +<p>Dellwig, who had sent his horse away in charge of a small boy, rapidly +explained to his wife that the young lady now getting out of the +carriage was their late master's niece, and that the other one must be +the sister-in-law mentioned in the lawyer's letter; upon which Frau +Dellwig let Susie go, and transferred her smiles and welcome to Anna. +Susie went into the house to get out of the cold, only to find herself +in a square hall whose iciness was the intolerable iciness of a place in +which no sun had been allowed to shine and no windows had been opened +for summers without number. When Uncle Joachim came down he lived in two +rooms at the back of the house, with a door leading into the garden +through which he went to the farm, and the hall had never been used, and +the closed shutters never opened. There was no fireplace, or stove, or +heating arrangement of any sort. Glass doors divided it from an inner +and still more spacious hall, with a wide wooden staircase, and doors +all round it. The walls in both halls were painted grass green; and from +little chains in the ceiling stuffed hawks and eagles, shot by Uncle +Joachim, and grown with years very dusty and moth-eaten, hung swinging +in the draught. The floor was boarded, and was still damp from a recent +scrubbing. There was no carpet. A wooden bracket on the wall, with brass +hooks, held a large assortment of whips and hunting crops; and in one +corner stood an arrangement for coats, with Uncle Joachim's various +waterproofs and head-coverings hanging monumentally on its pegs.</p> + +<p>"Oh, how dreadful!" thought Susie, shivering more violently than ever. +"And what a musty smell—it's damp, of course, and I shall be laid up. +Poor Hilton! What will she think of this? Oh, how d'you do," she added +aloud, as a female figure in a white apron suddenly emerged from the +gloom and took her hand and kissed it; "Anna, who's this? Anna! Aren't +you coming? Here's somebody kissing my hand."</p> + +<p>"It's the cook," said Anna, coming into the inner hall with the others, +Dellwig and his wife keeping one on either side of her, and both talking +at once in their anxiety to make a good impression.</p> + +<p>"The cook? Then tell her to give us some food. I shall die if I don't +have something soon. Do you know what time it is? Past four. Can't you +get rid of these people? And where's Hilton?"</p> + +<p>Susie hardly seemed to see the Dellwigs, and talked to Anna while they +were talking to her as though they did not exist. If Anna felt an +obligation to be polite to these different persons she felt none at all. +They did not understand English, but if they had it would not have +mattered to her, and she would have gone on talking about them as though +they had not been there.</p> + +<p>Both the Dellwigs had very loud voices, so Susie had to raise hers in +order to be heard, and there was consequently such a noise in the empty, +echoing house, that after looking round bewildered, and trying to answer +everybody at once, Anna gave it up, and stood and laughed.</p> + +<p>"I don't see anything to laugh at," said Susie crossly, "we are all +starving, and these people won't go."</p> + +<p>"But how can I make them go?"</p> + +<p>"They're your servants, I suppose. I should just say that I'd send for +them when I wanted them."</p> + +<p>"They'd be very much astonished. The man is so far from being my servant +that I believe he means to be my master."</p> + +<p>The two Dellwigs, perplexed by Anna's laughter when nobody had said +anything amusing, and uneasy lest she should be laughing at something +about themselves, looked from her to Susie suspiciously, and for that +brief moment were quiet.</p> + +<p>"<i>Wir sind hungrig</i>," said Anna to the wife.</p> + +<p>"The food comes immediately," she replied; and hastened away with the +cook and the other servant through a door evidently leading to the +kitchen.</p> + +<p>"<i>Und kalt</i>," continued Anna plaintively to the husband, who at once +flung open another door, through which they saw a table spread for +dinner. "<i>Bitte, bitte</i>," he said, ushering them in as though the place +belonged to him.</p> + +<p>"Does this person live in the house?" inquired Susie, eying him with +little goodwill.</p> + +<p>"He told me he lives at the farm. But of course he has always looked +after everything here."</p> + +<p>When they were all in the dining-room, driven in by Dellwig, as Susie +remarked, like a flock of sheep by a shepherd determined to stand no +nonsense, he helped them with officious politeness to take off their +wraps, and then, bowing almost to the ground, asked permission to +withdraw while the <i>Herrschaften</i> ate, a permission that was given with +alacrity, Anna's face falling, however, upon his informing her that he +would come round later on in order to lay his plans for the summer +before her.</p> + +<p>"What does he say?" asked Susie, as the door shut behind him.</p> + +<p>"He's coming round again later on."</p> + +<p>"That man's going to be a nuisance—you see if he isn't," said Susie +with conviction.</p> + +<p>"I believe he is," agreed Anna, going over to the white porcelain stove +to warm her hands.</p> + +<p>"He's the limpet, and you're going to be the rock. Don't let him fleece +you too much."</p> + +<p>"But limpets don't fleece rocks," said Anna.</p> + +<p>"He wouldn't be able to fleece me, <i>I</i> know, if I could talk German as +well as you do. But you'll be soft and weak and amiable, and he'll do as +he likes with you."</p> + +<p>"Soft, and weak, and amiable!" repeated Anna, smiling at Susie's +adjectives, "why, I thought I was obstinate—you always said I was."</p> + +<p>"So you are. But you won't be to that man. He'll get round you."</p> + +<p>"Uncle Joachim said he was excellent."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I daresay he wasn't bad with a man over him who knew all about +farming, but mark my words, <i>you</i> won't get two thousand a year out of +the place."</p> + +<p>Anna was silent. Susie was invariably shrewd and sensible, if inclined, +Anna thought, to be over suspicious, in matters where money was +concerned. Dellwig's face was not one to inspire confidence: and his way +of shouting when he talked, and of talking incessantly, was already +intolerable to her. She was not sure, either, that his wife was any more +satisfactory. She too shouted, and Anna detested noise. The wife did not +appear again, and had evidently gone home with her husband, for a great +silence had fallen upon the house, broken only by the monotonous sighing +of the forest, and the pattering of rain against the window.</p> + +<p>The dining-room was a long narrow room, with one big window forming its +west end looking out on to the grass plot, the ditch, and the gate-posts +with the eagles on them. It was a study in chocolate—brown paper, brown +carpet, brown rep curtains, brown cane chairs. There were two wooden +sideboards painted brown facing each other down at the dark end, with a +collection of miscellaneous articles on them: a vinegar cruet that had +stood there for years, with remains of vinegar dried up at the bottom; +mustard pots containing a dark and wicked mixture that had once been +mustard; a broken hand-bell used at long-past dinners, to summon +servants long since dead; an old wine register with entries in it of a +quarter of a century back; a mouldy bottle of Worcester sauce, still +boasting on its label that it would impart a relish to viands otherwise +dull; and some charming Dresden china fruit-dishes, adorned with +cheerful shepherds and shepherdesses, incurable optimists, persistently +pleased with themselves and their surroundings through all the days and +nights of all the cold silent years that they had been smiling at each +other in the dark. On the round dinner-table was a pot of lilies of the +valley, enveloped in crinkly pink tissue paper tied round with pink +satin ribbon, with ears of the paper drawn up between the flower-stalks +to produce a pleasing contrast of pink and white.</p> + +<p>"Well, it's warm enough here, isn't it?" said Susie, going round the +room and examining these things with an interest far exceeding that +called forth by the art treasures of Berlin.</p> + +<p>"Rather," said Letty, answering for everybody, and rubbing her hands. +She frolicked about the room, peeping into all the corners, opening the +cupboards, trying the sofa, and behaving in so frisky a fashion that her +mother, who seldom saw her at home, and knew her only as a naughty +gloomy girl, turned once or twice from the interesting sideboards to +stare at her inquiringly through her lorgnette.</p> + +<p>The servant with the surprised eyebrows, who presently brought in the +soup, had put on a pair of white cotton gloves for the ceremony of +waiting, but still wore her felt slippers. She put the plates in a pile +on the edge of the table, murmured something in German, and ran out +again; nor did she come back till she brought the next course, when she +behaved in a precisely similar manner, and continued to do so throughout +the meal; the diners, having no bell, being obliged to sit patiently +during the intervals, until she thought that they might perhaps be ready +for some more.</p> + +<p>It was an odd meal, and began with cold chocolate soup with frothy white +things that tasted of vanilla floating about in it. Susie was so much +interested in this soup that she forgot all about Hilton, who had been +driven ignominiously to the back door and was left sitting in the +kitchen till the two servants should have time to take her upstairs, and +was employing the time composing a speech of a spirited nature in which +she intended giving her mistress notice the moment she saw her again.</p> + +<p>Her mistress meanwhile was meditatively turning over the vanilla balls +in her soup. "Well, I don't like it," she said at last, laying down her +spoon.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's ripping!" cried her daughter ecstatically. "It's like having +one's pudding at the other end."</p> + +<p>"How can you look at chocolate after Berlin, greedy girl?" asked her +mother, disgusted by her child's obvious tendency towards a too free +indulgence in the pleasures of the table. But Letty was feeling so +jovial that in the face of this question she boldly asked for more—a +request that was refused indignantly and at once.</p> + +<p>There was such a long pause after the soup that in their hunger they +began to eat the stewed apples and bottled cherries that were on the +table. The brown bread, arranged in thin slices on a white crochet mat +in a japanned dish, felt so damp and was so full of caraway seeds that +it was uneatable. After a while some roach, caught on the estate, and +with a strong muddy flavour and bewildering multitudes of bones, was +brought in; and after that came cutlets from Anna's pigs; and after that +a queer red gelatinous pudding that tasted of physic; and after that, +the meal being evidently at an end, Susie, who was very hungry, remarked +that if all the food were going to be like those specimens they had +better return at once to England, or they would certainly be starved. +"It's a good thing you are not going to stay here, Anna," she said, "for +you'd have to make a tremendous fuss before you'd get them to leave off +treating you like a pig. Look here—teaspoons to eat the pudding with, +and the same fork all the way through. It's a beastly hole"—Letty's +eyebrows telegraphed triumphantly across to Miss Leech, "Well, did you +hear that?"—"and we ought to have stayed in Berlin. There was nothing +to be gained at all by coming here."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps the dinner to-night will be better," said Anna, trying to +comfort her, and little knowing that they had just eaten the dinner; but +people who are hungry are surprisingly impervious to the influence of +fair words. "It couldn't be worse, anyhow, so it really will probably be +better. I'm very glad though that we did come, for I like it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, so do I, Aunt Anna!" cried Letty. "It's frightfully nice. It's +like a picnic that doesn't leave off. When are we going over the house, +and out into the garden? I do so want to go—oh, I do so want to go!" +And she jumped up and down impatiently on her chair, till her ardour was +partially quenched by her mother's forbidding her to go out of doors in +the rain. "Well, let's go over the house, then," said Letty, dying to +explore.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, you may go over the house," said her mother with a shrug of +displeasure; though why she should be displeased it would have puzzled +anyone who had dined satisfactorily to explain. Then she suddenly +remembered Hilton, and with an exclamation started off in search of her.</p> + +<p>The others put on their furs before going into the Arctic atmosphere of +the hall, and began to explore, spending the next hour very pleasantly +rambling all over the house, while Susie, who had found Hilton, remained +shut up in the bedroom allotted her till supper time.</p> + +<p>The cook showed Anna her bedroom, and when she had gone, Anna gave one +look round at the evergreen wreaths with which it was decorated and +which filled it with a pungent, baked smell, and then ran out to see +what her house was like. Her heart was full of pride and happiness as +she wandered about the rooms and passages. The magic word <i>mine</i> rang in +her ears, and gave each piece of furniture a charm so ridiculously great +that she would not have told any one of it for the world. She took up +the different irrelevant ornaments that were scattered through the +rooms, collected as such things do collect, nobody knew when or why, and +she put them down again somewhere else, only because she had the right +to alter things and she loved to remind herself of it. She patted the +walls and the tables as she passed; she smoothed down the folds of the +curtains with tender touches; she went up to every separate +looking-glass and stood in front of it a moment, so that there should be +none that had not reflected the image of its mistress. She was so +childishly delighted with her scanty possessions that she was thankful +Susie remained invisible and did not come out and scoff.</p> + +<p>What if it seemed an odd, bare place to eyes used to the superfluity of +hangings and stuffings that prevailed at Estcourt? These bare boards, +these shabby little mats by the side of the beds, the worn foxes' skins +before the writing-tables, the cane or wooden chairs, the white calico +curtains with meek cotton fringes, the queer little prints on the walls, +the painted wooden bedsteads, seemed to her in their very poorness and +unpretentiousness to be emblematical of all the virtues. As she lingered +in the quiet rooms, while Letty raced along the passages, Anna said to +herself that this Spartan simplicity, this absence of every luxury that +could still further soften an already languid and effeminate soul, was +beautiful. Here, as in the whitewashed praying-places of the Puritans, +if there were any beauty and any glory it must all come from within, be +all of the spirit, be only the beauty of a clean life and the glory of +kind thoughts. She pictured herself waking up in one of those unadorned +beds with the morning sun shining on her face, and rising to go her +daily round of usefulness in her quiet house, where there would be no +quarrels, and no pitiful ambitions, and none of those many bitter +heartaches that need never be. Would they not be happy days, those days +of simple duties? "The better life—the better life," she repeated +musingly, standing in the middle of the big room through whose tall +windows she could see the garden, and a strip of marshy land, and then +the grey sea and the white of the gulls and the dark line of the Rügen +coast over which the dusk was gathering; and she counted on her fingers +mechanically, "Simplicity, frugality, hard work. Uncle Joachim said +<i>that</i> was the better life, and he was wise—oh, he was very wise—but +still——And he loved me, and understood me, but still——"</p> + +<p>Looking up she caught sight of herself in a long glass opposite, a slim +figure in a fur cloak, with bare head and pensive eyes, lost in +reflection. It reminded her of the day the letter came, when she stood +before the glass in her London bedroom dressed for dinner, with that +same sentence of his persistently in her ears, and how she had not been +able to imagine herself leading the life it described. Now, in her +travelling dress, pale and tired and subdued after the long journey, +shorn of every grace of clothes and curls, she criticised her own +fatuity in having held herself to be of too fine a clay, too delicate, +too fragile, for a life that might be rough. "Oh, vain and foolish one!" +she said aloud, apostrophising the figure in the glass with the familiar +<i>Du</i> of the days before her mother died, "Art thou then so much better +than others, that thou must for ever be only ornamental and an expense? +Canst thou not live, except in luxury? Or walk, except on carpets? Or +eat, except thy soup be not of chocolate? Go to the ants, thou sluggard; +consider their ways, and be wise." And she wrapped herself in her cloak, +and frowned defiance at that other girl.</p> + +<p>She was standing scowling at herself with great disapproval when the +housemaid, who had been searching for her everywhere, came to tell her +that the Herr Oberinspector was downstairs, and had sent up to know if +his visit were convenient.</p> + +<p>It was not at all convenient; and Anna thought that he might have spared +her this first evening at least. But she supposed that she must go down +to him, feeling somehow unequal to sending so authoritative a person +away.</p> + +<p>She found him standing in the inner hall with a portfolio under his arm. +He was blowing his nose, making a sound like the blast of a trumpet, and +waking the echoes. Not even that could he do quietly, she thought, her +new sense of proprietorship oddly irritated by a nose being blown so +aggressively in her house. Besides, they were her echoes that he was +disturbing. She smiled at her own childishness.</p> + +<p>She greeted him kindly, however, in response to his elaborate +obeisances, and shook hands on seeing that he expected to be shaken +hands with, though she had done so twice already that afternoon; and +then she let herself be ushered by him into the drawing-room, a room on +the garden side of the house, with French windows, and bookshelves, and +a huge round polished table in the middle.</p> + +<p>It had been one of the two rooms used by Uncle Joachim, and was full of +traces of his visits. She sat down at a big writing-table with a green +cloth top, her feet plunged in the long matted hairs of a grey rug, and +requested Dellwig to sit down near her, which he did, saying +apologetically, "I will be so free."</p> + +<p>The servant, Marie, brought in a lamp with a green shade, shut the +shutters, and went out again on tiptoe; and Anna settled herself to +listen with what patience she could to the loud voice that jarred so on +her nerves, fortifying herself with reminders that it was her duty, and +really taking pains to understand him. Nor did she say a word, as she +had done to the lawyer, that might lead him to suppose she did not +intend living there.</p> + +<p>But Dellwig's ceaseless flow of talk soon wearied her to such an extent +that she found steady attention impossible. To understand the mere words +was in itself an effort, and she had not yet learned the German for rye +and oats and the rest, and it was of these that he chiefly talked. What +was the use of explaining to her in what way he had ploughed and manured +and sown certain fields, how they lay, how big they were, and what their +soil was, when she had not seen them? Did he imagine that she could keep +all these figures and details in her head? "I know nothing of farming," +she said at last, "and shall understand your plans better when I have +seen the estate."</p> + +<p>"<i>Natürlich, natürlich</i>," shouted Dellwig, his voice in strangest +contrast to hers, which was particularly sweet and gentle. "Here I have +a map—does the gracious Miss permit that I show it?"</p> + +<p>The gracious Miss inclined her tired head, and he unrolled it and spread +it out on the table, pointing with his fat forefinger as he explained +the boundaries, and the divisions into forest, pasture, and arable.</p> + +<p>"It seems to be nearly all forest," said Anna.</p> + +<p>"Forest! The forest covers two-thirds of the estate. It is the only +forest on the entire promontory. Such care as I have bestowed on the +forest has seldom been seen. It is <i>grossartig—colossal</i>!" And he +lifted his hands the better to express his admiration, and was about to +go into lengthy raptures when the map rolled itself up again with loud +cracklings, and cut him short. He spread it out once more, and securing +its corners began to describe the effects of the various sorts of +artificial manure on the different crops, his cleverness in combining +them, and his latest triumphant discovery of the superlative mixture +that was to strike all Pomerania with awe.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ja</i>," said Anna, balancing a paper-knife on one finger, and profoundly +bored. "Whose land is that next to mine?" she asked, pointing.</p> + +<p>"The land on the north and west belongs to peasants," said Dellwig. "On +the east is the sea. On the south it is all Lohm. The gracious one +passed through the village of Lohm this afternoon."</p> + +<p>"The village where the school is?"</p> + +<p>"Quite correct. The pastor, Herr Manske, a worthy man, but, like all +pastors, taking ells when he is offered inches, serves both that church +and the little one in Kleinwalde village, of which the gracious Miss is +patroness. Herr von Lohm, who lives in the house standing back from the +road, and perhaps noticed by the gracious Miss, is Amtsvorsteher in both +villages."</p> + +<p>"What is Amtsvorsteher?" asked Anna, languidly. She was leaning back in +her chair, idly balancing the paper-knife, and listening with half an +ear only to Dellwig, throwing in questions every now and then when she +thought she ought to say something. She did not look at him, preferring +much to look at the paper-knife, and he could examine her face at his +ease in the shadow of the lamp-shade, her dark eyelashes lowered, her +profile only turned to him, with its delicate line of brow and nose, and +the soft and gracious curves of the mouth and chin and throat. One hand +lay on the table in the circle of light, a slender, beautiful hand, full +of character and energy, and the other hung listlessly over the arm of +the chair. Anna was very tired, and showed it in every line of her +attitude; but Dellwig was not tired at all, was used to talking, enjoyed +at all times the sound of his voice, and on this occasion felt it to be +his duty to make things clear. So he went into the lengthiest details as +to the nature and office of Amtsvorstehers, details that were perfectly +incomprehensible and wholly indifferent to Anna, and spared neither +himself nor her. While he talked, however, he was criticising her, +comparing the laziness of her attitude with the brisk and respectful +alertness of other women when he talked. He knew that these other women +belonged to a different class; his wife, the parson's wife, the wives of +the inspectors on other estates, these were not, of course, in the same +sphere as the new mistress of Kleinwalde; but she was only a woman, and +dress up a woman as you will, call her by what name you will, she is +nothing but a woman, born to help and serve, never by any possibility +even equal to a clever man like himself. Old Joachim might have lounged +as he chose, and put his feet on the table if it had seemed good to him, +and Dellwig would have accepted it with unquestioning respect as an +eccentricity of <i>Herrschaften</i>; but a woman had no sort of right, he +said to himself, while he so fluently discoursed, to let herself go in +the presence of her natural superior. Unfortunately, old Joachim, so +level-headed an old gentleman in all other respects, had placed the +power over his fortunes in the hands of this weak female leaning back so +unbecomingly in her chair, playing with the objects on the table, never +raising her eyes to his, and showing indeed, incredible as it seemed, +every symptom of thinking of something else. The women of his +acquaintance were, he was certain, worth individually fifty such +affected, indifferent young ladies. They worked early and late to make +their husbands comfortable; they were well practised in every art +required of women living in the country; they were models of thrift and +diligence; yet, with all their virtues and all their accomplishments, +they never dreamed of lounging or not listening when a man was speaking, +but sat attentively on the edge of their chairs, straight in the back +and seemly, and when he had finished said <i>Jawohl</i>.</p> + +<p>Anna certainly did sit very much at her ease, and instead of attending, +as she ought to have done, to his description of Amtsvorstehers, was +thinking of other things. Dellwig had thick lips that could not be +hidden entirely by his grizzled moustache and beard, and he had the sort +of eyes known to the inelegant but truthful as fishy, and a big +obstinate nose, and a narrow obstinate forehead, and a long body and +short legs; and though all this, Anna told herself, was not in the least +his fault and should not in any way prejudice her against him, she felt +that she was justified in wishing that his manners were less offensive, +less boastful and boisterous, and that he did not bite his nails. "I +wonder," she thought, her eyes carefully fixed on the paper-knife, but +conscious of his every look and movement, "I wonder if he is as artful +as he looks. Surely Uncle Joachim must have known what he was like, and +would never have told me to keep him if he had not been honest. Perhaps +he is perfectly honest, and when I meet him in heaven how ashamed I +shall be of myself for having had doubts!" And then she fell to musing +on what sort of an appearance a chastened and angelic Dellwig would +probably present, and looked up suddenly at him with new interest.</p> + +<p>"I trust I have made myself comprehensible?" he was asking, having just +come to the end of what he felt was a masterly <i>résumé</i> of Herr von +Lohm's duties.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon?" said Anna, bringing her thoughts back with +difficulty from the consideration of nimbuses, "Oh, about +Amtsvorstehers—no," she said, shaking her head, "you have not. But that +is my fault. I can't understand everything at once. I shall do better +later on."</p> + +<p>"<i>Natürlich, natürlich</i>," Dellwig vehemently assured her, while he made +inward comments on the innate incapacity of all <i>Weiber</i>, as he called +them, to grasp the simplest fact connected with law and justice.</p> + +<p>"Tell me about the livestock," said Anna, remembering Uncle Joachim's +frequent and affectionate allusions to his swine. "Are there many pigs?"</p> + +<p>"Pigs?" repeated Dellwig, lifting up his hands as though mere words were +insufficient to express his feelings, "such pigs as the gracious Miss +now possesses are nowhere else to be found in Pomerania. They are the +pride, and at the same time the envy, of the whole province. 'Let my +sausages,' said the Herr Landrath last winter, when the time for killing +drew near, 'let my sausages consist solely of the pigs reared at +Kleinwalde by my friend the Oberinspector Dellwig.' The Frau Landräthin +was deeply injured, for she too breeds and fattens pigs, but not like +ours—not like ours."</p> + +<p>"Who is the Herr Landrath?" asked Anna absently; but immediately +remembering the description of the Amtsvorsteher she added quickly, +"Never mind—don't explain. I suppose he is some sort of an official, +and I shall not be quite clear about these different officials till I +have lived here some time."</p> + +<p>"<i>Natürlich, natürlich</i>," agreed Dellwig; and leaving the Landrath +unexplained he launched forth into a dissertation on Anna's pigs, whose +excellencies, it appeared, were wholly due to the unrivalled skill he +had for years displayed in their treatment. "I have no children," he +said, with a resigned and pious upward glance, "and my wife's maternal +instincts find their satisfaction in tending and fattening these fine +animals. She cannot listen to their cries the day they are killed, and +withdraws into the cellar, where she prepares the stuffing. The gracious +Miss ate the cutlets of one this very day. It was killed on purpose."</p> + +<p>"Was it? I wish it hadn't been," said Anna, frowning at the remembrance +of that meal. "I—I don't want things killed on my account. I—don't +like pig."</p> + +<p>"Not like pig?" echoed Dellwig, dropping his lower jaw in his amazement. +"Did I understand aright that the gracious one does not eat pig's flesh +gladly? And my wife and I who thought to prepare a joy for her!" He +clasped his hands together and stared at her in dismay. Indeed, he was +so much overcome by this extraordinary and wilful spurning of nature's +best gifts that for a moment he was silent, and knew not how he should +proceed. Were there not concentrated in the body of a single pig a +greater diversity of joys than in any other form of pleasure that he +could call to mind? Did it not include, besides the profounder delights +of its roasted ribs, such solid satisfactions as hams, sausages, and +bacon? Did not its liver, discreetly manipulated, rival the livers of +Strasburg geese in delicacy? Were not its brains a source of mutual +congratulation to an entire family at supper? Did not its very snout, +boiled with peas, make an otherwise inferior soup delicious? The ribs of +this particular pig were reposing at that moment in a cool place, +carefully shielded from harm by his wife, reserved for the Easter Sunday +dinner of their new mistress, who, having begun at her first meal with +the lesser joys of cutlets, was to be fed with different parts in the +order of their excellence till the climax of rejoicing was reached on +Easter Day in the dish of <i>Schweinebraten</i>, and who was now declaring, +in a die-away, affected sort of voice, that she did not want to eat pig +at all. Where, then, was her vulnerable point? How would he ever be able +to touch her, to influence her, if she was indifferent to the chief +means of happiness known to the dwellers in those parts? That was the +real aim and end of his labours, of the labours, as far as he could see, +of everyone else—to make as much money as possible in order to live as +well as possible; and what did living well mean if it did not mean the +best food? And what was the best food if not pig? Not to be killed on +her account! On whose account, then, could they be killed? With an owner +always about the place, and refusing to have pigs killed, how would he +and his wife be able to indulge, with satisfactory frequency, in their +favourite food, or offer it to their expectant friends on Sundays? He +mourned old Joachim, who so seldom came down, and when he did ate his +share of pork like a man, more sincerely at that moment than he would +have thought possible. "<i>Mein seliger Herr</i>," he burst out brokenly, +completely upset by the difference between uncle and niece, "<i>mein +seliger Herr</i>——" And then, unable to go on, fell to blowing his nose +with violence, for there were real tears in his eyes.</p> + +<p>Anna looked up, surprised. She thought he had been speaking of pigs, and +here he was on a sudden bewailing his late master. When she saw the +tears she was deeply touched. "Poor man," she said to herself, "how +unjust I have been. Of course he loved dear Uncle Joachim; and my coming +here, an utter stranger, taking possession of everything, must be very +dreadful for him." She got up, at once anxious, as she always was, to +comfort and soothe anyone who was sad, and put her hand gently on his +arm. "I loved him too," she said softly, "and you who knew him so long +must feel his death dreadfully. We will try and keep everything just as +he would have liked it, won't we? You know what his wishes were, and +must help me to carry them out. You cannot have loved him more than I +did—dear Uncle Joachim!"</p> + +<p>She felt very near tears herself, and condoned the sonorous nose-blowing +as the expression of an honourable emotion.</p> + +<p>And Dellwig, when he presently reached his home and was met at the door +by his wife's eager "Well, how was she?" laconically replied "Mad."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + + +<p>When Anna woke next morning she had a confused idea that something +annoying had happened the evening before, but she had slept so heavily +that she could not at once recollect what it was. Then, the sun on her +face waking her up more thoroughly, she remembered that Susie had stayed +upstairs with Hilton till supper time, had then come down, glanced with +unutterable disgust at the raw ham, cold sausage, eggs, and tepid coffee +of which the evening meal was composed, refused to eat, refused to +speak, refused utterly to smile, and afterwards in the drawing-room had +announced her fixed intention of returning to England the next day.</p> + +<p>Anna had protested and argued in vain; nothing could shake this sudden +determination. To all her expostulations and entreaties Susie replied +that she had never yet dwelt among savages and she was not going to +begin now; so Anna was forced to conclude that Hilton had been making a +scene, and knowing the effect of Hilton's scenes she gave up attempting +to persuade, but told her with outward firmness and inward quakings that +she herself could not possibly go too.</p> + +<p>Susie had been very angry at this, and still more angry at the reason +Anna gave, which was that, having invited the parson and his wife to +dinner on Saturday, she could not break her engagement. Susie told her +that as she would never see either of them again—for surely she would +never again want to come to this place?—it was absurd to care twopence +what they thought of her. What on earth did it matter if two inhabitants +of the desert were offended or not offended once she was on the other +side of the sea? And what did it matter at all how she treated them? She +heaped such epithets as absurd, stupid, and idiotic on Anna's head, but +Anna was not to be moved. She threatened to take Miss Leech and Letty +away with her, and leave Anna a prey to the criticisms of Mrs. Grundy, +and Anna said she could not prevent her doing so if she chose. Susie +became more and more excited, more and more Dobbs, goaded by the +recollection of what she had gone through with Hilton, and Anna, as +usual under such circumstances, grew very silent. Letty sat listening in +an agony of fright lest this cup of new experiences were about to be +dashed prematurely from her eager lips; and Miss Leech discreetly left +the room, though not in the least knowing where to go, finally seeking +to drive away the nervous fears that assailed her in her lonely, +creaking bedroom, where rats were gnawing at the woodwork, by thinking +hard of Mr. Jessup, who on this occasion proved to be but a broken reed, +pitted against the stern reality of rats.</p> + +<p>The end of it, after Susie had poured out the customary reproaches of +gross ingratitude and forgetfulness of all she had done for Anna for +fifteen long years, was that Miss Leech and Letty were to stay on as +originally intended, and come home with Anna towards the end of the +holidays, and Susie would leave with Hilton the very next day.</p> + +<p>Anna's attempt to make it up when she said good-night was repulsed with +energy. Anna was for ever doing aggravating things, and then wanting to +make it up; but makings up without having given in an inch seemed to +Susie singularly unsatisfactory ceremonies. Oh, these Estcourts and +their obstinacy! She marched off to bed in high indignation, an +indignation not by any means allowed to cool by Hilton during the +process of undressing; and Anna, worn out, fell asleep the moment she +lay down, and woke up, as she had pictured herself doing in that odd +wooden bed, with the morning sun shining full on her face.</p> + +<p>It was a bright and lovely day, and on the side of the house where she +slept she could not hear the wind, which was still blowing from the +north-west. She opened one of her three big windows and let the cold air +rush into her room, where the curious perfume of the baked evergreen +wreaths festooned round the walls and looking-glass and dressing-table, +joined to the heat from the stove, produced a heavy atmosphere that made +her gasp. Somebody must already have been in her room, for the stove had +been lit again, and she could see the peat blazing inside its open door. +But outside, what a divine coldness and purity! She leaned out, drinking +it in in long breaths, the warm March sun shining on her head. The +garden, a mere uncared-for piece of rough grass with big trees, was +radiant with rain-drops; the strip of sea was a deep blue now, with +crests of foam; the island coast opposite was a shadowy streak stretched +across the feet of the sun. Oh, it was beautiful to stand at that open +window in the freshness, listening to the robin on the bare lilac bush a +few yards away, to the quarrelling of the impudent sparrows on the path +below, to the wind in the branches of the trees, to all the happy +morning sounds of nature. A joyous feeling took possession of her heart, +a sudden overpowering delight in what are called common things—mere +earth, sky, sun, and wind. How lovely life was on such a morning, in +such a clean, rain-washed, wind-scoured world. The wet smell of the +garden came up to her, a whiff of marshy smell from the water, a long +breath from the pines in the forest on the other side of the house. How +had she ever breathed at Estcourt? How had she escaped suffocation +without this life-giving smell of sea and forest? She looked down with +delight at the wildness of the garden; after the trim Estcourt lawns, +what a relief this was. This was all liberty, freedom from +conventionality, absolute privacy; that was an everlasting clipping, and +trimming, and raking, a perpetual stumbling upon gardeners at every +step, for Susie would not be outdone by her greater neighbours in these +matters. What was Hill Street looking like this fine March morning? All +the blinds down, all the people in bed—how far away, how shadowy it +was; a street inhabited by sleepy ghosts, with phantom milkmen rattling +spectral cans beneath their windows. What a dream that life lived up to +three days ago seemed in this morning light of reality. White clouds, +like the clouds in Raphael's backgrounds, were floating so high overhead +that they could not be hurried by the wind; a black cat sat in a patch +of sunshine on the path washing itself; somebody opened a lower window, +and there was a noise of sweeping, presently made indistinguishable by +the chorale sung by the sweeper, no doubt Marie, in a pious, Good Friday +mood. "<i>Lob Gott ihr Christen allzugleich</i>," chanted Marie, keeping time +with her broom. Her voice was loud and monotonous, but Anna listened +with a smile, and would have liked to join in, and so let some of her +happiness find its way out.</p> + +<p>She dressed quickly. There was no hot water, and no bell to ring for +some, and she did not choose to call down from the window and interrupt +the hymn, so she used cold water, assuring herself that it was bracing. +Then she put on her hat and coat and stole out, afraid of disturbing +Susie, who was lying a few yards away filled with smouldering wrath, +anxious to have at least one quiet hour before beginning a day that she +felt sure was going to be a day of worries. "There will be great peace +to-night when she is gone," she thought, and immediately felt ashamed +that she should look forward to being without her. "But I have never +been without her since I was ten," she explained apologetically to her +offended conscience, "and I want to see how I feel."</p> + +<p>"<i>Guten Morgen</i>," said Marie, as Anna came into the drawing-room on her +way out through its French windows.</p> + +<p>"<i>Guten Morgen</i>," said Anna cheerfully.</p> + +<p>Marie leaned on her broom and watched her go down the garden, greedily +taking in every detail of her clothes, profoundly interested in a being +who went out into the mud where nobody could see her with such a dress +on, and whose shoes would not have been too big for Marie's small sister +aged nine.</p> + +<p>The evening before, indeed, Marie had beheld such a vision as she had +never yet in her life seen, or so much as imagined; her new mistress had +appeared at supper in what was evidently a <i>herrschaftliche Ballkleid</i>, +with naked arms and shoulders, and the other ladies were attired in much +the same way. The young Fräulein, it is true, showed no bare flesh, but +even she was arrayed in white, and her hair magnificently tied up with +ribbons. Marie had rushed out to tell the cook, and the cook, refusing +to believe it, had carried in a supererogatory dish of compot as an +excuse for securing the assurance of her own eyes; and Bertha from the +farm, coming round with a message from the Frau Oberinspector, had seen +it too through the crack of the kitchen door as the ladies left the +dining-room, and had gone off breathlessly to spread the news; and the +post cart just leaving with the letters had carried it to Lohm, and +every inhabitant of every house between Kleinwalde and Stralsund knew +all about it before bedtime. "What did I tell thee, wife?" said Dellwig, +who, in spite of his superiority to the sex that served, listened as +eagerly as any member of it to gossip; and his wife was only too ready +to label Anna mad or eccentric as a slight private consolation for +having passed out of the service of a comprehensible German gentleman +into that of a woman and a foreigner.</p> + +<p>Unconscious of the interest and curiosity she was exciting for miles +round, pleased by Marie's artless piety, and filled with kindly feelings +towards all her neighbours, Anna stood at the end of the garden looking +over the low hedge that divided it from the marsh and the sea, and +thought that she had never seen a place where it would be so easy to be +good. Complete freedom from the wearisome obligations of society, an +ideal privacy surrounded by her woods and the water, a scanty population +of simple and devoted people—did not Dellwig shed tears at the +remembrance of his master?—every day spent here would be a day that +made her better, that would bring her nearer to that heaven in which all +good and simple souls dwelt while still on earth, the heaven of a serene +and quiet mind. Always she had longed to be good, and to help and +befriend those who had the same longing but in whom it had been +partially crushed by want of opportunity and want of peace. The healthy +goodness that goes hand in hand with happiness was what she meant; not +that tragic and futile goodness that grows out of grief, that lifts its +head miserably in stony places, that flourishes in sick rooms and among +desperate sorrows, and goes to God only because all else is lost. She +went round the house and crossed the road into the forest. The fresh +wind blew in her face, and shook down the drops from the branches on her +as she passed. The pine needles of other years made a thick carpet for +her feet. The sun gleamed through the straight trunks and warmed her. +The restless sighing overheard in the tree tops filled her ears with +sweetest music. "I do believe the place is pleased that I have come!" +she thought, with a happy laugh. She came to a clearing in the trees, +opening out towards the north, and she could see the flat fields and the +wide sky and the sunshine chasing the shadows across the vivid green +patches that she had learned were winter rye. A hole at her feet, where +a tree had been uprooted, still had snow in it; but the larks were +singing above in the blue, as though from those high places they could +see Spring far away in the south, coming up slowly with the first +anemones in her hands, her face turned at last towards the patient +north.</p> + +<p>The strangest feeling of being for the first time in her life at home +came over Anna. This poor country, how sweet and touching it was. After +the English country, with its thickly scattered villages, and gardens, +and fields that looked like parks, it did seem very poor and very empty, +but intensely lovable. Like the furniture of her house, it struck her as +symbolic in its bareness of the sturdier virtues. The people who lived +in it must of necessity be frugal and hard-working if they would live at +all, wresting by sheer labour their life from the soil, braced by the +long winters to endurance and self-denial, their vices and their +languors frozen out of them whether they would or no. At least so +thought Anna, as she stood gazing out across the clearing at the fields +and sky. "Could one not be good here? Could one not be so, so good?" she +kept on murmuring. Then she remembered that she had been asking herself +vague questions like this ever since her arrival; and with a sudden +determination to face what was in her mind and think it out honestly, +she sat down on a tree stump, buttoned her coat up tight, for the wind +was blowing full on her, and fell to considering what she meant to do.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Susie did not go down to breakfast, but stayed in her bedroom on the +sofa drinking a glass of milk into which an egg had been beaten, and +listening to Hilton's criticisms of the German nation, delivered with +much venom while she packed. But Hilton, though her contempt for German +ways was so great as to be almost unutterable, was reconciled to a +mistress who had so quickly given in to her wish to be taken back to +Hill Street, and the venom was of an abstract nature, containing no +personal sting of unfavourable comparisons with duchesses; so that Susie +was sipping her milk in a fairly placid frame of mind when there was a +knock at the door, and Anna asked if she might come in.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, come in. Have you looked out the trains?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. There's only one decent one, and you'll have to leave directly +after luncheon. Won't you stay, Susie? You'll be so tired, going home +without resting."</p> + +<p>"Can't we leave before luncheon?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course, if you prefer to lunch at Stralsund."</p> + +<p>"Much. Have you ordered the shandrydan?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, for half-past one."</p> + +<p>"Then order it for half-past twelve. Hilton can drive with me."</p> + +<p>"So I thought."</p> + +<p>"Has that wretch been rubbing fish oil on it again?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think so, after what I said yesterday."</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't think what you said yesterday could have frightened him +much. You beamed at him as though he were your best friend."</p> + +<p>"Did I?"</p> + +<p>Anna was looking odd, Susie thought, and answering her remarks with a +nervous, abstracted air. She had apparently been out, for her dress was +muddy, and she was quite rosy, and her hair was not so neat as usual. +She stood about in an undecided sort of way, and glanced several times +at Hilton on her knees before a trunk.</p> + +<p>"Is that all the breakfast you are going to have?" she asked, becoming +aware of the glass of milk.</p> + +<p>"What other breakfast is there to have?" snapped Susie, who was hungry, +and would have liked a great deal more.</p> + +<p>"Well, the eggs and butter are very nice, anyway," said Anna, quite +evidently thinking of other things.</p> + +<p>"Now what has she got into her head?" Susie asked herself, watching her +sister-in-law with misgiving. Anna's new moods were never by any chance +of a sort to give Susie pleasure. Aloud she said tartly, "I can't eat +eggs and butter by themselves. I shouldn't have had anything at all if +it hadn't been for Hilton, who went into the kitchen and made me this +herself."</p> + +<p>"Excellent Hilton," said Anna absently. "Haven't you done packing yet, +Hilton?"</p> + +<p>"No, m'm."</p> + +<p>Anna sat down on the end of the sofa and began to twist the frills of +Susie's dressing-gown round her fingers.</p> + +<p>"I haven't closed my eyes all night," said Susie, putting on her martyr +look, "nor has Hilton."</p> + +<p>"Haven't you? Why not? I slept the sleep of the just—better, indeed, +than any just that I ever heard of."</p> + +<p>"What, didn't that man go into your room?"</p> + +<p>"What man? Oh, yes, Miss Leech was telling me about it. He lit the +stoves, didn't he? I never heard a sound."</p> + +<p>"You must have slept like a log then. Any one in the least sensitive +would have been frightened out of their senses. I was, and so was +Hilton. I wouldn't spend another night in this house for anything you +could give me."</p> + +<p>It appeared that Susie really had just cause for complaint. She had been +nervous the night before after Hilton had left her, unable to sleep, and +scared by the thought of their defencelessness—six women alone in that +wild place. She wished then with all her heart that Dellwig did live in +the house. Rats scampering about in the attic above added to her +terrors. The wind shook the windows of her room and howled +disconsolately up and down. She bore it as long as she could, which was +longer than most women would have borne it, and then knocked on the wall +dividing her room from Hilton's. But Hilton, with the bedclothes over +her head and all the candles she had been able to collect alight, would +not have stirred out of her room to save her mistress from dying; and +Susie, desperate at the prospect of the awful hours round midnight, made +one great effort of courage and sallied out to fetch her. Poor Susie, +standing shivering before her maid's bolted door, scantily clothed, +anxiously watching the flame of her candle that threatened each second +to be blown out, alone on the wide, draughty landing, frightened at the +sound of her own calls mingling weirdly with the creakings and hangings +of the tempest-shaken house, was an object deserving of pity. It took +some minutes to induce Hilton to open the door, and such minutes Susie +had not, in the course of an ordered and normal existence, yet passed. +They both went into Susie's room, locked themselves in, and Hilton lay +down on the sofa; and after a long time they fell into an uneasy sleep. +At half-past three Susie started up in bed; some one was trying to open +the door and knocking. The candles had burnt themselves out, and she +could not tell what time it was, but thought it must be early morning +and that the servant wanted to bring her hot water; and she woke Hilton +and bade her open the door. Hilton did so, gave a faint scream, and +flung herself back on the sofa, where she lay as one dead, her face +buried in the pillow. A man with a lantern and no shoes on was at the +door, and came in noiselessly. Susie was never nearer fainting in her +life. She sat in her bed, her cold hands clasped tightly round her +knees, her eyes fixed on this dreadful apparition, unable to speak or +move, paralysed by terror. This was the end, then, of all her hopes and +ambitions—to come to Pomerania and die like a dog. Then the sickening +feeling of fear gave way to one of overwhelming wrath when she found +that all the man wanted was to light her stove. On the same principle +that a child is shaken who has not after all been lost or run over, she +was speechless with rage now that she found that she was not, after all, +to be murdered. He was a very old man, and the light from the lantern +cast strange reflections on his face and figure as he crouched before +the stove. He mumbled as he worked, talking to the fire he was making as +though it were a person. "<i>Du willst nicht, brennen, Lump? Was? Na, +warte mal!</i>" And when he had finished, crept out again without glancing +at the occupants of the room, still mumbling.</p> + +<p>"It's the custom of the country, I suppose," said Anna.</p> + +<p>"Is it? Well the sooner we get out of such a country the better. You are +determined to stay in spite of everything? I can tell you I don't at all +like my child being here, but you force me to leave her because you know +very well that I can't let you stay here alone."</p> + +<p>Anna glanced at Hilton, folding a dress with immense deliberation.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Hilton knows what I think," said Susie, with a shrug.</p> + +<p>"But she doesn't know what <i>I</i> think," said Anna. "I must talk to you +before you leave, so please let her finish packing afterwards. Go and +have your breakfast, Hilton."</p> + +<p>"Did you say breakfast, m'm?" inquired Hilton with an innocent look.</p> + +<p>"Breakfast?" repeated Susie; "poor thing, I'd like to know how and where +she is to get any."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, go and don't have your breakfast," said Anna impatiently. +She had something to tell Susie that must be told soon, and was not in a +mood to bear with Hilton's ways.</p> + +<p>"How hospitable," remarked Susie as the door closed. "Really you are a +delightful hostess."</p> + +<p>Anna laughed. "I don't mean to be brutal," she said, "but if we can +exist on the food without looking tragic I suppose she can too, +especially as it is only for one day."</p> + +<p>"My one consolation in leaving Letty here is that she will be dieted in +spite of herself. I expect you to bring her back quite thin."</p> + +<p>Anna got up restlessly and went to the window.</p> + +<p>"And whatever you do, don't forget that the return tickets only last +till the 24th. But you'll be sick of it long before then."</p> + +<p>Anna turned round and leaned her back against the window. The strong +morning light was on her hair, and her face was in shadow, yet Susie had +a feeling that she was looking guilty.</p> + +<p>"Susie, I've been thinking," she said with an effort.</p> + +<p>"Really? How nice."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it was, for I found out what it is that I must do if I mean to be +happy. But I'm afraid that <i>you</i> won't think it nice, and will scold me. +Now don't scold me."</p> + +<p>"Well, tell me what it is." Susie lay staring at Anna's form against the +light, bracing herself to hear something disagreeable. She knew very +well from past experience that Anna's new plan, whatever it was, was +certain to be wild and foolish.</p> + +<p>"I am going to stay here."</p> + +<p>"I know you are, and I know that nothing I can say will make you change +your mind. Peter is just like you—the more I show him what a fool he's +going to make of himself the more he insists on doing it. He calls it +determination. Average people like myself, with smaller and more easily +managed brains than you two wonders have got, call it pigheadedness."</p> + +<p>"I don't mean only for Letty's holidays; I mean for good."</p> + +<p>"For good?" Susie opened her mouth and stared in much the same blank +consternation that Dellwig had shown on hearing that she did not like +eating pig.</p> + +<p>"Don't be angry with me," said Anna, coming over to the sofa and sitting +on the floor by Susie's side; and she caught hold of her hand and began +to talk fast and eagerly. "I always intended spending this money in +helping poor people, but didn't quite know in what way—now I see my way +clearly, and I must, <i>must</i> go it. Don't you remember in the catechism +there's the duty towards God and the duty towards one's neighbour——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, if you're going to talk religion——" said Susie, pulling away her +hand in great disgust.</p> + +<p>"No, no, do listen," said Anna, catching it again and stroking it while +she talked, to Susie's intense irritation, who hated being stroked.</p> + +<p>"If you are going into the catechism," she said, "Hilton had better come +in again. It might do her good."</p> + +<p>"No, no—I only wanted to say that there's another duty not in the +catechism, greater than the duty towards one's neighbour——"</p> + +<p>"My dear Anna, it isn't likely that you can improve on the catechism. +And fancy wanting to, at breakfast time. Don't stroke my hand—it gives +me the fidgets."</p> + +<p>"But I want to explain things—do listen. The duty the catechism leaves +out is the duty towards oneself. You can't get away from your duties, +you know, Susie——" And she knit her brows in her effort to follow out +her thought.</p> + +<p>"My goodness, as though I ever tried! If ever a poor woman did her duty, +I'm that woman."</p> + +<p>"—and I believe that if I do those two duties, towards my neighbour and +myself, I shall be doing my duty towards God."</p> + +<p>Susie gave her body an impatient twist. She thought it positively +indecent to speak of sacred things so early in the morning in cold +blood. "What has this drivel to do with your stopping here?" she asked +angrily.</p> + +<p>"It has everything to do with it—my duty towards myself is to be as +happy and as good as possible, and my duty towards my neighbour——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, bother your neighbour and your duty!" cried Susie in exasperation.</p> + +<p>"—is to help him to be good and happy too."</p> + +<p>"Him? Her, I hope. Don't forget decency, my dear. A girl has no duties +whatever towards male neighbours."</p> + +<p>"Well, I do mean her," said Anna, looking up and laughing.</p> + +<p>"So you think that by living here you'll make yourself happy?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I do—I do think so. Perhaps I am wrong, and shall find out I'm +wrong, but I must try."</p> + +<p>"You'll leave all your friends and relations and stay in this +God-forsaken place where you can't even live like a lady?"</p> + +<p>"Uncle Joachim said it was my one chance of leading the better life."</p> + +<p>"Unutterable old fool," said Susie with bitterest contempt. "That money, +then, is going to be thrown away on Germans? As though there weren't +poor people enough in England, if your ambition is to pose as a +benefactress!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't want to pose as anything—I only want to help unhappy +wretches," cried Anna, laying her cheek caressingly on Susie's unwilling +hand. "Now don't scold me—forgive me if I'm silly, and be patient with +me till I find out that I've made a goose of myself and come creeping +back to you and Peter. But I <i>must</i> do it—I <i>must</i> try—I <i>will</i> do +what I think is right."</p> + +<p>"And who are the wretches, pray, who are to be made happy?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, those I am sorriest for—that no one else helps—the genteel ones, +if I can only get at them."</p> + +<p>"I never heard of genteel wretches," said Susie.</p> + +<p>Anna laughed again. "I was thinking it all out in the forest this +morning," she said, "and it suddenly flashed across me that this big +roomy house was never meant not to be used, and that instead of going to +see poor people and giving them money in the ordinary way, it would be +so much better to let women of the better classes, who have no money, +and who are dependent and miserable, come and live with me and share +mine, and have everything that I have—exactly the same, with no +difference of any sort. There is room for twelve at least, and wouldn't +it be beautiful to make twelve people, who had lost all hope and all +courage, happy for the rest of their days?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, the girl's mad!" cried Susie, springing up from the sofa, no longer +able to bear herself. She began to walk about the room, not knowing what +to say or do, absolutely without sympathy for beneficent impulses, at +all times possessed of a fine scorn for ideals, feeling that no argument +would be of any avail with an Estcourt whose mind was made up, shocked +that good money, so hard to get, and so very precious when got, should +be thrown away in such a manner, bewildered by the difficulties of the +situation, for how could a girl of Anna's age live alone, and direct a +house full of objects of charity? Would the objects themselves be a +sufficient chaperonage? Would her friends at home think so? Would they +not blame her, Susie, for having allowed all this? As though she could +prevent it! Or would they expect her to stay with Anna in this place +till she should marry? As though anybody would ever marry such a +lunatic! "Mad, mad, mad!" cried Susie, wringing her hands.</p> + +<p>"I was afraid that you wouldn't like it," said the culprit on the floor, +watching her with a distressed face.</p> + +<p>"Like it? Oh—mad, mad!" And she continued to walk and wring her hands.</p> + +<p>"Well, you'll stay, then," she said, suddenly stopping in front of Anna, +"I know you well enough, and shall waste no breath arguing. That +infatuated old man's money has turned your head—I didn't know it was so +weak. But look into your heart when I am gone—you'll have time enough +and quiet enough—and ask yourself honestly whether what you are going +to do is a proper way of paying back all I have done for you, and all +the expense you have been. You know what my wishes are about you, and +you don't care one jot. Gratitude! There isn't a spark of it in your +whole body. Never was there a more selfish creature, and I can't believe +that ingratitude and selfishness are the stuff that makes saints. Don't +dare to talk any more rot about duty to your neighbour to me. An +Englishwoman to come and spend her money on German charities——"</p> + +<p>"It's German money," murmured Anna.</p> + +<p>"And to <i>live</i> here—to live <i>here</i>—oh, mad, mad!" And Susie's +indignation threatening to choke her, she resumed her walk and her +gesticulations, her high heels tapping furiously on the bare boards.</p> + +<p>She longed to take Letty and Miss Leech away with her that very morning, +and punish Anna by leaving her entirely alone; but she did not dare +because of Peter. Peter was always on Anna's side when there were +differences, and would be sure to do something dreadful when he heard of +it—perhaps come and live here too, and never go back to his wife any +more. Oh, these half Germans! Why had she married into a family with +such a taint in its blood? "You will have to have some one here," she +said, turning on Anna, who still sat on the floor by the sofa, a look on +her face of apology and penitence mixed with firmness that Susie well +knew. "How can you stay here alone? I shall leave Miss Leech with you +till the end of the holidays, though I hate to seem to encourage you; +but then you see I do my duty and always have, though I don't talk about +it. When I get home I shall look for some elderly woman who won't mind +coming here and seeing that you don't make yourself too much of a +by-word, and the day she comes you are to send me back my child."</p> + +<p>"It is good of you to let me keep Letty, dear Susie——"</p> + +<p>"Dear Susie!"</p> + +<p>"But I don't mean to be a by-word, as you call it," continued Anna, the +ghost of a smile lurking in her eyes, "and I don't want an Englishwoman. +What use would she be here? She wouldn't understand if it was a German +by-word that I turned into. I thought about asking the parson how I had +better set about getting a German lady—a grave and sober female, +advanced in years, as Uncle Joachim wrote."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Uncle Joachim——" Susie could hardly endure to hear the name. It +was that odious old man who had filled Anna's head with these ideas. To +leave her money was admirable, but to influence a weak girl's mind with +his wishy-washy German philosophy about the better life and such +rubbish, as he evidently had done during those excursions with her, was +conduct so shameful that she found no words strong enough to express her +opinion of it. Everyone would blame her for what had happened, everyone +would jeer at her, and say that the moment an opportunity of escape had +presented itself Anna had seized it, preferring an existence of +loneliness and hardship—any sort of existence—to all the pleasures of +civilised life in Susie's company. Peter would certainly be very angry +with her, and reproach her with not having made Anna happy enough. Happy +enough! The girl had cost her at least three hundred a year, what with +her expensive education and all her clothes since she came out; and if +three hundred good pounds spent on a girl could not make her happy, +she'd like to know what could. And no one—not one of those odious +people in London whom she secretly hated—would have a single word of +censure for Anna. No one ever had. All her vagaries and absurdities +during the last few years when she had been so provoking had been smiled +at, had been, Susie knew, put down to her treatment of her. Treatment of +her, indeed! The thought of these things made Susie writhe. She had been +looking forward to the next season, to having her pretty sister-in-law +with her in the happy mood she had been in since she heard of her good +fortune, and had foreseen nothing but advantages to herself from Anna's +presence in her house—an Anna spending and not being spent upon, and no +doubt to be persuaded to share the expenses of housekeeping. And now she +must go home by herself to blame, scoldings, and derision. The prospect +was almost more than she could bear. She went to the door, opened it, +and turning to Anna fired a parting shot. "Let no one," she said, her +voice shaken by deepest disgust, "who wants to be happy, ever spend a +penny on her husband's relations."</p> + +<p>And then she called Hilton; nor did she leave off calling till Hilton +appeared, and so prevented Anna from saying another word.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + + +<p>But if Susie's rage was such that she refused to say good-bye, and +terrified Miss Leech while she was waiting in the hall for the carriage +by dark allusions to strait-waistcoats, when the parson was taken into +Anna's confidence after dinner on the following night his raptures knew +no bounds. "<i>Liebes, edeldenkendes Fräulein!</i>" he burst out, clasping +his hands and gazing with a moist, ecstatic eye at this young sprig of +piety. He was a good man, not very learned, not very refined, +sentimental exceedingly, and much inclined to become tearfully eloquent +on such subjects as <i>die liebe kleine Kinder, die herrliche Natur, die +Frau als Schutzengel</i>, and the sacredness of <i>das Familienleben</i>.</p> + +<p>Anna felt that he was the only person at hand who could perhaps help her +to find twelve dejected ladies willing to be made happy, and had +unfolded her plan to him as tersely as possible in her stumbling German, +with none of those accompanying digressions into the question of +feelings that Susie stigmatised as drivel; and she sat uncomfortable +enough while he burst forth into praises that would not end of her +goodness and nobleness. It is hard to look anything but fatuous when +somebody is extolling your virtues to your face, and she could not help +both looking and feeling foolish during his extravagant glorification. +She did not doubt his sincerity, and indeed he was absolutely sincere, +but she wished that he would be less flowery and less long, and would +skip the raptures and get on to the main subject, which was practical +advice.</p> + +<p>She wore the simple white dress that had caused such a sensation in the +neighbourhood, a garment that hung in long, soft folds, accentuating her +slender length of limb. Her bright hair was parted and tucked behind her +ears. Everything about her breathed an absolute want of +self-consciousness and vanity, a perfect freedom from the least thought +of the impression she might be making; yet she was beautiful, and the +good man observing her beauty, and supposing from what she had just told +him an equal beauty of character, for ever afterwards when he thought of +angels on quiet Sunday evenings in his garden, clothed them as Anna was +clothed that night, not even shrinking from the pretty, bare shoulders +and scantily sleeved arms, but facing them with a courage worthy of a +man, however doubtfully it might become a pastor.</p> + +<p>His wife, in her best dress, which was also her tightest, sat on the +edge of a chair some way off, marvelling greatly at many things. She +could not hear what it was Anna had said to set her husband off +exclaiming, because the governess persisted in trying to talk German to +her, and would not be satisfied with vague replies. She was disappointed +by the sudden disappearance of the sister-in-law, gone before she had +shown herself to a single soul; astonished that she had not been +requested to sit on the sofa, in which place of honour the young +Fräulein sprawled in a way that would certainly ruin her clothes; +disgusted that she had not been pressed at table, nay, not even asked, +to partake of every dish a second time; indeed, no one had seemed to +notice or care whether she ate anything at all. These were strange ways. +And where were the Dellwigs, those great people accustomed to patronise +her because she was the parson's wife? Was it possible that they had not +been invited? Were there then quarrels already? She could not of course +dream that Anna would never have thought of asking her inspector and his +wife to dinner, and that in her ignorance she regarded the parson as a +person on an altogether higher social level than the inspector. These +things, joined to conjectures as to the probable price by the yard of +Anna's, Letty's, and Miss Leech's clothes, gave Frau Manske more food +for reflection than she had had for years; and she sat turning them over +slowly in her mind in the intervals between Miss Leech's sentences, +while her dress, which was of silk, creaked ominously with every painful +breath she drew.</p> + +<p>"The best way to act," said the parson, when he had exhausted the +greater part of his raptures, "will be to advertise in a newspaper of a +Christian character."</p> + +<p>"But not in my name," said Anna.</p> + +<p>"No, no, we must be discreet—we must be very discreet. The +advertisement must be drawn up with skill. I will make, simultaneously, +inquiries among my colleagues in the holy office, but there must also be +an advertisement. What would the gracious Miss's opinion be of the +desirability of referring all applicants, in the first instance, to me?"</p> + +<p>"Why, I think it would be an excellent plan, if you do not mind the +trouble."</p> + +<p>"Trouble! Joy fills me at the thought of taking part in this good work. +Little did I think that our poor corner of the fatherland was to become +a holy place, a blessed refuge for the world-worn, a nook fragrant with +charity——"</p> + +<p>"No, not charity," interposed Anna.</p> + +<p>"Whose perfume," continued the parson, determined to finish his +sentence, "whose perfume will ascend day and night to the attentive +heavens. But such are the celestial surprises Providence keeps in +reserve and springs upon us when we least expect it."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Anna. "But what shall we put in the advertisement?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach ja</i>, the advertisement. In the contemplation of this beautiful +scheme I forget the advertisement." And again the moisture of ecstasy +suffused his eyes, and again he clasped his hands and gazed at her with +his head on one side, almost as though the young lady herself were the +beautiful scheme.</p> + +<p>Anna got up and went to the writing-table to fetch a pencil and a sheet +of paper, anxious to keep him to the point; and the parson watching the +graceful white figure was more than ever struck by her resemblance to +his idea of angels. He did not consider how easy it was to look like a +being from another world, a creature purified of every earthly +grossness, to eyes accustomed to behold the redundant exuberance of his +own excellent wife.</p> + +<p>She brought the paper, and sat down again at the table on which the lamp +stood. "How does one write any sort of advertisement in German?" she +said. "I could not write one for a housemaid. And this one must be done +so carefully."</p> + +<p>"Very true; for, alas, even ladies are sometimes not all that they +profess to be. Sad that in a Christian country there should be +impostors. Doubly sad that there should be any of the female sex."</p> + +<p>"Very sad," said Anna, smiling. "You must tell me which are the +impostors among those that answer."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach</i>, it will not be easy," said the parson, whose experience of +ladies was limited, and who began to see that he was taking upon himself +responsibilities that threatened to become grave. Suppose he recommended +an applicant who afterwards departed with the gracious Miss's spoons in +her bag? "<i>Ach</i>, it will not be easy," he said, shaking his head.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well," said Anna, "we must risk the impostors. There may not be any +at all. How would you begin?"</p> + +<p>The parson threw himself back in his chair, folded his hands, cast up +his eyes to the ceiling, and meditated. Anna waited, pencil in hand, +ready to write at his dictation. Frau Manske at the other end of the +room was straining her ears to hear what was going on, but Miss Leech, +desirous both of entertaining her and of practising her German, would +not cease from her spasmodic talk, even expecting her mistakes to be +corrected. And there were no refreshments, no glasses of cooling beer +being handed round, no liquid consolation of any sort, not even seltzer +water. She regarded her evening as a failure.</p> + +<p>"A Christian lady of noble sentiments," dictated the parson, apparently +reading the words off the ceiling, "offers a home in her house——"</p> + +<p>"Is this the advertisement?" asked Anna.</p> + +<p>"—offers a home in her house——"</p> + +<p>"I don't quite like the beginning," hesitated Anna. "I would rather +leave out about the noble sentiments."</p> + +<p>"As the gracious one pleases. Modesty can never be anything but an +ornament. 'A Christian lady——'"</p> + +<p>"But why a <i>Christian</i> lady? Why not simply a lady? Are there, then, +heathen ladies about, that you insist on the Christian?"</p> + +<p>"Worse, worse than heathen," replied the parson, sitting up straight, +and fixing eyeballs suddenly grown fiery on her; and his voice fell to a +hissing whisper, in strange contrast to his previous honeyed tones. "The +heathen live in far-off lands, where they keep quiet till our +missionaries gather them into the Church's fold—but here, here in our +midst, here everywhere, taking the money from our pockets, nay, the very +bread from our mouths, are the <i>Jews</i>."</p> + +<p>Impossible to describe the tone of fear and hatred with which this word +was pronounced.</p> + +<p>Anna gazed at him, mystified. "The Jews?" she echoed. One of her +greatest friends at home was a Jew, a delightful person, the mere +recollection of whom made her smile, so witty and charming and kind was +he. And of Jews in general she could not remember to have heard anything +at all.</p> + +<p>"But not only money from our pockets and bread from our mouths," +continued the parson, leaning forward, his light grey eyes opened to +their widest extent, and speaking in a whisper that made her flesh begin +the process known as creeping, "but blood—blood from our veins."</p> + +<p>"Blood from your veins?" she repeated faintly. It sounded horrid. It +offended her ears. It had nothing to do with the advertisement. The +strange light in his eyes made her think of fanaticism, cruelty, and the +Middle Ages. The mildest of men in general, as she found later on, +rabidness seized him at the mere mention of Jews.</p> + +<p>"Blood," he hissed, "from the veins of Christians, for the performance +of their unholy rites. Did the gracious one never hear of ritual +murders?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Anna, shrinking back, the nearer he leaned towards her, +"never in my life. Don't tell me now, for it—it sounds interesting. I +should like to hear about it all another time. 'A Christian lady offers +her home,'" she went on quickly, scribbling that much down, and then +looking at him inquiringly.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach ja</i>," he said in his natural voice, leaning back in his chair and +reducing his eyes to their normal size, "I forgot again the +advertisement. 'A Christian lady offers her home to others of her sex +and station who are without means——'"</p> + +<p>"And without friends, and without hope," added Anna, writing.</p> + +<p>"<i>Gut, gut, sehr gut.</i>"</p> + +<p>"She has room in her house in the country," Anna went on, writing as she +spoke, "for twelve such ladies, and will be glad to share with them all +that she possesses of fortune and happiness."</p> + +<p>"<i>Gut, gut, sehr gut.</i>"</p> + +<p>"Is the German correct?"</p> + +<p>"Quite correct. I would add, 'Strictest inquiries will be made before +acceptance of any application by Herr Pastor Manske of Lohm, to whom all +letters are to be addressed. Applicants must be ladies of good family, +who have fallen on evil days by the will of God.'"</p> + +<p>Anna wrote this down as far as "days," after which she put a full stop.</p> + +<p>"It pleases me not entirely," said Manske, musing; "the language is not +sufficiently noble. Noble schemes should be alluded to in noble words."</p> + +<p>"But not in an advertisement."</p> + +<p>"Why not? We ought not to hide our good thoughts from our fellows, but +rather open our hearts, pour out our feelings, spend freely all that we +have in us of virtue and piety, for the edification and exhilaration of +others."</p> + +<p>"But not in an advertisement. I don't want to exhilarate the public."</p> + +<p>"And why not exhilarate the public, dear Miss? Is it not composed of +units of like passions to ourselves? Units on the way to heaven, units +bowed down by the same sorrows, cheered by the same hopes, torn asunder +by the same temptations as the gracious one and myself?" And immediately +he launched forth into a flood of eloquence about units; for in Germany +sermons are all extempore, and the clergy, from constant practice, +acquire a fatal fluency of speech, bursting out in the week on the least +provocation into preaching, and not by any known means to be stopped.</p> + +<p>"Oh—words, words, words!" thought Anna, waiting till he should have +finished. His wife, hearing the well-known rapid speech of his inspired +moments, glowed with pride. "My Adolf surpasses himself," she thought; +"the Miss must wonder."</p> + +<p>The Miss did wonder. She sat and wondered, her elbows on the arms of the +chair, her finger tips joined together, and her eyes fixed on her finger +tips. She did not like to look at him, because, knowing how different +was the effect produced on her to that which he of course imagined, she +was sorry for him.</p> + +<p>"It is so good of you to help me," she said with gentle irrelevance when +the longed-for pause at length came. "There was something else that I +wanted to consult you about. I must look for a companion—an elderly +German lady, who will help me in the housekeeping."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, I comprehend. But would not the twelve be sufficient +companions, and helps in the housekeeping?"</p> + +<p>"No, because I would not like them to think that I want anything done +for me in return for their home. I want them to do exactly what makes +them happiest. They will all have had sad lives, and must waste no more +time in doing things they don't quite like."</p> + +<p>"Ah—noble, noble," murmured the parson, quite as unpractical as Anna, +and fascinated by the very vagueness of her plan of benevolence.</p> + +<p>"The companion I wish to find would be another sort of person, and would +help me in return for a salary."</p> + +<p>"Certainly, I comprehend."</p> + +<p>"I thought perhaps you would tell me how to advertise for such a +person?"</p> + +<p>"Surely, surely. My wife has a sister——"</p> + +<p>He paused. Anna looked up quickly. She had not reckoned with the +possibility of his wife's having sisters.</p> + +<p>"<i>Lieber Schatz</i>," he called to his wife, "what does thy sister Helena +do now?"</p> + +<p>Frau Manske got up and came over to them with the alacrity of relief. +"What dost thou say, dear Adolf?" she asked, laying her hand on his +shoulder. He took it in his, stroked it, kissed it, and finally put his +arm round her waist and held it there while he talked; all to the +exceeding joy of Letty, to whom such proceedings had the charm of +absolute freshness.</p> + +<p>"Thy sister Helena—is she at present in the parental house?" he asked, +looking up at her fondly, warmed into an affection even greater than +ordinary by the circumstance of having spectators.</p> + +<p>Frau Manske was not sure. She would write and inquire. Anna proposed +that she should sit down, but the parson playfully held her closer. +"This is my guardian angel," he explained, smiling beatifically at her, +"the faithful mother of my children, now grown up and gone their several +ways. Does the gracious Miss remember the immortal lines of Schiller, +'<i>Ehret die Frauen, sie flechten und weben himmlische Rosen in's +irdische Leben</i>'? Such has been the occupation of this dear wife, only +interrupted by her occasional visits to bathing resorts, since the day, +more than twenty-five years ago, when she consented to tread with me the +path leading heavenwards. Not a day has there been, except when she was +at the seaside, without its roses."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Anna. She felt that the remark was not at the height of the +situation, and added, "How—how interesting." This also struck her as +inadequate; but all further inspiration failing her, she was reduced to +the silent sympathy of smiles.</p> + +<p>"Ten children did the Lord bless us with," continued the parson, +expanding into confidences, "and six it was His will again to remove."</p> + +<p>"The drains—" murmured Frau Manske.</p> + +<p>"Yes, truly the drains in the town where we lived then were bad, very +bad. But one must not question the wisdom of Providence."</p> + +<p>"No, but one might mend——" Anna stopped, feeling that under some +circumstances even the mending of drains might be impious. She had heard +so much about piety and Providence within the last two hours that she +was confused, and was no longer clear as to the exact limit of conduct +beyond which a flying in the face of Providence might be said to begin.</p> + +<p>But the parson, clasping his wife to his side, paid no heed to anything +she might be saying, for he was already well on in a detailed account of +the personal appearance, habits, and career of his four remaining +children, and dwelt so fondly on each in turn that he forgot sister +Helena and the second advertisement; and when he had explained all their +numerous excellencies and harmless idiosyncrasies, including their +preferences in matters of food and drink, he abruptly quitted this +topic, and proceeded to expound Anna's scheme to his wife, who had +listened with ill-concealed impatience to the first part of his +discourse, consumed as she was with curiosity to hear what it was that +Anna had confided to him.</p> + +<p>So Anna had to listen to the raptures all over again. The eager interest +of the wife disturbed her. She doubted whether Frau Manske had any real +sympathy with her plan. Her inquisitiveness was unquestionable; but Anna +felt that opening her heart to the parson and opening it to his wife +were two different things. Though he was wordy, he was certainly +enthusiastic; his wife, on the other hand, appeared to be chiefly +interested in the question of cost. "The cost will be colossal," she +said, surveying Anna from head to foot. "But the gracious Miss is rich," +she added.</p> + +<p>Anna began to examine her finger tips again.</p> + +<p>On the way home through the dark fields, after having criticised each +dish of the dinner and expressed the opinion that the entertainment was +not worthy of such a wealthy lady, Frau Manske observed to her husband +that it was true, then, what she had always heard of the English, that +they were peculiarly liable to prolonged attacks of craziness.</p> + +<p>"Craziness! Thou callest this craziness? It is my wife, the wife of a +pastor, that I hear applying such a word to so beautiful, so Christian, +a scheme?"</p> + +<p>"But the good money—to give it all away. Yes, it is very Christian, but +it is also crazy."</p> + +<p>"Woman, shut thy mouth!" cried the parson, beside himself with +indignation at hearing such sentiments from such lips.</p> + +<p>Clearly Frau Manske was not at that moment engaged with her roses.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + + +<p>The next morning early, Anna went over to the farm to ask Dellwig to +lend her any newspapers he might have. She was anxious to advertise as +soon as possible for a companion, and now that she knew of the existence +of sister Helena, thought it better to write this advertisement without +the parson's aid, copying any other one of the sort that she might see +in the papers. Until she had secured the services of a German lady who +would tell her how to set about the reforms she intended making in her +house, she was perfectly helpless. She wanted to put her home in order +quickly, so that the twelve unhappy ones should not be kept waiting; and +there were many things to be done. Servants, furniture, everything, was +necessary, and she did not know where such things were to be had. She +did not even know where washerwomen were obtainable, and Frau Dellwig +never seemed to be at home when she sent for her, or went to her seeking +information. On Good Friday, after Susie's departure, she had sent a +message to the farm desiring the attendance of the inspector's wife, +whom she wished to consult about the dinner to be prepared for the +Manskes, all provisions apparently passing through Frau Dellwig's hands; +and she had been told that the lady was at church. On Saturday morning, +disturbed by the emptiness of her larder and the imminence of her +guests, she had gone herself to the farm, but was told that the lady was +in the cow-sheds—in which cow-shed nobody exactly knew. Anna had been +forced to ask Dellwig about the food. On Sunday she took Letty with her, +abashed by the whisperings and starings she had had to endure when she +went alone. Nor on this occasion did she see the inspector's wife, and +she began to wonder what had become of her.</p> + +<p>The Dellwigs' wrath and amazement when they found that the parson and +his wife had been invited to dinner and they themselves left out was +indescribable. Never had such an insult been offered them. They had +always been the first people of their class in the place, always held +their heads up and condescended to the clergy, always been helped first +at table, gone first through doors, sat in the right-hand corners of +sofas. If he was furious, she was still more so, filled with venom and +hatred unutterable for the innocent, but it must be added overjoyed, +Frau Manske; and though her own interest demanded it, she was altogether +unable to bring herself to meet Anna for the purpose, as she knew, of +being consulted about the menu to be offered to the wretched upstart. +Indeed, Frau Dellwig's position was similar to that painful one in which +Susie found herself when her influential London acquaintance left her +out of the invitations to the wedding; on which occasion, as we know, +Susie had been constrained to flee to Germany in order to escape the +comments of her friends. Frau Dellwig could not flee anywhere. She was +obliged to stay where she was and bear it as best she might, humiliated +in the eyes of the whole neighbourhood, an object of derision to her +very milkmaids. Philosophers smile at such trials; but to persons who +are not philosophers, and at Kleinwalde these were in the majority, they +are more difficult to endure than any family bereavement. There is no +dignity about them, and friends, instead of sympathising, rejoice more +or less openly according to the degree of their civilisation. The degree +of civilisation among Frau Dellwig's friends was not great, and the +rejoicings on the next Sunday when they all met would be but +ill-concealed; there was no escape from them, they had to be faced, and +the malicious condolences accepted with what countenance she could. +Instead of making sausages, therefore, she shut herself in her bedroom +and wept.</p> + +<p>And so it came about that the unconscious Anna, whose one desire was to +live at peace with her neighbours, made two enemies within two days. +"All women," said Dellwig to his wife, "high and low, are alike. Unless +they have a husband to keep them in their right places, they become +religious and run after pastors. Manske has wormed himself in very +cleverly, truly very cleverly. But we will worm him out again with equal +cleverness. As for his wife, what canst thou expect from so great a +fool?"</p> + +<p>"No, indeed, from her I expect nothing," replied his wife, tossing her +head, "but from the niece of our late master I expected the behaviour of +a lady." And at that moment, the niece of her late master being +announced, she fled into her bedroom.</p> + +<p>Anna, friendly as ever, specially kind to Dellwig since his tears on the +night of her arrival, came with Letty into the gloomy little office +where he was working, with all the morning sunshine in her face. Though +she was perplexed by many things, she was intensely happy. The perfect +freedom, after her years of servitude, was like heaven. Here she was in +her own home, from which nobody could take her, free to arrange her life +as she chose. Oh, it was a beautiful world, and this the most beautiful +corner of it! She was sure the sky was bluer at Kleinwalde than in other +places, and that the larks sang louder. And then was she not on the very +verge of realising her dreams of bringing the light of happiness into +dark and hopeless lives? Oh, the beautiful, beautiful world! She came +into Dellwig's room with the love of it shining in her eyes.</p> + +<p>He was as obsequious as ever, for unfortunately his bread and butter +depended on this perverse young woman; but he was also graver and less +talkative, considering within himself that he could not be expected to +pass over such a slight without some alteration in his manner. He ought, +he felt, to show that he was pained, and he ought to show it so +unmistakably that she would perhaps be led to offer some explanation of +her conduct. Accordingly he assumed the subdued behaviour of one whose +feelings have been hurt, and Anna thought how greatly he improved on +acquaintance.</p> + +<p>He would have given much to know why she wanted the papers, for surely +it was unusual for women to read newspapers? When there was a murder, or +anything of that sort, his wife liked to see them, but not at other +times. "Is the gracious Miss interested in politics?" he inquired, as he +put several together.</p> + +<p>"No, not particularly," said Anna; "at least, not yet in German +politics. I must live here a little while first."</p> + +<p>"In—in literature, perhaps?"</p> + +<p>"No, not particularly. I know so little about German books."</p> + +<p>"There are some well-written articles occasionally on the modes in +ladies' dresses."</p> + +<p>"Really?"</p> + +<p>"My wife tells me she often gets hints from them as to what is being +worn. Ladies, we know," he added with a superior smile, checked, +however, on his remembering that he was pained, "are interested in these +matters."</p> + +<p>"Yes, they are," agreed Anna, smiling, and holding out her hand for the +papers.</p> + +<p>"Ah, then, it is that that the gracious Miss wishes to read?" he said +quickly.</p> + +<p>"No, not particularly," said Anna, who began to see that he too suffered +from the prevailing inquisitiveness. Besides, she was too much afraid of +his having sisters, or of his wife's having sisters, eager to come and +be a blessing to her, to tell him about her advertisement.</p> + +<p>On the steps of his house, to which Dellwig accompanied the two girls, +stood a man who had just got off his horse. He was pulling off his +gloves as he watched it being led away by a boy. He had his back to +Anna, and she looked at it interested, for it was unlike any back she +had yet seen in Kleinwalde, in that it was the back of a gentleman.</p> + +<p>"It is Herr von Lohm," said Dellwig, "who has business here this +morning. Some of our people unfortunately drink too much on holidays +like Good Friday, and there are quarrels. I explained to the gracious +one that he is our Amtsvorsteher."</p> + +<p>Herr von Lohm turned at the sound of Dellwig's voice, and took off his +hat. "Pray present me to these ladies," he said to Dellwig, and bowed as +gravely to Letty as to Anna, to her great satisfaction.</p> + +<p>"So this is my neighbour?" thought Anna, looking down at him from the +higher step on which she stood with her papers under her arm.</p> + +<p>"So this is old Joachim's niece, of whom he was always talking?" thought +Lohm, looking up at her. "Wise old man to leave the place to her instead +of to those unpleasant sons." And he proceeded to make a few +conventional remarks, hoping that she liked her new home and would soon +be quite used to the country life. "It is very quiet and lonely for a +lady not used to our kind of country, with its big estates and few +neighbours," he said in English. "May I talk English to you? It gives me +pleasure to do so."</p> + +<p>"Please do," said Anna. Here was a person who might be very helpful to +her if ever she reached her wits' end; and how nice he looked, how +clean, and what a pleasant voice he had, falling so gratefully on ears +already aching with Dellwig's shouts and the parson's emphatic oratory.</p> + +<p>He was somewhere between thirty and forty, not young at all, she +thought, having herself never got out of the habit of feeling very +young; and beyond being long and wiry, with not even a tendency to fat, +as she noticed with pleasure, there was nothing striking about him. His +top boots and his green Norfolk jacket and green felt hat with a little +feather stuck in it gave him an air of being a sportsman. It was +refreshing to come across him, if only because he did not bow. Also, +considering him from the top of the steps, she became suddenly conscious +that Dellwig and the parson neglected their persons more than was +seemly. They were both no doubt very excellent; but she did like nicely +washed men.</p> + +<p>Herr von Lohm began to talk about Uncle Joachim, with whom he had been +very intimate. Anna came down the steps and he went a few yards with +her, leaving Dellwig standing at the door, and followed by the eyes of +Dellwig's wife, concealed behind her bedroom curtain.</p> + +<p>"I shall be with you in one moment," called Lohm over his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"<i>Gut</i>," said Dellwig; and he went in to tell his wife that these +English ladies were very free with gentlemen, and to bid her mark his +words that Lohm and Kleinwalde would before long be one estate.</p> + +<p>"And us? What will become of us?" she asked, eying him anxiously.</p> + +<p>"I too would like to know that," replied her husband. "This all comes of +leaving land away from the natural heirs." And with great energy he +proceeded to curse the memory of his late master.</p> + +<p>Lohm's English was so good that it astonished Anna. It was stiff and +slow, but he made no mistakes at all. His manner was grave, and looking +at him more attentively she saw traces on his face of much hard work and +anxiety. He told her that his mother had been a cousin of Uncle +Joachim's wife. "So that there is a slight relationship by marriage +existing between us," he said.</p> + +<p>"Very slight," said Anna, smiling, "faint almost beyond recognition."</p> + +<p>"Does your niece stay with you for an indefinite period?" he asked. "I +cannot avoid knowing that this young lady is your niece," he added with +a smile, "and that she is here with her governess, and that Lady +Estcourt left suddenly on Good Friday, because all that concerns you is +of the greatest interest to the inhabitants of this quiet place, and +they talk of little else."</p> + +<p>"How long will it take them to get used to me? I don't like being an +object of interest. No, Letty is going home as soon as I have found a +companion. That is why I am taking the inspector's newspapers home with +me. I can't construct an advertisement out of my stores of German, and +am going to see if I can find something that will serve as model."</p> + +<p>"Oh, may I help you? What difficulties you must meet with every hour of +the day!"</p> + +<p>"I do," agreed Anna, thinking of all there was to be done before she +could open her doors and her arms to the twelve.</p> + +<p>"Any service that I can render to my oldest friend's niece will give me +the greatest pleasure. Will you allow me to send the advertisement for +you? You can hardly know how or where to send it."</p> + +<p>"I don't," said Anna. "It would be very kind—I really would be +grateful. It is so important that I should find somebody soon."</p> + +<p>"It is of the first importance," said Lohm.</p> + +<p>"Has the parson told him of my plans already?" thought Anna. But Lohm +had not seen Manske that morning, and was only picturing this little +thing to himself, this dainty little lady, used to such a different +life, alone in the empty house, struggling with her small supply of +German to make the two raw servants understand her ways. Anna was not a +little thing at all, and she would have been half-amused and +half-indignant if she had known that that was the impression she had +made on him.</p> + +<p>"My sister, Gräfin Hasdorf," he began—"Heavens," she thought, "has <i>he</i> +got an unattached sister?"—"sometimes stays with me with her children, +and when she is here will be able to help you in many ways if you will +allow her to. She too knew your uncle from her childhood. She will be +greatly interested to know that you have had the courage to settle +here."</p> + +<p>"Courage?" echoed Anna. "Why, I love it. It's the most beautiful place +in the world."</p> + +<p>Lohm looked doubtfully at her for a moment; but there was no mistaking +the sincerity of those eyes. "It is pleasant to hear you say so," he +said. "My sister Trudi would scarcely credit her ears if she were +present. To her it is a terrible place, and she pities me with all her +heart because my lot is cast in it."</p> + +<p>Anna laughed. She thought she knew very well what sister Trudis were +like. "I do not pity you," she said; "I couldn't pity any being who +lived in this air, and under this sky. Look how blue it is—and the +geese—did you ever see such white geese?"</p> + +<p>A flock of geese were being driven across the sunny yard, dazzling in +their whiteness. Anna lifted up her face to the sun and drew in a long +breath of the sharp air. She forgot Lohm for a moment—it was such a +glorious Easter Sunday, and the world was so full of the abundant gifts +of God.</p> + +<p>Dellwig, who had been watching them from his wife's window, thought that +the brawlers who were going to be fined had been kept waiting long +enough, and came out again on to the steps.</p> + +<p>Lohm saw him, and felt that he must go. "I must do my business," he +said, "but as you have given me permission I will send an advertisement +to the papers to-night. Of course you desire to have an elderly lady of +good family?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but not too elderly—not so elderly that she won't be able to +work. There will be so much to do, so very much to do."</p> + +<p>Lohm went away wondering what work there could possibly be, except the +agreeable and easy work of seeing that this young lady was properly fed, +and properly petted, and in every way taken care of.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + + +<p>He sent the advertisement by the evening post to two or three of the +best newspapers. He had seen the pastor after morning church, who had at +once poured into his ears all about Anna's twelve ladies, garnishing the +story with interjections warmly appreciative of the action of Providence +in the matter. Lohm had been considerably astonished, but had said +little; it was not his way to say much at any time to the parson, and +the ecstasies about the new neighbour jarred on him. Miss Estcourt's +need of advice must have been desperate for her to have confided in +Manske. He appreciated his good qualities, but his family had never been +intimate with the parson; perhaps because from time immemorial the Lohms +had been chiefly males, and the attitude of male Germans towards parsons +is, at its best, one of indulgence. This Lohm restricted his dealings +with him, as his father had done before him, to the necessary +deliberations on the treatment of the sick and poor, and to official +meetings in the schoolhouse. He was invariably kind to him, and lent as +willing an ear as his slender purse allowed to applications for +assistance; but the idea of discussing spiritual experiences with him, +or, in times of personal sorrow, of dwelling conversationally on his +griefs, would never have occurred to him. The easy familiarity with +which Manske spoke of the Deity offended his taste. These things, these +sacred and awful mysteries, were the secrets between the soul and its +God. No man, thought Lohm, should dare to touch with profane questioning +the veil shrouding his neighbour's inner life. Manske, however, knew no +fear and no compunction. He would ask the most tremendous questions +between two mouthfuls of pudding, backing himself up with the whole +authority of the Lutheran Church, besides the Scriptures; and if the +poor people and the partly educated liked it, and were edified, and +enjoyed stirring up and talking over their religious emotions almost as +much as they did the latest village scandal, Lohm, who had no taste +either for scandal or emotions, kept the parson at arm's length.</p> + +<p>He thought a good deal about what Manske had told him during the +afternoon. She had gone to the parson, then, for help, because there was +no one else to go to. Poor little thing. He could imagine the sort of +speeches Manske had made her, and the sort of advertisement he would +have told her to write. Poor little thing. Well, what he could do was to +put her in the way of getting a companion as quickly as possible, and a +very sensible, capable woman it ought to be. No wonder she was not to be +past hard work. Work there would certainly be, with twelve women in the +house undergoing the process of being made happy. Lohm could not help +smiling at the plan. He thought of Miss Estcourt courageously trying to +demolish the crust of dejection that had formed in the course of years +over the hearts of her patients, and he trusted that she would not +exhaust her own youth and joyousness in the effort. Perhaps she would +succeed. He did not remember having heard of any scheme quite analogous, +and possibly she would override all obstacles in triumph, and the +patients who entered her home with the burden of their past misery heavy +upon them, would develop in the sunshine of her presence into twelve +riotously jovial ladies. But would not she herself suffer? Would not her +own strength and hopefulness be sapped up by those she benefited? He +could not think that it would be to the advantage of the world at large +to substitute twelve, nay fifty, nay any number of jolly old ladies, for +one girl with such sweet and joyous eyes.</p> + +<p>This, of course, was the purely masculine point of view. The women to be +benefited—why he thought of them as old is not clear, for you need not +be old to be unhappy—would have protested, probably, with indignant +cries that individually they were well worth Miss Estcourt, in any case +were every bit as good as she was, and collectively—oh, absurd.</p> + +<p>He thought of his sister Trudi. Perhaps she knew of some one who would +be both kind and clever, and protect Miss Estcourt in some measure from +the twelve. Trudi's friends, it is true, were not the sort among whom +staid companions are found. Their husbands were chiefly lieutenants, and +they spent their time at races. They lived in flats in Hanover, where +the regiment was quartered, and flats are easy to manage, and none of +these young women would endure, he supposed, to have an elderly +companion always hanging round. Still, there was a remote possibility +that some one of them might be able to recommend a suitable person. If +Trudi were staying with him now she would be a great help; not so much +because of what she would do, but because he could go with her to +Kleinwalde, and Miss Estcourt could come to his house when she wanted +anything, and need not depend solely on the parson. It was his duty, +considering old Joachim's unchanging kindness towards him, and the pains +the old man had taken to help him in the management of his estate, and +to encourage him at a time when he greatly needed help and +encouragement, to do all that lay in his power for old Joachim's niece. +When he heard that she was coming he had decided that this was his plain +duty: that she was so pretty, so adorably pretty and simple and friendly +only made it an unusually pleasant one. "I will write to Trudi," he +thought, "and ask her to come over for a week or two."</p> + +<p>He sat down at his writing-table in the big window overlooking the +farmyard, and began the letter. But he felt that it would be absurd to +ask her to come on Miss Estcourt's account. Why should she do anything +for Miss Estcourt, and why should he want his sister to do anything for +her? That would be the first thing that would strike the astute Trudi. +So he merely wrote reminding her that she had not stayed with him since +the previous summer, and suggested that she should come for a few days +with her children, now that the spring was coming and the snow had gone. +"The woods will soon be blue with anemones," he wrote, though he well +knew that Trudi's attitude towards anemones was cold. Perhaps her little +boys would like to pick them; anyhow, some sort of an inducement had to +be held out.</p> + +<p>Outside his window was a duck-pond, thin sheets of ice still floating in +broken pieces on its surface; behind the duck-pond was the dairy; and on +either side of the yard were cow-sheds and pig-styes. The farm carts +stood in a peaceful Sunday row down one side, and at the other end of +the yard, shutting out the same view of the sea and island that Anna saw +from her bedroom window, was a mountainous range of manure. When Trudi +came, she never entered the rooms on this side of the house, because, as +she explained, it was one of her peculiarities not to like manure; and +she slept and ate and aired her opinions on the west side, where the +garden lay between the house and the road. She never would have come to +Lohm at all, not being burdened with any undue sentiment in regard to +ties of blood, if it had not been necessary to go somewhere in the +summer, and if the other places had not been beyond the resources of the +family purse, always at its emptiest when the racing season was over and +the card-playing at an end. As it was, this was a cheap and convenient +haven, and her brother Axel was kind to the little boys, and not too +angry when they plundered his apple-trees, damaged the knees of his +ponies, and did their best to twist off the tails of his disconcerted +sucking-pigs.</p> + +<p>He was the eldest of three brothers, and she came last. She was +twenty-six, and he was ten years older. When the father died, the land +ought properly to have been divided between the four children, but such +a proceeding would have been extremely inconvenient, and the two younger +brothers, and the sister just married, agreed to accept their share in +money, and to leave the estate entirely to Axel. It was the best course +to take, but it threw Axel into difficulties that continued for years. +His father, with four times the money, had lived very comfortably at +Lohm, and the children had been brought up in prosperity. For eight +years his eldest son had farmed the estate with a quarter the means, and +had found it so far from simple that his hair had turned grey in the +process. It needed considerable skill and vigilance to enable a man to +extract a decent living from the soil of Lohm. Part of it was too boggy, +and part of it too sandy, and the trees had all been cut down thirty +years before by a bland grandfather, serenely indifferent to the opinion +of posterity. Axel's first work had been to make plantations of young +firs and pines wherever the soil was poorest, and when he rode through +the beautiful Kleinwalde forest he endeavoured to extract what pleasure +he could from the thought that in a hundred years Lohm too would have a +forest. But the pleasure to be extracted from this thought was of a +surprisingly subdued quality. All his pleasures were of a subdued +quality. His days were made up of hard work, of that effort to induce +both ends to meet which knocks the savour out of life with such a +singular completeness. He was born with an uncomfortably exact +conception of duty; and now at the end of the best half of his life, +after years of struggling on that poor soil against the odds of that +stern climate, this conception had shaped itself into a fixed belief +that the one thing entirely beautiful, the one thing wholly worthy of a +man's ambition, is the right doing of his duty. So, he thought, shall a +man have peace at the last.</p> + +<p>It is a way of thinking common to the educated dwellers in solitary +places, who have not been very successful. Trudi scorned it. "Peace," +she said, "at the last, is no good at all. What one wants is peace at +the beginning and in the middle. But you only think stuff like that +because you haven't got enough money. Poor people always talk about the +beauty of duty and peace at the last. If somebody left you a fortune +you'd never mention either of them again. Or if you married a girl with +money, now. I wish, I do wish, that <i>that</i> duty would strike you as the +one thing wholly worth doing."</p> + +<p>But a man who is all day and every day in his fields, who farms not for +pleasure but for his bare existence, has no time to set out in search of +girls with money, and none came up his way. Besides, he had been engaged +a few years before, and the girl had died, and he had not since had the +least inclination towards matrimony. After that he had worked harder +than ever; and the years flew by, filled with monotonous labour. +Sometimes they were good years, and the ends not only met but lapped +over a little; but generally the bare meeting of the ends was all that +he achieved. His wish was that his brother Gustav who came after him +should find the place in good order; if possible in better order than +before. But the working up of an estate for a brother Gustav, with +whatever determination it may be carried on, is not a labour that evokes +an unflagging enthusiasm in the labourer; and Axel, however beautiful a +life of duty might be to him in theory, found it, in practice, of an +altogether remarkable greyness. Two-thirds of his house were shut up. In +the evenings his servants stole out to court and be courted, and left +the place to himself and echoes and memories. It was a house built for a +large family, for troops of children, and frequent friends. Axel sat in +it alone when the dusk drove him indoors, defending himself against his +remembrances by prolonged interviews with his head inspector, or a +zealous study of the latest work on potato diseases.</p> + +<p>"I see that Bibi Bornstedt is staying with your Regierungspräsident," +Trudi had written a little while before. "Now, then, is your chance. She +is a true gold-fish. You cannot continue to howl over Hildegard's memory +for ever. Bibi will have two hundred thousand marks a year when the old +ones die, and is quite a decent girl. Her nose is a fiasco, but when you +have been married a week you will not so much as see that she has a +nose. And the two hundred thousand marks will still be there. <i>Ach</i>, +Axel, what comfort, what consolation, in two hundred thousand marks! You +could put the most glorious wreaths on Hildegard's tomb, besides keeping +racehorses."</p> + +<p>Lohm suddenly remembered this letter as he sat, having finished his own, +looking out of the window at two girls in Sunday splendour kissing one +of the stable boys behind a farm cart. They were all three apparently +enjoying themselves very much, the girls laughing, the boy with an +expression at once imbecile and beatific. They thought the master's eye +could not see them there, but the master's eye saw most things. He took +up his pen again and added a postscript. "If you come soon you will be +able to enjoy the society of your friend Bibi. She came on Wednesday, I +believe." Then, feeling slightly ashamed of using the innocent Miss Bibi +as a bait to catch his sister, he wrote the advertisement for Anna, and +put both letters in the post-bag.</p> + +<p>The effect of his postscript was precisely the one he had expected. +Trudi was drinking her morning coffee in her bedroom at twelve o'clock, +when the letter came. Her hair was being done by a <i>Friseur</i>, an artist +in hairdressing, who rode about Hanover every day on a bicycle, his +pockets bulging out with curling-tongs, and for three marks decorated +the heads of Trudi and her friends with innumerable waves. Trudi was +devoted to him, with the devotion naturally felt for the person on whom +one's beauty depends, for he was a true artist, and really did work +amazing transformations. "What! You have never had Herr Jungbluth?" +Trudi cried, on the last occasion on which she met Bibi, the daughter of +a Hanover banker, and quite outside her set but for the riches that +ensured her an enthusiastic welcome wherever she went, "<i>aber</i> Bibi!" +There was so much genuine surprise and compassion in this "<i>aber</i> Bibi" +that the young person addressed felt as though she had been for years +missing a possibility of happiness. Trudi added, as a special +recommendation, that Jungbluth smelt of soap. He had carefully studied +the nature of women, and if he had to do with a pretty one would find an +early opportunity of going into respectful raptures over what he +described as her <i>klassisches Profil</i>; and if it was a woman whose face +was not all she could have wished, he would tell her, in a tone of +subdued enthusiasm, that her profile, as to which she had long been in +doubt, was <i>höchst interessant</i>. The popularity of this young man in +Trudi's set was enormous; and as all the less aristocratic Hanoverian +ladies hastened to imitate, Jungbluth lived in great contentment and +prosperity with a young wife whose hair was reposefully straight, and a +baby whose godmother was Trudi.</p> + +<p>"Blue woods! Anemones!" read Trudi with immense contempt. "Is the boy in +his senses? The idea of expecting me to go to that dreary place now. Ah, +now I understand," she added, turning the page, "it is Bibi—he is +really after her, and of course can get along quicker if I am there to +help. Excellent Axel! And why did he go to the pains of trotting out the +anemones? What is the use of not being frank with me? I can see through +him, whatever he does. He is so good-natured that I am sure he will lend +us heaps of Bibi's money once he has got it. <i>So, lieber Jungbluth</i>," +she said aloud, "that will do to-day. Beautiful—beautiful—better than +ever. I am in a hurry. I travel to Berlin this very afternoon."</p> + +<p>And the next day she arrived at Stralsund, and was met by her brother at +the station.</p> + +<p>She greeted him with enthusiasm. "As we are here," she said, when they +were driving through the town, "let us pay our respects to the +Regierungspräsidentin. It will save our coming in again to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"No, I cannot to-day. I must get back as quickly as possible. The hands +had their Easter ball yesterday, and when I left Lohm this morning half +of them were still in bed."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, the horses will have to do the journey again to-morrow, for +no time should be lost."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you can come in to-morrow, if you long so much to see your +friend."</p> + +<p>"And you?" asked Trudi, in a tone of astonishment.</p> + +<p>"And I? I am up to my ears now in work. Last week was the first week for +four months that we could plough. Now we have lost these three days at +Easter. I cannot spare a single hour."</p> + +<p>"But, my dear Axel, Bibi is of far greater importance for the future of +Lohm than any amount of ploughing."</p> + +<p>"I confess I do not see how."</p> + +<p>"I don't understand you."</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you bring the little boys?"</p> + +<p>"What have you asked me to come here for?"</p> + +<p>"Come, Trudi, you've not been near me for eight months. Isn't it natural +that you should pay me a little visit?"</p> + +<p>"No, it isn't natural at all to come to such a place in winter, and +leave all the fun at home. I came because of Bibi."</p> + +<p>"What! You'll come for Bibi, but not for your own brother?"</p> + +<p>"Now, Axel, you know very well that I have come for you both."</p> + +<p>"For us both? What would Miss Bibi say if she heard you talking of +herself and of me as 'you both'?"</p> + +<p>"I wish you would not bother to go on like this. It's a great waste of +time."</p> + +<p>"So it is, my dear. Any talk about Bibi Bornstedt, as far as I am +concerned, is a hopeless waste of time."</p> + +<p>"Axel!"</p> + +<p>"Trudi?"</p> + +<p>"You don't mean to say that you are not thinking of her?"</p> + +<p>"Thinking of her? I never let my thoughts linger round strange young +ladies."</p> + +<p>"Then what in heaven's name have you got me here for?"</p> + +<p>"The anemones are coming out——"</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach</i>——"</p> + +<p>"They really are."</p> + +<p>"Suppose instead of teasing me as though I were still ten and you a +great bully, you talked sensibly. The Hohensteins give a <i>bal masqué</i> +to-night, and I gave it up to come to you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear, that was really kind," said Lohm, touched by the +tremendousness of this sacrifice.</p> + +<p>"Then be a good boy," said Trudi caressingly, edging herself closer to +him, "and tell me you are going to be wise about Bibi. Don't throw such +a chance away—it's positively wicked."</p> + +<p>"My dear Trudi, you'll have us in the ditch. It is very nice when you +lean against me, but I can't drive. By the way, you remember my old +Kleinwalde neighbour? The old man who spoilt you so atrociously?"</p> + +<p>"Bibi will make a most excellent wife," said Trudi, ungratefully +indifferent to the memory of old Joachim. "Oh, what a cold wind there is +to-day. Do drive faster, Axel. What a taste, to live here and to like it +into the bargain!"</p> + +<p>"You know that I must live here."</p> + +<p>"But you needn't like it."</p> + +<p>"You've heard that old Joachim left Kleinwalde to his English niece?"</p> + +<p>"You have only seen Bibi once, and she grows on one tremendously."</p> + +<p>"I want to talk about old Joachim."</p> + +<p>"And I want to talk about Bibi."</p> + +<p>"Well, Bibi can wait. She is the younger. You know about the old man's +will?"</p> + +<p>"I should think I did. One of his unfortunate sons has just joined our +regiment. You should hear him on the subject."</p> + +<p>"A most disagreeable, grasping lot," said Lohm decidedly. "They received +every bit of their dues, and are all well off. Surely the old man could +do as he liked with the one place that was not entailed?"</p> + +<p>"It isn't the usual thing to leave one's land to a foreigner. Is she +coming to live in it?"</p> + +<p>"She came last week."</p> + +<p>"Oh?" This in a tone of sudden interest.</p> + +<p>There was a pause. Then Trudi said, "Is she young?"</p> + +<p>"Quite young."</p> + +<p>"Pretty?"</p> + +<p>"Exceedingly pretty."</p> + +<p>Trudi looked up at him and smiled.</p> + +<p>"Well?" said Axel, smiling back at her.</p> + +<p>"Well?" said Trudi, continuing to smile.</p> + +<p>Axel laughed outright. "My dear Trudi, your astuteness terrifies me. You +not only know already why I wrote to you, but you know more reasons for +the letter than I myself dream of. I want to be able to help this +extremely helpless young lady, and I can hardly be of any use to her +because I have no woman in the house. If I had a wife I could be of the +greatest assistance."</p> + +<p>"Only then you wouldn't want to be."</p> + +<p>"Certainly I should."</p> + +<p>"Pray, why?"</p> + +<p>"Because I have a greater debt of obligations to her uncle than I can +ever repay to his niece."</p> + +<p>"Oh, nonsense—nobody pays their debts of obligations. The natural thing +to do is to hate the person who has forced you to be grateful, and to +get out of his way."</p> + +<p>"My dear Trudi, this shrewdness——" murmured her brother. Then he +added, "I know perfectly well that your thoughts have already flown to a +wedding. Mine don't reach farther than an elderly companion."</p> + +<p>"Who for? For you?"</p> + +<p>"Miss Estcourt is looking for an elderly companion, and I would be +grateful to you if you would help her."</p> + +<p>"But the elderly companion does not exclude the wedding."</p> + +<p>"When you see Miss Estcourt you will understand how completely such a +possibility is outside her calculations. You won't of course believe +that it is outside mine. Why should you want to marry me to every girl +within reach? Five minutes ago it was Bibi, and now it is Miss Estcourt. +You do not in the least consider what views the girls themselves might +have. Miss Estcourt is absorbed at this moment in a search for twelve +old ladies."</p> + +<p>"Twelve——?"</p> + +<p>"Her ambition is to spend herself and her money on twelve old ladies. +She thinks happiness and money are as good for them as for herself, and +wants to share her own with persons who have neither."</p> + +<p>"My dear Axel—is she mad?"</p> + +<p>"She did not give me that impression."</p> + +<p>"And you say she is young?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And really pretty?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And could be so well off in that flourishing place!"</p> + +<p>"Of course she could."</p> + +<p>"I'll go and call on her to-morrow," said Trudi decidedly.</p> + +<p>"It will be kind of you," said Lohm.</p> + +<p>"Kind! It isn't kindness, it's curiosity," said Trudi with a laugh. "Let +us be frank, and call things by their right names."</p> + +<p>Anna was in the garden, admiring the first crocus, when Trudi appeared. +She drove Axel's cobs up to the door in what she felt was excellent +style, and hoped Miss Estcourt was watching her from a window and would +see that Englishwomen were not the only sportswomen in the world. But +Anna saw nothing but the crocus.</p> + +<p>The wilderness down to the marsh that did duty as a garden was so +sheltered and sunny that spring stopped there first each year before +going on into the forest; and Anna loved to walk straight out of the +drawing-room window into it, bare-headed and coatless, whenever she had +time. Trudi saw her coming towards the house upon the servant's telling +her that a lady had called. "Nothing on, on a cold day like this!" she +thought. She herself wore a particularly sporting driving-coat, with an +immense collar turned up over her ears. "I wonder," mused Trudi, +watching the approaching figure, "how it is that English girls, so tidy +in the clothes, so trim in the shoes, so neat in the tie and collar, +never apparently brush their hair. A German Miss Estcourt vegetating in +this quiet place would probably wear grotesque and disconnected +garments, doubtful boots and striking stockings, her figure would +rapidly give way before the insidiousness of <i>Schweinebraten</i>, but her +hair would always be beautifully done, each plait smooth and in its +proper place, each little curl exactly where it ought to be, the parting +a model of straightness, and the whole well deserving to be dignified by +the name <i>Frisur</i>. English girls have hair, but they do not have +<i>Frisurs</i>."</p> + +<p>Anna came in through the open window, and Trudi's face expanded into the +most genial smiles. "How glad I am to make your acquaintance!" she cried +enthusiastically. She spoke English quite as correctly as her brother, +and much more glibly. "I hope you will let me help you if I can be of +any use. My brother says your uncle was so good to him. When I lived +here he was very kind to me too. How brave of you to stay here! And what +wonderful plans you have made! My brother has told me about your twelve +ladies. What courage to undertake to make twelve women happy. I find it +hard enough work making one person happy."</p> + +<p>"One person? Oh, Graf Hasdorf."</p> + +<p>"Oh no, myself. You see, if each person devoted his energies to making +himself happy, everybody would be happy."</p> + +<p>"No, they wouldn't," said Anna, "because they do, but they're not."</p> + +<p>They looked at each other and laughed. "She only needs Jungbluth to be +perfect," thought Trudi; and with her usual impulsiveness began +immediately to love her.</p> + +<p>Anna was delighted to meet someone of her own class and age after the +severe though short course she had had of Dellwigs and Manskes; and +Trudi was so much interested in her plans, and so pressing in her offers +of help, that she very soon found herself telling her all her +difficulties about servants, sheets, wall-papers, and whitewash. "Look +at this paper," she said, "could you live in the same room with it? No +one will ever be able to feel cheerful as long as it is here. And the +one in the dining-room is worse."</p> + +<p>"It isn't beautiful," said Trudi, examining it, "but it is what we call +<i>praktisch</i>."</p> + +<p>"Then I don't like what you call <i>praktisch</i>."</p> + +<p>"Neither do I. All the hideous things are <i>praktisch</i>—oil-cloth, black +wall-papers, handkerchiefs a yard square, thick boots, ugly women—if +ever you hear a woman praised as a <i>praktische Frau</i>, be sure she's +frightful in every way—ugly and dull. The uglier she is the +<i>praktischer</i> she is. Oh," said Trudi, casting up her eyes, "how +terrible, how tragic, to be an ugly woman!" Then, bringing her gaze down +again to Anna's face, she added, "My flat in Hanover is all pinks and +blues—the most becoming rooms you can imagine. I look so nice in them."</p> + +<p>"Pinks and blues? That is just what I want here. Can't I get any in +Stralsund?"</p> + +<p>Trudi was doubtful. She could not think it possible that anybody should +ever get anything in Stralsund.</p> + +<p>"But I must do my shopping there. I am in such a hurry. It would be +dreadful to have to keep anyone waiting only because my house isn't +ready."</p> + +<p>"Well, we can try," said Trudi. "You will let me go with you, won't +you?"</p> + +<p>"I shall be more than grateful if you will come."</p> + +<p>"What do you think if we went now?" suggested Trudi, always for prompt +action, and quickly tired of sitting still. "My brother said I might +drive into Stralsund to-day if I liked, and I have the cobs here now. +Don't you think it would be a good thing, as you are in such a hurry?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, a very good thing," exclaimed Anna. "How kind you are! You are sure +it won't bore you frightfully?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, not a bit. It will be rather amusing to go into those shops for +once, and I shall like to feel that I have helped the good work on a +little."</p> + +<p>Anna thought Trudi delightful. Trudi's new friends always did think her +delightful; and she never had any old ones.</p> + +<p>She drove recklessly, and they lurched and heaved through the sand +between Kleinwalde and Lohm at an alarming rate. They passed Letty and +Miss Leech, going for their afternoon walk, who stood on one side and +stared.</p> + +<p>"Who's that?" asked Trudi.</p> + +<p>"My brother's little girl and her governess."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, I heard about them. They are to stay and take care of you till +you have a companion. Your sister-in-law didn't like Kleinwalde?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>Trudi laughed.</p> + +<p>They passed Dellwig, riding, who swept off his hat with his customary +deference, and stared.</p> + +<p>"Do you like him?" asked Trudi.</p> + +<p>"Who?"</p> + +<p>"Dellwig. I know him from the days before I married."</p> + +<p>"I don't know him very well yet," said Anna, "but he seems to be +very—very polite."</p> + +<p>Trudi laughed again, and cracked her whip.</p> + +<p>"My uncle had great faith in him," said Anna, slightly aggrieved by the +laugh.</p> + +<p>"Your uncle was one of the best farmers in Germany, I have always heard. +He was so experienced, and so clever, that he could have led a hundred +Dellwigs round by the nose. Dellwig was naturally quite small, as we +say, in the presence of your uncle. He knew very well it would be +useless to be anything but immaculate under such a master. Perhaps your +uncle thought he would go on being immaculate from sheer habit, with +nobody to look after him."</p> + +<p>"I suppose he did," said Anna doubtfully. "He told me to keep him. It's +quite certain that <i>I</i> can't look after him."</p> + +<p>They passed Axel Lohm, also riding. He was on Trudi's side of the road. +He looked pleased when he saw Anna with his sister. Trudi whipped up the +cobs, regardless of his feelings, and tore past him, scattering the sand +right and left. When she was abreast of him, she winked her eye at him +with perfect solemnity.</p> + +<p>Axel looked stony.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + + +<p>Neither Trudi nor Anna had ever worked so hard as they did during the +few days that ended March and began April. Everything seemed to happen +at once. The house was in a sudden uproar. There were people +whitewashing, people painting, people putting up papers, people bringing +things in carts from Stralsund, people trimming up the garden, people +coming out to offer themselves as servants, Dellwig coming in and +shouting, Manske coming round and glorifying—Anna would have been +completely bewildered if it had not been for Trudi, who was with her all +day long, going about with a square of lace and muslin tucked under her +waist-ribbon which she felt was becoming and said was an apron.</p> + +<p>Trudi was enjoying herself hugely. She saw Jungbluth's waves slowly +straightening themselves out of her hair, and for the first time in her +life remained calm as she watched them go. She even began to have +aspirations towards Uncle Joachim's better life herself, and more than +once entered into a serious consideration of the advantages that might +result from getting rid at one stroke of Bill her husband, and Billy and +Tommy her two sons, and from making a fresh start as one of Anna's +twelve.</p> + +<p>Frau Manske and Frau Dellwig could not face her infinite +superciliousness more than once, and kept out of the way in spite of +their burning curiosity. When Dellwig's shouts became intolerable, she +did not hesitate to wince conspicuously and to put up her hand to her +head. When Manske forgot that it was not Sunday, and began to preach, +she would interrupt him with a brisk "<i>Ja, ja, sehr schön, sehr schön, +aber lieber Herr Pastor</i>, you must tell us all this next Sunday in +church when we have time to listen—my friend has not a minute now in +which to appreciate the opinions of the <i>Apostel Paulus</i>."</p> + +<p>"I believe you are being unkind to my parson," said Anna, who could not +always understand Trudi's rapid German, but saw that Manske went away +dejected.</p> + +<p>"My dear, he must be kept in his place if he tries to come out of it. +You don't know what a set these pastors are. They are not like your +clergymen. If you are too kind to that man you'll have no peace. I +remember in my father's time he came to dinner every Sunday, sat at the +bottom of the table, and when the pudding appeared made a bow and went +away."</p> + +<p>"He didn't like pudding?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know if he liked it or not, but he never got any. It was a good +old custom that the pastor should withdraw before the pudding, and Axel +has not kept it up. My father never had any bother with him."</p> + +<p>"But what has the pudding that he didn't get ten years ago to do with +your being unkind to him now?"</p> + +<p>"I wanted to explain the proper footing for him to be on."</p> + +<p>"And the proper footing is a puddingless one? Well, in my house neither +pudding nor kindness in suitable quantities shall be withheld from him, +so don't ill-use him more than you feel is absolutely necessary for his +good."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you are a dear little thing!" said Trudi, putting her hands on +Anna's shoulders and looking into her eyes—they were both tall young +women, and their eyes were on a level—"I wonder what the end of you +will be. When you know all these people better you'll see that my way of +treating them, which you think unkind, is the only way. You must turn up +your nose as high as it will go at them, and they will burst with +respect. Don't be too friendly and confiding—they won't understand it, +and will be sure to think that something must be wrong about you, and +will begin to backbite you, and invent all sorts of horrid stories about +you. And as for the pastor, why should he be allowed to treat your rooms +as though they were so many pulpits, and you as though you had never +heard of the <i>Apostel Paulus</i>?"</p> + +<p>Anna admitted that she was not always in the proper frame of mind for +these unprovoked sermons, but refused to believe in the necessity for +turning up her nose. She ostentatiously pressed Manske, the very next +time he came, to stay to the evening meal, which was rather of the +nature of a picnic in those unsettled days, but at which, for Letty's +sake, there was always a pudding; and she invited him to eat pudding +three times running, and each time he accepted the offer; and each time, +when she had helped him, she fixed her eyes with a defiant gravity on +Trudi's face.</p> + +<p>Axel came in sometimes when he had business at the farm, and was shown +what progress had been made. Trudi was as interested as though it had +been her own house, and took him about, demanding his approval and +admiration with an enthusiasm that spread to Anna, and she and Axel soon +became good friends. The Stralsund wall-papers were so dreadful that +Anna had declared she would have most of the rooms whitewashed; the hall +had been done, exchanging its pea-green coat for one of virgin purity, +and she had thought it so fresh and clean, and so appropriate to the +simplicity of the better life, that to the amazement of the workmen she +insisted on the substitution of whitewash in both dining and +drawing-room for the handsome chocolate-coloured papers already in those +rooms.</p> + +<p>"The twelve will think it frightful," said Trudi.</p> + +<p>"But why?" asked Anna, who had fallen in love with whitewash. "It is +purity itself. It will be symbolical of the innocence and cleanliness +that will be in our hearts when we have got used to each other, and are +happy."</p> + +<p>Trudi looked again at the hall, into which the afternoon sun was +streaming. It did look very clean, certainly, and exceedingly cheerful; +she was sure, however, that it would never be symbolical of any heart +that came into it. But then Trudi was sceptical about hearts.</p> + +<p>At the end of Easter week, when Trudi was beginning to feel slightly +tired of whitewash and scrambled meals, and to have doubts as to the +permanent becomingness of aprons, and misgivings as to the effect on her +complexion of running about a cold house all day long, answers to the +advertisements began to arrive, and soon arrived in shoals. These +letters acted as bellows on the flickering flame of her zeal. She found +them extraordinarily entertaining, and would meet Manske in the hall +when he brought them round, and take them out of his hands, and run with +them to Anna, leaving him standing there uncertain whether he ought to +stay and be consulted, or whether it was expected of him that he should +go home again without having unburdened himself of all the advice he +felt that he contained. He deplored what he called <i>das impulsive +Temperament</i> of the Gräfin. Always had she been so, since the days she +climbed his cherry-trees and helped the birds to strip them; and when, +with every imaginable precaution, he had approached her father on the +subject, and carefully excluding the word cherry hinted that the +climbing of trees was a perilous pastime for young ladies, old Lohm had +burst into a loud laugh, and had sworn that neither he nor anyone else +could do anything with Trudi. He actually had seemed proud that she +should steal cherries, for he knew very well why she climbed the trees, +and predicted a brilliant future for his only daughter; to which Manske +had listened respectfully as in duty bound, and had gone home +unconvinced.</p> + +<p>But Anna did not let him stand long in the hall, and came to fetch him +and beg him to help her read the letters and tell her what he thought of +them. In spite of Trudi's advice and example she continued to treat the +pastor with the deference due to a good and simple man. What did it +matter if he talked twice as much as he need have done, and wearied her +with his habit of puffing Christianity as though it were a quack +medicine of which he was the special patron? He was sincere, he really +believed something, and really felt something, and after five days with +Trudi Anna turned to Manske's elementary convictions with relief. In +five days she had come to be very glad that Trudi stood in no need of a +place among the twelve.</p> + +<p>Most of the women who wrote in answer to the advertisement sent +photographs, and their letters were pitiful enough, either because of +what they said or because of what they tried to hide; and Anna's +appreciation of Trudi received a great shock when she found that the +letters amused her, and that the photographs, especially those of the +old ones or the ugly ones, moved her to a mirth little short of +unseemly. After all, Trudi was taking a great deal upon herself, Anna +thought, reading the letters unasked, helping her to open them unasked, +hurrying down to fetch them unasked, and deluging her with advice about +them unasked. She saw she had made a mistake in allowing her to see them +at all. She had no right to expose the petitions of these unhappy +creatures to Trudi's inquisitive and diverted eyes. This fact was made +very patent to her when one of the letters that Trudi opened turned out +to be from a person she had known. "Why," cried Trudi, her face +twinkling with excitement, "here's one from a girl who was at school +with me. And her photo, too—what a shocking scarecrow she has grown +into! She is only two years older than I am, but might be forty. Just +look at her—and she used to think none of us were good enough for her. +Don't have her, whatever you do—she married one of the officers in +Bill's first regiment, and treated him so shamefully that he shot +himself. Imagine her boldness in writing like this!" And she began +eagerly to read the letter.</p> + +<p>Anna got up and took it out of her hands. It was an unexpected action, +or Trudi would have held on tighter. "She never dreamed you would see +what she wrote," said Anna, "and it would be dishonourable of me to let +you. And the other letters too—I have been thinking it over—they are +only meant for me; and no one else, except perhaps the parson, ought to +see them."</p> + +<p>"Except perhaps the parson!" cried Trudi, greatly offended. "And why +except perhaps the parson?"</p> + +<p>"I can't always read the German writing," explained Anna.</p> + +<p>"But surely a woman of your own age, who isn't such a simpleton as the +parson, is the best adviser you can have."</p> + +<p>"But you laugh at the letters, and they are all so unhappy."</p> + +<p>Trudi went back to Lohm early that day. "She has taken it into her head +that I am not to read the letters," she said to her brother with no +little indignation.</p> + +<p>"It would be a great breach of confidence if she allowed you to," he +replied; which was so unsatisfactory that she drove into Stralsund that +very afternoon, and consoled herself with the pliable Bibi.</p> + +<p>Bibi's nose seemed more unsuccessful than ever after having had Anna's +before her for nearly a week; but then the richness of the girl! And +such a good-natured, generous girl, who would adore her sister-in-law +and make her presents. Contemplating the good Bibi in her afternoon +splendour from Paris, Trudi's heart stirred within her at the thought of +all that was within Axel's reach if only he could be induced to put out +his hand and take it. Anna would never marry him, Trudi was +certain—would never marry anyone, being completely engrossed by her +philanthropic follies; but if she did, what was her probable income +compared to Bibi's? And Axel would never look at Bibi so long as that +other girl lived next door to him; nobody could expect him to. Anna was +too pretty; it was not fair. And Bibi was so very plain; which was not +fair either.</p> + +<p>The Regierungspräsidentin, a cousin by marriage of Bibi's, but a member +of an ancient family of the Mark, was delighted to see Trudi and to +question her about the new and eccentric arrival. Trudi had offered to +take Anna to call on this lady, and had explained that it was her duty +to call; but Anna had said there was no hurry, and had talked of some +day, and had been manifestly bored by the prospect of making new +acquaintances.</p> + +<p>"Is she quite—quite in her right senses?" asked the +Regierungspräsidentin, when Trudi had described all they had been doing +in Anna's house, and all Anna meant to do with her money, and had made +her description so smart and diverting that the Regierungspräsidentin, +an alert little lady, with ears perpetually pricked up in the hope of +catching gossip, felt that she had not enjoyed an afternoon so much for +years.</p> + +<p>Bibi sat listening with her mouth wide open. It was an artless way of +hers when she was much interested in a conversation, and was deplored by +those who wished her well.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, she is quite in her senses. Rather too sure she knows best, +always, but quite in her senses."</p> + +<p>"Then she is very religious?"</p> + +<p>"Not in the ordinary way, I should think. She goes in for nature. <i>Gott +in der Natur</i>, and that sort of thing. If the sun shines more than usual +she goes and stands in it, and turns up her eyes and gushes. There's a +crocus in the garden, and when we came to it yesterday she stopped in +front of it and rhapsodised for ten minutes about things that have +nothing to do with crocuses—chiefly about the <i>lieben Gott</i>. And all in +English, of course, and it sounds worse in English."</p> + +<p>"But then, my dear, she <i>is</i> religious?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, the pastor would not call it religion. It's a sort of +huddle-muddle pantheism as far as it is anything at all." From which it +will be seen that Trudi was even more frank about her friends behind +their backs than she was to their faces.</p> + +<p>She drove back to Lohm in a discontented frame of mind. "What's the good +of anything?" was the mood she was in. She had over-tired herself +helping Anna, and she was afraid that being so much in cold rooms and +passages, and washing in hard water, had made her skin coarse. She had +caught sight of herself in a glass as she was leaving the +Regierungspräsidentin, and had been disconcerted by finding that she did +not look as pretty as she felt. Nor was she consoled for this by the +consciousness that she had been unusually amusing at Anna's expense; for +she was only too certain that the Regierungspräsidentin, when repeating +all she had told her to her friends, would add that Trudi Hasdorf had +terribly <i>eingepackt</i>—dreadful word, descriptive of the faded state +immediately preceding wrinkles, and held in just abhorrence by every +self-respecting woman. Of what earthly use was it to be cleverer and +more amusing than other people if at the same time you had <i>eingepackt</i>?</p> + +<p>"What a stupid world it is," thought Trudi, driving along the <i>chaussée</i> +in the early April twilight. A mist lay over the sea, and the pale +sickle of the young moon rose ghost-like above the white shroud. Inland +the stars were faintly shining, and all the earth beneath was damp and +fragrant. It was Saturday evening, and the two bells of Lohm church were +plaintively ringing their reminder to the countryside that the week's +work was ended and God's day came next. "Oh, the stupid world," thought +Trudi. "If I stay here I shall be bored to death—that Estcourt child +and her governess have got on to my nerves—horrid fat child with +turned-in toes, and flabby, boneless woman, only held together by her +hairpins. I am sick of governesses and children—wherever one goes, +there they are. If I go home, there are those noisy little boys and +Fräulein Schultz worrying all day, and then there's that tiresome Bill +coming in to meals. Anna and Bibi are just in the position I would like +to be in—no husbands and children, and lots of money." And staring +straight before her, with eyes dark with envy, she fell into gloomy +musings on the beauty of Bibi's dress, and the blindness of fate, +throwing away a dress like that on a Bibi, when it was so eminently +suited to tall, slim women like herself; and it was fortunate for Axel's +peace that when she reached Lohm the first thing she saw was a letter +from the objectionable Bill telling her to come home, because the +foreign prince who was honorary colonel of the regiment was expected +immediately in Hanover, and there were to be great doings in his honour.</p> + +<p>She left, all smiles, the next morning by the first train.</p> + +<p>"Miss Estcourt will miss you," said Axel, "and will wonder why you did +not say good-bye. I am afraid your journey will be unpleasant, too, +to-day. I wish you had stayed till to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't mind the Sunday people once in a way," said Trudi gaily. +"And please tell Anna how it was I had to go so suddenly. I have started +her, at least, with the workmen and people she wants. I shall see her in +a few weeks again, you know, when Bill is at the manœuvres."</p> + +<p>"A few weeks! Six months."</p> + +<p>"Well, six months. You must both try to exist without me for that time."</p> + +<p>"You seem very pleased to be off," he said, smiling, as she climbed +briskly into the dog-cart and took the reins, while her maid, with her +arms full of bags, was hoisted up behind.</p> + +<p>"Oh, so pleased!" said Trudi, looking down at him with sparkling eyes. +"Princes and parties are jollier any day than whitewash and the better +life."</p> + +<p>"And brothers."</p> + +<p>"Oh—brothers. By the way, I never saw Bibi look better than she did +yesterday. She has improved so much nobody would know——"</p> + +<p>"You will miss your train," said Axel, pulling out his watch.</p> + +<p>"Well, good-bye then, <i>alter Junge</i>. Work hard, do your duty, and don't +let your thoughts linger too much round strange young ladies. They never +do, I think you said? Well, so much the better, for it's no good, no +good, no good!" And Trudi, who was in tremendous spirits, put her whip +to the brim of her hat by way of a parting salute, touched up the cobs, +and rattled off down the drive on the road to Jungbluth and glory. She +turned her head before she finally disappeared, to call back her +oracular "No good!" once again to Axel, who stood watching her from the +steps of his solitary house.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + + +<p>So Anna was left to herself again. She was astonished at the rapidity of +Trudi's movements. Within one week she had heard of her, met her, liked +her, begun to like her less, and lost her. She had flashed across the +Kleinwalde horizon, and left a trail of workmen and new servants behind, +with whom Anna was now occupied, unaided, from morning till night. Miss +Leech and Letty did all they could, but their German being restricted to +quotations from the <i>Erl-König</i> and the <i>Lied von der Glocke</i>, it could +not be brought to bear with any profitable results on the workmen. The +servants, too, were a perplexity to Anna. Their cheapness was +extraordinary, but their quality curious. Her new parlourmaid—for she +felt unequal to coping with German men-servants—wore her arms naked all +day long. Anna thought she had tucked up her sleeves in her zeal for +thoroughness, but when she appeared with the afternoon coffee—the local +tea was undrinkable—she still had bare arms; and, examining her more +closely, Anna saw that it was her usual state, for her dress was +sleeveless. Nor was her want of sleeves her only peculiarity. Anna began +to wonder whether her house would ever be ready for the twelve.</p> + +<p>The answers to the philanthropic advertisement were in a proportion of +fifty to one answer to the advertisement for a companion. There were +fifty ladies without means willing to be idle, to one lady without means +willing to work. It worried Anna terribly, being obliged by want of room +and money to limit the number to twelve. She could hardly bear to read +the letters, knowing that nearly all had to be rejected. "See how many +sad lives are being dragged through while we are so comfortable," she +said to Manske, when he brought round fresh piles of letters to add to +those already heaped on her table.</p> + +<p>He shook his head in perplexity. He was bewildered by the masses of +answers, by the apparent universality of impoverishment and hopelessness +among Christian ladies of good family.</p> + +<p>He could not come himself more than once a day, and the letters arrived +by every post; so in the afternoon he sent Herr Klutz, the young cleric +of poetic promptings, who had celebrated Anna on her arrival in a poem +which for freshness and spontaneousness equalled, he considered, the +best sonnets that had ever been written. What a joy it was to a youth of +imagination, to a poet who thought his features not unlike Goethe's, and +who regarded it as by no means an improbability that his brain should +turn out to be stamped with the same resemblance, to walk daily through +the gleaming, whispering forest, swinging his stick and composing +snatches not unworthy of her of whom they treated, his face towards the +magic <i>Schloss</i> and its enchanted princess, and his pockets full of her +letters! Herr Klutz's coat was clerical, but his brown felt hat and the +flower in his buttonhole were typical of the worldliness within. "A +poet," he assured himself often, "is a citizen of the world, and is not +to be narrowed down to any one circle or creed." But he did not expound +this view to the good man who was helping him to prepare for the +examination that would make him a full-fledged pastor, and received his +frequent blessings, and assisted at prayers and intercessions of which +he was the subject, with outward decorum.</p> + +<p>The first time he brought the letters, Anna received him with her usual +kindness; but there was something in his manner that displeased her, +whether it was self-assurance, or conceit, or a way he had of looking at +her, she could not tell, nor did she waste many seconds trying to +decide; but the next day when he came he was not admitted to her +presence, nor the next after that, nor for some time to come. This +surprised Herr Klutz, who was of Dellwig's opinion that the most +superior woman was not equal to the average man; and take away any +advantage of birth or position or wealth that she might possess, why, +there she was, only a woman, a creature made to be conquered and brought +into obedience to man. Being young and poetic he differed from Dellwig +on one point: to Dellwig, woman was a servant; to Klutz, an admirable +toy. Clearly such a creature could only be gratified by opportunities of +seeing and conversing with members of the opposite sex. The Miss's +conduct, therefore, in allowing her servant to take the letters from him +at the door, puzzled him.</p> + +<p>He often met Miss Leech and Letty on his way to or from Kleinwalde, and +always stopped to speak to them and to teach them a few German sentences +and practise his own small stock of English; and from them he easily +discovered all that the young woman he favoured with his admiration was +doing. Lohm, riding over to Kleinwalde to settle differences between +Dellwig and the labourers, or to try offenders, met these three several +times, and supposed that Klutz must be courting the governess.</p> + +<p>The day Trudi left, Lohm had gone round to Anna and delivered his +sister's message in a slightly embellished form. "You will have +everything to do now unassisted," he said. "I do trust that in any +difficulty you will let me help you. If the workmen are insolent, for +instance, or if your new servants are dishonest or in any way give you +trouble. You know it is my duty as Amtsvorsteher to interfere when such +things happen."</p> + +<p>"You are very kind," said Anna gratefully, looking up at the grave, good +face, "but no one is insolent. And look—here is some one who wants to +come as companion. It is the first of the answers to that advertisement +that pleases me."</p> + +<p>Lohm took the letter and photograph and examined them. "She is a +Penheim, I see," he said. "It is a very good family, but some of its +branches have been reduced to poverty, as so many of our old families +have been."</p> + +<p>"Don't you think she would do very well?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, if she is and does all she says in her letter. You might propose +that she should come at first for a few weeks on trial. You may not like +her, and she may not appreciate philanthropic housekeeping."</p> + +<p>Anna laughed. "I am doubly anxious to get someone soon," she said, +"because my sister-in-law wants Letty and Miss Leech."</p> + +<p>Letty and Miss Leech heaved tragic sighs at this; they had no desire +whatever to go home.</p> + +<p>"Will you not feel rather forlorn when they are gone, and you are quite +alone among strangers?"</p> + +<p>"I shall miss them, but I don't mean to be forlorn," said Anna, smiling.</p> + +<p>"The courage of the little thing!" thought Lohm. "Ready to brave +anything in pursuit of her ideals. It makes one ashamed of one's own +grumblings and discouragements."</p> + +<p>Anna arranged with Frau von Penheim that she should come at once on a +three months' trial; and immediately this was settled she wrote to Susie +to ask what day Letty was to be sent home. She had had no communication +with Susie since that angry lady's departure. To Peter she had written, +explaining her plans and her reasons, and her hopes and yearnings, and +had received a hasty scrawl in reply dated from Estcourt, conveying his +blessing on herself and her scheme. "Susie came straight down here," he +wrote, "because of the Alderton wedding to which she was not asked, and +went to bed. You know, my dear little sister, anything that makes you +happy contents me. I wish you could have seen your way to benefiting +reduced English ladies, for you are a long way off; but of course you +have the house free over there. Don't let Miss Leech leave you till you +are perfectly satisfied with your companion. Yesterday I landed the +biggest——" etc. In a word, Peter, in accordance with his invariable +custom, was on her side.</p> + +<p>The day before Frau von Penheim was to arrive, Susie's answer to Anna's +letter came. Here it is:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Anna</span>,—Your letter surprised me, though I might have known by +now what to expect of you.—Still, I was surprised that you should +not even offer to make the one return in your power for all I have +done for you. As I feel I have a right to some return I don't +hesitate to tell you that I think you ought to keep Letty for a +year or two, or even longer. Even if you kept her till she is +eighteen, and dressed her and fed her (don't feed her too much), it +would only be four years; and what are four years I should like to +know, compared to the fifteen I had you on my hands? I was talking +to Herr Schumpf about her the other day—his bills were so absurd +that I made him take something off—and he said by all means let +her stay in Germany. Everybody speaks German nowadays, and Letty +will pick it up at once in that awful place of yours. I was so ill +when I got back that I went to Estcourt, and had to stay in bed for +days, the doctor coming every day, and sometimes twice. He said he +didn't wonder, when I told him all I had gone through. Peter was +quite sorry for me. Send Miss Leech back. Give her a month's notice +for me the day you get this, and see if you can't find some German +who will go to your place—I can't remember its wretched name +without looking in my address book—and give Letty lessons every +day. The rest of the time she can talk German to your twelve +victims. I believe masters in Germany only charge about 6d. an +hour, so it won't ruin you. Make her take lots of exercise, and let +her ride. She has outgrown her old habit, but German tailors are so +cheap that a new one will cost next to nothing, and any horse that +shakes her up well will do. I shall be quite happy about her diet, +because I know you don't have anything to eat. I was at the +Ennistons' last night. They seemed very sorry for me being so +nearly related to somebody cracked; but after all, as I tell +people, I'm not responsible for my husband's relations.—Your +affectionate, <span class="smcap">Susie Estcourt.</span></p> + +<p>"I have never seen Hilton so upset as she was after that German +trip. She cried if anyone looked at her. Poor thing, no wonder. The +doctor says she is all nerves."</p></div> + +<p>The evening meal was in progress at Kleinwalde when this letter came. +The dining-room was finished, and it was the first meal served there +since its transformation. No one who had seen it on that dark day of +Anna's arrival would have recognised it, so cheerful did it look with +its whitewashed walls. There were no dark corners now where china +shepherds smiled in vain; the western light filled it, and to a person +lately come from Susie's Hill Street house, it was a refreshment to sit +in any place so simple and so clean. Reforms, too, had been made in the +food, and the bread was no longer disfigured by caraway seeds. A great +bowl of blue hepaticas, fresh from the forest, stood on the table; and +the hepaticas were the exact colour of Anna's eyes. When Letty saw her +mother's handwriting she turned cold. It was the warrant that was to +banish her from Eden, casting her back into the outer darkness of the +Popular Concerts and the literature lectures. She was in the act of +raising a spoonful of pudding to her already opened mouth, when she +caught sight of the well-known writing. She hesitated, her hand shook, +and finally she laid her spoon down again and pushed her plate back. At +the great crises of life who can go on eating pudding? What then was her +relief and joy to see her aunt get up, come round to where she was +sitting braced to hear the worst, put her arms round her neck, and to +feel herself being kissed. "You are going to stay with me after all!" +cried Anna delightedly. "Dear little Letty—I should have missed you +horribly. Aren't you glad? Your mother says I'm to keep you for ever so +long."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I say—how ripping!" exclaimed Letty; and being a practical person +at once resumed and finished her pudding.</p> + +<p>Miss Leech, too, looked exceedingly pleased. How could she be anything +but pleased at the prospect of staying with a person who was always so +kind and thoughtful as Anna? Her feelings, somehow, were never hurt by +Anna; Lady Estcourt seemed to have a special knack of jumping on them +every time she spoke to her. She knew she ought not to have such +sensitive feelings, and felt that it was more her fault than anyone +else's if they were hurt; yet there they were, and being hurt was +painful, and living with someone so even tempered as Anna was very +peaceful and pleasant. Mr. Jessup would have liked Anna. She wished he +could have known her. A higher compliment it was not in Miss Leech's +power to pay.</p> + +<p>And when Anna saw the pleasure on Miss Leech's face, and saw that she +thought she was to stay too, she felt that for no sister-in-law in the +world would she wipe it out with that month's notice. She decided to say +nothing, but simply to keep her as well as Letty. Her two thousand a +year was in her eyes of infinite elasticity. Never having had any money, +she had no notion of how far it would go; and she did not hesitate to +come to a decision which would probably ultimately oblige her to reduce +the number of those persons Susie described as victims.</p> + +<p>The next day the companion arrived. Anna went out into the hall to meet +her when she heard the approaching wheels of the shepherd-plaid chariot. +She felt rather nervous as she watched her emerging from beneath the +hood, for she knew how much of the comfort and peace of the twelve would +depend on this lady. She felt exceedingly nervous when the lady, +immediately upon shaking hands, asked if she could speak to her alone.</p> + +<p>"<i>Natürlich,</i>" said Anna, a vague fear lest Fritz, the coachman, +should have insulted her on the way coming over her, though she only +knew Fritz as the mildest of men.</p> + +<p>She led the way into the drawing-room. "Now what is she going to tell me +dreadful?" she thought, as she invited her to sit on the sofa, having +been instructed by Trudi that that was the place where strangers +expected to sit. "Suppose she isn't going to stay, and I shall have to +look for someone all over again? Perhaps the lining of the carriage has +been too much for her. <i>Bitte</i>" she said aloud, with an uneasy smile, +motioning Frau von Penheim towards the sofa.</p> + +<p>The new companion was a big, elderly lady with a sensible face. Her +boots were thick, and she wore a mackintosh. She sat down, and looking +more attentively at Anna, smiled. Most people who saw her for the first +time did that. It was such a change and a pleasure after seeing plain +faces, and dull faces, and vain, pretty faces for an indefinite period, +to rest one's eyes on a person so charming yet manifestly preoccupied by +other matters than her charms.</p> + +<p>"I feel it my duty," said the lady in German, "before we go any further +to tell you the truth."</p> + +<p>This was alarming. The lady's manner was solemn. Anna inclined her head, +and felt scared. She wished that Axel Lohm were somewhere near.</p> + +<p>"I see you are young," continued the lady, "and I presume that you are +inexperienced."</p> + +<p>"Not so young," murmured Anna, who felt particularly young and +uncomfortable at that moment, and very unlike the mistress of a house +interviewing a companion. "Not so young—twenty-five."</p> + +<p>"Twenty-five? You do not look it. But what is twenty-five?"</p> + +<p>Anna did not know, so said nothing.</p> + +<p>"My position here would be a responsible one," continued the lady, +scrutinising Anna's face, and smiling again at what she saw there. +"Taking charge of a motherless girl always is. And the circumstances in +this case are peculiar."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Anna, "they are even more peculiar than you imagine——" And +she was about to explain the approaching advent of the victims, when the +lady held up her hand in a masterful way, as though enjoining silence, +and said, "First hear me. Through a series of misfortunes I have been +reduced to poverty since my husband's death. But I do not choose to live +on the charity of relatives, which is the most unbearable form of +charity calling itself by that holy name, and I am determined to work +for my bread."</p> + +<p>She paused. Anna could find nothing better to say than "Oh."</p> + +<p>"Out of consideration for my relatives, who are enraged at my +resolution, and think I ought to starve quietly on what they choose to +give me sooner than make myself conspicuous by working, I have called +myself Frau von Penheim. I will not come here under false pretences, and +to you, privately, I will confess that my proper title is the Princess +Ludwig, of that house."</p> + +<p>She stopped to observe the effect of this announcement. Anna was +confounded. A princess was not at all what she wanted. She felt that she +had no use whatever for princesses. How could she ever expect one to get +up early and see that the twelve received their meat in due season? +"Oh," she said again, and then was silent.</p> + +<p>The princess watched her closely. She was very poor, and very anxious to +have the place. "'Oh' is so English," she said, smiling to hide her +anxiety. "We say '<i>ach</i>!"</p> + +<p>Anna laughed.</p> + +<p>"And do not think that all German princesses are like your English +ones," she went on eagerly. "My father-in-law was raised to the rank of +Fürst for services rendered to the state. He had a large family, and my +husband was a younger son."</p> + +<p>Still Anna was silent. Then she said "I—I wish——" and then stopped.</p> + +<p>"What do you wish, my dear child?"</p> + +<p>"I wish—that I—that you——"</p> + +<p>"That you had known it beforehand? Then you would never have taken me, +even on trial," was the prompt reply.</p> + +<p>Anna's eyes said plainly, "No, I would not."</p> + +<p>"And it is so important that I should find something to do. At first I +answered advertisements in my real name, and received my photograph back +by the next post. This, and the anger of my family, decided me to drop +the title altogether. But I had always resolved that if I did find a +place I would confess to my employer. It is a terrible thing to be very +poor," she added, staring straight before her with eyes growing dim at +her remembrances.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Anna, under her breath.</p> + +<p>"To have nothing, nothing at all, and to be burdened at the same time by +one's birth."</p> + +<p>"Oh," murmured Anna, with a little catch in her voice.</p> + +<p>"And to be dependent on people who only wish that you were safely out of +the way—dead."</p> + +<p>"Married," whispered Anna.</p> + +<p>"Why, what do you know about it?" said the princess, turning quickly to +her; for she had been thinking aloud rather than addressing anyone.</p> + +<p>"I know everything about it," said Anna; and in a rush of bad but eager +German she told her of those old days when even the sweeping of +crossings had seemed better than living on relations, and how since then +all her heart had been filled with pity for the type of poverty called +genteel, and how now that she was well off she was going to help women +who were in the same sad situation in which she had been. Her eyes were +wet when she finished. She had spoken with extraordinary enthusiasm, a +fresh wave of passionate sympathy with such lives passing over her; and +not until she had done did she remember that she had never before seen +this lady, and that she was saying things to her that she had not as yet +said to the most intimate of her friends.</p> + +<p>She felt suddenly uncomfortable; her eyelashes quivered and drooped, and +she blushed.</p> + +<p>The princess contemplated her curiously. "I congratulate you," she said, +laying her hand lightly for a moment on Anna's. "The idea and the good +intentions will have been yours, whatever the result may be."</p> + +<p>This was not very encouraging as a response to an outburst. "I have told +you more than I tell most people," Anna said, looking up shamefacedly, +"because you have had much the same experiences that I have."</p> + +<p>"Except the uncle at the end. He makes such a difference. May I ask if +many of the ladies answered <i>both</i> advertisements?"</p> + +<p>"No, they did not."</p> + +<p>"Not one?"</p> + +<p>"Not one."</p> + +<p>The princess thought that working for one's bread was distinctly +preferable to taking Anna's charity; but then she was of an unusually +sturdy and independent nature. "I can assure you," she said after a +short silence, "that I would do my best to look after your house and +your—your friends and yourself."</p> + +<p>"But I want someone who will do <i>everything</i>—order the meals, train the +servants—everything. And get up early besides," said Anna, her voice +full of doubt. The princess really belonged, she felt, to the category +of sad, sick, and sorry; and if she had asked for a place among the +twelve there would have been little difficulty in giving her one. But +the companion she had imagined was to be a real help, someone she could +order about as she chose, certainly not a person unused to being ordered +about. Even the parson's sister-in-law Helena would have been better +than this.</p> + +<p>"I would do all that, naturally. Do you think if I am not too proud to +take wages that I shall be too proud to do the work for which they are +paid?"</p> + +<p>"Would you not prefer——" began Anna, and hesitated.</p> + +<p>"Would I not prefer what, my child?"</p> + +<p>"Prefer to—would it not be more agreeable for you to come and live here +without working? I could find another companion, and I would be happy if +you will stay here as—as one of the others."</p> + +<p>The princess laughed; a hearty, big laugh in keeping with her big +person.</p> + +<p>"No," she said. "I would not like that at all. But thank you, dear +child, for making the offer. Let me stay here and do what work you want +done, and then you pay me for it, and we are quits. I assure you there +is a solid satisfaction in being quits. I shall certainly not expect any +more consideration than you would give to a Frau Schultz. And I will be +able to take care of you; and I think, if you will not be angry with me +for saying so, that you greatly need taking care of."</p> + +<p>"Well, then," said Anna, with an effort, "let us try it for three +months."</p> + +<p>An immense load was lifted off the princess's heart by these words. "You +will not regret it," she said emphatically.</p> + +<p>But Anna was not so sure. Though she did her best to put a cheerful face +on her new bargain, she could not help fearing that her enterprise had +begun badly. She was unusually pensive throughout the evening.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + + +<p>What the Princess Ludwig thought of her new place it would be difficult +to say. She accepted her position as minister to the comforts of the +hitherto comfortless without remark and entirely as a matter of course. +She got up at hours exemplary in their earliness, and was about the +house rattling a bunch of keys all day long. She was wholly practical, +and as destitute of illusions as she was of education in the ordinary +sense. Her knowledge of German literature was hardly more extensive than +Letty's, and of other tongues and other literatures she knew and cared +nothing. As for illusions, she saw things as they are, and had never at +any period of her life possessed enthusiasms. Nor had she the least +taste for hidden meanings and symbols. Maeterlinck, if she had heard of +him, would have been dismissed by her with an easy smile. Anna's +whitewash to her was whitewash; a disagreeable but economical +wall-covering. She knew and approved of it as cheap; how could she dream +that it was also symbolic? She never dreamed at all, either sleeping or +waking. If by some chance she had fallen into musings, she would have +mused blood and iron, the superiority of the German nation, cookery in +its three forms <i>feine</i>, <i>bürgerliche</i>, and <i>Hausmannskost</i>, in all +which forms she was preëminent in skill—she would have mused, that is, +on facts, plain and undisputed. If she had had children she would have +made an excellent mother; as it was she made excellent cakes—also a +form of activity to be commended. She was a Dettingen before her +marriage, and the Dettingens are one of the oldest Prussian families, +and have produced more first-rate soldiers and statesmen and a larger +number of mothers of great men than any other family in that part. The +Penheims and Dettingens had intermarried continually, and it was to his +mother's Dettingen blood that the first Fürst Penheim owed the +energy that procured him his elevation. Princess Ludwig was a good +example of the best type of female Dettingen. Like many other +illiterates, she prided herself particularly on her sturdy common sense. +Regarding this quality, which she possessed, as more precious than +others which she did not possess, she was not likely to sympathise much +either with Anna's plan for making people happy, or with those who were +willing to be made happy in such a way. A sensible woman, she thought, +will always find work, and need not look far for a home. She herself had +been handicapped in the search by her unfortunate title, yet with +patience even she had found a haven. Only the lazy and lackadaisical, +the morally worthless, that is, would, she was convinced, accept such an +offer as Anna's. It was not, however, her business. Her business was to +look after Anna's house; and she did it with a zeal and thoroughness +that struck terror into the hearts of the maid-servants. Trudi's fitful +energy was nothing to it. Trudi had introduced workmen and chaos; the +princess, with a rapidity and skill little short of amazing to anyone +unacquainted with the capabilities of the well-trained German +<i>Hausfrau</i>, cleared out the workmen and reduced the chaos to order. +Within three weeks the house was ready, and Anna, palpitating, saw the +moment approaching when the first batch of unhappy ones might be +received.</p> + +<p>Manske's time was entirely taken up writing letters of inquiry +concerning the applicants, and it was surprising in what huge batches +they had to be weeded out. Of fifty applications received in one day, +three or four, after due inquiry, would alone remain for further +consideration; and of these three or four, after yet closer inquiry, +sometimes not one would be left.</p> + +<p>At first Anna asked the princess's advice as well as Manske's, and it +was when she was present at the consultations that the heap into which +the letters of the unworthy were gathered was biggest. All those ladies +belonging to the <i>bürgerliche</i> or middle classes were in her eyes wholly +unworthy. If Anna had proposed to take washerwomen into her home, and +required the princess's help in brightening their lives, it would have +been given in the full measure, pressed down and running over, that +befits a Christian gentlewoman; but for the <i>Bürgerlichen</i>, those +belonging to the class more immediately below her own, the princess's +feeling was only Christian so long as they kept a great way off. There +was so much good sense in the objections she made that Anna, who did her +best to keep an open mind and listen attentively to advice, was forced +to agree with her, and added letters to the ever-increasing heap of the +rejected which she might otherwise have reserved for riper +consideration. After two or three days, however, it became clear to her +that if she continued to consult the princess, no one would be accepted +at all, for Manske's respect for that lady was so profound that he was +invariably of her opinion. She did not, therefore, invite her again to +assist at the interviews. Still, all she had said, and the knowledge +that she must know her own countrywomen fairly thoroughly, made Anna +prudent; and so it came about that the first arrivals were to be only +three in number, chosen without reference to the princess, and one of +them was <i>bürgerlich</i>.</p> + +<p>"We can meanwhile proceed with our inquiries about the remaining nine," +said Manske, "and the gracious Miss will be always gaining experience."</p> + +<p>She trod on air during the days preceding the arrival of the chosen. To +say that she was blissful would be but an inadequate description of her +state of mind. The weather was beautiful, and it increased her happiness +tenfold to know that their new life was to begin in sunshine. She had +never a doubt as to their delight in the sun-chequered forest, in the +freshness of the glittering sea, in the peacefulness of the quiet +country life, so quiet that the week seemed to be all Sundays. Were not +these things sufficient for herself? Did she ever tire of those long +pine vistas, with the narrow strip of clearest blue between the gently +waving tree-tops? The dreamy murmur of the forest gave her an exquisite +pleasure. To see the bloom on the pink and grey trunks of the pines, and +the sun on the moss and lichen beneath, was so deep a satisfaction to +her soul that the thought that others who had been knocked about by life +would not feel it too, would not enter with profoundest thankfulness +into this other world of peace, never struck her at all. When these poor +tired women, freed at last from every care and every anxiety, had +refreshed themselves with the music and fragrance of the forest, there +was the garden across the road to enjoy, with the marsh already strewn +with kingcups on the other side of the hedge already turning green; and +the sea with the fishing-smacks passing up and down, and the silver +gleam of gulls' wings circling round the orange sails, and eagles +floating high up aloft, specks in the infinite blue; and then there were +drives along the coast towards the north, where the wholesome wind blew +fresher than in the woods; and quiet evenings in the roomy house, where +all that was asked of them was that they should be happy.</p> + +<p>"It's a lovely plan, isn't it, Letty?" she said joyously, the evening +before they were to arrive, as she stood with her arm round Letty's +shoulder at the bottom of the garden, where they had both been watching +the sails of the fishing-smacks during those short sunset moments when +they looked like the bright wings of spirits moving over the face of the +placid waters.</p> + +<p>"I should rather think it was," replied Letty, who was profoundly +interested.</p> + +<p>They got up at sunrise the next morning, and went out into the forest in +search of hepaticas and windflowers with which to decorate the three +bedrooms. These bedrooms were the largest and pleasantest in the house. +Anna had given up her own because she thought the windows particularly +pleasing, and had gone into a little one in the fervour of her desire to +lavish all that was best on her new friends. The rooms were furnished +with special care, an immense amount of thought having been bestowed on +the colour of the curtains, the pattern of the porcelain, and the books +filling the shelves above each writing-table. The colours and patterns +were the nearest approach Berlin could produce to Anna's own favourite +colours and patterns. She wasted half her time, when the rooms were +ready, sitting in them and picturing what her own delight would have +been if she, like the poor ladies for whom they were intended, had come +straight out of a cold, unkind world into such pretty havens.</p> + +<p>The choice of books had been a great difficulty, and there had been much +correspondence on the subject with Berlin before a selection had been +made. Books there must be, for no room, she thought, was habitable +without them; and she had tried to imagine what manner of literature +would most appeal to her unhappy ones. It was to be presumed that their +ages were such as to exclude frivolity; therefore she bought very few +novels. She thought Dickens translated into German would be a safe +choice; also Schlegel's Shakespeare for loftier moments. The German +classics were represented by Goethe in one room, Schiller in another, +and Heine in the third. In each room also there was a German-English +dictionary, for the facilitation of intercourse. Finally, she asked the +princess to recommend something they would be sure to like, and she +recommended cookery books.</p> + +<p>"But they are not going to cook," said Anna, surprised.</p> + +<p>"<i>Es ist egal</i>—it is always interesting to read good recipes. No other +reading affords me the same pleasure."</p> + +<p>"But only when you want something new cooked."</p> + +<p>"No, no, at all times," insisted the princess.</p> + +<p>Anna could not quite believe that such a taste was general; but in case +one of the three should share it, she put a cookery book in one +bookcase. In the other two severally to balance it, she slipt at the +last moment a volume of Maeterlinck, to which at that period she was +greatly attached; and Matthew Arnold's poems, to which also at that +period she was greatly attached.</p> + +<p>The princess went about with pursed lips while these preparations were +in progress; and when, at sunrise on the last morning, she was awakened +by stealthy footsteps and smothered laughter on the landing outside her +room, and, opening her door an inch and peering out as in duty bound in +case the sounds should be emanating from some unaccountably mirthful +maid-servant, she saw Anna and Letty creeping downstairs with their hats +on and baskets in their hands, she guessed what they were going to do, +and got back into bed with lips more pursed than ever. Did she not know +who had been chosen, and that one of the three was a <i>Bürgerliche</i>?</p> + +<p>About eight o'clock, when the two girls were coming out of the forest +with their baskets full and their faces happy, Axel Lohm was riding +thoughtfully past, having just settled an unpleasant business at +Kleinwalde. Dellwig had sent him an urgent message in the small hours; +there had been a brawl among the labourers about a woman, and a man had +been stabbed. Axel had ordered the aggressor to be locked up in the +little room that served as a temporary prison till he could be handed +over to the Stralsund authorities. His wife, a girl of twenty, was ill, +and she and her three small children depended entirely on the man's +earnings. The victim appeared to be dying, and the man would certainly +be punished. What, then, thought Axel, was to become of the wife and the +children? Frau Dellwig had told him that she sent soup every day at +dinner-time, but soup once a day would neither comfort them nor make +them fat. Besides, he had a notion that the soup of Frau Dellwig's +charity was very thin. He was riding dejectedly enough down the road on +his way home, looking straight before him, his mouth a mere grim line, +thinking how grievous it was that the consequences of sin should fall +with their most terrific weight nearly always on the innocent, on the +helpless women-folk and the weak little children, when Anna and Letty +appeared, talking and laughing, on the edge of the forest.</p> + +<p>Letty, we know, had not been kindly treated by nature, but even she was +a pleasing object in her harmless morning cheerfulness after the faces +he had just seen; and Anna's beauty, made radiant by happiness and +contentment, startled him. He had a momentary twinge, gone almost before +he had realised it, a sudden clear conception of his great loneliness. +The satisfaction he strove to extract from improving his estate for the +benefit of his brother Gustav appeared to him at that moment to bear a +singular resemblance, in its thinness, to Frau Dellwig's charitable +soup. He got off his horse to speak to her, and rested his eyes, tired +by looking at the hideous passions on the brawler's face, on hers. +"To-day is the important day, is it not?" he asked, glancing from her +flower-like face to the flowers.</p> + +<p>"The first three come this afternoon."</p> + +<p>"So Manske told me. You are very happy, I can see," he said, smiling.</p> + +<p>"I never was so happy before."</p> + +<p>"Your uncle was a wise man. He told me he was going to leave you +Kleinwalde because he felt sure you would be happy leading the simple +life here."</p> + +<p>"Did he talk about me to you?"</p> + +<p>"After his last visit to England he talked about you all the time."</p> + +<p>"Oh?" said Anna, looking at him thoughtfully. Uncle Joachim, she +remembered perfectly, had urged two things—the leading of the better +life, and the marrying of a good German gentleman. A faint flush came +into her face and faded again. She had suddenly become aware that Axel +was the good German gentleman he had meant. Well, the wisest uncle was +subject to errors of judgment.</p> + +<p>"I trust those women will not worry you too much," he said, thinking how +immense would be the pity if those happy eyes ever lost their +joyousness.</p> + +<p>"Worry me? Poor things, they won't have any energy of any sort left +after all they have gone through. I never read such pitiful letters."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know," said Axel doubtfully. "Manske says one of them is +a Treumann. It is a family distinguished by its size and its +disagreeableness."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but she only married a Treumann, and isn't one herself."</p> + +<p>"But a woman generally adopts the peculiarities of the family she +marries into, especially if they are unpleasant."</p> + +<p>"But she has been a widow for years. And is so poor. And is so crushed."</p> + +<p>"I never yet heard of a permanently crushed Treumann," said Axel, +shaking his head.</p> + +<p>"You are trying to make me uneasy," said Anna, a slight touch of +impatience in her voice. She was singularly sensitive about her chosen +ones; sensitive in the way mothers are about a child that is deformed.</p> + +<p>"No, no," he said quickly, "I only wish to warn you. You maybe +disappointed—it is just possible." He could not bear to think of her as +disappointed.</p> + +<p>"Pray, do you know anything against the other two?" she asked with some +defiance. "One of them is a Baroness Elmreich, and the other is a +Fräulein Kuhräuber."</p> + +<p>Axel looked amused. "I never heard of Fräulein Kuhräuber," he said. +"What does Princess Ludwig say to her coming?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing at all. What should she say?"</p> + +<p>It was Fräulein Kuhräuber's coming that had more particularly occasioned +the pursing of the princess's lips.</p> + +<p>"I know some Elmreichs," said Axel. "A few of them are respectable; but +one branch at least of the family is completely demoralised. A Baron +Elmreich shot himself last year because he had been caught cheating at +cards. And one of his sisters—oh, well, some of them are harmless, I +believe."</p> + +<p>"Thank you."</p> + +<p>"You are angry with me?"</p> + +<p>"Very."</p> + +<p>"And why?"</p> + +<p>"You want to prejudice me against these poor things. They can't help +what distant relations do. They will get away from them in my house, at +least, and have peace."</p> + +<p>"Miss Letty, is your aunt often—what is the word—so fractious?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know," said Letty, who found it dull waiting in silence +while other people talked. "It's breakfast time, you know, and people +can't stand much just about then."</p> + +<p>"Oh, youthful philosopher!" exclaimed Axel. "So young, and of the female +sex, and yet to have pierced to the very root of human weakness!"</p> + +<p>"Stuff," said Letty, offended.</p> + +<p>"What, are you going to be angry too? Then let me get on my horse and +go."</p> + +<p>"It's the best thing you can do," said Letty, always frank, but doubly +so when she was hungry.</p> + +<p>"Shall you come and see us soon?" Anna asked, gathering up her skirts in +her one free hand, preparatory to crossing the muddy road.</p> + +<p>"But you are angry with me."</p> + +<p>She looked up and laughed. "Not now," she said; "I've finished. Do you +think I'm going to be angry long this pleasant April morning?"</p> + +<p>"I smell the coffee," observed Letty, sniffing.</p> + +<p>"Then I will come to-morrow if I may," said Axel, "and make the +acquaintance of Frau von Treumann and Baroness Elmreich."</p> + +<p>"And Fräulein Kuhräuber," said Anna, with emphasis. She thought she saw +the same tendency in him that was so manifest in the princess, a +tendency to ignore the very existence of any one called Kuhräuber.</p> + +<p>"And Fräulein Kuhräuber," repeated Axel gravely.</p> + +<p>"They've burnt the toast again," said Letty; "I can hear them scraping +off the black."</p> + +<p>"I wish you good luck, then," said Axel, taking off his hat; "with all +my heart I wish you good luck, and that these ladies may very soon be as +happy as you are yourself."</p> + +<p>"That's nice," said Anna, approvingly; "so much, much nicer than the +other things you have been saying." And she nodded to him, all smiles, +as she crossed over to the house and he rode away.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + + +<p>Long before the carriage bringing the three chosen ones from the station +could possibly arrive, Anna and Letty began to wait in the hall, +standing at the windows, going out on to the steps, looking into the +different rooms every few minutes to make sure that everything was +ready. The bedrooms were full of the hepaticas of the morning; the +coffee had been set out with infinite care and an eye to effect by Anna +herself on a little table in the drawing-room by the open window, +through which the mild April air came in and gently fanned the curtains +to and fro; and the princess had baked her best cakes for the occasion, +inwardly deploring, as she did so, that such cakes should be offered to +such people. When she had seen that all was as it should be, she +withdrew into her own room, where she remained darning sheets, for she +had asked Anna to excuse her from being present at the arrival. "It is +better that you should make their acquaintance by yourself," she said. +"The presence of too many strangers at first might disconcert them under +the circumstances."</p> + +<p>Miss Leech profited by this remark, made in her hearing, and did not +appear either; so that when the carriage drove in at the gate only Anna +and Letty were standing at the door in the sunshine.</p> + +<p>Anna's heart bumped so as the three slowly disentangled themselves and +got out, that she could hardly speak. Her face flushed and grew pale by +turns, and her eyes were shining with something suspiciously like tears. +What she wanted to do was to put her arms right round the three poor +ladies, and kiss them, and comfort them, and make up for all their +griefs. What she did was to put out a very cold, shaking hand, and say +in a voice that trembled, "<i>Guten Tag</i>."</p> + +<p>"<i>Guten Tag</i>," said the first lady to descend; evidently, from her +mourning, the widowed Frau von Treumann.</p> + +<p>Anna took her extended hand in both hers, and clasping it tight looked +at its owner with all her heart in her eyes. "<i>Es freut mich so—es +freut mich so</i>," she murmured incoherently.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach</i>—you are Miss Estcourt?" asked the lady in German.</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes," said Anna, still clinging to her hand, "and so happy, so +very happy to see you."</p> + +<p>Frau von Treumann hereupon made some remarks which Anna supposed were of +a grateful nature, but she spoke so rapidly and in such subdued tones, +glancing round uneasily as she did so at the coachman and at the others, +and Anna herself was so much agitated, that what she said was quite +incomprehensible. Again Anna longed to throw her arms round the poor +woman's neck, and interrupt her with kisses, and tell her that gratitude +was not required of her, but only that she should be happy; but she felt +that if she did so she would begin to cry, and tears were surely out of +place on such a joyful occasion, especially as nobody else looked in the +least like crying.</p> + +<p>"You are Frau von Treumann, I know," she said, holding her hand, and +turning to the next one and beaming on her, "and this is Baroness +Elmreich?"</p> + +<p>"No, no," said the third lady quickly, "<i>I</i> am Baroness Elmreich."</p> + +<p>Fräulein Kuhräuber, an ample person whose body, swathed in travelling +cloaks, had blotted out the other little woman, looked frightened and +apologetic, and made deep curtseys.</p> + +<p>Anna shook their hands one after the other with all the warmth that was +glowing in her heart. Her defective German forsook her almost +completely. She did nothing but repeat disconnected ejaculations, "<i>so +reizend—so glücklich—so erfreut</i>——" and fill in the gaps with happy, +quivering smiles at each in turn, and timid little pats on any hand +within her reach.</p> + +<p>Letty meanwhile stood in the shadow of the doorway, wishing that she +were young enough to suck her thumb. It kept on going up to her mouth of +its own accord, and she kept on pulling it down again. This was one of +the occasions, she felt, when the sucking of thumbs is a relief and a +blessing. It gives one's superfluous hands occupation, and oneself a +countenance. She shifted from one foot to the other uneasily, and held +on tight to the rebellious thumb, for the tall lady who had got out +first was fixing her with a stare that chilled her blood. The tall lady, +who was very tall and thin, and had round unblinking dark eyes set close +together like an owl's, and strongly marked black eyebrows, said +nothing, but examined her slowly from the tip of the bow of ribbon +trembling on her head to the buckles of the shoes creaking on her feet. +Ought she to offer to shake hands with her, or ought she to wait to be +shaken hands with, Letty asked herself distractedly. Anyhow it was +rather rude to stare like that. She had always been taught that it was +rude to stare like that.</p> + +<p>Anna had forgotten all about her, and only remembered her when they were +in the drawing-room and she had begun to pour out the coffee. "Oh, +Letty, where are you? This is my niece," she said; and Letty was at last +shaken hands with.</p> + +<p>"Ah—she keeps you company," said the baroness. "You found it lonely +here, naturally."</p> + +<p>"Oh no, I am never lonely," said Anna cheerfully, filling the cups and +giving them to Letty to carry round.</p> + +<p>"How pleasant the air is to-day," observed Frau von Treumann, edging her +chair away from the window. "Damp, but pleasant. You like fresh air, I +see."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I love it," said Anna; "and it is so beautiful here—so pure, and +full of the sea."</p> + +<p>"You are not afraid of catching cold, sitting so near an open window?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, is it too much for you? Letty, shut the window. It is getting +chilly. The days are so fine that one forgets it is only April."</p> + +<p>Anna talked German and poured out the coffee with a nervous haste +unusual to her. The three women sitting round the little table staring +at her made her feel terribly nervous. She was happy beyond words to +have got them safely under her own roof at last, but she was nervous. +She was determined that there should be no barriers of conventionality +from the first between themselves and her; not a minute more of their +lives was to be wasted; this was their home, and she was all ready to +love them; she had made up her mind that however shy she felt she was +going to behave as though they were her dear friends—which indeed, she +assured herself, was exactly what they were. Therefore she struggled +bravely against her nervousness, addressing them collectively and +singly, saying whatever came first into her head in her anxiety to say +something, smiling at them, pressing the princess's cakes on them, +hardly letting them drink their coffee before she wanted to give them +more. But it was no good; she was and remained nervous, and her hand +shook so when she lifted it that she was ashamed.</p> + +<p>Fräulein Kuhräuber was the one who stared least. If she caught Anna's +eye her own drooped, whereas the eyes of the other two never wavered. +She sat on the edge of her chair in a way made familiar to Anna by +intercourse with Frau Manske, and whatever anybody said she nodded her +head and murmured "<i>Ja, eben</i>." She was obviously ill at ease, and +dropped the sugar-tongs when she was offered sugar with a loud clatter +on to the varnished floor, nearly sweeping the cups off the table in her +effort to pick them up again.</p> + +<p>"Oh, do not mind," said Anna, "Letty will pick them up. They are stupid +things—much too big for the sugar-basin."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ja, eben</i>," said Fräulein Kuhräuber, sitting up and looking perturbed. +The other two removed their eyes from Anna's face for a moment to stare +at the Fräulein. The baroness, a small, fair person with hair arranged +in those little flat curls called kiss-me-quicks on each cheek, and +wide-open pale blue eyes, and a little mouth with no lips, or lips so +thin that they were hardly visible, sat very still and straight, and had +a way of moving her eyes round from one face to the other without at the +same time moving her head. She was unmarried, and was probably about +thirty-five, Anna thought, but she had always evaded questions in the +correspondence about her age. Fräulein Kuhräuber was also thirty-five, +and as large and blooming as the baroness was small and pale. Frau von +Treumann was over fifty, and had had more sorrows, judging from her +letters, than the other two. She sat nearest Anna, who every now and +then laid her hand gently on hers and let it rest there a moment, in her +determination to thaw all frost from the very beginning. "Oh, I quite +forgot," she said cheerfully—the amount of cheerfulness she put into +her voice made her laugh at herself—"I quite forgot to introduce you to +each other."</p> + +<p>"We did it at the station," said Frau von Treumann, "when we found +ourselves all entering your carriage."</p> + +<p>"The Elmreichs are connected with the Treumanns," observed the baroness.</p> + +<p>"We are such a large family," said Frau von Treumann quickly, "that we +are connected with nearly everybody."</p> + +<p>The tone was cold, and there was a silence. Neither of them, apparently, +was connected with Fräulein Kuhräuber, who buried her face in her cup, +in which the tea-spoon remained while she drank, and heartily longed for +connections.</p> + +<p>But she had none. She was absolutely without relations except deceased +ones. She had been an orphan since she was two, cared for by her one +aunt till she was ten. The aunt died, and she found a refuge in an +orphanage till she was sixteen, when she was told that she must earn her +bread. She was a lazy girl even in those days, who liked eating her +bread better than earning it. No more, however, being forthcoming in the +orphanage, she went into a pastor's family as <i>Stütze der Hausfrau</i>. +These <i>Stütze</i>, or supports, are common in middle-class German families, +where they support the mistress of the house in all her manifold duties, +cooking, baking, mending, ironing, teaching or amusing the +children—being in short a comfort and blessing to harassed mothers. But +Fräulein Kuhräuber had no talent whatever for comforting mothers, and +she was quickly requested to leave the busy and populous parsonage; +whereupon she entered upon the series of driftings lasting twenty years, +which landed her, by a wonderful stroke of fortune, in Anna's arms.</p> + +<p>When she saw the advertisement, her future was looking very black. She +was, as usual, under notice to quit, and had no other place in view, and +had saved nothing. It is true the advertisement only offered a home to +women of good family; but she got over that difficulty by reflecting +that her family was all in heaven, and that there could be no relations +more respectable than angels. She wrote therefore in glowing terms of +the paternal Kuhräuber, "<i>gegenwärtig mit Gott</i>," as she put it, +expatiating on his intellect and gifts (he was a man of letters, she +said), while he yet dwelt upon earth. Manske, with all his inquiries, +could find out nothing about her except that she was, as she said, an +orphan, poor, friendless, and struggling; and Anna, just then impatient +of the objections the princess made to every applicant, quickly decided +to accept this one, against whom not a word had been said. So Fräulein +Kuhräuber, who had spent her life in shirking work, who was quite +thriftless and improvident, who had never felt particularly unhappy, and +whose father had been a postman, found herself being welcomed with an +enthusiasm that astonished her to Anna's home, being smiled upon and +patted, having beautiful things said to her, things the very opposite to +those to which she had been used, things to the effect that she was now +to rest herself for ever and to be sure and not do anything except just +that which made her happiest.</p> + +<p>It was very wonderful. It seemed much, much too good to be true. And the +delight that filled her as she sat eating excellent cakes, and the +discomfort she endured because of the stares of the other two women, and +the consciousness that she had never learned how to behave in the +society of persons with <i>von</i> before their names, produced such mingled +feelings of ecstasy and fright in her bosom that it was quite natural +she should drop the sugar-tongs, and upset the cream-jug, and choke over +her coffee—all of which things she did, to Anna's distress, who +suffered with her in her agitation, while the eyes of the other two +watched each successive catastrophe with profoundest attention.</p> + +<p>It was an uncomfortable half hour. "I am shy, and they are shy," Anna +said to herself, apologising as it were for the undoubted flatness that +prevailed. How could it be otherwise, she thought? Did she expect them +to gush? Heaven forbid. Yet it was an important crisis in their lives, +this passing for ever from neglect and loneliness to love, and she +wondered vaguely that the obviously paramount feeling should be interest +in the awkwardness of Fräulein Kuhräuber.</p> + +<p>Her German faltered, and threatened to give out entirely. The inevitable +pause came, and they could hear the sparrows quarrelling in the golden +garden, and the creaking of a distant pump.</p> + +<p>"How still it is," observed the baroness with a slight shiver.</p> + +<p>"You have no farmyard near the house to make it more cheerful," said +Frau von Treumann. "My father's house had the garden at the back, and +the farmyard in the front, and one did not feel so cut off from +everything. There was always something going on in the yard—always life +and noises."</p> + +<p>"Really?" said Anna; and again the pump and the sparrows became audible.</p> + +<p>"The stillness is truly remarkable," observed the baroness again.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ja, eben</i>," said Fräulein Kuhräuber.</p> + +<p>"But it is beautiful, isn't it," said Anna, gazing out at the light on +the water. "It is so restful, so soothing. Look what a lovely sunset +there must be this evening. We can't see it from this side of the house, +but look at the colour of the grass and the water."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach</i>—you are a friend of nature," said Frau von Treumann, turning her +head for a brief moment towards the window, and then examining Anna's +face. "I am also. There is nothing I like more than nature. Do you +paint?"</p> + +<p>"I wish I could."</p> + +<p>"Ah, then you sing—or play?"</p> + +<p>"I can do neither."</p> + +<p>"<i>So?</i> But what have you here, then, in the way of distractions, of +pastimes?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think I have any," said Anna, smiling. "I have been very busy +till now making things ready for you, and after this I shall just enjoy +being alive."</p> + +<p>Frau von Treumann looked puzzled for a moment. Then she said "<i>Ach so.</i>"</p> + +<p>There was another silence.</p> + +<p>"Have some more coffee," said Anna, laying hold of the pot persuasively. +She was feeling foolish, and had blushed stupidly after that <i>Ach so</i>.</p> + +<p>"No, no," said Frau von Treumann, putting up a protesting hand, "you are +very kind. Two cups are a limit beyond which voracity itself could not +go. What do you say? You have had three? Oh, well, you are young, and +young people can play tricks with their digestions with less danger than +old ones."</p> + +<p>At this speech Fräulein Kuhräuber's four cups became plainly written on +her guilty face. The thought that she had been voracious at the very +first meal was appalling to her. She hastily pushed away her half-empty +cup—too hastily, for it upset, and in her effort to save it it fell on +to the floor and was broken. "<i>Ach, Herr Je!</i>" she cried in her +distress.</p> + +<p>The other two looked at each other; the expression is an unusual one on +the lips of gentle-women.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it does not matter—really it does not," Anna hastened to assure +her. "Don't pick it up—Letty will. The table is too small really. There +is no room on it for anything."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ja, eben</i>," said Fräulein Kuhräuber, greatly discomfited.</p> + +<p>"You would like to go upstairs, I am sure," said Anna hurriedly, turning +to the others. "You must be very tired," she added, looking at Frau von +Treumann.</p> + +<p>"I am," replied that lady, closing her eyes for a moment with a little +smile expressive of patient endurance.</p> + +<p>"Then we will go up. Come," she said, holding out her hand to Fräulein +Kuhräuber. "No, no—let Letty pick up the pieces——" for the Fräulein, +in her anxiety to repair the disaster, was about to sweep the remaining +cups off the table with the sleeve of her cloak.</p> + +<p>Anna drew her hand through her arm, and gave it a furtive and +encouraging stroke. "I will go first and show you the way," she said +over her shoulder to the others.</p> + +<p>And so it came about that Frau von Treumann and Baroness Elmreich +actually found themselves going through doors and up stairs behind a +person called Kuhräuber. They exchanged glances again. Whatever might be +their private objections to each other, they had one point already on +which they agreed, for with equal heartiness they both disapproved of +Fräulein Kuhräuber.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> + + +<p>As soon as Baroness Elmreich found herself alone in her bedroom, she +proceeded to examine its contents with minute care. Supper, she had been +told, was not till eight o'clock, and she had not much to unpack; so +laying aside her hat and cloak, and glancing at the reflection of her +little curls in the glass to see whether they were as they should be, +she began her inspection of each separate article in her room, taking +each one up and scrutinising it, holding the jars of hepaticas high +above her head in order to see whether the price was marked underneath, +untidying the bed to feel the quality of the sheets, poking the mattress +to discover the nature of the stuffing, and investigating with special +attention the embroidery on the pillow-cases. But everything was as +dainty and as perfect as enthusiasm could make it. Nowhere, with her +best endeavours, could she discover the signs she was looking for of +cheapness and shabbiness in less noticeable things that would have +helped her to understand her hostess. "This embroidery has cost at least +two marks the meter," she said to herself, fingering it. "She must roll +in money. And the wall-paper—how unpractical! It is so light that every +mark will be seen. The flies alone will ruin it in a month."</p> + +<p>She shrugged her shoulders, and smiled; strange to say, the thought of +Anna's paper being spoiled pleased her.</p> + +<p>Never had she been in a room the least like this one. If whitewash +prevailed downstairs, and in Anna's special haunts, it had not been +permitted to invade the bedrooms of the Chosen. Anna's reflections had +led her to the conclusion that the lives of these ladies had till then +probably been spent in bare places, and that they would accordingly feel +as much pleasure in the contemplation of carpets, papered walls, and +stuffed chairs, as she herself did in the severity of her whitewashed +rooms after the lavishly upholstered years of her youth. But the +daintiness and luxury only filled the baroness with doubts. She stood in +the middle of it looking round her when she had finished her tour of +inspection and had made guesses at the price of everything, and asked +herself who this Miss Estcourt could be. Anna would have been +considerably disappointed, and perhaps even moved to tears, if she had +known that the room she thought so pretty struck the baroness, whose +taste in furniture had not advanced beyond an appreciation for the dark +and heavy hangings and walnut-wood tables of her more prosperous years, +merely as odd. Odd, and very expensive. Where did the money come from +for this reckless furnishing with stuffs and colours that were bound to +show each stain? Her eye wandered along the shelves above the +writing-table—hers was the Heine and Maeterlinck room—and she wondered +what all the books were there for. She did not touch them as she had +touched everything else, for except an occasional novel, and, more +regularly, a journal beloved of German woman called the <i>Gartenlaube</i>, +she never read.</p> + +<p>On the writing-table lay a blotter, a pretty, embroidered thing that +said as plainly as blotter could say that it had been chosen with +immense care; and opening it she found notepaper and envelopes stamped +with the Kleinwalde address and her own monogram. This was Anna's little +special gift, a childish addition, the making of which had given her an +absurd amount of pleasure. The happy idea, as she called it, had come to +her one night when she lay awake thinking about her new friends and +going through the familiar process of discovering their tastes by +imagining herself in their place. "<i>Sonderbar</i>," was the baroness's +comment; and she decided that the best thing she could do would be to +ring the bell and endeavour to obtain private information about Miss +Estcourt by means of a prolonged cross-examination of the housemaid.</p> + +<p>She rang it, and then sat very straight and still on the sofa with her +hands folded in her lap, and waited. Her soul was full of doubts. Who +was this Miss, and where were the proofs that she was, as she had +pretended, of good birth? That she was not so very pious was evident; +for if she had been, some remark of a religious nature would inevitably +have been forthcoming when she first welcomed them to her house. No such +word, not the least approach to any such word, had been audible. There +had not even been an allusion, a sigh, or an upward glance. Yet the +pastor who had opened the correspondence had filled many pages with +expatiations on her zeal after righteousness. And then she was so young. +The baroness had expected to see an elderly person, or at least a person +of the age of everybody else, which was her own age; but this was a mere +girl, and a girl, too, who from the way she dressed, clearly thought +herself pretty. Surely it was strange that so young a woman should be +living here quite unattached, quite independent apparently of all +control, with a great deal of money at her disposal, and only one little +girl to give her a countenance? Suppose she were not a proper person at +all, suppose she were an outcast from society, a being on whom her own +countrypeople turned their backs? This desire to share her fortune with +respectable ladies could only be explained in two ways: either she had +been moved thereto by an enthusiastic piety of which not a trace had as +yet appeared, or she was an improper person anxious to rebuild her +reputation with the aid and countenance of the ladies of good family she +had entrapped into her house.</p> + +<p>The baroness stiffened as she sat. It was her brother who had cheated at +cards and shot himself, and it was her sister of whom Axel Lohm had +heard strange tales; and few people are more savagely proper than the +still respectable relations of the demoralised. "The service in this +house is very bad," she said aloud and irascibly, getting up to ring +again. "No doubt she has trouble with her servants."</p> + +<p>But there was a knock at the door while her hand was on the bell, and on +her calling "Come in," instead of the servant her hostess appeared, +dressed to the baroness's eye in a truly amazing and reprehensible +fashion, and looking as cheerful as an innocent infant for whom no such +thing as evil-doing exists. Also she seemed quite unconscious of her +clothes and bare neck, nor did she offer to explain why she was arrayed +as though she were going to a ball; and she stood a moment in the +doorway trying to say something in German and pretending to laugh at her +own ineffectual efforts, but really laughing, the baroness felt sure, in +order to show that she had dimples; which were not, after all, very +wonderful things to have—before she had grown so thin she almost had +one herself.</p> + +<p>"May I come in?" said Anna at last, giving up the other and more +complicated speech.</p> + +<p>"<i>Bitte</i>," said the baroness, with the smile the French call <i>pincé</i>.</p> + +<p>"Has no one been to unpack your things?"</p> + +<p>"I rang."</p> + +<p>"And no one came? Oh, I shall scold Marie. It is the only thing I can do +well in German. Can you speak English?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Nor understand it?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"French?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, you must be patient then with my bad German. When I am alone +with anyone it goes better, but if there are many people listening I am +nervous and can hardly speak at all. How glad I am that you are here!"</p> + +<p>Anna's shyness, now that she was by herself with one of her forlorn +ones, had vanished, and she prattled happily for some time, putting as +many mistakes into her sentences as they would hold, before she became +aware that the baroness's replies were monosyllabic, and that she was +examining her from head to foot with so much attention that there was +obviously none left over for the appreciation of her remarks.</p> + +<p>This made her feel shy again. Clothes to her were such secondary +considerations, things of so little importance. Susie had provided them, +and she had put them on, and there it had ended; and when she found that +it was her dress and not herself that was interesting the baroness, she +longed to have the courage to say, "Don't waste time over it now—I'll +send it to your room to-night, if you like, and you can look at it +comfortably—only don't waste time now. I want to talk to you, to <i>you</i> +who have suffered so much; I want to make friends with you quickly, to +make you begin to be happy quickly; so don't let us waste the precious +time thinking of clothes." But she had neither sufficient courage nor +sufficient German.</p> + +<p>She put out her hand rather timidly, and making an effort to bring her +companion's thoughts back to the things that mattered, said, "I hope you +will like living with me. I hope we shall be very happy together. I +can't tell you how happy it makes me to think that you are safely here, +and that you are going to stay with me always."</p> + +<p>The baroness's hands were clasped in front of her, and they did not +unclasp to meet Anna's; but at this speech she left off eyeing the +dress, and began to ask questions. "You are very lonely, I can see," she +said with another of the pinched smiles. "Have you then no relations? No +one of your own family who will live with you? Will not your <i>Frau Mama</i> +come to Germany?"</p> + +<p>"My mother is dead."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach</i>—mine also. And the <i>Herr Papa</i>?"</p> + +<p>"He is dead."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach</i>—mine also."</p> + +<p>"I know, I know," said Anna, stroking the unresponsive hands—a trick of +hers when she wanted to comfort that had often irritated Susie. "You +told me how lonely you were in your letters. I lived with my brother and +his wife till I came here. You have no brothers or sisters, I think you +wrote."</p> + +<p>"None," said the baroness with a rigid look.</p> + +<p>"Well, I am going to be your sister, if you will let me."</p> + +<p>"You are very good."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I am not good, only so happy—I have everything in the world that I +have ever wished to have, and now that you have come to share it all +there is nothing more I can think of that I want."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach</i>," said the baroness. Then she added, "Have you no aunts, or +cousins, who would come and stay with you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, heaps. But they are all well off and quite pleased, and they +wouldn't like staying here with me at all."</p> + +<p>"They would not like staying with you? How strange."</p> + +<p>"Very strange," laughed Anna. "You see they don't know how pleasant I +can be in my own house."</p> + +<p>"And your friends—they too will not come?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know if they would or not. I didn't ask them."</p> + +<p>"You have no one, no one at all who would come and live with you so that +you should not be so lonely?"</p> + +<p>"But I am not lonely," said Anna, looking down at the little woman with +a slightly amused expression, "and I don't in the least want to be lived +with."</p> + +<p>"Then why do you wish to fill your house with strangers?"</p> + +<p>"Why?" repeated Anna, a puzzled look coming into her eyes. Had not the +correspondence with the ultimately chosen been long? And were not all +her reasons duly set forth therein? "Why, because I want you to have +some of my nice things too."</p> + +<p>"But not your own friends and relations?"</p> + +<p>"They have everything they want."</p> + +<p>There was a silence. Anna left off stroking the baroness's hands. She +was thinking that this was a queer little person—outside, that is. +Inside, of course, she was very different, poor little lonely thing; but +her outer crust seemed thick; and she wondered how long it would take +her to get through it to the soul that she was sure was sweet and +lovable. She was also unable to repress a conviction that most people +would call these questions rude.</p> + +<p>But this train of thought was not one to be encouraged. "I am keeping +you here talking," she said, resuming her first cheerfulness, "and your +things are not unpacked yet. I shall go and scold Marie for not coming +when you rang, and I'll send her to you." And she went out quickly, +vexed with herself for feeling chilled, and left the baroness more full +of doubts than ever.</p> + +<p>When she had rebuked Marie, who looked gloomy, she tapped at Frau von +Treumann's door. No one answered. She knocked again. No one answered. +Then she opened the door softly and looked in.</p> + +<p>These were precious moments, she felt, these first moments of being +alone with each of her new friends, precious opportunities for breaking +ice. It is true she had not been able to break much of the ice encasing +the baroness, but she was determined not to be cast down by any of the +little difficulties she was sure to encounter at first, and she looked +into Frau von Treumann's room with fresh hope in her heart.</p> + +<p>What, then, was her dismay to find that lady walking up and down with +the long strides of extreme excitement, her face bathed in tears.</p> + +<p>"Oh—what's the matter?" gasped Anna, shutting the door quickly and +hurrying in.</p> + +<p>Frau von Treumann had not heard the gentle taps, and when she saw her, +started, and tried to hide her face in her handkerchief.</p> + +<p>"Tell me what is the matter," begged Anna, her voice full of tenderness.</p> + +<p>"<i>Nichts, nichts</i>," was the hasty reply. "I did not hear you knock——"</p> + +<p>"Tell me what is the matter," begged Anna again, fairly putting her arms +round the poor lady. "Our letters have said so much already—surely +there is nothing you cannot tell me now? And if I can help you——"</p> + +<p>Frau von Treumann freed herself by a hasty movement, and began to walk +up and down again. "No, no, you can do nothing—you can do nothing," she +said, and wept as she walked.</p> + +<p>Anna watched her in consternation.</p> + +<p>"See to what I have come—see to what I have come!" said the agitated +lady under her breath but with passionate intensity, as she passed and +repassed her dismayed hostess; "oh, to have fallen so low! oh, to have +fallen so low!"</p> + +<p>"So low?" echoed Anna, greatly concerned.</p> + +<p>"At my age—I, a Treumann—I, a <i>geborene</i> Gräfin Ilmas-Kadenstein—to +live on charity—to be a member of a charitable institution!"</p> + +<p>"Institution? Charity? Oh no, no!" cried Anna. "It is a home here, and +there is no charity in it from the attic to the cellar." And she went +towards her with outstretched hands.</p> + +<p>"A home! Yes, that is it," cried Frau von Treumann, waving her back, "it +is a home, a charitable home!"</p> + +<p>"No, not a home like that—a real home, my home, your home—<i>ein Heim</i>," +Anna protested; but vainly, because the German word <i>Heim</i> and the +English word "home" have little meaning in common.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ein Heim, ein Heim</i>," repeated Frau von Treumann with extraordinary +bitterness, "<i>ein Frauenheim</i>—yes, that is what it is, and everybody +knows it."</p> + +<p>"Everybody knows it?"</p> + +<p>"How could I think," she said, wringing her hands, "how could I think +when I decided to come here that the whole world was to be made +acquainted with your plans? I thought they were to be kept private, that +the world was to think we were your friends——"</p> + +<p>"And so you are."</p> + +<p>"—your guests——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, more than guests—this is home."</p> + +<p>"Home! Home! Always that word——" And she burst into a fresh torrent of +tears.</p> + +<p>Anna stood helpless. What she said appeared only to aggravate Frau von +Treumann's sorrow and rage—for surely there was anger as well as +sorrow? She was at a complete loss for the reason of this outburst. Had +not every detail been discussed in the correspondence? Had not that +correspondence been exhaustive even to boredom?</p> + +<p>"You have told your servants——"</p> + +<p>"My servants?"</p> + +<p>"You have told them that we are objects of charity——"</p> + +<p>"I——" began Anna, and then was silent.</p> + +<p>"It is not true—I have come here from very different motives—but they +think me an object of charity. I rang the bell—I cannot unstrap my +trunks—I never have been expected to unstrap trunks." The sobs here +interfered for a moment with further speech. "After a long while—your +servant came—she was insolent—the trunks are there still +unstrapped—you see them—she knows—everything."</p> + +<p>"She shall go to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"The others think the same thing."</p> + +<p>"They shall go to-morrow—that is, have they been rude to you?"</p> + +<p>"Not yet, but they will be."</p> + +<p>"When they are, they shall go."</p> + +<p>"I went into the corridor to seek other assistance, and I met—I +met——"</p> + +<p>"Who?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, to have fallen so low!" cried Frau von Treumann, clasping her +hands, and raising her streaming eyes to the ceiling.</p> + +<p>"But who did you meet?"</p> + +<p>"I met—I met the Penheim."</p> + +<p>"The Penheim? Do you mean Princess Ludwig?"</p> + +<p>"You never said she was here——"</p> + +<p>"I did not know that it would interest you."</p> + +<p>"—living on charity—she was always shameless—I was at school with +her. Oh, I would not have come for any inducement if I had known she was +here! She holds nothing sacred, she will boast of her own degradation, +she will write to all her friends that I am here too—I told them I was +coming only on a visit to you—they knew I knew your uncle—but the +Penheim—the Penheim——" and Frau von Treumann threw herself into a +chair and covered her face with her hands to shut out the horrid vision.</p> + +<p>The corners of Anna's mouth began to take the upward direction that +would end in a smile; and feeling how ill-placed such a contortion would +be in the presence of this tumultuous grief, she brought them carefully +back to a position of proper solemnity. Besides, why should she smile? +The poor lady was clearly desperately unhappy about something, though +what it was Anna did not quite know. She had looked forward to this +first evening with her new friends as to a thing apart, a thing beyond +the ordinary experience of life, profound in its peace, perfect in its +harmony, the first taste of rest after war, of port after stormy seas; +and here was Frau von Treumann plunged in a very audible grief, and in +the next room was the baroness, a disconcerting combination of +inquisitiveness and ice, and farther down the passage was Fräulein +Kuhräuber—in what state, Anna wondered, would she find Fräulein +Kuhräuber? Anyhow she had little reason to smile. But the horror with +which Princess Ludwig had been mentioned seemed droll beside her own +knowledge of the sterling qualities of that excellent woman. She went +over to the chair in which Frau von Treumann lay prostrate, and sat down +beside her. She was glad that they had reached the stage of sitting +down, for talking is difficult to a person who will not keep still.</p> + +<p>"How sorry I am," she said, in her pretty, hesitating German, "that you +should have been made unhappy the very first evening. Marie is a little +wretch. Don't let her stupidity make you miserable. You shall not see +her again, I promise you." And she patted Frau von Treumann's arm. "But +about Princess Ludwig, now," she went on cheerfully, "she has been here +some weeks and you soon learn to know a person you are with every day, +and really I have found her nothing but good and kind."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach</i>, she is shameless—she recoils before no degradation!" burst out +Frau von Treumann, suddenly removing her hands from her face. "The +trouble she has given her relations! She delights in dragging her name +in the dirt. She has tried to get places in the most impossible +families, and made no attempt to hide what she was doing. She has broken +the old Fürst's heart. And she talks about it all, and has no shame, no +decency——"</p> + +<p>"But is it not admirable——" began Anna.</p> + +<p>"She will gloat over me, and tell everyone that I am here in the same +way as she is. If she is not ashamed for herself, do you think she will +spare me?"</p> + +<p>"But why should you think there is anything to be ashamed of in coming +to live with me and be my dear friend?"</p> + +<p>"No, there is nothing, so long as my motives in coming are known. But +people talk so cruelly, and will distort the facts so gladly, and we +have always held our heads so high. And now the Penheim!" She sobbed +afresh.</p> + +<p>"I shall ask the princess not to write to anyone about your being here."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach</i>, I know her—she will do it all the same."</p> + +<p>"No, I don't think so. She does everything I ask. You see, she takes +care of my house for me. She is not here in the same way that—that you +and Baroness Elmreich are, and her interest is to stay here."</p> + +<p>Frau von Treumann's bowed head went up with a jerk. "<i>Ach?</i> She has +found a place at last? She is your paid companion? Your housekeeper?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and she is goodness itself, and I don't believe she would be +unkind and make mischief for worlds."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach so!</i>" said Frau von Treumann, "<i>ach so-o-o-o!</i>"—a long drawn out +<i>so</i> of complete comprehension. Her tears ceased as if by magic. She +dried her eyes. Yes, of course the Penheim would hold her tongue if Miss +Estcourt ordered her to do so. She had heard all about her efforts to +find places, and she would probably be very careful not to lose this +one. The poor Penheim. So she was actually working for wages. What a +come-down for a Dettingen! And the Dettingens had always treated the +Treumanns as though they belonged merely to the <i>kleine Adel</i>. Well, +well, each one in turn. She was the dear friend, and the Penheim was the +housekeeper. Well, well.</p> + +<p>She sat up straight, smoothed her hair, and resumed her first manner of +quiet dignity. "I am sorry that you should have witnessed my agitation," +she said, with a faint smile. "I am not easily betrayed into exhibitions +of feeling, but there are limits to one's endurance, there are certain +things the bravest cannot bear."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Anna.</p> + +<p>"And for a Treumann, social disgrace, any action that in the least soils +our honour and makes us unable to hold up our heads, is worse than +death."</p> + +<p>"But I don't see any disgrace."</p> + +<p>"No, no, there is none so long as facts are not distorted. It is quite +simple—you need friends and I am willing to be your friend. That was +how my son looked at it. He said '<i>Liebe Mama</i>, she evidently needs +friends and sympathy—why should you hesitate to make yourself of use? +You must regard it as a good work.' You would like my son; his brother +officers adore him."</p> + +<p>"Really?" said Anna.</p> + +<p>"He is so sensible, so reasonable; he is beloved and respected by the +whole regiment. I will show you his photograph—<i>ach</i>, the trunks are +still unstrapped."</p> + +<p>"I'll go and send someone—but not Marie," said Anna, getting up +quickly. She had no desire to see the photograph, and the son's way of +looking at things had considerably astonished her. "It must be nearly +supper time. Would you not rather lie down and let me send you something +here? Your head must ache after crying so much. You have baptised our +new life with tears. I hope it is a good omen."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I will come down. You will do as you promised, will you not, and +forbid the Penheim to gossip?"</p> + +<p>"I shall tell the princess your wishes."</p> + +<p>"Or, if she must gossip, let her tell the truth at least. If my son had +not pressed me to come here I really do not think——"</p> + +<p>Anna went slowly and meditatively down the passage to Fräulein +Kuhräuber's room. For a moment she thought of omitting this last visit +altogether; she was afraid lest the Fräulein should be in some +unlooked-for and perplexing condition of mind. Discouraged? Oh no; she +was surely not discouraged already. How had the word come into her head? +She quickened her steps. When she reached the door she remembered the +cup and the sugar-tongs. Perhaps something in the bedroom was already +broken, and the Fräulein would be disclosed sitting in the ruins in +tears, for she was unexpectedly large, and the contents of her room were +frail. But then woe of that sort was as easily assuaged as broken +furniture was mended. It was the more complicated grief of Frau von +Treumann that she felt unable to soothe. As to that, she preferred not +to think about it at present, and barricaded her thoughts against its +image with that consoling sentence, <i>Tout comprendre c'est tout +pardonner.</i> It was a sentence she was fond of; but she had not expected +that she would need its reassurance so soon.</p> + +<p>She opened the door, and the puckers smoothed themselves out of her +forehead at once, for here, at last, was peace. There had been no +difficulties here with bells, and straps, and Marie. The trunks had been +opened and unpacked without assistance; and when Anna came in the +contents were all put away and Fräulein Kuhräuber, washed and combed and +in her Sunday blouse, was sitting in an easy chair by the window +absorbed in a book. Satisfaction was written broadly on her face; +content was expressed by every lazy line of her attitude. When she saw +Anna, she got up and made a curtsey and beamed. The beams were instantly +reflected in Anna's face, and they beamed at each other.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Anna, who felt perfectly at her ease with this member of +her trio, "are you happy?"</p> + +<p>Fräulein Kuhräuber blushed, and beamed more than ever. She was far less +shy of Anna than she was of those two terrible <i>adelige Damen</i>, her +travelling companions; but at no time had she had much conversation. +Hers had been a ruminative existence, for its uncertainty but rarely +disturbed her. Had she not an excellent digestion, and a fixed belief +that the righteous, of whom she was one, would never be forsaken? And +are not these the primary conditions of happiness? Indeed, if everything +else is wanting, these two ingredients by themselves are sufficient for +the concoction of a very palatable life.</p> + +<p>"You have found an interesting book already?" Anna asked, pleased that +the literature chosen with such care should have met with instant +appreciation. She took it up to see what it was, but put it down again +hastily, for it was the cookery book.</p> + +<p>"I read much," observed Fräulein Kuhräuber.</p> + +<p>"Yes?" said Anna, a flicker of hope reviving in her heart. Perhaps the +cookery book was an accident.</p> + +<p>"I know by heart more than a hundred recipes for sweet dishes alone."</p> + +<p>"Really?" said Anna, the flicker expiring.</p> + +<p>"So you can have an idea of the number of books I have read."</p> + +<p>"Here are a great many more for you to read."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach ja, ach ja</i>," said Fräulein Kuhräuber, glancing doubtfully at the +shelves; "but one must not waste too much time over it—there are other +things in life. I read only useful books."</p> + +<p>"Well, that is very praiseworthy," said Anna, smiling. "If you like +cookery books, I must get you some more."</p> + +<p>"How good you are—how very, very good!" said the Fräulein, gazing at +the charming figure before her with heartfelt admiration and gratitude. +"This beautiful room—I cannot look at it enough. I cannot believe it is +really for me—for me to sleep in and be in whenever I choose. What have +I done to deserve all this?"</p> + +<p>What had she done, indeed? She had not even been unhappy, although of +course she had had every opportunity of being so, sent from place to +place, from one indignant <i>Hausfrau</i> to another, ever since she left +school. But Anna, persuaded that she had rescued her from depths of +unspeakable despair, was overjoyed by this speech. "Don't talk about +deserving," she said tenderly. "You have had such a life that if you +were to be happy now without stopping once for the next fifty years it +would only be just and right."</p> + +<p>Fräulein Kuhräuber's approval of this sentiment was so entire that she +seized Anna's hand and kissed it fervently. Anna laughed while this was +going on, and her eyes grew brighter. She had not wanted gratitude, but +now that it had come it was very encouraging after all, and very +warming. She put one arm impulsively round the Fräulein's neck and +kissed her, and this was practically the first kiss that lady had ever +received, for the perfunctory embraces of reluctantly dutiful aunts can +hardly be called by that pretty name.</p> + +<p>"Now," said Anna, with a happy laugh, "we are going to be friends for +ever. Come, let us go down. That was the supper bell."</p> + +<p>And they went downstairs together, appearing in the doorway of the +drawing-room arm in arm, as though they had loved each other for years.</p> + +<p>"As though they were twins," muttered the baroness to Frau von Treumann, +who shrugged one shoulder slightly by way of reply.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + + +<p>But in spite of this little outburst of gratitude and appreciation from +Fräulein Kuhräuber, the first evening of the new life was a +disappointment. The Fräulein, who entered the room so happily under the +impression of that recent kiss, became awkward and uncomfortable the +moment she caught sight of the others; lapsing, indeed, into a quite +pitiful state of nervous flutter on being brought for the first time +within the range of the princess's critical and unsympathetic eye. Her +experience had not included princesses, and, as she made a series of +agitated curtseys, deeming one altogether insufficient for so great a +lady, she felt as though that cold eye were piercing her through easily, +and had already discovered the inmost recess of her soul, where lay, so +carefully hidden, the memory of the postman. Every time the princess +looked at her, a sudden vivid consciousness of the postman flamed up +within her, utterly refusing to be extinguished by the soothing +recollection that he had been angelic for thirty years. That obviously +experienced eye and those pursed lips upset her so completely that she +made no remark whatever during the meal that followed, but sat next to +Anna and ate <i>Leberwurst</i> in a kind of uneasy dream; and she ate it with +a degree of emphasis so unusual among the polite and so disastrous to +the peace of the ultra-fastidious that Anna felt there really was some +slight excuse for the frequent and lengthy stares that came from the +other end of the table. "Yet she is an immortal soul—what does it +matter how she eats <i>Leberwurst</i>?" said Anna to herself. "What do such +trifles, such little mannerisms, really matter? I should indeed be a +miserable creature if I let them annoy me." But she turned her head +away, nevertheless, and talked assiduously to Letty.</p> + +<p>There was no one else for her to talk to. Frau von Treumann and the +baroness had seated themselves at once one on either side of the +princess, and devoted their conversation entirely to her. In the +drawing-room later on, the same thing happened,—the three German ladies +clustering together near the sofa, and the three English being left +somehow to themselves, except for Fräulein Kuhräuber, who clung to them. +To avoid this division into what looked like hostile camps Anna pushed +her chair to a place midway between the groups, and tried to join, +though not very successfully, in the talk of each in turn. Outward calm +prevailed in the room, subdued voices, the tranquillity of fancy-work, +and the peace of albums; yet Anna could not avoid a chilled impression, +a feeling as though each person present were distrustful of the others, +and more or less on the defensive. Frau von Treumann, it is true, was +graciousness itself to the princess, conversing with her constantly and +amiably, and showing herself kind; but, on the other hand, the princess +was hardly gracious to Frau von Treumann. An unbiassed observer would +have said that she disapproved of Frau von Treumann, but was +endeavouring to conceal her disapproval. She busied herself with her +embroidery and talked as little as she could, receiving both the +advances of Frau von Treumann and the attentions of the baroness with +equal coldness.</p> + +<p>As for the baroness, her doubts as to Anna's respectability were blown +away completely and forever when, on opening the drawing-room door +before supper, she had beheld no less a person than the <i>geborene</i> +Dettingen seated on the sofa. The baroness had spent her life in a +remote and tiny provincial town, but she knew the great Dettingen and +Penheim families well by name, and a princess in her opinion was a +princess, an altogether precious and admirable creature, whatever she +might choose to do. Her scruples, then, were set at rest, but her ice as +far as Anna was concerned showed no signs of thawing. All her amiability +and her efforts to produce a good impression were lavished on the +princess, who besides being by birth and marriage the grandest person +the baroness had yet met, spoke her own tongue properly, had no dimples, +and did not try to stroke her hand. She looked on with mingled awe and +irritation at the easy manner in which Frau von Treumann treated this +great lady. It almost seemed as though she were patronising her. Really +these Treumanns were a brazen-faced race; audacious East Prussian +Junkers, who thought themselves as good as or better than the best. And +this one was not even a true Treumann, but an Ilmas, and of the inferior +Kadenstein branch; and the baroness's brother—that brother whose end +was so abrupt—had been quartered once during the manœuvres at +Kadenstein, and had told her that it was a wretched place, with a +fowl-run that wanted mending within a few yards of the front door, and +that, the door standing open all day long, he had frequently met fowls +walking about in the hall and passages. Yet remembering the brother's +story, and how there was no shadow of the sort resting at present on +Frau von Treumann, though as she had a son there was no telling how long +her shadowless state would last, she tried to ingratiate herself with +that lady, who met her advances coolly, only warming into something like +responsiveness when Fräulein Kuhräuber was in question.</p> + +<p>Fräulein Kuhräuber sat behind Letty and Miss Leech, as far away from the +others as she could. She had a stocking in her hand, but she did not +knit. She never knitted if she could avoid it, and was conscious that +from want of practice her needles moved more slowly than is usual—so +slowly, indeed, as to be conspicuous. Letty showed her photographs and +was very kind to her, instinctively perceiving that here was someone who +was as uneasy under the tall lady's stares as she was herself. She +privately thought her by far the best of the new arrivals, and wished +she knew enough German to inquire into her views respecting Schiller; +there was something in the Fräulein's looks and manner that made her +think they would agree about Schiller.</p> + +<p>Anna, too, ended by talking exclusively to this group. Her attempts to +join in what the others were saying had been unsuccessful; and with a +little twinge of disappointment, and a feeling of being for some +unexplained reason curiously out of it, she turned to Fräulein +Kuhräuber, and devoted herself more and more to her.</p> + +<p>"They are inseparables already," remarked the baroness in a low voice to +Frau von Treumann. "The Miss finds her congenial, it seems." She could +not forgive those doors she had gone through last.</p> + +<p>The princess looked up for a moment over the spectacles she wore when +she worked, at Anna.</p> + +<p>"Fräulein Kuhräuber makes an excellent foil," said Frau von Treumann. +"Miss Estcourt looks quite ethereal next to her."</p> + +<p>"Do you think her pretty?" asked the baroness.</p> + +<p>"She is very distinguished-looking."</p> + +<p>A servant came in at that moment and announced Dellwig's usual evening +visit, and Anna got up and went out. They watched her as she walked down +the long room, and when she had disappeared began to discuss her more at +their ease, their rapid German being quite incomprehensible to Letty and +Miss Leech.</p> + +<p>"Where has she gone?" asked the baroness.</p> + +<p>"She has gone to talk to her inspector," said the princess.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach so</i>," said the baroness.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach so</i>," said Frau von Treumann.</p> + +<p>"Is the inspector young?" asked the baroness.</p> + +<p>"Oh no, quite old," said the princess.</p> + +<p>"These English are a strange race," said Frau von Treumann. "What German +girl of that age would you find with so much energy and enterprise?"</p> + +<p>"Is she so very young?" inquired the baroness, with a look of mild +surprise.</p> + +<p>"Why, she is plainly little more than a child," said Frau von Treumann.</p> + +<p>"She is twenty-five," said the princess.</p> + +<p>"Rather an old child," observed the baroness.</p> + +<p>"She looks much younger. But twenty-five is surely young enough for this +life, away from her own people," said Frau von Treumann.</p> + +<p>"Yes—why does she lead it?" asked the baroness eagerly. "Can you tell +us, Frau Prinzessin? Has she then quarrelled with all her friends?"</p> + +<p>"Miss Estcourt has not told me so."</p> + +<p>"But she must have quarrelled. Eccentric as the English are, there are +limits to their eccentricity, and no one leaves home and friends and +country without some good reason." And Frau von Treumann shook her head.</p> + +<p>"She has quarrelled, I am sure," said the baroness.</p> + +<p>"I think so too," said Frau von Treumann; "I thought so from the first. +My son also thought so. You remember Karlchen, princess?"</p> + +<p>"Perfectly."</p> + +<p>"I discussed the question thoroughly with him, of course, as to whether +I should come here or not. I confess I did not want to come. It was a +great wrench, giving up everything, and going so far from my son. But +after all one must not be selfish." And Frau von Treumann sighed and +paused.</p> + +<p>No one said anything, so she continued: "One feels, as one grows older, +how great are the claims of others. And a widow with only one son can do +so much, can make herself of so much use. That is what Karlchen said. +When I hesitated—for I fear one does hesitate before inconvenience—he +said, '<i>Liebste Mama</i>, it would be a charity to go to the poor young +lady. You who have always been the first to extend a sympathetic hand to +the friendless, how is it that you hesitate now? Depend upon it, she has +had differences at home and needs countenance and help. You have no +encumbrances. You can go more easily than others. You must regard it as +a good work.' And that decided me."</p> + +<p>The princess let her work drop for a moment into her lap, and gazed over +her spectacles at Frau von Treumann. "<i>Wirklich?</i>" she said in a voice +of deep interest. "Those were your reasons? <i>Aber herrlich.</i>"</p> + +<p>"Yes, those were my reasons," replied Frau von Treumann, returning her +gaze with pensive but steady eyes. "Those were my chief reasons. I +regard it as a work of charity."</p> + +<p>"But this is noble," murmured the princess, resuming her work.</p> + +<p>"That is how <i>I</i> have regarded it," put in the baroness. "I agree with +you entirely, dear Frau von Treumann."</p> + +<p>"I do not pretend to disguise," went on Frau von Treumann, "that it is +an economy for me to live here, but poor as I have been since my dear +husband's death—you remember Karl, princess?"</p> + +<p>"Perfectly."</p> + +<p>"Poor as I have been, I always had sufficient for my simple wants, and +should not have dreamed of altering my life if Miss Estcourt's letters +had not been so appealing."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach</i>—they were appealing?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, a heart of stone would have been melted by them. And a widow's +heart is not of stone, as you must know yourself. The orphan appealing +to the widow—it was irresistible."</p> + +<p>"Well, you see she is not by any means alone," said the princess +cheerfully. "Here we are, five of us counting the little Letty, +surrounding her. So you must not sacrifice yourself unnecessarily."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I am not one of those who having put their hand to the plough——"</p> + +<p>"But where is the plough, dear Frau von Treumann? You see there is, +after all, no plough."</p> + +<p>"Dear princess, you always were so literal."</p> + +<p>"Ah, you used to reproach me with that in the old days, when you wrote +poetry and read it to me and I was rude enough to ask if it meant +anything. We did not think then that we should meet here, did we?"</p> + +<p>"No, indeed. And I cannot tell you how much I admire your courage."</p> + +<p>"My courage? What fine qualities you invest me with!"</p> + +<p>"Miss Estcourt has told me how admirably you discharge your duties here. +It is wonderful to me. You are an example to us all, and you make me +feel ashamed of my own uselessness."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you underrate yourself. People who leave everything to go and help +others cannot talk of being useless. Yes, I look after her house for +her, and I hope to look after her as well."</p> + +<p>"After her? Is that one of your duties? Did she stipulate for personal +supervision when she engaged you? How times are changed! When my Karl +was alive, and we lived at Sommershof, I certainly would not have +tolerated that my housekeeper should keep me in order as well as my +house."</p> + +<p>"The case was surely different, dear Frau von Treumann. Here is an +unusually pretty young thing, with money. She will need all the +protection I can give her, and it is a satisfaction to me to feel that I +am here and able to give it."</p> + +<p>"But she may any day turn round and request you to go."</p> + +<p>"That of course may happen, but I hope it will not until she is safe."</p> + +<p>"But do you think her so pretty?" put in the baroness wonderingly.</p> + +<p>"Safe? What special dangers do you then apprehend for her?" asked Frau +von Treumann with a look of amusement. "Dear princess, you always did +take your duties so seriously. What a treasure you would have been to me +in many ways. It is admirable. But do your duties really include +watching over Miss Estcourt's heart? For I suppose you are thinking of +her heart?"</p> + +<p>"I am thinking of adventurers," said the princess. "Any young man with +no money would naturally be delighted to secure this young lady and +Kleinwalde. And those who instead of money have debts, would naturally +be still more delighted." And the princess in her turn gazed pensively +but steadily at Frau von Treumann. "No," she said, taking up her work +again, "I was not thinking of her heart, but of the annoyance she might +be put to. I do not fancy that her heart would easily be touched."</p> + +<p>Anna came in at that moment for a paper she wanted, and heard the last +words. "What," she said, smiling, as she unlocked the drawer of her +writing-table and rummaged among the contents, "you are talking about +hearts? You see it is true that women can't be together half an hour +without getting on to subjects like that. If you were three men, now, +you would talk of pigs." Then, a sudden recollection of Uncle Joachim +coming into her mind, she added with conviction, "And pigs are better."</p> + +<p>Nor was it till she had closed the door behind her that it struck her +that when she came into the room both the princess and Frau von Treumann +were looking preternaturally bland.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + + +<p>Axel Lohm was in the hall, having his coat taken from him by a servant.</p> + +<p>"You here?" exclaimed Anna, holding out both hands. She was more than +usually pleased to see him.</p> + +<p>"Manske had a pile of letters for you, and could not get them to you +because he has a pastors' conference at his house. I was there and saw +the letters, and thought you might want them."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't want them—at least, there is no hurry. But the letters are +only an excuse. Now isn't it so?"</p> + +<p>"An excuse?" he repeated, flushing.</p> + +<p>"You want to see the new arrivals."</p> + +<p>"Not in the very least."</p> + +<p>"Oh, oh! But as you have come one minute too soon, and happened to meet +me outside the door, your plan is spoilt. Are those the letters? What a +pile!" Her face fell.</p> + +<p>"But you are looking for nine more ladies. You want a wide choice. You +have still the greater part of your work before you."</p> + +<p>"I know. Why do you tell me that?"</p> + +<p>"Because you do not seem pleased to get them."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, I am; but I am tired to-night, and the idea of nine more ladies +makes me feel—feel sleepy."</p> + +<p>She stood under the lamp, holding the packet loosely by its string and +smiling up to him. There were shadows in her eyes, he thought, where he +was used to seeing two cheerful little lights shining, and a faint +ruefulness in the smile.</p> + +<p>"Well, if you are tired you must go to bed," he said, in such a matter +of fact tone that they both laughed.</p> + +<p>"No, I mustn't," said Anna; "I am on my way to Herr Dellwig at this very +moment. He's in there," she said, with a motion of her head towards the +dining-room door. "Tell me," she added, lowering her voice, "have you +got a brick-kiln at Lohm?"</p> + +<p>"A brick-kiln? No. Why do you want to know?"</p> + +<p>"But why haven't you got a brick-kiln?"</p> + +<p>"Because there is nothing to make bricks with. Lohm is almost entirely +sand."</p> + +<p>"He says there is splendid clay here in one part, and wants to build +one."</p> + +<p>"Who? Dellwig?"</p> + +<p>"Sh—sh."</p> + +<p>"Your uncle would have built one long ago if there really had been clay. +I must look at the place he means. I cannot remember any such place. And +it is unlikely that it should be as he says. Pray do not agree to any +propositions of the kind hastily."</p> + +<p>"It would cost heaps to set it going, wouldn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and probably bring in nothing at all."</p> + +<p>"But he tries to make out that it would be quite cheap. He says the +timber could all be got out of the forest. I can't bear the thought of +cutting down a lot of trees."</p> + +<p>"If you can't bear the thought of anything he proposes, then simply +refuse to consider it."</p> + +<p>"But he talks and talks till it really seems that he is right. He told +me just now that it would double the value of the estate."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe it."</p> + +<p>"If I made bricks, according to him I could take in twice as many poor +ladies."</p> + +<p>"I believe you will be happier with fewer ladies and no bricks," said +Axel with great positiveness.</p> + +<p>Anna stood thinking. Her eyes were fixed on the tip of the finger she +had passed through the loop of string that tied the letters together, +and she watched it as the packet twisted round and round and pinched it +redder and redder. "I suppose you never wanted to be a woman," she said, +considering this phenomenon with apparent interest.</p> + +<p>Axel laughed.</p> + +<p>"The mere question makes you laugh," she said, looking up quickly. "I +never heard of a man who did want to. But lots of women would give +anything to be men."</p> + +<p>"And you are one of them?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>He laughed again.</p> + +<p>"You think I would make a queer little man?" she said, laughing too; but +her face became sober immediately, and with a glance at the shut +dining-room door she continued: "It is so horrid to feel weak. My sister +Susie says I am very obstinate. Perhaps I was with her, but different +people have different effects on one." She sank her voice to a whisper, +and looked at him anxiously. "You can't think what an <i>effort</i> it is to +me to say No to that man."</p> + +<p>"What, to Dellwig?"</p> + +<p>"Sh—sh."</p> + +<p>"But if that is how you feel, my dear Miss Estcourt, it is very evident +that the man must go."</p> + +<p>"How easy it is to say that! Pray, who is to tell him to go?"</p> + +<p>"I will, if you wish."</p> + +<p>"If you were a woman, do you suppose you would be able to turn out an +old servant who has worked here so many years?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am sure I would, if I felt that he was getting beyond my +control."</p> + +<p>"No, you wouldn't. All sorts of things would stop you. You would +remember that your uncle specially told you to keep him on, that he has +been here ages, that he was faithful and devoted——"</p> + +<p>"I do not believe there was much devotion."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, there was. The first evening he cried about dear Uncle +Joachim."</p> + +<p>"He cried?" repeated Axel incredulously.</p> + +<p>"He did indeed."</p> + +<p>"It was about something else, then."</p> + +<p>"No, he really cried about Uncle Joachim. He really loved him."</p> + +<p>Axel looked profoundly unconvinced.</p> + +<p>"But after all those are not the real reasons," said Anna; "they ought +to be, but they're not. The simple truth is that I am a coward, and I am +frightened—dreadfully frightened—of possible scenes." And she looked +at him and laughed ruefully. "There—you see what it is to be a woman. +If I were a man, how easy things would be. Please consider the +mortification of knowing that if he persuades long enough I shall give +in, against my better judgment. He has the strongest will I think I ever +came across."</p> + +<p>"But you have not yet given in, I hope, on any point of importance?"</p> + +<p>"Up to now I have managed to say No to everything I don't want to do. +But you would laugh if you knew what those Nos cost me. Why cannot the +place go on as it was? I am perfectly satisfied. But hardly a day passes +without some wonderful new plan being laid before me, and he talks—oh, +how he talks! I believe he would convince even you."</p> + +<p>"The man is quite beyond your control," said Axel in a voice of anger; +and voices of anger commonly being loud voices, this one produced the +effect of three doors being simultaneously opened: the door leading to +the servants' quarters, through which Marie looked and vanished again, +retreating to the kitchen to talk prophetically of weddings; the +dining-room door, behind which Dellwig had grown more and more impatient +at being kept waiting so long; and the drawing-room door, on the other +side of which the baroness had been lingering for some moments, desiring +to go upstairs for her scissors, but hesitating to interrupt Anna's +business with the inspector, whose voice she thought it was that she +heard.</p> + +<p>The baroness shut her door again immediately. "<i>Aha</i>—the admirer!" she +said to herself; and went back quickly to her seat. "The Miss is talking +to a <i>jünge Herr</i>," she announced, her eyes wider open than ever.</p> + +<p>"A <i>jünge Herr</i>?" echoed Frau von Treumann. "I thought the inspector was +old?"</p> + +<p>"It must be Axel Lohm," said the princess, not raising her eyes from her +work. "He often comes in."</p> + +<p>"He comes courting, evidently," said the baroness with a sub-acid smile.</p> + +<p>"It has not been evident to me," said the princess coldly.</p> + +<p>"I thought it looked like it," said the baroness, with more meekness.</p> + +<p>"Is that the Lohm who was engaged to one of the Kiederfels girls some +years ago?" asked Frau von Treumann.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and she died."</p> + +<p>"But did he not marry soon afterwards? I heard he married."</p> + +<p>"That was the second brother. This one is the eldest, and lives next to +us, and is single."</p> + +<p>Frau von Treumann was silent for a moment. Then she said blandly, "Now +confess, princess, that <i>he</i> is the perilous person from whom you think +it necessary to defend Miss Estcourt."</p> + +<p>"Oh no," said the princess with equal blandness; "I have no fears about +him."</p> + +<p>"What, is he too possessed of an invulnerable heart?"</p> + +<p>"I know nothing of his heart. I said, I believe, adventurers. And no one +could call Axel Lohm an adventurer. I was thinking of men who have run +through all their own and all their relations' money in betting and +gambling, and who want a wife who will pay their debts."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach so</i>," said Frau von Treumann with perfect urbanity. And if this +talk about protecting Miss Estcourt from adventurers in a place where +there were apparently no human beings of any kind, but only trees and +marshes, might seem to a bystander to be foolishness, to the speakers it +was luminousness itself, and in no way increased their love for each +other.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Dellwig, looking through the door and seeing Lohm, brought his +heels together and bowed with his customary exaggeration. "I beg a +thousand times pardon," he said; "I thought the gracious Miss was +engaged and would not return, and I was about to go home."</p> + +<p>"I have found the paper, and am coming," said Anna coldly. "Well, +good-night," she added in English, holding out her hand to Axel.</p> + +<p>"If you will allow me, I should like to pay my respects to Princess +Ludwig before I go," he said, thinking thus to see her later.</p> + +<p>"Ah! wasn't I right?" she said, smiling. "You are determined to look at +the new arrivals. How can a man be so inquisitive? But I will say +good-night all the same. I shall be ages with Herr Dellwig, and shall +not see you again." She shook hands with him, and went into the +dining-room, Dellwig standing aside with deep respect to let her pass. +But she turned to say something to him as he shut the door, and Axel +caught the expression of her face, the intense boredom on it, the +profound distrust of self; and he went in to the princess with an +unusually severe and determined look on his own.</p> + +<p>Dellwig went home that night in a savage mood. "That young man," he said +to his wife, flinging his hat and coat on to a chair and himself on to a +sofa, "is thrusting himself more and more into our affairs."</p> + +<p>"That Lohm?" she asked, rolling up her work preparatory to fetching his +evening drink.</p> + +<p>"I had almost got the Miss to consent to the brick-kiln. She was quite +reasonable, and went out to get the plan I had made. Then she met +him—he is always hanging about."</p> + +<p>"And then?" inquired Frau Dell wig eagerly.</p> + +<p>"Pah—this petticoat government—having to beg and pray for the smallest +concession—it makes an honest man sick."</p> + +<p>"She will not consent?"</p> + +<p>"She came back as obstinate as a mule. It all had to be gone into again +from the beginning."</p> + +<p>"She will not consent?"</p> + +<p>"She said Lohm would look at the place and advise her."</p> + +<p>"<i>Aber so was!</i>" cried Frau Dellwig, crimson with wrath. "Advise her? +Did you not tell her that you were her adviser?"</p> + +<p>"You may be sure I did. I told her plainly enough, I fancy, that Lohm +had nothing to say here, and that her uncle had always listened to me. +She sat without speaking, as she generally does, not even looking at +me—I never can be sure that she is even listening."</p> + +<p>"And then?"</p> + +<p>"I asked her at last if she had lost confidence in me."</p> + +<p>"And then?"</p> + +<p>"She said <i>oh nein</i>, in her affected foreign way—in the sort of voice +that might just as well mean <i>oh ja</i>." And he imitated, with great +bitterness, Anna's way of speaking German. "Mark my words, Frau, she is +as weak as water for all her obstinacy, and the last person who talks to +her can always bring her round."</p> + +<p>"Then you must be the last person."</p> + +<p>"If it were not for that prig Lohm, that interfering ass, that +incomparable rhinoceros——"</p> + +<p>"He wants to marry her, of course."</p> + +<p>"If he marries her——" Dellwig stopped short, and stared gloomily at +his muddy boots.</p> + +<p>"If he marries her——" repeated his wife; but she too stopped short. +They both knew well enough what would happen to them if he married her.</p> + +<p>The building of the brick-kiln had come to be a point of honour with the +Dellwigs. Ever since Anna's arrival, their friends the neighbouring +farmers and inspectors had been congratulating them on their complete +emancipation from all manner of control; for of course a young ignorant +lady would leave the administration of her estate entirely in her +inspector's hands, confining her activities, as became a lady of birth, +to paying the bills. Dellwig had not doubted that this would be so, and +had boasted loudly and continually of the different plans he had made +and was going to carry out. The estate of which he was now practically +master was to become renowned in the province for its enterprise and the +extent, in every direction, of its operations. The brick-kiln was a +long-cherished scheme. His oldest friend and rival, the head inspector +of a place on the other side of Stralsund, had one, and had constantly +urged him to have one too; but old Joachim, without illusions as to the +quality of the clay, and by no manner of means to be talked into +disbelieving the evidence of his own eyes, would not hear of it, and +Dellwig felt there was nothing to be done in the face of that curt +refusal. The friend, triumphing in his own brick-kiln and his own more +pliable master, jeered, dug him in the ribs at the Sunday gatherings, +and talked of dependence, obedience, and restricted powers. Such friends +are difficult to endure with composure; and Dellwig, and still less his +wife, for many months past had hardly been able to bear the word "brick" +mentioned in their presence. When Anna appeared on the scene, so young, +so foreign, and so obviously foolish, Dellwig, certain now of success, +told his friend on the very first Sunday night that the brick-kiln was +now a mere matter of weeks. Always a boaster, he could not resist +boasting a little too soon. Besides, he felt very sure; and the friend, +too, had taken it for granted, when he heard of the impending young +mistress, that the thing was as good as built.</p> + +<p>That was in March. It was now the end of April, and every Sunday the +friend inquired when the building was to be begun, and every Sunday +Dellwig said it would begin when the days grew longer. The days had +grown longer, would have grown in a few weeks to their longest, as the +friend repeatedly pointed out, and still nothing had been done. To the +many people who do not care what their neighbours think of them, the +torments of the two Dellwigs because of the unbuilt brick-kiln will be +incomprehensible. Yet these torments were so acute that in the weaker +moments immediately preceding meals they both felt that it would almost +be better to leave Kleinwalde than to stay and endure them; indeed, +before dinner, or during wakeful nights, Frau Dellwig was convinced that +it would be better to die outright. The good opinion of their +neighbours—more exactly, the envy of their neighbours—was to them the +very breath of their nostrils. In their set they must be the first, the +undisputedly luckiest, cleverest, and best off. Any position less mighty +would be unbearable. And since Anna came there had been nothing but +humiliations. First the dinner to the Manskes, from which they had been +excluded—Frau Dellwig grew hot all over at the recollection of the +Sunday gathering succeeding it; then the renovation of the <i>Schloss</i> +without the least reference to them, without the smallest asking for +advice or help; then the frequent communications with the pastor, +putting him quite out of his proper position, the confidence placed in +him, the ridiculous respect shown him, his connection with the mad +charitable scheme; and now, most dreadful of all, this obstinacy in +regard to the brick-kiln. It was becoming clear that they were fairly on +the way to being pitied by the neighbours. Pitied! Horrid thought. The +great thing in life was to be so situated that you can pity others. But +to be pitied yourself? Oh, thrice-accursed folly of old Joachim, to +leave Kleinwalde to a woman! Frau Dellwig could not sleep that night for +hating Anna. She lay awake staring into the darkness with hot eyes, and +hating her with a heartiness that would have petrified that unconscious +young woman as she sat about a stone's throw off in her bedroom, +motionless in the chair into which she had dropped on first coming +upstairs, too tired even to undress, after her long struggle with Frau +Dellwig's husband. "The <i>Engländerin</i> will ruin us!" cried Frau Dellwig +suddenly, unable to hate in silence any longer.</p> + +<p>"<i>Wie? Was?</i>" exclaimed Dellwig, who had dozed off, and was startled.</p> + +<p>"She will—she will!" cried his wife.</p> + +<p>"Will what? Ruin us? The <i>Engländerin</i>? <i>Ach was—Unsinn.</i> <i>She</i> can be +managed. It is Lohm who is the danger. It is Lohm who will ruin us. If +we could get rid of him——"</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach Gott</i>, if he would die!" exclaimed Frau Dellwig, with fervent +hands raised heavenwards. "<i>Ach Gott</i>, if he would only die!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach Gott, ach Gott!</i>" mimicked her husband irritably, for he disliked +being suddenly awakened. "People never die when anything depends on it," +he grumbled, turning over on his side. And he cursed Axel several times, +and went to sleep.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + + +<p>The philosopher tells us that, after the healing interval of sleep, we +are prepared to meet each other every morning as gods and goddesses; so +fresh, so strong, so lusty, so serene, did he consider the newly-risen +and the some-time separated must of necessity be. It is a pleasing +belief; and Experience, that hopelessly prosaic governess who never +gives us any holidays, very quickly disposes of it. For what is to +become of the god-like mood if only one in a company possess it? The +middle-aged and old, who abound in all companies, are seldom god-like, +and are never so at breakfast.</p> + +<p>The morning after the arrival of the Chosen, Anna woke up in the true +Olympian temper. She had been brought back to the happy world of +realities from the happy world of dreams by the sun of an unusually +lovely April shining on her face. She had only to open her window to be +convinced that all which she beheld was full of blessings. Just beneath +her window on the grass was a double cherry tree in flower, an exquisite +thing to look down on with the sunshine and the bees busy among its +blossoms. The unreasoning joyfulness that invariably took possession of +her heart whenever the weather was fine, filled it now with a rapture of +hope and confidence. This world, this wonderful morning world that she +saw and smelt from her window, was manifestly a place in which to be +happy. Everything she saw was very good. Even the remembrance of Dellwig +was transfigured in that clear light. And while she dressed she took +herself seriously to task for the depression of the night before. +Depressed she had certainly been; and why? Simply because she was +over-excited and over-tired, and her spirit was still so mortifyingly +unable to rise superior to the weakness of her tiresome flesh. And to +let herself be made wretched by Dellwig, merely because he talked loud +and had convictions which she did not share! The god-like morning mood +was strong upon her, and she contemplated her listless self of the +previous evening, the self that had sat so long despondently thinking +instead of going to bed, with contempt. These evening interviews with +Dellwig, she reflected, were a mistake. He came at hours when she was +least able to bear his wordiness and shouting, and it was the knowledge +of his impending visit that made her irritable beforehand and ruffled +the absolute serenity that she felt was alone appropriate in a house +dedicated to love. But it was not only Dellwig and the brick-kiln that +had depressed her; she had actually had doubts about her three new +friends, doubts as to the receptivity of their souls, as to the capacity +of their souls for returning love. At one awful moment she had even +doubted whether they had souls at all, but had hastily blown out the +candle at this point, extinguishing the doubt at the same time, +smothering it beneath the bedclothes, and falling asleep at once, after +the fashion of healthy young people.</p> + +<p>Now, at the beginning of the new day, with all her misgivings healed by +sleep, she thought calmly over the interview she had had with Frau von +Treumann before supper; for it was that interview that had been the +chief cause of her dejection. Frau von Treumann had told her an untruth, +a quite obvious and absurd untruth in the face of the correspondence, as +to the reason of her coming to Kleinwalde. She had said she had only +come at the instigation of her son, who looked upon Anna as a deserving +object of help. And Anna had been hurt, had been made miserable, by the +paltriness of this fib. Her great desire was to reach her friends' souls +quickly, to attain the beautiful intimacy in which the smallest fiction +is unnecessary; and so little did Frau von Treumann understand her, that +she had begun a friendship that was to be for life with an untruth that +would not have misled a child. But see the effect of sleep and a +gracious April morning. The very shabbiness and paltriness of the fib +made Anna's heart yearn over the poor lady. Surely the pride that tried +to hide its wounds with rags of such pitiful flimsiness was profoundly +pathetic? With such pride, all false from Anna's point of view, but real +and painful enough to its possessor, the necessity that drove her to +accept Anna's offer must have been more cruel than necessity, always +cruel, generally is. Her heart yearned over her friend as she dressed, +and she felt that the weakness that must lie was a weakness greatly +requiring love. For nobody, she argued, would ever lie unless driven to +it by fear of some suffering. If, then, it made her happy, and made her +life easier, let her think that Anna believed she had come for her sake. +What did it matter? No one was perfect, and many people were +surprisingly pathetic.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the day was glorious, and she went downstairs with the springy +step of hope. She was thinking exhilarating thoughts, thinking that +there were to be no ripples of misgivings and misunderstandings on the +clear surface of this first morning. They would all look into each +others' candid eyes at breakfast, and read a mutual consciousness of +interests henceforward to be shared, of happiness to be shared, of life +to be shared,—the life of devoted and tender sisters.</p> + +<p>The hall door stood open, and the house was full of the smell of April; +the smell of new leaves budding, of old leaves rotting, of damp earth, +pine needles, wet moss, and marshes. "Oh, the lovely, lovely morning!" +whispered Anna, running out on to the steps with outstretched arms and +upturned face, as though she would have clasped all the beauty round and +held it close. She drew in a long breath, and turned back into the house +singing in an impassioned but half-suppressed voice the first verse of +the Magnificat. The door leading to the kitchen opened, and to her +surprise Baroness Elmreich emerged from those dark regions. The +Magnificat broke off abruptly. Anna was surprised. Why the kitchen? The +baroness saw her hostess's figure motionless against the light of the +open door; but the light behind was strong and the hall was dark, and +she thought it was Anna's back. Hoping that she had not been noticed she +softly closed the door again and waited behind it till she could come +out unseen.</p> + +<p>Anna supposed that the princess must be showing her the servants' +quarters, and went into the breakfast room; but in it sat the princess, +making coffee.</p> + +<p>"There you are," said the princess heartily. "That is nice. Now we can +drink our coffee comfortably together before the others come down. Have +you been out? You smell of fresh air."</p> + +<p>"Only a moment on the doorstep."</p> + +<p>"Come, sit next to me. You have slept well, I can see. Notice the +advantage of coming straight in to breakfast, and not running about the +forest—you get here first, and so get the best cup of coffee."</p> + +<p>"But it isn't proper for me to have the best," said Anna, smiling as she +took the cup, "when I have guests here."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is—very proper indeed. Besides, you told me they were +sisters."</p> + +<p>"So they are. Has the baroness not been here?"</p> + +<p>"No, she is still in bed."</p> + +<p>"No, I saw her a moment ago. I thought you were with her."</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear—so early in the morning!" protested the princess. "When +did I see her last? Less than nine hours ago. She followed me into my +bedroom and talked much. I could not begin again with her the first +thing in the morning, even to please you." And she looked at Anna very +affectionately. "You were tired last night, were you not?" she +continued. "Axel Lohm stayed so late, I think he wanted to speak to you. +But you went straight up to bed."</p> + +<p>"I had seen him before he went in to you. He didn't want to speak to me. +He was consumed by curiosity about our new friends."</p> + +<p>"Was he? He did not show much interest in them. He talked to me nearly +all the time. He thought for a moment that he knew the baroness—at +least, he stared at her at first and seemed surprised. But it turned out +that she was only like someone he knew. She had evidently never seen him +before. It is a great pleasure to me to talk to that young man," the +princess went on, while Anna ate her toast.</p> + +<p>"So it is to me," said Anna.</p> + +<p>"I have met many people in my life, and have often wondered at the +dearth of nice ones—how few there are that one likes to be with and +wishes to see again and again. Axel is one of the few, decidedly."</p> + +<p>"So he is," agreed Anna.</p> + +<p>"There is goodness written on every line of his face."</p> + +<p>"Oh, he has the kindest face. And so strong. I feel that if anything +happened here, anything dreadful, that he would make it right again at +once. He would mend us if we got smashed, and build us up again if we +got burned, and protect us, this houseful of lone women, if ever anybody +tried to run away with us." And Anna nodded reassuringly at the +princess, and took another piece of toast "That is how I feel about +him," she said. "So agreeably certain, not only of his willingness to +help, but of his power to do it." Talking about Axel she quite forgot +the apparition of the baroness that she had just seen. He was so kind, +so good, so strong. How much she admired strength of purpose, +independence, the character that was determined to find its happiness in +doing its best.</p> + +<p>"If I had a daughter," said the princess, filling Anna's cup, "she +should marry Axel Lohm."</p> + +<p>"If <i>I</i> had a daughter," said Anna, "she should marry him, so yours +couldn't. I wouldn't even ask her if she liked it. I'd be so sure that +it was a good thing for her that I'd just say: 'My dear, I have chosen +my son-in-law. Get your hat, and come to church and marry him.' And +there'd be an end of <i>that</i>."</p> + +<p>The princess felt that it was an unprofitable employment, trying to help +on Axel's cause. She could not but see what he thought of Anna; and +after the touching manner of widows, was convinced of the superiority of +marriage, as a means of real happiness for a woman, over any and every +other form of occupation. Yet whenever she talked of him she was met by +the same hearty agreement and frank enthusiasm, the very words being +taken out of her mouth and her own praises of him doubled and trebled. +It was a promising friendship, but it was a singularly unpromising +prelude to love.</p> + +<p>"Please make some fresh coffee," begged Anna; "the others will be coming +down soon, and must not have cold stuff." Her voice grew tender at the +mere mention of "the others." For the princess and Axel, both of whom +she liked so much, it never took on those tender tones, as the princess +had already noted. There was nothing in either of them to appeal to that +side of her nature, the tender, mother side, which is in all good women +and most bad ones. They were her friends, staunch friends, she felt, and +of course she liked and respected them; but they were sturdy, capable +people, firmly planted on their own feet, able to battle successfully +with life—as different as possible from these helpless ones who needed +her, whom she had saved, to whom she was everything, between whom and +want and sorrow she was fixed as a shield.</p> + +<p>Two of the helpless ones came in at that moment, with frosty, +early-morning faces. Anna put the vision she had seen at the kitchen +door from her mind, and went to meet them with happy smiles and +greetings. Frau von Treumann did her best to respond warmly, but it was +very early to be enthusiastic, and at that hour of the day she was +accustomed to being a little cross. Besides, she had had no coffee yet, +and her hostess evidently had, and that made a great difference to one's +sentiments. The baroness looked pinched and bloodless; she was as frigid +as ever to Anna, said nothing about having seen her before, and seemed +to want to be left alone. So that the mutual gazing into each other's +eyes did not, after all, take place.</p> + +<p>The princess waited to see that they had all they wanted, and then went +out rattling her keys; and after an interval, during which Anna +chattered cheerful and ungrammatical German, and the window was shut, +and warming food eaten, Frau von Treumann became amiable and began to +talk.</p> + +<p>She drew from her pocket a letter and a photograph. "This is my son," +she said. "I brought it down to show you. And I have had a long letter +from him already. He never neglects his mother. Truly a good son is a +source of joy."</p> + +<p>"I suppose so," said Anna.</p> + +<p>The baroness turned her eyes slowly round and fixed them on the +photograph. "Aha," she thought, "the son again. Last night the son, this +morning the son—always the son. The excellent Treumann loses no time."</p> + +<p>"He is good-looking, my Karlchen, is he not?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Anna. "It is a becoming uniform."</p> + +<p>"Oh—becoming! He looks adorable in it. Especially on his horse. I would +not let him be anything but a hussar because of the charming uniform. +And he suits it exactly—such a lightly built, graceful figure. <i>He</i> +never stumbles over people's feet. Herr von Lohm nearly crushed my poor +foot last night. It was difficult not to scream. I never did admire +those long men made by the meter, who seem as though they would go on +for ever if there were no ceilings."</p> + +<p>"He <i>is</i> rather long," agreed Anna, smiling.</p> + +<p>"Heartwhole," thought Frau von Treumann. "Tell me, dear Miss +Estcourt——" she said, laying her hand on Anna's.</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't call me Miss Estcourt."</p> + +<p>"But what, then?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, you must call me Anna. We are to be like sisters here—and you, +too, please, call me Anna," she said, turning to the baroness.</p> + +<p>"You are very good," said the baroness.</p> + +<p>"Well, my little sister," said Frau von Treumann, smiling, "my baby +sister——"</p> + +<p>"Baby sister!" thought the baroness. "Excellent Treumann."</p> + +<p>"—you know an old woman of my age could not really have a sister of +yours."</p> + +<p>"Yes, she could—not a whole sister, perhaps, but a half one."</p> + +<p>"Well, as you please. The idea is sweet to me. I was going to ask +you—but Karlchen's letter is too touching, really—such thoughts in +it—such high ideals——" And she turned over the sheets, of which there +were three, and began to blow her nose.</p> + +<p>"He has written you a very long letter," said Anna pleasantly; the +extent to which the nose blowing was being carried made her uneasy. Was +there to be crying?</p> + +<p>"You have a cold, dear Frau von Treumann?" inquired the baroness with +solicitude.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach nein—doch nein</i>," murmured Frau von Treumann, turning the sheets +over, and blowing her nose harder than ever.</p> + +<p>"It will come off," thought Letty, who had slipped in unnoticed, and was +eating bread and butter alone at the further end of the table.</p> + +<p>"Poor thing," thought Anna, "she adores that Karlchen."</p> + +<p>There was a pause, during which the nose continued to be blown.</p> + +<p>"His letter is beautiful, but sad—very sad," said Frau von Treumann, +shaking her head despondingly. "Poor boy—poor dear boy—he misses his +mother, of course. I knew he would, but I did not dream it would be as +bad as this. Oh, my dear Miss Estcourt—well, Anna then"—smiling +faintly—"I could never describe to you the wrench it was, the terrible, +terrible wrench, leaving him who for five years—I am a widow five +years—has been my all."</p> + +<p>"It must have been dreadful," murmured Anna sympathetically.</p> + +<p>The baroness sat straight and motionless, staring fixedly at Frau von +Treumann.</p> + +<p>"'When shall I see you again, my dearest mamma?' were his last words. +And I could give him no hope—no answer." The handkerchief went up to +her eyes.</p> + +<p>"What <i>is</i> she gassing about?" wondered Letty.</p> + +<p>"I can see him now, fading away on the platform as my train bore me off +to an unknown life. An only son—the only son of a widow—is everything, +everything to his mother."</p> + +<p>"He must be," said Anna.</p> + +<p>There was another silence. Then Frau von Treumann wiped her eyes and +took up the letter again. "Now he writes that though I have only been +away two days from Rislar, the town he is stationed at, it seems already +like years. Poor boy! He is quite desperate—listen to this—poor +boy——" And she smiled a little, and read aloud, "'I must see you, +<i>liebste, beste Mama</i>, from time to time. I had no idea the separation +would be like this, or I could never have let you go. Pray beg Miss +Estcourt——'"</p> + +<p>"Aha," thought the baroness.</p> + +<p>"'—to allow me to visit my mother occasionally. There must be an inn in +the village. If not, I could stay at Stralsund, and would in no way +intrude on her. But I must see my dearest mother, the being I have +watched over and cared for ever since my father's death.' Poor, dear, +foolish boy—he is desperate——" And she folded up the letter, shook +her head, smiled, and suddenly buried her face in her handkerchief.</p> + +<p>"Excellent Treumann," thought the unblinking baroness.</p> + +<p>Anna sat in some perplexity. Sons had not entered into her calculations. +In the correspondence, she remembered, the son had been lightly passed +over as an officer living on his pay and without a superfluous penny for +the support of his parent. Not a word had been said of any unusual +affection existing between them. Now it appeared that the mother and son +were all in all to each other. If so, of course the separation was +dreadful. A mother's love was a sentiment that inspired Anna with +profound respect. Before its unknown depths and heights she stood in awe +and silence. How could she, a spinster, even faintly comprehend that +sacred feeling? It was a mysterious and beautiful emotion that she could +only reverence from afar. Clearly she must not come between parent and +child; but yet—yet she wished she had had more time to think it over.</p> + +<p>She looked rather helplessly at Frau von Treumann, and gave her hand a +little squeeze. The hand did not return the squeeze, and the face +remained buried in the handkerchief. Well, it would be absurd to want to +cut off the son entirely from his mother. If he came occasionally to see +her it could not matter much. She gave the hand a firmer squeeze, and +said with an effort that she did her best to conceal, "But he must come +then, when he can. It is rather a long way—didn't you say you had to +stay a night in Berlin?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear Miss Estcourt—my dear Anna!" cried Frau von Treumann, +snatching the handkerchief from her face and seizing Anna's hand in both +hers, "what a weight from my heart—what a heavy, heavy weight! All +night I was thinking how shall I bear this? I may write to him, then, +and tell him what you say? A long journey? You are afraid it will tire +him? Oh, it will be nothing, nothing at all to Karlchen if only he can +see his mother. How can I thank you! You will say my gratitude is +excessive for such a little thing, and truly only a mother could +understand it——"</p> + +<p>In short, Karlchen's appearance at Kleinwalde was now only a matter of +days.</p> + +<p>"<i>Unverschämt</i>," was the baroness's mental comment.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + + +<p>Anna put on her hat and went out to think it over. Fräulein Kuhräuber +was apparently still asleep. Letty, accompanied by Miss Leech, had to go +to Lohm parsonage for her first lesson with Herr Klutz, who had +undertaken to teach her German. Frau von Treumann said she must write at +once to Karlchen, and shut herself up to do it. The baroness was vague +as to her intentions, and disappeared. So Anna started off by herself, +crossed the road, and walked quickly away into the forest. "If it makes +her so happy, then I am glad," she said to herself. "She is here to be +happy; and if she wants Karlchen so badly, why then she must have him +from time to time. I wonder why I don't like Karlchen."</p> + +<p>She walked quickly, with her eyes on the ground. The mood in which she +sang magnificats had left her, nor did she look to see what the April +morning was doing. Frau von Treumann had not been under her roof +twenty-four hours, and already her son had been added—if only +occasionally, still undoubtedly added—to the party. Suppose the +baroness and Fräulein Kuhräuber should severally disclose an inability +to live without being visited by some cherished relative? Suppose the +other nine, the still Unchosen, should each turn out to have a relative +waiting tragically in the background for permission to make repeated +calls? And suppose these relatives should all be male?</p> + +<p>These were grave questions; so grave that she was quite at a loss how to +answer them. And then she felt that somebody was looking at her; and +raising her eyes, she saw Axel on the mossy path quite close to her.</p> + +<p>"So deep in thought?" he asked, smiling at her start.</p> + +<p>Anna wondered how it was that he so often went through the forest. Was +it a short cut from Lohm to anywhere? She had met him three or four +times lately, in quite out of the way parts. He seemed to ride through +it and walk through it at all hours of the day.</p> + +<p>"How is your potato-planting getting on?" she asked involuntarily. She +knew what a rush there was just then putting the potatoes in, for she +did not drive every day about her fields in a cart without springs with +Dellwig for nothing. Axel must have potatoes to plant too; why didn't he +stay at home, then, and do it?</p> + +<p>"What a truly proper question for a country lady to ask," he said, +looking amused. "You waste no time in conventional good mornings or +asking how I do, but begin at once with potatoes. Well, I do not believe +that you are really interested in mine, so I shall tell you nothing +about them. You only want to remind me that I ought to be seeing them +planted instead of walking about your woods."</p> + +<p>Anna smiled. "I believe I did mean something like that," she said.</p> + +<p>"Well, I am not so aimless as you suppose," he returned, walking by her +side. "I have been looking at that place."</p> + +<p>"What place?"</p> + +<p>"Where Dellwig wants to build the brick-kiln."</p> + +<p>"Oh! What do you think of it?"</p> + +<p>"What I knew I would think of it. It is a fool's plan. The clay is the +most wretched stuff. It has puzzled me, seeing how very poor it is, that +he should be so eager to have the thing. I should have credited him with +more sense."</p> + +<p>"He is quite absurdly keen on it. Last night I thought he would never +stop persuading."</p> + +<p>"But you did not give in?"</p> + +<p>"Not an inch. I said I would ask you to look at it, and then he was +simply rude. I do believe he will have to go. I don't really think we +shall ever get on together. Certainly, as you say the clay is bad, I +shall refuse to build a brick-kiln."</p> + +<p>Axel smiled at her energy. In the morning she was always determined +about Dellwig. "You are very brave to-day," he said. "Last night you +seemed afraid of him."</p> + +<p>"He comes when I am tired. I am not going to see him in the evening any +more. It is too dreadful as a finish to a happy day."</p> + +<p>"It was a happy day, then, yesterday?" he asked quickly.</p> + +<p>"Yes—that is, it ought to have been, and probably would have been +if—if I hadn't been tired."</p> + +<p>"But the others—the new arrivals—they must have been happy?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—oh yes—" said Anna, hesitating, "I think so. Fräulein Kuhräuber +was, I am sure, at intervals. I think the other two would have been if +they hadn't had a journey."</p> + +<p>"By the way, do you remember what I said yesterday about the Elmreichs?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I do. You said horrid things." Her voice changed.</p> + +<p>"About a Baron Elmreich. But he had a sister who made a hash of her +life. I saw her once or twice in Berlin. She was dancing at the +Wintergarten, and under her own name."</p> + +<p>"Poor thing. But it doesn't interest me."</p> + +<p>"Don't get angry yet."</p> + +<p>"But it doesn't interest me. And why shouldn't she dance? I knew several +people who ended by dancing at London Wintergartens."</p> + +<p>"You admit, then, that it is an end?"</p> + +<p>"It is hardly a beginning," conceded Anna.</p> + +<p>"She was so amazingly like your baroness would be if she painted and +wore a wig——"</p> + +<p>"That you are convinced they must be sisters. Thank you. Now what do you +suppose is the good of telling me that?" And she stood still and faced +him, her eyes flashing.</p> + +<p>Do what he would, Axel could not help smiling at her wrath. It was the +wrath of a mother whose child has been hurt by someone on purpose, "I +wish," he said, "that you would not be so angry when I tell you things +that might be important for you to know. If your baroness is really the +sister of the dancing baroness——"</p> + +<p>"But she is not. She told me last night that she has no brothers and +sisters. And she wrote it in the letters before she came. Do you think +it is a praiseworthy occupation for a man, doing his best to find out +disgraceful things about a very poor and very helpless woman?"</p> + +<p>"No, I do not," said Axel decidedly. "Under any other circumstances I +would leave the poor lady to take her chance. But do consider," he said, +following her, for she had begun to walk on quickly again, "do consider +your unusual position. You are so young to be living away from your +friends, and so young and inexperienced to be at the head of a home for +homeless women—you ought to be quite extraordinarily particular about +the antecedents of the people you take in. It would be most unpleasant +if it got about that they were not respectable."</p> + +<p>"But they are respectable," said Anna, looking straight before her.</p> + +<p>"A sister who dances at the Wintergarten——"</p> + +<p>"Did I not tell you that she has no sister?"</p> + +<p>Axel shrugged his shoulders. "The resemblance is so striking that they +might be twins," he said.</p> + +<p>"Then you think she says what is not true?"</p> + +<p>"How can I tell?"</p> + +<p>Anna stopped again and faced him. "Well, suppose it were true—suppose +it is her sister, and she has tried to hide it—do you know how I should +feel about it?"</p> + +<p>"Properly scandalised, I hope."</p> + +<p>"I should love her all the more. Oh, I should love her twice as much! +Why, think of the misery and the shame—poor, poor little woman—trying +to hide it all, bearing it all by herself—she must have loved her +sister, she must have loved her brother. It isn't true, of course, but +supposing it were, could you tell me <i>any</i> reason why I should turn my +back on her?"</p> + +<p>She stood looking at him, her eyes full of angry tears.</p> + +<p>He did not answer. If that was the way she felt, what could he do?</p> + +<p>"I never understood," she went on passionately, "why the innocent should +be punished. Do you suppose a woman would <i>like</i> her brother to cheat +and then shoot himself? Or <i>like</i> her sister to go and dance? But if +they do do these things, besides her own grief and horror, she is to be +shunned by everybody as though she were infectious. Is that fair? Is +that right? Is it in the least Christian?"</p> + +<p>"No, of course it is not. It is very hard and very ugly, but it is quite +natural. An old woman in a strong position might take such a person up, +perhaps, and comfort her and love her as you propose to do, but a young +girl ought not to do anything of the sort."</p> + +<p>Anna turned away with a quick movement of impatience and walked on. "If +you argue on the young girl basis," she said, "we shall never be able to +talk about a single thing. When will you leave off about my young +girlishness? In five years I shall be thirty—will you go on till I have +reached that blessed age?"</p> + +<p>"I have no right to go on to you about anything," said Axel.</p> + +<p>"Precisely," said Anna.</p> + +<p>"But please remember that I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to your +uncle, and make allowances for me if I am over-zealous in my anxiety to +shield his niece from possible unpleasantness."</p> + +<p>"Then don't keep telling me I am too young to do good. It is ludicrous, +considering my age, besides being dreadful. You will say that, I +believe, till I am thirty or forty, and then when you can't decently say +it any more, and I still want to do things, you'll say I'm old enough to +know better."</p> + +<p>Axel laughed. Anna's dimples appeared for an instant, but vanished +again.</p> + +<p>"Now," she said, "I am not going to talk about poor little Else any +more. Let her distant relations dance till they are tired—it concerns +nobody here at all."</p> + +<p>"Little Else?"</p> + +<p>"The baroness. Of course we shall call each other by our Christian +names. We are sisters."</p> + +<p>"I see."</p> + +<p>"You don't see at all," she said, with a swift sideward glance at him.</p> + +<p>"My dear Miss Estcourt——"</p> + +<p>"If my plan succeeds it will certainly not be because I have been +encouraged."</p> + +<p>"I think," he said with sudden warmth, "that the plan is beautiful, and +could only have been made by a beautiful nature."</p> + +<p>"Oh?" ejaculated Anna, surprised. A flush of gratification came into her +face. The heartiness of the tone surprised her even more than the words. +She stood still to look at him. "It is a pity," she said softly, "that +nearly always when we are together we get angry, for you can be so kind +when you choose. Say nice things to me. Let us be happy. I love being +happy."</p> + +<p>She held out her hand, smiling. He took it and gave it a hearty, matter +of fact shake, and dropped it. It was very awkward, but he was +struggling with an overpowering desire to take her in his arms and kiss +her, and not let her go again till she had said she would marry him. It +was exceedingly awkward, for he knew quite well that if he did so it +would be the end of all things.</p> + +<p>He turned rather white, and thrust his hands deep into his pockets. +"Yes, the plan is beautiful," he said cheerfully, "but very unpractical. +And the nature that made it is, I am sure, beautiful, but of course +quite as unpractical as the plan." And he smiled down at her, a broad, +genial smile.</p> + +<p>"I know I don't set about things the right way," she said. "If only you +wouldn't worry about the pasts of my poor friends and what their +relations may have done in pre-historic times, you could help me so +much."</p> + +<p>To his relief she began to walk on again. "Princess Ludwig is a sensible +and experienced woman," he said, "and can help you in many ways that I +cannot."</p> + +<p>"But she only looks at the <i>praktische</i> side of a question, and that is +really only one side. I am too unpractical, I know, but she isn't +unpractical enough. But I don't want to talk about her. What I wanted to +say was, that once these poor ladies have been chosen and are here, the +time for making inquiries is over, isn't it? As far as I am concerned, +anyhow, it is. I shall never forsake them, never, <i>never</i>. So please +don't try to tell me things about them—it doesn't change my feelings +towards them, and only makes me angry with you. Which is a pity. I want +to live at peace with my neighbour."</p> + +<p>"Well?" he said, as she paused. "That, I take it, is a prelude to +something else."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is. It's a prelude to Karlchen."</p> + +<p>"To Karlchen?"</p> + +<p>She looked at him, and laughed rather nervously. "I am afraid," she +said, "that Karlchen is coming to stay with me."</p> + +<p>"And who, pray, is Karlchen?"</p> + +<p>"The only son of his mother, and she is a widow."</p> + +<p>He came to a standstill again. "What," he said, "Frau von Treumann has +asked you to invite her son to Kleinwalde?"</p> + +<p>"She didn't actually ask, but she got a sad letter from him, and seemed +to feel the separation so much, and cried about it, and so—and so I +did."</p> + +<p>Axel was silent.</p> + +<p>"I don't yearn to see Karlchen," said Anna in rather a small voice. She +could not help feeling that the invitation had been wrung from her.</p> + +<p>Axel bored a hole in the moss with his stick, and did not answer.</p> + +<p>"But naturally his poor mother clings to him, and he to her."</p> + +<p>Axel was intent on his hole and did not answer.</p> + +<p>"They are all the world to each other."</p> + +<p>Axel filled up his hole again, and pressed the moss carefully over it +with his foot. Then he said, "I never yet heard of two Treumanns being +all the world to each other."</p> + +<p>"You appear to have a down on the Treumanns."</p> + +<p>"Not in the least. I do not think they interest me enough. It is an East +Prussian Junker family that has spread beyond its natural limits, and +one meets them everywhere, and knows their characteristics. What is this +young man? I do not remember having heard of him."</p> + +<p>"He is an officer at Rislar."</p> + +<p>"At Rislar? Those are the red hussars. Do you wish me to make inquiries +about him?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no. It's no use. His mother can't be happy without him, so he must +come."</p> + +<p>"Then may I ask why, if I am not to help you in the matter, we are +talking about him at all?"</p> + +<p>"I wanted to ask you whether—whether you think he will come often."</p> + +<p>"I should think," said Axel positively, "that he will come very often +indeed."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Anna.</p> + +<p>They walked on in silence.</p> + +<p>"Have you considered," he said presently, "what you would do if your +other—sisters want their relations asked down to stay with them? +Christmas, for instance, is a time of general rejoicing, when the +coldest hearts grow warm. Relations who have quarrelled all the year, +seek each other out at Christmas and talk tearfully of ties of blood. +And birthdays—will your twelve sisters be content to spend their twelve +birthdays remote from all members of their family? Birthdays here are +important days. There will be one a month now for you to celebrate at +Kleinwalde."</p> + +<p>"I have not got farther than considering Karlchen," said Anna with some +impatience.</p> + +<p>"A male Kuhräuber," said Axel musingly, swinging his stick and gazing up +at the fleecy clouds floating over the pine tops, "a male Kuhräuber +would be quite unlike anything you have yet seen."</p> + +<p>"There are no male Kuhräubers," said Anna. "At least," she added, +correcting herself, "Fräulein Kuhräuber said so. She said she had no +relations at all, but perhaps—perhaps she has forgotten some, and will +remember them by and by. Oh, I wish they would tell me exactly how they +stand, and not try to hide anything! I thought we had left nothing +unexplained in the letters, but now Karlchen—it seems——" She stopped +and bit her lip. She was actually on the verge of criticising, to Axel, +the behaviour of her sisters. "Look," she said, catching sight of red +roofs through the thinning trees, "isn't that Lohm? I have seen you home +without knowing it."</p> + +<p>She held out her hand. "It isn't much good talking, is it?" she said, +moved by a sudden impulse, and looking up at him with a slightly wistful +smile. "How we talk and talk and never get any nearer anything or each +other. Such an amount of explaining oneself, and all no use. I don't +mean you and me especially—it is always so, with everyone and +everywhere. It is very weird. Good-bye."</p> + +<p>But he held her hand and would not let her go. "No," he said, in a voice +she did not know, "wait one moment. Why will you not let me really help +you? Do you think you will ever achieve anything by shutting your eyes +to what is true? Is it not better to face it, and then to do one's +best—after that, knowing the truth? Why are you angry whenever I try to +tell you the truth, or what I believe to be the truth about these +ladies? You are certain to find it out for yourself one day. You force +me to look on and see you being disappointed, and grieved, and perhaps +cheated—anyhow your confidence abused—and you reduce our talks +together to a sort of sparring match unworthy, quite unworthy of either +of us——" He broke off abruptly and released her hand. The passion in +his voice was unmistakable, and she was listening with astonished eyes. +"I am lecturing you," he said in his usual even tones, "Forgive me for +thinking that you are setting about your plan in a way that can never be +successful. As you say, we talk and talk, and the more we talk the less +do we understand each other. It is a foolish world, and a pre-eminently +lonely one."</p> + +<p>He lifted his hat and turned away. Anna opened her lips to say +something, but he was gone.</p> + +<p>She went home and meditated on volcanoes.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2> + + +<p>The May that year in Northern Germany was the May of a poet's dream. The +days were like a chain of pearls, increasing in beauty and preciousness +as the chain lengthened. The lilacs flowered a fortnight earlier than in +other years. The winds, so restless usually on those flat shores, seemed +all asleep, and hardly stirred. About the middle of the month the moon +was at the full, and the forest became enchanted ground. It was a time +for love and lovers, for vows and kisses, for all pretty, happy, hopeful +things. Only those farmers who were too old to love and vow, looked at +their rye fields and grumbled because there was no rain.</p> + +<p>Karlchen, arriving on the first Saturday of that blessed month, felt all +disposed to love, if the <i>Engländerin</i> should turn out to be in the +least degree lovable. He did not ask much of a young woman with a +fortune, but he inwardly prayed that she might not be quite so ugly as +wives with money sometimes are. He was a man used to having what he +wanted, and had spent his own and his mother's money in getting it. +There was a little bald patch on the top of his head, and there were +many debts on his mind, and he was nearing the critical point in an +officer's career, the turning of which is reserved exclusively for the +efficient; and so he had three excellent reasons for desiring to marry. +He had desired it, indeed, for some time, had attempted it often, and +had not achieved it. The fathers of wealthy German girls knew the state +of his finances with an exactitude that was unworthy; and they knew, +besides, every one of his little weaknesses. As a result, they gave +their daughters to other suitors. But here was a girl without a father, +who knew nothing about him at all. There was, of course, some story in +the background to account for her living in this way; but that was +precisely what would make her glad of a husband who would relieve her of +the necessity of building up the weaker parts of her reputation on a +foundation of what Karlchen, when he saw the inmates of the house, +rudely stigmatised as <i>alte Schachteln</i>. Reputations, he reflected, +staring at Fräulein Kuhräuber, may be too dearly bought. Naturally she +would prefer an easy-going husband, who would let her see life with all +its fun, to this dreary and aimless existence.</p> + +<p>The Treumanns, he thought, were in luck. What a burden his mother had +been on him for the last five years! Miss Estcourt had relieved him of +it. Now there were his debts, and she would relieve him of those; and +the little entanglement she must have had at home would not matter in +Germany, where no one knew anything about her, except that she was the +highly respectable Joachim's niece. Anyway, he was perfectly willing to +let bygones be bygones. He left his bag at the inn at Kleinwalde, an +impossible place as he noted with pleasure, sent away his <i>Droschke</i>, +and walked round to the house; but he did not see Anna. She kept out of +the way till the evening, and he had ample time to be happy with his +mother. When he did see her, he fell in love with her at once. He had +quite a simple nature, composed wholly of instincts, and fell in love +with an ease acquired by long practice. Anna's face and figure were far +prettier than he had dared to hope. She was a beauty, he told himself +with much satisfaction. Truly the Treumanns were in luck. He entirely +forgot the <i>rôle</i> he was to play of loving son, and devoted himself, +with his habitual artlessness, to her. Indeed, if he had not forgotten +it, he and his mother were so little accustomed to displays of affection +that they would have been but clumsy actors. There is a great difference +between affectionate letters written quietly in one's room, and +affectionate conversation that has to sound as though it welled up from +one's heart. Nothing of the kind ever welled up from Karlchen's heart; +and Anna noticed at once that there were no signs of unusual attachment +between mother and son. Karlchen was not even commonly polite to his +mother, nor did she seem to expect him to be. When she dropped her +scissors, she had to pick them up for herself. When she lost her +thimble, she hunted for it alone. When she wanted a footstool, she got +up and fetched one from under his very nose. When she came into the room +and looked about for a chair, it was Letty who offered her hers. +Karlchen sat comfortably with his legs crossed, playing with the +paper-knife he had taken out of the book Anna had been reading, and +making himself pleasant. He had his mother's large black eyes, and very +long thick black eyelashes of which he was proud, conscious that they +rested becomingly on his cheeks when he looked down at the paper-knife. +Letty was greatly struck by them, and inquired of Miss Leech in a +whisper whether she had ever seen their like.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Jessup had silken eyelashes too," replied Miss Leech dreamily.</p> + +<p>"These aren't silk—they're cotton eyelashes," said Letty scornfully.</p> + +<p>"My dear Letty," murmured Miss Leech.</p> + +<p>Anna was at a disadvantage because of her imperfect German. She could +not repress Karlchen when he was unduly kind as she would have done in +English, and with his mother presiding, as it were, at their opening +friendship, she did not like to begin by looking lofty. Luckily the +princess was unusually chatty that evening. She sat next to Karlchen, +and continually joined in the talk. She was cheerful amiability itself, +and insisted upon being told all about those sons of her acquaintances +who were in his regiment. When he half turned his back on her and +dropped his voice to a rapid undertone, thereby making himself +completely incomprehensible to Anna, the princess pleasantly advised him +to speak very slowly and distinctly, for unless he did Miss Estcourt +would certainly not understand. In a word, she took him under her wing +whether he would or no, and persisted in her friendliness in spite of +his mother's increasingly desperate efforts to draw her into +conversation.</p> + +<p>"Why do we not go out, dear Anna?" cried Frau von Treumann at last, +unable to endure Princess Ludwig's behaviour any longer. "Look what a +fine evening it is—and quite warm." And she who till then had gone +about shutting windows, and had been unable to bear the least breath of +air, herself opened the glass doors leading into the garden and went +out.</p> + +<p>But although they all followed her, nothing was gained by it. She +could have stamped her foot with rage at the princess's conduct. +Here was everything needful for the beginning of a successful +courtship—starlight, a murmuring sea, warm air, fragrant bushes, a girl +who looked like Love itself in the dusk in her pale beauty, a young man +desiring nothing better than to be allowed to love her, and a mother +only waiting to bless. But here too, unfortunately, was the princess.</p> + +<p>She was quite appallingly sociable—"The spite of the woman!" thought +Frau von Treumann, for what could it matter to her?—and remained fixed +at Anna's side as they paced slowly up and down the grass, monopolising +Karlchen's attention with her absurd questions about his brother +officers. Anna walked between them, thinking of other things, holding up +her trailing white dress with one hand, and with the other the edges of +her blue cloak together at her neck. She was half a head taller than +Karlchen, and so was his mother, who walked on his other side. Karlchen, +becoming more and more enamoured the longer he walked, looked up at her +through his eyelashes and told himself that the Treumanns were certainly +in luck, for he had stumbled on a goddess.</p> + +<p>"The grass is damp," cried Frau von Treumann, interrupting the endless +questions. "My dear princess—your rheumatism—and I who so easily get +colds. Come, we will go off the grass—we are not young enough to risk +wet feet."</p> + +<p>"I do not feel it," said the princess, "I have thick shoes. But you, +dear Frau von Treumann, do not stay if you have fears."</p> + +<p>"It <i>is</i> damp," said Anna, turning up the sole of her shoe. "Shall we go +on to the path?"</p> + +<p>On the path it was obvious that they must walk in couples. Arrived at +its edge, the princess stopped and looked round with an urbane smile. +"My dear child," she said to Anna, taking her arm, "we have been keeping +Herr von Treumann from his mother regardless of his feelings. I beg you +to pardon my thoughtlessness," she added, turning to him, "but my +interest in hearing of my old friends' sons has made me quite forget +that you took this long journey to be with your dear mother. We will not +interrupt you further. Come, my dear, I wanted to ask you——" And she +led Anna away, dropping her voice to a confidential questioning +concerning the engaging of a new cook.</p> + +<p>There was nothing to be done. The only crumb of comfort Karlchen +obtained—but it was a big one—was a reluctantly given invitation, on +his mother's vividly describing at the hour of parting the place where +he was to spend the night, to remove his luggage from the inn to Anna's +house, and to sleep there.</p> + +<p>"You are too good, <i>meine Gnädigste</i>," he said, consoled by this for the +<i>tête-à-tête</i> he had just had with his mother; "but if it in any way +inconveniences you—we soldiers are used to roughing it——"</p> + +<p>"But not like that, not like that, <i>lieber Junge</i>," interrupted his +mother anxiously. "It is not fit for a dog, that inn, and I heard this +very evening from the housemaid that one of the children there has the +measles."</p> + +<p>That quite settled it. Anna could not expose Karlchen to measles. Why +did he not stay, as he had written he would, at Stralsund? As he was +here, however, she could not let him fall a prey to measles, and she +asked the princess to order a room to be got ready.</p> + +<p>It is a proof of her solemnity on that first evening with Karlchen that +when his mother, praising her beauty, mentioned her dimples as specially +bewitching, he should have said, surprised, "What dimples?"</p> + +<p>It is a proof, too, of the duplicity of mothers, that the very next day +in church the princess, sitting opposite the innkeeper's rosy family, +and counting its members between the verses of the hymn, should have +found that not one was missing.</p> + +<p>Karlchen left on Sunday evening after a not very successful visit. He +had been to church, believing that it was expected of him, and had found +to his disgust that Anna had gone for a walk. So there he sat, between +his mother and Princess Ludwig, and extracted what consolation he could +from a studied neglect of the outer forms of worship and an elaborate +slumber during the sermon.</p> + +<p>The morning, then, was wasted. At luncheon Anna was unapproachable. +Karlchen was invited to sit next to his mother, and Anna was protected +by Letty on the one hand and Fräulein Kuhräuber on the other, and she +talked the whole time to Fräulein Kuhräuber.</p> + +<p>"Who <i>is</i> Fräulein Kuhräuber?" he inquired irritably of his mother, when +they found themselves alone together again in the afternoon.</p> + +<p>"Well, you can see who she is, I should think," replied his mother +equally irritably. "She is just Fräulein Kuhräuber, and nothing more."</p> + +<p>"Anna talks to her more than to anyone," he said; she was already "Anna" +to him, <i>tout court</i>.</p> + +<p>"Yes. It is disgusting."</p> + +<p>"It is very disgusting. It is not right that Treumanns should be forced +to associate on equal terms with such a person."</p> + +<p>"It is scandalous. But you will change all that."</p> + +<p>Karlchen twisted up the ends of his moustache and looked down his nose. +He often looked down his nose because of his eyelashes. He began to hum +a tune, and felt happy again. Axel Lohm was right when he doubted +whether there had ever been a permanently crushed Treumann.</p> + +<p>"She has a strange assortment of <i>alte Schachteln</i> here," he said, after +a pause during which his thoughts were rosy. "That Elmreich, now. What +relation does she say she is to Arthur Elmreich?"</p> + +<p>"The man who shot himself? Oh, she is no relation at all. At most a +distant cousin."</p> + +<p>"<i>Na, na</i>," was Karlchen's reply; a reply whose English equivalent would +be a profoundly sceptical wink.</p> + +<p>His mother looked at him, waiting for more.</p> + +<p>"What do you really think——?" she began, and then stopped.</p> + +<p>He stood before the glass readjusting his moustache into the regulation +truculent upward twist. "Think?" he said. "You know Arthur's sister +Lolli was engaged at the Wintergarten this winter. She was not much of a +success. Too old. But she was down on the bills as Baroness Elmreich, +and people went to see her because of that, and because of her brother."</p> + +<p>"Oh—terrible," murmured Frau von Treumann.</p> + +<p>"Well, I know her; and I shall ask her next time I see her if she has a +sister."</p> + +<p>"But this one has no relations living at all," said his mother, +horrified at the bare suggestion that Lolli was the sister of a person +with whom she ate her dinner every day.</p> + +<p>"<i>Na, na</i>," said Karlchen.</p> + +<p>"But my dear Karlchen, it is so unlikely—the baroness is the veriest +pattern of primness. She has such very strict views about all such +things—quite absurdly strict. She even had doubts, she told me, when +first she came here, as to whether Anna were a fit companion for her."</p> + +<p>Karlchen stopped twisting his moustache, and stared at his mother. Then +he threw back his head and shrieked with laughter. He laughed so much +that for some moments he could not speak. His mother's face, as she +watched him without a smile, made him laugh still more. "<i>Liebste +Mama</i>," he said at last, wiping his eyes, "it may of course not be true. +It is just possible that it is not. But I feel sure it <i>is</i> true, for +this Elmreich and the little Lolli are as alike as two peas. Anna not a +fit companion for Lolli's sister! <i>Ach Gott, ach Gott!</i>" And he shrieked +again.</p> + +<p>"If it is true," said Frau von Treumann, drawing herself up to her full +height, "it is my duty to tell Anna. I cannot stay under the same roof +with such a woman. She must go."</p> + +<p>"Take care," said her son, illumined by an unaccustomed ray of sapience, +"take care, <i>Mutti</i>. It is not certain that Anna would send her away."</p> + +<p>"What! if she knew about this—this Lolli, as you call her?"</p> + +<p>Karlchen shook his head. "It is better not to begin with ultimatums," he +said sagely. "If you say you cannot stay under the same roof with the +Elmreich, and she does not after that go, why then you must. And that," +he added, looking alarmed, "would be disastrous. No, no, leave it alone. +In any case leave it alone till I have seen Lolli. I shall come down +soon again, you may be sure. I wish we could get rid of the Penheim. Now +that really would be a good thing. Think it over."</p> + +<p>But Frau von Treumann felt that by no amount of thinking it over would +they ever get rid of the Penheim.</p> + +<p>"You do not like my Karlchen?" she said plaintively to Anna that +evening, coming out into the dusky garden where she stood looking at the +stars. Karlchen was well on his way to Berlin by that time.</p> + +<p>"I am sure I should like him very much if I knew him," replied Anna, +putting all the heartiness she could muster into her voice.</p> + +<p>Frau von Treumann shook her head sadly. "But now? I see you do not like +him now. You hardly spoke to him. He was hurt. A mother"—"Oh," thought +Anna, "I am tired of mothers,"—"a mother always knows."</p> + +<p>Her handkerchief came out. She had put one hand through Anna's arm, and +with the other began to wipe her eyes. Anna watched her in silence.</p> + +<p>"What? What? Tears? Do I see tears? Are we then missing our son so +much?" exclaimed a cheery voice behind them. And there was the princess +again.</p> + +<p>"Serpent," thought Frau von Treumann; but what is the use of thinking +serpent? She had to submit to being consoled all the same, while Anna +walked away.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + + +<p>Anna seemed always to be walking away during the days that separated +Karlchen's first visit from his second. Frau von Treumann noticed it +with some uneasiness, and hoped that it was only her fancy. The girl had +shown herself possessed of such an abnormally large and warm heart at +first, had been so eager in her offers of affection, so enthusiastic, so +sympathetic, so—well, absurd; was it possible that there was no warmth +and no affection left over from those vast stores for such a +good-looking, agreeable man as Karlchen? But she set such thoughts aside +as ridiculous. Her son's simple doctrine from his fourteenth year on had +been that all girls like all men. It had often been laid down by him in +their talks together, and her own experience of girls had sufficiently +proved its soundness. "The Penheim must have poisoned her mind against +him," she decided at last, unable otherwise to explain the apathy with +which Anna received any news of Karlchen. Was there ever such sheer +spite? For what could it matter to a woman with no son of her own, who +married Anna? Somebody would marry her, for certain, and the Penheim +would lose her place; then why should it not be Karlchen?</p> + +<p>The princess, however, most innocent of excellent women, had never +spoken privately to Anna of Karlchen except once, when she inquired +whether he were to have the best sheets on his bed, or the second best +sheets; and Anna had replied, "The worst."</p> + +<p>But if Frau von Treumann was uneasy about Anna, Anna was still more +uneasy about Frau von Treumann. Whenever she could, she went away into +the forest and tried to think things out. She objected very much to the +feeling that life seemed somehow to be thickening round her—yet, after +Karlchen's visit there it was. Each day there were fewer and fewer quiet +pauses in the trivial bustle of existence; clear moments, like windows +through which she caught glimpses of the serene tranquillity with which +the real day, nature's day, the day she ought to have had, was passing. +Frau von Treumann followed her about and talked to her of Karlchen. +Fräulein Kuhräuber followed her about, with a humble, dog-like +affection, and seemed to want to tell her something, and never got +further than dark utterances that perplexed her. Baroness Elmreich +repulsed all her advances, carefully called her Miss Estcourt, and made +acid comments on everything that was said and done. "I believe she +dislikes me," thought Anna, puzzled. "I wonder why?" The baroness did; +and the reason was simplicity itself. She disliked her because she was +younger, prettier, richer, healthier than herself. For this she disliked +her heartily; but with far greater heartiness did she dislike her +because she knew she ought to be grateful to her. The baroness detested +having to feel grateful—it is a detestation not confined to +baronesses—and in this case the burden of the obligations she was under +was so great that it was almost past endurance. And there was no escape. +She had been starving when Anna took her in, and she would starve again +if Anna turned her out. She owed her everything; and what more natural, +then, than to dislike her? The rarest of loves is the love of a debtor +for his creditor.</p> + +<p>At night, alone in her room, Anna would wonder at the day lived through, +at the unsatisfactoriness of it, and the emptiness. When were they going +to begin the better life, the soul to soul life she was waiting for? How +busy they had all been, and what had they done? Why, nothing. A little +aimless talking, a little aimless sewing, a little aimless walking +about, a few letters to write that need not have been written, a +newspaper to glance into that did not really interest anybody, meals in +rapid succession, night, and oblivion. That was what was on the surface. +What was beneath the surface she could only guess at; for after a whole +fortnight with the Chosen she was still confronted solely by surfaces. +In the hot forest, drowsy and aromatic, where the white butterflies, +like points of light among the shadows of the pine-trunks, fluttered up +and down the unending avenues all day long, she wandered, during the +afternoon hour when the Chosen napped, to the most out-of-the-way nooks +she could find; and sitting on the moss where she could see some special +bit of loveliness, some distant radiant meadow in the sunlight beyond +the trees, some bush with its delicate green shower of budding leaves at +the foot of a giant pine, some exquisite effect of blue and white +between the branches so far above her head, she would ponder and ponder +till she was weary.</p> + +<p>There was no mistaking Karlchen's looks; she had not been a pretty girl +for several seasons at home in vain. Karlchen meant to marry her. She, +of course, did not mean to marry Karlchen, but that did not smooth any +of the ruggedness out of the path she saw opening before her. She would +have to endure the preliminary blandishments of the wooing, and when the +wooing itself had reached the state of ripeness which would enable her +to let him know plainly her own intentions, there would be a grievous +number of scenes to be gone through with his mother. And then his mother +would shake the Kleinwalde dust from her offended feet and go, and +failure number one would be upon her. In the innermost recesses of her +heart, offensive as Karlchen's wooing would certainly be, she thought +that once it was over it would not have been a bad thing; for, since his +visit, it was clear that Frau von Treumann was not the sort of inmate +she had dreamed of for her home for the unhappy. Unhappy she had +undoubtedly been, poor thing, but happy with Anna she would never be. +She had forgiven the first fibs the poor lady had told her, but she +could not go on forgiving fibs for ever. All those elaborate untruths, +written and spoken, about Karlchen's visit, how dreadful they were. +Surely, thought Anna, truthfulness was not only a lovely and a pleasant +thing but it was absolutely indispensable as the basis to a real +friendship. How could any soul approach another soul through a network +of lies? And then more painful still—she confessed with shame that it +was more painful to her even than the lies—Frau von Treumann evidently +took her for a fool. Not merely for a person wanting in intelligence, or +slow-witted, but for a downright fool. She must think so, or she would +have taken more pains, at least some pains, to make her schemes a little +less transparent. Anna hated herself for feeling mortified by this; but +mortified she certainly was. Even a philosopher does not like to be +honestly mistaken during an entire fortnight for a fool. Though he may +smile, he will almost surely wince. Not being a philosopher, Anna winced +and did not smile.</p> + +<p>"I think," she said to Manske, when he came in one morning with a list +of selected applications, "I think we will wait a little before choosing +the other nine."</p> + +<p>"The gracious one is not weary of well-doing?" he asked quickly.</p> + +<p>"Oh no, not at all; I like well-doing," Anna said rather lamely, "but it +is not quite—not quite as simple as it looks."</p> + +<p>"I have found nine most deserving cases," he urged, "and later there may +not be——"</p> + +<p>"No, no," interrupted Anna, "we will wait. In the autumn, perhaps—not +now. First I must make the ones who are here happy. You know," she said, +smiling, "they came here to be made happy."</p> + +<p>"Yes, truly I know it. And happy indeed must they be in this home, +surrounded by all that makes life fair and desirable."</p> + +<p>"One would think so," said Anna, musing. "It is pretty here, isn't +it—it should be easy to be happy here,—yet I am not sure that they +are."</p> + +<p>"Not sure——?" Manske looked at her, startled.</p> + +<p>"What do people—most people, ordinary people, need, to make them +happy?" she asked wistfully. She was speaking to herself more than to +him, and did not expect any very illuminating answer.</p> + +<p>"The fear of the Lord," he replied promptly; which put an end to the +conversation.</p> + +<p>But besides her perplexities about the Chosen, Anna had other worries. +Dellwig had received the refusal to let him build the brick-kiln with +such insolence, and had, in his anger, said such extraordinary things +about Axel Lohm, that Anna had blazed out too, and had told him he must +go. It had been an unpleasant scene, and she had come out from it white +and trembling. She had intended to ask Axel to do the dismissing for her +if she should ever definitely decide to send him away; but she had been +overwhelmed by a sudden passion of wrath at the man's intolerable +insinuations—only half understood, but sounding for that reason worse +than they were—and had done it herself. Since then she had not seen +him. By the agreement her uncle had made with him, he was entitled to +six months' notice, and would not leave until the winter, and she knew +she could not continue to refuse to see him; but how she dreaded the +next interview! And how uneasy she felt at the thought that the +management of her estate was entirely in the hands of a man who must now +be her enemy. Axel was equally anxious, when he heard what she had done. +It had to be done, of course; but he did not like Dellwig's looks when +he met him. He asked Anna to allow him to ride round her place as often +as he could, and she was grateful to him, for she knew that not only her +own existence, but the existence of her poor friends, depended on the +right cultivation of Kleinwalde. And she was so helpless. What creature +on earth could be more helpless than an English girl in her position? +She left off reading Maeterlinck, borrowed books on farming from Axel, +and eagerly studied them, learning by heart before breakfast long pages +concerning the peculiarities of her two chief products, potatoes and +pigs.</p> + +<p>"He cannot do much harm," Axel assured her; "the potatoes, I see, are +all in, and what can he do to the pigs? His own vanity would prevent his +leaving the place in a bad state. I have heard of a good man—shall I +have him down and interview him for you?"</p> + +<p>"How kind you are," said Anna gratefully; indeed, he seemed to her to be +a tower of strength.</p> + +<p>"Anyone would do what they could to help a forlorn young lady in the +straits you are in," he said, smiling at her.</p> + +<p>"I don't feel like a forlorn young lady with you next door to help me +out of the difficulties."</p> + +<p>"People in these lonely country places learn to be neighbourly," he +replied in his most measured tones.</p> + +<p>He had not again spoken of the Chosen since his walk with her through +the forest; and though he knew that Karlchen had been and gone he did +not mention his name. Nor did Anna. The longer she lived with her +sisters the less did she care to talk about them, especially to Axel. As +for Frau von Treumann's plans, how could she ever tell him of those?</p> + +<p>And just then Letty, the only being who was really satisfactory, became +a cause to her of fresh perplexity. Letty had been strangely content +with her German lessons from Herr Klutz. Every day she and Miss Leech +set out without a murmur, and came back looking placid. They brought +back little offerings from the parsonage, a bunch of narcissus, the +first lilac, cakes baked by Frau Manske, always something. Anna took the +flowers, and ate the cakes, and sent pleased messages in return. If she +had been less preoccupied by Dellwig and the eccentricities of her three +new friends, she would certainly have been struck by Letty's silence +about her lessons, and would have questioned her. There was no grumbling +after the first day, and no abuse of Schiller and the muses. Once Anna +met Klutz walking through Kleinwalde, and asked him how the studies were +progressing. "Colossal," was the reply, "the progress made is colossal." +And he crushed her rings into her fingers when she gave him her hand to +shake, and blushed, and looked at her with eyes that he felt must burn +into her soul. But Anna noticed neither his eyes nor his blush; for his +eyes, whatever he might feel them to be doing, were not the kind that +burn into souls, and he was a pale young man who, when he blushed, did +it only in his ears. They certainly turned crimson as he crushed Anna's +fingers, but she was not thinking of his ears.</p> + +<p>"Frau Manske is too kind," she said, as the nosegays, at first +intermittent, became things of daily occurrence. They grew bigger, too, +every day, attaining such a girth at last that Letty could hardly carry +them. "She must not plunder her garden like this."</p> + +<p>"It is very full of flowers," said Miss Leech. "Really a wonderful +display. The bunch is always ready, tied together and lying on the table +when we arrive. I tried to tell her yesterday that you were afraid she +was spoiling her garden, sending so much, but she did not seem to +understand. She is showing me how to make those cakes you said you +liked."</p> + +<p>"I wish I had some of these in my garden," said Anna, laying her cheek +against the posy of wallflowers Letty had just given her. There was +nothing in her garden except grass and trees; Uncle Joachim had not been +a man of flowers.</p> + +<p>She took them up to her room, kissing them on the way, and put them in a +jar on the window-sill; and it was not until two or three days later, +when they began to fade, that she saw the corner of an envelope peeping +out from among them. She pulled it out and opened it. It was addressed +to <i>Ihr Hochwohlgeboren Fräulein Anna Estcourt</i>; and inside was a sheet +of notepaper with a large red heart painted on it, mangled, and pierced +by an arrow; and below it the following poem in a cramped, hardly +readable writing:—</p> + +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The earth am I, and thou the heaven,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The mass am I, and thou the leaven,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No other heaven do I want but thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Oh Anna, Anna, Anna, pity me!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">August Klutz</span>, Kandidat.<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<p>In an instant Letty's unnatural cheerfulness about her lessons flashed +across her. <i>What</i> had they been doing, and where was Miss Leech, that +such things could happen?</p> + +<p>It was a very terrible, stern-browed aunt who met Letty that day on the +stairs when she came home.</p> + +<p>"Hullo, Aunt Anna, seen a ghost?" Letty inquired pleasantly; but her +heart sank into her boots all the same as she followed her into her +room.</p> + +<p>"Look," said Anna, showing her the paper, "how could you do it? For of +course you did it. Herr Klutz doesn't speak English."</p> + +<p>"Doesn't he though—he gets on like anything. He sits up all night——"</p> + +<p>"How is it that <i>this</i> was possible?" interrupted Anna, striking the +paper with her hand.</p> + +<p>"It's pretty, isn't it," said Letty, faintly grinning. "The last line +had to be changed a little. It isn't original, you know, except the +Annas. I put in those. That footman mother got cheap because he had one +finger too few sent it to Hilton on her birthday last year—she liked it +awfully. The last line was 'Oh Hilton, Hilton, Hilton——'"</p> + +<p>"<i>How</i> came you to talk such hideous nonsense with Herr Klutz, and about +me?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't. He began. He talked about you the whole time, and started +doing it the very first day Leechy cooked."</p> + +<p>"Cooked?"</p> + +<p>"She is always in the kitchen with Frau Manske. We brought you some of +the cakes one day, and you seemed as pleased as anything."</p> + +<p>"And instead of learning German you and he have been making up this sort +of thing?"</p> + +<p>Anna's voice and eyes frightened Letty. She shifted from one foot to the +other and looked down sullenly. "What's the good of being angry?" she +said, addressing the carpet; "it's only Mr. Jessup over again. Leechy +wasn't angry with Mr. Jessup. She was frightfully pleased. She says it's +the greatest compliment a person can pay anybody, going on about them +like Herr Klutz does, and talking rot."</p> + +<p>Anna stared at her, bewildered. "Mr. Jessup?" she repeated. "And do you +mean to tell me that Miss Leech knows of this—this disgusting +nonsense?" She held the mangled heart at arm's length, crushing it in +her hand.</p> + +<p>"I say, you'll spoil it. He worked at it for days. There weren't any +paints red enough for the wound, and he had to go to Stralsund on +purpose. He thought no end of it." And Letty, scared though she was, +could not resist giggling a little.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to tell me that Miss Leech knows about this?" insisted +Anna.</p> + +<p>"Rather not. It's a secret. He made me promise faithfully never to tell +a soul. Of course it doesn't matter talking to you, because you're one +of the persons concerned. You can't be married, you know, without +knowing about it, so I'm not breaking my promise talking to you——"</p> + +<p>"Married? What unutterable rubbish have you got into your head?"</p> + +<p>"That's what I said—or something like it. I said it was jolly rot. He +said, 'What's rot?' I said 'That.'"</p> + +<p>"But what?" asked Anna angrily. She longed to shake her.</p> + +<p>"Why, that about marrying you. I told him it was rot, and I was sure you +wouldn't, but as he didn't know what rot was, it wasn't much good. He +hunted it out in the dictionary, and still he didn't know."</p> + +<p>Anna stood looking at her with indignant eyes. "You don't know what you +have done," she said, "evidently you don't. It is a dreadful thing that +the moment Miss Leech leaves you you should begin to talk of such +things—such horrid things—with a stranger. A little girl of your +age——"</p> + +<p>"I didn't begin," whimpered Letty, overcome by the wrath in Anna's +voice.</p> + +<p>"But all this time you have been going on with it, instead of at once +telling Miss Leech or me."</p> + +<p>"I never met a—a lover before—I thought it—great fun."</p> + +<p>"Then all those flowers were from him?"</p> + +<p>"Ye—es." Letty was in tears.</p> + +<p>"He thought I knew they were from him?"</p> + +<p>No answer.</p> + +<p>"Did he?" insisted Anna.</p> + +<p>"Ye—es."</p> + +<p>"You are a very wicked little girl," said Anna, with awful sternness. +"You have been acting untruths every day for ages, which is just as bad +as telling them. I don't believe you have an idea of the horridness of +what you have done—I hope you have not. Of course your lessons at Lohm +have come to an end. You will not go there again. Probably I shall send +you home to your mother. I am nearly sure that I shall. Go away." And +she pointed to the door.</p> + +<p>That night neither Letty nor Miss Leech appeared at supper; both were +shut up in their rooms in tears. Miss Leech was quite unable to forgive +herself. It was all her fault, she felt. She had been appalled when Anna +showed her the heart and told her what had been going on while she was +learning to cook in Frau Manske's kitchen. "Such a quiet, +respectable-looking young man!" she exclaimed, horror-stricken. "And +about to take holy orders!"</p> + +<p>"Well, you see he isn't quiet and respectable at all," said Anna. "He is +unusually enterprising, and quite without morals. Only a demoralised +person would take advantage of a poor little pupil in that way."</p> + +<p>She lit a candle, and burnt the heart. "There," she said, when it was in +ashes, "that's the end of that. Heaven knows what Letty has been led +into saying, or what ideas he has put into her head. I can't bear to +think of it. I hadn't the courage to cross-question her much—I was +afraid I should hear something that would make me too angry, and I'd +have to tell the parson. Anyhow, dear Miss Leech, we will not leave her +alone again, ever, will we? I don't suppose a thing like this will +happen twice, but we won't let it have a chance, will we? Now don't be +too unhappy. Tell me about Mr. Jessup."</p> + +<p>It was Miss Leech's fault, Anna knew; but she so evidently knew it +herself, and was so deeply distressed, that rebukes were out of the +question. She spent the evening and most of the night in useless +laments, while, in the room adjoining, Letty lay face downwards on her +bed, bathed in tears. For Letty's conscience was in a grievous state of +tumult. She had meant well, and she had done badly. She had not thought +her aunt would be angry—was she not in full possession of the facts +concerning Mr. Jessup's courtship? And had not Miss Leech said that no +higher honour could be paid to a woman than to fall in love with her and +make her an offer of marriage? Herr Klutz, it is true, was not the sort +of person her aunt could marry, for her aunt was stricken in years, and +he looked about the same age as her brother Peter; besides, he was +clearly, thought Letty, of the guttersnipe class, a class that bit its +nails and never married people's aunts. But, after all, her aunt could +always say No when the supreme moment arrived, and nobody ought to be +offended because they had been fallen in love with, and he was +frightfully in love, and talked the most awful rot. Nor had she +encouraged him. On the contrary, she had discouraged him; but it was +precisely this discouragement, so virtuously administered, that lay so +heavily on her conscience as she lay so heavily on her bed. She had been +proud of it till this interview with her aunt; since then it had taken +on a different complexion, and she was sure, dreadfully sure, that if +her aunt knew of it she would be very angry indeed—much, much angrier +than she was before. Letty rolled on her bed in torments; for the +discouragement administered to Klutz had been in the form of poetry, and +poetry written on her aunt's notepaper, and purporting to come from her. +She had meant so well, and what had she done? When no answer came by +return to his poem hidden in the wallflowers, he had refused to believe +that the bouquet had reached its destination. "There has been +treachery," he cried; "you have played me false." And he seemed to fold +up with affliction.</p> + +<p>"I gave it to her all right. She hasn't found the letter yet," said +Letty, trying to comfort, and astonished by the loudness of his grief. +"It's all right—you wait a bit. She liked the flowers awfully, and +kissed them."</p> + +<p>"Poor young lover," she thought romantically, "his heart must not bleed +too much. Aunt Anna, if she ever does find the letter, will only send +him a rude answer. I will answer it for her, and gently discourage him." +For if the words that proceeded from Letty's mouth were inelegant, her +thoughts, whenever they dwelt on either Mr. Jessup or Herr Klutz, were +invariably clothed in the tender language of sentiment.</p> + +<p>And she had sat up till very late, composing a poem whose mission was +both to discourage and console. It cost her infinite pains, but when it +was finished she felt that it had been worth them all. She copied it out +in capital letters on Anna's notepaper, folded it up carefully, and tied +it with one of her own hair-ribbons to a little bunch of +lilies-of-the-valley she had gathered for the purpose in the forest.</p> + +<p>This was the poem:—</p> + +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">It is a matter of regret<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That circumstances won't<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Allow me to call thee my pet,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But as it is they don't.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For why? My many years forbid,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And likewise thy position.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So take advice, and strive amid<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Thy tears for meek submission.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">Anna.</span><br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<p>And this poem was, at that very moment, as she well knew, in Herr +Klutz's waistcoat pocket.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2> + + +<p>The ordinary young man, German or otherwise, hungrily emerging from +boyhood into a toothsome world made to be eaten, cures himself of his +appetite by indulging it till he is ill, and then on a firm foundation +of his own foolish corpse, or, as the poet puts it, of his dead self, +begins to build up the better things of his later years.</p> + +<p>Klutz was an ordinary young man, and arrived at early manhood as hungry +as his fellows; but his father was a parson, his grandfather had been a +parson, his uncles were all parsons, and Fate, coming cruelly to him in +the gloomy robes of the Lutheran Church, his natural follies had had no +opportunity of getting out, developing, and dissolving, but remained +shut up in his heart, where they amused themselves by seething +uninterruptedly, to his great discomfort, while the good parson, in +whose care he was, talked to him of the world to come.</p> + +<p>"The world to come," thought Klutz, hungering and thirsting for a taste +of the world in which he was, "may or may not be very well in its way; +but its way is not my way." And he listened in a silence that might be +taken either for awed or bored to Manske's expatiations. Manske, of +course, interpreted it as awed. "Our young vicar," he said to his wife, +"thinks much. He is serious and contemplative beyond his years. He is +not a man of many and vain words." To which his wife replied only by a +sniff of scepticism.</p> + +<p>She had no direct proofs that Klutz was not serious and contemplative, +but during his first winter in their house he had fallen into her bad +graces because of a certain indelicately appreciative attitude he +displayed towards her apple jelly. Not that she grudged him apple jelly +in just quantities; both she and her husband were fond of it, and the +eating of it was luckily one of those pleasures whose indulgence is +innocent. But there are limits beyond which even jelly becomes vicious, +and these limits Herr Klutz continually overstepped. Every autumn she +made a sufficient number of pots of it to last discreet appetites a +whole year. There had always been vicars in their house, and there had +never been a dearth of jelly. But this year, so early as Easter, there +were only two pots left. She could not conveniently lock it up and +refuse to produce any, for then she and her husband would not have it +themselves; so all through the winter she had watched the pots being +emptied one after the other, and the thinner the rows in her storeroom +grew, the more pronounced became her conviction that Klutz's piety was +but skin deep. A young man who could behave in so unbridled a fashion +could not be really serious; there was something, she thought, that +smacked suspiciously of the flesh and the devil about such conduct. +Great, then, was her astonishment when, the penultimate pot being placed +at Easter on the table, Klutz turned from it with loathing. Nor did he +ever look at apple jelly again; nor did he, of other viands, eat enough +to keep him in health. He who had been so voracious forgot his meals, +and had to be coaxed before he would eat at all. He spent his spare time +writing, sitting up sometimes all night, and consuming candles at the +same head-long rate with which he had previously consumed the jelly; and +when towards May her husband once more commented on his seriousness, +Frau Manske's conscience no longer permitted her to sniff.</p> + +<p>"You must be ill," she said to him at last, on a day when he had sat +through the meals in silence and had refused to eat at all.</p> + +<p>"Ill!" burst out Klutz, whose body and soul seemed both to be in one +fierce blaze of fever, "I am sick—sick even unto death."</p> + +<p>And he did feel sick. Only two days had elapsed since he had received +Anna's poem and had been thrown by it into a tumult of delight and +triumph; for the discouragement it contained had but encouraged him the +more, appearing to be merely the becoming self-depreciation of a woman +before him who has been by nature appointed lord. He was perfectly ready +to overlook the obstacles to their union to which she alluded. She could +not help her years; there were, truly, more of them than he would have +wished, but luckily they were not visible on that still lovely face. As +to position, he supposed she meant that he was not <i>adelig</i>; but a man, +he reflected, compared to a woman, is always <i>adelig</i>, whatever his name +may be, by virtue of his higher and nobler nature. He had been for +rushing at once to Kleinwalde; but his pupil and confidant had said +"Don't," and had said it with such energy that for that day at least he +had resisted. And now, the very morning of the day on which the Frau +Pastor was asking him whether he were ill, he had received a curt note +from Miss Leech, informing him that Miss Letty Estcourt would for the +present discontinue her German studies. What had happened? Even the +poem, lying warm on his heart, was not able to dispel his fears. He had +flown at once to Kleinwalde, feeling that it was absurd not to follow +the dictates of his heart and cast himself in person at Anna's no doubt +expectant feet, and the door had been shut in his face—rudely shut, by +a coarse servant, whose manner had so much enraged him that he had +almost shown her the precious verses then and there, to convince her of +his importance in that house; indeed, the only consideration that +restrained him was a conviction of her ignorance of the English tongue.</p> + +<p>"Would you like to see the doctor?" inquired Frau Manske, startled by +his looks and words; perhaps he had caught something infectious; an +infectious vicar in the house would be horrible.</p> + +<p>"The doctor!" cried Klutz; and forthwith quoted the German rendering of +the six lines beginning, Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased.</p> + +<p>Frau Manske was seriously alarmed. Not aware that he was quoting, she +was horrified to hear him calling her <i>Du</i>, a privilege confined to +lovers, husbands, and near relations, and asking her questions that she +was sure no decent vicar would ever ask the respectable mother of a +family. "I am sure you ought to see the doctor," she said nervously, +getting up hastily and going to the door.</p> + +<p>"No, no," said Klutz; "the doctor does not exist who can help me."</p> + +<p>His hand went to the breast-pocket containing the poem, and he fingered +it feverishly. He longed to show it to Frau Manske, to translate it for +her, to let her see what the young Kleinwalde lady, joint patron with +Herr von Lohm of her husband's living, thought of him.</p> + +<p>"I will ask my husband about the doctor," persisted Frau Manske, +disappearing with unusual haste. If she had stayed one minute longer he +would have shown her the poem.</p> + +<p>Klutz did not wait to hear what the pastor said, but crushed his felt +hat on to his head and started for a violent walk. He would go through +Kleinwalde, past the house; he would haunt the woods; he would wait +about. It was a hot, gusty May afternoon, and the wind that had been +quiet so long was blowing up the dust in clouds; but he hurried along +regardless of heat and wind and dust, with an energy surprising in one +who had eaten nothing all day. Love had come to him very turbulently. He +had been looking for it ever since he left school; but his watchful +parents had kept him in solitary places, empty, uninhabited places like +Lohm, places where the parson's daughters were either married or were +still tied on the cushions of infancy. Sometimes he had been invited, as +a great condescension, to the Dellwigs' Sunday parties; and there too he +had looked around for Love. But the company consisted solely of stout +farmers' wives, ladies of thirty, forty, fifty—of a dizzy antiquity, +that is, and their talk was of butter-making and sausages, and they +cared not at all for Love. "Oh, Love, Love, Love, where shall I find +thee?" he would cry to the stars on his way home through the forest +after these evenings; but the stars twinkled coldly on, obviously +profoundly indifferent as to whether he found it or not. His chest of +drawers was full of the poems into which he had poured the emotions of +twenty, the emotions and longings that well-fed, unoccupied twenty +mistakes for soul. And then the English Miss had burst upon his gaze, +sitting in her carriage on that stormy March day, smiling at him from +the very first, piercing his heart through and through with eyes that +many persons besides Klutz saw were lovely, and so had he found Love, +and for ever lost his interest in apple jelly.</p> + +<p>It was a confident, bold Love, with more hopes than fears, more +assurance than misgivings. The poem seemed to burn his pocket, so +violently did he long to show it round, to tell everyone of his good +fortune. The lilies-of-the-valley to which it had been tied and that he +wore since all day long in his coat, were hardly brown, and yet he was +tired already of having such a secret to himself. What advantage was +there in being told by the lady of Kleinwalde that she regretted not +being able to call him <i>Lämmchen</i> or <i>Schätzchen</i> (the alternative +renderings his dictionary gave of "pet") if no one knew it?</p> + +<p>When he reached the house he walked past it at a snail's pace, staring +up at the blank, repellent windows. Not a soul was to be seen. He went +on discontentedly. What should he do? The door had been shut in his face +once already that day, why he could not imagine. He hesitated, and +turned back. He would try again. Why not? The Miss would have scolded +the servant roundly when she heard that the person who dwelt in her +thoughts as a <i>Lämmchen</i> had been turned away. He went boldly round the +grass plot in front of the house and knocked.</p> + +<p>The same servant appeared. Instantly on seeing him she slammed the door, +and called out "<i>Nicht zu Haus!</i>"</p> + +<p>"<i>Ekelhaftes Benehmen!</i>" cried Klutz aloud, flaming into sudden passion. +His mind, never very strong, had grown weaker along with his body during +these exciting days of love and fasting. A wave of fury swept over him +as he stood before the shut door and heard the servant going away; and +hardly knowing what he did, he seized the knocker, and knocked and +knocked till the woods rang.</p> + +<p>There was a sound of hurried footsteps on the path behind him, and +turning his head, his hand still knocking, he saw Dellwig running +towards him.</p> + +<p>"<i>Nanu!</i>" cried Dellwig breathlessly, staring in blankest astonishment. +"What in the devil's name are you making this noise for? Is the parson +on fire?"</p> + +<p>Klutz stared back in a dazed sort of way, his fury dying out at once in +the presence of the stronger nature; then, because he was twenty, and +because he was half-starved, and because he felt he was being cruelly +used, there on Anna's doorstep, in the full light of the evening sun, +with Dellwig's eyes upon him, he burst into a torrent of tears.</p> + +<p>"Well of all—what's wrong at Lohm, you great sheep?" asked Dellwig, +seizing his arm and giving him a shake.</p> + +<p>Klutz signified by a movement of his head that nothing was wrong at +Lohm. He was crying like a baby, into a red pocket-handkerchief, and +could not speak.</p> + +<p>Dellwig, still gripping his arm, stared at him a moment in silence; then +he turned him round, pushed him down the steps, and walked him off. +"Come along, young man," he said, "I want some explanation of this. If +you are mad you'll be locked up. We don't fancy madmen about our place. +And if you're not mad you'll be fined by the Amtsvorsteher for +disorderly conduct. Knocking like that at a lady's door! I wonder you +didn't kick it in, while you were about it. It's a good thing the +<i>Herrschaften</i> are out."</p> + +<p>Klutz really felt ill. He leaned on Dellwig's arm and let himself be +helped along, the energy gone out of him with the fury. "You have never +loved," was all he said, wiping his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Oh that's it, is it? It is love that made you want to break the +knocker? Why didn't you go round to the back? Which of them is it? The +cook, of course. You look hungry. A Kandidat crying after a cook!" And +Dellwig laughed loud and long.</p> + +<p>"The cook!" cried Klutz, galvanised by the word into life. "The cook!" +He thrust a shaking hand into his breast-pocket and dragged it out, the +precious paper, unfolding it with trembling fingers, and holding it +before Dellwig's eyes. "So much for your cooks," he said, tremulously +triumphant. They were in the road, out of sight of the house. Dellwig +took the paper and held it close to his eyes. "What's this?" he asked, +scrutinising it. "It is not German."</p> + +<p>"It is English," said Klutz.</p> + +<p>"What, the governess——?"</p> + +<p>Klutz merely pointed to the name at the end. Oh, the sweetness of that +moment!</p> + +<p>"Anna?" read out Dellwig, "Anna? That is Miss Estcourt's name."</p> + +<p>"It is," said Klutz, his tears all dried up.</p> + +<p>"It seems to be poetry," said Dellwig slowly.</p> + +<p>"It is," said Klutz.</p> + +<p>"Why have you got it?"</p> + +<p>"Why indeed! It's mine. She sent it to me. She wrote it for me. These +flowers——"</p> + +<p>"Miss Estcourt? Sent it to you? Poetry? To <i>you</i>?" Dellwig looked up +from the paper at Klutz, and examined him slowly from head to foot as if +he had never seen him before. His expression while he did it was not +flattering, but Klutz rarely noticed expressions. "What's it all about?" +he asked, when he had reached Klutz's boots, by which he seemed struck, +for he looked at them twice.</p> + +<p>"Love," said Klutz proudly.</p> + +<p>"Love?"</p> + +<p>"Let me come home with you," said Klutz eagerly, "I'll translate it +there. I can't here where we might be disturbed."</p> + +<p>"Come on, then," said Dellwig, walking off at a great pace with the +paper in his hand.</p> + +<p>Just as they were turning into the farmyard the rattle of a carriage was +heard coming down the road. "Stop," said Dellwig, laying his hand on +Klutz's arm, "the <i>Herrschaften</i> have been drinking coffee in the +woods—here they are, coming home. You can get a greeting if you wait."</p> + +<p>They both stood on the edge of the road, and the carriage with Anna and +a selection from her house-party drove by. Dellwig and Klutz swept off +their hats. When Anna saw Klutz she turned scarlet—undeniably, +unmistakably scarlet—and looked away quickly. Dellwig's lips shaped +themselves into a whistle. "Come in, then," he said, glancing at Klutz, +"come in and translate your poem."</p> + +<p>Seldom had Klutz passed more delicious moments than those in which he +rendered Letty's verses into German, with both the Dellwigs drinking in +his words. The proud and exclusive Dellwigs! A month ago such a thing +would have been too wild a flight of fancy for the most ambitious dream. +In the very room in which he had been thrust aside at parties, forgotten +in corners, left behind when the others went in to supper, he was now +sitting the centre of interest, with his former supercilious hosts +hanging on his words. When he had done, had all too soon come to the end +of his delightful task, he looked round at them triumphantly; and his +triumph was immediately dashed out of him by Dellwig, who said with his +harshest laugh, "Put aside all your hopes, young man—Miss Estcourt is +engaged to Herr von Lohm."</p> + +<p>"Engaged? To Herr von Lohm?" Klutz echoed stupidly, his mouth open and +the hand holding the verses dropping limply to his side.</p> + +<p>"Engaged, engaged, engaged," Dellwig repeated in a loud sing-song, "not +openly, but all the same engaged."</p> + +<p>"It is truly scandalous!" cried his wife, greatly excited, and firmly +believing that the verses were indeed Anna's. Was she not herself of the +race of <i>Weiber</i>, and did she not therefore well know what they were +capable of?</p> + +<p>"Silence, Frau!" commanded Dellwig.</p> + +<p>"And she takes my flowers—my daily offerings, floral and poetical, and +she sends me these verses—and all the time she is betrothed to someone +else?"</p> + +<p>"She is," said Dellwig with another burst of laughter, for Klutz's face +amused him intensely. He got up and slapped him on the shoulder. "This +is your first experience of <i>Weiber</i>, eh? Don't waste your heartaches +over her. She is a young lady who likes to have her little joke and +means no harm——"</p> + +<p>"She is a person without shame!" cried his wife.</p> + +<p>"Silence, Frau!" snapped Dellwig. "Look here, young man—why, what does +he look like, sitting there with all the wind knocked out of him? Get +him a glass of brandy, Frau, or we shall have him crying again. Sit up, +and be a man. Miss Estcourt is not for you, and never will be. Only a +vicar could ever have dreamed she was, and have been imposed upon by +this poetry stuff. But though you're a vicar you're a man, eh? Here, +drink this, and tell us if you are not a man."</p> + +<p>Klutz feebly tried to push the glass away, but Dellwig insisted. Klutz +was pale to ghastliness, and his eyes were brimming again with tears.</p> + +<p>"Oh, this person! Oh, this Englishwoman! Oh, the shameful treatment of +an estimable young man!" cried Frau Dellwig, staring at the havoc Anna +had wrought.</p> + +<p>"Silence, Frau!" shouted Dellwig, stamping his foot. "You can't be +treated like this," he went on to Klutz, who, used to drinking much milk +at the abstemious parsonage, already felt the brandy running along his +veins like liquid fire, "you can't be made ridiculous and do nothing. A +vicar can't fight, but you must have some revenge."</p> + +<p>Klutz started. "Revenge! Yes, but what revenge?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Nothing to do with Miss Estcourt, of course. Leave her alone——"</p> + +<p>"Leave her alone?" cried his wife, "what, when she it is——"</p> + +<p>"Silence, Frau!" roared Dellwig. "Leave her alone, I say. You won't gain +anything there, young man. But go to her <i>Bräutigam</i> Lohm and tell him +about it, and show him the stuff. He'll be interested."</p> + +<p>Dellwig laughed boisterously, and took two or three rapid turns up and +down the room. He had not lived with old Joachim and seen much of old +Lohm and the surrounding landowners without having learned something of +their views on questions of honour. Axel Lohm he knew to be specially +strict and strait-laced, to possess in quite an unusual degree the +ideals that Dellwig thought so absurd and so unpractical, the ideals, +that is, of a Christian gentleman. Had he not known him since he was a +child? And he had always been a prig. How would he like Miss Estcourt to +be talked about, as of course she would be talked about? Klutz's mouth +could not be stopped, and the whole district would know what had been +going on. Axel Lohm could not and would not marry a young lady who wrote +verses to vicars; and if all relations between Lohm and Kleinwalde +ceased, why then life would resume its former pleasant course, he, +Dellwig, staying on at his post, becoming, as was natural, his +mistress's sole adviser, and certainly after due persuasion achieving +all he wanted, including the brick-kiln. The plainness and clearness of +the future was beautiful. He walked up and down the room making odd +sounds of satisfaction, and silencing his wife with vigour every time +she opened her lips. Even his wife, so quick as a rule of comprehension, +had not grasped how this poem had changed their situation, and how it +behoved them now not to abuse their mistress before a mischief-making +young man. She was blinded, he knew, by her hatred of Miss Estcourt. +Women were always the slaves, in defiance of their own interests, to +some emotion or other; if it was not love, then it was hatred. Never +could they wait for anything whatever. The passing passion must out and +be indulged, however fatal the consequences might be. What a set they +were! And the best of them, what fools. He glanced angrily at his wife +as he passed her, but his glance, travelling from her to Klutz, who sat +quite still with head sunk on his chest, legs straight out before him, +the hand with the paper loosely held in it hanging down out of the +cuffless sleeve nearly to the floor, and vacant eyes staring into space, +his good humour returned, and he gave another harsh laugh. "Well?" he +said, standing in front of this dejected figure. "How long will you sit +there? If I were you I'd lose no time. You don't want those two to be +making love and enjoying themselves an hour longer than is necessary, do +you? With you out in the cold? With you so cruelly deceived? And made to +look so ridiculous? I'd spoil that if I were you, at once."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you are right. I'll go to Herr von Lohm and see if I can have an +interview."</p> + +<p>Klutz got up with a great show of determination, put the paper in his +pocket, and buttoned his coat over it for greater security. Then he +hesitated.</p> + +<p>"It <i>is</i> a shameful thing, isn't it?" he said, his eyes on Dellwig's +face.</p> + +<p>"Shameful? It's downright cruel."</p> + +<p>"Shameful?" began his wife.</p> + +<p>"Silence, I tell thee! Young ladies' jokes are sometimes cruel, you see. +I believe it was a joke, but a very heartless one, and one that has made +you look more foolish even than half-fledged pastors of your age +generally do look. It is only fair in return to spoil her game for her. +Take another glass of brandy, and go and do it."</p> + +<p>Klutz stared hard for a moment at Dellwig. Then he seized the brandy, +gulped it down, snatched up his hat, and taking no farewell notice of +either husband or wife, hurried out of the room. They saw him pass +beneath the window, his hat over his eyes, his face white, his ears +aflame.</p> + +<p>"There goes a fool," said Dellwig, rubbing his hands, "and as useful a +one as ever I saw. But here's another fool," he added, turning sharply +to his wife, "and I don't want them in my own house."</p> + +<p>And he proceeded to tell her, in the vigorous and convincing language of +a justly irritated husband, what he thought of her.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + + +<p>Klutz sped, as fast as his shaking limbs allowed, to Lohm. When he +passed Anna's house he flung it a look of burning contempt, which he +hoped she saw and felt from behind some curtain; and then, trying to put +her from his mind, he made desperate efforts to arrange his thoughts a +little for the coming interview. He supposed that it must be the brandy +that made it so difficult for him to discern exactly why he was to go to +Herr von Lohm instead of to the person principally concerned, the person +who had treated him so scandalously; but Herr Dellwig knew best, of +course, and judged the matter quite dispassionately. Certainly Herr von +Lohm, as an insolently happy rival, ought in mere justice to be annoyed +a little; and if the annoyance reached such a pitch of effectiveness as +to make him break off the engagement, why then—there was no +knowing—perhaps after all——? The ordinary Christian was bound to +forgive his erring brother; how much more, then, was it incumbent on a +pastor to forgive his erring sister? But Klutz did wish that someone +else could have done the annoying for him, leaving him to deal solely +with Anna, a woman, a member of the sex in whose presence he was always +at his ease. The brandy prevented him from feeling it as acutely as he +would otherwise have done, but the plain truth, the truth undisguised by +brandy, was that he looked up to Axel Lohm with a respect bordering on +fear, had never in his life been alone with him, or so much as spoken to +him beyond ordinary civilities when they met, and he was frightened.</p> + +<p>By the time he reached Axel's stables, which stood by the roadside about +five minutes' walk from Axel's gate, he found himself obliged to go over +his sufferings once again one by one, to count the dinners he had +missed, to remember the feverish nights and the restless days, to +rehearse what Dellwig had just told him of his present ridiculousness, +or he would have turned back and gone home. But these thoughts gave him +the courage necessary to get him through the gate; and by the time he +had rounded the bend in the avenue escape had become impossible, for +Axel was standing on the steps of the house. Axel had a cigar in his +mouth; his hands were in his pockets, and he was watching the paces of a +young mare which was being led up and down. Two pointers were sitting at +his feet, and when Klutz appeared they rushed down at him barking. Klutz +did not as a rule object to being barked at by dogs, but he was in a +highly nervous state, and shrank aside involuntarily. The groom leading +the mare grinned; Axel whistled the dogs off; and Klutz, with hot ears, +walked up and took off his hat.</p> + +<p>"What can I do for you, Herr Klutz?" asked Axel, his hands still in his +pockets and his eyes on the mare's legs.</p> + +<p>"I wish to speak with you privately," said Klutz.</p> + +<p>"<i>Gut.</i> Just wait a moment." And Klutz waited, while Axel, with great +deliberation, continued his scrutiny of the mare, and followed it up by +a lengthy technical discussion of her faults and her merits with the +groom.</p> + +<p>This was intolerable. Klutz had come on business of vital importance, +and he was left standing there for what seemed to him at least half an +hour, as though he were rather less than a dog or a beggar. As time +passed, and he still was kept waiting, the fury that had possessed him +as he stood helpless before Anna's shut door in the afternoon, returned. +All his doubts and fears and respect melted away. What a day he had had +of suffering, of every kind of agitation! The ground alone that he had +covered, going backwards and forwards between Lohm and Kleinwalde, was +enough to tire out a man in health; and he was not in health, he was +ill, fasting, shaking in every limb. While he had been suffering +(<i>leidend und schwitzend</i>, he said to himself, grinding his teeth), this +comfortable man in the gaiters and the aggressively clean cuffs had no +doubt passed very pleasant and easy hours, had had three meals at least +where he had had none, had smoked cigars and examined horses' legs, had +ridden a little, driven a little, and would presently go round, now that +the cool of the evening had come, to Kleinwalde, and sit in the twilight +while Miss Estcourt called him <i>Schatz</i>. Oh, it was not to be borne! +Dellwig was right—he must be annoyed, punished, at all costs shaken out +of his lofty indifference. "Let me remind you," Klutz burst out in a +voice that trembled with passion, "that I am still here, and still +waiting, and that I have only two legs. Your horse, I see, has four, and +is better able to stand and wait than I am."</p> + +<p>Axel turned and stared at him. "Why, what is the matter?" he asked, +astonished. "You <i>are</i> Manske's vicar? Yes, of course you are. I did not +know you had anything very pressing to tell me. I am sorry I have kept +you—come in."</p> + +<p>He sent the mare to the stables, and led the way into his study. "Sit +down," he said, pushing a chair forward, and sitting down himself by his +writing-table. "Have a cigar?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"No?" Axel stared again. "'No thank you' is the form prejudice prefers," +he said.</p> + +<p>"I care nothing for that."</p> + +<p>"What is the matter, my dear Herr Klutz? You are very angry about +something."</p> + +<p>"I have been shamefully treated by a woman."</p> + +<p>"It is what sometimes happens to young men," said Axel, smiling.</p> + +<p>"I do not want cheap wisdom like that," cried Klutz, his eyes ablaze.</p> + +<p>Axel's brows went up. "You are rude, my good Herr Klutz," he said. "Try +to be polite if you wish me to help you. If you cannot, I shall ask you +to go."</p> + +<p>"I will not go."</p> + +<p>"My dear Herr Klutz."</p> + +<p>"I say I will not go till I have told you what I came to tell you. The +woman is Miss Estcourt."</p> + +<p>"Miss Estcourt?" repeated Axel, amazed. Then he added, "Call her a +lady."</p> + +<p>"She is a woman to all intents and purposes——"</p> + +<p>"Call her a lady. It sounds better from a young man of your station."</p> + +<p>"Of my station! What, a man with the brains of a man, the mind of a man, +the sinews of a man, is not equal, is not superior, whatever his station +may be, to a mere woman?"</p> + +<p>"I will not discuss your internal arrangements. Has there, then, been +some mistake about the salary you are to receive?"</p> + +<p>"What salary?"</p> + +<p>"For teaching Miss Letty Estcourt?"</p> + +<p>"Pah—the salary. Love does not look at salaries."</p> + +<p>"That sounds magnificent. Did you say love?"</p> + +<p>"For weeks past, all the time that I have taught the niece, she has +taken my flowers, my messages, at first verbal and at last written——"</p> + +<p>"One moment. Of whom are we talking? I have met you with Miss Leech——"</p> + +<p>"The governess? <i>Ich danke.</i> It is Miss Estcourt who has encouraged me +and led me on, and now, after calling me her <i>Lämmchen</i>, takes away her +niece and shuts her door in my face——"</p> + +<p>"You have been drinking?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly not," cried Klutz, the more indignantly because of his +consciousness of the brandy.</p> + +<p>"Then you have no excuse at all for talking in this manner of my +neighbour?"</p> + +<p>"Excuse! To hear you, one would think she must be a queen," said Klutz, +laughing derisively. "If she were, I should still talk as I pleased. A +cat may look at a king, I suppose?" And he laughed again, very bitterly, +disliking even for one moment to imagine himself in the rôle of the cat.</p> + +<p>"A cat may look as long and as often as it likes," said Axel, "but it +must not get in the king's way. I am sure you can guess why."</p> + +<p>"I have not come here to guess why about anything."</p> + +<p>"Oh, it is not very abstruse—the cat would be kicked by somebody, of +course."</p> + +<p>"Oh, ho! Not if it could bite, and had what I have in its pocket."</p> + +<p>"Cats do not have pockets, my dear Herr Klutz. You must have noticed +that yourself. Pray, what is it that you have in yours?"</p> + +<p>"A little poem she sent me in answer to one of mine. A little, sweet +poem. I thought you might like to see how your future wife writes to +another man."</p> + +<p>"Ah—that is why you have called so kindly on me? Out of pure +thoughtfulness. My future wife, then, is Miss Estcourt?"</p> + +<p>"It is an open secret."</p> + +<p>"It is, most unfortunately, not true."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach</i>—I knew you would deny it," cried Klutz, slapping his leg and +grinning horribly. "I knew you would deny it when you heard she had been +behaving badly. But denials do not alter anything—no one will believe +them——"</p> + +<p>Axel shrugged his shoulders. "Am I to see the poem?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Klutz took it out and handed it to him. The twilight had come into the +room, and Axel put the paper down a moment while he lit the candles on +his table. Then he smoothed out its creases, and holding it close to the +light read it attentively. Klutz leaned forward and watched his face. +Not a muscle moved. It had been calm before, and it remained calm. Klutz +could hardly keep himself from leaping up and striking that impassive +face, striking some sort of feeling into it. He had played his big card, +and Axel was quite unmoved. What could he do, what could he say, to hurt +him?</p> + +<p>"Shall we burn it?" inquired Axel, looking up from the paper.</p> + +<p>"Burn it? Burn my poem?"</p> + +<p>"It is such very great nonsense. It is written by a child. We know what +child. Only one in this part can write English."</p> + +<p>"Miss Estcourt wrote it, I tell you!" cried Klutz, jumping to his feet +and snatching the paper away.</p> + +<p>"Your telling me so does not in the very least convince me. Miss +Estcourt knows nothing about it."</p> + +<p>"She does—she did——" screamed Klutz, beside himself. "Your Miss +Estcourt—your <i>Braut</i>—you try to brazen it out because you are ashamed +of such a <i>Braut</i>. It is no use—everyone shall see this, and be told +about it—the whole province shall ring with it—<i>I</i> will not be the +laughing-stock, but <i>you</i> will be. Not a labourer, not a peasant, but +shall hear of it——"</p> + +<p>"It strikes me," said Axel, rising, "that you badly want kicking. I do +not like to do it in my house—it hardly seems hospitable. If you will +suggest a convenient place, neutral ground, I shall be pleased to come +and do it."</p> + +<p>He looked at Klutz with an encouraging smile. Then something in the +young man's twitching face arrested his attention. "Do you know what I +think?" he said quickly, in a different voice. "It is less a kicking +that you want than a good meal. You really look as though you had had +nothing to eat for a week. The difference a beefsteak would make to your +views would surprise you. Come, come," he said, patting him on the +shoulder, "I have been taking you too seriously. You are evidently not +in your usual state. When did you have food last? What has Frau Pastor +been about? And your eyelids are so red that I do believe——" Axel +looked closer—"I do believe you have been crying."</p> + +<p>"Sir," began Klutz, struggling hard with a dreadful inclination to cry +again, for self-pity is a very tender and tearful sentiment, "Sir——"</p> + +<p>"Let me order that beefsteak," said Axel kindly. "My cook will have it +ready in ten minutes."</p> + +<p>"Sir," said Klutz, with the tremendous dignity that immediately precedes +tears, "Sir, I am not to be bribed."</p> + +<p>"Well, take a cigar at least," said Axel, opening his case. "That will +not corrupt you as much as the beefsteak, and will soothe you a little +on your way home. For you must go home and get to bed. You are as near +an illness as any man I ever saw."</p> + +<p>The tears were so near, so terribly near, that, hardly knowing what he +did, and sooner than trust himself to speak, Klutz took a cigar and lit +it at the match Axel held for him. His hand shook pitifully.</p> + +<p>"Now go home, my dear Klutz," said Axel very kindly. "Tell Frau Pastor +to give you some food, and then get to bed. I wish you would have taken +the beefsteak—here is your hat. If you like, we will talk about this +nonsense later on. Believe me, it is nonsense. You will be the first to +say so next week."</p> + +<p>And he ushered him out to the steps, and watched him go down them, +uneasy lest he should stumble and fall, so weak did he seem to be. "What +a hot wind!" he exclaimed. "You will have a dusty walk home. Go slowly. +Good-night."</p> + +<p>"Poor devil," he thought, as Klutz without speaking went down the avenue +into the darkness with unsteady steps, "poor young devil—the highest +possible opinion of himself, and the smallest possible quantity of +brains; a weak will and strong instincts; much unwholesome study of the +Old Testament in Hebrew with Manske; a body twenty years old, and the +finest spring I can remember filling it with all sorts of anti-parsonic +longings. I believe I ought to have taken him home. He looked as though +he would faint."</p> + +<p>This last thought disturbed Axel. The image of Klutz fainting into a +ditch and remaining in it prostrate all night, refused to be set aside; +and at last he got his hat and went down the avenue after him.</p> + +<p>But Klutz, who had shuffled along quickly, was nowhere to be seen. Axel +opened the avenue gate and looked down the road that led past the +stables to the village and parsonage, and then across the fields to +Kleinwalde; he even went a little way along it, with an uneasy eye on +the ditches, but he did not see Klutz, either upright or prostrate. +Well, if he were in a ditch, he said to himself, he would not drown; the +ditches were all as empty, dry, and burnt-up as four weeks' incessant +drought and heat could make them. He turned back repeating that +eminently consolatory proverb, <i>Unkraut vergeht nicht</i>, and walked +quickly to his own gate; for it was late, and he had work to do, and he +had wasted more time than he could afford with Klutz. A man on a horse +coming from the opposite direction passed him. It was Dellwig, and each +recognised the other; but in these days of mutual and profound distrust +both were glad of the excuse the darkness gave for omitting the usual +greetings. Dellwig rode on towards Kleinwalde in silence, and Axel +turned in at his gate.</p> + +<p>But the poor young devil, as Axel called him, had not fainted. Hurrying +down the dark avenue, beyond Axel's influence, far from fainting, it was +all Klutz could do not to shout with passion at his own insufferable +weakness, his miserable want of self-control in the presence of the man +he now regarded as his enemy. The tears in his eyes had given Lohm an +opportunity for pretending he was sorry for him, and for making +insulting and derisive offers of food. What could equal in humiliation +the treatment to which he had been subjected? First he had been treated +as a dog, and then, far worse, far, far worse and more difficult to bear +with dignity, as a child. A beefsteak? Oh, the shame that seared his +soul as he thought of it! This revolting specimen of the upper class had +declared, with a hateful smile of indulgent superiority, that all his +love, all his sufferings, all his just indignation, depended solely for +their existence on whether he did or did not eat a beefsteak. Could +coarse-mindedness and gross insensibility go further? "Thrice miserable +nation!" he cried aloud, shaking his fist at the unconcerned stars, +"thrice miserable nation, whose ruling class is composed of men so +vile!" And, having removed his cigar in order to make this utterance, he +remembered, with a great start, that it was Axel's.</p> + +<p>He was in the road, just passing Axel's stables. The gate to the +stableyard stood open, and inside it, heaped against one of the +buildings, was a waggon-load of straw. Instantly Klutz became aware of +what he was going to do. A lightning flash of clear purpose illumined +the disorder of his brain. It was supper time, and no one was about. He +ran inside the gate and threw the lighted cigar on to the straw; and +because there was not an instantaneous blaze fumbled for his matchbox, +and lit one match after the other, pushing them in a kind of frenzy +under the loose ends of straw.</p> + +<p>There was a puff of smoke, and then a bright tongue of flame; and +immediately he had achieved his purpose he was terrified, and fled away +from the dreadful light, and hid himself, shuddering, in the darkness of +the country road.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + + +<p>"It's in Stralsund," cried the princess, hurrying out into the +Kleinwalde garden when first the alarm was given.</p> + +<p>"It's in Lohm," cried someone else.</p> + +<p>Anna watched the light in silence, her face paler than ordinary, her +hair blown about by the hot wind. The trees in the dark garden swayed +and creaked, the air was parching and full of dust, the light glared +brighter each moment. Surely it was very near? Surely it was nearer than +Stralsund? "It's in Lohm," cried someone with conviction; and Anna +turned and began to run.</p> + +<p>"Where are you running to, Aunt Anna?" asked Letty, breathlessly +following her; for since the affair with Klutz she followed her aunt +about like a conscience-stricken dog.</p> + +<p>"The fire-engine—there is one at the farm—it must go——"</p> + +<p>They took each other's hands and ran in silence. Between the gusts of +wind they could hear the Lohm church-bells ringing; and almost +immediately the single Kleinwalde bell began to toll, to toll with a +forlorn, blood-curdling sound altogether different from its unmeaning +Sunday tinkle.</p> + +<p>In front of her house Frau Dellwig stood, watching the sky. "It is +Lohm," she said to Anna as she came up panting.</p> + +<p>"Yes—the fire-engine—is it ordered? Has it gone? No? Then at once—at +once——"</p> + +<p>"<i>Jawohl, jawohl</i>," said Frau Dellwig with great calm, the philosophic +calm of him who contemplates calamities other than his own. She said +something to one of the maids, who were standing about in pleased and +excited groups laughing and whispering, and the girl shuffled off in her +clattering wooden shoes. "My husband is not here," she explained, "and +the men are at supper."</p> + +<p>"Then they must leave their supper," cried Anna. "Go, go, you girls, and +tell them so—look how terrible it is getting——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is a big fire. The girl I sent will tell them. They say it is +the <i>Schloss</i>."</p> + +<p>"Oh, go yourself and tell the men—see, there is no sign of them—every +minute is priceless——"</p> + +<p>"It is always a business with the engine. It has not been required, +thank God, for years. Mietze, go and hurry them."</p> + +<p>The girl called Mietze went off at a trot. The others put their heads +together, looked at their young mistress, and whispered. A stable-boy +came to the pump and filled his pail. Everyone seemed composed, and yet +there was that bloody sky, and there was that insistent cry for help +from the anxious bell.</p> + +<p>Anna could hardly bear it. What was happening down there to her kind +friend?</p> + +<p>"It is the <i>Schloss</i>," said the stable-boy in answer to a question from +Frau Dellwig as he passed with his full pail, spilling the water at +every step.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach</i>, I thought so," she said, glancing at Anna.</p> + +<p>Anna made a passionate movement, and ran down the steps after the girl +Mietze. Frau Dellwig could not but follow, which she did slowly, at a +disapproving distance.</p> + +<p>But Dellwig galloped into the yard at that moment, his horse covered +with sweat, and his loud and peremptory orders extracted the ancient +engine from its shed, got the horses harnessed to it, and after what +Anna thought an eternity it rattled away. When it started, the whole sky +to the south was like one dreadful sheet of blood.</p> + +<p>"It is the stables," he said to Anna.</p> + +<p>"Herr von Lohm's?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. They cannot be saved."</p> + +<p>"And the house?"</p> + +<p>He shrugged his shoulders. "It's a windy night," he said, "and the wind +is blowing that way. There are pine-trees between. Everything is as dry +as cinders."</p> + +<p>"The stables—are they insured?"</p> + +<p>But Dellwig was off again, after the engine.</p> + +<p>"What can we do, Letty? What can we <i>do</i>?" cried Anna, turning to Letty +when the sound of the wheels had died away and only the hurried bell was +heard above the whistling and banging of the wind. "It's horrible here, +listening to that bell tolling, and looking at the sky. If I could throw +one single bucketful of water on the fire I should not feel so useless, +so utterly, utterly of no use or good for anything."</p> + +<p>Neither of them had ever seen a fire, and horror had seized them both. +The night seemed so dark, the world all round so black, except in that +one dreadful spot. Anna knew Axel could not afford to lose money. From +things Trudi had said, from things the princess had said, she knew it. +There was at Lohm, she felt rather than knew, an abundance of everything +necessary to ordinary comfortable living, as there generally is in the +country on farms; but money was scarce, and a series of bad seasons, +perhaps even one bad season, or anything out of the way happening, might +make it very scarce, might make the further proper farming of the place +impossible. Suppose the stables were not insured, where would the money +come from to rebuild them? And the horses—she had heard that horses +went mad with fright in a fire, and refused to leave their stables. And +the house—suppose this cruel wind made the checking of the fire +impossible, and it licked its way across the trees to Axel's house? "Oh, +what can we <i>do</i>?" she cried to the frightened Letty.</p> + +<p>"Let's go there," said Letty.</p> + +<p>"Yes!" cried Anna, striking her hands together. "Yes! The carriage—Frau +Dellwig, order the carriage—order Fritz to bring the carriage out at +once. Tell him to be quick—quick!"</p> + +<p>"The gracious Miss will go to Lohm?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—call him, send for him—Fritz! Fritz!" She herself began to call.</p> + +<p>"But——"</p> + +<p>"Fritz! Fritz! Run, Letty, and see if you can find him."</p> + +<p>"If I may be permitted to advise——"</p> + +<p>"Fritz! Fritz! Fritz!"</p> + +<p>"Call the <i>herrschaftliche Kutscher</i> Fritz," Frau Dellwig then commanded +a passing boy in a loud and stern voice. "Not only mad, but improper," +was her private comment. "She goes by night to her <i>Bräutigam</i>—to her +unacknowledged <i>Bräutigam</i>." Even a possible burning <i>Bräutigam</i> did +not, in her opinion, excuse such a step.</p> + +<p>The darkness concealed the anger on her face, and Anna neither noticed +nor cared for the anger in her voice, but began herself to run in the +direction of the stables, leaving Frau Dellwig to her reflections.</p> + +<p>"Princess Ludwig is looking for you everywhere, Aunt Anna," said Letty, +coming towards her, having found Fritz and succeeded in making him +understand what she wanted.</p> + +<p>"Where is she? Is the carriage coming?"</p> + +<p>"He said five minutes. She was at the house, asking the servants if they +had seen you."</p> + +<p>"Come along then, we'll go to her."</p> + +<p>"I was afraid I should not find you here," said the princess as Anna +came up the steps of the house into the light of the entry, "and that +you had run off to Lohm to put the fire out. My dear child, what do you +look like? Come and look at yourself in the glass."</p> + +<p>She led her to the glass that hung above the Dellwig hat-stand.</p> + +<p>"I am just going there," said Anna, looking at her reflection without +seeing it. "The carriage is being got ready now."</p> + +<p>"Then I am coming too. What has the wind been doing to your hair? See, I +knew you were running about bare-headed, and have brought you a scarf. +Come, let me tie it over all these excited little curls, and turn you +into a sober and circumspect young woman."</p> + +<p>Anna bent her head and let the princess do as she pleased. "Herr Dellwig +is afraid the fire will spread to the house," she said breathlessly. +"Our engine has only just gone——"</p> + +<p>"I heard it."</p> + +<p>"It is such a lumbering thing, it will be hours getting there——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, not hours. Half a one, perhaps."</p> + +<p>"Are they insured?"</p> + +<p>"The buildings? They are sure to be. But there is always a loss that +cannot be covered—<i>ach</i>, Frau Dellwig, good-evening—you see we have +taken possession of your house. To have no stables and probably no +horses just when the busy time is beginning is terrible. Poor Axel. +There—now you are tidy. Wait, let me fasten your cloak and cover up +your pretty dress. Is Letty to come too?"</p> + +<p>"Oh—if she likes. Why doesn't the carriage come?"</p> + +<p>"It will be much better if Letty goes to bed," said the princess.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Letty.</p> + +<p>"It is long past her bedtime, and she has no hat, and nothing round her. +Shall we not ask Frau Dellwig to send a servant with her home?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Aber gewiss</i>——" began Frau Dellwig.</p> + +<p>But Anna was out again on the steps, was shutting out the flaming sky +with one hand while she strained her eyes into the darkness of the +corner where the coach-house was. She could hear Fritz's voice, and the +horses' hoofs on the cobbles, and she could see the light of a lantern +jogging up and down as the stable-boy who held it hurried to and fro. +"Quick, quick, Fritz," she cried.</p> + +<p>"<i>Jawohl, gnädiges Fräulein</i>," came back the answer in the old man's +cheery, reassuring tones. But it was like a nightmare, standing there +waiting, waiting, the precious minutes slipping by, terrible things +happening to Axel, and she herself unable to stir a step towards him.</p> + +<p>"Take me with you—let me come too," pleaded Letty from behind her, +slipping her hand into Anna's.</p> + +<p>"Then tie a handkerchief or something round your head," said Anna, her +eyes on the lantern moving about before the coach-house. Then the +carriage lamps flashed out, and in another moment the carriage rattled +up.</p> + +<p>It was a ghostly drive. As the tops of the pine-trees swayed aside they +caught glimpses of the red horror of the sky; and when they got out into +the open Anna cried out involuntarily, for it seemed as if the whole +world were on fire. The spire of Lohm church and the roofs of the +cottages stood out clear and sharp in the fierce light. The horses, more +and more frightened the nearer they drew, plunged and reared, and old +Fritz could hardly hold them in. On turning the corner by the parsonage +they were not to be induced to advance another yard, but swerved aside, +kicking and terrified, and threatening every moment to upset the +carriage into the ditch.</p> + +<p>Anna jumped out and ran on. The princess, slower and more bulky, was +helped out by Letty and followed after as quickly as she could. In the +road and in the field opposite the stables the whole population was +gathered, illuminated figures in eager, chattering groups. From the pump +on the green in front of the schoolhouse, a chain of helpers had been +formed, and buckets of water were being passed along from hand to hand +to the engines; and there was no other water. The engines were working +farther down the road, keeping the hose turned on to the trees between +the stables and the house. There were clumps of pine-trees among them, +and these were the trees that would carry the fire across to Axel's +house. Men in the garden were hacking at them, the blows of their axes +indistinguishable in the uproar, but every now and then one of the +victims fell with a crash among its fellows still standing behind it.</p> + +<p>"Oh, poor Axel, poor Axel!" murmured Anna, drawing her scarf across her +face as she passed along to protect it from the intolerable heat. But +she was an unmistakable figure in her blue cloak and white dress, +stumbling on to where the engines were; and the groups of onlookers +nudged each other and turned to stare after her as she passed.</p> + +<p>"How did it happen?" she asked, suddenly stopping before a knot of +women. They were in the act of discussing her, and started and looked +foolish.</p> + +<p>"No one knows," said the eldest, when Anna repeated her question. "They +say it was done on purpose."</p> + +<p>"Done on purpose!" echoed Anna, staring at the speaker. "Why, who would +set fire to a place on purpose?"</p> + +<p>But to this question no reply at all was forthcoming. They fidgeted and +looked at each other, and one of the younger ones tittered and then put +her hand before her mouth.</p> + +<p>In the potato field across the road, two storks, whose nest for many +springs had been on one of the roofs now burning, had placed their young +ones in safety and were watching over them. The young storks were only a +few days old, and had been thrown out of the nest by the parents, and +then dragged away out of danger into the field, the parents mounting +guard over their bruised and dislocated offspring, and the whole group +transformed in the glow into a beautiful, rosy, dazzling white, into a +family of spiritualised, glorified storks, as they huddled ruefully +together in their place of refuge. Anna saw them without knowing that +she saw them; there were three little ones, and one was dead. The +princess and Letty found her standing beside them, watching the roaring +furnace of the stableyard with parted lips and wide-open, +horror-stricken eyes.</p> + +<p>"Most of the horses were got out in time," said the princess, taking +Anna's arm, determined that she should not again slip away, "and they +say the buildings are fully insured, and he will be able to have much +better ones."</p> + +<p>"But the time lost—they can't be built in a day——"</p> + +<p>"The man I spoke to said they were such old buildings and in such a bad +state that Axel can congratulate himself that they have been burned. But +of course there will always be the time lost. Have you seen him? Let us +go on a little—we shall be scorched to cinders here."</p> + +<p>Both Axel and Dellwig were superintending the working of the hose. "I do +not want my trees destroyed," he said to Dellwig, with whom in the +stress of the moment he had resumed his earlier manner; "they are not +insured." He had watched the stables go with an impassiveness that +struck several of the bystanders as odd. Dellwig and many others of the +dwellers in that district were used to making a great noise on all +occasions great and small, and they could by no means believe that it +was natural to Axel to remain so calm at such a moment. "It is a great +nuisance," Axel said more than once; but that also was hardly an +adequate expression of feelings.</p> + +<p>"They are well insured, I believe?" said Dellwig.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes. I shall be able to have nice tight buildings in their place."</p> + +<p>"They were certainly rather—rather dilapidated," said Dellwig, eyeing +him.</p> + +<p>"They were very dilapidated," said Axel.</p> + +<p>Anna and the princess stood a little way from the engines watching the +efforts to check the spread of the fire for some time before Axel +noticed them. Manske, who had been the first to volunteer as a link in +the human chain to the pump, bowed and smiled from his place at them, +and was stared at in return by both women, who wondered who the begrimed +and friendly individual could be. "It is the pastor," then said the +princess, smiling back at him; on which Manske's smiles and bows +redoubled, and he spilt half the contents of the bucket passing through +his hands.</p> + +<p>"So it is," said Anna.</p> + +<p>"Take care there, No. 3!" roared Dellwig, affecting not to know who No. +3 was, and glad of an opportunity of calling the parson to order. +Dellwig was making so much noise flinging orders and reprimands about, +that a stranger would certainly have taken him for the frantic owner of +the burning property.</p> + +<p>"You see the pastor looks anything but alarmed," said the princess. "If +Axel were losing much by this, Manske would be weeping into his bucket +instead of smiling so kindly at us."</p> + +<p>"So he would," said Anna, a little reassured by that cheerful and grimy +countenance. Her eyes wandered to Axel, so cool and so vigilant, giving +the necessary orders so quietly, losing no precious moments in trying to +save what was past saving, and without any noise or any abuse getting +what he wanted done. "It <i>can't</i> be a good thing, a fire like this," she +said to herself. "Whatever they say, it <i>can't</i> be a good thing."</p> + +<p>A huge pine-tree was dragged down at that moment, dragged in a direction +away from its fellows, against a beech, whose branches it tore down in +its fall, ruining the beech for ever, but smothering a few of its own +twigs that had begun to burn among the fresh young leaves. Anna watched +the havoc going on among poor Axel's trees in silence. "He <i>can't</i> not +care," she said to herself. He turned round quickly at that moment, as +though he heard her thinking of him, and looked straight into her eyes. +"You here!" he exclaimed, striding across the road to her at once.</p> + +<p>"Yes, we are here," replied the princess. "We cannot let our neighbour +burn without coming to see if we can do anything. But seriously, I hear +that it is a good thing for you."</p> + +<p>"I prefer the less good thing that I had before, just now. But it is +gone. I shall not waste time fretting over it."</p> + +<p>He ran back again to stop something that was being done wrong, but +returned immediately to tell them to go into his house and not stand +there in the heat. "You look so tired—and anxious," he said, his eyes +searching Anna's face. "Why are you anxious? The fire has frightened +you? It is all insured, I assure you, and there is only the bother of +having to build just now."</p> + +<p>He could not stay, and hurried back to his men.</p> + +<p>"We can go indoors a moment," said the princess, "and see what is going +on in his house. It will be standing empty and open, and it is not +necessary that he should suffer losses from thieves as well as from +fire. His Mamsell is like all bachelors' Mamsells—losing, I am sure, no +opportunity of feathering her nest at his expense."</p> + +<p>Anna thought this a practical way of helping Axel, since the throwing of +water on the flames was not required of her. She turned to call Letty, +and found that no Letty was to be seen. "Why, where is Letty?" she +asked, looking round.</p> + +<p>"I thought she was behind us," said the princess.</p> + +<p>"So did I," said Anna anxiously.</p> + +<p>They went back a few steps, looking for her among the bystanders. They +saw her at last a long way off, her handkerchief still round her head +and her long thick hair blowing round her shoulders, rapt in +contemplation of the fiery furnace. Then a shout went up from the people +in the road, and they all ran back into the potato field. Anna and the +princess stood rooted to the spot, clutching each other's hands. Letty +looked round when she heard the shout, and began to run too. The flaming +outer wall of the yard swayed and tottered and then fell outwards with a +terrific crash and crackling, filling the road with a smoking heap of +rubbish, and sending a shower of sparks on a puff of wind after the +flying spectators.</p> + +<p>The princess had certainly not run so fast since her girlhood as she did +with Anna towards the spot in the field where they had last seen Letty. +A crowd had gathered round it, they could see, an excited, gesticulating +crowd. But they found her apparently unhurt, sitting on the ground, +surrounded by sympathisers, and with someone's coat over her head. She +looked up, very pale, but smiling apologetically at her aunt. "It's all +gone," she said, pointing to her head.</p> + +<p>"What is gone?" cried Anna, dropping on her knees beside her.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach Gott, die Haare—die herrlichen Haare!</i>" lamented a woman in the +crowd. The smell of burnt hair explained what had happened.</p> + +<p>Anna seized her in her arms. "You might have been killed—you might have +been killed," she panted, rocking her to and fro. "Oh, Letty—who saved +you?"</p> + +<p>"Somebody put this beastly thing over my head—it smells of herrings. +Sparks got into my hair, and it all frizzled up. Can't I take this off? +It's out now—and off too."</p> + +<p>The princess felt all over her head through the coat, patting and +pressing it carefully; then she took the coat off, and restored it with +effusive thanks to its sheepish owner. There was a murmur of sympathy +from the women as Letty emerged, shorn of those flowing curls that were +her only glory. "<i>Oh Weh, die herrlichen Haare!</i>" sighed the women to +one another, "<i>Oh Weh, oh Weh!</i>" But the handkerchief tied so tightly +round her head had saved her from a worse fate; she had been an ugly +little girl before—all that had happened was that she looked now like +an ugly little boy.</p> + +<p>"I say, Aunt Anna, don't mind," said Letty; for her aunt was crying, and +kissing her, and tying and untying the handkerchief, and arranging and +rearranging it, and stroking and smoothing the singed irregular wisps of +hair that were left as though she loved them. "I'm frightfully sorry—I +didn't know you were so fond of my hair."</p> + +<p>"Come, we'll go to the house," was all Anna said, stumbling on to her +feet and putting her arm round Letty. And they clung to each other so +close that they could hardly walk.</p> + +<p>"We are going indoors a moment," called the princess, who was very pale, +to Axel as they passed the engines.</p> + +<p>He smiled across at her, and lifted his hat.</p> + +<p>"I never saw anyone quite so composed," she observed to Anna, trying to +turn her attention to other things. "Your man Dellwig, who has nothing +to do with it all, is displaying the kind of behaviour the people expect +on these occasions. I am sure that Axel has puzzled a great many people +to-night."</p> + +<p>Anna did not answer. She was thinking only of Letty. What a slender +thread of chance had saved her from death, from a dreadful death, the +little Letty who was under her care, for whom she was responsible, and +whom she had quite forgotten in her stupid interest in Axel Lohm's +affairs. Woman-like, she felt very angry with Axel. What did it matter +to her whether his place burnt to ashes or not? But Letty mattered to +her, her own little niece, poor solitary Letty, practically motherless, +so ugly, and so full of good intentions. She had scolded her so much +about Klutz; wretched Klutz, it was entirely his fault that Letty had +been so silly, and yet only Letty had had the scoldings. Anna held her +closer. In the light of that narrow escape how trivial, how indifferent, +all this folly of love-talk and messages and anger seemed. For a short +space she touched the realities, she saw life and death in their true +proportion; and even while she was looking at them with clear and +startled vision they were blurred again into indistinctness, they faded +away and were gone—rubbed out by the inevitable details of the passing +hour.</p> + +<p>"I thought as much," said the princess, as they drew near the house. +"All the doors wide open and the place deserted." And Anna came back +with a start from the reality to the well-known dream of daily life, and +immediately felt as though that other flash had been the dream and only +this were real.</p> + +<p>The hall was in darkness, but there was light shining through the chinks +of a door, and they groped their way towards it. The house was as quiet +as death. They could hear the distant shouts of the men cutting down the +trees in the garden, and the blows of the axes. The princess pushed open +the door behind which the light was, and they found themselves in Axel's +study, where the candles he had lit in order to read Letty's poem were +still guttering and flaring in the draught from the open window. A clock +on the writing-table showed that it was past midnight. The room looked +very untidy and ill-cared for.</p> + +<p>"A man without a wife," said the princess, gazing round at the litter, +composed chiefly of cigar-ashes and old envelopes, "is a truly miserable +being. What condition can be more wretched than to be at the mercy of a +Mamsell? I shall go and inquire into the whereabouts of this one. Axel +will want some food when he comes in."</p> + +<p>She took up one of the candles and went out. Letty had sat down at once +on the nearest chair, and was looking very pale. Anna untied the +handkerchief, and tried to arrange what was left of her hair. "I must +cut off these uneven ends," she said, "but there won't be any scissors +here."</p> + +<p>"I say," began Letty, staring very hard at her.</p> + +<p>"I believe you were terribly scared, you poor little creature," said +Anna, struck by her pale face, and passing her hand tenderly over the +singed head.</p> + +<p>"Oh, not much. A bit, of course. But it was soon over. Don't worry. What +will mamma say to my head?" And Letty's mouth widened into a grin at +this thought. "I say," she began again, relapsing into solemnity.</p> + +<p>"Well, what?" smiled Anna, sitting down on the same chair and putting +her arm round her.</p> + +<p>"You don't know the whole of that poetry business."</p> + +<p>"That silly business with Herr Klutz? Oh, was there more of it? Oh, +Letty, what did you do more? I am so tired of it, and of him, and of +everything. Tell me, and then we'll forget it for ever."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid you won't forget it. I'm afraid I'm a bigger beast than you +think, Aunt Anna," said Letty, with a conviction that frightened Anna.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Letty," she said faintly, "what did you do?"</p> + +<p>"Why, I—I <i>will</i> get it out—I—he was so miserable, and went on so +when you didn't answer that poetry—that he sent with the heart, you +know——"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, I know."</p> + +<p>"Well, he was in such a state about it that I—that I made up a poem, +just to comfort him, you know, and keep him quiet, and—and pretended it +came from you." She threw back her head and looked up at her aunt. +"There now, it's out," she said defiantly.</p> + +<p>Anna was silent for a moment. "Was it—was it very affectionate?" she +asked under her breath. Then she slipped down on to the floor, and put +both her arms round Letty. "Don't tell me," she cried, laying her face +on Letty's knees, "I don't want to know. Suppose you had been dreadfully +hurt just now, burnt, or—or dead, what would it have mattered? Oh, we +will forget all that ridiculous nonsense, and only never, never be so +silly again. Let us be happy together, and finish with Herr Klutz for +ever—it was all so stupid, and so little worth while." And she put up +her face, and they both began to cry and kiss each other through their +tears. And so it came about that Letty was in the same hour relieved of +the burden on her conscience, of most of her hair, and was taken once +again, and with redoubled enthusiasm, into Anna's heart. Logic had never +been Anna's strong point.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2> + + +<p>When Axel came in two hours later, bringing Dellwig and Manske and two +or three other helpers, farmers, who had driven across the plain to do +what they could, he found his house lit up and food and drink set out +ready in the dining-room.</p> + +<p>Letty and Anna had had time to recover from their tears and vows, sundry +small blisters on the back of Letty's neck had been treated with cotton +wool, and they had emerged from their agitation to a calmer state in +which the helping of the princess in the middle of the night to make +somebody else's house comfortable was not without its joys. The Mamsell, +no more able than the Kleinwalde servants to withstand the authority of +the princess's name and eye, had collected the maids and worked with a +will; and when, all danger of the fire spreading being over, Axel came +in dirty and smoky and scorched, prepared to have to hunt himself in the +dark house for the refreshment he could not but offer his helpers, he +was agreeably surprised to find the lamp in the hall alight, and to be +met by a wide-awake Mamsell in a clean apron who proposed to provide the +gentlemen with hot water. This was very attentive. Axel had never known +her so thoughtful. The gentlemen, however, with one accord refused the +hot water; they would drink a glass of wine, perhaps, as Herr von Lohm +so kindly suggested, and then go to their homes and beds as quickly as +possible. Manske, by far the grimiest, was also the most decided in his +refusal; he was a godly man, but he did not love supererogatory +washings, under which heading surely a washing at two o'clock in the +morning came. Axel left them in the hall a moment, and went into his +study to fetch cigars; and there he found Letty, hiding behind the door.</p> + +<p>"You here, young lady?" he exclaimed surprised, stopping short.</p> + +<p>"Don't let anyone see me," she whispered. "Princess Ludwig and Aunt Anna +are in the dining-room. I ran in here when I heard people with you. My +hair is all burnt off."</p> + +<p>"What, you went too near?"</p> + +<p>"Sparks came after me. Don't let them come in——"</p> + +<p>"You were not hurt?"</p> + +<p>"No. A little—on the back of my neck, but it's hardly anything."</p> + +<p>"I am very glad your hair was burnt off," said Axel with great severity.</p> + +<p>"So am I," was the hearty reply. "The tangles at night were something +awful."</p> + +<p>He stood silent for a moment, the cigar-boxes under his arm, uncertain +whether he ought not to enlighten her as to the reprehensibility of her +late conduct in regard to her aunt and Klutz. Evidently her conscience +was cloudless, and yet she had done more harm than was quite calculable. +Axel was fairly certain that Klutz had set fire to the stables. +Absolutely certain he could not be, but the first blaze had occurred so +nearly at the moment when Klutz must have reached them on his way home, +that he had hardly a doubt about it. It was his duty as Amtsvorsteher to +institute inquiries. If these inquiries ended in the arrest of Klutz, +the whole silly story about Anna would come out, for Klutz would be only +too eager to explain the reasons that had driven him to the act; and +what an unspeakable joy for the province, and what a delicious +excitement for Stralsund! He could only hope that Klutz was not the +culprit, he could only hope it fervently with all his heart; for if he +was, the child peeping out at him so cheerfully from behind the door had +managed to make an amount of mischief and bring an amount of trouble on +Anna that staggered him. Such a little nonsense, and such far-reaching +consequences! He could not speak when he thought of it, and strode past +her indignantly, and left the room without a word.</p> + +<p>"Now what's the row with <i>him</i>?" Letty asked herself, her finger in her +mouth; for Axel had looked at her as he passed with very grave and angry +eyes.</p> + +<p>The men waiting in the hall were slightly disconcerted, on being taken +into the dining-room, to find the Kleinwalde ladies there. None of them, +except Manske, liked ladies; and ladies in the small hours of the +morning were a special weariness to the flesh. Dellwig, having made his +two deep bows to them, looked meaningly at his friends the other +farmers; Miss Estcourt's private engagement to Lohm seemed to be placed +beyond a doubt by her presence in his house on this occasion.</p> + +<p>"How delightful of you," said Axel to her in English.</p> + +<p>"I am glad to hear," she replied stiffly in German, for she was still +angry with him because of Letty's hair, "I am glad to hear that you will +have no losses from this."</p> + +<p>"Losses!" cried Manske. "On the contrary, it is the best thing that +could happen—the very best thing. Those stables have long been almost +unfit for use, Herr von Lohm, and I can say from my heart that I was +glad to see them go. They were all to pieces even in your father's +time."</p> + +<p>"Yes, they ought to have been rebuilt long ago, but one has not always +the money in one's pocket. Help yourself, my dear pastor."</p> + +<p>"Who is the enemy?" broke in Dellwig's harsh voice.</p> + +<p>"Ah, who indeed?" said Manske, looking sad. "That is the melancholy side +of the affair—that someone, presumably of my parish, should commit such +a crime."</p> + +<p>"He has done me a great service, anyhow," said Axel, filling the +glasses.</p> + +<p>"He has imperilled his immortal soul," said Manske.</p> + +<p>"Have you such an enemy?" asked Anna, surprised.</p> + +<p>"I did not know it. Most likely it was some poor, half-witted devil, or +perhaps—perhaps a child."</p> + +<p>"But I saw the blaze immediately after I passed you," said Dellwig. "You +were within a stone's throw of the stables, going home. I had hardly +reached them when the fire broke out. Did you then see no one on the +road?"</p> + +<p>"No, I did not," said Axel shortly. There was an aggressive note in +Dellwig's voice that made him fear he was going to be very zealous in +helping to bring the delinquent to justice.</p> + +<p>"It was the supper hour," said Dellwig, musing, "and the men would all +be indoors. Had you been to the stables, <i>gnädiger Herr</i>?"</p> + +<p>"No, I had not. Take another glass of wine. A cigar? Whoever it was, he +has done me a good turn."</p> + +<p>"Beyond all doubt he has," said Dellwig, his eyes fixed on Axel with an +odd expression.</p> + +<p>"Some of us would have no objection to the same thing happening at our +places," remarked one of the farmers jocosely.</p> + +<p>"No objection whatever," agreed another with a laugh.</p> + +<p>"If the man could be trusted to display the same discrimination +everywhere," said the third.</p> + +<p>"Joke not about crime," said Manske, rebuking them.</p> + +<p>"The discrimination was certainly remarkable," said Dellwig.</p> + +<p>"That is why I think it must have been done by some person more or less +imbecile," said Axel; "otherwise one of the good buildings, whose +destruction would really have harmed me, would have been chosen."</p> + +<p>"He must be hunted down, imbecile or not," said Dellwig.</p> + +<p>"I shall do my duty," said Axel stiffly.</p> + +<p>"You may rely on my help," said Dellwig.</p> + +<p>"You are very good," said Axel.</p> + +<p>Dellwig's voice had something ominous about it that made Anna shiver. +What a detestable man he was, always and at all times. His whole manner +to-night struck her as specially offensive. "What will be done to the +poor wretch when he is caught?" she asked Axel.</p> + +<p>"He will be imprisoned," Dellwig answered promptly.</p> + +<p>She turned her back on him. "Even though he is half-witted?" she said to +Axel. "Are you obliged to look for him? Can't you leave him alone? He +has done you a service, after all."</p> + +<p>"I must look for him," said Axel; "it is my duty as Amtsvorsteher."</p> + +<p>"And the gracious Miss should consider——" shouted Dellwig from behind.</p> + +<p>"I'll consider nothing," said Anna, turning to him quickly.</p> + +<p>"—should consider the demands of justice——"</p> + +<p>"First the demands of humanity," said Anna, her back to him.</p> + +<p>"Noble," murmured Manske.</p> + +<p>"The gracious Miss's sentiments invariably do credit to her heart," said +Dellwig, bowing profoundly.</p> + +<p>"But not to her head, he thinks," said Anna to Axel in English, faintly +smiling.</p> + +<p>"Don't talk to him," Axel replied in a low voice; "the man so palpably +hates us both. You must go home. Where is your carriage? Princess, take +her home."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach, Herr Dellwig, seien Sie so freundlich</i>——" began the princess +mellifluously; and despatched him in search of Fritz.</p> + +<p>When they reached Kleinwalde, silent, wornout, and only desiring to +creep upstairs and into their beds, they were met by Frau von Treumann +and the baroness, who both wore injured and disapproving faces. Letty +slipped up to her room at once, afraid of criticisms of her +hairlessness.</p> + +<p>"We have waited for you all night, Anna," said Frau von Treumann in an +aggrieved voice.</p> + +<p>"You oughtn't to have," said Anna wearily.</p> + +<p>"We could not suppose that you were really looking at the fire all this +time," said the baroness.</p> + +<p>"And we were anxious," said Frau von Treumann. "My dear, you should not +make us anxious."</p> + +<p>"You might have left word, or taken us with you," said the baroness.</p> + +<p>"We are quite as much interested in Herr von Lohm as Letty or Princess +Ludwig can be," said Frau von Treumann.</p> + +<p>"Nobody could tell us here for certain whether you had really gone there +or not."</p> + +<p>"Nor could anybody give us any information as to the extent of the +disaster."</p> + +<p>"We presumed the princess was with you, but even that was not certain."</p> + +<p>"My dear baroness," murmured the princess, untying her shawl, "only you +would have had a doubt of it."</p> + +<p>"The reflection in the sky faded hours ago," said Frau vein Treumann.</p> + +<p>"And yet you did not return," said the baroness. "Where did you go +afterwards?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'll tell you everything to-morrow. Good-night," said Anna, candle +in hand.</p> + +<p>"What! Now that we have waited, and in such anxiety, you will tell us +nothing?"</p> + +<p>"There really is nothing to tell. And I am so tired—good-night."</p> + +<p>"We have kept the servants up and the kettle boiling in case you should +want coffee."</p> + +<p>"That was very kind, but I only want bed. Good-night."</p> + +<p>"We too were weary, but you see we have waited in spite of it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you shouldn't have. You will be so tired. Good-night."</p> + +<p>She went upstairs, pulling herself up each step by the baluster. +The clock on the landing struck half-past three. Was it not +Napoleon, she thought, who said something to the point about +three-o'clock-in-the-morning courage? Had no one ever said anything to +the point about three-o'clock-in-the-morning love for one's +fellow-creatures? "Good-night," she said once more, turning her head and +nodding wearily to them as they watched her from below with indignant +faces.</p> + +<p>She glanced at the clock, and went into her room dejectedly; for she had +made a startling discovery: at three o'clock in the morning her feeling +towards the Chosen was one of indifference verging on dislike.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> + + +<p>Looking up from her breakfast the morning after the fire to see who it +was riding down the street, Frau Manske beheld Dellwig coming towards +her garden gate. Her husband was in his dressing-gown and slippers, a +costume he affected early in the day, and they were taking their coffee +this fine weather at a table in their roomy porch. There was, therefore, +no possibility of hiding the dressing-gown, nor yet the fact that her +cap was not as fresh as a cap on which the great Dellwig's eyes were to +rest, should be. She knew that Dellwig was not a star of the first +magnitude like Herr von Lohm, but he was a very magnificent specimen of +those of the second order, and she thought him much more imposing than +Axel, whose quiet ways she had never understood. Dellwig snubbed her so +systematically and so brutally that she could not but respect and admire +him: she was one of those women who enjoy kissing the rod. In a great +flutter she hurried to the gate to open it for him, receiving in return +neither thanks nor greeting. "Good-morning, good-morning," she said, +bowing repeatedly. "A fine morning, Herr Dellwig."</p> + +<p>"Where's Klutz?" he asked curtly, neither getting off his horse nor +taking off his hat.</p> + +<p>"Oh, the poor young man, Herr Dellwig!" she began with uplifted hands. +"He has had a letter from home, and is much upset. His father——"</p> + +<p>"Where is he?"</p> + +<p>"His father? In bed, and not expected to——"</p> + +<p>"Where's Klutz, I say—young Klutz? Herr Manske, just step down here a +minute—good-morning. I want to see your vicar."</p> + +<p>"My vicar has had bad news from home, and is gone."</p> + +<p>"Gone?"</p> + +<p>"This very morning. Poor fellow, his aged father——"</p> + +<p>"I don't care a curse for his aged father. What train?"</p> + +<p>"The half-past nine train. He went in the post-cart at seven."</p> + +<p>Dellwig jerked his horse round, and without a word rode away in the +direction of Stralsund. "I'll catch him yet," he thought, and rode as +hard as he could.</p> + +<p>"What can he want with the vicar?" wondered Frau Manske.</p> + +<p>"A rough manner, but I doubt not a good heart," said her husband, +sighing; and he folded his flapping dressing-gown pensively about his +legs.</p> + +<p>Klutz was on the platform waiting for the Berlin train, due in five +minutes, when Dellwig came up behind and laid a hand on his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"What! Are you going to jump out of your skin?" Dellwig inquired with a +burst of laughter.</p> + +<p>Klutz stared at him speechlessly after that first start, waiting for +what would follow. His face was ghastly.</p> + +<p>"Father so bad, eh?" said Dellwig heartily. "Nerves all gone, what? +Well, it's enough to make a boy look pale to have his father on his +last——"</p> + +<p>"What do you <i>want</i>?" whispered Klutz with pale lips. Several persons +who knew Dellwig were on the platform, and were staring.</p> + +<p>"Why," said Dellwig, sinking his voice a little, "you have heard of the +fire—I did not see you helping, by the way? You were with Herr von Lohm +last night—don't look so frightened, man—if I did not know about your +father I'd think there was something on your mind. I only want to ask +you—there is a strange rumour going about——"</p> + +<p>"I am going home—<i>home</i>, do you hear?" said Klutz wildly.</p> + +<p>"Certainly you are. No one wants to stop you. Who do you think they say +set fire to the stables?"</p> + +<p>Klutz looked as though he would faint.</p> + +<p>"They say Lohm did it himself," said Dellwig in a low voice, his eyes +fixed on the young man's face.</p> + +<p>Klutz's ears burnt suddenly bright red. He looked down, looked up, +looked over his shoulder in the direction from whence the train would +come. Small cold beads of agitation stood out on his narrow forehead.</p> + +<p>"The point is," said Dellwig, who had not missed a movement of that +twitching face, "that you must have been with Lohm nearly till the time +when—you went straight to him after leaving us?"</p> + +<p>Klutz bowed his head.</p> + +<p>"Then you couldn't have left him long before it broke out. I met him +myself between the stables and his gate five minutes, two minutes, +before the fire. He went past without a word, in a great hurry, as +though he hoped I had not recognised him. Now tell me what you know +about it. Just tell me if you saw anything. It is to both our interests +to cut his claws."</p> + +<p>Klutz pressed his hands together, and looked round again for the train.</p> + +<p>"Do you know what will certainly happen if you try to be generous and +shield him? He'll say <i>you</i> did it, and so get rid of you and hush up +the affair with Miss Estcourt. I can see by your face you know who did +it. Everyone is saying it is Lohm."</p> + +<p>"But why? Why should he? Why should he burn his own——" stammered +Klutz, in dreadful agitation.</p> + +<p>"Why? Because they were in ruins, and well insured. Because he had no +money for new ones; and because now the insurance company will give him +the money. The thing is so plain—I am so convinced that he did it——"</p> + +<p>They heard the train coming. Klutz stooped down quickly and clutched his +bag. "No, no," said Dellwig, catching his arm and gripping it tight, "I +shall not let you go till you say what you know. You or Lohm to be +punished—which do you prefer?"</p> + +<p>Klutz gave Dellwig a despairing, hunted look. "He—he——" he began, +struggling to get the words over his dry lips.</p> + +<p>"He did it? You know it? You saw it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, I saw it—I saw him——"</p> + +<p>Klutz burst into a wild fit of sobbing.</p> + +<p>"<i>Armer Junge</i>," cried Dellwig very loud, patting his back very hard. +"It is indeed terrible—one's father so ill—on his death-bed—and such +a long journey of suspense before you——"</p> + +<p>And sympathising at the top of his voice he looked for an empty +compartment, hustled him into it, pushing him up the high steps and +throwing his bag in after him, and then stood talking loudly of sick +fathers till the last moment. "I trust you will find the <i>Herr Papa</i> +better than you expect," he shouted after the moving train. "Don't give +way—don't give way. That is our vicar," he exclaimed to an acquaintance +who was standing near; "an only son, and he has just heard that his +father is dying. He is overwhelmed, poor devil, with grief."</p> + +<p>To his wife on his arrival home he said, "My dear Theresa,"—a mode of +address only used on the rare occasions of supremest satisfaction—"my +dear Theresa, you may set your mind at rest about our friend Lohm. The +Miss will never marry him, and he himself will not trouble us much +longer." And they had a short conversation in private, and later on at +dinner they opened a bottle of champagne, and explaining to the servant +that it was an aunt's birthday, drank the aunt's health over and over +again, and were merrier than they had been for years.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> + + +<p>It was an odd and a nearly invariable consequence of Anna's cold morning +bath that she made resolutions in great numbers. The morning after the +fire there were more of them than ever. In a glow she assured herself +that she was not going to allow dejection and discouragement to take +possession of her so easily, that she would not, in future, be so much +the slave of her bodily condition, growing selfish, indifferent, unkind, +in proportion as she grew tired. What, she asked, tying her waist-ribbon +with great vigour, was the use of having a soul and its longings after +perfection if it was so absolutely the slave of its encasing body, if it +only received permission from the body to flutter its wings a little in +those rare moments when its master was completely comfortable and +completely satisfied? She was ashamed of herself for being so easily +affected by the heat and stress of the days with the Chosen. How was it +that her ideals were crushed out of sight continually by the mere weight +of the details of everyday existence? She would keep them more carefully +in view, pursue them with a more unfaltering patience—in a word, she +was going to be wise. Life was such a little thing, she reflected, so +very quickly done; how foolish, then, to forget so constantly that +everything that vexed her and made her sorry was flying past and away +even while it grieved her, dwindling in the distance with every hour, +and never coming back. What she had done and suffered last year, how +indifferent, of what infinitely little importance it was, now; and yet +she had been very strenuous about it at the time, inclined to resist and +struggle, taking it over-much to heart, acting as though it were always +going to be there. Oh, she would be wise in future, enjoying all there +was to enjoy, loving all there was to love, and shutting her eyes to the +rest. She would not, for instance, expect more from her Chosen than +they, being as they were, could give. Obviously they could not give her +more than they possessed, either of love, or comprehension, or +charitableness, or anything else that was precious; and it was because +she looked for more that she was for ever feeling disappointed. She +would take them as they were, being happy in what they did give her, and +ignoring what was less excellent. She herself was irritating, she was +sure, and often she saw did produce an irritating effect on the Chosen. +Of sundry minor failings, so minor that she was ashamed of having +noticed them, but which had yet done much towards making the days +difficult, she tried not to think. Indeed, they could hardly be made the +subject of resolutions at all, they were so very trivial. They included +a habit Frau von Treumann had of shutting every window and door that +stood open, whatever the weather was, and however pointedly the others +gasped for air; the exceedingly odd behaviour, forced upon her notice +four times a day, of Fräulein Kuhräuber at table; and an insatiable +curiosity displayed by the baroness in regard to other people's +correspondence and servants—every postcard she read, every envelope she +examined, every telegram, for some always plausible reason, she thought +it her duty to open: and her interest in the doings of the maids was +unquenchable. "These are little ways," thought Anna, "that don't +matter." And she thought it impatiently, for the little ways persisted +in obtruding themselves on her remembrance in the middle of her fine +plans of future wisdom. "If we could all get outside our bodies, even +for one day, and simply go about in our souls, how nice it would be!" +she sighed; but meanwhile the souls of the Chosen were still enveloped +in aggressive bodies that continued to shut windows, open telegrams, and +convey food into their mouths on knives.</p> + +<p>The one belonging to Frau von Treumann was at that moment engaged in +writing with feverish haste to Karlchen, bidding him lose no time in +coming, for mischief was afoot, and Anna was showing an alarming +interest in the affairs of that specious hypocrite Lohm. "Come +unexpectedly," she wrote; "it will be better to take her by surprise; +and above all things come at once."</p> + +<p>She gave the letter herself to the postman, and then, having nothing to +do but needlework that need not be done, and feeling out of sorts after +the long night's watch, and uneasy about Axel Lohm's evident attraction +for Anna, she went into the drawing-room and spent the morning +elaborately differing from the baroness.</p> + +<p>They differed often; it could hardly be called quarrelling, but there +was a continual fire kept up between them of remarks that did not make +for peace. Over their needlework they addressed those observations to +each other that were most calculated to annoy. Frau von Treumann would +boast of her ancestral home at Kadenstein, its magnificence, and the +style in which, with a superb disregard for expense, her brother kept it +up, well knowing that the baroness had had no home more ancestral than a +flat in a provincial town; and the baroness would retort by relating, as +an instance of the grievous slanderousness of so-called friends, a +palpably malicious story she had heard of manure heaps before the +ancestral door, and of unprevented poultry in the <i>Schloss</i> itself. +Once, stirred beyond the bounds of prudence enjoined by Karlchen, Frau +von Treumann had begun to sympathise with the Elmreich family's +misfortune in including a member like Lolli; but had been so much +frightened by her victim's immediate and dreadful pallor that she had +turned it off, deciding to leave the revelation of her full knowledge of +Lolli to Karlchen.</p> + +<p>The only occasions on which they agreed were when together they attacked +Fräulein Kuhräuber; and more than once already that hapless young woman +had gone away to cry. Anna's thoughts had been filled lately by other +things, and she had not paid much attention to what was being talked +about; but yet it seemed to her that Frau von Treumann and the baroness +had discovered a subject on which Fräulein Kuhräuber was abnormally +sensitive and secretive, and that again and again when they were tired +of sparring together they returned to this subject, always in amiable +tones and with pleasant looks, and always reducing the poor Fräulein to +a pitiable state of confusion; which state being reached, and she gone +out to hide her misery in her bedroom, they would look at each other and +smile.</p> + +<p>In all that concerned Fräulein Kuhräuber they were in perfect accord, +and absolutely pitiless. It troubled Anna, for the Fräulein was the one +member of the trio who was really happy—so long, that is, as the others +left her alone. Invigorated by her cold tub into a belief in the +possibility of peace-making, she made one more resolution: to establish +without delay concord between the three. It was so clearly to their own +advantage to live together in harmony; surely a calm talking-to would +make them see that, and desire it. They were not children, neither were +they, presumably, more unreasonable than other people; nor could they, +she thought, having suffered so much themselves, be intentionally +unkind. That very day she would make things straight.</p> + +<p>She could not of course dream that the periodical putting to confusion +of Fräulein Kuhräuber was the one thing that kept the other two alive. +They found life at Kleinwalde terribly dull. There were no neighbours, +and they did not like forests. The princess hardly showed herself; Anna +was English, besides being more or less of a lunatic—the combination, +when you came to think of it, was alarming,—and they soon wearied of +pouring into each other's highly sceptical ears descriptions of the +splendours of their prosperous days. The visits of the parson had at +first been a welcome change, for they were both religious women who +loved to impress a new listener with the amount of their faith and +resignation; but when they knew him a little better, and had said the +same things several times, and found that as soon as they paused he +began to expatiate on the advantages and joys of their present mode of +life with Miss Estcourt, of which no one had been talking, they were +bored, and left off being pleased to see him, and fell back for +amusement on their own bickerings, and the probing of Fräulein +Kuhräuber's tender places.</p> + +<p>About midday Anna, who had been writing German letters all the morning +helped by the princess, letters of inquiry concerning a new teacher for +Letty, came round by the path outside the drawing-room window looking +for the Chosen, and prepared to talk to them of concord. The window was +shut, and she knocked on the pane, trying to see into the shady room. It +was a broiling day, and she had no hat; therefore she knocked again, and +held her hands above her head, for the sun was intolerable. She wore one +of her last summer's dresses, a lilac muslin that in spite of its age +seemed in Kleinwalde to be quite absurdly pretty. She herself looked +prettier than ever out there in the light, the sun beating down on her +burnished hair.</p> + +<p>"Anna wants to come in," said Frau von Treumann, looking up from her +embroidery at the figure in the sun.</p> + +<p>"I suppose she does," said the baroness tranquilly.</p> + +<p>Neither of them moved.</p> + +<p>Anna knocked again.</p> + +<p>"She will be sunstruck," observed Frau von Treumann.</p> + +<p>"I think she will," agreed the baroness.</p> + +<p>Neither of them moved.</p> + +<p>Anna stooped down, and tried to look into the room, but could see +nothing. She knocked again; waited a moment; and then went away.</p> + +<p>The two ladies embroidered in silence.</p> + +<p>"Absurd old maid," Frau von Treumann thought, glancing at the baroness. +"As though a married woman of my age and standing could get up and open +windows when she is in the room."</p> + +<p>"Ridiculous old Treumann," thought the baroness, outwardly engrossed by +her work. "What does she think, I wonder? I shall teach her that I am as +good as herself, and am not here to open windows any more than she is."</p> + +<p>"Why, you <i>are</i> here," said Anna, surprised, coming in at the door.</p> + +<p>"Where have you been all the morning?" inquired Frau von Treumann +amiably. "We hardly ever see you, dear Anna. I hope you have come now to +sit with us a little while. Come, sit next to me, and let us have a nice +chat."</p> + +<p>She made room for her on the sofa.</p> + +<p>"Where is Emilie?" Anna asked; Emilie was Fräulein Kuhräuber, and Anna +was the only person in the house who called her so.</p> + +<p>"She came in some time ago, but went away at once. She does not, I fear, +feel at ease with us."</p> + +<p>"That is exactly what I want to talk about," said Anna.</p> + +<p>"Is it? Why, how strange. Last night, while we were waiting for you, the +baroness and I had a serious conversation about Fräulein Kuhräuber, and +we decided to tell you what conclusions we came to on the first +opportunity."</p> + +<p>"Certainly," said the baroness.</p> + +<p>"It is surprising that Princess Ludwig should not have opened your +eyes."</p> + +<p>"It is truly surprising," said the baroness.</p> + +<p>"But they are open. And they have seen that you are not very—not +quite—well, not <i>very</i> kind to poor Emilie. Don't you like her?"</p> + +<p>"My dear Anna, we have found it quite impossible to like Fräulein +Kuhräuber."</p> + +<p>"Or even endure her," amended the baroness.</p> + +<p>"And yet I never saw a kinder, more absolutely amiable creature," said +Anna.</p> + +<p>"You are deceived in her," said Frau von Treumann.</p> + +<p>"We have found out that she is here under false pretences," said the +baroness.</p> + +<p>"Which," said Frau von Treumann, unable to forbear glancing at the +baroness, "is a very dreadful thing."</p> + +<p>"Certainly," agreed the baroness.</p> + +<p>Anna looked from one to the other. "Well?" she said, as they did not go +on. Then the thought of her peace-making errand came into her mind, and +her certainty that she only needed to talk quietly to these two in order +to convince. "What do you think I came in to say to you?" she said, with +a low laugh in which there was no mirth. "I was going to propose that +you should both begin now to love Emilie. You have made her cry so +often—I have seen her coming out of this room so often with red +eyes—that I was sure you must be tired of that now, and would like to +begin to live happily with her, loving her for all that is so good in +her, and not minding the rest."</p> + +<p>"My dear Anna," said Frau von Treumann testily, "it is out of the +question that ladies of birth and breeding should tolerate her."</p> + +<p>"Certainly it is," emphatically agreed the baroness.</p> + +<p>"And why? Isn't she a woman like ourselves? Wasn't she poor and +miserable too? And won't she go to heaven by and by, just as we, I hope, +shall?"</p> + +<p>They thought this profane.</p> + +<p>"We shall all, I trust, meet in heaven," said Frau von Treumann gently. +Then she went on, clearing her throat, "But meanwhile we think it our +duty to ask you if you know what her father was."</p> + +<p>"He was a man of letters," said Anna, remembering the very words of +Fräulein Kuhräuber's reply to her inquiries.</p> + +<p>"Exactly. But of what letters?"</p> + +<p>"She tried to give us that same answer," said the baroness.</p> + +<p>"Of what letters?" repeated Anna, looking puzzled.</p> + +<p>"He carried all the letters he ever had in a bag," said Frau von +Treumann.</p> + +<p>"In a bag?"</p> + +<p>"In a word, dear child, he was a postman, and she has told you +untruths."</p> + +<p>There was a silence. Anna pushed at a neighbouring footstool with the +toe of her shoe. "It is not pretty," she said after a while, her eyes on +the footstool, "to tell untruths."</p> + +<p>"Certainly it is not," agreed the baroness.</p> + +<p>"Especially in this case," said Frau von Treumann.</p> + +<p>"Yes, especially in this case," said Anna, looking up.</p> + +<p>"We thought you could not know the truth, and felt certain you would be +shocked. Now you will understand how impossible it is for ladies of +family to associate with such a person, and we are sure that you will +not ask us to do so, but will send her away."</p> + +<p>"No," said Anna, in a low voice.</p> + +<p>"No what, dear child?" inquired Frau von Treumann sweetly.</p> + +<p>"I cannot send her away."</p> + +<p>"You cannot send her away?" they cried together. Both let their work +drop into their laps, and both stared blankly at Anna, who looked at the +footstool.</p> + +<p>"Have you made a lifelong contract with her?" asked Frau von Treumann, +with great heat, no such contract having been made in her own case.</p> + +<p>"I did not quite say what I mean," said Anna, looking up again. "I do +not mean that I cannot really send her away, for of course I can if I +choose. Exactly what I mean is that I will not."</p> + +<p>There was a pause. Neither of the ladies had expected such an attitude.</p> + +<p>"This is very serious," then observed Frau von Treumann helplessly. She +took up her work again and pulled at the stitches, making knots in the +thread. Both she and the baroness had felt so certain that Anna would be +properly incensed when she heard the truth. Her manner without doubt +suggested displeasure, but the displeasure, strangely enough, seemed to +be directed against themselves instead of Fräulein Kuhräuber. What could +they, with dignity, do next? Frau von Treumann felt angry and perplexed. +She remembered Karlchen's advice in regard to ultimatums, and wished she +had remembered it sooner; but who could have imagined the extent of +Anna's folly? Never, she reflected, had she met anyone quite so foolish.</p> + +<p>"It is a case for the police," burst out the baroness passionately, all +the pride of all the Elmreichs surging up in revolt against a fate +threatening to condemn her to spend the rest of her days with the +progeny of a postman. "Your advertisement specially mentioned good birth +as essential, and she is here under false pretences. You have the proofs +in her letters. She is within reach of the arm of the law."</p> + +<p>Anna could not help smiling. "Don't denounce her," she said. "I should +be appalled if anything approaching the arm of the law got into my +house. I'll burn the proofs after dinner." Then she turned to Frau von +Treumann. "If you think it over," she said, "I <i>know</i> you will not wish +me to be so merciless, so pitiless, as to send Emilie back to misery +only because her father, who has been dead thirty years, was a postman."</p> + +<p>"But, Anna, you must be reasonable—you must look at the other side. No +Treumann has ever yet been required to associate——"</p> + +<p>"But if he was a good man? If he did his work honestly, and said his +prayers, and behaved himself? We have no reason for doubting that he was +a most excellent postman," she went on, a twinkle in her eye; "punctual, +diligent, and altogether praiseworthy."</p> + +<p>"Then you object to nothing?" cried the baroness with extraordinary +bitterness. "You draw the line nowhere? All the traditions and +prejudices of gentlefolk are supremely indifferent to you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I object to a great many things. I would have liked it better if +the postman had really been the literary luminary poor Emilie said he +was—for her sake, and my sake, and your sakes. And I don't like +untruths, and never shall. But I do like Emilie, and I forgive it all."</p> + +<p>"Then she is to remain here?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, as long as she wants to. And do, <i>do</i> try to see how good she is, +and how much there is to love in her. You have done her a real service," +Anna added, smiling, "for now she won't have it on her mind any more, +and will be able to be really happy."</p> + +<p>The baroness gathered up her work and rose. Frau von Treumann looked at +her nervously, and rose too.</p> + +<p>"Then——" began the baroness, pale with outraged pride and propriety.</p> + +<p>"Then really——" began Frau von Treumann more faintly, but feeling +bound in this matter to follow her example. After all, they could always +allow themselves to be persuaded to change their minds again.</p> + +<p>Anna got up too, and they stood facing each other. Something awful was +going to happen, she felt, but what? Were they, she wondered, both going +to give her notice?</p> + +<p>The baroness, drawn up to her full height, looked at her, opened her +lips to complete her sentence, and shut them again. She was exceedingly +agitated, and held her little thin, claw-like hands tightly together to +hide how they were shaking. All she had left in the world was the pride +of being an Elmreich and a baroness; and as, with the relentless years, +she had grown poorer, plainer, more insignificant, so had this pride +increased and strengthened, until, together with her passionate +propriety and horror of everything in the least doubtful in the way of +reputations, it had come to be the very mainspring of her being. +"Then——" she began again, with a great effort; for she remembered how +there had actually been no food sometimes when she was hungry, and no +fire when she was cold, and no doctor when she was sick, and how severe +weather had seemed to set in invariably at those times when she had +least money, making her first so much hungrier than usual, and +afterwards so much more sick, as though nature itself owed her a grudge.</p> + +<p>"Oh, these ultimatums!" inwardly deplored Frau von Treumann; the +baroness was very absurd, she thought, to take the thing so tragically.</p> + +<p>And at that instant the door was thrown open, and without waiting to be +announced, Karlchen, resplendent in his hussar uniform, and beaming from +ear to ear, hastened, clanking, into the room.</p> + +<p>"Karlchen! <i>Du engelsgute Junge!</i>" shrieked his mother, in accents of +supremest relief and joy.</p> + +<p>"I could not stay away longer," cried Karlchen, returning her embrace +with vigour, "I felt impelled to come. I obtained leave after many +prayers. It is for a few hours only. I return to-night. You forgive me?" +he added, turning to Anna and bowing over her hand.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, smiling; Karlchen had come this time, she felt, exactly +at the right moment.</p> + +<p>"I wrote this very morning——" began his mother in her excitement; but +she stopped in time, and covered her confusion by once again folding him +in her arms.</p> + +<p>Karlchen was so much delighted by this unexpectedly cordial reception +that he lost his head a little. Anna stood smiling at him as she had not +done once last time. Yes, there were the dimples—oh, sweet +vision!—they were, indeed, glorious dimples. He seized her hand a +second time and kissed it. The pretty hand—so delicate and slender. And +the dress—Karlchen had an eye for dress—how dainty it was! "Your kind +welcome quite overcomes me," he said enthusiastically; and he looked so +gay, and so intensely satisfied with himself and the whole world, that +Anna laughed again. Besides, the uniform was really surprisingly +becoming; his civilian clothes on his first visit had been melancholy +examples of what a military tailor cannot do.</p> + +<p>"Ah, baroness," said Karlchen, catching sight of the small, silent +figure. He brought his heels together, bowed, and crossing over to her +shook hands. "I have come laden with greetings for you," he said.</p> + +<p>"Greetings?" repeated the baroness, surprised. Then an odd look of fear +came into her eyes.</p> + +<p>He had not meant to do it then; he had not been certain whether he would +do it this time at all; but he was feeling so exhilarated, so buoyant, +that he could not resist. "I was at the Wintergarten last night," he +said, "and had a talk with your sister, Baroness Lolli. She dances +better than ever. She sends you her love, and says she is coming down to +see you."</p> + +<p>The baroness made a queer little sound, shut her eyes, spread out her +hands, and dropped on to the carpet as though she had been shot.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> + + +<p>"Is Herr von Treumann gone?"</p> + +<p>It was late the same afternoon, and Princess Ludwig had come into the +bedroom where the Stralsund doctor was still vainly endeavouring to +bring the baroness back to life, to ask Anna whether she would see Axel +Lohm, who was waiting downstairs and hoped to be allowed to speak to +her. "But is Herr von Treumann gone?" inquired Anna; and would not move +till she was sure of that.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and his mother has gone with him to the station."</p> + +<p>Anna had not left the baroness's side since the catastrophe. She could +not see the unconscious face on the pillow for tears. Was there ever +such barbarous, such gratuitous cruelty as young Treumann's? His mother +had been in once or twice on tiptoe, the last time to tell Anna that he +was leaving, and would she not come down so that he might explain how +sorry he was for having unwittingly done so much mischief? But Anna had +merely shaken her head and turned again to the piteous little figure on +the bed. Never again, she told herself, would she see or speak to +Karlchen.</p> + +<p>The movement with which she turned away was expressive; and Frau von +Treumann went out and heaped bitter reproaches on Karlchen, driving with +him to Stralsund in order to have ample time to heap all that were in +her mind, and doing it the more thoroughly that he was in a crushed +condition and altogether incapable of defending himself. For what had he +really cared about the baroness's relationship to Lolli? He had thought +it a huge joke, and had looked forward with enjoyment to seeing Anna +promptly order her out of the house. How could he, thick of skin and +slow of brain, have foreseen such a crisis? He was very much in love +with Anna, and shivered when he thought of the look she had given him as +she followed the people who were carrying the baroness out of the room. +Certainly he was exceedingly wretched, and his mother could not reproach +him more bitterly than he reproached himself. While she was vehemently +pointing out the obvious, he meditated sadly on the length of the +journey he had taken for worse than nothing. All the morning he had been +roasted in trains, and he was about to be roasted again for a dreary +succession of hours. His hot uniform, put on solely for Anna's +bedazzlement, added enormously to his torments; and the distance between +Rislar and Stralsund was great, and the journey proportionately +expensive—much too expensive, if all you got for it was one +intoxicating glimpse of dimples, followed by a flashing look of wrath +that made you feel cold with the thermometer at ninety. He had not felt +so dejected since the eighties, he reflected, in which dark ages he had +been forced to fight a duel. Karlchen had a prejudice against duelling; +he thought it foolish. But, being an officer—he was at that time a +conspicuously gay lieutenant—whatever he might think about it, if +anyone wanted to fight him fight he must, or drop into the awful ranks +of Unknowables. He had made a joke of a personal nature, and the other +man turned out to have no sense of humour, and took it seriously, and +expressed a desire for Karlchen's blood. Driving with his justly +incensed mother through the dust and heat to the station, he remembered +the dismal night he had passed before the duel, and thought how much his +dejection then had resembled in its profundity his dejection now; for he +had been afraid he was going to be hurt, and whatever people may say +about courage nobody really likes being hurt. Well, perhaps after all, +this business with Anna would turn out all right, just as that business +had turned out all right; for he had killed his man, and, instead of +wounds, had been covered with glory. Thus Karlchen endeavoured to snatch +comfort as he drove, but yet his heart was very heavy.</p> + +<p>"I hope," said his mother bitingly when he was in the train, patiently +waiting to be taken beyond the sound of her voice, "I do hope that you +are ashamed of yourself. It is a bitter feeling, I can tell you, the +feeling that one is the mother of a fool."</p> + +<p>To which Karlchen, still dazed, replied by unhooking his collar, wiping +his face, and appealing with a heart-rending plaintiveness to a passing +beer-boy to give him, <i>um Gottes Willen</i>, beer.</p> + +<p>Axel was in the drawing-room, where the remains of Karlchen's +valedictory coffee and cakes were littered on a table, when Anna came +down. "I am so sorry for you," he said. "Princess Ludwig has been +telling me what has happened."</p> + +<p>"Don't be sorry for me. Nothing is the matter with me. Be sorry for that +most unfortunate little soul upstairs."</p> + +<p>Axel kissed Anna's right hand, which was, she knew, the custom; and +immediately proceeded to kiss her other hand, which was not the custom +at all. She was looking woebegone, with red eyelids and white cheeks; +but a faint colour came into her face at this, for he did it with such +unmistakable devotion that for the first time she wondered uneasily +whether their pleasant friendship were not about to come to an end.</p> + +<p>"Don't be too kind," she said, drawing her hands away and trying to +smile. "I—I feel so stupid to-day, and want to cry dreadfully."</p> + +<p>"Well then, I should do it, and get it over."</p> + +<p>"I did do it, but I haven't got it over."</p> + +<p>"Well, don't think of it. How is the baroness?"</p> + +<p>"Just the same. The doctor thinks it serious. And she has no +constitution. She has not had enough of anything for years—not enough +food, or clothes, or—or anything."</p> + +<p>She went quickly across to the coffee table to hide how much she wanted +to cry. "Have some coffee," she said with her back to him, moving the +cups aimlessly about.</p> + +<p>"Don't forget," said Axel, "that the poor lady's past misery is over now +and done with. Think what luck has come in her way at last. When she +gets over this, here she is, safe with you, surrounded by love and care +and tenderness—blessings not given to all of us."</p> + +<p>"But she doesn't like love and care and tenderness. At least, if it +comes from me. She dislikes me."</p> + +<p>Axel could not exclaim in surprise, for he was not surprised. The +baroness had appeared to him to be so hopelessly sour; and how, he +thought, shall the hopelessly sour love the preternaturally sweet? He +looked therefore at Anna arranging the cups with restless, nervous +fingers, and waited for more.</p> + +<p>"Why do you say that?" she asked, still with her back to him.</p> + +<p>"Say what?"</p> + +<p>"That when she gets over this she will have all those nice things +surrounding her. You told me when first she came, that if she really +were the poor dancing woman's sister I ought on no account to keep her +here. Don't you remember?"</p> + +<p>"Quite well. But am I not right in supposing that you <i>will</i> keep her? +You see, I know you better now than I did then."</p> + +<p>"If she liked being here—if it made her happy—I would keep her in +defiance of the whole world."</p> + +<p>"But as it is——?"</p> + +<p>She came to him with a cup of cold coffee in her hands. He took it, and +stirred it mechanically.</p> + +<p>"As it is," she said, "she is very ill, and has to get well again before +we begin to decide things. Perhaps," she added, looking up at him +wistfully, "this illness will change her?"</p> + +<p>He shook his head. "I am afraid it won't," he said. "For a little while, +perhaps—for a few weeks at first while she still remembers your +nursing, and then—why, the old self over again."</p> + +<p>He put the untasted coffee down on the nearest table. "There is no +getting away," he said, coming back to her, "from one's old self. That +is why this work you have undertaken is so hopeless."</p> + +<p>"Hopeless?" she exclaimed in a startled voice. He was saying aloud what +she had more than once almost—never quite—whispered in her heart of +hearts.</p> + +<p>"You ought to have begun with the baroness thirty years ago, to have had +a chance of success."</p> + +<p>"Why, she was five years old then, and I am sure quite cheerful. And I +wasn't there at all."</p> + +<p>"Five ought really to be the average age of the Chosen. What is the use +of picking out unhappy persons well on in life, and thinking you are +going to make them happy? How can you <i>make</i> them be happy? If it had +been possible to their natures they would have been so long ago, however +poor they were. And they would not have been so poor or so unhappy if +they had been willing to work. Work is such an admirable tonic. The +princess works, and finds life very tolerable. You will never succeed +with people like Frau von Treumann and the baroness. They belong to a +class of persons that will grumble even in heaven. You could easily make +those who are happy already still happier, for it is in them—the +gratitude and appreciation for life and its blessings; but those of +course are not the people you want to get at. You think I am preaching?" +he asked abruptly.</p> + +<p>"But are you not?"</p> + +<p>"It is because I cannot stand by and watch you bruising yourself."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Anna, "you are a man, and can fight your way well enough +through life. You are quite comfortable and prosperous. How can you +sympathise with women like Else? Because she is not young you haven't a +feeling for her—only indifference. You talk of my bruising myself—you +don't mind her bruises. And if I were forty, how sure I am that you +wouldn't mind mine."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I would," said Axel, with such conviction that she added quickly, +"Well—I don't want to talk about bruises."</p> + +<p>"I hope the baroness will soon get over the cruel ones that singularly +brutal young man has inflicted. You agree with me that he <i>is</i> a +singularly brutal young man?"</p> + +<p>"Absolutely."</p> + +<p>"And I hope that when she is well again you will make her as happy as +she is capable of being."</p> + +<p>"If I knew how!"</p> + +<p>"Why, by letting her go away, and giving her enough to live on decently +by herself. It would be quite the best course to take, both for you and +for her."</p> + +<p>Anna looked down. "I have been thinking the same thing," she said in a +low voice; she felt as though she were hauling down her flag.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you will let me help."</p> + +<p>"Help?"</p> + +<p>"Let me contribute. Why may I not be charitable too? If we join together +it will be to her advantage. She need not know. And you are not a +millionaire."</p> + +<p>"Nor are you," said Anna, smiling up at him.</p> + +<p>"We unfortunates who live by our potatoes are never millionaires. But +still we can be charitable."</p> + +<p>"But why should <i>you</i> help the baroness? I found her out, and brought +her here, and I am the only person responsible for her."</p> + +<p>"It will be much more costly than just having her here."</p> + +<p>"I don't mind, if only she is happy. And I will not have you pay the +cost of my experiments in philanthropy."</p> + +<p>"Is Frau von Treumann happy?" he asked abruptly.</p> + +<p>"No," said Anna, with a faint smile.</p> + +<p>"Is Fräulein Kuhräuber happy?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Tell me one thing more," he said; "are <i>you</i> happy?"</p> + +<p>Anna blushed. "That is a queer question," she said. "Why should I not be +happy?"</p> + +<p>"But are you?"</p> + +<p>She looked at him, hesitating. Then she said, in a very small voice, +"No."</p> + +<p>Axel took two or three turns up and down the room. "I knew it," he said; +and added something in German under his breath about <i>Weiber</i>. "After +this, you will not, I suppose, receive young Treumann again?" he asked, +coming to a halt in front of her.</p> + +<p>"Never again."</p> + +<p>"You have a difficult time before you, then, with his mother."</p> + +<p>Anna blushed. "I am afraid I have," she admitted.</p> + +<p>"You have a very difficult few weeks before you," he said. "The baroness +probably dangerously ill, and Frau von Treumann very angry with you. I +know Princess Ludwig does all she can, but still you are alone—against +odds."</p> + +<p>The odds, too, were greater than she knew. All day he had been +officially engaged in making inquiries into the origin of the fire the +night before, and every circumstance pointed to Klutz as the culprit. He +had sent for Klutz, and Klutz, they said, had gone home. Then he sent a +telegram after him, and his father replied that he was neither expecting +his son nor was he ill. Klutz, then, had disappeared in order to avoid +the consequences of what he had done; but it was only a question of days +before the police brought him back again, and then he would tell the +whole absurd story, and Pomerania would chuckle at Anna's expense. The +thought of this chuckling made Axel cold with rage.</p> + +<p>He stood looking out of the window at the parched garden, the drooping +lilac-bushes, the hazy island across the water. The wind had dropped, +and a gray film had drawn across the sky. At the bottom of the garden, +under a chestnut-tree, Miss Leech was sewing, while Letty read aloud to +her. The monotonous drone of Letty's reading, interrupted by her loud +complaints each time a mosquito stung her, reached Axel's ears as he +stood there in silence. A grim struggle was going on within him. He +loved Anna with a passion that would no longer be hidden; and he knew +that he must somehow hide it. He was so certain that she did not care +about him. He was so certain that she would never dream of marrying him. +And yet if ever a woman needed the protection of an all-enfolding love +it was Anna at that moment "That child down there has made a pretty fair +amount of mischief for a person of her age," he burst out with a +vehemence that startled Anna.</p> + +<p>"What child?" she said, coming up behind him and looking over his +shoulder.</p> + +<p>He turned round quickly. The feeling that she was so close to him tore +away the last shred of his self-control. "You know that I love you," he +said, his voice shaking with passion.</p> + +<p>Her face in an instant was colourless. She stood quite still, almost +touching him, as though she did not dare move. Her eyes were fixed on +his with a frightened, fascinated look.</p> + +<p>"You know it. You have known it a long time. Now what are you going to +say to me?"</p> + +<p>She looked at him without speaking or moving.</p> + +<p>"Anna, what are you going to say to me?" he cried; and he caught up her +hands and kissed them one after the other, hardly knowing what he did, +beside himself with love of her.</p> + +<p>She watched him helplessly. She felt faint and sick. She had had a +miserable day, and was completely overwhelmed by this last misfortune. +Her good friend Axel was gone, gone for ever. The pleasant friendship +was done. In place of the friend she so much needed, of the friendship +she had found so comforting, there was—this.</p> + +<p>"Won't you—won't you let my hands go?" she said faintly. She did not +know him again. Was it possible that this agony of love was for her? She +knew herself so well, she knew so well what it was for which he was +evidently going to break his heart. How wonderful, how pitiful beyond +expression, that a good man like Axel should suffer anything because of +her. And even in the midst of her fright and misery the thought would +not be put from her that if she had happened to look like the baroness +or Fräulein Kuhräuber, while inwardly remaining exactly as she was, he +would not have broken his heart for her. "Oh, let me go——" she +whispered; and turned her head aside, and shut her eyes, unable to look +any longer at the love and despair in his.</p> + +<p>"But what are you going to say to me?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, you know—you know——"</p> + +<p>"But you are so sorry always for people who suffer——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, stop—oh, stop!"</p> + +<p>"No, I won't stop; here have I been condemned to look on at you +lavishing love on people who don't want it, don't like it, are wearied +by it—who don't know how precious it is, how priceless it is, and how I +am hungering and thirsting—oh, starving, starving, for one drop of +it——" His voice shook, and he fell once more to covering her hands +with kisses that seemed to scorch her soul.</p> + +<p>This was very dreadful. Her soul had never been scorched before. +Something must be done to stop him. She could not stand there with her +eyes shut and her hands being kissed for ever. "<i>Please</i> let me go," she +entreated faintly; and in her helplessness began to cry.</p> + +<p>He instantly released her, and she stood before him crying. What a +horrible thing it was to lose her friend, to be forced to hurt him. "I +never dreamt that you—that you——" she wept.</p> + +<p>"What, that I loved you?" he asked incredulously; but more gently, +subdued by her deep distress. His face grew very hopeless. She was +crying because she was sorry for him.</p> + +<p>"I don't know—I think I did dream that—lately—once or twice—but I +never dreamt that it was so bad—that you were such a—such a—such a +volcano. Oh, Axel, why are you a volcano?" she cried, looking up at him, +the tears rolling down her cheeks. "Why have you spoilt everything? It +was so nice before. We were such friends. And now—how can I be friends +with a volcano?"</p> + +<p>"Anna, if you make fun of me——"</p> + +<p>"Oh no, no—as though I would—as though I could do anything so +unutterable. But don't let us be tragic. Oh, don't let us be tragic. You +know my plans—you know my plans inside out, from beginning to end—how +can I, how <i>can</i> I marry anybody?"</p> + +<p>"Good God, those women—those women who are not happy, who have spoilt +your happiness, they are to spoil mine now—ours, Anna?" He seized her +arm as though he would wake her at all costs from a fatal sleep. "Do you +mean to say that if it were not for those women you would be my wife?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, if only you wouldn't be tragic——"</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to say that is the reason?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, isn't it sufficient——"</p> + +<p>"No. If you cared for me it would be no reason at all."</p> + +<p>She cried bitterly. "But I don't," she sobbed. "Not like that—not in +that way. It is atrocious of me not to—I know how good you are, how +kind, how—how everything. And still I don't. I don't know why I don't, +but I don't. Oh, Axel, I am so sorry—don't look so wretched—I can't +bear it."</p> + +<p>"But what can it matter to you how I look if you don't care about me?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, oh," sobbed Anna, wringing her hands.</p> + +<p>He caught hold of her wrist. "See here, Anna. Look at me."</p> + +<p>But she would not look at him.</p> + +<p>"Look at me. I don't believe you know your own mind. I want to see into +your eyes. They were always honest—look at me."</p> + +<p>But she would not look at him.</p> + +<p>"Surely you will do that—only that—for me."</p> + +<p>"There isn't anything to see," she wept, "there really isn't. It is +dreadful of me, but I can't help it."</p> + +<p>"Well, but look at me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Axel, what <i>is</i> the use of looking at you?" she cried in despair; +and pulled her handkerchief away and did it.</p> + +<p>He searched her face for a moment in silence, as though he thought that +if only he could read her soul he might understand it better than she +did herself. Those dear eyes—they were full of pity, full of distress; +but search as he might he could find nothing else.</p> + +<p>He turned away without a word.</p> + +<p>"Don't, don't be tragic," she begged, anxiously following him a few +steps. "If only you are not tragic we shall still be able to be +friends——"</p> + +<p>But he did not look round.</p> + +<p>A servant with a tray was outside coming in to take the coffee away. +"Oh," exclaimed Anna, seeing that it was impossible to hide her +tear-stained face from the girl's calm scrutiny, "oh, Johanna, the poor +baroness—she is so ill—it is so dreadful——" And she dropped into a +chair and hid herself in the cushions, weeping hysterically with an +abandonment of woe that betokened a quite extraordinary affection for +the baroness.</p> + +<p>"<i>Gott, die arme Baronesse</i>," sympathised Johanna perfunctorily. To +herself she remarked, "This very moment has the Miss refused to marry +<i>gnädiger Herr</i>."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX</h2> + + +<p>What Anna most longed for in the days that followed was a mother. "If I +had a mother," she thought, not once, but again and again, and her eyes +had a wistful, starved look when she thought it, "if I only had a +mother, a sweet mother all to myself, of my very own, I'd put my head on +her dear shoulder and cry myself happy again. First I'd tell her +everything, and she wouldn't mind however silly it was, and she wouldn't +be tired however long it was, and she'd say 'Little darling child, you +are only a baby after all,' and would scold me a little, and kiss me a +great deal, and then I'd listen so comfortably, all the time with my +face against her nice soft dress, and I would feel so safe and sure and +wrapped round while she told me what to do next. It is lonely and cold +and difficult without a mother."</p> + +<p>The house was in confusion. The baroness had come out of her +unconsciousness to delirium, and the doctors, knowing that she was not +related to anyone there, talked openly of death. There were two doctors, +now, and two nurses; and Anna insisted on nursing too, wearing herself +out with all the more passion because she felt that it was of so little +importance really to anyone whether the baroness lived or died.</p> + +<p>They were all strangers, the people watching this frail fighter for +life, and they watched with the indifference natural to strangers. Here +was a middle-aged person who would probably die; if she died no one lost +anything, and if she lived it did not matter either. The doctors and +nurses, accustomed to these things, could not be expected to be +interested in so profoundly uninteresting a case; Frau von Treumann +observed once at least every day that it was <i>schrecklich</i>, and went on +with her embroidery; Fräulein Kuhräuber cried a little when, on her way +to her bedroom, she heard the baroness raving, but she cried easily, and +the raving frightened her; the princess felt that death in this case +would be a blessing; and Letty and Miss Leech avoided the house, and +spent the burning days rambling in woods that teemed with prodigal, +joyous life.</p> + +<p>As for Anna, to see her in the sick-room was to suppose her the nearest +and tenderest relative of the baroness; and yet the passion that +possessed her was not love, but only an endless, unfathomable pity. "If +she gets well, she shall never be unhappy again," vowed Anna in those +days when she thought she could hear Death's footsteps on the stairs. +"Here or somewhere else—anywhere she likes—she shall live and be +happy. She will see that her poor sister has made no difference, except +that there will be no shadow between us now."</p> + +<p>But what is the use of vowing? When June was in its second week the +baroness slowly and hesitatingly turned the corner of her illness; and +immediately the corner was turned and the exhaustion of turning it got +over, she became fractious. "You will have a difficult time," Axel had +said on the day he spoilt their friendship; and it was true. The +difficult time began after that corner was turned, and the farther the +baroness drew away from it, the nearer she got to complete +convalescence, the more difficult did life for Anna become. For it +resumed the old course, and they all resumed their old selves, the same +old selves, even to the shadow of an unmentioned Lolli between them, +that Axel had said they would by no means get away from; but with this +difference, that the peculiarities of both Frau von Treumann and the +baroness were more pronounced than before, and that not one of the trio +would speak to either of the other two.</p> + +<p>Frau von Treumann was still firmly fixed in the house, without the least +intention apparently of leaving it, and she spent her time lying in wait +for Anna, watching for an opportunity of beginning again about Karlchen. +Anna had avoided the inevitable day when she would be caught, but it +came at last, and she was caught in the garden, whither she had retired +to consider how best to approach the baroness, hitherto quite +unapproachable, on the burning question of Lolli.</p> + +<p>Frau von Treumann appeared suddenly, coming softly across the grass, so +that there was no time to run away. "Anna," she called out +reproachfully, seeing Anna make a movement as though she wanted to run, +which was exactly what she did want to do, "Anna, have I the plague?"</p> + +<p>"I hope not," said Anna.</p> + +<p>"You treat me as if I had it."</p> + +<p>Anna said nothing. "Why does she stay here? How can she stay here, after +what has happened?" she had wondered often. Perhaps she had come now to +announce her departure. She prepared herself therefore to listen with a +willing ear.</p> + +<p>She was sitting in the shade of a copper beech facing the oily sea and +the coast of Rügen quivering opposite in the heat-haze. She was not +doing anything; she never did seem to do anything, as these ladies of +the busy fingers often noticed.</p> + +<p>"Blue and white," said Anna, looking up at the gulls and the sky to give +Frau von Treumann time, "the Pomeranian colours. I see now where they +come from."</p> + +<p>But Frau von Treumann had not come out to talk about the Pomeranian +colours. "My Karlchen has been ill," she said, her eyes on Anna's face.</p> + +<p>Anna watched the gulls overhead in the deep blue. "So has Else," she +remarked.</p> + +<p>"Dear me," thought Frau von Treumann, "what rancour."</p> + +<p>She laid her hand on Anna's knee, and it was taken no notice of. "You +cannot forgive him?" she said gently. "You cannot pardon a momentary +indiscretion?"</p> + +<p>"I have nothing to forgive," said Anna, watching the gulls; one dropped +down suddenly, and rose again with a fish in its beak, the sun for an +instant catching the silver of the scales. "It is no affair of mine. It +is for Else to forgive him."</p> + +<p>Frau von Treumann began to weep; this way of looking at it was so +hopelessly unreasonable. She pulled out her handkerchief. "What a heap +she must use," thought Anna; never had she met people who cried so much +and so easily as the Chosen; she was quite used now to red eyes; one or +other of her sisters had them almost daily, for the farther their old +bodily discomforts and real anxieties lay behind them the more tender +and easily lacerated did their feelings become.</p> + +<p>"He could not bear to see you being imposed upon," said Frau von +Treumann. "As soon as he knew about this terrible sister he felt he must +hasten down to save you. 'Mother,' he said to me when first he suspected +it, 'if it is true, she must not be contaminated.'"</p> + +<p>"Who mustn't?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Anna, you know he thinks only of you!"</p> + +<p>"Well, you see," said Anna, "I don't mind being contaminated."</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear child, a young pretty girl ought to mind very much."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't. But what about yourself? Are you not afraid of—of +contamination?" She was frightened by her own daring when she had said +it, and would not have looked at Frau von Treumann for worlds.</p> + +<p>"No, dear child," replied that lady in tones of tearful sweetness, "I am +too old to suffer in any way from associating with queer people."</p> + +<p>"But I thought a Treumann——" murmured Anna, more and more frightened +at herself, but impelled to go on.</p> + +<p>"Dear Anna, a Treumann has never yet flinched before duty."</p> + +<p>Anna was silenced. After that she could only continue to watch the +gulls.</p> + +<p>"You are going to keep the baroness?"</p> + +<p>"If she cares to stay, yes."</p> + +<p>"I thought you would. It is for you to decide who you will have in your +house. But what would you do if this—this Lolli came down to see her +sister?"</p> + +<p>"I really cannot tell."</p> + +<p>"Well, be sure of one thing," burst out Frau von Treumann +enthusiastically, "I will not forsake you, dear Anna. Your position now +is exceedingly delicate, and I will not forsake you."</p> + +<p>So she was not going. Anna got up with a faint sigh. "It is frightfully +hot here," she said; "I think I will go to Else."</p> + +<p>"Ah—and I wanted to tell you about my poor Karlchen—and you avoid +me—you do not want to hear. If I am in the house, the house is too hot. +If I come into the garden, the garden is too hot. You no longer like +being with me."</p> + +<p>Anna did not contradict her. She was wondering painfully what she ought +to do. Ought she meekly to allow Frau von Treumann to stay on at +Kleinwalde, to the exclusion, perhaps, of someone really deserving? Or +ought she to brace herself to the terrible task of asking her to go? She +thought, "I will ask Axel"—and then remembered that there was no Axel +to ask. He never came near her. He had dropped out of her life as +completely as though he had left Lohm. Since that unhappy day, she had +neither seen him nor heard of him. Many times did she say to herself, "I +will ask Axel," and always the remembrance that she could not came with +a shock of loneliness; and then she would drop into the train of thought +that ended with "if I had a mother," and her eyes growing wistful.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it is the hot weather," she said suddenly, an evening or two +later, after a long silence, to the princess. They had been speaking of +servants before that.</p> + +<p>"You think it is the hot weather that makes Johanna break the cups?"</p> + +<p>"That makes me think so much of mothers."</p> + +<p>The princess turned her head quickly, and examined Anna's face. It was +Sunday evening, and the others were at church. The baroness, whose +recovery was slow, was up in her room.</p> + +<p>"What mothers?" naturally inquired the princess.</p> + +<p>"I think this everlasting heat is dreadful," said Anna plaintively. "I +have no backbone left. I am all limp, and soft, and silly. In cold +weather I believe I wouldn't want a mother half so badly."</p> + +<p>"So you want a mother?" said the princess, taking Anna's hand in hers +and patting it kindly. She thought she knew why. Everyone in the house +saw that something must have been said to Axel Lohm to make him keep +away so long. Perhaps Anna was repenting, and wanted a mother's help to +set things right again.</p> + +<p>"I always thought it would be so glorious to be independent," said Anna, +"and now somehow it isn't. It is tiring. I want someone to tell me what +I ought to do, and to see that I do it. Besides petting me. I long and +long sometimes to be petted."</p> + +<p>The princess looked wise. "My dear," she said, shaking her head, "it is +not a mother that you want. Do you know the couplet:—</p> + +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2"><i>Man bedarf der Leitung</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Und der männlichen Begleitung?</i><br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<p>A truly excellent couplet."</p> + +<p>Anna smiled. "That is the German idea of female bliss—always to be led +round by the nose by some husband."</p> + +<p>"Not <i>some</i> husband, my dear—one's own husband. You may call it leading +by the nose if you like. I can only say that I enjoyed being led by +mine, and have missed it grievously ever since."</p> + +<p>"But you had found the right man."</p> + +<p>"It is not very difficult to find the right man."</p> + +<p>"Yes it is—very difficult indeed."</p> + +<p>"I think not," said the princess. "He is never far off. Sometimes, even, +he is next door." And she gazed over Anna's head at the ceiling with +elaborate unconsciousness.</p> + +<p>"And besides," said Anna, "why does a woman everlastingly want to be led +and propped? Why can't she go about the business of life on her own +feet? Why must she always lean on someone?"</p> + +<p>"You said just now it is because it is hot."</p> + +<p>"The fact is," said Anna, "that I am not clever enough to see my way +through puzzles. And that depresses me."</p> + +<p>"I well know that you must be puzzled."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is puzzling, isn't it? I can talk to you about it, for of +course you see it all. It seems so absurd that the only result of my +trying to make people happy is to make everyone, including myself, +wretched. That is waste, isn't it. Waste, I mean, of happiness. For I, +at least, was happy before."</p> + +<p>"And, my dear, you will be happy again."</p> + +<p>Anna knit her brows in painful thought. "If by being wretched I had +managed to make the others happy it wouldn't have been so bad. At least +it wouldn't have been so completely silly. The only thing I can think of +is that I must have hit upon the wrong people."</p> + +<p>"<i>I Gott bewahre!</i>" cried the princess with energy. "They are all alike. +Send these away, you get them back in a different shape. Faces and names +would be different, never the women. They would all be Treumanns and +Elmreichs, and not a single one worth anything in the whole heap."</p> + +<p>"Well, I shall not desert them—Else and Emilie, I mean. They need help, +both of them. And after all, it is simple selfishness for ever wanting +to be happy oneself. I have begun to see that the chief thing in life is +not to be as happy as one can, but to be very brave."</p> + +<p>The princess sighed. "Poor Axel," she said.</p> + +<p>Anna started, and blushed violently. "Pray what has my being brave to do +with Herr von Lohm?" she inquired severely.</p> + +<p>"Why, you are going to be brave at his expense, poor man. You must not +expect anything from me, my dear, but common sense. You give up all hope +of being happy because you think it your duty to go on sacrificing him +and yourself to a set of thankless, worthless women, and you call it +being brave. I call it being unnatural and silly."</p> + +<p>"It has never been a question of Herr von Lohm," said Anna coldly, +indeed freezingly. "What claims has he on me? My plans were all made +before I knew that he existed."</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear, your plans are very irritating things. The only plan a +sensible young woman ought to make is to get as good a husband as +possible as quickly as she can."</p> + +<p>"Why," said Anna, rising in her indignation, and preparing to leave a +princess suddenly become objectionable, "why, you are as bad as Susie!"</p> + +<p>"Susie?" said the princess, who had not heard of her by that name. "Was +Susie also one who told you the truth?"</p> + +<p>But Anna walked out of the room without answering, in a very dignified +manner; went into the loneliest part of the garden; sat down behind some +bushes; and cried.</p> + +<p>She looked back on those childish tears afterwards, and on all that had +gone before, as the last part of a long sleep; a sleep disturbed by +troubling and foolish dreams, but still only a sleep and only dreams. +She woke up the very next day, and remained wide awake after that for +the rest of her life.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX</h2> + + +<p>Anna drove into Stralsund the next morning to her banker, accompanied by +Miss Leech. When they passed Axel's house she saw that his gate-posts +were festooned with wreaths, and that garlands of flowers were strung +across the gateway, swaying to and fro softly in the light breeze. "Why, +how festive it looks," she exclaimed, wondering.</p> + +<p>"Yesterday was Herr von Lohm's birthday," said Miss Leech. "I heard +Princess Ludwig say so."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Anna. Her tone was piqued. She turned her head away, and +looked at the hay-fields on the opposite side of the road. Axel must +have birthdays, of course, and why should he not put things round his +gate-posts if he wanted to? Yet she would not look again, and was silent +the rest of the way; nor was it of any use for Miss Leech to attempt to +while away the long drive with pleasant conversation. Anna would not +talk; she said it was too hot to talk. What she was thinking was that +men were exceedingly horrid, all of them, and that life was a snare.</p> + +<p>Far from being festive, however, Axel's latest birthday was quite the +most solitary he had yet spent. The cheerful garlands had been put up by +an officious gardener on his own initiative. No one, except Axel's own +dependents, had passed beneath them to wish him luck. Trudi had +telegraphed her blessings, administering them thus in their easiest +form. His Stralsund friends had apparently forgotten him; in other years +they had been glad of the excuse the birthday gave for driving out into +the country in June, but this year the astonished Mamsell saw her +birthday cake remain untouched and her baked meats waiting vainly for +somebody to come and eat them.</p> + +<p>Axel neither noticed nor cared. The haymaking season had just begun, and +besides his own affairs he was preoccupied by Anna's. If she had not +been shut up so long in the baroness's sick-room she would have met him +often enough. She thought he never intended to come near her again, and +all the time, whenever he could spare a moment and often when he could +not, he was on her property, watching Dellwig's farming operations. She +should not suffer, he told himself, because he loved her; she should not +be punished because she was not able to love him. He would go on doing +what he could for her, and was certainly, at his age, not going to sulk +and leave her to face her difficulties alone.</p> + +<p>The first time he met Dellwig on these incursions into Anna's domain, he +expected to be received with a scowl; but Dellwig did not scowl at all; +was on the contrary quite affable, even volunteering information about +the work he had in hand. Nor had he been after all offensively zealous +in searching for the person who had set the stables on fire; and luckily +the Stralsund police had not been very zealous either. Klutz was looked +for for a little while after Axel had denounced him as the probable +culprit, but the matter had been dropped, apparently, and for the last +ten days nothing more had been said or done. Axel was beginning to hope +that the whole thing had blown over, that there was to be no +unpleasantness after all for Anna. Hearing that the baroness was nearly +well, he decided to go and call at Kleinwalde as though nothing had +happened. Some time or other he must meet Anna. They could not live on +adjoining estates and never see each other. The day after his birthday +he arranged to go round in the afternoon and take up the threads of +ordinary intercourse again, however much it made him suffer.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Anna did her business in Stralsund, discovered on interviewing +her banker that she had already spent more than two-thirds of a whole +year's income, lunched pensively after that on ices with Miss Leech, +walked down to the quay and watched the unloading of the fishing-smacks +while Fritz and the horses had their dinner, was very much stared at by +the inhabitants, who seldom saw anything so pretty, and finally, about +two o'clock, started again for home.</p> + +<p>As they drew near Axel's gate, and she was preparing to turn her face +away from its ostentatious gaiety, a closed <i>Droschke</i> came through it +towards them, followed at a short distance by a second.</p> + +<p>Miss Leech said nothing, strange though this spectacle was on that quiet +road, for she felt that these were the departing guests, and, like Anna, +she wondered how a man who loved in vain could have the heart to give +parties. Anna said nothing either, but watched the approaching +<i>Droschkes</i> curiously. Axel was sitting in the first one, on the side +near her. He wore his ordinary farming clothes, the Norfolk jacket, and +the soft green hat. There were three men with him, seedy-looking +individuals in black coats. She bowed instinctively, for he was looking +out of the window full at her, but he took no notice. She turned very +white.</p> + +<p>The second <i>Droschke</i> contained four more queer-looking persons in black +clothes. When they had passed, Fritz pulled up his horses of his own +accord, and twisting himself round stared after the receding cloud of +dust.</p> + +<p>Anna had been cut by Axel; but it was not that that made her turn so +white—it was something in his face. He had looked straight at her, and +he had not seen her.</p> + +<p>"Who are those people?" she asked Fritz in a voice that faltered, she +did not know why.</p> + +<p>Fritz did not answer. He stared down the road after the <i>Droschkes</i>, +shook his head, began to scratch it, jerked himself round again to his +horses, drove on a few yards, pulled them up a second time, looked back, +shook his head, and was silent.</p> + +<p>"Fritz, do you know them?" Anna asked more authoritatively.</p> + +<p>But Fritz only mumbled something soothing and drove on.</p> + +<p>Anna had not failed to notice the old man's face as he watched the +departing <i>Droschkes</i>; it wore an oddly amazed and scared expression. +Her heart seemed to sink within her like a stone, yet she could give +herself no reason for it. She tried to order him to turn up the avenue +to Axel's house, but her lips were dry, and the words would not come; +and while she was struggling to speak the gate was passed. Then she was +relieved that it was passed, for how could she, only because she had a +presentiment of trouble, go to Axel's house? What did she think of doing +there? Miss Leech glanced at her, and asked if anything was the matter.</p> + +<p>"No," said Anna in a whisper, looking straight before her. Nor was there +anything the matter; only that blind look on Axel's face, and the +strange feeling in her heart.</p> + +<p>A knot of people stood outside the post office talking eagerly. They all +stopped talking to stare at Anna when the carriage came round the +corner. Fritz whipped up his horses and drove past them at a gallop.</p> + +<p>"Wait—I want to get out," cried Anna as they came to the parsonage. "Do +you mind waiting?" she asked Miss Leech. "I want to speak to Herr +Pastor. I will not be a moment."</p> + +<p>She went up the little trim path to the porch. The maid-of-all-work was +clearing away the coffee from the table. Frau Manske came bustling out +when she heard Anna's voice asking for her husband. She looked +extraordinarily excited. "He has not come back yet," she cried before +Anna could speak, "he is still at the <i>Schloss</i>. <i>Gott Du Allmächtiger</i>, +did one ever hear of anything so terrible?"</p> + +<p>Anna looked at her, her face as white as her dress. "Tell me," she tried +to say; but no sound passed her lips. She made a great effort, and the +words came in a whisper: "Tell me," she said.</p> + +<p>"What, the gracious Miss has not heard? Herr von Lohm has been +arrested."</p> + +<p>It was impossible not to enjoy imparting so tremendous a piece of news, +however genuinely shocked one might be. Frau Manske brought it out with +a ring of pride. It would not be easy to beat, she felt, in the way of +news. Then she remembered the gossip about Anna and Axel, and observed +her with increased interest. Was she going to faint? It would be the +only becoming course for her to take if it were true that there had been +courting.</p> + +<p>But Anna, whose voice had failed her before, when once she had heard +what it was that had happened, seemed curiously cold and composed.</p> + +<p>"What was he accused of?" was all she asked; so calmly, Frau Manske +afterwards told her friends, that it was not even womanly in the face of +so great a misfortune.</p> + +<p>"He set fire to the stables," said Frau Manske.</p> + +<p>"It is a lie," said Anna; also, as Frau Manske afterwards pointed out to +her friends, an unwomanly remark.</p> + +<p>"He did it himself to get the insurance money."</p> + +<p>"It is a lie," repeated Anna, in that cold voice.</p> + +<p>"Eye-witnesses will swear to it."</p> + +<p>"They will lie," said Anna again; and turned and walked away. "Go on," +she said to Fritz, taking her place beside Miss Leech.</p> + +<p>She sat quite silent till they were near the house. Then she called to +the coachman to stop. "I am going into the forest for a little while," +she said, jumping out "You drive on home." And she crossed the road +quickly, her white dress fluttering for a moment between the +pine-trunks, and then disappearing in the soft green shadow.</p> + +<p>Miss Leech drove on alone, sighing gently. Something was troubling her +dear Miss Estcourt. Something out of the ordinary had happened. She +wished she could help her. She drove on, sighing.</p> + +<p>Directly the road was out of sight, Anna struck back again to the left, +across the moss and lichen, towards the place where she knew there was a +path that led to Lohm. She walked very straight and very quickly. She +did not miss her way, but found the path and hastened her steps to a +run. What were they doing to Axel? She was going to his house, alone. +People would talk. Who cared? And when she had heard all that could be +told her there, she was going to Axel himself. People would talk. Who +cared? The laughable indifference of slander, when big issues of life +and death were at stake! All the tongues of all the world should not +frighten her away from Axel. Her eyes had a new look in them. For the +first time she was wide awake, was facing life as it is without dreams, +facing its absolute cruelty and pitilessness. This was life, these were +the realities—suffering, injustice, and shame; not to be avoided +apparently by the most honourable and innocent of men; but at least to +be fought with all the weapons in one's power, with unflinching courage +to the end, whatever that end might be. That was what one needed most, +of all the gifts of the gods—not happiness—oh, foolish, childish +dream! how could there be happiness so long as men were wicked?—but +courage. That blind look on Axel's face—no, she would not think of +that; it tore her heart. She stumbled a little as she ran—no, she would +not think of that.</p> + +<p>Out in the open, between the forest and Lohm, she met Manske. "I was +coming to you," he said.</p> + +<p>"I am going to him," said Anna.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear young lady!" cried Manske; and two big tears rolled down +his face.</p> + +<p>"Don't cry," she said, "it does not help him."</p> + +<p>"How can I not do so after seeing what I have this day seen?"</p> + +<p>She hurried on. "Come," she said, "we must not waste time. He needs +help. I am going to his house to see what I can do. Where did they take +him?"</p> + +<p>"They took him to prison."</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>"Stralsund."</p> + +<p>"Will he be there long?"</p> + +<p>"Till after the trial."</p> + +<p>"And that will be?"</p> + +<p>"God knows."</p> + +<p>"I am going to him. Come with me. We will take his horses."</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear Miss, dear Miss," cried Manske, wringing his hands, "they will +not let us see him—you they will not let in under any circumstances, +and me only across mountains of obstacles. The official who conducted +the arrest, when I prayed for permission to visit my dear patron, was +brutality itself. 'Why should you visit him?' he asked, sneering. 'The +prison chaplain will do all that is needful for his soul.' 'Let it be, +Manske,' said my dear patron, but still I prayed. 'I cannot give you +permission,' said the man at last, weary of my importunity, 'it rests +with my chief. You must go to him.'"</p> + +<p>"Who is the chief?"</p> + +<p>"I know not. I know nothing. My head is in a whirl."</p> + +<p>"He must be somewhere in Stralsund. We will find him, if we have to ask +from door to door. And I'll get permission for myself."</p> + +<p>"Oh, dearest Miss, none will be given you. The man said only his nearest +relatives, and those only very seldom—for I asked all I could, I felt +the moments were priceless—my dear patron spoke not a word. 'His wife, +if he has one,' said the man, making hideous pleasantries—he well knew +there is no wife—or his <i>Braut</i>, if there is one, or a brother or a +sister, but no one else."</p> + +<p>"Do his brothers and Trudi know?"</p> + +<p>"I at once telegraphed to them."</p> + +<p>"Then they will be here to-night."</p> + +<p>The women and children in the village ran out to look at Anna as she +passed. She did not see them. Axel's house stood open. The Mamsell, +overcome by the shame of having been in such a service, was in hysterics +in the kitchen, and the inspector, a devoted servant who loved his +master, was upbraiding her with bitterest indignation for daring to say +such things of such a master. The Mamsell's laments and the inspector's +furious reproaches echoed through the empty house. The door, like the +gate, was garlanded with flowers. Little more than an hour had gone by +since Axel passed out beneath them to ruin.</p> + +<p>Anna went straight to the study. His papers were lying about in +disorder; the drawer of the writing-table was unlocked, and his keys +hung in it He had been writing letters, evidently, for an unfinished one +lay on the table. She stood a moment quite still in the silent room. +Manske had gone to find the coachman, and she could hear his steps on +the stones beneath the open windows. The desolation of the deserted +room, the terrible sense of misfortune worse than death that brooded +over it, struck her like a blow that for ever destroyed her cheerful +youth. She never forgot the look and the feeling of that room. She went +to the writing-table, dropped on her knees, and laid her cheek, with an +abandonment of tenderness, on the open, unfinished letter. "How are such +things possible—how are they possible——" she murmured passionately, +shutting her eyes to press back the useless tears. "So useless to cry, +so useless," she repeated piteously, as she felt the scalding tears, in +spite of all her efforts to keep them back, stealing through her +eyelashes. And everything else that she did or could do—how useless. +What could she do for him, who had no claim on him at all? How could she +reach him across this gulf of misery? Yes, it was good to be brave in +this world, it was good to have courage, but courage without weapons, of +what use was it? She was a woman, a stranger in a strange land, she had +no friends, no influence—she was useless. Manske found her kneeling +there, holding the writing-table tightly in her outstretched arms, +pressing her bosom against it as though it were something that could +feel, her eyes shut, her face a desolation. "Do not cry," he begged in +his turn, "dearest Miss, do not cry—it cannot help him."</p> + +<p>They locked up his papers and everything that they thought might be of +value before they left. Manske took the keys. Anna half put out her hand +for them, then dropped it at her side. She had less claim than Manske: +he was Axel's pastor; she was nothing to him at all.</p> + +<p>They left the dog-cart at the entrance to the town and went in search of +a <i>Droschke</i>. Manske's weather-beaten face flushed a dull red when he +gave the order to drive to the prison. The prison was in a by-street of +shabby houses. Heads appeared at the windows of the houses as the +<i>Droschke</i> rattled up over the rough stones, and the children playing +about the doors and gutters stopped their games and crowded round to +stare.</p> + +<p>They went up the dirty steps and rang the bell. The door was immediately +opened a few inches by an official who shouted "The visiting hour is +past," and shut it again.</p> + +<p>Manske rang a second time.</p> + +<p>"Well, what do you want?" asked the man angrily, thrusting out his head.</p> + +<p>Manske stated, in the mildest, most conciliatory tones, that he would be +infinitely obliged if he would tell him what steps he ought to take to +obtain permission to visit one of the inmates.</p> + +<p>"You must have a written order," snapped the man, preparing to shut the +door again. The street children were clustering at the bottom of the +steps, listening eagerly.</p> + +<p>"To whom should I apply?" asked Manske.</p> + +<p>"To the judge who has conducted the preliminary inquiries."</p> + +<p>The door was slammed, and locked from within with a great noise of +rattling keys. The sound of the keys made Anna feel faint; Axel was on +the other side of that ostentation of brute force. She leaned against +the wall shivering. The children tittered; she was a very fine lady, +they thought, to have friends in there.</p> + +<p>"The judge who conducted the preliminary inquiries," repeated Manske, +looking dazed. "Who may he be? Where shall we find him? I fear I am +sadly inexperienced in these matters."</p> + +<p>There was nothing to be done but to face the official's wrath once more. +He timidly rang the bell again. This time he was kept waiting. There was +a little round window in the door, and he could see the man on the other +side leaning against a table trimming his nails. The man also could see +him. Manske began to knock on the glass in his desperation. The man +remained absorbed by his nails.</p> + +<p>Anna was suffering a martyrdom. Her head drooped lower and lower. The +children laughed loud. Just then heavy steps were heard approaching on +the pavement, and the children fled with one accord. Immediately +afterwards an official, apparently of a higher grade than the man +within, came up. He glanced curiously at the two suppliants as he thrust +his hand into his pocket and pulled out a key. Before he could fit it in +the lock the man on the other side had seen him, had sprung to the door, +flung it open, and stood at attention.</p> + +<p>Manske saw that here was his opportunity. He snatched off his hat. +"Sir," he cried, "one moment, for God's sake."</p> + +<p>"Well?" inquired the official sharply.</p> + +<p>"Where can I obtain an order of admission?"</p> + +<p>"To see——?"</p> + +<p>"My dear patron, Herr von Lohm, who by some incomprehensible and +appalling mistake——"</p> + +<p>"You must go to the judge who conducted the preliminary inquiries."</p> + +<p>"But who is he, and where is he to be found?"</p> + +<p>The official looked at his watch. "If you hurry you may still find him +at the Law Courts. In the next street. Examining Judge Schultz."</p> + +<p>And the door was shut.</p> + +<p>So they went to the Law Courts, and hurried up and down staircases and +along endless corridors, vainly looking for someone to direct them to +Examining Judge Schultz. The building was empty; they did not meet a +soul, and they went down one passage after the other, anguish in Anna's +heart, and misery hardly less acute in Manske's. At last they heard +distant voices echoing through the emptiness. They followed the sound, +and found two women cleaning.</p> + +<p>"Can you direct me to the room of the Examining Judge Schultz?" asked +Manske, bowing politely.</p> + +<p>"The gentlemen have all gone home. Business hours are over," was the +answer. Could they perhaps give his private address? No, they could not; +perhaps the porter knew. Where was the porter? Somewhere about.</p> + +<p>They hurried downstairs again in search of the porter. Another ten +minutes was wasted looking for him. They saw him at last through the +glass of the entrance door, airing himself on the steps.</p> + +<p>The porter gave them the address, and they lost some more minutes trying +to find their <i>Droschke</i>, for they had come out at a different entrance +to the one they had gone in by. By this time Manske was speechless, and +Anna was half dead.</p> + +<p>They climbed three flights of stairs to the Examining Judge's flat, and +after being kept waiting a long while—"<i>Der Herr Untersuchungsrichter +ist bei Tisch</i>," the slovenly girl had announced—were told by him very +curtly that they must go to the Public Prosecutor for the order. Anna +went out without a word. Manske bowed and apologised profusely for +having disturbed the <i>Herr Untersuchungsrichter</i> at his repast; he felt +the necessity of grovelling before these persons whose power was so +almighty. The Examining Judge made no reply whatever to these piteous +amiabilities, but turned on his heel, leaving them to find the door as +best they could.</p> + +<p>The Public Prosecutor lived at the other end of the town. They neither +of them spoke a word on the way there. In answer to their anxious +inquiry whether they could speak to him, the woman who opened the door +said that her master was asleep; it was his hour for repose, having just +supped, and he could not possibly be disturbed.</p> + +<p>Anna began to cry. Manske gripped hold of her hand and held it fast, +patting it while he continued to question the servant. "He will see no +one so late," she said. "He will sleep now till nine, and then go out. +You must come to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"At what time?"</p> + +<p>"At ten he goes to the Law Courts. You must come before then."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said Manske, and drew Anna away. "Do not cry, <i>liebes +Kind</i>," he implored, his own eyes brimming with miserable tears. "Do not +let the coachman see you like this. We must go home now. There is +nothing to be done. We will come early to-morrow, and have more +success."</p> + +<p>They stopped a moment in the dark entrance below, trying to compose +their faces before going out. They did not dare look at each other. Then +they went out and drove away.</p> + +<p>The stars were shining as they passed along the quiet country road, and +all the way was drenched with the fragrance of clover and freshly-cut +hay. The sky above the rye fields on the left was still rosy. Not a leaf +stirred. Once, when the coachman stopped to take a stone out of a +horse's shoe, they could hear the crickets, and the cheerful humming of +a column of gnats high above their heads.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI</h2> + + +<p>Gustav von Lohm found Manske's telegram on his table when he came in +with his wife from his afternoon ride in the Thiergarten.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" she inquired, seeing him turn pale; and she took it out of +his hand and read it. "Disgraceful," she murmured.</p> + +<p>"I must go at once," he said, looking round helplessly.</p> + +<p>"Go?"</p> + +<p>When a wife says "Go?" in that voice, if she is a person of +determination and her husband is a person of peace, he does not go; he +stays. Gustav stayed. It is true that at first he decided to leave +Berlin by the early train next morning; but his wife employed the hours +of darkness addressing him, as he lay sleepless, in the language of +wisdom; and the wisdom being of that robust type known as worldly, it +inevitably produced its effect on a mind naturally receptive.</p> + +<p>"Relations," she said, "are at all times bad enough. They do less for +you and expect more from you than anyone else. They are the last to +congratulate if you succeed, and the first to abandon if you fail. They +are at one and the same time abnormally truthful, and abnormally +sensitive. They regard it as infinitely more blessed to administer +home-truths than to receive them back again. But, so long as they do not +actually break the laws, prejudice demands that they shall be borne +with. In my family, no one ever broke the laws. It has been reserved for +my married life, this connection with criminals."</p> + +<p>She was a woman of ready and frequent speech, and she continued in this +strain for some time. Towards morning, nature refusing to endure more, +Gustav fell asleep; and when he woke the early train was gone.</p> + +<p>In the same manner did his wife prevent his writing to his unhappy +brother. "It is sad that such things should be," she said, "sad that a +man of birth should commit so vulgar a crime; but he has done it, he has +disgraced us, he has struck a blow at our social position which may +easily, if we are not careful, prove fatal. Take my advice—have nothing +to do with him. Leave him to be dealt with as the law shall demand. We +who abide by the laws are surely justified in shunning, in abhorring, +those who deliberately break them. Leave him alone."</p> + +<p>And Gustav left him alone.</p> + +<p>Trudi was at a picnic when the telegram reached her flat. With several +of her female friends and a great many lieutenants she was playing at +being frisky among the haycocks beyond the town. Her two little boys, +Billy and Tommy, who would really have enjoyed haycocks, were left +sternly at home. She invited the whole party to supper at her flat, and +drove home in the dog-cart of the richest of the young men, making +immense efforts to please him, and feeling that she must be looking very +picturesque and sweet in her flower-trimmed straw hat and muslin dress, +silhouetted against the pale gold of the evening sky.</p> + +<p>Her eye fell on the telegram as the picnic party came crowding in.</p> + +<p>"Bill coming home?" inquired somebody.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid he is," she said, opening it.</p> + +<p>She read it, and could not prevent a change of expression. There was a +burst of laughter. The young men declared they would never marry. The +young women, prone at all times to pity other women's husbands, +criticised Trudi's pale face, and secretly pitied Bill. She lit a +cigarette, flung herself into a chair, and became very cheerful. She had +never been so amusing. She kept them in a state of uproarious mirth till +the small hours. The richest lieutenant, who had found her distinctly a +bore during the drive home, went away feeling quite affectionate. When +they had all gone, she dropped on to her bed, and cried, and cried.</p> + +<p>It was in the papers next morning, and at breakfast Trudi and her family +were in every mouth. Bibi came running round, genuinely distressed. She +had not been invited to the picnic, but she forgot that in her sympathy. +"I wanted to catch you before you start," she said, vigorously embracing +her poor friend.</p> + +<p>"Where should I start for?" asked Trudi, offering a cold cheek to Bibi's +kisses.</p> + +<p>"Are you not going to Herr von Lohm?" exclaimed Bibi, open-mouthed.</p> + +<p>"What, when he tries to cheat insurance companies?"</p> + +<p>"But he never, never set fire to those buildings himself."</p> + +<p>"Didn't he, though?" Trudi turned her head, and looked straight into +Bibi's eyes. "I know him better than you do," she said slowly.</p> + +<p>She had decided that that was the only way—to cast him off altogether; +and it must be done at once and thoroughly. Indeed, how was it possible +not to hate him? It was the most dreadful thing to happen to her. She +would suffer by it in every way. If he were guilty or not guilty, he was +anyhow a fool to let himself get into such a position, and how she hated +such fools! She registered a solemn vow that she had done with Axel for +ever.</p> + +<p>At Kleinwalde the effect of the news was to make Frau Dellwig slay a pig +and send out invitations for an unusually large Sunday party. She and +her husband could hardly veil their beaming satisfaction with a decent +appearance of dismay. "What would his poor father, our gracious master's +oldest friend, have said!" ejaculated Dellwig at dinner, when the +servant was in the room.</p> + +<p>"It is truly merciful that he did not live to see it," said his wife, +with pious head-shakings.</p> + +<p>What Anna was doing at Stralsund, no one knew. She said she was having +some bother with her bank. Miss Leech related how they had been to the +bank on the Monday. "I must go again," Anna said on the evening of the +fruitless Tuesday, when she had been the whole day again with Manske, +vainly trying to obtain permission to visit Axel; and she added, her +head drooping, her voice faint, that it was a great bore. Certainly she +looked profoundly unhappy.</p> + +<p>"One cannot be too careful in money matters," remarked Frau von +Treumann, alarmed by Anna's white looks, and afraid lest by some foolish +neglect on her part supplies should cease. She enthusiastically +encouraged these visits to the bank. "Take care of your bank," she said, +"and your bank will take care of you. That is what we say in Germany."</p> + +<p>But Anna did not hear. There was but one thought in her mind, one cry in +her heart—how could she reach, how could she help, Axel?</p> + +<p>He was in a cell about five yards long by three wide. There was just +room to pass between the camp bedstead and the small deal table standing +against the opposite wall. Besides this furniture, there was one chair, +an empty wooden box turned up on end, with a tin basin on it—that was +his washstand—a little shelf fixed on the wall, and on the little shelf +a tin mug, a tin plate, a pot of salt, a small loaf of black bread, and +a Bible. The walls were painted brown, and the window, fitted with +ground glass, was high up near the ceiling; it was barred on the +outside, and could only be opened a few inches at the top. On the door a +neat printed card was fastened, giving, besides information for the +guidance of the habitually dirty as to the cleansing properties of +water, the quantity of oakum the occupant of the cell would be expected +to pick every day. The cell was used sometimes for condemned criminals, +hence the mention of the oakum; but the card caught Axel's eye whenever +he reached that end of the room in his pacings up and down, and without +knowing it he learnt its rules by heart.</p> + +<p>At first he had been completely dazed, absolutely unable to understand +the meaning and extent of the misfortune that had overtaken him; but +there was a grim, uncompromising reality about the prison, about the +heavy doors he passed through, each one barred and locked behind him, +each one cutting him off more utterly from the common free life outside, +about the look of the miserable beings he met being taken to or from +their work by armed warders, about the warders themselves with their +great keys, polished by frequent use—there was about these things an +inexorable reality that shook him out of the blind apathy into which he +had fallen after his arrest. Some extraordinary mistake had been made; +and, knowing that he had done nothing, when first he began to think +connectedly he was certain that it could only be a matter of hours +before he was released. But the horror of his position was there. +Released or not released, who would make good to him what he was +suffering and what he would have lost? He had been searched on his +arrival—his money, watch, and a ring he wore of his mother's taken from +him. The young official who arrested him—he was the Junior Public +Prosecutor—presided at these operations with immense zeal. Being young +and obscure, he thirsted to make a name for himself, and opportunities +were few in that little town. To be put in charge, therefore, of this +sensational case, was to behold opening out before him the rosiest +prospects for the future. His name, which was Meyer, would flare up in +flames of glory from the ashes of Axel's honour. Stralsund, ringing with +the ancient name of Lohm, would be forced to ring simultaneously with +the less ancient and not in itself interesting name of Meyer. He had +arrested Lohm, he had special charge of the case, he could not but be +talked about at last. His zeal and satisfaction accordingly were great, +carrying him far beyond the limits usual on such occasions. Axel stood +amazed at the trick of fortune that had so suddenly flung him into the +power of a young man called Meyer.</p> + +<p>Soon after he was locked in his cell, a warder came in with a great pot +of liquid food, a sort of thick soup made chiefly of beans, with other +bodies, unknown to Axel, floating about among them.</p> + +<p>"Your plate," said the warder, jerking his head in the direction of the +little shelf on which stood Axel's dining facilities; and he raised the +pot preparatory to pouring out some of its contents.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said Axel, "I don't want any."</p> + +<p>"You'll be hungry then," said the man, going away. "There is no more +food to-day."</p> + +<p>Axel said nothing, and he went out. The smell of the soup, which was +apparently of great potency, filled the little room. Axel tried to open +the window wider, but though he was tall and he stood on his table, he +could not reach it.</p> + +<p>It began to get dark. The lamps in the street below were lit, and the +shouts of the children at play came up to him. He guessed that it must +be past nine, and wondered how long he was to be left there without a +light. As it grew darker, his thoughts grew very dark. He paced up and +down more and more restlessly, trying to force them into clearness. In +the hurry and dismay he had left his keys at Lohm, he remembered, and +all his money and papers were at the mercy of the first-comer. And he +was poor; he could not afford to lose any money, or any time. Supposing +he were to be kept here more than a few hours, what would become of his +farming, just now at its busiest season, his people used to his constant +direction and control, his inspector accustomed to do nothing without +the master's orders? And what would be the moral effect on them of his +arrest? If he had a pencil and paper he would write some hasty messages +to keep them all at their posts till his return; but he had no writing +materials, he was quite helpless. He had sent urgent word to his lawyer +in Stralsund, telegraphing to him through Manske before leaving home, +and he had expected to find him waiting for him at the prison. But he +had not come. Why did he not come? Why did he leave him helpless at such +a moment? Axel was determined to face his misfortune quietly; yet the +feeling of absolute impotence, of being as it were bound hand and foot +when there was such dire necessity for immediate action, almost broke +down his resolution.</p> + +<p>But it was only for a few hours, he assured himself, walking faster, +thrusting his hands deeper into his pockets, and he could bear anything +for a few hours. His brothers would come to him—to-morrow the first +thing his lawyer would certainly come. It was all so extremely absurd; +yet it was amazing the amount of suffering one such absurd mistake could +inflict. "Thank God," he exclaimed aloud, stopping in his walk, struck +by a new thought, "thank God that I have neither wife nor children." And +he paced up and down again more slowly, his shoulders bent, his head +sunk, a dull flush on his face; he was thinking of Anna.</p> + +<p>The door was unlocked, and a warder with a bull's-eye lantern came in +quickly. "The Public Prosecutor is coming up," he said breathlessly. +"When he comes in, you stand at attention and recite your name and the +crime of which you are accused."</p> + +<p>He had hardly finished when the Public Prosecutor appeared. The warder +sprang to attention. Axel slowly and unwillingly did the same.</p> + +<p>"Well?" snarled the great man, as Axel did not speak. He was an old man, +with a face grown sly and hard during years of association with +criminals, of experiences confined solely to the ugly sides of life.</p> + +<p>"My name is Lohm," said Axel, feeling the folly of attempting to defy +anyone so absolutely powerful in the place where he was; and he +proceeded to explain the crime of which he was suspected.</p> + +<p>The Public Prosecutor, who knew perfectly well everything about him, +having himself arranged every detail of the arrest, said something +incomprehensible and was going away.</p> + +<p>"May I have a light of some sort?" asked Axel, "and writing materials? I +absolutely must be able to——"</p> + +<p>"You cannot expect the luxuries of a <i>Schloss</i> here," said the Public +Prosecutor with a scowl, turning on his heel and signing to the warder +to lock the door again. And he continued his rounds, congratulating +himself on having demonstrated that in his independent eye the bearer of +the most ancient name and the offscourings of the street, tried or +untried, were equal—sinners, that is, all of them—and would receive +exactly the same treatment at his hands. Indeed, he was so anxious to +impress this laudable impartiality on the members of the little +prison-world, which was the only world he knew, that he overshot the +mark, refusing Axel small conveniences that he would have unhesitatingly +granted a suppliant called Schmidt, Schultz, or Meyer.</p> + +<p>It was now quite dark, except for the faint light from the lamps in the +street below. Weary to death, Axel flung himself down on the little bed. +He had brought a few necessaries, hastily thrown into a bag by his +servant, necessaries that had first been carefully handled and inspected +with every symptom of distrust by the Junior Public Prosecutor Meyer; +but he did not unpack them. Judging from the shortness of the bed, he +concluded that criminals must be a stunted race. Sleeping was not made +easy by this bed, and he lay awake staring at the shadows cast by the +iron bars outside his window on to the ceiling. These shadows affected +him oddly. He shut his eyes, but still he saw them; he turned his head +to the wall and tried not to think of them, but still he saw them. They +expressed the whole misery of his situation.</p> + +<p>He had dozed off, worn out, when a bright light on his face woke him. He +started up in bed, confused, hardly remembering where he was. A feeling +very nearly resembling horror came over him. A bull's-eye lantern was +being held close to his face. He could see nothing but the bright light. +The man holding it did not speak, and presently backed out again, +bolting the door behind him. Axel lay down, reflecting that such +surprises, added to anxiety and bad food, must wear out a suspected +culprit's nerves with extraordinary rapidity and thoroughness. There +could not, he thought, be much left of a man in the way of brains and +calmness by the time he was taken before the judge to clear himself. The +incident completely banished all tendency to sleep. He remained wide +awake after that, tormented by anxious thoughts.</p> + +<p>Towards dawn, for which he thanked God when it came, the silence of the +prison was broken by screams. He started up again and listened, his +blood frozen by the sound of them. They were terrible to hear, echoing +through that place. Again a feeling of sheer horror came over him. How +long would he be able to endure these things? The screams grew more and +more appalling. He sprang up and went to the door, and listened there. +He thought he heard steps outside, and knocked. "What is that +screaming?" he cried out. But no one answered. The shrieks reached a +climax of anguish, and suddenly stopped. Death-like stillness fell again +upon the prison. Axel spent what was left of the night pacing up and +down.</p> + +<p>The prison day did not begin till six. Axel, used to his busy country +life that got him out of his bed and on to his horse at four these fine +summer mornings, heard sounds of life below in the street—early carts +and voices—long before life stirred within the walls. He understood +afterwards why the inmates were allowed to lie in bed so long: it was +convenient for the warders. The prisoners rose at six, and went to bed +again at six, in the full sunshine of those June afternoons. Thus +disposed of, the warders could relax their vigilance and enjoy some +hours of rest. The effect, moralising or the reverse, on the prisoners, +who could by no means get themselves off to sleep at six o'clock, was of +the supremest indifference to everyone concerned. Axel, not yet having +been tried, and not yet therefore having been placed in the common +dormitory, was not forced into bed at any particular time. He might +enjoy evenings as long as those of the warders if he chose, and he might +get up as early as though his horse were waiting below to take him to +his hay-fields if he liked; but this privilege, without the means of +employing the extra hours, was valueless. He watched anxiously for the +broad daylight that would bring his lawyer and put an end to this first +martyrdom of helpless waiting. Towards seven, one of the prisoners, +whose good conduct had procured him promotion to cleaning the passages +and doing other work of the kind, brought him another loaf of bread and +a pot of coffee. From this young man, a white-faced, artful-looking +youth, with closely-cropped hair and wearing the coarse, brown prison +dress, Axel heard that the ghastly screams in the night came from a +prisoner who had <i>delirium tremens</i>; he had been put in the cellar to +get over the attack; he could scream as loud as he liked there, and no +one would hear him; they always put him in the cellar when the attacks +came on. The young man grinned. Evidently he thought the arrangement +both good and funny.</p> + +<p>"Poor wretch," said Axel, profoundly pitying those other wretched human +beings, his fellow-prisoners.</p> + +<p>"Oh, he is very happy there. He plays all day long at catching the +rats."</p> + +<p>"The rats?"</p> + +<p>"They say there are no rats—that he only thinks he sees them. But +whether the rats are real or not it amuses him trying to catch them. +When he is quiet again, he is brought back to us."</p> + +<p>A warder appeared and said there was too much talking. The young man +slid away swiftly and silently. He was a thief by profession, of +superior skill and intelligence.</p> + +<p>Axel ate part of the bread, and succeeded in swallowing some of the +coffee, and then began his walk again, up and down, up and down, +listening intently at the door each time he came to it for sounds of his +lawyer's approach. The morning must be halfway through, he thought; why +did he not come? How could he let him wait at such a crisis? How could +any of them—Gustav, Trudi, Manske—let him wait at such a crisis? He +grew terribly anxious. He had expected Gustav by the first train from +Berlin; he might have been with him by nine o'clock. The other brother, +he knew, would be less easily reached by the telegram—he was attached +to the person of a prince whose movements were uncertain; but Gustav? +Well, he must be patient; he may not have been at home; the next train +arrived in the afternoon; he would come by that.</p> + +<p>The door opened, and he turned eagerly; but it was the Public Prosecutor +again.</p> + +<p>"Name, name, and crime!" frantically whispered the accompanying warder, +as Axel stood silent. Axel repeated the formula of the night before. +Every time these visits were made he had to go through this performance, +his heels together, his body rigid.</p> + +<p>"Bed not made," said the Public Prosecutor.</p> + +<p>"Bed not made," repeated the warder, glaring at Axel.</p> + +<p>"Make it," ordered the chief; and went out.</p> + +<p>"Make it," hissed the warder; and followed him.</p> + +<p>His lawyer came in simultaneously with his dinner.</p> + +<p>"Plate," said the warder with the pot.</p> + +<p>"This is a sad sight, Herr von Lohm," said the lawyer.</p> + +<p>"It is," agreed Axel, reaching down his plate. He allowed some of the +mess to be poured into it; he was not going to starve only because the +soup was potent.</p> + +<p>"I expected you yesterday," he said to the lawyer.</p> + +<p>"Ah—I was engaged yesterday."</p> + +<p>The lawyer's manner was so peculiar that Axel stared at him, doubtful if +he really were the right man. He was a native of Stralsund, and Axel had +employed him ever since he came into his estate, and had found his work +satisfactory, and his manners exceedingly polite—so polite, indeed, as +to verge on cringing; but then, as Manske would have pointed out, he was +a Jew. Now the whole man was changed. The ingratiating smiles, the bows, +the rubbed hands, where were they? The lawyer sat at his ease on the one +chair, his hands in his pockets, a toothpick in his mouth, and +scrutinised Axel while he told him his case, with an insolent look of +incredulity.</p> + +<p>"He actually believes I set the place on fire," thought Axel, struck by +the look.</p> + +<p>He did actually believe it. He always believed the worst, for his +experience had been that the worst is what comes most often nearest the +truth; but then, as Manske would have explained, he was a Jew.</p> + +<p>The interview was extremely unsatisfactory. "I have an appointment," +said the lawyer, pulling out his watch before they had half discussed +the situation.</p> + +<p>"You appear to forget that this is a matter of enormous importance to +me," said Axel, wrath in his eyes and voice.</p> + +<p>"That is what each of my clients invariably says," replied the lawyer, +stretching across the table for his gloves.</p> + +<p>"How can we arrange anything in a ten minutes' conversation?" inquired +Axel indignantly.</p> + +<p>The lawyer shrugged his shoulders. "I cannot neglect all my other +business."</p> + +<p>"I do not remember your having been so pressed for time formerly. I +shall expect you again this afternoon."</p> + +<p>"An impossibility."</p> + +<p>"Then to-morrow the first thing. That is, if I am still here."</p> + +<p>The lawyer grinned. "It is not so easy to get out of these places as it +is to get in," he said, drawing on his gloves. "By the way, my fees in +such cases are payable beforehand."</p> + +<p>Axel flushed. He could hardly believe the evidence of his senses that +this was the obsequious person who had for so long managed his affairs. +"My brother Gustav will arrange all that," he said stiffly. "You know I +can do nothing here. He is coming this afternoon."</p> + +<p>"Oh, is he?" said the lawyer sceptically. "Is he indeed, now? That will +be a remarkable instance of brotherly devotion. I am truly glad to hear +that. Good-afternoon," he nodded; and went out, leaving Axel in a fury.</p> + +<p>The one good result of his visit was that some time later Axel was +provided with writing materials. He immediately fell to writing letters +and telegrams; urgent letters and telegrams, of a desperate importance +to himself. When his coffee was brought he gave them to the warder, and +begged him to see that they were despatched at once; then he paced up +and down again, relieved at least by feeling that he could now +communicate with the outer world.</p> + +<p>"They have gone?" he asked anxiously, next time he saw the warder. +"<i>Jawohl</i>," was the reply. And gone they had, but only by slow stages to +the office of the Examining Judge Schultz, where they lay in a heap +waiting till he should have leisure and inclination to read them, and, +if he approved of their contents, order them to be posted. There they +lay for three days, and most of them were not passed after all, because +the Examining Judge disliked the tone of the assurances in them that the +writer was innocent. He knew that trick; every prisoner invariably +protested the same thing. But these protestations were unusually strong. +They were of such strength that they actually produced in his own +hardened and experienced mind a passing doubt, absurd of course, and not +for one moment to be considered, whether the Stralsund authorities might +not have blundered. It was a dangerous notion to put into people's +heads, that the Stralsund authorities, of whom he was one, could +blunder. Blunders meant a reproof from headquarters and a retarded +career; their possibility, therefore, was not to be entertained for a +moment. Even should they have been made, it must not get about that they +had been made. He accordingly suppressed nearly all the letters.</p> + +<p>Gustav must have missed the second train as well, for when the sky grew +rosy, and Axel knew that the sun was setting, he was still alone.</p> + +<p>The few hours he had thought to stay in that place were lengthening out +into days, he reflected. If Gustav did not come soon, what should he do? +Someone he must have to look after his affairs, to arrange with the +lawyer, to be a link connecting him with outside. And who but his +brother and heir? Still, he would certainly come soon, and Trudi too. +Poor little Trudi—he was afraid she would be terribly upset.</p> + +<p>But the hours passed, and no one came.</p> + +<p>That evening he was given a lamp. It burnt badly and smelt atrociously. +He asked if the window might be opened a little wider. The request had +to be made in writing, said the warder, and submitted through the usual +channels to the Public Prosecutor, without whose permission no window +might be touched. Axel wrote the request, and the warder took it away. +It came back two days later with an intimation scrawled across it that +if the prisoner von Lohm were not satisfied with his cell he would be +given a worse one.</p> + +<p>The night came, and had to be gone through somehow. Axel sat for hours +on the side of his bed, his head supported in his hands, struggling with +despair. A profound gloom was settling down on him. The knowledge that +he had done nothing had ceased to reassure him. The lawyer was right +when he said that it was easier to get into such a place than to get out +again. Klutz had denounced him, to save himself; of that he had not a +doubt. And Dellwig, well known and greatly respected, had supported +Klutz. This explained Dellwig's conduct lately completely. Axel's +courage was perilously near giving way as he recognised the difficulty +he would have in proving that he was innocent. If no one helped him from +outside, his case was indeed desperate. He did not remember ever to have +turned his back on a friend in distress; how was it, then, that not a +friend was to be found to come to him in his extremity? Where were they +all, those jovial companions who shot over his estate with him so often, +driving any distance for the pleasure of killing his game? What was +keeping Gustav back? Why did he not even send a message? How was it that +Manske, who professed so much attachment to his house, besides such +stores of Christian charity, did not make an effort to reach him? He had +never asked or wanted anything of anyone in his life; but this was so +terrible, his need was so extreme. What a failure his whole life was. He +had been alone, always. During all the years when other men have wives +and children he had been working hard, alone. He had had no happy days, +as the old Romans would have said. And now total ruin was upon him. +Sitting there through the night, he began to understand the despair that +impels unhappy beings in a like situation, forsaken of God and men, to +make wild efforts to get out of such places, conscious that they avail +nothing, but at least bruising and crushing themselves into the blessed +indifference of exhaustion.</p> + +<p>The hours dragged by, each one a lifetime, each one so packed with +opportunities for going mad, he thought, as he counted how many of them +separated him already from his free, honourable past life. By the time +morning came, added to his other torturing anxieties, was the fear lest +he should fall ill in there before any steps had been taken for his +release. He sat leaning his head against the wall, indifferent to what +went on around him, hardly listening any more for Gustav's footsteps. He +had ceased to expect him. He had ceased to expect anyone. He sat +motionless, suffering bodily now, a strange feeling in his head, his +thoughts dwelling dully on his physical discomforts, on the closeness of +the cell, on the horrible nights. He made a great effort to eat some +dinner, but could not. What would become of him if he could neither eat +nor sleep? On what stores of energy would he be able to draw when the +time came for defending himself? He was sitting by the table, leaning +his head against the wall, his eyes closed, when the prisoner-attendant +came to take away his dinner. "Ill?" inquired the young man cheerfully. +Axel did not move or answer. It was too much trouble to speak.</p> + +<p>The warder, upon the attendant's remarking that No. 32 seemed unwell, +examined him through the peep-hole in the door, but decided that he was +not ill yet; not ill enough, that is. In another week he would be ready +for the prison doctor, but not yet. These things must take their course. +It was always the same course; he had been a warder twenty years, and +knew almost to an hour the date on which, after the arrest, the doctor +would be required.</p> + +<p>Axel was sitting in the same position when, about three o'clock, the +door was unlocked again. He did not move or open his eyes.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ihr Fräulein Braut ist hier</i>," said the warder.</p> + +<p>The word <i>Braut</i>, betrothed, sent Axel's thoughts back across the years +to Hildegard. His betrothed? Had he heard the mocking words, or had he +been dreaming? He turned his head and looked vaguely towards the door. +All the sunlight was out there in the wide corridor, and in it, on the +threshold, stood Anna.</p> + +<p>What had she meant to say? She never could remember. It had been +something deeply apologetic, ashamed. But her fears and her shame fell +from her like a garment when she saw him. "Oh, poor Axel—oh, poor +Axel——" she murmured with a quick sob.</p> + +<p>He tried to get up to come to her. In an instant she was at his side, +and, stumbling, he fell on his knees, holding her by the dress, clinging +to her as to his salvation. "It is not pity, Anna?" he asked in a voice +sharp with an intolerable fear.</p> + +<p>And Anna, half blinded by her tears, deliberately put her arms round his +neck, relinquishing by that one action herself and her future entirely +to him, hauling down for ever her flag of independent womanhood, and +bending down her face to that upturned face of agonised questioning laid +her lips on his. "No," she whispered, and she kissed him with a +passionate tenderness between the words, "it is only love—only +love——"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII</h2> + + +<p>There was a grave beauty, an austerity almost, about this betrothal in +the prison. Here was no room for the archnesses and coynesses of +ordinary lovemaking. All that was not simple truth fell away from them +both like tawdry ornaments, for which there was no use in that sad +place. Soul to soul, unseparated by even the flimsiest veil of +conventionality, of custom; soul to soul, clear-visioned, steadfast, as +those may be who are quietly watching the approach of death, they looked +into each other's eyes and knew that they were alone, he and she, +against the world. To cleave to one another, to stand together, he and +she, against the whole world,—that was what their betrothal meant. +Axel, cut off for ever from his kind if he should not be able to clear +himself, Anna, cutting herself off for ever to follow him. Her feet had +found the right path at last. Her eyes were open. As two friends on the +eve of a battle in which both must fight and whose end may be death, or +as two friends starting on a long journey, whose end too, after tortuous +ways of suffering, may well be death, they quietly made their plans, +talked over what was best to be done, gravely encouraging each other, +always with the light of perfect trustfulness in their eyes. How strong +they felt together! How able to go fearlessly towards the future to meet +any pain, any sorrow, together! The warder standing by, the miserable +little room, the wretched details of the situation, no longer existed +for either of them. Nothing could harm them, nothing could hurt them any +more, if only they might be together. They were safe within a circle +drawn round them by love—safe, and warm, and blest. So long as he had +her and she him, though they saw how great their misery would be if they +came to be less brave, they could not but believe in the benevolence of +the future, they could not but have hope. If he were sentenced, she +said, what, at the worst, would it mean? Two years', three years', +waiting, and then together for the rest of their life. Was not that +worth looking forward to? Would not that take away every sting? she +asked, her hands on his shoulders, her face beautiful with confidence +and courage. When he told her that she ought not now to cast in her lot +with his, she only smiled, and laid her cheek against his sleeve. All +her childish follies, and incertitudes, and false starts were done with +now. Life had grown suddenly simple. It was to be a cleaving to him till +death. Yet they both knew that when that golden hour was over, and she +must go, the suffering would begin again. She was only to come twice a +week; and the days between would be days of torture. And when the moment +had come, and they had said good-bye with brave eyes, each telling the +other that so short a separation was nothing, that they did not mind it, +that it would be over before they had had time to feel it, and the door +was shut, and he was left behind, she went out to find misery again, +waiting for her there where she had left it, taking entire possession of +her, brooding heavily, immovably over her, a desolation of misery that +threatened by its dreadful weight to break her heart.</p> + +<p>A sense of physical cold crept over her as she drove home with +Letty—the bodily expression of the unutterable forlornness within. Away +from him, how weak she was, how unable to be brave. Would Letty +understand? Would she say some kind word, some little word, something, +anything, that might make her feel less terribly alone? With many pauses +and falterings she told her the story, looking at her with eyes tortured +by the thought of him waiting so patiently there till she should come +again. Letty was awestruck, as much by the profound grief of Anna's face +as by the revelation. She knew of course that Axel had been +arrested—did anyone at Kleinwalde talk of anything else all day +long?—but she had not dreamt of this. She could find nothing to say, +and put out her hand timidly and laid it on Anna's. "I am so cold," was +all Anna said, her head drooping; and she did not speak again.</p> + +<p>As they passed between his fields, by his open gate, through the village +that belonged, all of it, to him, she shut her eyes. She could not look +at the happy summer fields, at the placid faces, knowing him where he +was. Not the poorest of his servants, not a ragged child rolling in the +dust, not a wretched, half-starved dog sunning itself in a doorway, +whose lot was not blessed compared to his. The haymakers were piling up +his hay on the waggons. Girls in white sun-bonnets, with bare arms and +legs, stood on the top of the loads catching the fragrant stuff as the +men tossed it up. Their figures were sharply outlined against the serene +sky; their shouts and laughter floated across the fields. Freedom to +come and go at will in God's liberal sunlight—just that—how precious +it was, how unspeakably precious it was. Of all God's gifts, surely the +most precious. And how ordinary, how universal. Only for Axel there was +none.</p> + +<p>When they reached the house, the hall seemed to be full of people. The +supper bell had lately rung, and the inmates, talking and laughing, were +going into the dining-room. Dellwig, his hands full of papers, not +having found Anna at home, was in the act of making elaborate farewell +bows to the assembled ladies. After the two silent hours of suffering +that lay between herself and Axel, how strange it was, this noisy bustle +of daily life. She caught fragments of what they were saying, fragments +of the usual prattle, the same nothings that they said every day, +accompanied by the same vague laughs. How strange it was, and how awful, +the tremendousness of life, the nearness of death, the absolute +relentlessness of suffering, and all the prattle.</p> + +<p>"<i>Um Gottes Willen!</i>" shrieked Frau von Treumann, when she caught sight +of this white image of grief set suddenly in their midst. "It has +smashed up, then, your bank?" And she made a hasty movement towards the +hall table, on which lay a letter for Anna from Karlchen, containing, as +she knew, an offer of marriage.</p> + +<p>Anna turned with a blind sort of movement, and stretched out her hand +for Letty, drawing her to her side, instinctively seeking any comfort, +any support; and she stood a moment clinging to her, gazing at the +little crowd with sombre, unseeing eyes.</p> + +<p>"What has happened, Anna?" asked the princess uneasily.</p> + +<p>"You must congratulate me," said Anna slowly in German, her head held +very high, her face of a deathly whiteness.</p> + +<p>A lightening look of comprehension flashed into Dellwig's eyes; he +scarcely needed to hear the words that came next.</p> + +<p>"Herr von Lohm and I were to-day," she said. Then she looked round at +them with a vague, piteous look, and put her hand up to her throat. "We +shall be married—we shall be married—when—when it pleases God."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CONCLUSION" id="CONCLUSION"></a>CONCLUSION</h2> + + +<p>The moral of this story, as Manske, wise after the event, pointed out +when relating those parts of it that he knew on winter evenings to a +dear friend, plainly is that all females—<i>alle Weiber</i>—are best +married. "Their aspirations," he said, "may be high enough to do credit +to the noblest male spirit; indeed, our gracious lady's aspirations were +nobility itself. But the flesh of females is very weak. It cannot stand +alone. It cannot realise the aspirations formed by its own spirit. It +requires constant guidance. It is an excellent material, but it is only +material in the raw."</p> + +<p>"What?" cried his wife.</p> + +<p>"Peace, woman. I say it is only material in the raw. And it is never of +any practical use till the hand of the master has moulded it into +shape."</p> + +<p>"<i>Sehr richtig</i>," agreed the friend; with the more heartiness that he +was conscious of a wife at home who had successfully withstood moulding +during a married life of twenty years.</p> + +<p>"That," said Manske, "is the most obvious moral. But there is yet +another."</p> + +<p>"The story is full of them," said the friend, who had had them all +pointed out to him, different ones each time, during those evenings of +howling tempests and indoor peace—the perfect peace of pipes, hot +stoves, and <i>Glühwein</i>.</p> + +<p>"The other," said Manske, "is, that it is very sinful for little girls +to write love-poetry in the name of their aunts."</p> + +<p>"To write love-poetry is at no time the function of little girls," said +the friend.</p> + +<p>"Such conduct cannot be too strongly censured," said Manske. "But to do +it in the name of someone else is not only not <i>mädchenhaft</i>, it is +sinful."</p> + +<p>"These English little girls appear to know no shame," said his wife.</p> + +<p>"Truly they might learn much from our own female youth," said the +friend.</p> + +<p>Letty's poems had undoubtedly been the indirect cause of the fire, of +Axel's arrest, and of his marriage with Anna. But if they had brought +about Anna's happiness, a happiness more complete and perfect than any +of which she had dreamed, they had also brought about Klutz's ruin. For +Klutz, shattered in nerves, weak of will, overcome by the state of his +conscience and the possible terrors of the next world, with the blood of +three generations of pastors in his veins, every drop of which cried out +to him day and night to save his soul at least, whatever became of his +body, Klutz had confessed. He was only twenty, he knew himself to be +really harmless, he had never had any intentions worse than foolish, and +here he was, ruined. The act had been an act of temporary madness; and +influenced by Dellwig, he had saved his skin afterwards as best he +could. Now there was the price to pay, the heavy price, so tremendous +when compared to the smallness of the follies that had led him on step +by step. His bad genius, Dellwig, went free; and later on lived +sufficiently far away from Kleinwalde to be greatly respected to the end +of his days. Manske's eyes filled with tears when he came to the action +of Providence in this matter—the mysteriousness of it, the utter +inscrutableness of it, letting the morally responsible go unpunished, +and allowing the poor young vicar, handicapped from his very entrance +into the world by his weakness of character, to be overtaken on the +threshold of life by so terrific a fate. "Truly the ways of Providence +are past finding out," said Manske, sorrowfully shaking his head.</p> + +<p>"I never did believe in Klutz," said his wife, thinking of her apple +jelly.</p> + +<p>"Woman, kick not him who is down," said her husband, turning on her with +reproachful sternness.</p> + +<p>"Kick!" echoed his wife, tossing her head at this rebuke, administered +in the presence of the friend; "I am not, I hope, so unwomanly as to +kick."</p> + +<p>"It is a figure of speech," mildly explained the friend.</p> + +<p>"I like it not," said Frau Manske gloomily.</p> + +<p>"Peace," said her husband.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="BY_THE_SAME_AUTHOR" id="BY_THE_SAME_AUTHOR"></a>BY THE SAME AUTHOR</h2> + + +<h4>Elizabeth and Her German Garden</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"What a captivating book it is—how merry and gentle and sunny, how +whimsically wise and tender! There is real humor in these pages, +and for that reason, if for no other, it deserves to live. The new +chapter, describing the author's pious pilgrimage to the garden of +her childhood, is inimitable in its way, and should not be missed +by any admirer of this most winning Elizabeth."—<i>New York +Tribune.</i></p> + +<p>"Elizabeth is pure sunshine and without a shadow, the reflection, +as it were, of a quiet existence, and never a commonplace one; for, +without knowing it or suspecting it, she is an idealist. Elizabeth +never tires, for has she not her husband, her little ones, and her +books to talk about? These passages, as found in 'Elizabeth' in the +quiet history of a woman's life, act as useful tonics or are the +necessary sedatives in our somewhat fevered existence."—<i>New York +Times.</i></p></div> + + +<h4>The Solitary Summer</h4> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"'The Solitary Summer' affords a generous harvest of beautiful and +poetic thoughts, together with some keen observations of life, all +of which are expressed in a graceful and supple prose.... It is a +privilege to have stood for a time upon the veranda steps and to +have caught a glimpse of that sane refuge."—<i>Chicago Tribune.</i></p> + +<p>"Full of sunshine and fresh breezes, riotous with the bloom and +fragrance of flowers, spicy with the damp cool breath of pines.... +The quaint, whimsical fancies of a cultivated, lovable woman create +a golden atmosphere through which we see her life, and we dream +with her on her bench in her garden, in the fields where the yellow +lupins grow, and in the mossy deeps of the pine forest. We feel we +have made another friend, one who sees life with gentle, smiling +eyes and from a deliciously humorous point of view."—<i>Recreation.</i></p> + +<p>"A garden of absorbing interest to its owner, a library full of +books to comfort rainy days, a hamlet of German peasants, three +delightful babies, and a 'man of wrath' who by no means merits the +title,—these are the simple elements from which a bright woman, +too cosmopolitan to be thought wholly German, as she calls herself, +has evolved a charming little book."—<i>The Nation.</i></p> + +<p>"She has a depth of feeling, a sense of humor, and an impetuous and +ardent manner that make her chronicles thoroughly alive. Beside +this lovable book other feminine essays on nature, literature, and +life seem only tame and artificial performances."—<i>New York +Tribune.</i></p></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h3>The April Baby's Book of Tunes</h3> + +<h4>WITH THE STORY OF HOW THEY CAME TO BE WRITTEN</h4> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Illustrated by</span> KATE GREENAWAY</h4> + +<p>A running commentary in the quaintly humorous style characteristic of +the writer, describes the teaching of a dozen or more popular nursery +songs to the author's three little maids, the April, May, and June Baby +respectively. The music for each is given, and charming illustrations in +color complete an unusually attractive holiday book.</p> + +<p>Full of the sayings of three of the most delightfully amusing and +original children in the book world—the June Baby who loudly sings "The +King of Love My Shepherd is," swinging her kitten around by its tail to +emphasize the rhythm,—the loving little May Baby who says, "Directly +you comes home, the fun begins," sitting very close to her mother,—and +the quaint April Baby, concerning whom there are fears that she may turn +out a genius and thus disgrace her parents, Elizabeth and "The Man of +Wrath."</p> + +<p>Readers of the charming companion volumes whose authorship has been the +subject of so much recent discussion will delight in this little sequel, +which will make a most appropriate gift during the coming season to many +a mother of little ones who has had at some time to meet the problem of +how the babies can be saved from corners when there are no lessons, and +storms have forbidden exercise for them and their nurses, too. Its +pictures of a German nursery and the delicious discussions of these +toddlers over the various songs are extremely bright and entertaining, +and most aptly supplemented by Kate Greenaway's quaint and daintily +colored illustrations, of which there are sixteen, besides decorative +designs, chapter headings, etc.</p> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30302 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/30302-h/images/cover.jpg b/30302-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..eb06c94 --- /dev/null +++ b/30302-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b124a2a --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #30302 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30302) diff --git a/old/30302-8.txt b/old/30302-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7493c12 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/30302-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13300 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Benefactress, by Elizabeth Beauchamp + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Benefactress + +Author: Elizabeth Beauchamp + +Release Date: October 20, 2009 [EBook #30302] +[Last updated: January 20, 2023] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BENEFACTRESS *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + The Benefactress + + BY THE AUTHOR OF "ELIZABETH AND HER GERMAN GARDEN" + + +New York +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY +LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. +1901 + +_All rights reserved_ + +Copyright, 1901, +By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. + +Norwood Press +J. S. Gushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith +Norwood Mass. U.S.A. + + + + + Man bedarf der Leitung + Und der männlichen Begleitung. + + WILHELM BUSCH. + + + + +THE BENEFACTRESS + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +When Anna Estcourt was twenty-five, and had begun to wonder whether the +pleasure extractable from life at all counterbalanced the bother of it, +a wonderful thing happened. + +She was an exceedingly pretty girl, who ought to have been enjoying +herself. She had a soft, irregular face, charming eyes, dimples, a +pleasant laugh, and limbs that were long and slender. Certainly she +ought to have been enjoying herself. Instead, she wasted her time in +that foolish pondering over the puzzles of existence, over those +unanswerable whys and wherefores, which is as a rule restricted, among +women, to the elderly and plain. Many and various are the motives that +impel a woman so to ponder; in Anna's case the motive was nothing more +exalted than the perpetual presence of a sister-in-law. The +sister-in-law was rich--in itself a pleasing circumstance; but the +sister-in-law was also frank, and her husband and Anna were entirely +dependent on her, and her richness and her frankness combined urged her +to make fatiguingly frequent allusions to the Estcourt poverty. Except +for their bad taste her husband did not mind these allusions much, for +he considered that he had given her a full equivalent for her money in +bestowing his name on a person who had practically none: he was Sir +Peter Estcourt of the Devonshire Estcourts, and she was a Dobbs of +Birmingham. Besides, he was a philosopher, and philosophers never mind +anything. But Anna was in a less agreeable situation. She was not a +philosopher, she was thin-skinned, she had bestowed nothing and was +taking everything, and she was of an independent nature; and an +independent nature, where there is no money, is a great nuisance to its +possessor. + +When she was younger and more high-flown she sometimes talked of +sweeping crossings; but her sister-in-law Susie would not hear of +crossings, and dressed her beautifully, and took her out, and made her +dance and dine and do as other girls did, being of opinion that a rich +husband of good position was more satisfactory than crossings, and far +more likely to make some return for all the expenses she had had. + +At eighteen Anna was so pretty that the perfect husband seemed to be a +mere question of days. What could the most desirable of men, thought +Susie, considering her, want more than so bewitching a young creature? +But he did not come, somehow, that man of Susie's dreams; and after a +year or two, when Anna began to understand what all this dressing and +dancing really meant, and after she had had offers from people she did +not like, and had herself fallen in love with a youth of no means who +was prudent enough to marry somebody else with money, she shrank back +and grew colder, and objected more and more decidedly to Susie's +strenuous private matrimonial urgings, and sometimes made remarks of a +cynical nature to her admirers, who took fright at such symptoms of +advancing age, and fell off considerably in numbers. + +It was at this period, when she was barely twenty-two, that she spoke of +crossings. Susie had seriously reproved her for not meeting the advances +of an old and rich and single person with more enthusiasm, and had at +the same time alluded to the number of pounds she had spent on her every +year for the last three years, and the necessity for putting an end, by +marrying, to all this outlay; and instead of being sensible, and talking +things over quietly, Anna had poured out a flood of foolish sentiments +about the misery of knowing that she was expected to be nice to every +man with money, the intolerableness of the life she was leading, and the +superior attractions of crossing-sweeping as a means of earning a +livelihood. + +"Why, you haven't enough money for the broom," said Susie impatiently. +"You can't sweep without a broom, you know. I wish you were a little +less silly, Anna, and a little more grateful. Most girls would jump at +the splendid opportunity you've got now of marrying, and taking up a +position of your own. You talk a great deal of stuff about being +independent, and when you get the chance, and I do all I can to help +you, you fly into a passion and want to sweep a crossing. Really," added +Susie, twitching her shoulder, "you might remember that it isn't all +roses for me either, trying to get some one else's daughter married." + +"Of course it isn't all roses," said Anna, leaning against the +mantelpiece and looking down at her with perplexed eyebrows. "I am very +sorry for you. I wish you weren't so anxious to get rid of me. I wish I +could do something to help you. But you know, Susie, you haven't taught +me a trade. I can't set up on my own account unless you'll give me a +last present of a broom, and let me try my luck at the nearest crossing. +The one at the end of the street is badly kept. What do you think if I +started there?" What answer could anyone make to such folly? + +By the time she was twenty-four, nearly all the girls who had come out +when she did were married, and she felt as though she were a ghost +haunting the ball-rooms of a younger generation. Disliking this feeling, +she stiffened, and became more and more unapproachable; and it was at +this period that she invented excuses for missing most of the functions +to which she was invited, and began to affect a simplicity of dress and +hair arrangement that was severe. Susie's exasperation was now at its +height. "I don't know why you should be bent on making the worst of +yourself," she said angrily, when Anna absolutely refused to alter her +hair. + +"I'm tired of being frivolous," said Anna. "Have you an idea how long +those waves took to do? And you know how Hilton talks. It all gets +whisked up now in two minutes, and I'm spared her conversation." + +"But you are quite plain," cried Susie. "You are not like the same girl. +The only thing your best friend could say about you now is that you look +clean." + +"Well, I like to look clean," said Anna, and continued to go about the +world with hair tucked neatly behind her ears; her immediate reward +being an offer from a clergyman within the next fortnight. + +Peter Estcourt was even more surprised than his wife that Anna had not +made a good match years before. Of course she had no money, but she was +a pretty girl of good family, and it ought to be easy enough for her to +find a husband. He wished heartily that she might soon be happily +married; for he loved her, and knew that she and Susie could never, with +their best endeavours, be great friends. Besides, every woman ought to +have a home of her own, and a husband and children. Whenever he thought +of Anna, he thought exactly this; and when he had reached the +proposition at the end he felt that he could do no more, and began to +think of something else. + +His marriage with Susie, a person of whom no one had ever heard, had +brought out and developed stores of unsuspected philosophy in him. +Before that he was quite poor, and very merry; but he loved Estcourt, +and could not bear to see it falling into ruin, and he loved his small +sister, who was then only ten, and wished to give her a decent +education, and what is a man to do? There happened to be no rich +American girls about at that time, so he married Miss Dobbs of +Birmingham, and became a philosopher. + +It was hard on Susie that he should become a philosopher at her expense. +She did not like philosophers. She did not understand their silent ways, +and their evenness of temper. After she had done all that Peter wanted +in regard to the place in Devonshire, and had provided Anna with every +luxury in the shape of governesses, and presented her husband with an +heir to the retrieved family fortunes, she thought that she had a right +to some enjoyment too, to some gratification from her position, and was +surprised to find how little was forthcoming. Really no one could do +more than she had done, and yet nothing was done for her. Peter fished, +and read, and was with difficulty removable from Estcourt. Anna was, of +course, too young to be grateful, but there she was, taking everything +as a matter of course, her very unconsciousness an irritation. Susie +wanted to get on in the world, and nobody helped her. She wanted to bury +the Dobbs part of herself, and develop the Estcourt part; but the Dobbs +part was natural, and the Estcourt superficial, and the Dobbses were one +and all singularly unattractive--a race of eager, restless, wiry little +men and women, anxious to get as much as they could, and keep it as long +as they could, a family succeeding in gathering a good deal of money +together in one place, and failing entirely in the art of making +friends. Susie was the best of them, and had been the pretty one at +home; yet she was not in the least a success in London. She put it down +to Peter's indifference, to his slowness in introducing her to his +friends. It was no more Peter's fault than it was her own. It was not +her fault that she was not pretty--there never had been a beautiful +Dobbs--and it was not her fault that she was so unfortunately frank, and +never could and never did conceal her feverish eagerness to make +desirable acquaintances, and to get into desirable sets. Until Anna came +out she was invited only to the big functions to which the whole world +went; and the hours she passed at them were not among the most blissful +of her life. The people who were at first inclined to be kind to her for +Peter's sake, dropped off when they found how her eagerness to attract +the attention of some one mightier made her unable to fix her thoughts +on the friendly remarks that they were taking pains to make. In society +she was absent-minded, fidgety, obviously on the look-out for a chance +of drawing the biggest fish into her little net; but, wealthy as she +was, she was not wealthy enough in an age of millionnaires, and not once +during the whole of her career was a big fish simple enough to be +caught. + +After a time her natural shrewdness and common sense made her perceive +that her one claim to the scanty attentions she did receive was her +money. Her money had bought her Peter, and a pleasant future for her +children; it had converted a Dobbs into an Estcourt; it had given her +everything she had that was worth anything at all. Once she had +thoroughly realised this, she began to attach a tremendous importance to +the mere possession of money, and grew very stingy, making difficulties +about spending that grieved Peter greatly; not because he ever wanted +her money now that Estcourt had been restored to its old splendour and +set going again for their boy, but because meanness about money in a +woman was something he could not comprehend--something repulsive, +unfeminine, contrary to her nature as he had always understood it. He +left off making the least suggestion about Anna's education or the +household arrangements; everything that was done was done of Susie's own +accord; and he spent more and more time in Devonshire, and grew more and +more philosophical, and when he did talk to his wife, restricted his +conversation to the language of abstract wisdom. + +Now this was very hard on Susie, who had no appreciation of abstract +wisdom, and who lived as lonely a life as it is possible to imagine. +Peter kept out of her way. Anna was subject to prolonged fits of chilly +silence. Susie used, at such times, to think regretfully of the cheerful +Dobbs days, of their frank and congenial vulgarity. + +When Anna was eighteen, Susie's prospects brightened for a time. Doors +that had been shut ever since she married, opened before her on her +appearing with such a pretty _débutante_ under her wing, and she could +enjoy the reflected glory of Anna's little triumphs. And then, without +any apparent reason, Anna had altered so strangely, and had disappointed +every one's expectations; never encouraging the right man, never ready +to do as she was told, exasperatingly careless on all matters of vital +importance, and ending by showing symptoms of freezing into something of +the same philosophical state as Peter. Their mother had been German----a +lady-in-waiting to one of the German princesses; and their father had +met her and married her while he was secretary at the English Embassy in +St. Petersburg. And Susie, who had heard of German philosophy and German +stolidity, and despised them both with all her heart, concluded that the +German strain was accountable for everything about Peter and Anna that +was beyond her comprehension; and sometimes, when Peter was more than +usually wise and unapproachable, would call him Herr Schopenhauer--which +had an immediate effect of producing a silence that lasted for weeks; +for not only did he like her least when she was playful, but he had, as +a matter of fact, read a great deal of Schopenhauer, and was uneasily +conscious that it had not been good for him. + +While Peter fished, and meditated on the vanity of human wishes at +Estcourt, Anna, with rare exceptions, was wherever Susie was, and Susie +was wherever it was fashionable to be. For a week or two in the summer, +for a day or two at Easter, they went down to Devonshire; and Anna might +wander about the old house and grounds as she chose, and feel how much +better she had loved it in its tumble-down state, the state she had +known as a child, when her mother lived there and was happy. Everything +was aggressively spruce now, indoors and out. Susie's money and Susie's +taste had rubbed off all the mellowness and all the romance. Anna was +glad to leave it again, and be taken to Marienbad, or any place where +there was royalty, for Susie loved royalty. But what a life it was, +going round year after year with Susie! London, Devonshire, Marienbad, +Scotland, London again, following with patient feet wherever the +unconscious royalties led, meeting the same people, listening to the +same music, talking the same talk, eating the same dinners--would no one +ever invent anything new to eat? The inexpressible boredom of riding up +and down the Row every morning, the unutterable hours shopping and +trying on clothes, the weariness of all the new pictures, and all the +concerts, and all the operas, which seemed to grow less pleasing every +year, as her eye and ear grew more critical. She knew at last every note +of the stock operas and concerts, and every note seemed to have got on +to her nerves. + +And then the people they knew--the everlasting sameness of them, content +to go the same dull round for ever. Driving in the Park with Susie, +neither of them speaking a word, she used to watch the faces in the +other carriages, nearly all faces of acquaintances, to see whether any +of them looked cheerful; and it was the rarest thing to come across any +expression but one of blankest boredom. Bored and cross, hardly ever +speaking to the person with them, their friends drove up and down every +afternoon, and she and Susie did the same, as silent and as bored as any +of them. A few unusually beautiful, or unusually witty, or unusually +young persons appeared to find life pleasant and looked happy, but they +avoided Susie. Her set was made up of the dull and plain; and all the +amusing people, and all the interesting people, turned their backs with +one accord on her and it. + +These were the circumstances that drove Anna to reflect on the problems +of life every time she was beyond the sound of Susie's voice. + +She passionately resented her position of dependence on Susie, and she +passionately resented the fact that the only way to get out of it was to +marry. Every time she had an offer, she first of all refused it with an +energy that astonished the unhappy suitor, and then spent days and +nights of agony because she had refused it, and because Susie wanted her +to accept it, and because of an immense pity for Susie that had taken +possession of her heart. How could Peter live so placidly at Susie's +expense, and treat her with such a complete want of tenderness? Anna's +love for her brother diminished considerably directly she began to +understand Susie's life. It was such a pitiful little life of cringing, +and pushing, and heroically smiling in the face of ill-treatment. No one +cared for her in the very least. She had hundreds of acquaintances, who +would eat her dinners and go away and poke fun at her, but not a single +friend. Her husband lived on her and hardly spoke to her. Her boy at +Eton, an amazing prig, looked down on her. Her little daughter never +dreamed of obeying her. Anna herself was prevented by some stubborn +spirit of fastidiousness, evidently not possessed by any of her +contemporaries, from doing the only thing Susie had ever really wanted +her to do--marrying, and getting herself out of the way. What if Susie +were a vulgar little woman of no education and no family? That did not +make it any the more glorious for the Estcourts to take all they could +and ignore her existence. It was, after all, Susie who paid the bills. +Anna pitied her from the bottom of her heart; such a forlorn little +woman, taken out of her proper sphere, and left to shiver all alone, +without a shred of love to cover and comfort her. + +It was when she was away from Susie that she felt this. When she was +with her, she found herself as cold and quiet and contradictory as +Peter. She used, whenever she got the chance, to go to afternoon service +at St. Paul's. It was the only place and time in which all the bad part +of her was soothed into quiet, and the good allowed to prevail in peace. +The privacy of the great place, where she never met anyone she knew, the +beauty of the music, the stateliness of the service offered every day in +equal perfection to any poor wretch choosing to turn his back for an +hour on the perplexities of life, all helped to hush her grievances to +sleep and fill her heart with tenderness for those who were not happy, +and for those who did not know they were unhappy, and for those who +wasted their one precious life in being wretched when they might have +been happy. How little it would need, she thought (for she was young and +imaginative), to turn most people's worries and sadness into joy. Such a +little difference in Susie's ways and ideas would make them all so +happy; such a little change in Peter's habits would make his wife's life +radiant. But they all lived blindly on, each day a day of emptiness, +each of those precious days, so crowded with opportunities, and +possibilities, and unheeded blessings, and presently life would be +behind them, and their chances gone for ever. + +"The world is a dreadful place, full of unhappy people," she thought, +looking out on to the world with unhappy eyes. "Each one by himself, +with no one to comfort him. Each one with more than he can bear, and no +one to help him. Oh, if I could, I would help and comfort everyone that +is sad, or sick at heart, or sorry--oh, if I could!" + +And she dreamed of all that she would do if she were Susie--rich, and +free from any sort of interference--to help others, less fortunate, to +be happy too. But, since she was the very reverse of rich and free, she +shook off these dreams, and made numbers of good resolutions +instead--resolutions bearing chiefly on her future behaviour towards +Susie. And she would come out of the church filled with the sternest +resolves to be ever afterwards kind and loving to her; and the very +first words Susie uttered would either irritate her into speeches that +made her sorry, or freeze her back into her ordinary state of cold +aloofness. + +If Susie had had an idea that Anna was pitying her, and making good +resolutions of which she was the object at afternoon services, and that +in her eyes she had come to be merely a cross which must with heroism be +borne, she probably would have been indignant. Pitying people and being +pitied oneself are two very different things. The first is soothing and +sweet, the second is annoying, or even maddening, according to the +temperament of the patient. Susie, however, never suspected that anyone +could be sorry for her; and when, after a party, before they went to +bed, Anna would put her arms round her and give her a disproportionately +tender kiss, she would show her surprise openly. "Why, what's the +matter?" she would ask. "Another mood, Anna?" For she could not know how +much Anna felt the snubs she had seen her receive. How should she? She +was so used to them that she hardly noticed them herself. + +It was when Anna was twenty-five, and much vexed in body by efforts to +be and to do as Susie wished, and in soul by those unanswerable +questions as to the why and wherefore of the aimless, useless existence +she was leading, that the wonderful thing happened that changed her +whole life. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +There was a German relation of Anna's, her mother's brother, known to +Susie as Uncle Joachim. He had been twice to England; once during his +sister's life, when Anna was little, and Peter was unmarried, and they +were all poor and happy together at Estcourt; and once after Susie's +introduction into the family, just at that period when Anna was +beginning to stiffen and put her hair behind her ears. + +Susie knew all about him, having inquired with her usual frankness on +first hearing of his existence whether he would be likely to leave Anna +anything on his death; and upon being informed that he had a family of +sons, and large estates and little money, looked upon it as a great +hardship to be obliged to have him in her London house. She objected to +all Germans, and thought this particular one a dreadful old man, and +never wearied of making humorous comments on his clothes and the oddness +of his manners at meals. She was vexed that he should be with them in +Hill Street, and refused to give dinners while he was there. She also +asked him several times if he would not enjoy a stay at Estcourt, and +said that the country was now at its best, and the primroses were in +full beauty. + +"I want not primroses," said Uncle Joachim, who seldom spoke at length; +"I live in the country. I will now see London." + +So he went about diligently to all the museums and picture-galleries, +sometimes alone and sometimes with Anna, who neglected her social duties +more than ever in order to be with him, for she loved him. + +They talked together chiefly in German, Uncle Joachim carefully +correcting her mistakes; and while they went frugally in omnibuses to +the different sights, and ate buns in confectioners' shops at +lunch-time, and walked long distances where no omnibuses were to be +found--for besides having a great fear of hansoms he was very +thrifty--he drew her out, saying little himself, and in a very short +time knew almost as much about her life and her perplexities as she did. + +She was very happy during his visit, and told herself contentedly that +blood, after all, was thicker than water. She did not stop to consider +what she meant exactly by this, but she had a vague notion that Susie +was the water. She felt that Uncle Joachim understood her better than +anyone had yet done; and was it not natural that her dear mother's +brother should? And it was only after she had taken him to service at +St. Paul's that she began to perceive that there might perhaps be points +on which their tastes differed. Uncle Joachim had remained seated while +other people knelt or stood; but that did not matter in that liberal +place, where nobody notices the degree of his neighbour's devoutness. +And he had slept during the anthem, one of those unaccompanied anthems +that are sung there with what seem of a certainty to be the voices of +angels. And on coming out, when a fugue was rolling in glorious +confusion down the echoing aisles, and Anna, who preferred her fugues +confused, felt that her spirit was being caught up to heaven, he had +looked at her rapt face and wet eyelashes, and patted her hand very +kindly, and said encouragingly, "In my youth I too cultivated Bach. Now +I cultivate pigs. Pigs are better." + +Anna's mother had been his only sister, and he had come over, not, as he +told Susie, to see London, but to see Susie herself, and to find out how +it was that Anna had reached an age that in Germany is the age of old +maids without marrying. By the time he had spent two evenings in Hill +Street he had formed his opinion of his nephew and his nephew's wife, +and they remained fixed until his death. "The good Peter," he said +suddenly one day to Anna when they were wandering together in the maze +at Hampton Court--for he faithfully went the rounds of sightseeing +prescribed by Baedeker, and Anna followed him wherever he went--"the +good Peter is but a _Quatschkopf_." + +"A _Quatschkopf_?" echoed Anna, whose acquaintance with her +mother-tongue did not extend to the byways of opprobrium. "What in the +world is a _Quatschkopf_?" + +"_Quatschkopf_ is a _Duselfritz_," explained Uncle Joachim, "and also it +is the good Peter." + +"I believe you are calling him ugly names," said Anna, slipping her arm +through his; by this time, if not kindred spirits, they were the best of +friends. + +Uncle Joachim did not immediately reply. They had come to the open space +in the middle of the maze, and he sat down on the seat to recover his +breath, and to wipe his forehead; for though the wind was cold the sun +was fierce. "_Gott, was man Alles durchmacht auf Reisen!_" he sighed. +Then he put his handkerchief back into his pocket, looked up at Anna, +who was standing in front of him leaning on her sunshade, and said, "A +_Quatschkopf_ is a foolish fellow who marries a woman like that." + +"Oh, poor Susie!" cried Anna, at once ready to defend her, and full of +the kindly feelings absence invariably produced. "Peter did a very +sensible thing. But I don't think Susie did, marrying Peter." + +"He is a _Quatschkopf_," said Uncle Joachim, not to be shaken in his +opinions, "and the _geborene_ Dobbs is a vulgar woman who is not rich +enough." + +"Not rich enough? Why, we are all suffocated by her money. We never hear +of anything else. It would be dreadful if she had still more." + +"Not rich enough," persisted Uncle Joachim, pursing up his lips into an +expression of great disapproval, and shaking his head. "Such a woman +should be a millionnaire. Not of marks, but of pounds sterling. Short of +that, a man of birth does not impose her as a mother on his children. +Peter has done it. He is a _Quatschkopf_." + +"It is a great mercy that she isn't a millionnaire," said Anna, appalled +by the mere thought. "Things would be just the same, except that there +would be all that money more to hear about. I hate the very name of +money." + +"Nonsense. Money is very good." + +"But not somebody else's." + +"That is true," said Uncle Joachim approvingly. "One's own is the only +money that is truly pleasant." Then he added suddenly, "Tell me, how +comes it that you are not married?" + +Anna frowned. "Now you are growing like Susie," she said. + +"_Ach_--she asks you that often?" + +"Yes--no, not quite like that. She says she knows why I am not married." + +"And what knows she?" + +"She says that I frighten everybody away," said Anna, digging the point +of her sunshade into the ground. Then she looked at Uncle Joachim, and +laughed. + +"What?" he said incredulously. This pretty creature standing before him, +so soft and young--for that she was twenty-four was hardly +credible--could not by any possibility be anything but lovable. + +"She says that I am disagreeable to people--that I look cross--that I +don't encourage them enough. Now isn't it simply terrible to be expected +to encourage any wretched man who has money? I don't want anybody to +marry me. I don't want to buy my independence that way. Besides, it +isn't really independence." + +"For a woman it is the one life," said Uncle Joachim with great +decision. "Talk not to me of independence. Such words are not for the +lips of girls. It is a woman's pride to lean on a good husband. It is +her happiness to be shielded and protected by him. Outside the narrow +circle of her home, for her happiness is not. The woman who never +marries has missed all things." + +"I don't believe it," said Anna. + +"It is nevertheless true." + +"Look at Susie--is she so happy?" + +"I said a _good_ husband; not a _Duselfritz_." + +"And as for narrow circles, why, how happy, how gloriously happy, I +could be outside them, if only I were independent!" + +"Independent--independent," repeated Uncle Joachim testily, "always this +same foolish word. What hast thou in thy head, child, thy pretty woman's +head, made, if ever head was, to lean on a good man's shoulder?" + +"Oh--good men's shoulders," said Anna, shrugging her own, "I don't want +to lean on anybody's shoulder. I want to hold my head up straight, all +by itself. Do you then admire limp women, dear uncle, whose heads roll +about all loose till a good man comes along and props them up?" + +"These are English ideas. I like them not," said Uncle Joachim, looking +stony. + +Anna sat down on the seat by his side, and laid her cheek for a moment +against his sleeve. "This is the only good man's shoulder it will ever +lean on," she said. "If I were a preacher, do you know what I would +preach?" + +"Thou art not, and never wilt be, a preacher." + +"But if I were? Do you know what I would preach? Early and late? In +season and out of it?" + +"Much nonsense, I doubt not." + +"I would preach independence. Only that. Always that. They would be +sermons for women only; and they would be warnings against props." + +She sat up and looked at him out of the corners of her eyes, but he +continued to stare stonily into space. + +"I would thump the cushions, and cry out, 'Be independent, independent, +independent! Don't talk so much, and do more. Go your own way, and let +your neighbour go his. Don't meddle with other people when you have all +your own work cut out for you being good yourself. Shake off all the +props----'" + +"Anna, thou art talking folly." + +"'--shake them off, the props tradition and authority offer you, and go +alone--crawl, stumble, stagger, but go alone. You won't learn to walk +without tumbles, and knocks, and bruises, but you'll never learn to walk +at all so long as there are props.' Oh," she said fervently, casting up +her eyes, "there is nothing, nothing like getting rid of one's props!" + +"I never yet," observed Uncle Joachim, in his turn casting up his eyes, +"saw a girl who so greatly needs the guidance of a good man. Hast thou +never loved, then?" he added, turning on her suddenly. + +"Yes," replied Anna promptly. If Uncle Joachim chose to ask such direct +questions she would give him straight answers. + +"But----?" + +"He went away and married somebody else. I had no money, and she had a +great deal. So you see he was a very sensible young man." And she +laughed, for she had long ago ceased to be anything but amused by the +remembrance of her one excursion into the rocky regions of love. + +"That," said Uncle Joachim, "was not true love." + +"Oh, but it was." + +"Nay. One does not laugh at love." + +"It was all I had, anyhow. There isn't any more left. It was very bad +while it lasted, and it took at least two years to get over it. What +things I did to please that young man and appear lovely in his eyes! The +hours it took to dress, and get my hair done just right. I endured +tortures if I didn't look as beautiful as I thought I could look, and +was always giving my poor maid notice. And plots--the way I plotted to +get taken to the places where he would be! I never was so artful before +or since. Poor Susie was quite helpless. It is a mercy it all ended as +it did." + +"That," repeated Uncle Joachim, "was not true love." + +"Yes, it was." + +"No, my child." + +"Yes, my uncle. I laugh now, but it was very dreadful at the time." + +"Thou art but a goose," he said, shrugging his shoulders; but +immediately patted her hand lest her feelings should have been hurt. +And, declining further argument, he demanded to be taken to the Great +Vine. + +It was in this fashion, Anna talking and Uncle Joachim making brief +comments, that he came to know her as thoroughly as though he had lived +with her all his life. + +Soon after the excursion to Hampton Court a letter came that hurried his +departure, to Susie's ill-concealed relief. + +"My swines are ill," he informed her, greatly agitated, his fragile +English going altogether to pieces in his perturbation; "my inspector +writes they perpetually die. God keep thee, Anna," and he embraced her +very tenderly, and bending hastily over Susie's hand muttered some +conventionalities, and then disappeared into his four-wheeler and out of +their lives. + +They never saw him again. + +"My swines are ill," mimicked Susie, when Anna, feeling that she had +lost her one friend, came slowly back into the room, "my swines +perpetually die--" + +Anna was obliged to go and pray very hard at St. Paul's before she could +forgive her. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +The old man died at Christmas, and in the following March, when Anna was +going about more sad and listless than ever, the news came that, though +his inherited estates had gone to his sons, he had bought a little place +some years before with the intention of retiring to it in his extreme +old age, and this little place he had left to his dear and only niece +Anna. + +She was alone when the letters bringing the news arrived, sitting in the +drawing-room with a book in her hands at which she did not look, feeling +utterly downcast, indifferent, too hopeless to want anything or mind +anything, accepting her destiny of years of days like this, with herself +going through them lonely, useless, and always older, and telling +herself that she did not after all care. "What does it matter, so long +as I have a comfortable bed, and fires when I am cold, and meals when I +am hungry?" she thought. "Not to have those is the only real misery. All +the rest is purest fancy. What right have I to be happier than other +people? If they are contented by such things, I can be contented too. +And what does a useless being like me deserve, I should like to know? It +was detestably ungrateful of me to have been unhappy all this time." + +She got up aimlessly, and looked out of the window into the sunny +street, where the dust was racing by on the gusty March wind, and the +women selling daffodils at the corner were more battered and blown about +and red-eyed than ever. She had often, in those moments when her whole +body tingled with a wild longing to be up and doing and justifying her +existence before it was too late, envied these poor women, because they +worked. She wondered vaguely now at her folly. "It is much better to be +comfortable," she thought, going back to the fire as aimlessly as she +had gone to the window, "and it is sheer idiocy quarrelling with a life +that other people would think quite tolerable." + +Then the door opened, and the letters were brought in--the wonderful +letters that struck the whole world into radiance--lying together with +bills and ordinary notes on a salver, carried by an indifferent servant, +handed to her as though they were things of naught--the wonderful +letters that changed her life. + +At first she did not understand what it was that they meant, and pored +over the cramped German writing, reading the long sentences over and +over again, till something suddenly seemed to clutch at her heart. Was +this possible? Was this actual truth? Was Uncle Joachim, who had so much +objected to her longing for independence, giving it to her with both +hands, and every blessing along with it? She read them through again, +very carefully, holding them with shaking hands. Yes, it was true. She +began to cry, sobbing over them for very love and tenderness, her whole +being melted into gratitude and humbleness, awestruck by a sense of how +little she had deserved it, dazzled by the thousand lovely colours life, +in the twinkling of an eye, had taken on. + +There were two letters--one from Uncle Joachim's lawyer, and one from +Uncle Joachim himself, written soon after his return from England, with +directions on the envelope that it was to be sent to Anna after his +death. + +Uncle Joachim was not a man to express sentiment otherwise than by +patting those he loved affectionately on the back, and the letter over +which Anna hung with such tender gratitude, and such an extravagance of +humility, was a mere bald statement of facts. Since Anna, with a +perversity that he entirely disapproved, refused to marry, and appeared +to be possessed of the obstinacy that had always been a peculiarity of +her German forefathers, and which was well enough in a man, but +undesirable in a woman, whose calling it was to be gentle and yielding +(_sanft und nachgiebig_), and convinced from what he had seen +during his visit to London that she could never by any possibility be +happy with her brother and sister-in-law, and moreover considering that +it was beneath the dignity of his sister's daughter, a young lady of +good family, for ever to roll herself in the feathers with which the +middle-class goose-born Dobbs had furnished Peter's otherwise defective +nest, he had decided to make her independent altogether of them, +numerous though his own sons were, and angry as they no doubt would be, +by bestowing on her absolutely after his death the only property he +could leave to whomsoever he chose, a small estate near Stralsund, where +he hoped to pass his last years. It was in a flourishing condition, easy +to manage, bringing in a yearly average of forty thousand marks, and +with an experienced inspector whom he earnestly recommended her to keep. +He trusted his dear Anna would go and live there, and keep it up to its +present state of excellence, and would finally marry a good German +gentleman, of whom there were many, and return in this way altogether to +the country of her forefathers. The estate was not so far from Stralsund +as to make it impossible for her to drive there when she wished to +indulge any feminine desire she might have to trim herself (_sich +putzen_), and he recommended her to begin a new life, settling there +with some grave and sober female advanced in years as companion and +protectress, until such time as she should, by marriage, pass into the +care of that natural protector, her husband. + +Then followed a short exposition of his views on women, especially those +women who go to parties all their lives and talk _Klatsch_; a spirited +comparing of such women with those whose interests keep them busy in +their own homes; and a final exhortation to Anna to seize this +opportunity of choosing the better life, which was always, he said, a +life of simplicity, frugality, and hard work. + +Anna wept and laughed together over this letter--the tenderest laughter +and the happiest tears. It seemed by turns the wildest improbability +that she should be well off, and the most natural thing in the world. +Susie was out. Never had her absence been terrible before. Anna could +hardly bear the waiting. She walked up and down the room, for sitting +still was impossible, holding the precious letters tight in her little +cold hands, her cheeks burning, her eyes sparkling, in an agony of +impatience and anxiety lest something should have happened to delay +Susie at this supreme moment. At the window end of the room she stopped +each time she reached it and looked eagerly up and down the street, the +flower-women and the blessedness of selling daffodils having within an +hour become profoundly indifferent to her. At the other end of the room, +where a bureau stood, she came to a standstill too, and snatching up a +pen began a letter to Peter in Devonshire; but, hearing wheels, threw it +down and flew to the window again. It was not Susie's carriage, and she +went back to the letter and wrote another line; then again to the +window; then again to the letter; and it was the letter's turn as Susie, +fagged from a round of calls, came in. + +Susie's afternoon had not been a success. She had made advances to a +woman of enviably high position with the intrepidity that characterised +all her social movements, and she had been snubbed for her pains with +more than usual rudeness. She had had, besides, several minor +annoyances. And to come in worn out, and have your sister-in-law, who +would hardly speak to you at luncheon, fall on your neck and begin +violently to kiss you, is really a little hard on a woman who is already +cross. + +"Now what in the name of fortune is the matter now?" gasped Susie, +breathlessly disengaging herself. + +"Oh, Susie! oh, Susie!" cried Anna incoherently, "what ages you have +been away--and the letters came directly you had gone--and I've been +watching for you ever since, and was so dreadfully afraid something had +happened----" + +"But what are you talking about, Anna?" interrupted Susie irritably. It +was late, and she wanted to rest for a few minutes before dressing to go +out again, and here was Anna in a new mood of a violent nature, and she +was weary beyond measure of all Anna's moods. + +"Oh, such a wonderful thing has happened!" cried Anna; "such a wonderful +thing! What will Peter say? And how glad you will be----" And she thrust +the letters with trembling fingers into Susie's unresponsive hand. + +"What is it?" said Susie, looking at them bewildered. + +"Oh, no--I forgot," said Anna, wildly as it seemed to Susie, pulling +them out of her hand again. "You can't read German--see here----" And +she began to unfold them and smooth out the creases she had made, her +hands shaking visibly. + +Susie stared. Clearly something extraordinary had happened, for the +frosty Anna of the last few months had melted into a radiance of emotion +that would only not be ridiculous if it turned out to be justified. + +"Two German letters," said Anna, sitting down on the nearest chair, +spreading them out on her lap, and talking as though she could hardly +get the words out fast enough, "one from Uncle Joachim----" + +"Uncle Joachim?" repeated Susie, a disagreeable and creepy doubt as to +Anna's sanity coming over her. "You know very well he's dead and can't +write letters," she said severely. + +"--and one from his lawyer," Anna went on, regardless of everything but +what she had to tell. "The lawyer's letter is full of technical words, +difficult to understand, but it is only to confirm what Uncle Joachim +says, and his is quite plain. He wrote it some time before he died, and +left it with his lawyer to send on to me." + +Susie was listening now with all her ears. Lawyers, deceased uncles, and +Anna's sparkling face could only have one meaning. + +"Uncle Joachim was our mother's only brother----" + +"I know, I know," interrupted Susie impatiently. + +"--and was the dearest and kindest of uncles to me----" + +"Never mind what he was," interrupted Susie still more impatiently. +"What has he done for you? Tell me that. You always pretended, both of +you--Peter too--that he had miles of sandy places somewhere in the +desert, and dozens of boys. What could he do for you?" + +"Do for me?" Anna rose up with a solemnity worthy of the great news +about to be imparted, put both her hands on Susie's little shoulders, +and looking down at her with shining eyes, said slowly, "He has left me +an estate bringing in forty thousand marks a year." + +"Forty thousand!" echoed Susie, completely awestruck. + +"Marks," said Anna. + +"Oh, marks," said Susie, chilled. "That's francs, isn't it? I really +thought for a moment----" + +"They're more than francs. It brings in, on an average, two thousand +pounds a year. Two--thousand--pounds--a--year," repeated Anna, nodding +her head at each word. "Now, Susie, what do you think of that?" + +"What do I think of it? Why, that it isn't much. Where would you all +have been, I wonder, if I had only had two thousand a year?" + +"Oh, congratulate me!" cried Anna, opening her arms. "Kiss me, and tell +me you are glad! Don't you see that I am off your hands at last? That we +need never think about husbands again? That you will never have to buy +me any more clothes, and never tire your poor little self out any more +trotting me round? I don't know which of us is to be congratulated +most," she added laughing, looking at Susie with her eyes full of tears. +Then she insisted on kissing her again, and murmured foolish things in +her ear about being so sorry for all her horrid ways, and so grateful to +her, and so determined now to be good for ever and ever. + +"My _dear_ Anna," remonstrated Susie, who disliked sentiment and never +knew how to respond to exhibitions of feeling. "Of course I congratulate +you. It almost seems as if throwing away one's chances in the way you +have done was the right thing to do, and is being rewarded. Don't let us +waste time. You know we go out to dinner. What has he left Peter?" + +"Peter?" said Anna wonderingly. + +"Yes, Peter. He was his nephew, I suppose, just as much as you were his +niece." + +"Well, but Susie, Peter is different. He--he doesn't need money as I do; +and of course Uncle Joachim knew that." + +"Nonsense. He hasn't got a penny. Let me look at the letters." + +"They're in German. You won't be able to read them." + +"Give them to me. I learned German at school, and got a prize. You're +not the only person in the world who can do things." + +She took them out of Anna's hand, and began slowly and painfully to read +the one from Uncle Joachim, determined to see whether there really was +no mention of Peter. Anna looked on, hot and cold by turns with fright +lest by some chance her early studies should not after all have been +quite forgotten. + +"Here's something about Peter--and me," Susie said suddenly. "At least, +I suppose he means me. It is something Dobbs. Why does he call me that? +It hasn't been my name for fifteen years." + +"Oh, it's some silly German way. He says the _geborene_ Dobbs, to +distinguish you from other Lady Estcourts." + +"But there are no others." + +"Oh, well, his sister was one. Give me the letter, Susie--I can tell you +what he says much more quickly than you can read it." + +"'_Unter der Würde einer jünge Dame aus guter Familie_,'" read out Susie +slowly, not heeding Anna, and with the most excruciating pronunciation +that was ever heard, "'_sich ewig auf den Federn, mit welchen die +bürgerliche Gans geborene Dobbs Peters sonst mangelhaftes Nest +ausgestattet hat, zu wälzen_.' What stuff he writes. I can hardly +understand it. Yet I must have been good at it at school, to get the +prize. What is that bit about me and Peter?" + +"Which bit?" said Anna, blushing scarlet. "Let me look." She got the +letter back into her possession. "Oh, that's where he says that--that he +doesn't think it fair that I should be a burden for ever on you and +Peter." + +"Well, that's sensible enough. The old man had some sense in him after +all, absurd though he was, and vulgar. It _isn't_ fair, of course. I +don't mean to say anything disagreeable, or throw all I have done for +you in your face, but really, Anna, few mothers would have made the +sacrifices I have for you, and as for sisters-in-law--well, I'd just +like to see another." + +"Dear Susie," said Anna tenderly, putting her arm round her, ready to +acknowledge all, and more than all, the benefits she had received, "you +have been only too kind and generous. I know that I owe you everything +in the world, and just think how lovely it is for me to feel that now I +can take my weight off your shoulders! You must come and live with _me_ +now, whenever you are sick of things, and I'll feel so proud, having you +in my house!" + +"Live with you?" exclaimed Susie, drawing herself away. "Where are you +going to live?" + +"Why, there, I suppose." + +"Live there! Is that a condition?" + +"No, but Uncle Joachim keeps on saying he hopes I will, and that I'll +settle down and look after the place." + +"Look after the place yourself? How silly!" + +"Yes, you haven't taught me much about farming, have you? He wants me to +turn quite into a German." + +"Good gracious!" cried Susie, genuinely horrified. + +"He seems to think that I ought to work, and not spend my life talking +_Klatsch_." + +"Talking what?" + +"It's what German women apparently talk when they get together. We +don't. I'd never do anything with such an ugly name, and I'm positive +you wouldn't." + +"Where is this place?" + +"Near Stralsund." + +"And where on earth is that?" + +"Ah," said Anna, investigating cobwebby corners of her memory, "that's +what I should like to be able to remember. Perhaps," she added honestly, +"I never knew. Let me call Letty, and ask her to bring her atlas." + +"Letty won't know," said Susie impatiently, "she only knows the things +she oughtn't to." + +"Oh, she isn't as wise as all that," said Anna, ringing the bell. +"Anyhow she has maps, which is more than we have." + +A servant was sent to request Miss Letty Estcourt to attend in the +drawing-room with her atlas. + +"Whatever's in the wind now?" inquired Letty, open-mouthed, of her +governess. "They're not going to examine me this time of night, are +they, Leechy?" For she suffered greatly from having a brother who was +always passing examinations and coming out top, and was consequently +subjected herself, by an ambitious mother who was sure that she must be +equally clever if she would only let herself go, to every examination +that happened to be going for girls of her age; so that she and Miss +Leech spent their days either on the defensive, preparing for these +unprovoked assaults, or in the state of collapse which followed the +regularly recurring defeat, and both found their lives a burden too +great to be borne. + +There was a preliminary scuffle of washing and brushing, and then Letty +marched into the drawing-room, her atlas under her arm and deep +suspicion on her face. But no bland and treacherous examiner was +visible, covering his preliminary movements with ghastly pleasantries; +only her mother and her pretty aunt. + +"Where's Stralsund?" they cried together, as she opened the door. + +Letty stopped short and stared. "What's that?" she asked. + +"It's a place--a place in Germany." + +"Letty, do you mean to tell me that you don't know where Stralsund is?" +asked Susie, in a voice that would have been of thunder if it had been +big enough. "Do you mean to say that after all the money I have spent on +your education you don't know _that_?" + +Was this a new form of torture? Was she to find the examining spirit +lurking even in the familiar and hitherto harmless forms of her mother +and her aunt? She openly showed her disgust. "If it's a place, it's in +this atlas," she said, "and if this is going to be an examination, I +don't think it's fair; and if it's a game, I don't like it." And she +threw her atlas unceremoniously on to the nearest chair; for though her +mother could force her to do many things, she could never, somehow, +force her to be respectful. + +"What a horror the child has of lessons!" cried Susie. "Don't be so +silly. We only want to see if you know where Stralsund is, that's all." + +"Tell us where it is, Letty," said Anna coaxingly, kneeling down in front +of the chair and opening the atlas. "Let us find the map of Germany and +look for it. Why, you did Germany for your last exam.--you must have it +all at your fingers' ends." + +"It didn't stay there, then," said Letty moodily; but she went over to +Anna, who was always kind to her, and began to turn over the +well-thumbed pages. + +Oh, what recollections lurked in those dirty corners! Surely it is hard +on a person of fourteen, who is as fond of enjoying herself as anybody +else, to be made to wrestle with maps upstairs in a dreary room, when +the sun is shining, and the voices of the children passing come up +joyously to the prison windows, and all the world is out of doors! Letty +thought so, and Miss Leech thought it hard on a person of thirty, and +each tried to console the other, but neither knew how, for their case +seemed very hopeless. Did not unending vistas of classes and lectures +stretch away before and behind them, dotted at intervals, oh, so +frequent! with the black spots of examinations? Was not the pavement of +Gower Street, and Kensington Square, and of all those districts where +girls can be lectured into wisdom, quite worn by their patient feet? And +then the accomplishments! Oh, what a life it was! A man came twice a +week and insisted on teaching her to fiddle; a highly nervous man, who +jerked her elbow and rapped her knuckles with his bow whenever she +played out of tune, which was all the time, and made bitter remarks of a +killingly sarcastic nature to Miss Leech when she stumbled over the +accompaniments. On Wednesdays there was a dancing class, where a pinched +young lady played the piano with the energy of despair, and a hot and +agile master with unduly turned-out toes taught the girls the Lancers, +earning his bread in the sweat of his brow. He also was sarcastic, but +he clothed his sarcasms in the garb of kindly fun, laughing gently at +them himself, and expecting his pupils to laugh too; which they did +uneasily, for the fun was of a personal nature, evoked by the clumsiness +or stupidity of one or other of them, and none knew when her own turn +might not come. The lesson ended with what he called the March of Grace +round the room, each girl by herself, no music to drown the noise her +shoes made on the bare boards, the others looking on, and the master +making comments. This march was terrible to Letty. All her nightmares +were connected with it. She was a podgy, dull-looking girl, fat and pale +and awkward, and her mother made her wear cheap shoes that creaked. +"Miss Estcourt has new shoes on again," the dancing master would say, +gently smiling, when Letty was well on her way round the room, cut off +from all human aid, conscious of every inch of her body, desperately +trying to be graceful. And everybody tittered except the victim. "You +know, Miss Estcourt," he would say at every second lesson, "there is a +saying that creaking shoes have not been paid for. I beg your pardon? +Did you say they had been paid for? Miss Estcourt says she does not +know." And he would turn to his other pupils with a shrug and a gentle +smile. + +On Saturday afternoons there were the Popular Concerts at St. James's +Hall to be gone to--Susie regarded them as educational, and +subscribed--and Letty, who always had chilblains on her feet in winter, +suffered tortures trying not to rub them; for as surely as she moved one +foot and began to rub the other with it, however gently, fierce +enthusiasts in the row in front would turn on her--old gentlemen of an +otherwise humane appearance, rapt ladies with eyeglasses and loose +clothes--and sh-sh her with furious hissings into immobility. "Oh, +Letty, _try_ and sit still," Miss Leech, who dreaded publicity, would +implore in a whisper; but who that has not had them can know the torture +of chilblains inside thick boots, where they cannot be got at? As soon +as the chilblains went, the Saturday concerts left off, and it seemed as +though Fate had nothing better to do than to be spiteful. + +It was indeed a dreadful thing, thought Letty, as she bent over the map +of Germany, to be young and to have to be made clever at all costs. Here +was her aunt even, her pretty, kind aunt, asking her geography questions +at seven o'clock at night, when she thought that she had really done +with lessons for one more day, and had been so much enjoying Leechy's +description of the only man she ever loved, while she comfortably +toasted cheese at the schoolroom fire. Anna, who spent such lofty hours +of spiritual exaltation at St. Paul's, and came away with her soul +melted into pity for the unhappy, and yearned with her whole being to +help them, never thought of Letty as a creature who might perhaps be +helped to cheerfulness with a little trouble. Letty was too close at +hand; and enthusiastic philanthropists, casting about for objects of +charity, seldom see what is at their feet. + +It was so difficult to find Stralsund that by the time Letty's wandering +finger had paused upon it Susie could only give one glance of horror at +its position, and hurry away with Anna to dress. Anna, too, would have +preferred it to be farther south, in the Black Forest, or some other +romantic region, where it would have amused her to go occasionally, at +least, for a few weeks in the summer. But there it was, as far north as +it could be, in a part of the world she had hardly heard of, except in +connection with dogs. + +It did not, however, matter where it was. Uncle Joachim had merely +recommended and not enjoined. It would be rather extraordinary for her +to go there and set up housekeeping alone. She need not go; she was +almost sure she would not go. Anyhow there was no necessity to decide at +once. The money was what she wanted, and she could spend it where she +chose. Let Uncle Joachim's inspector, of whom he wrote in such praise, +go on getting forty thousand marks a year out of the place, and she +would be perfectly content. + +She ran upstairs to put on her prettiest dress, and to have her hair +done in the curls and waves she had so long eschewed. Should she not +make herself as charming as possible for this charming world, where +everybody was so good and kind, and add her measure of beauty and +kindness to the rest? She beamed on Letty as she passed her on the +stairs, climbing slowly up with her big atlas, and took it from her and +would carry it herself; she beamed on Miss Leech, who was watching for +her pupil at the schoolroom door; she beamed on her maid, she beamed on +her own reflection in the glass, which indeed at that moment was that of +a very beautiful young woman. Oh happy, happy world! What should she do +with so much money? She, who had never had a penny in her life, thought +it an enormous, an inexhaustible sum. One thing was certain--it was all +to be spent in doing good; she would help as many people with it as she +possibly could, and never, never, never let them feel that they were +under obligations. Did she not know, after fifteen years of dependence +on Susie, what it was like to be under obligations? And what was more +cruelly sad and crushing and deadening than dependence? She did not yet +know what sort of people she would help, or in what way she would help, +but oh, she was going to make heaps of people happy forever! While +Hilton was curling her hair, she thought of slums; but remembered that +they would bring her into contact with the clergy, and most of her +offers of late had been from the clergy. Even the vicar who had prepared +her for confirmation, his first wife being then alive, and a second +having since been mourned, had wanted to marry her. "It's because I am +twenty-five and staid that they think me suitable," she thought; but she +could not help smiling at the face in the glass. + +When she was dressed and ready to go down she was forced to ask herself +whether the person that she saw in the glass looked in the least like a +person who would ever lead the simple, frugal, hard-working life that +Uncle Joachim had called the better life, and in which he seemed to +think she would alone find contentment. Certainly she knew him to be +very wise. Well, nothing need be decided yet. Perhaps she would +go--perhaps she would not. "It's this white dress that makes me look +so--so unsuitable," she said to herself, "and Hilton's wonderful waves." + +And she went downstairs trying not to sing, the sweetest of feminine +creatures, happiness and love and kindness shining in her eyes, a lovely +thing saved from the blight of empty years, and brought back to beauty, +by Uncle Joachim's timely interference. + +Letty and Miss Leech heard the singing, and stopped involuntarily in +their conversation. It was a strange sound in that dull and joyless +house. + +"I don't know what's the matter, Leechy," Letty had said, on her return +from the drawing-room, "but mamma and Aunt Anna are too weird to-night +for anything. What do you think they had me down for? They didn't know +where Stralsund was, and wanted to find out. They pretended they wanted +to see if _I_ knew, but I soon saw through that game. And Aunt Anna +looks frightfully happy. I believe she's going to be married, and wants +to go to Stralsund for the honeymoon." + +And Letty took up her toasting fork, while Miss Leech, as in duty bound, +refreshed her pupil's memory in regard to Stralsund and Wallenstein and +the Hansa cities generally. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Peter, meditating on the banks of the river at Estcourt, came to the +conclusion that a journey to London would be made unnecessary by the +equal efficacy of a congratulatory letter. + +He had been greatly moved by the news of his sister's good fortune, and +in the first flush of pleasure and sympathy had ordered his things to be +packed in readiness for his departure by the night train. Then he had +gone down to the river, and there, thinking the matter over quietly, +amid the soothing influences of grey sky, grey water, and green grass, +he gradually perceived that a letter would convey all that he felt quite +well, perhaps better than any verbal expressions of joy, and as he would +in any case only stay a few hours in town the long journey seemed hardly +worth while. He sent a letter, therefore, that very evening--a kind, +brotherly letter, in which, after heartily congratulating his dear +little sister, he said that it would be necessary for her to go over to +Germany, see the lawyer, and take possession of her property. When she +had done that, and made all arrangements as to the future payment of the +income derived from the estate, she would of course come back to them; +for Estcourt was always to be her home, and now that she was independent +she would no longer be obliged to be wherever Susie was, but would, he +hoped, come to him, and they could go fishing together,--"and there's +nothing to beat fishing," concluded Peter, "if you want peace." + +But Anna did not want peace; at least, not that kind of peace just at +that moment. Sitting in a punt was not what she wanted. She was thrilled +by the love of her less fortunate fellow-creatures, and the sense of +power to help them, and the longing to go and do it. What she really +wanted of Peter was that he should take her to Germany and help her +through the formalities; for before his letter arrived she too had seen +that that was the first thing to be done. + +Of this, however, he did not write a word. She thought he must have +forgotten, so natural did it appear to her that her brother should go +with her; and she wrote him a little note, asking when he would be able +to get away. She received a long letter in reply, full of regrets, +excuses, and good reasons, which she read wonderingly. Had she been +selfish, or was Peter selfish? She thought it all out carefully, and +found that it was she who had been selfish to expect Peter, always a +hater of business and a lover of quiet, to go all that way and worry +himself with tiresome money arrangements. Besides, perhaps he was not +feeling well. She knew he suffered from rheumatism; and when you have +rheumatism the mere thought of a long journey is appalling. + +Susie, whose head was very clear on all matters concerning money, had +also recognised the necessity of Anna's going to Germany, and had also +regarded Peter as the most natural companion and guide; but she was not +surprised when Anna told her that he could not go. "It was too much to +expect," apologised Anna. "He often has rheumatism in the spring, and +perhaps he has it now." + +Susie sniffed. + +"The question is," said Anna after a pause, "what am I to do, helpless +virgin, in spite of my years,--never able to do a thing for myself?" + +"I'll go with you." + +"You? But what about your engagements?" + +"Oh, I'll throw them over, and take you. Letty can come too. It will do +her German good. Herr Schumpf says he's ashamed of her." + +Susie had various reasons for offering herself so amiably, one being +certainly curiosity. But the chief one was that the same woman who had +been so rude to her the day Anna's news came, had sent out invitations +to all the world to her daughter's wedding after Easter, and had not +sent one to Susie. + +This was one of those trials that cannot be faced. If she, being in +London at the time, carefully explained to her friends that she was ill +that day, and did actually stay in bed and dose herself the days +preceding and following, who would believe her? Not if she waved a +doctor's certificate in their faces would they believe her. They would +know that she had not been invited, and would rejoice. She felt that she +could not bear it. An unavoidable business journey to the Continent was +exactly what she wanted to help her out of this desperate situation. On +her return she would be able to hear the wedding discussed and express +her disappointment at having missed it with a serene brow and a quiet +mind. + +It is doubtful whether she would have gone with Anna, however urgent +Anna's need, if she had been included in those invitations. But Anna, +who could not know the secret workings of her mind, once more remembered +her former treatment of Susie, so kind and willing to do all she could, +and hung her head with shame. + +They left London a day or two before Easter, Letty and Miss Leech, both +of them nearly ill with suppressed delight at the unexpected holiday, +going with them. They had announced their coming to Uncle Joachim's +lawyer, and asked him to make arrangements for their accommodation at +Kleinwalde, Anna's new possession. Susie proposed to stay a day in +Berlin, which would give Anna time to talk everything over with the +lawyer, and would enable Letty to visit the museums. She had a hopeful +idea that Letty would absorb German at every pore once she was in the +country itself, and that being brought face to face with the statues of +Goethe and Schiller on their native soil would kindle the sparks of +interest in German literature that she supposed every well-taught child +possessed, into the roaring flame of enthusiasm. She could not believe +that Letty had no sparks. One of her children being so abnormally +clever, it must be sheer obstinacy on the part of the other that +prevented it from acquiring the knowledge offered daily in such +unstinted quantities. She had no illusions in regard to Letty's person, +and felt that as she would never be pretty it was of importance that she +should at least be cultured. She sat opposite her daughter in the train, +and having nothing better to do during the long hours that they were +jolting across North Germany, looked at her; and the more she looked the +more unreasoningly angry she became that Peter's sister should be so +pretty and Peter's daughter so plain. And then so fat! What a horrible +thing to have to take a fat daughter about with you in society. Where +did she get it from? She herself and Peter were the leanest of mortals. +It must be that Letty ate too much, which was not only a disgusting +practice but an expensive one, and should be put down at once with +rigour. Susie had not had such an opportunity of thoroughly inspecting +her child for years, and the result of this prolonged examination of her +weak points was that she would not let any of the party have anything to +eat at all, declaring that it was vulgar to eat in trains, expressing +amazement that people should bring themselves to touch the +horrid-looking food offered, and turning her back in impatient disgust +on two stout German ladies who had got in at Oberhausen, and who were +enjoying their lunch quite unmoved by her contempt--one eating a chicken +from beginning to end without a fork, and the other taking repeated sips +of an obviously satisfactory nature from a big wine bottle, which was +used, in the intervals, as a support to her back. + +By the time Berlin was reached, these ladies, having been properly fed +all day, were very cheerful, whereas Susie's party was speechless from +exhaustion; especially poor Miss Leech, who was never very strong, and +so nearly fainted that Susie was obliged to notice it, and expressed a +conviction to Anna in a loud and peevish aside that Miss Leech was going +to be a nuisance. + +"It is strange," thought Anna, as she crept into bed, "how travelling +brings out one's worst passions." + +It is indeed strange; for it is certain that nothing equals the +expectant enthusiasm and mutual esteem of the start except the cold +dislike of the finish. Many are the friendships that have found an +unforeseen and sudden end on a journey, and few are those that survive +it. But if Horace Walpole and Grey fell out, if Byron and Leigh Hunt +were obliged to part, if a host of other personages, endowed with every +gift that makes companionship desirable, could not away with each other +after a few weeks together abroad, is it to be wondered at that weaker +vessels such as Susie and Anna, Letty and Miss Leech, should have found +the short journey from London to Berlin sufficient to enable them to see +one another's failings with a clearness of vision that was startling? + +On the lawyer, a keen-eyed man with a conspicuously fine face, Anna made +an entirely favourable impression. When he saw this gracious young lady, +so simple and so friendly, and looked into her frank and charming eyes, +he perfectly understood that old Joachim should have been bewitched. But +after a little conversation, it appeared that she had no present +intention of carrying out her uncle's wishes, but, setting them coolly +aside, proposed to spend all the good German money she could extract +from her property in that replete and bloated land, England. + +This annoyed him; first because he hated England and then because his +father had managed old Joachim's affairs before he himself had stepped +into the paternal shoes, and the feeling of both father and son for the +old man had been considerably warmer than is usual between lawyer and +client. Still he could not believe, judging after the manner of men, +that anything so pretty could also be unkind; and scrutinising Lady +Estcourt, because she was unattractive and had a sharp little face and a +restless little body, he was convinced that she it was who was the cause +of this setting aside of a dead benefactor's wishes. Susie, for her +part, patronised him because his collar turned down. + +Whenever Letty thought afterwards of Berlin, she thought of it as a +place where all the houses are museums, and where you drink so many cups +of chocolate with whipped cream on the top that you see things double +for the rest of the time. + +Anna thought of it as a charming place, where delightful lawyers fill +your purse with money. + +Susie thought of it with satisfaction as the one place abroad where, by +dint of sternest economy, walks from sight to sight in the rain, and +promiscuous cakes instead of the more satisfactory but less cheap meals +Letty called square, she had successfully defended herself from being, +as she put it, fleeced. + +To Miss Leech, it was merely a place where your feet get wet, and your +clothes are spoilt. + +Early the next morning they started for Kleinwalde. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Stralsund is an old town of gabled houses, ancient churches, and quaint, +roughly paved streets, forming an island, and joined to the mainland by +dikes. It looks its best in the early summer, when the green and marshy +plains on whose edge it stands are strewn with kingcups, and the little +white clouds hang over them almost motionless, and the cattle are out, +and the larks sing, and the orange and red sails of the fishing-smacks +on the narrow belt of sea that divides the town from the island of Rügen +make brilliant points of contrasting colour between the blue of water +and sky. There is a divine freshness and brightness about the +surrounding stretches of coarse grass and common flowers at that blest +season of the year. The air is full of the smell of the sea. The sun +beats down fiercely on plain and city. The people come out of the rooms +in which most of their life is spent, and stand in the doorways and +remark on the heat. An occasional heavy cart bumps over the stones, +heard in that sleepy place for several minutes before and after its +passing. There is an honest, tarry, fishy smell everywhere; and the +traveller of poetic temperament in search of the picturesque, and not +too nice about his comforts, could not fail, visiting it for the first +time in the month of June, to be wholly delighted that he had come. + +But in winter, and especially in those doubly gloomy days at the end of +winter, when spring ought to have shown some signs of its approach and +has not done so, those days of howling winds and driving rain and +frequent belated snowstorms, this plain is merely a bleak expanse of +dreariness, with a forlorn old town huddling in its farthest corner. + +It was at its very bleakest and dreariest on the morning that Susie and +her three companions travelled across it. "What a place!" exclaimed +Susie, as mile after mile was traversed, and there was still the same +succession of flat ploughed fields, marshes, and ploughed fields again, +with a rare group of furiously swaying pine trees or of silver birches +bent double before the wind. "What a part of the world to come and live +in! That old uncle of yours was as cracked as he could be to think you'd +ever stay here for good. And imagine spending even a single shilling +buying land here. I wouldn't take a barrowful at a gift." + +"Well, I am taking a great many barrowfuls," said Anna, "and I am sure +Uncle Joachim was right to buy a place here--he was always right." + +"Oh, of course, it's your duty now to praise him up. Perhaps it gets +better farther on, but I don't see how anybody can squeeze two thousand +a year out of a desert like this." + +The prospect from the railway that day was certainly not attractive; but +Anna told herself that any place would look dreary such weather, and was +much too happy in the first flush of independence to be depressed by +anything whatever. Had she not that very morning given the chambermaid +at the Berlin hotel so bounteous a reward for services not rendered that +the woman herself had said it was too much? Thus making amends for those +innumerable departures from hotels when Susie had escaped without giving +anything at all. Had she not also asked, and readily obtained, +permission of Susie at the station in Berlin to pay for the tickets of +the whole party? And had it not been a delightful and warming feeling, +buying those tickets for other people instead of having tickets bought +by other people for herself? At Pasewalk, a little town half way between +Berlin and Stralsund, where the train stopped ten minutes, she insisted +on getting out, defying the sleet and the puddles, and went into the +refreshment room, and bought eggs and rolls and cakes,--everything she +could find that was least offensive. Also a guidebook to Stralsund, +though she was not going to stop in Stralsund; also some postcards with +views on them, though she never used postcards with views on them, and +came back loaded with parcels, her face glowing with childish pleasure +at spending money. + +"My _dear_ Anna," said Susie; but she was hungry, and ate a roll with +perfect complacency, allowing Letty to do the same, although only two +days had elapsed since she had so energetically lectured her on the +grossness of eating in trains. + +Susie was in a particularly amiable frame of mind, and in spite of the +weather was looking forward to seeing the place Uncle Joachim had +thought would be a fit home for his niece; and as she and Anna were +sitting together at one end of the carriage, and Letty and Miss Leech +were at the other, and there was no one else in the compartment, she was +neither upset by the too near contemplation of her daughter, nor by the +aspect of other travellers lunching. Miss Leech, always mindful of her +duties, was making the most of her five hours' journey by endeavouring, +in a low voice, to clear away the haze that hung in her pupil's mind +round the details of her last winter's German studies. "Don't you +remember anything of Professor Smith's lectures, Letty?" she inquired. +"Why, they were all about just this part of Germany, and it makes it so +much more interesting if one knows what happened at the different +places. Stralsund, you know, where we shall be presently, has had a most +turbulent and interesting past." + +"Has it?" said Letty. "Well, I can't help it, Leechy." + +"No; but my dear, you should try to recollect something at least of what +you heard at the lectures. Have you forgotten the paper you wrote about +Wallenstein?" + +"I remember I did a paper. Beastly hard it was, too." + +"Oh, Letty, don't say beastly--it really isn't a ladylike word." + +"Why, mamma's always saying it." + +"Oh, well. Don't you know what Wallenstein said when he was besieging +Stralsund and found it such a difficult task?" + +"I suppose he said too that it was beastly hard." + +"Oh, Letty--it was something about chains. Now do you remember?" + +"Chains?" repeated Letty, looking bored. "Do _you_ know, Leechy?" + +"Yes, I still remember that, though I confess that I have forgotten the +greater part of what I heard." + +"Then what do you ask me for, when you know I don't know? What did he +say about chains?" + +"He said that he'd take the city, if it were rivetted to heaven with +chains of iron," said Miss Leech dramatically. + +"What a goat." + +"Oh, hush--don't say those horrible words. Where do you learn them? Not +from me, certainly not from me," said Miss Leech, distressed. She had a +profound horror of slang, and was bewildered by the way in which these +weeds of rhetoric sprang up on all occasions in Letty's speech. + +"Well, and was it?" + +"Was it what, my dear?" + +"Chained to heaven?" + +"The city? Why, how can a city be chained to heaven, Letty?" + +"Then what did he say it for?" + +"He was using a metaphor." + +"Oh," said Letty, who did not know what a metaphor was, but supposed it +must be something used in sieges, and preferred not to inquire too +closely. + +"He was obliged to retire," said Miss Leech, "leaving enormous numbers +of slain on the field." + +"Poor beasts. I say, Leechy," she whispered, "don't let's bother about +history now. Go on with Mr. Jessup. You'd got to where he called you Amy +for the first time." + +Mr. Jessup was the person already alluded to in these pages as the only +man Miss Leech had ever loved, and his history was of absorbing interest +to Letty, who never tired of hearing his first appearance on Miss +Leech's horizon described, with his subsequent advances before the stage +of open courting was reached, the courting itself, and its melancholy +end; for Mr. Jessup, a clergyman of the Church of England, with a +vicarage all ready to receive his wife, had suddenly become a prey to +new convictions, and had gone over to the Church of Rome; whereupon Miss +Leech's father, also a clergyman of the Church of England, had talked a +great deal about the Scarlet Woman of Babylon, and had shut the door in +Mr. Jessup's face when next he called to explain. This had happened when +Miss Leech was twenty. Now, at thirty, an orphan resigned to the world's +buffets, she found a gentle consolation in repeating the story of her +ill-starred engagement to her keenly interested friend and pupil; and +the oftener she repeated it the less did it grieve her, till at last she +came actually to enjoy the remembrance of it, pleased to have played the +principal part even in a drama that was hissed off her little stage, +glad to find a sympathetic listener, dwelling much and fondly on every +incident of that short period of importance and glory. + +It is doubtful whether she would ever have extracted the same amount of +pleasure from Mr. Jessup had he remained fixed in the faith of his +fathers and married her in due season. By his secession he had +unconsciously become a sort of providence to Letty and herself, saving +them from endless hours of dulness, furnishing their lonely schoolroom +life with romance and mystery; and if in Miss Leech's mind he gradually +took on the sweet intangibility of a pleasant dream, he was the very +pith and marrow of Letty's existence. She glowed and thrilled at the +thought that perhaps she too would one day have a Mr. Jessup of her own, +who would have convictions, and give up everything, herself included, +for what he believed to be right. + +As usual, they at once became absorbed in Mr. Jessup, forgetting in the +contemplation of his excellencies everything else in the world, till +they were roused to realities by their arrival at Stralsund; and Susie, +thrusting books and bags and umbrellas into their passive hands, pushed +them out of the carriage into the wet. + +Hilton, the maid shared by Susie and Anna, had then to be found and +urged to clamber down quickly on to the low platform, where she stood +helplessly, the picture of injured superiority, hustled by the hurrying +porters and passengers, out of whose way she scorned to move, while Anna +went to look for the luggage and have it put into the cart that had been +sent for it. + +This cart was an ordinary farm cart, used for bringing in the hay in +June, but also used for carrying out the manure in November; and on a +sack of straw lying in the bottom it was expected that Hilton should +sit. The farm boy who drove it, and who helped the porter to tie the +trunks to its sides lest they should too violently bump against each +other and Hilton on the way, said so; the coachman of the carriage +waiting for the _Herrschaften_ pointed with his whip first at Hilton and +then at the cart, and said so; the porter, who seemed to think it quite +natural, said so; and everybody was waiting for Hilton to get in, who, +when she had at length grasped the situation, went to Susie, who was +looking frightened and pretending to be absorbed by the sky, and with a +voice shaken by passion, and a face changing from white to red, +announced her intention of only going in that cart as a corpse, when +they might do with her as they pleased, but as a living body with breath +in it, never. + +Here was a difficulty. And idlers, whose curiosity was not +extinguishable by wind and sleet, began to press round, and people who +had come by the same train stopped on their way out to listen. The farm +boy patted the sack and declared that it was clean straw, the coachman +stood up on his box and swore that it was a new sack, the porter assured +the Fräulein that it was as comfortable as a feather bed, and nobody +seemed to understand that what she was being offered was an insult. + +Susie was afraid of Hilton, who had been in the service of duchesses, +and who held these duchesses over her mistress's head whenever her +mistress wanted to do anything that was inconvenient to herself; quoting +their sayings, pointing out how they would have acted in any given case, +and always, it appeared, they had done exactly what Hilton desired. +Susie's admiration for duchesses was slavish, and Hilton was treated +with an indulgent liberality that was absurd compared to the stinginess +displayed towards everyone else. Hilton was not more horrified than her +mistress when she saw the farm cart, and understood that it was for the +luggage and the maid. It was impossible to take her with them in what +the porter called the _herrschaftliche Wagen_, for it was a kind of +victoria, and how to get their four selves into it was a sufficient +puzzle. "What shall we do?" said Susie, in despair, to Anna. + +"Do? Why, she'll have to go in it. Hilton, don't be a foolish person, +and don't keep us here in the wet. This isn't England, and nobody thinks +anything here of driving in farm carts. It is patriarchal simplicity, +that's all. People are staring at you now because you are making such a +fuss. Get in like a good soul, and let us start." + +"Only as a corpse, m'm," reiterated Hilton with chattering teeth, "never +as a living body." + +"Nonsense," said Anna impatiently. + +"What shall we do?" repeated Susie. "Poor Hilton--what barbarians they +must be here." + +"We must send her in a _Droschky_, then, if it isn't too far, and we can +get one to go." + +"A _Droschky_ all that distance! It will be ruinous." + +"Well, we can't stand here amusing these people for ever." + +"Oh, I wish we had never come to this horrible place!" cried Susie, +really made miserable by Hilton's rage. + +But Anna did not stay to listen either to her laments or to Hilton's +monotonous "Only as a corpse, m'lady," and was already arranging with an +unwilling driver, who had no desire whatever to drive to Kleinwalde, but +consented to do so on being promised twenty marks, a rest and feed of +oats for his horses, and any little addition in the shape of refreshment +and extra money that might suggest itself to Anna's generosity. + +"You know, Anna, you can't expect _me_ to pay for the fly," said Susie +uneasily, when the appeased Hilton had been put into it and was out of +earshot. "That dreadful cart is your property, I suppose." + +"Of course it is," said Anna, smiling, "and of course the fly is my +affair. How magnificent I feel, disposing of carts and _Droschkies_. +Now, will you please to get into my carriage? And do you observe the +extreme respectfulness of my coachman?" + +The coachman, a strange-looking, round-shouldered being, with a long +grizzled beard, a dark-blue cloth cap on his head, and a body clothed in +a fawn-coloured suit and gaiters, on which a great many tarnished silver +buttons adorned with Uncle Joachim's coat of arms were fastened at short +intervals, removed his cap while his new mistress and her party were +entering the carriage, and did not put it on again till they were ready +to start. + +"Quite as though we were royalties," said Susie. + +"But the rest of him isn't," replied Anna, who was greatly amused by the +turn-out. "Do you like my horses, Susie? Or do you suspect them of +having been ploughing all the morning? Oh, well," she added quickly, +ashamed of laughing at any part of her dear uncle's gift, "I suppose one +has to have heavily built horses in this part of the world, where the +roads are probably frightfully bad." + +"Their tails might be a little shorter," said Susie. + +"They might," agreed Anna serenely. + +With the aid of the porter, who knew all about Uncle Joachim's will and +was deeply interested, they were at last somehow packed into the +carriage, and away they rattled over the rough stones, threading the +outskirts of the town on the mainland, the hail and wind in their faces, +out into the open country, with their horses' heads turned towards the +north. The fly containing Hilton followed more leisurely behind, and the +farm cart containing the unused sack of straw followed the fly. + +"We can't see much of Stralsund," said Anna, trying to peep round the +hood at the old town across the lakes separating it from the mainland. + +"It's a very historical town," observed Susie, who had happened to +notice, as she idly turned over the pages of her Baedeker on the way +down, that there was a long description of it with dates. "As of course +you know," she added, turning sharply to her daughter. + +"Rather," said Letty. "Wallenstein said he'd take it if it were chained +to heaven, and when he found it wasn't he was frightfully sick, and went +away and left them all in the fields." + +Miss Leech, who was on the little seat, struggling to defend herself +from the fury of the elements with an umbrella, looked anxious, but +Susie only said in a gratified voice, "I'm glad you remember what you've +been taught." To which Letty, who was in great spirits, and thought this +drive in the wet huge fun, again replied heartily, "Rather," and her +mother congratulated herself on having done the right thing in bringing +her to Germany, home of erudition and profundity, already evidently +beginning to do its work. + +The carriage smelt of fish, which presently upset Susie, who, +unfortunately for her, had a nose that smelt everything. While they were +in the town she thought the smell was in the streets, and bore it; but +out in the open, where there was not a house to be seen, she found that +it was in the carriage. + +She fidgeted, and looked about, feeling with her foot under the opposite +seat, expecting to find a basket somewhere, and determined if she found +one to push it out quietly and say nothing; for that she should drive +for two hours with her handkerchief up to her nose was more than anybody +could expect of her. Already she had done more than anybody ought to +expect of her, she reflected, in going to the expense of the journey and +the inconvenience of the absence from home for Anna's sake, and she +hoped that Anna felt grateful. She had never yet shrunk from her duty +towards Anna, or indeed from her duty towards anyone, and she was sure +she never would; but her duty certainly did not include the passive +endurance of offensive smells. + +"What are you looking for?" asked Anna. + +"Why, the fish." + +"Oh, do you smell it too?" + +"Smell it? I should think I did. It's killing me." + +"Oh, poor Susie!" laughed Anna, who was possessed by an uncontrollable +desire to laugh at everything. The conveyance (it could hardly be called +a carriage) in which they were seated, and which she supposed was the +one destined for her use if she lived at Kleinwalde, was unlike anything +she had yet seen. It was very old, with enormous wheels, and bumped +dreadfully, and the seat was so constructed that she was continually +slipping forward and having to push herself back again. It was lined +throughout, including the hood, with a white and black shepherd's plaid +in large squares, the white squares mellowed by the stains of use and +time to varying shades of brown and yellow; when Miss Leech's umbrella +was blown aside by a gust of wind Anna could see her coachman's drab +coat, with a little end of white tape that he had forgotten to tie, and +whose uses she was unable to guess, fluttering gaily between its tails +in the wind; on the left side of the box was a very big and gorgeous +coat of arms in green and white, Uncle Joachim's colours; and whichever +way she turned her head, there was the overpowering smell of fish. "We +must be taking our dinner home with us," she said, "but I don't see it +anywhere." + +"There isn't anything under the seats. Perhaps the man has got it on the +box. Ask him, Anna; I really can't stand it." + +Anna did not quite know how to attract his attention. It seemed +undignified to poke him, but she did not know his name, and the wind +blew her voice back in the direction of Stralsund when she had cleared +it, and coughed, and called out rather shyly, "Oh, _Kutscher! +Kutscher!_" + +Then she remembered that oh was not German, and that Uncle Joachim had +used sonorous achs in its place, and she began again, "_Ach, Kutscher! +Kutscher!_" + +Letty giggled. "Go it, Aunt Anna," she said encouragingly, "dig him in +the ribs with your umbrella--or I will, if you like." + +Her mother, with her handkerchief to her nose, exhorted her not to be +vulgar. Letty explained at some length that she was only being nice, and +offering assistance. + +"I really shall have to poke him," said Anna, her faint cries of +_Kutscher_ quite lost in the rattling of the carriage and the howling of +the wind. "Or perhaps you would touch his arm, Miss Leech." + +Miss Leech turned, and very gingerly touched his sleeve. He at once +whistled to his horses, who stopped dead, snatched off his cap, and +looking down at Anna inquired her commands. + +It was done so quickly that Anna, whose conversational German was +exceedingly rusty, was quite unable to remember the word for fish, and +sat looking up at him helplessly, while she vainly searched her brains. + +"What _is_ fish in German?" she said, appealing to Susie, distressed +that the man should be waiting capless in the rain. + +"Letty, what's the word for fish?" inquired Susie sternly. + +"Fish?" repeated Letty, looking stupid. + +"Fish?" echoed Miss Leech, trying to help. + +"_Fisch?_" said the coachman himself, catching at the word. + +"Oh, yes; how utterly silly I am," cried Anna blushing and showing her +dimples, "it's _Fisch_, of course. _Kutscher, wo ist Fisch?_" + +The man looked blank; then his face brightened, and pointing with his +whip to the rolling sea on their right, visible across the flat +intervening fields, he said that there was much fish in it, especially +herrings. + +"What does he say?" asked Susie from behind her handkerchief. + +"He says there are herrings in the sea." + +"Is the man a fool?" + +Letty laughed uproariously. The coachman, seeing Letty and Anna laugh, +thought he must have said the right thing after all, and looked very +pleasant. + +"_Aber im Wagen_," persisted Anna, "_wo ist Fisch im Wagen?_" + +The coachman stared. Then he said vaguely, in a soothing voice, not in +the least knowing what she meant, "_Nein, nein, gnädiges Fräulein_," and +evidently hoped she would be satisfied. + +"_Aber es riecht, es riecht!_" cried Anna, not satisfied at all, and +lifting up her nose in unmistakeable displeasure. + +His face brightened again. "_Ach so--jawohl, jawohl_," he exclaimed +cheerfully; and hastened to explain that there were no fish nearer than +the sea, but that the grease he had used that morning to make the +leather of the hood and apron shine certainly had a fishy smell, as he +himself had noticed. "The gracious Miss loves not the smell?" he +inquired anxiously; for he had seven children, and was very desirous +that his new mistress should be pleased. + +Anna laughed and shook her head, and though she said with great emphasis +that she did not love it at all, she looked so friendly that he felt +reassured. + +"What does he say?" asked Susie. + +"Why, I'm afraid we shall have it all the way. It's the grease he's been +rubbing the leather with." + +"Barbarian!" cried Susie angrily, feeling sick already, and certain that +she would be quite ill by the end of the drive. "And you laugh at him +and encourage him, instead of taking up your position at once and +showing him that you won't stand any nonsense. He ought to be--to be +unboxed!" she added in great wrath; for she had heard of delinquent +clergymen being unfrocked, and why should not delinquent coachmen be +unboxed? + +Anna laughed again. She tried not to, but she could not help it; and +Susie, made still more angry by this childish behaviour, sulked during +the rest of the drive. + +"Go on--_avanti_!" said Anna, who knew hardly any Italian, and when she +was in Italy and wanted her words never could find them, but had been +troubled the last two days by the way in which these words came to her +lips every time she opened them to speak German. + +The coachman understood her, however, and they went on again along the +straight high-road, that stretched away before them to a distant bend. +The high-road, or _chaussée_, was planted on either side with maples, +and between the maples big whitewashed stones had been set to mark the +way at night, and behind the rows of trees and stones, ditches had been +dug parallel with the road as a protection to the crops in summer from +the possible wanderings of erring carts. If a cart erred, it tumbled +into the ditch. The arrangement was simple and efficacious. On the +right, across some marshy land, they could see the sea for a little +while, with the flat coast of Rügen opposite; and then some rising +ground, bare of trees and brilliantly green with winter corn, hid it +from view. On the left was the dreary plain, dotted at long intervals +with farms and their little groups of trees, and here and there with +windmills working furiously in the gale. The wind was icy, and the +December snow still lay in drifts in the ditches. In that leaden +landscape, made up of grey and brown and black, the patches of winter +rye were quite startling in their greenness. + +Susie thought it the most God-forsaken country she had ever seen, and +expressed this opinion plainly on her face and in her attitudes without +any need for opening her lips, shuddering back ostentatiously into her +corner, wrapping herself with elaborate care in her furs, and behaving +as slaves to duty sometimes do when the paths they have to tread are +rough. + +After driving along the _chaussée_ for about an hour, they passed a big +house standing among trees back from the road on the right, and a little +farther on came to a small village. The carriage, pulled up with a jerk, +and looking eagerly round the hood Anna found they had come to a +standstill in front of a new red-brick building, whose steps were +crowded with children. Two or three men and some women were with the +children. Two of the men appeared to be clergymen, and the elder, a +middle-aged, mild-faced man, came down the steps, and bowing profoundly +proceeded to welcome Anna solemnly, on behalf of those children from +Kleinwalde who attended this school, to her new home. He concluded that +Anna was the person to be welcomed because he could see nothing of the +lady in the other corner but her eyes, and they looked anything but +friendly; whereas the young lady on the left was leaning forward and +smiling and holding out her hand. + +He took it, and shook it slowly up and down, while he begged her to +allow the hood of the carriage to be put back, so that the children from +her village, who had walked three miles to welcome her, might be able to +see her; and on Anna's readily agreeing to this, himself helped the +coachman with his own white-gloved hands to put it down. Susie was +therefore exposed to the full fury of the blast, and shrank still +farther into her corner--an interesting and tantalising object to the +school-children, a dark, mysterious combination of fur, cocks' feathers, +and black eyebrows. + +Then the clergyman, hat in hand, made a speech. He spoke distinctly, as +one accustomed to speaking often and long, and Anna understood every +word. She was wholly taken aback by these ceremonies, and had no idea of +what she should say in reply, but sat smiling vaguely at him, looking +very pretty and very shy. She soon found that her smiles were +inappropriate, and they died away; for, warming as he proceeded, the +parson, it appeared, was taking it for granted that she intended to live +on her property, and was eloquently descanting on the comfort she was +going to be to the poor, assuring those present that she would be a +mother to the sick, nursing them with her tender woman's hands, an angel +of mercy to the hungry, feeding them in the hour of their distress, a +friend and sister to the little children, succouring them, caring for +them, pitiful of their weakness and their sins. His face lit up with +enthusiasm as he went on, and Anna was thankful that Susie could not +understand. This crowd of children, the women, the young parson, her +coachman, were all hearing promises made on her behalf that she had no +thought of fulfilling. She looked down, and twisted her fingers about +nervously, and felt uncomfortable. + +At the end of his speech, the parson, his eyes full of the tears drawn +forth by his own eloquence, held up his hand and solemnly blessed her, +rounding off his blessing with a loud Amen, after which there was an +awkward pause. Susie heard the Amen, and guessed that something in the +nature of a blessing was being invoked, and made a movement of +impatience. The parson was odious in her eyes, first because he looked +like the ministers of the Baptist chapels of her unmarried youth, but +principally because he was keeping her there in the gale and prolonging +the tortures she was enduring from the smell of fish. Anna did not know +what to say after the Amen, and looked up more shyly than ever, and +stammered in her confusion _Danke sehr_, hoping that it was a proper +remark to make; whereupon the parson bowed again, as one who should say +Pray don't mention it. Then another man, evidently the schoolmaster, +took out a tuning-fork, gave out a note, and the children sang a +_chorale_, following it up with other more cheerful songs, in which the +words _Frühling_ and _Willkommen_ were repeated a great many times, +while the wind howled flattest contradiction. + +When this was over, the parson begged leave to introduce the other +clerical-looking person, a tall narrow youth, also in white kid gloves, +buttoned up tightly in a long coat of broadcloth, with a pallid face and +thick, upright flaxen hair. + +"Herr Vicar Klutz," said the elder parson, with a wave of the hand; and +the Herr Vicar, making his bow, and having his limp hand heartily +grasped by that other little hand, and his furtive eyes smiled into by +those other friendly eyes, became on the spot desperately enamoured; +which was very natural, seeing that he had not spoken to a woman under +forty for six months, and was himself twenty and a poet. He spent the +rest of the afternoon shut up in his bedroom, where, refusing all +nourishment, he composed a poem in which _berauschten Sinn_ was made to +rhyme with _Engländerin_, while the elder parson, in whose house he +lived, thought he was writing his Good Friday sermon. + +Then the schoolmaster was introduced, and then came the two women--the +schoolmaster's wife and the parson's wife; and when Anna had smiled and +murmured polite and incoherent little speeches to each in turn, and had +nodded and bowed at least a dozen times to each of these ladies, who +could by no means have done with their curtseys, and had introduced them +to the dumb figure in the corner, during which ceremonies Letty stared +round-eyed and open-mouthed at the school-children, and the +school-children stared round-eyed and open-mouthed at Letty, and Miss +Leech looked demure, and Susie's brows were contracted by suffering, she +wondered whether she might not now with propriety continue her journey, +and if so whether it were expected that she should give the signal. + +Everybody was smiling at everybody else by way of filling up this pause +of hesitation, except Susie, who shut her eyes with great dignity, and +shivered in so marked a manner that the parson himself came to the +rescue, and bade the coachman help him put up the hood again, explaining +to Anna as he did so that her _Frau Schwester_ was not used to the +climate. + +Evidently the moment had come for going on, and the bows that had but +just left off began again with renewed vigour. Anna was anxious to say +something pleasant at the finish, so she asked the parson's wife, as she +bade her good-bye, whether she and her husband would come to Kleinwalde +the next day to dinner. + +This invitation produced a very deep curtsey and a flush of +gratification, but the recipient turned to her lord before accepting it, +to inquire his pleasure. + +"I fear not to-morrow, gracious Miss," said the parson, "for it is Good +Friday." + +"_Ach ja_," stammered Anna, ashamed of herself for having forgotten. + +"_Ach ja_," exclaimed the parson's wife, still more ashamed of herself +for having forgotten. + +"Perhaps Saturday, then?" suggested Anna. + +The parson murmured something about quiet hours preparatory to the +Sabbath; but his wife, a person who struck Anna as being quite +extraordinarily stout, was burning with curiosity to examine those +foreign ladies more conveniently, and especially to see what manner of +being would emerge from the pile of fur and feathers in the corner; and +she urged him, in a rapid aside, to do for once without quiet hours. +Whereupon he patted her on the cheek, smiled indulgently, and said he +would make an exception and do himself the honour of appearing. + +This being settled, Anna said _Gehen Sie_ to her coachman, who again +showed his intelligence by understanding her; and in a cloud of smiles +and bows they drove away, the school-girls making curtseys, the +schoolboys taking off their caps, and the parson standing hat in hand +with his arm round his wife's waist as serenely as though it had been a +summer's day and no one looking. + +Anna became used to these displays of conjugal regard in public later +on; but this first time she turned to Susie with a laugh, when the hood +had hidden the group from view, and asked her if she had seen it. But +Susie had seen nothing, for her eyes were shut, and she refused to +answer any questions otherwise than by a feeble shake of the head. + +On the other side of the village the _chaussée_ came to an end, and two +deep, sandy roads took its place. There was a sign-post at their +junction, one arm of which, pointing to the right-hand road that ran +down close to the sea, had Kleinwalde scrawled on it; and beside this +sign-post a man on a horse was waiting for them. + +"Good gracious! More rot?" ejaculated Susie as the carriage stopped +again, shaken out of the dignity of sulks by these repeated shocks. + +"Oberinspector Dellwig," said the man, introducing himself, and sweeping +off his hat and bowing lower and more obsequiously than anyone had yet +done. + +"This must be the inspector Uncle Joachim hoped I'd keep," said Anna in +an undertone. + +"I don't care who he is, but for heaven's sake don't let him make a +speech. I can't stand this sort of thing any longer. You'll have me ill +on your hands if you're not careful, and you won't like _that_, so you +had better stop him." + +"I can't stop him," said Anna, perplexed. She also had had enough of +speeches. + +"_Gestatten gnädiges Fräulein dass ich meine gehorsamste Ehrerbietung +ausspreche_," began the glib inspector, bowing at every second word over +his horse's ears. + +There was no escape, and they had to hear him out. The man had prepared +his speech, and say it he would. It was not so long as the parson's, but +was quite as flowery in another way, overflowing with respectful +allusions to the deceased master, and with expressions of unbounded +loyalty, obedience, and devotion to the new mistress. + +Susie shut her eyes again when she found he was not to be stopped, and +gave herself up for lost. What could Hilton, who must be close behind +waiting in the cold, uncomforted by any food since leaving Berlin, think +of all this? Susie dreaded the moment when she would have to face her. + +The inspector finished all he had intended saying, and then, assuming a +more colloquial tone, informed Anna that from the sign-post onward she +would be driving through her own property, and asked permission to ride +by her side the rest of the way. So they had his company for the last +two miles and his conversation, of which there was much; for he had a +ready tongue, and explained things to Anna in a very loud voice as they +went along, expatiating on the magnificence of the crops the previous +summer, and assuring her that the crops of the coming summer would be +even more magnificent, for he had invented a combination of manures +which would give such results that all Pomerania's breath would be taken +away. + +The road here was terrible, and the horses could hardly drag the +carriage through the sand. It lurched and heaved from side to side, +creaking and groaning alarmingly. Miss Leech was in imminent peril. Anna +held on with both hands, and hardly had leisure to put in appropriate +_achs_ and _jas_ and questions of a becoming intelligence when the +inspector paused to take breath. She did not like his looks, and wished +that she could follow Susie's example and avoid the necessity of seeing +him by the simple expedient of shutting her eyes. But somehow, she did +not quite know how, responsibilities and obligations were suddenly +pressing heavily upon her. These people had all made up their minds that +she was going to be and do certain things; and though she assured +herself that it did not in the least matter how they had made up their +minds, yet she felt obliged to behave in the way that was expected of +her. She did not want to talk to this unpleasant-looking man, and what +he told her about the crops and their marvellousness was half +unintelligible to her and wholly a bore. Yet she did talk to him, and +looked friendly, and affected to understand and be deeply interested in +all he said. + +They passed through a plantation of young beeches, planted, Dellwig +explained, by Uncle Joachim on his last visit; and after a few more +yards of lurching in the sand came to some woods and got on to a fair +road. + +"The park," said Dellwig superbly, with a wave of the hand. + +Susie opened her eyes at the word park, and looked about. "It isn't a +park," she said peevishly, "it's a forest--a horrid, gloomy, damp +wilderness." + +"Oh, it's lovely!" cried Letty, giving a jump of delight as she peered +down the serried ranks of pine trees. + +It was a thick wood of pines and beeches, railed off from the road on +either side by wooden rails painted in black and white stripes. Uncle +Joachim had been the loyalest of Prussians, and his loyalty overflowed +even into his fences. Ćsthetic instincts he had none, and if he had been +brought to see it, would not have cared at all that the railings made +the otherwise beautiful avenue look like the entrance to a restaurant or +a railway station. The stripes, renewed every year, and of startling +distinctness, were an outward and visible sign of his staunch devotion +to the King of Prussia, the very lining of the carriage with its white +and black squares was symbolic; and when they came to the gate within +which the house itself stood, two Prussian eagles frowned down at them +from the gate-posts. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +A low, white, two-storied house, separated from the forest only by a +circular grass plot and a ditch with half-melted snow in it and muddy +water, a house apparently quite by itself among the creaking pines, +neither very old nor very new, with a great many windows, and a +brown-tiled roof, was the home bestowed by Uncle Joachim on his dear and +only niece Anna. + +"So _this_ is where I was to lead the better life?" she thought, as the +carriage drew up at the door, and the moaning of the uneasy trees, and +all the lonely sounds of a storm-beaten forest replaced the rattling of +the wheels in her ears. "The better life, then, is a life of utter +solitude, Uncle Joachim thought? I wish I knew--I wish I knew----" But +what it was she wished she knew was hardly clear in her mind; and her +thoughts were interrupted by a very untidy, surprised-looking +maid-servant, capless, and in felt slippers, who had darted down the +steps and was unfastening the leather apron and pulling out the rugs +with hasty, agitated hands, and trying to pull Susie out as well. + +The doorway was garlanded with evergreen wreaths, over which a green and +white flag flapped; and curtseying and smiling beneath the wreaths stood +Dellwig's wife, a short lady with smooth hair, weather-beaten face, and +brown silk gloves, who would have been the stoutest person Anna had ever +seen if she had not just come from the presence of the parson's wife. + +"I never saw so many bows in my life," grumbled Susie, pushing the +servant aside, and getting out cautiously, feeling very stiff and cold +and miserable. "Letty, you are on my dress--oh, how d'you do--how d'you +do," she murmured frostily, as the Frau Inspector seized her hand and +began to talk German to her. "Anna, are you coming? This--er--person +thinks I'm you, and is making me a speech." + +Dellwig, who had sent his horse away in charge of a small boy, rapidly +explained to his wife that the young lady now getting out of the +carriage was their late master's niece, and that the other one must be +the sister-in-law mentioned in the lawyer's letter; upon which Frau +Dellwig let Susie go, and transferred her smiles and welcome to Anna. +Susie went into the house to get out of the cold, only to find herself +in a square hall whose iciness was the intolerable iciness of a place in +which no sun had been allowed to shine and no windows had been opened +for summers without number. When Uncle Joachim came down he lived in two +rooms at the back of the house, with a door leading into the garden +through which he went to the farm, and the hall had never been used, and +the closed shutters never opened. There was no fireplace, or stove, or +heating arrangement of any sort. Glass doors divided it from an inner +and still more spacious hall, with a wide wooden staircase, and doors +all round it. The walls in both halls were painted grass green; and from +little chains in the ceiling stuffed hawks and eagles, shot by Uncle +Joachim, and grown with years very dusty and moth-eaten, hung swinging +in the draught. The floor was boarded, and was still damp from a recent +scrubbing. There was no carpet. A wooden bracket on the wall, with brass +hooks, held a large assortment of whips and hunting crops; and in one +corner stood an arrangement for coats, with Uncle Joachim's various +waterproofs and head-coverings hanging monumentally on its pegs. + +"Oh, how dreadful!" thought Susie, shivering more violently than ever. +"And what a musty smell--it's damp, of course, and I shall be laid up. +Poor Hilton! What will she think of this? Oh, how d'you do," she added +aloud, as a female figure in a white apron suddenly emerged from the +gloom and took her hand and kissed it; "Anna, who's this? Anna! Aren't +you coming? Here's somebody kissing my hand." + +"It's the cook," said Anna, coming into the inner hall with the others, +Dellwig and his wife keeping one on either side of her, and both talking +at once in their anxiety to make a good impression. + +"The cook? Then tell her to give us some food. I shall die if I don't +have something soon. Do you know what time it is? Past four. Can't you +get rid of these people? And where's Hilton?" + +Susie hardly seemed to see the Dellwigs, and talked to Anna while they +were talking to her as though they did not exist. If Anna felt an +obligation to be polite to these different persons she felt none at all. +They did not understand English, but if they had it would not have +mattered to her, and she would have gone on talking about them as though +they had not been there. + +Both the Dellwigs had very loud voices, so Susie had to raise hers in +order to be heard, and there was consequently such a noise in the empty, +echoing house, that after looking round bewildered, and trying to answer +everybody at once, Anna gave it up, and stood and laughed. + +"I don't see anything to laugh at," said Susie crossly, "we are all +starving, and these people won't go." + +"But how can I make them go?" + +"They're your servants, I suppose. I should just say that I'd send for +them when I wanted them." + +"They'd be very much astonished. The man is so far from being my servant +that I believe he means to be my master." + +The two Dellwigs, perplexed by Anna's laughter when nobody had said +anything amusing, and uneasy lest she should be laughing at something +about themselves, looked from her to Susie suspiciously, and for that +brief moment were quiet. + +"_Wir sind hungrig_," said Anna to the wife. + +"The food comes immediately," she replied; and hastened away with the +cook and the other servant through a door evidently leading to the +kitchen. + +"_Und kalt_," continued Anna plaintively to the husband, who at once +flung open another door, through which they saw a table spread for +dinner. "_Bitte, bitte_," he said, ushering them in as though the place +belonged to him. + +"Does this person live in the house?" inquired Susie, eying him with +little goodwill. + +"He told me he lives at the farm. But of course he has always looked +after everything here." + +When they were all in the dining-room, driven in by Dellwig, as Susie +remarked, like a flock of sheep by a shepherd determined to stand no +nonsense, he helped them with officious politeness to take off their +wraps, and then, bowing almost to the ground, asked permission to +withdraw while the _Herrschaften_ ate, a permission that was given with +alacrity, Anna's face falling, however, upon his informing her that he +would come round later on in order to lay his plans for the summer +before her. + +"What does he say?" asked Susie, as the door shut behind him. + +"He's coming round again later on." + +"That man's going to be a nuisance--you see if he isn't," said Susie +with conviction. + +"I believe he is," agreed Anna, going over to the white porcelain stove +to warm her hands. + +"He's the limpet, and you're going to be the rock. Don't let him fleece +you too much." + +"But limpets don't fleece rocks," said Anna. + +"He wouldn't be able to fleece me, _I_ know, if I could talk German as +well as you do. But you'll be soft and weak and amiable, and he'll do as +he likes with you." + +"Soft, and weak, and amiable!" repeated Anna, smiling at Susie's +adjectives, "why, I thought I was obstinate--you always said I was." + +"So you are. But you won't be to that man. He'll get round you." + +"Uncle Joachim said he was excellent." + +"Oh, I daresay he wasn't bad with a man over him who knew all about +farming, but mark my words, _you_ won't get two thousand a year out of +the place." + +Anna was silent. Susie was invariably shrewd and sensible, if inclined, +Anna thought, to be over suspicious, in matters where money was +concerned. Dellwig's face was not one to inspire confidence: and his way +of shouting when he talked, and of talking incessantly, was already +intolerable to her. She was not sure, either, that his wife was any more +satisfactory. She too shouted, and Anna detested noise. The wife did not +appear again, and had evidently gone home with her husband, for a great +silence had fallen upon the house, broken only by the monotonous sighing +of the forest, and the pattering of rain against the window. + +The dining-room was a long narrow room, with one big window forming its +west end looking out on to the grass plot, the ditch, and the gate-posts +with the eagles on them. It was a study in chocolate--brown paper, brown +carpet, brown rep curtains, brown cane chairs. There were two wooden +sideboards painted brown facing each other down at the dark end, with a +collection of miscellaneous articles on them: a vinegar cruet that had +stood there for years, with remains of vinegar dried up at the bottom; +mustard pots containing a dark and wicked mixture that had once been +mustard; a broken hand-bell used at long-past dinners, to summon +servants long since dead; an old wine register with entries in it of a +quarter of a century back; a mouldy bottle of Worcester sauce, still +boasting on its label that it would impart a relish to viands otherwise +dull; and some charming Dresden china fruit-dishes, adorned with +cheerful shepherds and shepherdesses, incurable optimists, persistently +pleased with themselves and their surroundings through all the days and +nights of all the cold silent years that they had been smiling at each +other in the dark. On the round dinner-table was a pot of lilies of the +valley, enveloped in crinkly pink tissue paper tied round with pink +satin ribbon, with ears of the paper drawn up between the flower-stalks +to produce a pleasing contrast of pink and white. + +"Well, it's warm enough here, isn't it?" said Susie, going round the +room and examining these things with an interest far exceeding that +called forth by the art treasures of Berlin. + +"Rather," said Letty, answering for everybody, and rubbing her hands. +She frolicked about the room, peeping into all the corners, opening the +cupboards, trying the sofa, and behaving in so frisky a fashion that her +mother, who seldom saw her at home, and knew her only as a naughty +gloomy girl, turned once or twice from the interesting sideboards to +stare at her inquiringly through her lorgnette. + +The servant with the surprised eyebrows, who presently brought in the +soup, had put on a pair of white cotton gloves for the ceremony of +waiting, but still wore her felt slippers. She put the plates in a pile +on the edge of the table, murmured something in German, and ran out +again; nor did she come back till she brought the next course, when she +behaved in a precisely similar manner, and continued to do so throughout +the meal; the diners, having no bell, being obliged to sit patiently +during the intervals, until she thought that they might perhaps be ready +for some more. + +It was an odd meal, and began with cold chocolate soup with frothy white +things that tasted of vanilla floating about in it. Susie was so much +interested in this soup that she forgot all about Hilton, who had been +driven ignominiously to the back door and was left sitting in the +kitchen till the two servants should have time to take her upstairs, and +was employing the time composing a speech of a spirited nature in which +she intended giving her mistress notice the moment she saw her again. + +Her mistress meanwhile was meditatively turning over the vanilla balls +in her soup. "Well, I don't like it," she said at last, laying down her +spoon. + +"Oh, it's ripping!" cried her daughter ecstatically. "It's like having +one's pudding at the other end." + +"How can you look at chocolate after Berlin, greedy girl?" asked her +mother, disgusted by her child's obvious tendency towards a too free +indulgence in the pleasures of the table. But Letty was feeling so +jovial that in the face of this question she boldly asked for more--a +request that was refused indignantly and at once. + +There was such a long pause after the soup that in their hunger they +began to eat the stewed apples and bottled cherries that were on the +table. The brown bread, arranged in thin slices on a white crochet mat +in a japanned dish, felt so damp and was so full of caraway seeds that +it was uneatable. After a while some roach, caught on the estate, and +with a strong muddy flavour and bewildering multitudes of bones, was +brought in; and after that came cutlets from Anna's pigs; and after that +a queer red gelatinous pudding that tasted of physic; and after that, +the meal being evidently at an end, Susie, who was very hungry, remarked +that if all the food were going to be like those specimens they had +better return at once to England, or they would certainly be starved. +"It's a good thing you are not going to stay here, Anna," she said, "for +you'd have to make a tremendous fuss before you'd get them to leave off +treating you like a pig. Look here--teaspoons to eat the pudding with, +and the same fork all the way through. It's a beastly hole"--Letty's +eyebrows telegraphed triumphantly across to Miss Leech, "Well, did you +hear that?"--"and we ought to have stayed in Berlin. There was nothing +to be gained at all by coming here." + +"Perhaps the dinner to-night will be better," said Anna, trying to +comfort her, and little knowing that they had just eaten the dinner; but +people who are hungry are surprisingly impervious to the influence of +fair words. "It couldn't be worse, anyhow, so it really will probably be +better. I'm very glad though that we did come, for I like it." + +"Oh, yes, so do I, Aunt Anna!" cried Letty. "It's frightfully nice. It's +like a picnic that doesn't leave off. When are we going over the house, +and out into the garden? I do so want to go--oh, I do so want to go!" +And she jumped up and down impatiently on her chair, till her ardour was +partially quenched by her mother's forbidding her to go out of doors in +the rain. "Well, let's go over the house, then," said Letty, dying to +explore. + +"Oh, yes, you may go over the house," said her mother with a shrug of +displeasure; though why she should be displeased it would have puzzled +anyone who had dined satisfactorily to explain. Then she suddenly +remembered Hilton, and with an exclamation started off in search of her. + +The others put on their furs before going into the Arctic atmosphere of +the hall, and began to explore, spending the next hour very pleasantly +rambling all over the house, while Susie, who had found Hilton, remained +shut up in the bedroom allotted her till supper time. + +The cook showed Anna her bedroom, and when she had gone, Anna gave one +look round at the evergreen wreaths with which it was decorated and +which filled it with a pungent, baked smell, and then ran out to see +what her house was like. Her heart was full of pride and happiness as +she wandered about the rooms and passages. The magic word _mine_ rang in +her ears, and gave each piece of furniture a charm so ridiculously great +that she would not have told any one of it for the world. She took up +the different irrelevant ornaments that were scattered through the +rooms, collected as such things do collect, nobody knew when or why, and +she put them down again somewhere else, only because she had the right +to alter things and she loved to remind herself of it. She patted the +walls and the tables as she passed; she smoothed down the folds of the +curtains with tender touches; she went up to every separate +looking-glass and stood in front of it a moment, so that there should be +none that had not reflected the image of its mistress. She was so +childishly delighted with her scanty possessions that she was thankful +Susie remained invisible and did not come out and scoff. + +What if it seemed an odd, bare place to eyes used to the superfluity of +hangings and stuffings that prevailed at Estcourt? These bare boards, +these shabby little mats by the side of the beds, the worn foxes' skins +before the writing-tables, the cane or wooden chairs, the white calico +curtains with meek cotton fringes, the queer little prints on the walls, +the painted wooden bedsteads, seemed to her in their very poorness and +unpretentiousness to be emblematical of all the virtues. As she lingered +in the quiet rooms, while Letty raced along the passages, Anna said to +herself that this Spartan simplicity, this absence of every luxury that +could still further soften an already languid and effeminate soul, was +beautiful. Here, as in the whitewashed praying-places of the Puritans, +if there were any beauty and any glory it must all come from within, be +all of the spirit, be only the beauty of a clean life and the glory of +kind thoughts. She pictured herself waking up in one of those unadorned +beds with the morning sun shining on her face, and rising to go her +daily round of usefulness in her quiet house, where there would be no +quarrels, and no pitiful ambitions, and none of those many bitter +heartaches that need never be. Would they not be happy days, those days +of simple duties? "The better life--the better life," she repeated +musingly, standing in the middle of the big room through whose tall +windows she could see the garden, and a strip of marshy land, and then +the grey sea and the white of the gulls and the dark line of the Rügen +coast over which the dusk was gathering; and she counted on her fingers +mechanically, "Simplicity, frugality, hard work. Uncle Joachim said +_that_ was the better life, and he was wise--oh, he was very wise--but +still----And he loved me, and understood me, but still----" + +Looking up she caught sight of herself in a long glass opposite, a slim +figure in a fur cloak, with bare head and pensive eyes, lost in +reflection. It reminded her of the day the letter came, when she stood +before the glass in her London bedroom dressed for dinner, with that +same sentence of his persistently in her ears, and how she had not been +able to imagine herself leading the life it described. Now, in her +travelling dress, pale and tired and subdued after the long journey, +shorn of every grace of clothes and curls, she criticised her own +fatuity in having held herself to be of too fine a clay, too delicate, +too fragile, for a life that might be rough. "Oh, vain and foolish one!" +she said aloud, apostrophising the figure in the glass with the familiar +_Du_ of the days before her mother died, "Art thou then so much better +than others, that thou must for ever be only ornamental and an expense? +Canst thou not live, except in luxury? Or walk, except on carpets? Or +eat, except thy soup be not of chocolate? Go to the ants, thou sluggard; +consider their ways, and be wise." And she wrapped herself in her cloak, +and frowned defiance at that other girl. + +She was standing scowling at herself with great disapproval when the +housemaid, who had been searching for her everywhere, came to tell her +that the Herr Oberinspector was downstairs, and had sent up to know if +his visit were convenient. + +It was not at all convenient; and Anna thought that he might have spared +her this first evening at least. But she supposed that she must go down +to him, feeling somehow unequal to sending so authoritative a person +away. + +She found him standing in the inner hall with a portfolio under his arm. +He was blowing his nose, making a sound like the blast of a trumpet, and +waking the echoes. Not even that could he do quietly, she thought, her +new sense of proprietorship oddly irritated by a nose being blown so +aggressively in her house. Besides, they were her echoes that he was +disturbing. She smiled at her own childishness. + +She greeted him kindly, however, in response to his elaborate +obeisances, and shook hands on seeing that he expected to be shaken +hands with, though she had done so twice already that afternoon; and +then she let herself be ushered by him into the drawing-room, a room on +the garden side of the house, with French windows, and bookshelves, and +a huge round polished table in the middle. + +It had been one of the two rooms used by Uncle Joachim, and was full of +traces of his visits. She sat down at a big writing-table with a green +cloth top, her feet plunged in the long matted hairs of a grey rug, and +requested Dellwig to sit down near her, which he did, saying +apologetically, "I will be so free." + +The servant, Marie, brought in a lamp with a green shade, shut the +shutters, and went out again on tiptoe; and Anna settled herself to +listen with what patience she could to the loud voice that jarred so on +her nerves, fortifying herself with reminders that it was her duty, and +really taking pains to understand him. Nor did she say a word, as she +had done to the lawyer, that might lead him to suppose she did not +intend living there. + +But Dellwig's ceaseless flow of talk soon wearied her to such an extent +that she found steady attention impossible. To understand the mere words +was in itself an effort, and she had not yet learned the German for rye +and oats and the rest, and it was of these that he chiefly talked. What +was the use of explaining to her in what way he had ploughed and manured +and sown certain fields, how they lay, how big they were, and what their +soil was, when she had not seen them? Did he imagine that she could keep +all these figures and details in her head? "I know nothing of farming," +she said at last, "and shall understand your plans better when I have +seen the estate." + +"_Natürlich, natürlich_," shouted Dellwig, his voice in strangest +contrast to hers, which was particularly sweet and gentle. "Here I have +a map--does the gracious Miss permit that I show it?" + +The gracious Miss inclined her tired head, and he unrolled it and spread +it out on the table, pointing with his fat forefinger as he explained +the boundaries, and the divisions into forest, pasture, and arable. + +"It seems to be nearly all forest," said Anna. + +"Forest! The forest covers two-thirds of the estate. It is the only +forest on the entire promontory. Such care as I have bestowed on the +forest has seldom been seen. It is _grossartig--colossal_!" And he +lifted his hands the better to express his admiration, and was about to +go into lengthy raptures when the map rolled itself up again with loud +cracklings, and cut him short. He spread it out once more, and securing +its corners began to describe the effects of the various sorts of +artificial manure on the different crops, his cleverness in combining +them, and his latest triumphant discovery of the superlative mixture +that was to strike all Pomerania with awe. + +"_Ja_," said Anna, balancing a paper-knife on one finger, and profoundly +bored. "Whose land is that next to mine?" she asked, pointing. + +"The land on the north and west belongs to peasants," said Dellwig. "On +the east is the sea. On the south it is all Lohm. The gracious one +passed through the village of Lohm this afternoon." + +"The village where the school is?" + +"Quite correct. The pastor, Herr Manske, a worthy man, but, like all +pastors, taking ells when he is offered inches, serves both that church +and the little one in Kleinwalde village, of which the gracious Miss is +patroness. Herr von Lohm, who lives in the house standing back from the +road, and perhaps noticed by the gracious Miss, is Amtsvorsteher in both +villages." + +"What is Amtsvorsteher?" asked Anna, languidly. She was leaning back in +her chair, idly balancing the paper-knife, and listening with half an +ear only to Dellwig, throwing in questions every now and then when she +thought she ought to say something. She did not look at him, preferring +much to look at the paper-knife, and he could examine her face at his +ease in the shadow of the lamp-shade, her dark eyelashes lowered, her +profile only turned to him, with its delicate line of brow and nose, and +the soft and gracious curves of the mouth and chin and throat. One hand +lay on the table in the circle of light, a slender, beautiful hand, full +of character and energy, and the other hung listlessly over the arm of +the chair. Anna was very tired, and showed it in every line of her +attitude; but Dellwig was not tired at all, was used to talking, enjoyed +at all times the sound of his voice, and on this occasion felt it to be +his duty to make things clear. So he went into the lengthiest details as +to the nature and office of Amtsvorstehers, details that were perfectly +incomprehensible and wholly indifferent to Anna, and spared neither +himself nor her. While he talked, however, he was criticising her, +comparing the laziness of her attitude with the brisk and respectful +alertness of other women when he talked. He knew that these other women +belonged to a different class; his wife, the parson's wife, the wives of +the inspectors on other estates, these were not, of course, in the same +sphere as the new mistress of Kleinwalde; but she was only a woman, and +dress up a woman as you will, call her by what name you will, she is +nothing but a woman, born to help and serve, never by any possibility +even equal to a clever man like himself. Old Joachim might have lounged +as he chose, and put his feet on the table if it had seemed good to him, +and Dellwig would have accepted it with unquestioning respect as an +eccentricity of _Herrschaften_; but a woman had no sort of right, he +said to himself, while he so fluently discoursed, to let herself go in +the presence of her natural superior. Unfortunately, old Joachim, so +level-headed an old gentleman in all other respects, had placed the +power over his fortunes in the hands of this weak female leaning back so +unbecomingly in her chair, playing with the objects on the table, never +raising her eyes to his, and showing indeed, incredible as it seemed, +every symptom of thinking of something else. The women of his +acquaintance were, he was certain, worth individually fifty such +affected, indifferent young ladies. They worked early and late to make +their husbands comfortable; they were well practised in every art +required of women living in the country; they were models of thrift and +diligence; yet, with all their virtues and all their accomplishments, +they never dreamed of lounging or not listening when a man was speaking, +but sat attentively on the edge of their chairs, straight in the back +and seemly, and when he had finished said _Jawohl_. + +Anna certainly did sit very much at her ease, and instead of attending, +as she ought to have done, to his description of Amtsvorstehers, was +thinking of other things. Dellwig had thick lips that could not be +hidden entirely by his grizzled moustache and beard, and he had the sort +of eyes known to the inelegant but truthful as fishy, and a big +obstinate nose, and a narrow obstinate forehead, and a long body and +short legs; and though all this, Anna told herself, was not in the least +his fault and should not in any way prejudice her against him, she felt +that she was justified in wishing that his manners were less offensive, +less boastful and boisterous, and that he did not bite his nails. "I +wonder," she thought, her eyes carefully fixed on the paper-knife, but +conscious of his every look and movement, "I wonder if he is as artful +as he looks. Surely Uncle Joachim must have known what he was like, and +would never have told me to keep him if he had not been honest. Perhaps +he is perfectly honest, and when I meet him in heaven how ashamed I +shall be of myself for having had doubts!" And then she fell to musing +on what sort of an appearance a chastened and angelic Dellwig would +probably present, and looked up suddenly at him with new interest. + +"I trust I have made myself comprehensible?" he was asking, having just +come to the end of what he felt was a masterly _résumé_ of Herr von +Lohm's duties. + +"I beg your pardon?" said Anna, bringing her thoughts back with +difficulty from the consideration of nimbuses, "Oh, about +Amtsvorstehers--no," she said, shaking her head, "you have not. But that +is my fault. I can't understand everything at once. I shall do better +later on." + +"_Natürlich, natürlich_," Dellwig vehemently assured her, while he made +inward comments on the innate incapacity of all _Weiber_, as he called +them, to grasp the simplest fact connected with law and justice. + +"Tell me about the livestock," said Anna, remembering Uncle Joachim's +frequent and affectionate allusions to his swine. "Are there many pigs?" + +"Pigs?" repeated Dellwig, lifting up his hands as though mere words were +insufficient to express his feelings, "such pigs as the gracious Miss +now possesses are nowhere else to be found in Pomerania. They are the +pride, and at the same time the envy, of the whole province. 'Let my +sausages,' said the Herr Landrath last winter, when the time for killing +drew near, 'let my sausages consist solely of the pigs reared at +Kleinwalde by my friend the Oberinspector Dellwig.' The Frau Landräthin +was deeply injured, for she too breeds and fattens pigs, but not like +ours--not like ours." + +"Who is the Herr Landrath?" asked Anna absently; but immediately +remembering the description of the Amtsvorsteher she added quickly, +"Never mind--don't explain. I suppose he is some sort of an official, +and I shall not be quite clear about these different officials till I +have lived here some time." + +"_Natürlich, natürlich_," agreed Dellwig; and leaving the Landrath +unexplained he launched forth into a dissertation on Anna's pigs, whose +excellencies, it appeared, were wholly due to the unrivalled skill he +had for years displayed in their treatment. "I have no children," he +said, with a resigned and pious upward glance, "and my wife's maternal +instincts find their satisfaction in tending and fattening these fine +animals. She cannot listen to their cries the day they are killed, and +withdraws into the cellar, where she prepares the stuffing. The gracious +Miss ate the cutlets of one this very day. It was killed on purpose." + +"Was it? I wish it hadn't been," said Anna, frowning at the remembrance +of that meal. "I--I don't want things killed on my account. I--don't +like pig." + +"Not like pig?" echoed Dellwig, dropping his lower jaw in his amazement. +"Did I understand aright that the gracious one does not eat pig's flesh +gladly? And my wife and I who thought to prepare a joy for her!" He +clasped his hands together and stared at her in dismay. Indeed, he was +so much overcome by this extraordinary and wilful spurning of nature's +best gifts that for a moment he was silent, and knew not how he should +proceed. Were there not concentrated in the body of a single pig a +greater diversity of joys than in any other form of pleasure that he +could call to mind? Did it not include, besides the profounder delights +of its roasted ribs, such solid satisfactions as hams, sausages, and +bacon? Did not its liver, discreetly manipulated, rival the livers of +Strasburg geese in delicacy? Were not its brains a source of mutual +congratulation to an entire family at supper? Did not its very snout, +boiled with peas, make an otherwise inferior soup delicious? The ribs of +this particular pig were reposing at that moment in a cool place, +carefully shielded from harm by his wife, reserved for the Easter Sunday +dinner of their new mistress, who, having begun at her first meal with +the lesser joys of cutlets, was to be fed with different parts in the +order of their excellence till the climax of rejoicing was reached on +Easter Day in the dish of _Schweinebraten_, and who was now declaring, +in a die-away, affected sort of voice, that she did not want to eat pig +at all. Where, then, was her vulnerable point? How would he ever be able +to touch her, to influence her, if she was indifferent to the chief +means of happiness known to the dwellers in those parts? That was the +real aim and end of his labours, of the labours, as far as he could see, +of everyone else--to make as much money as possible in order to live as +well as possible; and what did living well mean if it did not mean the +best food? And what was the best food if not pig? Not to be killed on +her account! On whose account, then, could they be killed? With an owner +always about the place, and refusing to have pigs killed, how would he +and his wife be able to indulge, with satisfactory frequency, in their +favourite food, or offer it to their expectant friends on Sundays? He +mourned old Joachim, who so seldom came down, and when he did ate his +share of pork like a man, more sincerely at that moment than he would +have thought possible. "_Mein seliger Herr_," he burst out brokenly, +completely upset by the difference between uncle and niece, "_mein +seliger Herr_----" And then, unable to go on, fell to blowing his nose +with violence, for there were real tears in his eyes. + +Anna looked up, surprised. She thought he had been speaking of pigs, and +here he was on a sudden bewailing his late master. When she saw the +tears she was deeply touched. "Poor man," she said to herself, "how +unjust I have been. Of course he loved dear Uncle Joachim; and my coming +here, an utter stranger, taking possession of everything, must be very +dreadful for him." She got up, at once anxious, as she always was, to +comfort and soothe anyone who was sad, and put her hand gently on his +arm. "I loved him too," she said softly, "and you who knew him so long +must feel his death dreadfully. We will try and keep everything just as +he would have liked it, won't we? You know what his wishes were, and +must help me to carry them out. You cannot have loved him more than I +did--dear Uncle Joachim!" + +She felt very near tears herself, and condoned the sonorous nose-blowing +as the expression of an honourable emotion. + +And Dellwig, when he presently reached his home and was met at the door +by his wife's eager "Well, how was she?" laconically replied "Mad." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +When Anna woke next morning she had a confused idea that something +annoying had happened the evening before, but she had slept so heavily +that she could not at once recollect what it was. Then, the sun on her +face waking her up more thoroughly, she remembered that Susie had stayed +upstairs with Hilton till supper time, had then come down, glanced with +unutterable disgust at the raw ham, cold sausage, eggs, and tepid coffee +of which the evening meal was composed, refused to eat, refused to +speak, refused utterly to smile, and afterwards in the drawing-room had +announced her fixed intention of returning to England the next day. + +Anna had protested and argued in vain; nothing could shake this sudden +determination. To all her expostulations and entreaties Susie replied +that she had never yet dwelt among savages and she was not going to +begin now; so Anna was forced to conclude that Hilton had been making a +scene, and knowing the effect of Hilton's scenes she gave up attempting +to persuade, but told her with outward firmness and inward quakings that +she herself could not possibly go too. + +Susie had been very angry at this, and still more angry at the reason +Anna gave, which was that, having invited the parson and his wife to +dinner on Saturday, she could not break her engagement. Susie told her +that as she would never see either of them again--for surely she would +never again want to come to this place?--it was absurd to care twopence +what they thought of her. What on earth did it matter if two inhabitants +of the desert were offended or not offended once she was on the other +side of the sea? And what did it matter at all how she treated them? She +heaped such epithets as absurd, stupid, and idiotic on Anna's head, but +Anna was not to be moved. She threatened to take Miss Leech and Letty +away with her, and leave Anna a prey to the criticisms of Mrs. Grundy, +and Anna said she could not prevent her doing so if she chose. Susie +became more and more excited, more and more Dobbs, goaded by the +recollection of what she had gone through with Hilton, and Anna, as +usual under such circumstances, grew very silent. Letty sat listening in +an agony of fright lest this cup of new experiences were about to be +dashed prematurely from her eager lips; and Miss Leech discreetly left +the room, though not in the least knowing where to go, finally seeking +to drive away the nervous fears that assailed her in her lonely, +creaking bedroom, where rats were gnawing at the woodwork, by thinking +hard of Mr. Jessup, who on this occasion proved to be but a broken reed, +pitted against the stern reality of rats. + +The end of it, after Susie had poured out the customary reproaches of +gross ingratitude and forgetfulness of all she had done for Anna for +fifteen long years, was that Miss Leech and Letty were to stay on as +originally intended, and come home with Anna towards the end of the +holidays, and Susie would leave with Hilton the very next day. + +Anna's attempt to make it up when she said good-night was repulsed with +energy. Anna was for ever doing aggravating things, and then wanting to +make it up; but makings up without having given in an inch seemed to +Susie singularly unsatisfactory ceremonies. Oh, these Estcourts and +their obstinacy! She marched off to bed in high indignation, an +indignation not by any means allowed to cool by Hilton during the +process of undressing; and Anna, worn out, fell asleep the moment she +lay down, and woke up, as she had pictured herself doing in that odd +wooden bed, with the morning sun shining full on her face. + +It was a bright and lovely day, and on the side of the house where she +slept she could not hear the wind, which was still blowing from the +north-west. She opened one of her three big windows and let the cold air +rush into her room, where the curious perfume of the baked evergreen +wreaths festooned round the walls and looking-glass and dressing-table, +joined to the heat from the stove, produced a heavy atmosphere that made +her gasp. Somebody must already have been in her room, for the stove had +been lit again, and she could see the peat blazing inside its open door. +But outside, what a divine coldness and purity! She leaned out, drinking +it in in long breaths, the warm March sun shining on her head. The +garden, a mere uncared-for piece of rough grass with big trees, was +radiant with rain-drops; the strip of sea was a deep blue now, with +crests of foam; the island coast opposite was a shadowy streak stretched +across the feet of the sun. Oh, it was beautiful to stand at that open +window in the freshness, listening to the robin on the bare lilac bush a +few yards away, to the quarrelling of the impudent sparrows on the path +below, to the wind in the branches of the trees, to all the happy +morning sounds of nature. A joyous feeling took possession of her heart, +a sudden overpowering delight in what are called common things--mere +earth, sky, sun, and wind. How lovely life was on such a morning, in +such a clean, rain-washed, wind-scoured world. The wet smell of the +garden came up to her, a whiff of marshy smell from the water, a long +breath from the pines in the forest on the other side of the house. How +had she ever breathed at Estcourt? How had she escaped suffocation +without this life-giving smell of sea and forest? She looked down with +delight at the wildness of the garden; after the trim Estcourt lawns, +what a relief this was. This was all liberty, freedom from +conventionality, absolute privacy; that was an everlasting clipping, and +trimming, and raking, a perpetual stumbling upon gardeners at every +step, for Susie would not be outdone by her greater neighbours in these +matters. What was Hill Street looking like this fine March morning? All +the blinds down, all the people in bed--how far away, how shadowy it +was; a street inhabited by sleepy ghosts, with phantom milkmen rattling +spectral cans beneath their windows. What a dream that life lived up to +three days ago seemed in this morning light of reality. White clouds, +like the clouds in Raphael's backgrounds, were floating so high overhead +that they could not be hurried by the wind; a black cat sat in a patch +of sunshine on the path washing itself; somebody opened a lower window, +and there was a noise of sweeping, presently made indistinguishable by +the chorale sung by the sweeper, no doubt Marie, in a pious, Good Friday +mood. "_Lob Gott ihr Christen allzugleich_," chanted Marie, keeping time +with her broom. Her voice was loud and monotonous, but Anna listened +with a smile, and would have liked to join in, and so let some of her +happiness find its way out. + +She dressed quickly. There was no hot water, and no bell to ring for +some, and she did not choose to call down from the window and interrupt +the hymn, so she used cold water, assuring herself that it was bracing. +Then she put on her hat and coat and stole out, afraid of disturbing +Susie, who was lying a few yards away filled with smouldering wrath, +anxious to have at least one quiet hour before beginning a day that she +felt sure was going to be a day of worries. "There will be great peace +to-night when she is gone," she thought, and immediately felt ashamed +that she should look forward to being without her. "But I have never +been without her since I was ten," she explained apologetically to her +offended conscience, "and I want to see how I feel." + +"_Guten Morgen_," said Marie, as Anna came into the drawing-room on her +way out through its French windows. + +"_Guten Morgen_," said Anna cheerfully. + +Marie leaned on her broom and watched her go down the garden, greedily +taking in every detail of her clothes, profoundly interested in a being +who went out into the mud where nobody could see her with such a dress +on, and whose shoes would not have been too big for Marie's small sister +aged nine. + +The evening before, indeed, Marie had beheld such a vision as she had +never yet in her life seen, or so much as imagined; her new mistress had +appeared at supper in what was evidently a _herrschaftliche Ballkleid_, +with naked arms and shoulders, and the other ladies were attired in much +the same way. The young Fräulein, it is true, showed no bare flesh, but +even she was arrayed in white, and her hair magnificently tied up with +ribbons. Marie had rushed out to tell the cook, and the cook, refusing +to believe it, had carried in a supererogatory dish of compot as an +excuse for securing the assurance of her own eyes; and Bertha from the +farm, coming round with a message from the Frau Oberinspector, had seen +it too through the crack of the kitchen door as the ladies left the +dining-room, and had gone off breathlessly to spread the news; and the +post cart just leaving with the letters had carried it to Lohm, and +every inhabitant of every house between Kleinwalde and Stralsund knew +all about it before bedtime. "What did I tell thee, wife?" said Dellwig, +who, in spite of his superiority to the sex that served, listened as +eagerly as any member of it to gossip; and his wife was only too ready +to label Anna mad or eccentric as a slight private consolation for +having passed out of the service of a comprehensible German gentleman +into that of a woman and a foreigner. + +Unconscious of the interest and curiosity she was exciting for miles +round, pleased by Marie's artless piety, and filled with kindly feelings +towards all her neighbours, Anna stood at the end of the garden looking +over the low hedge that divided it from the marsh and the sea, and +thought that she had never seen a place where it would be so easy to be +good. Complete freedom from the wearisome obligations of society, an +ideal privacy surrounded by her woods and the water, a scanty population +of simple and devoted people--did not Dellwig shed tears at the +remembrance of his master?--every day spent here would be a day that +made her better, that would bring her nearer to that heaven in which all +good and simple souls dwelt while still on earth, the heaven of a serene +and quiet mind. Always she had longed to be good, and to help and +befriend those who had the same longing but in whom it had been +partially crushed by want of opportunity and want of peace. The healthy +goodness that goes hand in hand with happiness was what she meant; not +that tragic and futile goodness that grows out of grief, that lifts its +head miserably in stony places, that flourishes in sick rooms and among +desperate sorrows, and goes to God only because all else is lost. She +went round the house and crossed the road into the forest. The fresh +wind blew in her face, and shook down the drops from the branches on her +as she passed. The pine needles of other years made a thick carpet for +her feet. The sun gleamed through the straight trunks and warmed her. +The restless sighing overheard in the tree tops filled her ears with +sweetest music. "I do believe the place is pleased that I have come!" +she thought, with a happy laugh. She came to a clearing in the trees, +opening out towards the north, and she could see the flat fields and the +wide sky and the sunshine chasing the shadows across the vivid green +patches that she had learned were winter rye. A hole at her feet, where +a tree had been uprooted, still had snow in it; but the larks were +singing above in the blue, as though from those high places they could +see Spring far away in the south, coming up slowly with the first +anemones in her hands, her face turned at last towards the patient +north. + +The strangest feeling of being for the first time in her life at home +came over Anna. This poor country, how sweet and touching it was. After +the English country, with its thickly scattered villages, and gardens, +and fields that looked like parks, it did seem very poor and very empty, +but intensely lovable. Like the furniture of her house, it struck her as +symbolic in its bareness of the sturdier virtues. The people who lived +in it must of necessity be frugal and hard-working if they would live at +all, wresting by sheer labour their life from the soil, braced by the +long winters to endurance and self-denial, their vices and their +languors frozen out of them whether they would or no. At least so +thought Anna, as she stood gazing out across the clearing at the fields +and sky. "Could one not be good here? Could one not be so, so good?" she +kept on murmuring. Then she remembered that she had been asking herself +vague questions like this ever since her arrival; and with a sudden +determination to face what was in her mind and think it out honestly, +she sat down on a tree stump, buttoned her coat up tight, for the wind +was blowing full on her, and fell to considering what she meant to do. + + * * * * * + +Susie did not go down to breakfast, but stayed in her bedroom on the +sofa drinking a glass of milk into which an egg had been beaten, and +listening to Hilton's criticisms of the German nation, delivered with +much venom while she packed. But Hilton, though her contempt for German +ways was so great as to be almost unutterable, was reconciled to a +mistress who had so quickly given in to her wish to be taken back to +Hill Street, and the venom was of an abstract nature, containing no +personal sting of unfavourable comparisons with duchesses; so that Susie +was sipping her milk in a fairly placid frame of mind when there was a +knock at the door, and Anna asked if she might come in. + +"Oh, yes, come in. Have you looked out the trains?" + +"Yes. There's only one decent one, and you'll have to leave directly +after luncheon. Won't you stay, Susie? You'll be so tired, going home +without resting." + +"Can't we leave before luncheon?" + +"Yes, of course, if you prefer to lunch at Stralsund." + +"Much. Have you ordered the shandrydan?" + +"Yes, for half-past one." + +"Then order it for half-past twelve. Hilton can drive with me." + +"So I thought." + +"Has that wretch been rubbing fish oil on it again?" + +"I don't think so, after what I said yesterday." + +"I shouldn't think what you said yesterday could have frightened him +much. You beamed at him as though he were your best friend." + +"Did I?" + +Anna was looking odd, Susie thought, and answering her remarks with a +nervous, abstracted air. She had apparently been out, for her dress was +muddy, and she was quite rosy, and her hair was not so neat as usual. +She stood about in an undecided sort of way, and glanced several times +at Hilton on her knees before a trunk. + +"Is that all the breakfast you are going to have?" she asked, becoming +aware of the glass of milk. + +"What other breakfast is there to have?" snapped Susie, who was hungry, +and would have liked a great deal more. + +"Well, the eggs and butter are very nice, anyway," said Anna, quite +evidently thinking of other things. + +"Now what has she got into her head?" Susie asked herself, watching her +sister-in-law with misgiving. Anna's new moods were never by any chance +of a sort to give Susie pleasure. Aloud she said tartly, "I can't eat +eggs and butter by themselves. I shouldn't have had anything at all if +it hadn't been for Hilton, who went into the kitchen and made me this +herself." + +"Excellent Hilton," said Anna absently. "Haven't you done packing yet, +Hilton?" + +"No, m'm." + +Anna sat down on the end of the sofa and began to twist the frills of +Susie's dressing-gown round her fingers. + +"I haven't closed my eyes all night," said Susie, putting on her martyr +look, "nor has Hilton." + +"Haven't you? Why not? I slept the sleep of the just--better, indeed, +than any just that I ever heard of." + +"What, didn't that man go into your room?" + +"What man? Oh, yes, Miss Leech was telling me about it. He lit the +stoves, didn't he? I never heard a sound." + +"You must have slept like a log then. Any one in the least sensitive +would have been frightened out of their senses. I was, and so was +Hilton. I wouldn't spend another night in this house for anything you +could give me." + +It appeared that Susie really had just cause for complaint. She had been +nervous the night before after Hilton had left her, unable to sleep, and +scared by the thought of their defencelessness--six women alone in that +wild place. She wished then with all her heart that Dellwig did live in +the house. Rats scampering about in the attic above added to her +terrors. The wind shook the windows of her room and howled +disconsolately up and down. She bore it as long as she could, which was +longer than most women would have borne it, and then knocked on the wall +dividing her room from Hilton's. But Hilton, with the bedclothes over +her head and all the candles she had been able to collect alight, would +not have stirred out of her room to save her mistress from dying; and +Susie, desperate at the prospect of the awful hours round midnight, made +one great effort of courage and sallied out to fetch her. Poor Susie, +standing shivering before her maid's bolted door, scantily clothed, +anxiously watching the flame of her candle that threatened each second +to be blown out, alone on the wide, draughty landing, frightened at the +sound of her own calls mingling weirdly with the creakings and hangings +of the tempest-shaken house, was an object deserving of pity. It took +some minutes to induce Hilton to open the door, and such minutes Susie +had not, in the course of an ordered and normal existence, yet passed. +They both went into Susie's room, locked themselves in, and Hilton lay +down on the sofa; and after a long time they fell into an uneasy sleep. +At half-past three Susie started up in bed; some one was trying to open +the door and knocking. The candles had burnt themselves out, and she +could not tell what time it was, but thought it must be early morning +and that the servant wanted to bring her hot water; and she woke Hilton +and bade her open the door. Hilton did so, gave a faint scream, and +flung herself back on the sofa, where she lay as one dead, her face +buried in the pillow. A man with a lantern and no shoes on was at the +door, and came in noiselessly. Susie was never nearer fainting in her +life. She sat in her bed, her cold hands clasped tightly round her +knees, her eyes fixed on this dreadful apparition, unable to speak or +move, paralysed by terror. This was the end, then, of all her hopes and +ambitions--to come to Pomerania and die like a dog. Then the sickening +feeling of fear gave way to one of overwhelming wrath when she found +that all the man wanted was to light her stove. On the same principle +that a child is shaken who has not after all been lost or run over, she +was speechless with rage now that she found that she was not, after all, +to be murdered. He was a very old man, and the light from the lantern +cast strange reflections on his face and figure as he crouched before +the stove. He mumbled as he worked, talking to the fire he was making as +though it were a person. "_Du willst nicht, brennen, Lump? Was? Na, +warte mal!_" And when he had finished, crept out again without glancing +at the occupants of the room, still mumbling. + +"It's the custom of the country, I suppose," said Anna. + +"Is it? Well the sooner we get out of such a country the better. You are +determined to stay in spite of everything? I can tell you I don't at all +like my child being here, but you force me to leave her because you know +very well that I can't let you stay here alone." + +Anna glanced at Hilton, folding a dress with immense deliberation. + +"Oh, Hilton knows what I think," said Susie, with a shrug. + +"But she doesn't know what _I_ think," said Anna. "I must talk to you +before you leave, so please let her finish packing afterwards. Go and +have your breakfast, Hilton." + +"Did you say breakfast, m'm?" inquired Hilton with an innocent look. + +"Breakfast?" repeated Susie; "poor thing, I'd like to know how and where +she is to get any." + +"Well, then, go and don't have your breakfast," said Anna impatiently. +She had something to tell Susie that must be told soon, and was not in a +mood to bear with Hilton's ways. + +"How hospitable," remarked Susie as the door closed. "Really you are a +delightful hostess." + +Anna laughed. "I don't mean to be brutal," she said, "but if we can +exist on the food without looking tragic I suppose she can too, +especially as it is only for one day." + +"My one consolation in leaving Letty here is that she will be dieted in +spite of herself. I expect you to bring her back quite thin." + +Anna got up restlessly and went to the window. + +"And whatever you do, don't forget that the return tickets only last +till the 24th. But you'll be sick of it long before then." + +Anna turned round and leaned her back against the window. The strong +morning light was on her hair, and her face was in shadow, yet Susie had +a feeling that she was looking guilty. + +"Susie, I've been thinking," she said with an effort. + +"Really? How nice." + +"Yes, it was, for I found out what it is that I must do if I mean to be +happy. But I'm afraid that _you_ won't think it nice, and will scold me. +Now don't scold me." + +"Well, tell me what it is." Susie lay staring at Anna's form against the +light, bracing herself to hear something disagreeable. She knew very +well from past experience that Anna's new plan, whatever it was, was +certain to be wild and foolish. + +"I am going to stay here." + +"I know you are, and I know that nothing I can say will make you change +your mind. Peter is just like you--the more I show him what a fool he's +going to make of himself the more he insists on doing it. He calls it +determination. Average people like myself, with smaller and more easily +managed brains than you two wonders have got, call it pigheadedness." + +"I don't mean only for Letty's holidays; I mean for good." + +"For good?" Susie opened her mouth and stared in much the same blank +consternation that Dellwig had shown on hearing that she did not like +eating pig. + +"Don't be angry with me," said Anna, coming over to the sofa and sitting +on the floor by Susie's side; and she caught hold of her hand and began +to talk fast and eagerly. "I always intended spending this money in +helping poor people, but didn't quite know in what way--now I see my way +clearly, and I must, _must_ go it. Don't you remember in the catechism +there's the duty towards God and the duty towards one's neighbour----" + +"Oh, if you're going to talk religion----" said Susie, pulling away her +hand in great disgust. + +"No, no, do listen," said Anna, catching it again and stroking it while +she talked, to Susie's intense irritation, who hated being stroked. + +"If you are going into the catechism," she said, "Hilton had better come +in again. It might do her good." + +"No, no--I only wanted to say that there's another duty not in the +catechism, greater than the duty towards one's neighbour----" + +"My dear Anna, it isn't likely that you can improve on the catechism. +And fancy wanting to, at breakfast time. Don't stroke my hand--it gives +me the fidgets." + +"But I want to explain things--do listen. The duty the catechism leaves +out is the duty towards oneself. You can't get away from your duties, +you know, Susie----" And she knit her brows in her effort to follow out +her thought. + +"My goodness, as though I ever tried! If ever a poor woman did her duty, +I'm that woman." + +"--and I believe that if I do those two duties, towards my neighbour and +myself, I shall be doing my duty towards God." + +Susie gave her body an impatient twist. She thought it positively +indecent to speak of sacred things so early in the morning in cold +blood. "What has this drivel to do with your stopping here?" she asked +angrily. + +"It has everything to do with it--my duty towards myself is to be as +happy and as good as possible, and my duty towards my neighbour----" + +"Oh, bother your neighbour and your duty!" cried Susie in exasperation. + +"--is to help him to be good and happy too." + +"Him? Her, I hope. Don't forget decency, my dear. A girl has no duties +whatever towards male neighbours." + +"Well, I do mean her," said Anna, looking up and laughing. + +"So you think that by living here you'll make yourself happy?" + +"Yes, I do--I do think so. Perhaps I am wrong, and shall find out I'm +wrong, but I must try." + +"You'll leave all your friends and relations and stay in this +God-forsaken place where you can't even live like a lady?" + +"Uncle Joachim said it was my one chance of leading the better life." + +"Unutterable old fool," said Susie with bitterest contempt. "That money, +then, is going to be thrown away on Germans? As though there weren't +poor people enough in England, if your ambition is to pose as a +benefactress!" + +"Oh, I don't want to pose as anything--I only want to help unhappy +wretches," cried Anna, laying her cheek caressingly on Susie's unwilling +hand. "Now don't scold me--forgive me if I'm silly, and be patient with +me till I find out that I've made a goose of myself and come creeping +back to you and Peter. But I _must_ do it--I _must_ try--I _will_ do +what I think is right." + +"And who are the wretches, pray, who are to be made happy?" + +"Oh, those I am sorriest for--that no one else helps--the genteel ones, +if I can only get at them." + +"I never heard of genteel wretches," said Susie. + +Anna laughed again. "I was thinking it all out in the forest this +morning," she said, "and it suddenly flashed across me that this big +roomy house was never meant not to be used, and that instead of going to +see poor people and giving them money in the ordinary way, it would be +so much better to let women of the better classes, who have no money, +and who are dependent and miserable, come and live with me and share +mine, and have everything that I have--exactly the same, with no +difference of any sort. There is room for twelve at least, and wouldn't +it be beautiful to make twelve people, who had lost all hope and all +courage, happy for the rest of their days?" + +"Oh, the girl's mad!" cried Susie, springing up from the sofa, no longer +able to bear herself. She began to walk about the room, not knowing what +to say or do, absolutely without sympathy for beneficent impulses, at +all times possessed of a fine scorn for ideals, feeling that no argument +would be of any avail with an Estcourt whose mind was made up, shocked +that good money, so hard to get, and so very precious when got, should +be thrown away in such a manner, bewildered by the difficulties of the +situation, for how could a girl of Anna's age live alone, and direct a +house full of objects of charity? Would the objects themselves be a +sufficient chaperonage? Would her friends at home think so? Would they +not blame her, Susie, for having allowed all this? As though she could +prevent it! Or would they expect her to stay with Anna in this place +till she should marry? As though anybody would ever marry such a +lunatic! "Mad, mad, mad!" cried Susie, wringing her hands. + +"I was afraid that you wouldn't like it," said the culprit on the floor, +watching her with a distressed face. + +"Like it? Oh--mad, mad!" And she continued to walk and wring her hands. + +"Well, you'll stay, then," she said, suddenly stopping in front of Anna, +"I know you well enough, and shall waste no breath arguing. That +infatuated old man's money has turned your head--I didn't know it was so +weak. But look into your heart when I am gone--you'll have time enough +and quiet enough--and ask yourself honestly whether what you are going +to do is a proper way of paying back all I have done for you, and all +the expense you have been. You know what my wishes are about you, and +you don't care one jot. Gratitude! There isn't a spark of it in your +whole body. Never was there a more selfish creature, and I can't believe +that ingratitude and selfishness are the stuff that makes saints. Don't +dare to talk any more rot about duty to your neighbour to me. An +Englishwoman to come and spend her money on German charities----" + +"It's German money," murmured Anna. + +"And to _live_ here--to live _here_--oh, mad, mad!" And Susie's +indignation threatening to choke her, she resumed her walk and her +gesticulations, her high heels tapping furiously on the bare boards. + +She longed to take Letty and Miss Leech away with her that very morning, +and punish Anna by leaving her entirely alone; but she did not dare +because of Peter. Peter was always on Anna's side when there were +differences, and would be sure to do something dreadful when he heard of +it--perhaps come and live here too, and never go back to his wife any +more. Oh, these half Germans! Why had she married into a family with +such a taint in its blood? "You will have to have some one here," she +said, turning on Anna, who still sat on the floor by the sofa, a look on +her face of apology and penitence mixed with firmness that Susie well +knew. "How can you stay here alone? I shall leave Miss Leech with you +till the end of the holidays, though I hate to seem to encourage you; +but then you see I do my duty and always have, though I don't talk about +it. When I get home I shall look for some elderly woman who won't mind +coming here and seeing that you don't make yourself too much of a +by-word, and the day she comes you are to send me back my child." + +"It is good of you to let me keep Letty, dear Susie----" + +"Dear Susie!" + +"But I don't mean to be a by-word, as you call it," continued Anna, the +ghost of a smile lurking in her eyes, "and I don't want an Englishwoman. +What use would she be here? She wouldn't understand if it was a German +by-word that I turned into. I thought about asking the parson how I had +better set about getting a German lady--a grave and sober female, +advanced in years, as Uncle Joachim wrote." + +"Oh, Uncle Joachim----" Susie could hardly endure to hear the name. It +was that odious old man who had filled Anna's head with these ideas. To +leave her money was admirable, but to influence a weak girl's mind with +his wishy-washy German philosophy about the better life and such +rubbish, as he evidently had done during those excursions with her, was +conduct so shameful that she found no words strong enough to express her +opinion of it. Everyone would blame her for what had happened, everyone +would jeer at her, and say that the moment an opportunity of escape had +presented itself Anna had seized it, preferring an existence of +loneliness and hardship--any sort of existence--to all the pleasures of +civilised life in Susie's company. Peter would certainly be very angry +with her, and reproach her with not having made Anna happy enough. Happy +enough! The girl had cost her at least three hundred a year, what with +her expensive education and all her clothes since she came out; and if +three hundred good pounds spent on a girl could not make her happy, +she'd like to know what could. And no one--not one of those odious +people in London whom she secretly hated--would have a single word of +censure for Anna. No one ever had. All her vagaries and absurdities +during the last few years when she had been so provoking had been smiled +at, had been, Susie knew, put down to her treatment of her. Treatment of +her, indeed! The thought of these things made Susie writhe. She had been +looking forward to the next season, to having her pretty sister-in-law +with her in the happy mood she had been in since she heard of her good +fortune, and had foreseen nothing but advantages to herself from Anna's +presence in her house--an Anna spending and not being spent upon, and no +doubt to be persuaded to share the expenses of housekeeping. And now she +must go home by herself to blame, scoldings, and derision. The prospect +was almost more than she could bear. She went to the door, opened it, +and turning to Anna fired a parting shot. "Let no one," she said, her +voice shaken by deepest disgust, "who wants to be happy, ever spend a +penny on her husband's relations." + +And then she called Hilton; nor did she leave off calling till Hilton +appeared, and so prevented Anna from saying another word. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +But if Susie's rage was such that she refused to say good-bye, and +terrified Miss Leech while she was waiting in the hall for the carriage +by dark allusions to strait-waistcoats, when the parson was taken into +Anna's confidence after dinner on the following night his raptures knew +no bounds. "_Liebes, edeldenkendes Fräulein!_" he burst out, clasping +his hands and gazing with a moist, ecstatic eye at this young sprig of +piety. He was a good man, not very learned, not very refined, +sentimental exceedingly, and much inclined to become tearfully eloquent +on such subjects as _die liebe kleine Kinder, die herrliche Natur, die +Frau als Schutzengel_, and the sacredness of _das Familienleben_. + +Anna felt that he was the only person at hand who could perhaps help her +to find twelve dejected ladies willing to be made happy, and had +unfolded her plan to him as tersely as possible in her stumbling German, +with none of those accompanying digressions into the question of +feelings that Susie stigmatised as drivel; and she sat uncomfortable +enough while he burst forth into praises that would not end of her +goodness and nobleness. It is hard to look anything but fatuous when +somebody is extolling your virtues to your face, and she could not help +both looking and feeling foolish during his extravagant glorification. +She did not doubt his sincerity, and indeed he was absolutely sincere, +but she wished that he would be less flowery and less long, and would +skip the raptures and get on to the main subject, which was practical +advice. + +She wore the simple white dress that had caused such a sensation in the +neighbourhood, a garment that hung in long, soft folds, accentuating her +slender length of limb. Her bright hair was parted and tucked behind her +ears. Everything about her breathed an absolute want of +self-consciousness and vanity, a perfect freedom from the least thought +of the impression she might be making; yet she was beautiful, and the +good man observing her beauty, and supposing from what she had just told +him an equal beauty of character, for ever afterwards when he thought of +angels on quiet Sunday evenings in his garden, clothed them as Anna was +clothed that night, not even shrinking from the pretty, bare shoulders +and scantily sleeved arms, but facing them with a courage worthy of a +man, however doubtfully it might become a pastor. + +His wife, in her best dress, which was also her tightest, sat on the +edge of a chair some way off, marvelling greatly at many things. She +could not hear what it was Anna had said to set her husband off +exclaiming, because the governess persisted in trying to talk German to +her, and would not be satisfied with vague replies. She was disappointed +by the sudden disappearance of the sister-in-law, gone before she had +shown herself to a single soul; astonished that she had not been +requested to sit on the sofa, in which place of honour the young +Fräulein sprawled in a way that would certainly ruin her clothes; +disgusted that she had not been pressed at table, nay, not even asked, +to partake of every dish a second time; indeed, no one had seemed to +notice or care whether she ate anything at all. These were strange ways. +And where were the Dellwigs, those great people accustomed to patronise +her because she was the parson's wife? Was it possible that they had not +been invited? Were there then quarrels already? She could not of course +dream that Anna would never have thought of asking her inspector and his +wife to dinner, and that in her ignorance she regarded the parson as a +person on an altogether higher social level than the inspector. These +things, joined to conjectures as to the probable price by the yard of +Anna's, Letty's, and Miss Leech's clothes, gave Frau Manske more food +for reflection than she had had for years; and she sat turning them over +slowly in her mind in the intervals between Miss Leech's sentences, +while her dress, which was of silk, creaked ominously with every painful +breath she drew. + +"The best way to act," said the parson, when he had exhausted the +greater part of his raptures, "will be to advertise in a newspaper of a +Christian character." + +"But not in my name," said Anna. + +"No, no, we must be discreet--we must be very discreet. The +advertisement must be drawn up with skill. I will make, simultaneously, +inquiries among my colleagues in the holy office, but there must also be +an advertisement. What would the gracious Miss's opinion be of the +desirability of referring all applicants, in the first instance, to me?" + +"Why, I think it would be an excellent plan, if you do not mind the +trouble." + +"Trouble! Joy fills me at the thought of taking part in this good work. +Little did I think that our poor corner of the fatherland was to become +a holy place, a blessed refuge for the world-worn, a nook fragrant with +charity----" + +"No, not charity," interposed Anna. + +"Whose perfume," continued the parson, determined to finish his +sentence, "whose perfume will ascend day and night to the attentive +heavens. But such are the celestial surprises Providence keeps in +reserve and springs upon us when we least expect it." + +"Yes," said Anna. "But what shall we put in the advertisement?" + +"_Ach ja_, the advertisement. In the contemplation of this beautiful +scheme I forget the advertisement." And again the moisture of ecstasy +suffused his eyes, and again he clasped his hands and gazed at her with +his head on one side, almost as though the young lady herself were the +beautiful scheme. + +Anna got up and went to the writing-table to fetch a pencil and a sheet +of paper, anxious to keep him to the point; and the parson watching the +graceful white figure was more than ever struck by her resemblance to +his idea of angels. He did not consider how easy it was to look like a +being from another world, a creature purified of every earthly +grossness, to eyes accustomed to behold the redundant exuberance of his +own excellent wife. + +She brought the paper, and sat down again at the table on which the lamp +stood. "How does one write any sort of advertisement in German?" she +said. "I could not write one for a housemaid. And this one must be done +so carefully." + +"Very true; for, alas, even ladies are sometimes not all that they +profess to be. Sad that in a Christian country there should be +impostors. Doubly sad that there should be any of the female sex." + +"Very sad," said Anna, smiling. "You must tell me which are the +impostors among those that answer." + +"_Ach_, it will not be easy," said the parson, whose experience of +ladies was limited, and who began to see that he was taking upon himself +responsibilities that threatened to become grave. Suppose he recommended +an applicant who afterwards departed with the gracious Miss's spoons in +her bag? "_Ach_, it will not be easy," he said, shaking his head. + +"Oh, well," said Anna, "we must risk the impostors. There may not be any +at all. How would you begin?" + +The parson threw himself back in his chair, folded his hands, cast up +his eyes to the ceiling, and meditated. Anna waited, pencil in hand, +ready to write at his dictation. Frau Manske at the other end of the +room was straining her ears to hear what was going on, but Miss Leech, +desirous both of entertaining her and of practising her German, would +not cease from her spasmodic talk, even expecting her mistakes to be +corrected. And there were no refreshments, no glasses of cooling beer +being handed round, no liquid consolation of any sort, not even seltzer +water. She regarded her evening as a failure. + +"A Christian lady of noble sentiments," dictated the parson, apparently +reading the words off the ceiling, "offers a home in her house----" + +"Is this the advertisement?" asked Anna. + +"--offers a home in her house----" + +"I don't quite like the beginning," hesitated Anna. "I would rather +leave out about the noble sentiments." + +"As the gracious one pleases. Modesty can never be anything but an +ornament. 'A Christian lady----'" + +"But why a _Christian_ lady? Why not simply a lady? Are there, then, +heathen ladies about, that you insist on the Christian?" + +"Worse, worse than heathen," replied the parson, sitting up straight, +and fixing eyeballs suddenly grown fiery on her; and his voice fell to a +hissing whisper, in strange contrast to his previous honeyed tones. "The +heathen live in far-off lands, where they keep quiet till our +missionaries gather them into the Church's fold--but here, here in our +midst, here everywhere, taking the money from our pockets, nay, the very +bread from our mouths, are the _Jews_." + +Impossible to describe the tone of fear and hatred with which this word +was pronounced. + +Anna gazed at him, mystified. "The Jews?" she echoed. One of her +greatest friends at home was a Jew, a delightful person, the mere +recollection of whom made her smile, so witty and charming and kind was +he. And of Jews in general she could not remember to have heard anything +at all. + +"But not only money from our pockets and bread from our mouths," +continued the parson, leaning forward, his light grey eyes opened to +their widest extent, and speaking in a whisper that made her flesh begin +the process known as creeping, "but blood--blood from our veins." + +"Blood from your veins?" she repeated faintly. It sounded horrid. It +offended her ears. It had nothing to do with the advertisement. The +strange light in his eyes made her think of fanaticism, cruelty, and the +Middle Ages. The mildest of men in general, as she found later on, +rabidness seized him at the mere mention of Jews. + +"Blood," he hissed, "from the veins of Christians, for the performance +of their unholy rites. Did the gracious one never hear of ritual +murders?" + +"No," said Anna, shrinking back, the nearer he leaned towards her, +"never in my life. Don't tell me now, for it--it sounds interesting. I +should like to hear about it all another time. 'A Christian lady offers +her home,'" she went on quickly, scribbling that much down, and then +looking at him inquiringly. + +"_Ach ja_," he said in his natural voice, leaning back in his chair and +reducing his eyes to their normal size, "I forgot again the +advertisement. 'A Christian lady offers her home to others of her sex +and station who are without means----'" + +"And without friends, and without hope," added Anna, writing. + +"_Gut, gut, sehr gut._" + +"She has room in her house in the country," Anna went on, writing as she +spoke, "for twelve such ladies, and will be glad to share with them all +that she possesses of fortune and happiness." + +"_Gut, gut, sehr gut._" + +"Is the German correct?" + +"Quite correct. I would add, 'Strictest inquiries will be made before +acceptance of any application by Herr Pastor Manske of Lohm, to whom all +letters are to be addressed. Applicants must be ladies of good family, +who have fallen on evil days by the will of God.'" + +Anna wrote this down as far as "days," after which she put a full stop. + +"It pleases me not entirely," said Manske, musing; "the language is not +sufficiently noble. Noble schemes should be alluded to in noble words." + +"But not in an advertisement." + +"Why not? We ought not to hide our good thoughts from our fellows, but +rather open our hearts, pour out our feelings, spend freely all that we +have in us of virtue and piety, for the edification and exhilaration of +others." + +"But not in an advertisement. I don't want to exhilarate the public." + +"And why not exhilarate the public, dear Miss? Is it not composed of +units of like passions to ourselves? Units on the way to heaven, units +bowed down by the same sorrows, cheered by the same hopes, torn asunder +by the same temptations as the gracious one and myself?" And immediately +he launched forth into a flood of eloquence about units; for in Germany +sermons are all extempore, and the clergy, from constant practice, +acquire a fatal fluency of speech, bursting out in the week on the least +provocation into preaching, and not by any known means to be stopped. + +"Oh--words, words, words!" thought Anna, waiting till he should have +finished. His wife, hearing the well-known rapid speech of his inspired +moments, glowed with pride. "My Adolf surpasses himself," she thought; +"the Miss must wonder." + +The Miss did wonder. She sat and wondered, her elbows on the arms of the +chair, her finger tips joined together, and her eyes fixed on her finger +tips. She did not like to look at him, because, knowing how different +was the effect produced on her to that which he of course imagined, she +was sorry for him. + +"It is so good of you to help me," she said with gentle irrelevance when +the longed-for pause at length came. "There was something else that I +wanted to consult you about. I must look for a companion--an elderly +German lady, who will help me in the housekeeping." + +"Yes, yes, I comprehend. But would not the twelve be sufficient +companions, and helps in the housekeeping?" + +"No, because I would not like them to think that I want anything done +for me in return for their home. I want them to do exactly what makes +them happiest. They will all have had sad lives, and must waste no more +time in doing things they don't quite like." + +"Ah--noble, noble," murmured the parson, quite as unpractical as Anna, +and fascinated by the very vagueness of her plan of benevolence. + +"The companion I wish to find would be another sort of person, and would +help me in return for a salary." + +"Certainly, I comprehend." + +"I thought perhaps you would tell me how to advertise for such a +person?" + +"Surely, surely. My wife has a sister----" + +He paused. Anna looked up quickly. She had not reckoned with the +possibility of his wife's having sisters. + +"_Lieber Schatz_," he called to his wife, "what does thy sister Helena +do now?" + +Frau Manske got up and came over to them with the alacrity of relief. +"What dost thou say, dear Adolf?" she asked, laying her hand on his +shoulder. He took it in his, stroked it, kissed it, and finally put his +arm round her waist and held it there while he talked; all to the +exceeding joy of Letty, to whom such proceedings had the charm of +absolute freshness. + +"Thy sister Helena--is she at present in the parental house?" he asked, +looking up at her fondly, warmed into an affection even greater than +ordinary by the circumstance of having spectators. + +Frau Manske was not sure. She would write and inquire. Anna proposed +that she should sit down, but the parson playfully held her closer. +"This is my guardian angel," he explained, smiling beatifically at her, +"the faithful mother of my children, now grown up and gone their several +ways. Does the gracious Miss remember the immortal lines of Schiller, +'_Ehret die Frauen, sie flechten und weben himmlische Rosen in's +irdische Leben_'? Such has been the occupation of this dear wife, only +interrupted by her occasional visits to bathing resorts, since the day, +more than twenty-five years ago, when she consented to tread with me the +path leading heavenwards. Not a day has there been, except when she was +at the seaside, without its roses." + +"Oh," said Anna. She felt that the remark was not at the height of the +situation, and added, "How--how interesting." This also struck her as +inadequate; but all further inspiration failing her, she was reduced to +the silent sympathy of smiles. + +"Ten children did the Lord bless us with," continued the parson, +expanding into confidences, "and six it was His will again to remove." + +"The drains--" murmured Frau Manske. + +"Yes, truly the drains in the town where we lived then were bad, very +bad. But one must not question the wisdom of Providence." + +"No, but one might mend----" Anna stopped, feeling that under some +circumstances even the mending of drains might be impious. She had heard +so much about piety and Providence within the last two hours that she +was confused, and was no longer clear as to the exact limit of conduct +beyond which a flying in the face of Providence might be said to begin. + +But the parson, clasping his wife to his side, paid no heed to anything +she might be saying, for he was already well on in a detailed account of +the personal appearance, habits, and career of his four remaining +children, and dwelt so fondly on each in turn that he forgot sister +Helena and the second advertisement; and when he had explained all their +numerous excellencies and harmless idiosyncrasies, including their +preferences in matters of food and drink, he abruptly quitted this +topic, and proceeded to expound Anna's scheme to his wife, who had +listened with ill-concealed impatience to the first part of his +discourse, consumed as she was with curiosity to hear what it was that +Anna had confided to him. + +So Anna had to listen to the raptures all over again. The eager interest +of the wife disturbed her. She doubted whether Frau Manske had any real +sympathy with her plan. Her inquisitiveness was unquestionable; but Anna +felt that opening her heart to the parson and opening it to his wife +were two different things. Though he was wordy, he was certainly +enthusiastic; his wife, on the other hand, appeared to be chiefly +interested in the question of cost. "The cost will be colossal," she +said, surveying Anna from head to foot. "But the gracious Miss is rich," +she added. + +Anna began to examine her finger tips again. + +On the way home through the dark fields, after having criticised each +dish of the dinner and expressed the opinion that the entertainment was +not worthy of such a wealthy lady, Frau Manske observed to her husband +that it was true, then, what she had always heard of the English, that +they were peculiarly liable to prolonged attacks of craziness. + +"Craziness! Thou callest this craziness? It is my wife, the wife of a +pastor, that I hear applying such a word to so beautiful, so Christian, +a scheme?" + +"But the good money--to give it all away. Yes, it is very Christian, but +it is also crazy." + +"Woman, shut thy mouth!" cried the parson, beside himself with +indignation at hearing such sentiments from such lips. + +Clearly Frau Manske was not at that moment engaged with her roses. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +The next morning early, Anna went over to the farm to ask Dellwig to +lend her any newspapers he might have. She was anxious to advertise as +soon as possible for a companion, and now that she knew of the existence +of sister Helena, thought it better to write this advertisement without +the parson's aid, copying any other one of the sort that she might see +in the papers. Until she had secured the services of a German lady who +would tell her how to set about the reforms she intended making in her +house, she was perfectly helpless. She wanted to put her home in order +quickly, so that the twelve unhappy ones should not be kept waiting; and +there were many things to be done. Servants, furniture, everything, was +necessary, and she did not know where such things were to be had. She +did not even know where washerwomen were obtainable, and Frau Dellwig +never seemed to be at home when she sent for her, or went to her seeking +information. On Good Friday, after Susie's departure, she had sent a +message to the farm desiring the attendance of the inspector's wife, +whom she wished to consult about the dinner to be prepared for the +Manskes, all provisions apparently passing through Frau Dellwig's hands; +and she had been told that the lady was at church. On Saturday morning, +disturbed by the emptiness of her larder and the imminence of her +guests, she had gone herself to the farm, but was told that the lady was +in the cow-sheds--in which cow-shed nobody exactly knew. Anna had been +forced to ask Dellwig about the food. On Sunday she took Letty with her, +abashed by the whisperings and starings she had had to endure when she +went alone. Nor on this occasion did she see the inspector's wife, and +she began to wonder what had become of her. + +The Dellwigs' wrath and amazement when they found that the parson and +his wife had been invited to dinner and they themselves left out was +indescribable. Never had such an insult been offered them. They had +always been the first people of their class in the place, always held +their heads up and condescended to the clergy, always been helped first +at table, gone first through doors, sat in the right-hand corners of +sofas. If he was furious, she was still more so, filled with venom and +hatred unutterable for the innocent, but it must be added overjoyed, +Frau Manske; and though her own interest demanded it, she was altogether +unable to bring herself to meet Anna for the purpose, as she knew, of +being consulted about the menu to be offered to the wretched upstart. +Indeed, Frau Dellwig's position was similar to that painful one in which +Susie found herself when her influential London acquaintance left her +out of the invitations to the wedding; on which occasion, as we know, +Susie had been constrained to flee to Germany in order to escape the +comments of her friends. Frau Dellwig could not flee anywhere. She was +obliged to stay where she was and bear it as best she might, humiliated +in the eyes of the whole neighbourhood, an object of derision to her +very milkmaids. Philosophers smile at such trials; but to persons who +are not philosophers, and at Kleinwalde these were in the majority, they +are more difficult to endure than any family bereavement. There is no +dignity about them, and friends, instead of sympathising, rejoice more +or less openly according to the degree of their civilisation. The degree +of civilisation among Frau Dellwig's friends was not great, and the +rejoicings on the next Sunday when they all met would be but +ill-concealed; there was no escape from them, they had to be faced, and +the malicious condolences accepted with what countenance she could. +Instead of making sausages, therefore, she shut herself in her bedroom +and wept. + +And so it came about that the unconscious Anna, whose one desire was to +live at peace with her neighbours, made two enemies within two days. +"All women," said Dellwig to his wife, "high and low, are alike. Unless +they have a husband to keep them in their right places, they become +religious and run after pastors. Manske has wormed himself in very +cleverly, truly very cleverly. But we will worm him out again with equal +cleverness. As for his wife, what canst thou expect from so great a +fool?" + +"No, indeed, from her I expect nothing," replied his wife, tossing her +head, "but from the niece of our late master I expected the behaviour of +a lady." And at that moment, the niece of her late master being +announced, she fled into her bedroom. + +Anna, friendly as ever, specially kind to Dellwig since his tears on the +night of her arrival, came with Letty into the gloomy little office +where he was working, with all the morning sunshine in her face. Though +she was perplexed by many things, she was intensely happy. The perfect +freedom, after her years of servitude, was like heaven. Here she was in +her own home, from which nobody could take her, free to arrange her life +as she chose. Oh, it was a beautiful world, and this the most beautiful +corner of it! She was sure the sky was bluer at Kleinwalde than in other +places, and that the larks sang louder. And then was she not on the very +verge of realising her dreams of bringing the light of happiness into +dark and hopeless lives? Oh, the beautiful, beautiful world! She came +into Dellwig's room with the love of it shining in her eyes. + +He was as obsequious as ever, for unfortunately his bread and butter +depended on this perverse young woman; but he was also graver and less +talkative, considering within himself that he could not be expected to +pass over such a slight without some alteration in his manner. He ought, +he felt, to show that he was pained, and he ought to show it so +unmistakably that she would perhaps be led to offer some explanation of +her conduct. Accordingly he assumed the subdued behaviour of one whose +feelings have been hurt, and Anna thought how greatly he improved on +acquaintance. + +He would have given much to know why she wanted the papers, for surely +it was unusual for women to read newspapers? When there was a murder, or +anything of that sort, his wife liked to see them, but not at other +times. "Is the gracious Miss interested in politics?" he inquired, as he +put several together. + +"No, not particularly," said Anna; "at least, not yet in German +politics. I must live here a little while first." + +"In--in literature, perhaps?" + +"No, not particularly. I know so little about German books." + +"There are some well-written articles occasionally on the modes in +ladies' dresses." + +"Really?" + +"My wife tells me she often gets hints from them as to what is being +worn. Ladies, we know," he added with a superior smile, checked, +however, on his remembering that he was pained, "are interested in these +matters." + +"Yes, they are," agreed Anna, smiling, and holding out her hand for the +papers. + +"Ah, then, it is that that the gracious Miss wishes to read?" he said +quickly. + +"No, not particularly," said Anna, who began to see that he too suffered +from the prevailing inquisitiveness. Besides, she was too much afraid of +his having sisters, or of his wife's having sisters, eager to come and +be a blessing to her, to tell him about her advertisement. + +On the steps of his house, to which Dellwig accompanied the two girls, +stood a man who had just got off his horse. He was pulling off his +gloves as he watched it being led away by a boy. He had his back to +Anna, and she looked at it interested, for it was unlike any back she +had yet seen in Kleinwalde, in that it was the back of a gentleman. + +"It is Herr von Lohm," said Dellwig, "who has business here this +morning. Some of our people unfortunately drink too much on holidays +like Good Friday, and there are quarrels. I explained to the gracious +one that he is our Amtsvorsteher." + +Herr von Lohm turned at the sound of Dellwig's voice, and took off his +hat. "Pray present me to these ladies," he said to Dellwig, and bowed as +gravely to Letty as to Anna, to her great satisfaction. + +"So this is my neighbour?" thought Anna, looking down at him from the +higher step on which she stood with her papers under her arm. + +"So this is old Joachim's niece, of whom he was always talking?" thought +Lohm, looking up at her. "Wise old man to leave the place to her instead +of to those unpleasant sons." And he proceeded to make a few +conventional remarks, hoping that she liked her new home and would soon +be quite used to the country life. "It is very quiet and lonely for a +lady not used to our kind of country, with its big estates and few +neighbours," he said in English. "May I talk English to you? It gives me +pleasure to do so." + +"Please do," said Anna. Here was a person who might be very helpful to +her if ever she reached her wits' end; and how nice he looked, how +clean, and what a pleasant voice he had, falling so gratefully on ears +already aching with Dellwig's shouts and the parson's emphatic oratory. + +He was somewhere between thirty and forty, not young at all, she +thought, having herself never got out of the habit of feeling very +young; and beyond being long and wiry, with not even a tendency to fat, +as she noticed with pleasure, there was nothing striking about him. His +top boots and his green Norfolk jacket and green felt hat with a little +feather stuck in it gave him an air of being a sportsman. It was +refreshing to come across him, if only because he did not bow. Also, +considering him from the top of the steps, she became suddenly conscious +that Dellwig and the parson neglected their persons more than was +seemly. They were both no doubt very excellent; but she did like nicely +washed men. + +Herr von Lohm began to talk about Uncle Joachim, with whom he had been +very intimate. Anna came down the steps and he went a few yards with +her, leaving Dellwig standing at the door, and followed by the eyes of +Dellwig's wife, concealed behind her bedroom curtain. + +"I shall be with you in one moment," called Lohm over his shoulder. + +"_Gut_," said Dellwig; and he went in to tell his wife that these +English ladies were very free with gentlemen, and to bid her mark his +words that Lohm and Kleinwalde would before long be one estate. + +"And us? What will become of us?" she asked, eying him anxiously. + +"I too would like to know that," replied her husband. "This all comes of +leaving land away from the natural heirs." And with great energy he +proceeded to curse the memory of his late master. + +Lohm's English was so good that it astonished Anna. It was stiff and +slow, but he made no mistakes at all. His manner was grave, and looking +at him more attentively she saw traces on his face of much hard work and +anxiety. He told her that his mother had been a cousin of Uncle +Joachim's wife. "So that there is a slight relationship by marriage +existing between us," he said. + +"Very slight," said Anna, smiling, "faint almost beyond recognition." + +"Does your niece stay with you for an indefinite period?" he asked. "I +cannot avoid knowing that this young lady is your niece," he added with +a smile, "and that she is here with her governess, and that Lady +Estcourt left suddenly on Good Friday, because all that concerns you is +of the greatest interest to the inhabitants of this quiet place, and +they talk of little else." + +"How long will it take them to get used to me? I don't like being an +object of interest. No, Letty is going home as soon as I have found a +companion. That is why I am taking the inspector's newspapers home with +me. I can't construct an advertisement out of my stores of German, and +am going to see if I can find something that will serve as model." + +"Oh, may I help you? What difficulties you must meet with every hour of +the day!" + +"I do," agreed Anna, thinking of all there was to be done before she +could open her doors and her arms to the twelve. + +"Any service that I can render to my oldest friend's niece will give me +the greatest pleasure. Will you allow me to send the advertisement for +you? You can hardly know how or where to send it." + +"I don't," said Anna. "It would be very kind--I really would be +grateful. It is so important that I should find somebody soon." + +"It is of the first importance," said Lohm. + +"Has the parson told him of my plans already?" thought Anna. But Lohm +had not seen Manske that morning, and was only picturing this little +thing to himself, this dainty little lady, used to such a different +life, alone in the empty house, struggling with her small supply of +German to make the two raw servants understand her ways. Anna was not a +little thing at all, and she would have been half-amused and +half-indignant if she had known that that was the impression she had +made on him. + +"My sister, Gräfin Hasdorf," he began--"Heavens," she thought, "has _he_ +got an unattached sister?"--"sometimes stays with me with her children, +and when she is here will be able to help you in many ways if you will +allow her to. She too knew your uncle from her childhood. She will be +greatly interested to know that you have had the courage to settle +here." + +"Courage?" echoed Anna. "Why, I love it. It's the most beautiful place +in the world." + +Lohm looked doubtfully at her for a moment; but there was no mistaking +the sincerity of those eyes. "It is pleasant to hear you say so," he +said. "My sister Trudi would scarcely credit her ears if she were +present. To her it is a terrible place, and she pities me with all her +heart because my lot is cast in it." + +Anna laughed. She thought she knew very well what sister Trudis were +like. "I do not pity you," she said; "I couldn't pity any being who +lived in this air, and under this sky. Look how blue it is--and the +geese--did you ever see such white geese?" + +A flock of geese were being driven across the sunny yard, dazzling in +their whiteness. Anna lifted up her face to the sun and drew in a long +breath of the sharp air. She forgot Lohm for a moment--it was such a +glorious Easter Sunday, and the world was so full of the abundant gifts +of God. + +Dellwig, who had been watching them from his wife's window, thought that +the brawlers who were going to be fined had been kept waiting long +enough, and came out again on to the steps. + +Lohm saw him, and felt that he must go. "I must do my business," he +said, "but as you have given me permission I will send an advertisement +to the papers to-night. Of course you desire to have an elderly lady of +good family?" + +"Yes, but not too elderly--not so elderly that she won't be able to +work. There will be so much to do, so very much to do." + +Lohm went away wondering what work there could possibly be, except the +agreeable and easy work of seeing that this young lady was properly fed, +and properly petted, and in every way taken care of. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +He sent the advertisement by the evening post to two or three of the +best newspapers. He had seen the pastor after morning church, who had at +once poured into his ears all about Anna's twelve ladies, garnishing the +story with interjections warmly appreciative of the action of Providence +in the matter. Lohm had been considerably astonished, but had said +little; it was not his way to say much at any time to the parson, and +the ecstasies about the new neighbour jarred on him. Miss Estcourt's +need of advice must have been desperate for her to have confided in +Manske. He appreciated his good qualities, but his family had never been +intimate with the parson; perhaps because from time immemorial the Lohms +had been chiefly males, and the attitude of male Germans towards parsons +is, at its best, one of indulgence. This Lohm restricted his dealings +with him, as his father had done before him, to the necessary +deliberations on the treatment of the sick and poor, and to official +meetings in the schoolhouse. He was invariably kind to him, and lent as +willing an ear as his slender purse allowed to applications for +assistance; but the idea of discussing spiritual experiences with him, +or, in times of personal sorrow, of dwelling conversationally on his +griefs, would never have occurred to him. The easy familiarity with +which Manske spoke of the Deity offended his taste. These things, these +sacred and awful mysteries, were the secrets between the soul and its +God. No man, thought Lohm, should dare to touch with profane questioning +the veil shrouding his neighbour's inner life. Manske, however, knew no +fear and no compunction. He would ask the most tremendous questions +between two mouthfuls of pudding, backing himself up with the whole +authority of the Lutheran Church, besides the Scriptures; and if the +poor people and the partly educated liked it, and were edified, and +enjoyed stirring up and talking over their religious emotions almost as +much as they did the latest village scandal, Lohm, who had no taste +either for scandal or emotions, kept the parson at arm's length. + +He thought a good deal about what Manske had told him during the +afternoon. She had gone to the parson, then, for help, because there was +no one else to go to. Poor little thing. He could imagine the sort of +speeches Manske had made her, and the sort of advertisement he would +have told her to write. Poor little thing. Well, what he could do was to +put her in the way of getting a companion as quickly as possible, and a +very sensible, capable woman it ought to be. No wonder she was not to be +past hard work. Work there would certainly be, with twelve women in the +house undergoing the process of being made happy. Lohm could not help +smiling at the plan. He thought of Miss Estcourt courageously trying to +demolish the crust of dejection that had formed in the course of years +over the hearts of her patients, and he trusted that she would not +exhaust her own youth and joyousness in the effort. Perhaps she would +succeed. He did not remember having heard of any scheme quite analogous, +and possibly she would override all obstacles in triumph, and the +patients who entered her home with the burden of their past misery heavy +upon them, would develop in the sunshine of her presence into twelve +riotously jovial ladies. But would not she herself suffer? Would not her +own strength and hopefulness be sapped up by those she benefited? He +could not think that it would be to the advantage of the world at large +to substitute twelve, nay fifty, nay any number of jolly old ladies, for +one girl with such sweet and joyous eyes. + +This, of course, was the purely masculine point of view. The women to be +benefited--why he thought of them as old is not clear, for you need not +be old to be unhappy--would have protested, probably, with indignant +cries that individually they were well worth Miss Estcourt, in any case +were every bit as good as she was, and collectively--oh, absurd. + +He thought of his sister Trudi. Perhaps she knew of some one who would +be both kind and clever, and protect Miss Estcourt in some measure from +the twelve. Trudi's friends, it is true, were not the sort among whom +staid companions are found. Their husbands were chiefly lieutenants, and +they spent their time at races. They lived in flats in Hanover, where +the regiment was quartered, and flats are easy to manage, and none of +these young women would endure, he supposed, to have an elderly +companion always hanging round. Still, there was a remote possibility +that some one of them might be able to recommend a suitable person. If +Trudi were staying with him now she would be a great help; not so much +because of what she would do, but because he could go with her to +Kleinwalde, and Miss Estcourt could come to his house when she wanted +anything, and need not depend solely on the parson. It was his duty, +considering old Joachim's unchanging kindness towards him, and the pains +the old man had taken to help him in the management of his estate, and +to encourage him at a time when he greatly needed help and +encouragement, to do all that lay in his power for old Joachim's niece. +When he heard that she was coming he had decided that this was his plain +duty: that she was so pretty, so adorably pretty and simple and friendly +only made it an unusually pleasant one. "I will write to Trudi," he +thought, "and ask her to come over for a week or two." + +He sat down at his writing-table in the big window overlooking the +farmyard, and began the letter. But he felt that it would be absurd to +ask her to come on Miss Estcourt's account. Why should she do anything +for Miss Estcourt, and why should he want his sister to do anything for +her? That would be the first thing that would strike the astute Trudi. +So he merely wrote reminding her that she had not stayed with him since +the previous summer, and suggested that she should come for a few days +with her children, now that the spring was coming and the snow had gone. +"The woods will soon be blue with anemones," he wrote, though he well +knew that Trudi's attitude towards anemones was cold. Perhaps her little +boys would like to pick them; anyhow, some sort of an inducement had to +be held out. + +Outside his window was a duck-pond, thin sheets of ice still floating in +broken pieces on its surface; behind the duck-pond was the dairy; and on +either side of the yard were cow-sheds and pig-styes. The farm carts +stood in a peaceful Sunday row down one side, and at the other end of +the yard, shutting out the same view of the sea and island that Anna saw +from her bedroom window, was a mountainous range of manure. When Trudi +came, she never entered the rooms on this side of the house, because, as +she explained, it was one of her peculiarities not to like manure; and +she slept and ate and aired her opinions on the west side, where the +garden lay between the house and the road. She never would have come to +Lohm at all, not being burdened with any undue sentiment in regard to +ties of blood, if it had not been necessary to go somewhere in the +summer, and if the other places had not been beyond the resources of the +family purse, always at its emptiest when the racing season was over and +the card-playing at an end. As it was, this was a cheap and convenient +haven, and her brother Axel was kind to the little boys, and not too +angry when they plundered his apple-trees, damaged the knees of his +ponies, and did their best to twist off the tails of his disconcerted +sucking-pigs. + +He was the eldest of three brothers, and she came last. She was +twenty-six, and he was ten years older. When the father died, the land +ought properly to have been divided between the four children, but such +a proceeding would have been extremely inconvenient, and the two younger +brothers, and the sister just married, agreed to accept their share in +money, and to leave the estate entirely to Axel. It was the best course +to take, but it threw Axel into difficulties that continued for years. +His father, with four times the money, had lived very comfortably at +Lohm, and the children had been brought up in prosperity. For eight +years his eldest son had farmed the estate with a quarter the means, and +had found it so far from simple that his hair had turned grey in the +process. It needed considerable skill and vigilance to enable a man to +extract a decent living from the soil of Lohm. Part of it was too boggy, +and part of it too sandy, and the trees had all been cut down thirty +years before by a bland grandfather, serenely indifferent to the opinion +of posterity. Axel's first work had been to make plantations of young +firs and pines wherever the soil was poorest, and when he rode through +the beautiful Kleinwalde forest he endeavoured to extract what pleasure +he could from the thought that in a hundred years Lohm too would have a +forest. But the pleasure to be extracted from this thought was of a +surprisingly subdued quality. All his pleasures were of a subdued +quality. His days were made up of hard work, of that effort to induce +both ends to meet which knocks the savour out of life with such a +singular completeness. He was born with an uncomfortably exact +conception of duty; and now at the end of the best half of his life, +after years of struggling on that poor soil against the odds of that +stern climate, this conception had shaped itself into a fixed belief +that the one thing entirely beautiful, the one thing wholly worthy of a +man's ambition, is the right doing of his duty. So, he thought, shall a +man have peace at the last. + +It is a way of thinking common to the educated dwellers in solitary +places, who have not been very successful. Trudi scorned it. "Peace," +she said, "at the last, is no good at all. What one wants is peace at +the beginning and in the middle. But you only think stuff like that +because you haven't got enough money. Poor people always talk about the +beauty of duty and peace at the last. If somebody left you a fortune +you'd never mention either of them again. Or if you married a girl with +money, now. I wish, I do wish, that _that_ duty would strike you as the +one thing wholly worth doing." + +But a man who is all day and every day in his fields, who farms not for +pleasure but for his bare existence, has no time to set out in search of +girls with money, and none came up his way. Besides, he had been engaged +a few years before, and the girl had died, and he had not since had the +least inclination towards matrimony. After that he had worked harder +than ever; and the years flew by, filled with monotonous labour. +Sometimes they were good years, and the ends not only met but lapped +over a little; but generally the bare meeting of the ends was all that +he achieved. His wish was that his brother Gustav who came after him +should find the place in good order; if possible in better order than +before. But the working up of an estate for a brother Gustav, with +whatever determination it may be carried on, is not a labour that evokes +an unflagging enthusiasm in the labourer; and Axel, however beautiful a +life of duty might be to him in theory, found it, in practice, of an +altogether remarkable greyness. Two-thirds of his house were shut up. In +the evenings his servants stole out to court and be courted, and left +the place to himself and echoes and memories. It was a house built for a +large family, for troops of children, and frequent friends. Axel sat in +it alone when the dusk drove him indoors, defending himself against his +remembrances by prolonged interviews with his head inspector, or a +zealous study of the latest work on potato diseases. + +"I see that Bibi Bornstedt is staying with your Regierungspräsident," +Trudi had written a little while before. "Now, then, is your chance. She +is a true gold-fish. You cannot continue to howl over Hildegard's memory +for ever. Bibi will have two hundred thousand marks a year when the old +ones die, and is quite a decent girl. Her nose is a fiasco, but when you +have been married a week you will not so much as see that she has a +nose. And the two hundred thousand marks will still be there. _Ach_, +Axel, what comfort, what consolation, in two hundred thousand marks! You +could put the most glorious wreaths on Hildegard's tomb, besides keeping +racehorses." + +Lohm suddenly remembered this letter as he sat, having finished his own, +looking out of the window at two girls in Sunday splendour kissing one +of the stable boys behind a farm cart. They were all three apparently +enjoying themselves very much, the girls laughing, the boy with an +expression at once imbecile and beatific. They thought the master's eye +could not see them there, but the master's eye saw most things. He took +up his pen again and added a postscript. "If you come soon you will be +able to enjoy the society of your friend Bibi. She came on Wednesday, I +believe." Then, feeling slightly ashamed of using the innocent Miss Bibi +as a bait to catch his sister, he wrote the advertisement for Anna, and +put both letters in the post-bag. + +The effect of his postscript was precisely the one he had expected. +Trudi was drinking her morning coffee in her bedroom at twelve o'clock, +when the letter came. Her hair was being done by a _Friseur_, an artist +in hairdressing, who rode about Hanover every day on a bicycle, his +pockets bulging out with curling-tongs, and for three marks decorated +the heads of Trudi and her friends with innumerable waves. Trudi was +devoted to him, with the devotion naturally felt for the person on whom +one's beauty depends, for he was a true artist, and really did work +amazing transformations. "What! You have never had Herr Jungbluth?" +Trudi cried, on the last occasion on which she met Bibi, the daughter of +a Hanover banker, and quite outside her set but for the riches that +ensured her an enthusiastic welcome wherever she went, "_aber_ Bibi!" +There was so much genuine surprise and compassion in this "_aber_ Bibi" +that the young person addressed felt as though she had been for years +missing a possibility of happiness. Trudi added, as a special +recommendation, that Jungbluth smelt of soap. He had carefully studied +the nature of women, and if he had to do with a pretty one would find an +early opportunity of going into respectful raptures over what he +described as her _klassisches Profil_; and if it was a woman whose face +was not all she could have wished, he would tell her, in a tone of +subdued enthusiasm, that her profile, as to which she had long been in +doubt, was _höchst interessant_. The popularity of this young man in +Trudi's set was enormous; and as all the less aristocratic Hanoverian +ladies hastened to imitate, Jungbluth lived in great contentment and +prosperity with a young wife whose hair was reposefully straight, and a +baby whose godmother was Trudi. + +"Blue woods! Anemones!" read Trudi with immense contempt. "Is the boy in +his senses? The idea of expecting me to go to that dreary place now. Ah, +now I understand," she added, turning the page, "it is Bibi--he is +really after her, and of course can get along quicker if I am there to +help. Excellent Axel! And why did he go to the pains of trotting out the +anemones? What is the use of not being frank with me? I can see through +him, whatever he does. He is so good-natured that I am sure he will lend +us heaps of Bibi's money once he has got it. _So, lieber Jungbluth_," +she said aloud, "that will do to-day. Beautiful--beautiful--better than +ever. I am in a hurry. I travel to Berlin this very afternoon." + +And the next day she arrived at Stralsund, and was met by her brother at +the station. + +She greeted him with enthusiasm. "As we are here," she said, when they +were driving through the town, "let us pay our respects to the +Regierungspräsidentin. It will save our coming in again to-morrow." + +"No, I cannot to-day. I must get back as quickly as possible. The hands +had their Easter ball yesterday, and when I left Lohm this morning half +of them were still in bed." + +"Well, then, the horses will have to do the journey again to-morrow, for +no time should be lost." + +"Yes, you can come in to-morrow, if you long so much to see your +friend." + +"And you?" asked Trudi, in a tone of astonishment. + +"And I? I am up to my ears now in work. Last week was the first week for +four months that we could plough. Now we have lost these three days at +Easter. I cannot spare a single hour." + +"But, my dear Axel, Bibi is of far greater importance for the future of +Lohm than any amount of ploughing." + +"I confess I do not see how." + +"I don't understand you." + +"Why didn't you bring the little boys?" + +"What have you asked me to come here for?" + +"Come, Trudi, you've not been near me for eight months. Isn't it natural +that you should pay me a little visit?" + +"No, it isn't natural at all to come to such a place in winter, and +leave all the fun at home. I came because of Bibi." + +"What! You'll come for Bibi, but not for your own brother?" + +"Now, Axel, you know very well that I have come for you both." + +"For us both? What would Miss Bibi say if she heard you talking of +herself and of me as 'you both'?" + +"I wish you would not bother to go on like this. It's a great waste of +time." + +"So it is, my dear. Any talk about Bibi Bornstedt, as far as I am +concerned, is a hopeless waste of time." + +"Axel!" + +"Trudi?" + +"You don't mean to say that you are not thinking of her?" + +"Thinking of her? I never let my thoughts linger round strange young +ladies." + +"Then what in heaven's name have you got me here for?" + +"The anemones are coming out----" + +"_Ach_----" + +"They really are." + +"Suppose instead of teasing me as though I were still ten and you a +great bully, you talked sensibly. The Hohensteins give a _bal masqué_ +to-night, and I gave it up to come to you." + +"Oh, my dear, that was really kind," said Lohm, touched by the +tremendousness of this sacrifice. + +"Then be a good boy," said Trudi caressingly, edging herself closer to +him, "and tell me you are going to be wise about Bibi. Don't throw such +a chance away--it's positively wicked." + +"My dear Trudi, you'll have us in the ditch. It is very nice when you +lean against me, but I can't drive. By the way, you remember my old +Kleinwalde neighbour? The old man who spoilt you so atrociously?" + +"Bibi will make a most excellent wife," said Trudi, ungratefully +indifferent to the memory of old Joachim. "Oh, what a cold wind there is +to-day. Do drive faster, Axel. What a taste, to live here and to like it +into the bargain!" + +"You know that I must live here." + +"But you needn't like it." + +"You've heard that old Joachim left Kleinwalde to his English niece?" + +"You have only seen Bibi once, and she grows on one tremendously." + +"I want to talk about old Joachim." + +"And I want to talk about Bibi." + +"Well, Bibi can wait. She is the younger. You know about the old man's +will?" + +"I should think I did. One of his unfortunate sons has just joined our +regiment. You should hear him on the subject." + +"A most disagreeable, grasping lot," said Lohm decidedly. "They received +every bit of their dues, and are all well off. Surely the old man could +do as he liked with the one place that was not entailed?" + +"It isn't the usual thing to leave one's land to a foreigner. Is she +coming to live in it?" + +"She came last week." + +"Oh?" This in a tone of sudden interest. + +There was a pause. Then Trudi said, "Is she young?" + +"Quite young." + +"Pretty?" + +"Exceedingly pretty." + +Trudi looked up at him and smiled. + +"Well?" said Axel, smiling back at her. + +"Well?" said Trudi, continuing to smile. + +Axel laughed outright. "My dear Trudi, your astuteness terrifies me. You +not only know already why I wrote to you, but you know more reasons for +the letter than I myself dream of. I want to be able to help this +extremely helpless young lady, and I can hardly be of any use to her +because I have no woman in the house. If I had a wife I could be of the +greatest assistance." + +"Only then you wouldn't want to be." + +"Certainly I should." + +"Pray, why?" + +"Because I have a greater debt of obligations to her uncle than I can +ever repay to his niece." + +"Oh, nonsense--nobody pays their debts of obligations. The natural thing +to do is to hate the person who has forced you to be grateful, and to +get out of his way." + +"My dear Trudi, this shrewdness----" murmured her brother. Then he +added, "I know perfectly well that your thoughts have already flown to a +wedding. Mine don't reach farther than an elderly companion." + +"Who for? For you?" + +"Miss Estcourt is looking for an elderly companion, and I would be +grateful to you if you would help her." + +"But the elderly companion does not exclude the wedding." + +"When you see Miss Estcourt you will understand how completely such a +possibility is outside her calculations. You won't of course believe +that it is outside mine. Why should you want to marry me to every girl +within reach? Five minutes ago it was Bibi, and now it is Miss Estcourt. +You do not in the least consider what views the girls themselves might +have. Miss Estcourt is absorbed at this moment in a search for twelve +old ladies." + +"Twelve----?" + +"Her ambition is to spend herself and her money on twelve old ladies. +She thinks happiness and money are as good for them as for herself, and +wants to share her own with persons who have neither." + +"My dear Axel--is she mad?" + +"She did not give me that impression." + +"And you say she is young?" + +"Yes." + +"And really pretty?" + +"Yes." + +"And could be so well off in that flourishing place!" + +"Of course she could." + +"I'll go and call on her to-morrow," said Trudi decidedly. + +"It will be kind of you," said Lohm. + +"Kind! It isn't kindness, it's curiosity," said Trudi with a laugh. "Let +us be frank, and call things by their right names." + +Anna was in the garden, admiring the first crocus, when Trudi appeared. +She drove Axel's cobs up to the door in what she felt was excellent +style, and hoped Miss Estcourt was watching her from a window and would +see that Englishwomen were not the only sportswomen in the world. But +Anna saw nothing but the crocus. + +The wilderness down to the marsh that did duty as a garden was so +sheltered and sunny that spring stopped there first each year before +going on into the forest; and Anna loved to walk straight out of the +drawing-room window into it, bare-headed and coatless, whenever she had +time. Trudi saw her coming towards the house upon the servant's telling +her that a lady had called. "Nothing on, on a cold day like this!" she +thought. She herself wore a particularly sporting driving-coat, with an +immense collar turned up over her ears. "I wonder," mused Trudi, +watching the approaching figure, "how it is that English girls, so tidy +in the clothes, so trim in the shoes, so neat in the tie and collar, +never apparently brush their hair. A German Miss Estcourt vegetating in +this quiet place would probably wear grotesque and disconnected +garments, doubtful boots and striking stockings, her figure would +rapidly give way before the insidiousness of _Schweinebraten_, but her +hair would always be beautifully done, each plait smooth and in its +proper place, each little curl exactly where it ought to be, the parting +a model of straightness, and the whole well deserving to be dignified by +the name _Frisur_. English girls have hair, but they do not have +_Frisurs_." + +Anna came in through the open window, and Trudi's face expanded into the +most genial smiles. "How glad I am to make your acquaintance!" she cried +enthusiastically. She spoke English quite as correctly as her brother, +and much more glibly. "I hope you will let me help you if I can be of +any use. My brother says your uncle was so good to him. When I lived +here he was very kind to me too. How brave of you to stay here! And what +wonderful plans you have made! My brother has told me about your twelve +ladies. What courage to undertake to make twelve women happy. I find it +hard enough work making one person happy." + +"One person? Oh, Graf Hasdorf." + +"Oh no, myself. You see, if each person devoted his energies to making +himself happy, everybody would be happy." + +"No, they wouldn't," said Anna, "because they do, but they're not." + +They looked at each other and laughed. "She only needs Jungbluth to be +perfect," thought Trudi; and with her usual impulsiveness began +immediately to love her. + +Anna was delighted to meet someone of her own class and age after the +severe though short course she had had of Dellwigs and Manskes; and +Trudi was so much interested in her plans, and so pressing in her offers +of help, that she very soon found herself telling her all her +difficulties about servants, sheets, wall-papers, and whitewash. "Look +at this paper," she said, "could you live in the same room with it? No +one will ever be able to feel cheerful as long as it is here. And the +one in the dining-room is worse." + +"It isn't beautiful," said Trudi, examining it, "but it is what we call +_praktisch_." + +"Then I don't like what you call _praktisch_." + +"Neither do I. All the hideous things are _praktisch_--oil-cloth, black +wall-papers, handkerchiefs a yard square, thick boots, ugly women--if +ever you hear a woman praised as a _praktische Frau_, be sure she's +frightful in every way--ugly and dull. The uglier she is the +_praktischer_ she is. Oh," said Trudi, casting up her eyes, "how +terrible, how tragic, to be an ugly woman!" Then, bringing her gaze down +again to Anna's face, she added, "My flat in Hanover is all pinks and +blues--the most becoming rooms you can imagine. I look so nice in them." + +"Pinks and blues? That is just what I want here. Can't I get any in +Stralsund?" + +Trudi was doubtful. She could not think it possible that anybody should +ever get anything in Stralsund. + +"But I must do my shopping there. I am in such a hurry. It would be +dreadful to have to keep anyone waiting only because my house isn't +ready." + +"Well, we can try," said Trudi. "You will let me go with you, won't +you?" + +"I shall be more than grateful if you will come." + +"What do you think if we went now?" suggested Trudi, always for prompt +action, and quickly tired of sitting still. "My brother said I might +drive into Stralsund to-day if I liked, and I have the cobs here now. +Don't you think it would be a good thing, as you are in such a hurry?" + +"Oh, a very good thing," exclaimed Anna. "How kind you are! You are sure +it won't bore you frightfully?" + +"Oh, not a bit. It will be rather amusing to go into those shops for +once, and I shall like to feel that I have helped the good work on a +little." + +Anna thought Trudi delightful. Trudi's new friends always did think her +delightful; and she never had any old ones. + +She drove recklessly, and they lurched and heaved through the sand +between Kleinwalde and Lohm at an alarming rate. They passed Letty and +Miss Leech, going for their afternoon walk, who stood on one side and +stared. + +"Who's that?" asked Trudi. + +"My brother's little girl and her governess." + +"Oh yes, I heard about them. They are to stay and take care of you till +you have a companion. Your sister-in-law didn't like Kleinwalde?" + +"No." + +Trudi laughed. + +They passed Dellwig, riding, who swept off his hat with his customary +deference, and stared. + +"Do you like him?" asked Trudi. + +"Who?" + +"Dellwig. I know him from the days before I married." + +"I don't know him very well yet," said Anna, "but he seems to be +very--very polite." + +Trudi laughed again, and cracked her whip. + +"My uncle had great faith in him," said Anna, slightly aggrieved by the +laugh. + +"Your uncle was one of the best farmers in Germany, I have always heard. +He was so experienced, and so clever, that he could have led a hundred +Dellwigs round by the nose. Dellwig was naturally quite small, as we +say, in the presence of your uncle. He knew very well it would be +useless to be anything but immaculate under such a master. Perhaps your +uncle thought he would go on being immaculate from sheer habit, with +nobody to look after him." + +"I suppose he did," said Anna doubtfully. "He told me to keep him. It's +quite certain that _I_ can't look after him." + +They passed Axel Lohm, also riding. He was on Trudi's side of the road. +He looked pleased when he saw Anna with his sister. Trudi whipped up the +cobs, regardless of his feelings, and tore past him, scattering the sand +right and left. When she was abreast of him, she winked her eye at him +with perfect solemnity. + +Axel looked stony. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Neither Trudi nor Anna had ever worked so hard as they did during the +few days that ended March and began April. Everything seemed to happen +at once. The house was in a sudden uproar. There were people +whitewashing, people painting, people putting up papers, people bringing +things in carts from Stralsund, people trimming up the garden, people +coming out to offer themselves as servants, Dellwig coming in and +shouting, Manske coming round and glorifying--Anna would have been +completely bewildered if it had not been for Trudi, who was with her all +day long, going about with a square of lace and muslin tucked under her +waist-ribbon which she felt was becoming and said was an apron. + +Trudi was enjoying herself hugely. She saw Jungbluth's waves slowly +straightening themselves out of her hair, and for the first time in her +life remained calm as she watched them go. She even began to have +aspirations towards Uncle Joachim's better life herself, and more than +once entered into a serious consideration of the advantages that might +result from getting rid at one stroke of Bill her husband, and Billy and +Tommy her two sons, and from making a fresh start as one of Anna's +twelve. + +Frau Manske and Frau Dellwig could not face her infinite +superciliousness more than once, and kept out of the way in spite of +their burning curiosity. When Dellwig's shouts became intolerable, she +did not hesitate to wince conspicuously and to put up her hand to her +head. When Manske forgot that it was not Sunday, and began to preach, +she would interrupt him with a brisk "_Ja, ja, sehr schön, sehr schön, +aber lieber Herr Pastor_, you must tell us all this next Sunday in +church when we have time to listen--my friend has not a minute now in +which to appreciate the opinions of the _Apostel Paulus_." + +"I believe you are being unkind to my parson," said Anna, who could not +always understand Trudi's rapid German, but saw that Manske went away +dejected. + +"My dear, he must be kept in his place if he tries to come out of it. +You don't know what a set these pastors are. They are not like your +clergymen. If you are too kind to that man you'll have no peace. I +remember in my father's time he came to dinner every Sunday, sat at the +bottom of the table, and when the pudding appeared made a bow and went +away." + +"He didn't like pudding?" + +"I don't know if he liked it or not, but he never got any. It was a good +old custom that the pastor should withdraw before the pudding, and Axel +has not kept it up. My father never had any bother with him." + +"But what has the pudding that he didn't get ten years ago to do with +your being unkind to him now?" + +"I wanted to explain the proper footing for him to be on." + +"And the proper footing is a puddingless one? Well, in my house neither +pudding nor kindness in suitable quantities shall be withheld from him, +so don't ill-use him more than you feel is absolutely necessary for his +good." + +"Oh, you are a dear little thing!" said Trudi, putting her hands on +Anna's shoulders and looking into her eyes--they were both tall young +women, and their eyes were on a level--"I wonder what the end of you +will be. When you know all these people better you'll see that my way of +treating them, which you think unkind, is the only way. You must turn up +your nose as high as it will go at them, and they will burst with +respect. Don't be too friendly and confiding--they won't understand it, +and will be sure to think that something must be wrong about you, and +will begin to backbite you, and invent all sorts of horrid stories about +you. And as for the pastor, why should he be allowed to treat your rooms +as though they were so many pulpits, and you as though you had never +heard of the _Apostel Paulus_?" + +Anna admitted that she was not always in the proper frame of mind for +these unprovoked sermons, but refused to believe in the necessity for +turning up her nose. She ostentatiously pressed Manske, the very next +time he came, to stay to the evening meal, which was rather of the +nature of a picnic in those unsettled days, but at which, for Letty's +sake, there was always a pudding; and she invited him to eat pudding +three times running, and each time he accepted the offer; and each time, +when she had helped him, she fixed her eyes with a defiant gravity on +Trudi's face. + +Axel came in sometimes when he had business at the farm, and was shown +what progress had been made. Trudi was as interested as though it had +been her own house, and took him about, demanding his approval and +admiration with an enthusiasm that spread to Anna, and she and Axel soon +became good friends. The Stralsund wall-papers were so dreadful that +Anna had declared she would have most of the rooms whitewashed; the hall +had been done, exchanging its pea-green coat for one of virgin purity, +and she had thought it so fresh and clean, and so appropriate to the +simplicity of the better life, that to the amazement of the workmen she +insisted on the substitution of whitewash in both dining and +drawing-room for the handsome chocolate-coloured papers already in those +rooms. + +"The twelve will think it frightful," said Trudi. + +"But why?" asked Anna, who had fallen in love with whitewash. "It is +purity itself. It will be symbolical of the innocence and cleanliness +that will be in our hearts when we have got used to each other, and are +happy." + +Trudi looked again at the hall, into which the afternoon sun was +streaming. It did look very clean, certainly, and exceedingly cheerful; +she was sure, however, that it would never be symbolical of any heart +that came into it. But then Trudi was sceptical about hearts. + +At the end of Easter week, when Trudi was beginning to feel slightly +tired of whitewash and scrambled meals, and to have doubts as to the +permanent becomingness of aprons, and misgivings as to the effect on her +complexion of running about a cold house all day long, answers to the +advertisements began to arrive, and soon arrived in shoals. These +letters acted as bellows on the flickering flame of her zeal. She found +them extraordinarily entertaining, and would meet Manske in the hall +when he brought them round, and take them out of his hands, and run with +them to Anna, leaving him standing there uncertain whether he ought to +stay and be consulted, or whether it was expected of him that he should +go home again without having unburdened himself of all the advice he +felt that he contained. He deplored what he called _das impulsive +Temperament_ of the Gräfin. Always had she been so, since the days she +climbed his cherry-trees and helped the birds to strip them; and when, +with every imaginable precaution, he had approached her father on the +subject, and carefully excluding the word cherry hinted that the +climbing of trees was a perilous pastime for young ladies, old Lohm had +burst into a loud laugh, and had sworn that neither he nor anyone else +could do anything with Trudi. He actually had seemed proud that she +should steal cherries, for he knew very well why she climbed the trees, +and predicted a brilliant future for his only daughter; to which Manske +had listened respectfully as in duty bound, and had gone home +unconvinced. + +But Anna did not let him stand long in the hall, and came to fetch him +and beg him to help her read the letters and tell her what he thought of +them. In spite of Trudi's advice and example she continued to treat the +pastor with the deference due to a good and simple man. What did it +matter if he talked twice as much as he need have done, and wearied her +with his habit of puffing Christianity as though it were a quack +medicine of which he was the special patron? He was sincere, he really +believed something, and really felt something, and after five days with +Trudi Anna turned to Manske's elementary convictions with relief. In +five days she had come to be very glad that Trudi stood in no need of a +place among the twelve. + +Most of the women who wrote in answer to the advertisement sent +photographs, and their letters were pitiful enough, either because of +what they said or because of what they tried to hide; and Anna's +appreciation of Trudi received a great shock when she found that the +letters amused her, and that the photographs, especially those of the +old ones or the ugly ones, moved her to a mirth little short of +unseemly. After all, Trudi was taking a great deal upon herself, Anna +thought, reading the letters unasked, helping her to open them unasked, +hurrying down to fetch them unasked, and deluging her with advice about +them unasked. She saw she had made a mistake in allowing her to see them +at all. She had no right to expose the petitions of these unhappy +creatures to Trudi's inquisitive and diverted eyes. This fact was made +very patent to her when one of the letters that Trudi opened turned out +to be from a person she had known. "Why," cried Trudi, her face +twinkling with excitement, "here's one from a girl who was at school +with me. And her photo, too--what a shocking scarecrow she has grown +into! She is only two years older than I am, but might be forty. Just +look at her--and she used to think none of us were good enough for her. +Don't have her, whatever you do--she married one of the officers in +Bill's first regiment, and treated him so shamefully that he shot +himself. Imagine her boldness in writing like this!" And she began +eagerly to read the letter. + +Anna got up and took it out of her hands. It was an unexpected action, +or Trudi would have held on tighter. "She never dreamed you would see +what she wrote," said Anna, "and it would be dishonourable of me to let +you. And the other letters too--I have been thinking it over--they are +only meant for me; and no one else, except perhaps the parson, ought to +see them." + +"Except perhaps the parson!" cried Trudi, greatly offended. "And why +except perhaps the parson?" + +"I can't always read the German writing," explained Anna. + +"But surely a woman of your own age, who isn't such a simpleton as the +parson, is the best adviser you can have." + +"But you laugh at the letters, and they are all so unhappy." + +Trudi went back to Lohm early that day. "She has taken it into her head +that I am not to read the letters," she said to her brother with no +little indignation. + +"It would be a great breach of confidence if she allowed you to," he +replied; which was so unsatisfactory that she drove into Stralsund that +very afternoon, and consoled herself with the pliable Bibi. + +Bibi's nose seemed more unsuccessful than ever after having had Anna's +before her for nearly a week; but then the richness of the girl! And +such a good-natured, generous girl, who would adore her sister-in-law +and make her presents. Contemplating the good Bibi in her afternoon +splendour from Paris, Trudi's heart stirred within her at the thought of +all that was within Axel's reach if only he could be induced to put out +his hand and take it. Anna would never marry him, Trudi was +certain--would never marry anyone, being completely engrossed by her +philanthropic follies; but if she did, what was her probable income +compared to Bibi's? And Axel would never look at Bibi so long as that +other girl lived next door to him; nobody could expect him to. Anna was +too pretty; it was not fair. And Bibi was so very plain; which was not +fair either. + +The Regierungspräsidentin, a cousin by marriage of Bibi's, but a member +of an ancient family of the Mark, was delighted to see Trudi and to +question her about the new and eccentric arrival. Trudi had offered to +take Anna to call on this lady, and had explained that it was her duty +to call; but Anna had said there was no hurry, and had talked of some +day, and had been manifestly bored by the prospect of making new +acquaintances. + +"Is she quite--quite in her right senses?" asked the +Regierungspräsidentin, when Trudi had described all they had been doing +in Anna's house, and all Anna meant to do with her money, and had made +her description so smart and diverting that the Regierungspräsidentin, +an alert little lady, with ears perpetually pricked up in the hope of +catching gossip, felt that she had not enjoyed an afternoon so much for +years. + +Bibi sat listening with her mouth wide open. It was an artless way of +hers when she was much interested in a conversation, and was deplored by +those who wished her well. + +"Oh, yes, she is quite in her senses. Rather too sure she knows best, +always, but quite in her senses." + +"Then she is very religious?" + +"Not in the ordinary way, I should think. She goes in for nature. _Gott +in der Natur_, and that sort of thing. If the sun shines more than usual +she goes and stands in it, and turns up her eyes and gushes. There's a +crocus in the garden, and when we came to it yesterday she stopped in +front of it and rhapsodised for ten minutes about things that have +nothing to do with crocuses--chiefly about the _lieben Gott_. And all in +English, of course, and it sounds worse in English." + +"But then, my dear, she _is_ religious?" + +"Oh, well, the pastor would not call it religion. It's a sort of +huddle-muddle pantheism as far as it is anything at all." From which it +will be seen that Trudi was even more frank about her friends behind +their backs than she was to their faces. + +She drove back to Lohm in a discontented frame of mind. "What's the good +of anything?" was the mood she was in. She had over-tired herself +helping Anna, and she was afraid that being so much in cold rooms and +passages, and washing in hard water, had made her skin coarse. She had +caught sight of herself in a glass as she was leaving the +Regierungspräsidentin, and had been disconcerted by finding that she did +not look as pretty as she felt. Nor was she consoled for this by the +consciousness that she had been unusually amusing at Anna's expense; for +she was only too certain that the Regierungspräsidentin, when repeating +all she had told her to her friends, would add that Trudi Hasdorf had +terribly _eingepackt_--dreadful word, descriptive of the faded state +immediately preceding wrinkles, and held in just abhorrence by every +self-respecting woman. Of what earthly use was it to be cleverer and +more amusing than other people if at the same time you had _eingepackt_? + +"What a stupid world it is," thought Trudi, driving along the _chaussée_ +in the early April twilight. A mist lay over the sea, and the pale +sickle of the young moon rose ghost-like above the white shroud. Inland +the stars were faintly shining, and all the earth beneath was damp and +fragrant. It was Saturday evening, and the two bells of Lohm church were +plaintively ringing their reminder to the countryside that the week's +work was ended and God's day came next. "Oh, the stupid world," thought +Trudi. "If I stay here I shall be bored to death--that Estcourt child +and her governess have got on to my nerves--horrid fat child with +turned-in toes, and flabby, boneless woman, only held together by her +hairpins. I am sick of governesses and children--wherever one goes, +there they are. If I go home, there are those noisy little boys and +Fräulein Schultz worrying all day, and then there's that tiresome Bill +coming in to meals. Anna and Bibi are just in the position I would like +to be in--no husbands and children, and lots of money." And staring +straight before her, with eyes dark with envy, she fell into gloomy +musings on the beauty of Bibi's dress, and the blindness of fate, +throwing away a dress like that on a Bibi, when it was so eminently +suited to tall, slim women like herself; and it was fortunate for Axel's +peace that when she reached Lohm the first thing she saw was a letter +from the objectionable Bill telling her to come home, because the +foreign prince who was honorary colonel of the regiment was expected +immediately in Hanover, and there were to be great doings in his honour. + +She left, all smiles, the next morning by the first train. + +"Miss Estcourt will miss you," said Axel, "and will wonder why you did +not say good-bye. I am afraid your journey will be unpleasant, too, +to-day. I wish you had stayed till to-morrow." + +"Oh, I don't mind the Sunday people once in a way," said Trudi gaily. +"And please tell Anna how it was I had to go so suddenly. I have started +her, at least, with the workmen and people she wants. I shall see her in +a few weeks again, you know, when Bill is at the man[oe]uvres." + +"A few weeks! Six months." + +"Well, six months. You must both try to exist without me for that time." + +"You seem very pleased to be off," he said, smiling, as she climbed +briskly into the dog-cart and took the reins, while her maid, with her +arms full of bags, was hoisted up behind. + +"Oh, so pleased!" said Trudi, looking down at him with sparkling eyes. +"Princes and parties are jollier any day than whitewash and the better +life." + +"And brothers." + +"Oh--brothers. By the way, I never saw Bibi look better than she did +yesterday. She has improved so much nobody would know----" + +"You will miss your train," said Axel, pulling out his watch. + +"Well, good-bye then, _alter Junge_. Work hard, do your duty, and don't +let your thoughts linger too much round strange young ladies. They never +do, I think you said? Well, so much the better, for it's no good, no +good, no good!" And Trudi, who was in tremendous spirits, put her whip +to the brim of her hat by way of a parting salute, touched up the cobs, +and rattled off down the drive on the road to Jungbluth and glory. She +turned her head before she finally disappeared, to call back her +oracular "No good!" once again to Axel, who stood watching her from the +steps of his solitary house. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +So Anna was left to herself again. She was astonished at the rapidity of +Trudi's movements. Within one week she had heard of her, met her, liked +her, begun to like her less, and lost her. She had flashed across the +Kleinwalde horizon, and left a trail of workmen and new servants behind, +with whom Anna was now occupied, unaided, from morning till night. Miss +Leech and Letty did all they could, but their German being restricted to +quotations from the _Erl-König_ and the _Lied von der Glocke_, it could +not be brought to bear with any profitable results on the workmen. The +servants, too, were a perplexity to Anna. Their cheapness was +extraordinary, but their quality curious. Her new parlourmaid--for she +felt unequal to coping with German men-servants--wore her arms naked all +day long. Anna thought she had tucked up her sleeves in her zeal for +thoroughness, but when she appeared with the afternoon coffee--the local +tea was undrinkable--she still had bare arms; and, examining her more +closely, Anna saw that it was her usual state, for her dress was +sleeveless. Nor was her want of sleeves her only peculiarity. Anna began +to wonder whether her house would ever be ready for the twelve. + +The answers to the philanthropic advertisement were in a proportion of +fifty to one answer to the advertisement for a companion. There were +fifty ladies without means willing to be idle, to one lady without means +willing to work. It worried Anna terribly, being obliged by want of room +and money to limit the number to twelve. She could hardly bear to read +the letters, knowing that nearly all had to be rejected. "See how many +sad lives are being dragged through while we are so comfortable," she +said to Manske, when he brought round fresh piles of letters to add to +those already heaped on her table. + +He shook his head in perplexity. He was bewildered by the masses of +answers, by the apparent universality of impoverishment and hopelessness +among Christian ladies of good family. + +He could not come himself more than once a day, and the letters arrived +by every post; so in the afternoon he sent Herr Klutz, the young cleric +of poetic promptings, who had celebrated Anna on her arrival in a poem +which for freshness and spontaneousness equalled, he considered, the +best sonnets that had ever been written. What a joy it was to a youth of +imagination, to a poet who thought his features not unlike Goethe's, and +who regarded it as by no means an improbability that his brain should +turn out to be stamped with the same resemblance, to walk daily through +the gleaming, whispering forest, swinging his stick and composing +snatches not unworthy of her of whom they treated, his face towards the +magic _Schloss_ and its enchanted princess, and his pockets full of her +letters! Herr Klutz's coat was clerical, but his brown felt hat and the +flower in his buttonhole were typical of the worldliness within. "A +poet," he assured himself often, "is a citizen of the world, and is not +to be narrowed down to any one circle or creed." But he did not expound +this view to the good man who was helping him to prepare for the +examination that would make him a full-fledged pastor, and received his +frequent blessings, and assisted at prayers and intercessions of which +he was the subject, with outward decorum. + +The first time he brought the letters, Anna received him with her usual +kindness; but there was something in his manner that displeased her, +whether it was self-assurance, or conceit, or a way he had of looking at +her, she could not tell, nor did she waste many seconds trying to +decide; but the next day when he came he was not admitted to her +presence, nor the next after that, nor for some time to come. This +surprised Herr Klutz, who was of Dellwig's opinion that the most +superior woman was not equal to the average man; and take away any +advantage of birth or position or wealth that she might possess, why, +there she was, only a woman, a creature made to be conquered and brought +into obedience to man. Being young and poetic he differed from Dellwig +on one point: to Dellwig, woman was a servant; to Klutz, an admirable +toy. Clearly such a creature could only be gratified by opportunities of +seeing and conversing with members of the opposite sex. The Miss's +conduct, therefore, in allowing her servant to take the letters from him +at the door, puzzled him. + +He often met Miss Leech and Letty on his way to or from Kleinwalde, and +always stopped to speak to them and to teach them a few German sentences +and practise his own small stock of English; and from them he easily +discovered all that the young woman he favoured with his admiration was +doing. Lohm, riding over to Kleinwalde to settle differences between +Dellwig and the labourers, or to try offenders, met these three several +times, and supposed that Klutz must be courting the governess. + +The day Trudi left, Lohm had gone round to Anna and delivered his +sister's message in a slightly embellished form. "You will have +everything to do now unassisted," he said. "I do trust that in any +difficulty you will let me help you. If the workmen are insolent, for +instance, or if your new servants are dishonest or in any way give you +trouble. You know it is my duty as Amtsvorsteher to interfere when such +things happen." + +"You are very kind," said Anna gratefully, looking up at the grave, good +face, "but no one is insolent. And look--here is some one who wants to +come as companion. It is the first of the answers to that advertisement +that pleases me." + +Lohm took the letter and photograph and examined them. "She is a +Penheim, I see," he said. "It is a very good family, but some of its +branches have been reduced to poverty, as so many of our old families +have been." + +"Don't you think she would do very well?" + +"Yes, if she is and does all she says in her letter. You might propose +that she should come at first for a few weeks on trial. You may not like +her, and she may not appreciate philanthropic housekeeping." + +Anna laughed. "I am doubly anxious to get someone soon," she said, +"because my sister-in-law wants Letty and Miss Leech." + +Letty and Miss Leech heaved tragic sighs at this; they had no desire +whatever to go home. + +"Will you not feel rather forlorn when they are gone, and you are quite +alone among strangers?" + +"I shall miss them, but I don't mean to be forlorn," said Anna, smiling. + +"The courage of the little thing!" thought Lohm. "Ready to brave +anything in pursuit of her ideals. It makes one ashamed of one's own +grumblings and discouragements." + +Anna arranged with Frau von Penheim that she should come at once on a +three months' trial; and immediately this was settled she wrote to Susie +to ask what day Letty was to be sent home. She had had no communication +with Susie since that angry lady's departure. To Peter she had written, +explaining her plans and her reasons, and her hopes and yearnings, and +had received a hasty scrawl in reply dated from Estcourt, conveying his +blessing on herself and her scheme. "Susie came straight down here," he +wrote, "because of the Alderton wedding to which she was not asked, and +went to bed. You know, my dear little sister, anything that makes you +happy contents me. I wish you could have seen your way to benefiting +reduced English ladies, for you are a long way off; but of course you +have the house free over there. Don't let Miss Leech leave you till you +are perfectly satisfied with your companion. Yesterday I landed the +biggest----" etc. In a word, Peter, in accordance with his invariable +custom, was on her side. + +The day before Frau von Penheim was to arrive, Susie's answer to Anna's +letter came. Here it is:-- + + "DEAR ANNA,--Your letter surprised me, though I might have known by + now what to expect of you.--Still, I was surprised that you should + not even offer to make the one return in your power for all I have + done for you. As I feel I have a right to some return I don't + hesitate to tell you that I think you ought to keep Letty for a + year or two, or even longer. Even if you kept her till she is + eighteen, and dressed her and fed her (don't feed her too much), it + would only be four years; and what are four years I should like to + know, compared to the fifteen I had you on my hands? I was talking + to Herr Schumpf about her the other day--his bills were so absurd + that I made him take something off--and he said by all means let + her stay in Germany. Everybody speaks German nowadays, and Letty + will pick it up at once in that awful place of yours. I was so ill + when I got back that I went to Estcourt, and had to stay in bed for + days, the doctor coming every day, and sometimes twice. He said he + didn't wonder, when I told him all I had gone through. Peter was + quite sorry for me. Send Miss Leech back. Give her a month's notice + for me the day you get this, and see if you can't find some German + who will go to your place--I can't remember its wretched name + without looking in my address book--and give Letty lessons every + day. The rest of the time she can talk German to your twelve + victims. I believe masters in Germany only charge about 6d. an + hour, so it won't ruin you. Make her take lots of exercise, and let + her ride. She has outgrown her old habit, but German tailors are so + cheap that a new one will cost next to nothing, and any horse that + shakes her up well will do. I shall be quite happy about her diet, + because I know you don't have anything to eat. I was at the + Ennistons' last night. They seemed very sorry for me being so + nearly related to somebody cracked; but after all, as I tell + people, I'm not responsible for my husband's relations.--Your + affectionate, SUSIE ESTCOURT. + + "I have never seen Hilton so upset as she was after that German + trip. She cried if anyone looked at her. Poor thing, no wonder. The + doctor says she is all nerves." + +The evening meal was in progress at Kleinwalde when this letter came. +The dining-room was finished, and it was the first meal served there +since its transformation. No one who had seen it on that dark day of +Anna's arrival would have recognised it, so cheerful did it look with +its whitewashed walls. There were no dark corners now where china +shepherds smiled in vain; the western light filled it, and to a person +lately come from Susie's Hill Street house, it was a refreshment to sit +in any place so simple and so clean. Reforms, too, had been made in the +food, and the bread was no longer disfigured by caraway seeds. A great +bowl of blue hepaticas, fresh from the forest, stood on the table; and +the hepaticas were the exact colour of Anna's eyes. When Letty saw her +mother's handwriting she turned cold. It was the warrant that was to +banish her from Eden, casting her back into the outer darkness of the +Popular Concerts and the literature lectures. She was in the act of +raising a spoonful of pudding to her already opened mouth, when she +caught sight of the well-known writing. She hesitated, her hand shook, +and finally she laid her spoon down again and pushed her plate back. At +the great crises of life who can go on eating pudding? What then was her +relief and joy to see her aunt get up, come round to where she was +sitting braced to hear the worst, put her arms round her neck, and to +feel herself being kissed. "You are going to stay with me after all!" +cried Anna delightedly. "Dear little Letty--I should have missed you +horribly. Aren't you glad? Your mother says I'm to keep you for ever so +long." + +"Oh, I say--how ripping!" exclaimed Letty; and being a practical person +at once resumed and finished her pudding. + +Miss Leech, too, looked exceedingly pleased. How could she be anything +but pleased at the prospect of staying with a person who was always so +kind and thoughtful as Anna? Her feelings, somehow, were never hurt by +Anna; Lady Estcourt seemed to have a special knack of jumping on them +every time she spoke to her. She knew she ought not to have such +sensitive feelings, and felt that it was more her fault than anyone +else's if they were hurt; yet there they were, and being hurt was +painful, and living with someone so even tempered as Anna was very +peaceful and pleasant. Mr. Jessup would have liked Anna. She wished he +could have known her. A higher compliment it was not in Miss Leech's +power to pay. + +And when Anna saw the pleasure on Miss Leech's face, and saw that she +thought she was to stay too, she felt that for no sister-in-law in the +world would she wipe it out with that month's notice. She decided to say +nothing, but simply to keep her as well as Letty. Her two thousand a +year was in her eyes of infinite elasticity. Never having had any money, +she had no notion of how far it would go; and she did not hesitate to +come to a decision which would probably ultimately oblige her to reduce +the number of those persons Susie described as victims. + +The next day the companion arrived. Anna went out into the hall to meet +her when she heard the approaching wheels of the shepherd-plaid chariot. +She felt rather nervous as she watched her emerging from beneath the +hood, for she knew how much of the comfort and peace of the twelve would +depend on this lady. She felt exceedingly nervous when the lady, +immediately upon shaking hands, asked if she could speak to her alone. + +"_Natürlich,_" said Anna, a vague fear lest Fritz, the coachman, +should have insulted her on the way coming over her, though she only +knew Fritz as the mildest of men. + +She led the way into the drawing-room. "Now what is she going to tell me +dreadful?" she thought, as she invited her to sit on the sofa, having +been instructed by Trudi that that was the place where strangers +expected to sit. "Suppose she isn't going to stay, and I shall have to +look for someone all over again? Perhaps the lining of the carriage has +been too much for her. _Bitte_" she said aloud, with an uneasy smile, +motioning Frau von Penheim towards the sofa. + +The new companion was a big, elderly lady with a sensible face. Her +boots were thick, and she wore a mackintosh. She sat down, and looking +more attentively at Anna, smiled. Most people who saw her for the first +time did that. It was such a change and a pleasure after seeing plain +faces, and dull faces, and vain, pretty faces for an indefinite period, +to rest one's eyes on a person so charming yet manifestly preoccupied by +other matters than her charms. + +"I feel it my duty," said the lady in German, "before we go any further +to tell you the truth." + +This was alarming. The lady's manner was solemn. Anna inclined her head, +and felt scared. She wished that Axel Lohm were somewhere near. + +"I see you are young," continued the lady, "and I presume that you are +inexperienced." + +"Not so young," murmured Anna, who felt particularly young and +uncomfortable at that moment, and very unlike the mistress of a house +interviewing a companion. "Not so young--twenty-five." + +"Twenty-five? You do not look it. But what is twenty-five?" + +Anna did not know, so said nothing. + +"My position here would be a responsible one," continued the lady, +scrutinising Anna's face, and smiling again at what she saw there. +"Taking charge of a motherless girl always is. And the circumstances in +this case are peculiar." + +"Yes," said Anna, "they are even more peculiar than you imagine----" And +she was about to explain the approaching advent of the victims, when the +lady held up her hand in a masterful way, as though enjoining silence, +and said, "First hear me. Through a series of misfortunes I have been +reduced to poverty since my husband's death. But I do not choose to live +on the charity of relatives, which is the most unbearable form of +charity calling itself by that holy name, and I am determined to work +for my bread." + +She paused. Anna could find nothing better to say than "Oh." + +"Out of consideration for my relatives, who are enraged at my +resolution, and think I ought to starve quietly on what they choose to +give me sooner than make myself conspicuous by working, I have called +myself Frau von Penheim. I will not come here under false pretences, and +to you, privately, I will confess that my proper title is the Princess +Ludwig, of that house." + +She stopped to observe the effect of this announcement. Anna was +confounded. A princess was not at all what she wanted. She felt that she +had no use whatever for princesses. How could she ever expect one to get +up early and see that the twelve received their meat in due season? +"Oh," she said again, and then was silent. + +The princess watched her closely. She was very poor, and very anxious to +have the place. "'Oh' is so English," she said, smiling to hide her +anxiety. "We say '_ach_!" + +Anna laughed. + +"And do not think that all German princesses are like your English +ones," she went on eagerly. "My father-in-law was raised to the rank of +Fürst for services rendered to the state. He had a large family, and my +husband was a younger son." + +Still Anna was silent. Then she said "I--I wish----" and then stopped. + +"What do you wish, my dear child?" + +"I wish--that I--that you----" + +"That you had known it beforehand? Then you would never have taken me, +even on trial," was the prompt reply. + +Anna's eyes said plainly, "No, I would not." + +"And it is so important that I should find something to do. At first I +answered advertisements in my real name, and received my photograph back +by the next post. This, and the anger of my family, decided me to drop +the title altogether. But I had always resolved that if I did find a +place I would confess to my employer. It is a terrible thing to be very +poor," she added, staring straight before her with eyes growing dim at +her remembrances. + +"Yes," said Anna, under her breath. + +"To have nothing, nothing at all, and to be burdened at the same time by +one's birth." + +"Oh," murmured Anna, with a little catch in her voice. + +"And to be dependent on people who only wish that you were safely out of +the way--dead." + +"Married," whispered Anna. + +"Why, what do you know about it?" said the princess, turning quickly to +her; for she had been thinking aloud rather than addressing anyone. + +"I know everything about it," said Anna; and in a rush of bad but eager +German she told her of those old days when even the sweeping of +crossings had seemed better than living on relations, and how since then +all her heart had been filled with pity for the type of poverty called +genteel, and how now that she was well off she was going to help women +who were in the same sad situation in which she had been. Her eyes were +wet when she finished. She had spoken with extraordinary enthusiasm, a +fresh wave of passionate sympathy with such lives passing over her; and +not until she had done did she remember that she had never before seen +this lady, and that she was saying things to her that she had not as yet +said to the most intimate of her friends. + +She felt suddenly uncomfortable; her eyelashes quivered and drooped, and +she blushed. + +The princess contemplated her curiously. "I congratulate you," she said, +laying her hand lightly for a moment on Anna's. "The idea and the good +intentions will have been yours, whatever the result may be." + +This was not very encouraging as a response to an outburst. "I have told +you more than I tell most people," Anna said, looking up shamefacedly, +"because you have had much the same experiences that I have." + +"Except the uncle at the end. He makes such a difference. May I ask if +many of the ladies answered _both_ advertisements?" + +"No, they did not." + +"Not one?" + +"Not one." + +The princess thought that working for one's bread was distinctly +preferable to taking Anna's charity; but then she was of an unusually +sturdy and independent nature. "I can assure you," she said after a +short silence, "that I would do my best to look after your house and +your--your friends and yourself." + +"But I want someone who will do _everything_--order the meals, train the +servants--everything. And get up early besides," said Anna, her voice +full of doubt. The princess really belonged, she felt, to the category +of sad, sick, and sorry; and if she had asked for a place among the +twelve there would have been little difficulty in giving her one. But +the companion she had imagined was to be a real help, someone she could +order about as she chose, certainly not a person unused to being ordered +about. Even the parson's sister-in-law Helena would have been better +than this. + +"I would do all that, naturally. Do you think if I am not too proud to +take wages that I shall be too proud to do the work for which they are +paid?" + +"Would you not prefer----" began Anna, and hesitated. + +"Would I not prefer what, my child?" + +"Prefer to--would it not be more agreeable for you to come and live here +without working? I could find another companion, and I would be happy if +you will stay here as--as one of the others." + +The princess laughed; a hearty, big laugh in keeping with her big +person. + +"No," she said. "I would not like that at all. But thank you, dear +child, for making the offer. Let me stay here and do what work you want +done, and then you pay me for it, and we are quits. I assure you there +is a solid satisfaction in being quits. I shall certainly not expect any +more consideration than you would give to a Frau Schultz. And I will be +able to take care of you; and I think, if you will not be angry with me +for saying so, that you greatly need taking care of." + +"Well, then," said Anna, with an effort, "let us try it for three +months." + +An immense load was lifted off the princess's heart by these words. "You +will not regret it," she said emphatically. + +But Anna was not so sure. Though she did her best to put a cheerful face +on her new bargain, she could not help fearing that her enterprise had +begun badly. She was unusually pensive throughout the evening. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +What the Princess Ludwig thought of her new place it would be difficult +to say. She accepted her position as minister to the comforts of the +hitherto comfortless without remark and entirely as a matter of course. +She got up at hours exemplary in their earliness, and was about the +house rattling a bunch of keys all day long. She was wholly practical, +and as destitute of illusions as she was of education in the ordinary +sense. Her knowledge of German literature was hardly more extensive than +Letty's, and of other tongues and other literatures she knew and cared +nothing. As for illusions, she saw things as they are, and had never at +any period of her life possessed enthusiasms. Nor had she the least +taste for hidden meanings and symbols. Maeterlinck, if she had heard of +him, would have been dismissed by her with an easy smile. Anna's +whitewash to her was whitewash; a disagreeable but economical +wall-covering. She knew and approved of it as cheap; how could she dream +that it was also symbolic? She never dreamed at all, either sleeping or +waking. If by some chance she had fallen into musings, she would have +mused blood and iron, the superiority of the German nation, cookery in +its three forms _feine_, _bürgerliche_, and _Hausmannskost_, in all +which forms she was preëminent in skill--she would have mused, that is, +on facts, plain and undisputed. If she had had children she would have +made an excellent mother; as it was she made excellent cakes--also a +form of activity to be commended. She was a Dettingen before her +marriage, and the Dettingens are one of the oldest Prussian families, +and have produced more first-rate soldiers and statesmen and a larger +number of mothers of great men than any other family in that part. The +Penheims and Dettingens had intermarried continually, and it was to his +mother's Dettingen blood that the first Fürst Penheim owed the +energy that procured him his elevation. Princess Ludwig was a good +example of the best type of female Dettingen. Like many other +illiterates, she prided herself particularly on her sturdy common sense. +Regarding this quality, which she possessed, as more precious than +others which she did not possess, she was not likely to sympathise much +either with Anna's plan for making people happy, or with those who were +willing to be made happy in such a way. A sensible woman, she thought, +will always find work, and need not look far for a home. She herself had +been handicapped in the search by her unfortunate title, yet with +patience even she had found a haven. Only the lazy and lackadaisical, +the morally worthless, that is, would, she was convinced, accept such an +offer as Anna's. It was not, however, her business. Her business was to +look after Anna's house; and she did it with a zeal and thoroughness +that struck terror into the hearts of the maid-servants. Trudi's fitful +energy was nothing to it. Trudi had introduced workmen and chaos; the +princess, with a rapidity and skill little short of amazing to anyone +unacquainted with the capabilities of the well-trained German +_Hausfrau_, cleared out the workmen and reduced the chaos to order. +Within three weeks the house was ready, and Anna, palpitating, saw the +moment approaching when the first batch of unhappy ones might be +received. + +Manske's time was entirely taken up writing letters of inquiry +concerning the applicants, and it was surprising in what huge batches +they had to be weeded out. Of fifty applications received in one day, +three or four, after due inquiry, would alone remain for further +consideration; and of these three or four, after yet closer inquiry, +sometimes not one would be left. + +At first Anna asked the princess's advice as well as Manske's, and it +was when she was present at the consultations that the heap into which +the letters of the unworthy were gathered was biggest. All those ladies +belonging to the _bürgerliche_ or middle classes were in her eyes wholly +unworthy. If Anna had proposed to take washerwomen into her home, and +required the princess's help in brightening their lives, it would have +been given in the full measure, pressed down and running over, that +befits a Christian gentlewoman; but for the _Bürgerlichen_, those +belonging to the class more immediately below her own, the princess's +feeling was only Christian so long as they kept a great way off. There +was so much good sense in the objections she made that Anna, who did her +best to keep an open mind and listen attentively to advice, was forced +to agree with her, and added letters to the ever-increasing heap of the +rejected which she might otherwise have reserved for riper +consideration. After two or three days, however, it became clear to her +that if she continued to consult the princess, no one would be accepted +at all, for Manske's respect for that lady was so profound that he was +invariably of her opinion. She did not, therefore, invite her again to +assist at the interviews. Still, all she had said, and the knowledge +that she must know her own countrywomen fairly thoroughly, made Anna +prudent; and so it came about that the first arrivals were to be only +three in number, chosen without reference to the princess, and one of +them was _bürgerlich_. + +"We can meanwhile proceed with our inquiries about the remaining nine," +said Manske, "and the gracious Miss will be always gaining experience." + +She trod on air during the days preceding the arrival of the chosen. To +say that she was blissful would be but an inadequate description of her +state of mind. The weather was beautiful, and it increased her happiness +tenfold to know that their new life was to begin in sunshine. She had +never a doubt as to their delight in the sun-chequered forest, in the +freshness of the glittering sea, in the peacefulness of the quiet +country life, so quiet that the week seemed to be all Sundays. Were not +these things sufficient for herself? Did she ever tire of those long +pine vistas, with the narrow strip of clearest blue between the gently +waving tree-tops? The dreamy murmur of the forest gave her an exquisite +pleasure. To see the bloom on the pink and grey trunks of the pines, and +the sun on the moss and lichen beneath, was so deep a satisfaction to +her soul that the thought that others who had been knocked about by life +would not feel it too, would not enter with profoundest thankfulness +into this other world of peace, never struck her at all. When these poor +tired women, freed at last from every care and every anxiety, had +refreshed themselves with the music and fragrance of the forest, there +was the garden across the road to enjoy, with the marsh already strewn +with kingcups on the other side of the hedge already turning green; and +the sea with the fishing-smacks passing up and down, and the silver +gleam of gulls' wings circling round the orange sails, and eagles +floating high up aloft, specks in the infinite blue; and then there were +drives along the coast towards the north, where the wholesome wind blew +fresher than in the woods; and quiet evenings in the roomy house, where +all that was asked of them was that they should be happy. + +"It's a lovely plan, isn't it, Letty?" she said joyously, the evening +before they were to arrive, as she stood with her arm round Letty's +shoulder at the bottom of the garden, where they had both been watching +the sails of the fishing-smacks during those short sunset moments when +they looked like the bright wings of spirits moving over the face of the +placid waters. + +"I should rather think it was," replied Letty, who was profoundly +interested. + +They got up at sunrise the next morning, and went out into the forest in +search of hepaticas and windflowers with which to decorate the three +bedrooms. These bedrooms were the largest and pleasantest in the house. +Anna had given up her own because she thought the windows particularly +pleasing, and had gone into a little one in the fervour of her desire to +lavish all that was best on her new friends. The rooms were furnished +with special care, an immense amount of thought having been bestowed on +the colour of the curtains, the pattern of the porcelain, and the books +filling the shelves above each writing-table. The colours and patterns +were the nearest approach Berlin could produce to Anna's own favourite +colours and patterns. She wasted half her time, when the rooms were +ready, sitting in them and picturing what her own delight would have +been if she, like the poor ladies for whom they were intended, had come +straight out of a cold, unkind world into such pretty havens. + +The choice of books had been a great difficulty, and there had been much +correspondence on the subject with Berlin before a selection had been +made. Books there must be, for no room, she thought, was habitable +without them; and she had tried to imagine what manner of literature +would most appeal to her unhappy ones. It was to be presumed that their +ages were such as to exclude frivolity; therefore she bought very few +novels. She thought Dickens translated into German would be a safe +choice; also Schlegel's Shakespeare for loftier moments. The German +classics were represented by Goethe in one room, Schiller in another, +and Heine in the third. In each room also there was a German-English +dictionary, for the facilitation of intercourse. Finally, she asked the +princess to recommend something they would be sure to like, and she +recommended cookery books. + +"But they are not going to cook," said Anna, surprised. + +"_Es ist egal_--it is always interesting to read good recipes. No other +reading affords me the same pleasure." + +"But only when you want something new cooked." + +"No, no, at all times," insisted the princess. + +Anna could not quite believe that such a taste was general; but in case +one of the three should share it, she put a cookery book in one +bookcase. In the other two severally to balance it, she slipt at the +last moment a volume of Maeterlinck, to which at that period she was +greatly attached; and Matthew Arnold's poems, to which also at that +period she was greatly attached. + +The princess went about with pursed lips while these preparations were +in progress; and when, at sunrise on the last morning, she was awakened +by stealthy footsteps and smothered laughter on the landing outside her +room, and, opening her door an inch and peering out as in duty bound in +case the sounds should be emanating from some unaccountably mirthful +maid-servant, she saw Anna and Letty creeping downstairs with their hats +on and baskets in their hands, she guessed what they were going to do, +and got back into bed with lips more pursed than ever. Did she not know +who had been chosen, and that one of the three was a _Bürgerliche_? + +About eight o'clock, when the two girls were coming out of the forest +with their baskets full and their faces happy, Axel Lohm was riding +thoughtfully past, having just settled an unpleasant business at +Kleinwalde. Dellwig had sent him an urgent message in the small hours; +there had been a brawl among the labourers about a woman, and a man had +been stabbed. Axel had ordered the aggressor to be locked up in the +little room that served as a temporary prison till he could be handed +over to the Stralsund authorities. His wife, a girl of twenty, was ill, +and she and her three small children depended entirely on the man's +earnings. The victim appeared to be dying, and the man would certainly +be punished. What, then, thought Axel, was to become of the wife and the +children? Frau Dellwig had told him that she sent soup every day at +dinner-time, but soup once a day would neither comfort them nor make +them fat. Besides, he had a notion that the soup of Frau Dellwig's +charity was very thin. He was riding dejectedly enough down the road on +his way home, looking straight before him, his mouth a mere grim line, +thinking how grievous it was that the consequences of sin should fall +with their most terrific weight nearly always on the innocent, on the +helpless women-folk and the weak little children, when Anna and Letty +appeared, talking and laughing, on the edge of the forest. + +Letty, we know, had not been kindly treated by nature, but even she was +a pleasing object in her harmless morning cheerfulness after the faces +he had just seen; and Anna's beauty, made radiant by happiness and +contentment, startled him. He had a momentary twinge, gone almost before +he had realised it, a sudden clear conception of his great loneliness. +The satisfaction he strove to extract from improving his estate for the +benefit of his brother Gustav appeared to him at that moment to bear a +singular resemblance, in its thinness, to Frau Dellwig's charitable +soup. He got off his horse to speak to her, and rested his eyes, tired +by looking at the hideous passions on the brawler's face, on hers. +"To-day is the important day, is it not?" he asked, glancing from her +flower-like face to the flowers. + +"The first three come this afternoon." + +"So Manske told me. You are very happy, I can see," he said, smiling. + +"I never was so happy before." + +"Your uncle was a wise man. He told me he was going to leave you +Kleinwalde because he felt sure you would be happy leading the simple +life here." + +"Did he talk about me to you?" + +"After his last visit to England he talked about you all the time." + +"Oh?" said Anna, looking at him thoughtfully. Uncle Joachim, she +remembered perfectly, had urged two things--the leading of the better +life, and the marrying of a good German gentleman. A faint flush came +into her face and faded again. She had suddenly become aware that Axel +was the good German gentleman he had meant. Well, the wisest uncle was +subject to errors of judgment. + +"I trust those women will not worry you too much," he said, thinking how +immense would be the pity if those happy eyes ever lost their +joyousness. + +"Worry me? Poor things, they won't have any energy of any sort left +after all they have gone through. I never read such pitiful letters." + +"Well, I don't know," said Axel doubtfully. "Manske says one of them is +a Treumann. It is a family distinguished by its size and its +disagreeableness." + +"Oh, but she only married a Treumann, and isn't one herself." + +"But a woman generally adopts the peculiarities of the family she +marries into, especially if they are unpleasant." + +"But she has been a widow for years. And is so poor. And is so crushed." + +"I never yet heard of a permanently crushed Treumann," said Axel, +shaking his head. + +"You are trying to make me uneasy," said Anna, a slight touch of +impatience in her voice. She was singularly sensitive about her chosen +ones; sensitive in the way mothers are about a child that is deformed. + +"No, no," he said quickly, "I only wish to warn you. You maybe +disappointed--it is just possible." He could not bear to think of her as +disappointed. + +"Pray, do you know anything against the other two?" she asked with some +defiance. "One of them is a Baroness Elmreich, and the other is a +Fräulein Kuhräuber." + +Axel looked amused. "I never heard of Fräulein Kuhräuber," he said. +"What does Princess Ludwig say to her coming?" + +"Nothing at all. What should she say?" + +It was Fräulein Kuhräuber's coming that had more particularly occasioned +the pursing of the princess's lips. + +"I know some Elmreichs," said Axel. "A few of them are respectable; but +one branch at least of the family is completely demoralised. A Baron +Elmreich shot himself last year because he had been caught cheating at +cards. And one of his sisters--oh, well, some of them are harmless, I +believe." + +"Thank you." + +"You are angry with me?" + +"Very." + +"And why?" + +"You want to prejudice me against these poor things. They can't help +what distant relations do. They will get away from them in my house, at +least, and have peace." + +"Miss Letty, is your aunt often--what is the word--so fractious?" + +"Oh, I don't know," said Letty, who found it dull waiting in silence +while other people talked. "It's breakfast time, you know, and people +can't stand much just about then." + +"Oh, youthful philosopher!" exclaimed Axel. "So young, and of the female +sex, and yet to have pierced to the very root of human weakness!" + +"Stuff," said Letty, offended. + +"What, are you going to be angry too? Then let me get on my horse and +go." + +"It's the best thing you can do," said Letty, always frank, but doubly +so when she was hungry. + +"Shall you come and see us soon?" Anna asked, gathering up her skirts in +her one free hand, preparatory to crossing the muddy road. + +"But you are angry with me." + +She looked up and laughed. "Not now," she said; "I've finished. Do you +think I'm going to be angry long this pleasant April morning?" + +"I smell the coffee," observed Letty, sniffing. + +"Then I will come to-morrow if I may," said Axel, "and make the +acquaintance of Frau von Treumann and Baroness Elmreich." + +"And Fräulein Kuhräuber," said Anna, with emphasis. She thought she saw +the same tendency in him that was so manifest in the princess, a +tendency to ignore the very existence of any one called Kuhräuber. + +"And Fräulein Kuhräuber," repeated Axel gravely. + +"They've burnt the toast again," said Letty; "I can hear them scraping +off the black." + +"I wish you good luck, then," said Axel, taking off his hat; "with all +my heart I wish you good luck, and that these ladies may very soon be as +happy as you are yourself." + +"That's nice," said Anna, approvingly; "so much, much nicer than the +other things you have been saying." And she nodded to him, all smiles, +as she crossed over to the house and he rode away. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +Long before the carriage bringing the three chosen ones from the station +could possibly arrive, Anna and Letty began to wait in the hall, +standing at the windows, going out on to the steps, looking into the +different rooms every few minutes to make sure that everything was +ready. The bedrooms were full of the hepaticas of the morning; the +coffee had been set out with infinite care and an eye to effect by Anna +herself on a little table in the drawing-room by the open window, +through which the mild April air came in and gently fanned the curtains +to and fro; and the princess had baked her best cakes for the occasion, +inwardly deploring, as she did so, that such cakes should be offered to +such people. When she had seen that all was as it should be, she +withdrew into her own room, where she remained darning sheets, for she +had asked Anna to excuse her from being present at the arrival. "It is +better that you should make their acquaintance by yourself," she said. +"The presence of too many strangers at first might disconcert them under +the circumstances." + +Miss Leech profited by this remark, made in her hearing, and did not +appear either; so that when the carriage drove in at the gate only Anna +and Letty were standing at the door in the sunshine. + +Anna's heart bumped so as the three slowly disentangled themselves and +got out, that she could hardly speak. Her face flushed and grew pale by +turns, and her eyes were shining with something suspiciously like tears. +What she wanted to do was to put her arms right round the three poor +ladies, and kiss them, and comfort them, and make up for all their +griefs. What she did was to put out a very cold, shaking hand, and say +in a voice that trembled, "_Guten Tag_." + +"_Guten Tag_," said the first lady to descend; evidently, from her +mourning, the widowed Frau von Treumann. + +Anna took her extended hand in both hers, and clasping it tight looked +at its owner with all her heart in her eyes. "_Es freut mich so--es +freut mich so_," she murmured incoherently. + +"_Ach_--you are Miss Estcourt?" asked the lady in German. + +"Yes, yes," said Anna, still clinging to her hand, "and so happy, so +very happy to see you." + +Frau von Treumann hereupon made some remarks which Anna supposed were of +a grateful nature, but she spoke so rapidly and in such subdued tones, +glancing round uneasily as she did so at the coachman and at the others, +and Anna herself was so much agitated, that what she said was quite +incomprehensible. Again Anna longed to throw her arms round the poor +woman's neck, and interrupt her with kisses, and tell her that gratitude +was not required of her, but only that she should be happy; but she felt +that if she did so she would begin to cry, and tears were surely out of +place on such a joyful occasion, especially as nobody else looked in the +least like crying. + +"You are Frau von Treumann, I know," she said, holding her hand, and +turning to the next one and beaming on her, "and this is Baroness +Elmreich?" + +"No, no," said the third lady quickly, "_I_ am Baroness Elmreich." + +Fräulein Kuhräuber, an ample person whose body, swathed in travelling +cloaks, had blotted out the other little woman, looked frightened and +apologetic, and made deep curtseys. + +Anna shook their hands one after the other with all the warmth that was +glowing in her heart. Her defective German forsook her almost +completely. She did nothing but repeat disconnected ejaculations, "_so +reizend--so glücklich--so erfreut_----" and fill in the gaps with happy, +quivering smiles at each in turn, and timid little pats on any hand +within her reach. + +Letty meanwhile stood in the shadow of the doorway, wishing that she +were young enough to suck her thumb. It kept on going up to her mouth of +its own accord, and she kept on pulling it down again. This was one of +the occasions, she felt, when the sucking of thumbs is a relief and a +blessing. It gives one's superfluous hands occupation, and oneself a +countenance. She shifted from one foot to the other uneasily, and held +on tight to the rebellious thumb, for the tall lady who had got out +first was fixing her with a stare that chilled her blood. The tall lady, +who was very tall and thin, and had round unblinking dark eyes set close +together like an owl's, and strongly marked black eyebrows, said +nothing, but examined her slowly from the tip of the bow of ribbon +trembling on her head to the buckles of the shoes creaking on her feet. +Ought she to offer to shake hands with her, or ought she to wait to be +shaken hands with, Letty asked herself distractedly. Anyhow it was +rather rude to stare like that. She had always been taught that it was +rude to stare like that. + +Anna had forgotten all about her, and only remembered her when they were +in the drawing-room and she had begun to pour out the coffee. "Oh, +Letty, where are you? This is my niece," she said; and Letty was at last +shaken hands with. + +"Ah--she keeps you company," said the baroness. "You found it lonely +here, naturally." + +"Oh no, I am never lonely," said Anna cheerfully, filling the cups and +giving them to Letty to carry round. + +"How pleasant the air is to-day," observed Frau von Treumann, edging her +chair away from the window. "Damp, but pleasant. You like fresh air, I +see." + +"Oh, I love it," said Anna; "and it is so beautiful here--so pure, and +full of the sea." + +"You are not afraid of catching cold, sitting so near an open window?" + +"Oh, is it too much for you? Letty, shut the window. It is getting +chilly. The days are so fine that one forgets it is only April." + +Anna talked German and poured out the coffee with a nervous haste +unusual to her. The three women sitting round the little table staring +at her made her feel terribly nervous. She was happy beyond words to +have got them safely under her own roof at last, but she was nervous. +She was determined that there should be no barriers of conventionality +from the first between themselves and her; not a minute more of their +lives was to be wasted; this was their home, and she was all ready to +love them; she had made up her mind that however shy she felt she was +going to behave as though they were her dear friends--which indeed, she +assured herself, was exactly what they were. Therefore she struggled +bravely against her nervousness, addressing them collectively and +singly, saying whatever came first into her head in her anxiety to say +something, smiling at them, pressing the princess's cakes on them, +hardly letting them drink their coffee before she wanted to give them +more. But it was no good; she was and remained nervous, and her hand +shook so when she lifted it that she was ashamed. + +Fräulein Kuhräuber was the one who stared least. If she caught Anna's +eye her own drooped, whereas the eyes of the other two never wavered. +She sat on the edge of her chair in a way made familiar to Anna by +intercourse with Frau Manske, and whatever anybody said she nodded her +head and murmured "_Ja, eben_." She was obviously ill at ease, and +dropped the sugar-tongs when she was offered sugar with a loud clatter +on to the varnished floor, nearly sweeping the cups off the table in her +effort to pick them up again. + +"Oh, do not mind," said Anna, "Letty will pick them up. They are stupid +things--much too big for the sugar-basin." + +"_Ja, eben_," said Fräulein Kuhräuber, sitting up and looking perturbed. +The other two removed their eyes from Anna's face for a moment to stare +at the Fräulein. The baroness, a small, fair person with hair arranged +in those little flat curls called kiss-me-quicks on each cheek, and +wide-open pale blue eyes, and a little mouth with no lips, or lips so +thin that they were hardly visible, sat very still and straight, and had +a way of moving her eyes round from one face to the other without at the +same time moving her head. She was unmarried, and was probably about +thirty-five, Anna thought, but she had always evaded questions in the +correspondence about her age. Fräulein Kuhräuber was also thirty-five, +and as large and blooming as the baroness was small and pale. Frau von +Treumann was over fifty, and had had more sorrows, judging from her +letters, than the other two. She sat nearest Anna, who every now and +then laid her hand gently on hers and let it rest there a moment, in her +determination to thaw all frost from the very beginning. "Oh, I quite +forgot," she said cheerfully--the amount of cheerfulness she put into +her voice made her laugh at herself--"I quite forgot to introduce you to +each other." + +"We did it at the station," said Frau von Treumann, "when we found +ourselves all entering your carriage." + +"The Elmreichs are connected with the Treumanns," observed the baroness. + +"We are such a large family," said Frau von Treumann quickly, "that we +are connected with nearly everybody." + +The tone was cold, and there was a silence. Neither of them, apparently, +was connected with Fräulein Kuhräuber, who buried her face in her cup, +in which the tea-spoon remained while she drank, and heartily longed for +connections. + +But she had none. She was absolutely without relations except deceased +ones. She had been an orphan since she was two, cared for by her one +aunt till she was ten. The aunt died, and she found a refuge in an +orphanage till she was sixteen, when she was told that she must earn her +bread. She was a lazy girl even in those days, who liked eating her +bread better than earning it. No more, however, being forthcoming in the +orphanage, she went into a pastor's family as _Stütze der Hausfrau_. +These _Stütze_, or supports, are common in middle-class German families, +where they support the mistress of the house in all her manifold duties, +cooking, baking, mending, ironing, teaching or amusing the +children--being in short a comfort and blessing to harassed mothers. But +Fräulein Kuhräuber had no talent whatever for comforting mothers, and +she was quickly requested to leave the busy and populous parsonage; +whereupon she entered upon the series of driftings lasting twenty years, +which landed her, by a wonderful stroke of fortune, in Anna's arms. + +When she saw the advertisement, her future was looking very black. She +was, as usual, under notice to quit, and had no other place in view, and +had saved nothing. It is true the advertisement only offered a home to +women of good family; but she got over that difficulty by reflecting +that her family was all in heaven, and that there could be no relations +more respectable than angels. She wrote therefore in glowing terms of +the paternal Kuhräuber, "_gegenwärtig mit Gott_," as she put it, +expatiating on his intellect and gifts (he was a man of letters, she +said), while he yet dwelt upon earth. Manske, with all his inquiries, +could find out nothing about her except that she was, as she said, an +orphan, poor, friendless, and struggling; and Anna, just then impatient +of the objections the princess made to every applicant, quickly decided +to accept this one, against whom not a word had been said. So Fräulein +Kuhräuber, who had spent her life in shirking work, who was quite +thriftless and improvident, who had never felt particularly unhappy, and +whose father had been a postman, found herself being welcomed with an +enthusiasm that astonished her to Anna's home, being smiled upon and +patted, having beautiful things said to her, things the very opposite to +those to which she had been used, things to the effect that she was now +to rest herself for ever and to be sure and not do anything except just +that which made her happiest. + +It was very wonderful. It seemed much, much too good to be true. And the +delight that filled her as she sat eating excellent cakes, and the +discomfort she endured because of the stares of the other two women, and +the consciousness that she had never learned how to behave in the +society of persons with _von_ before their names, produced such mingled +feelings of ecstasy and fright in her bosom that it was quite natural +she should drop the sugar-tongs, and upset the cream-jug, and choke over +her coffee--all of which things she did, to Anna's distress, who +suffered with her in her agitation, while the eyes of the other two +watched each successive catastrophe with profoundest attention. + +It was an uncomfortable half hour. "I am shy, and they are shy," Anna +said to herself, apologising as it were for the undoubted flatness that +prevailed. How could it be otherwise, she thought? Did she expect them +to gush? Heaven forbid. Yet it was an important crisis in their lives, +this passing for ever from neglect and loneliness to love, and she +wondered vaguely that the obviously paramount feeling should be interest +in the awkwardness of Fräulein Kuhräuber. + +Her German faltered, and threatened to give out entirely. The inevitable +pause came, and they could hear the sparrows quarrelling in the golden +garden, and the creaking of a distant pump. + +"How still it is," observed the baroness with a slight shiver. + +"You have no farmyard near the house to make it more cheerful," said +Frau von Treumann. "My father's house had the garden at the back, and +the farmyard in the front, and one did not feel so cut off from +everything. There was always something going on in the yard--always life +and noises." + +"Really?" said Anna; and again the pump and the sparrows became audible. + +"The stillness is truly remarkable," observed the baroness again. + +"_Ja, eben_," said Fräulein Kuhräuber. + +"But it is beautiful, isn't it," said Anna, gazing out at the light on +the water. "It is so restful, so soothing. Look what a lovely sunset +there must be this evening. We can't see it from this side of the house, +but look at the colour of the grass and the water." + +"_Ach_--you are a friend of nature," said Frau von Treumann, turning her +head for a brief moment towards the window, and then examining Anna's +face. "I am also. There is nothing I like more than nature. Do you +paint?" + +"I wish I could." + +"Ah, then you sing--or play?" + +"I can do neither." + +"_So?_ But what have you here, then, in the way of distractions, of +pastimes?" + +"I don't think I have any," said Anna, smiling. "I have been very busy +till now making things ready for you, and after this I shall just enjoy +being alive." + +Frau von Treumann looked puzzled for a moment. Then she said "_Ach so._" + +There was another silence. + +"Have some more coffee," said Anna, laying hold of the pot persuasively. +She was feeling foolish, and had blushed stupidly after that _Ach so_. + +"No, no," said Frau von Treumann, putting up a protesting hand, "you are +very kind. Two cups are a limit beyond which voracity itself could not +go. What do you say? You have had three? Oh, well, you are young, and +young people can play tricks with their digestions with less danger than +old ones." + +At this speech Fräulein Kuhräuber's four cups became plainly written on +her guilty face. The thought that she had been voracious at the very +first meal was appalling to her. She hastily pushed away her half-empty +cup--too hastily, for it upset, and in her effort to save it it fell on +to the floor and was broken. "_Ach, Herr Je!_" she cried in her +distress. + +The other two looked at each other; the expression is an unusual one on +the lips of gentle-women. + +"Oh, it does not matter--really it does not," Anna hastened to assure +her. "Don't pick it up--Letty will. The table is too small really. There +is no room on it for anything." + +"_Ja, eben_," said Fräulein Kuhräuber, greatly discomfited. + +"You would like to go upstairs, I am sure," said Anna hurriedly, turning +to the others. "You must be very tired," she added, looking at Frau von +Treumann. + +"I am," replied that lady, closing her eyes for a moment with a little +smile expressive of patient endurance. + +"Then we will go up. Come," she said, holding out her hand to Fräulein +Kuhräuber. "No, no--let Letty pick up the pieces----" for the Fräulein, +in her anxiety to repair the disaster, was about to sweep the remaining +cups off the table with the sleeve of her cloak. + +Anna drew her hand through her arm, and gave it a furtive and +encouraging stroke. "I will go first and show you the way," she said +over her shoulder to the others. + +And so it came about that Frau von Treumann and Baroness Elmreich +actually found themselves going through doors and up stairs behind a +person called Kuhräuber. They exchanged glances again. Whatever might be +their private objections to each other, they had one point already on +which they agreed, for with equal heartiness they both disapproved of +Fräulein Kuhräuber. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +As soon as Baroness Elmreich found herself alone in her bedroom, she +proceeded to examine its contents with minute care. Supper, she had been +told, was not till eight o'clock, and she had not much to unpack; so +laying aside her hat and cloak, and glancing at the reflection of her +little curls in the glass to see whether they were as they should be, +she began her inspection of each separate article in her room, taking +each one up and scrutinising it, holding the jars of hepaticas high +above her head in order to see whether the price was marked underneath, +untidying the bed to feel the quality of the sheets, poking the mattress +to discover the nature of the stuffing, and investigating with special +attention the embroidery on the pillow-cases. But everything was as +dainty and as perfect as enthusiasm could make it. Nowhere, with her +best endeavours, could she discover the signs she was looking for of +cheapness and shabbiness in less noticeable things that would have +helped her to understand her hostess. "This embroidery has cost at least +two marks the meter," she said to herself, fingering it. "She must roll +in money. And the wall-paper--how unpractical! It is so light that every +mark will be seen. The flies alone will ruin it in a month." + +She shrugged her shoulders, and smiled; strange to say, the thought of +Anna's paper being spoiled pleased her. + +Never had she been in a room the least like this one. If whitewash +prevailed downstairs, and in Anna's special haunts, it had not been +permitted to invade the bedrooms of the Chosen. Anna's reflections had +led her to the conclusion that the lives of these ladies had till then +probably been spent in bare places, and that they would accordingly feel +as much pleasure in the contemplation of carpets, papered walls, and +stuffed chairs, as she herself did in the severity of her whitewashed +rooms after the lavishly upholstered years of her youth. But the +daintiness and luxury only filled the baroness with doubts. She stood in +the middle of it looking round her when she had finished her tour of +inspection and had made guesses at the price of everything, and asked +herself who this Miss Estcourt could be. Anna would have been +considerably disappointed, and perhaps even moved to tears, if she had +known that the room she thought so pretty struck the baroness, whose +taste in furniture had not advanced beyond an appreciation for the dark +and heavy hangings and walnut-wood tables of her more prosperous years, +merely as odd. Odd, and very expensive. Where did the money come from +for this reckless furnishing with stuffs and colours that were bound to +show each stain? Her eye wandered along the shelves above the +writing-table--hers was the Heine and Maeterlinck room--and she wondered +what all the books were there for. She did not touch them as she had +touched everything else, for except an occasional novel, and, more +regularly, a journal beloved of German woman called the _Gartenlaube_, +she never read. + +On the writing-table lay a blotter, a pretty, embroidered thing that +said as plainly as blotter could say that it had been chosen with +immense care; and opening it she found notepaper and envelopes stamped +with the Kleinwalde address and her own monogram. This was Anna's little +special gift, a childish addition, the making of which had given her an +absurd amount of pleasure. The happy idea, as she called it, had come to +her one night when she lay awake thinking about her new friends and +going through the familiar process of discovering their tastes by +imagining herself in their place. "_Sonderbar_," was the baroness's +comment; and she decided that the best thing she could do would be to +ring the bell and endeavour to obtain private information about Miss +Estcourt by means of a prolonged cross-examination of the housemaid. + +She rang it, and then sat very straight and still on the sofa with her +hands folded in her lap, and waited. Her soul was full of doubts. Who +was this Miss, and where were the proofs that she was, as she had +pretended, of good birth? That she was not so very pious was evident; +for if she had been, some remark of a religious nature would inevitably +have been forthcoming when she first welcomed them to her house. No such +word, not the least approach to any such word, had been audible. There +had not even been an allusion, a sigh, or an upward glance. Yet the +pastor who had opened the correspondence had filled many pages with +expatiations on her zeal after righteousness. And then she was so young. +The baroness had expected to see an elderly person, or at least a person +of the age of everybody else, which was her own age; but this was a mere +girl, and a girl, too, who from the way she dressed, clearly thought +herself pretty. Surely it was strange that so young a woman should be +living here quite unattached, quite independent apparently of all +control, with a great deal of money at her disposal, and only one little +girl to give her a countenance? Suppose she were not a proper person at +all, suppose she were an outcast from society, a being on whom her own +countrypeople turned their backs? This desire to share her fortune with +respectable ladies could only be explained in two ways: either she had +been moved thereto by an enthusiastic piety of which not a trace had as +yet appeared, or she was an improper person anxious to rebuild her +reputation with the aid and countenance of the ladies of good family she +had entrapped into her house. + +The baroness stiffened as she sat. It was her brother who had cheated at +cards and shot himself, and it was her sister of whom Axel Lohm had +heard strange tales; and few people are more savagely proper than the +still respectable relations of the demoralised. "The service in this +house is very bad," she said aloud and irascibly, getting up to ring +again. "No doubt she has trouble with her servants." + +But there was a knock at the door while her hand was on the bell, and on +her calling "Come in," instead of the servant her hostess appeared, +dressed to the baroness's eye in a truly amazing and reprehensible +fashion, and looking as cheerful as an innocent infant for whom no such +thing as evil-doing exists. Also she seemed quite unconscious of her +clothes and bare neck, nor did she offer to explain why she was arrayed +as though she were going to a ball; and she stood a moment in the +doorway trying to say something in German and pretending to laugh at her +own ineffectual efforts, but really laughing, the baroness felt sure, in +order to show that she had dimples; which were not, after all, very +wonderful things to have--before she had grown so thin she almost had +one herself. + +"May I come in?" said Anna at last, giving up the other and more +complicated speech. + +"_Bitte_," said the baroness, with the smile the French call _pincé_. + +"Has no one been to unpack your things?" + +"I rang." + +"And no one came? Oh, I shall scold Marie. It is the only thing I can do +well in German. Can you speak English?" + +"No." + +"Nor understand it?" + +"No." + +"French?" + +"No." + +"Oh, well, you must be patient then with my bad German. When I am alone +with anyone it goes better, but if there are many people listening I am +nervous and can hardly speak at all. How glad I am that you are here!" + +Anna's shyness, now that she was by herself with one of her forlorn +ones, had vanished, and she prattled happily for some time, putting as +many mistakes into her sentences as they would hold, before she became +aware that the baroness's replies were monosyllabic, and that she was +examining her from head to foot with so much attention that there was +obviously none left over for the appreciation of her remarks. + +This made her feel shy again. Clothes to her were such secondary +considerations, things of so little importance. Susie had provided them, +and she had put them on, and there it had ended; and when she found that +it was her dress and not herself that was interesting the baroness, she +longed to have the courage to say, "Don't waste time over it now--I'll +send it to your room to-night, if you like, and you can look at it +comfortably--only don't waste time now. I want to talk to you, to _you_ +who have suffered so much; I want to make friends with you quickly, to +make you begin to be happy quickly; so don't let us waste the precious +time thinking of clothes." But she had neither sufficient courage nor +sufficient German. + +She put out her hand rather timidly, and making an effort to bring her +companion's thoughts back to the things that mattered, said, "I hope you +will like living with me. I hope we shall be very happy together. I +can't tell you how happy it makes me to think that you are safely here, +and that you are going to stay with me always." + +The baroness's hands were clasped in front of her, and they did not +unclasp to meet Anna's; but at this speech she left off eyeing the +dress, and began to ask questions. "You are very lonely, I can see," she +said with another of the pinched smiles. "Have you then no relations? No +one of your own family who will live with you? Will not your _Frau Mama_ +come to Germany?" + +"My mother is dead." + +"_Ach_--mine also. And the _Herr Papa_?" + +"He is dead." + +"_Ach_--mine also." + +"I know, I know," said Anna, stroking the unresponsive hands--a trick of +hers when she wanted to comfort that had often irritated Susie. "You +told me how lonely you were in your letters. I lived with my brother and +his wife till I came here. You have no brothers or sisters, I think you +wrote." + +"None," said the baroness with a rigid look. + +"Well, I am going to be your sister, if you will let me." + +"You are very good." + +"Oh, I am not good, only so happy--I have everything in the world that I +have ever wished to have, and now that you have come to share it all +there is nothing more I can think of that I want." + +"_Ach_," said the baroness. Then she added, "Have you no aunts, or +cousins, who would come and stay with you?" + +"Oh, heaps. But they are all well off and quite pleased, and they +wouldn't like staying here with me at all." + +"They would not like staying with you? How strange." + +"Very strange," laughed Anna. "You see they don't know how pleasant I +can be in my own house." + +"And your friends--they too will not come?" + +"I don't know if they would or not. I didn't ask them." + +"You have no one, no one at all who would come and live with you so that +you should not be so lonely?" + +"But I am not lonely," said Anna, looking down at the little woman with +a slightly amused expression, "and I don't in the least want to be lived +with." + +"Then why do you wish to fill your house with strangers?" + +"Why?" repeated Anna, a puzzled look coming into her eyes. Had not the +correspondence with the ultimately chosen been long? And were not all +her reasons duly set forth therein? "Why, because I want you to have +some of my nice things too." + +"But not your own friends and relations?" + +"They have everything they want." + +There was a silence. Anna left off stroking the baroness's hands. She +was thinking that this was a queer little person--outside, that is. +Inside, of course, she was very different, poor little lonely thing; but +her outer crust seemed thick; and she wondered how long it would take +her to get through it to the soul that she was sure was sweet and +lovable. She was also unable to repress a conviction that most people +would call these questions rude. + +But this train of thought was not one to be encouraged. "I am keeping +you here talking," she said, resuming her first cheerfulness, "and your +things are not unpacked yet. I shall go and scold Marie for not coming +when you rang, and I'll send her to you." And she went out quickly, +vexed with herself for feeling chilled, and left the baroness more full +of doubts than ever. + +When she had rebuked Marie, who looked gloomy, she tapped at Frau von +Treumann's door. No one answered. She knocked again. No one answered. +Then she opened the door softly and looked in. + +These were precious moments, she felt, these first moments of being +alone with each of her new friends, precious opportunities for breaking +ice. It is true she had not been able to break much of the ice encasing +the baroness, but she was determined not to be cast down by any of the +little difficulties she was sure to encounter at first, and she looked +into Frau von Treumann's room with fresh hope in her heart. + +What, then, was her dismay to find that lady walking up and down with +the long strides of extreme excitement, her face bathed in tears. + +"Oh--what's the matter?" gasped Anna, shutting the door quickly and +hurrying in. + +Frau von Treumann had not heard the gentle taps, and when she saw her, +started, and tried to hide her face in her handkerchief. + +"Tell me what is the matter," begged Anna, her voice full of tenderness. + +"_Nichts, nichts_," was the hasty reply. "I did not hear you knock----" + +"Tell me what is the matter," begged Anna again, fairly putting her arms +round the poor lady. "Our letters have said so much already--surely +there is nothing you cannot tell me now? And if I can help you----" + +Frau von Treumann freed herself by a hasty movement, and began to walk +up and down again. "No, no, you can do nothing--you can do nothing," she +said, and wept as she walked. + +Anna watched her in consternation. + +"See to what I have come--see to what I have come!" said the agitated +lady under her breath but with passionate intensity, as she passed and +repassed her dismayed hostess; "oh, to have fallen so low! oh, to have +fallen so low!" + +"So low?" echoed Anna, greatly concerned. + +"At my age--I, a Treumann--I, a _geborene_ Gräfin Ilmas-Kadenstein--to +live on charity--to be a member of a charitable institution!" + +"Institution? Charity? Oh no, no!" cried Anna. "It is a home here, and +there is no charity in it from the attic to the cellar." And she went +towards her with outstretched hands. + +"A home! Yes, that is it," cried Frau von Treumann, waving her back, "it +is a home, a charitable home!" + +"No, not a home like that--a real home, my home, your home--_ein Heim_," +Anna protested; but vainly, because the German word _Heim_ and the +English word "home" have little meaning in common. + +"_Ein Heim, ein Heim_," repeated Frau von Treumann with extraordinary +bitterness, "_ein Frauenheim_--yes, that is what it is, and everybody +knows it." + +"Everybody knows it?" + +"How could I think," she said, wringing her hands, "how could I think +when I decided to come here that the whole world was to be made +acquainted with your plans? I thought they were to be kept private, that +the world was to think we were your friends----" + +"And so you are." + +"--your guests----" + +"Oh, more than guests--this is home." + +"Home! Home! Always that word----" And she burst into a fresh torrent of +tears. + +Anna stood helpless. What she said appeared only to aggravate Frau von +Treumann's sorrow and rage--for surely there was anger as well as +sorrow? She was at a complete loss for the reason of this outburst. Had +not every detail been discussed in the correspondence? Had not that +correspondence been exhaustive even to boredom? + +"You have told your servants----" + +"My servants?" + +"You have told them that we are objects of charity----" + +"I----" began Anna, and then was silent. + +"It is not true--I have come here from very different motives--but they +think me an object of charity. I rang the bell--I cannot unstrap my +trunks--I never have been expected to unstrap trunks." The sobs here +interfered for a moment with further speech. "After a long while--your +servant came--she was insolent--the trunks are there still +unstrapped--you see them--she knows--everything." + +"She shall go to-morrow." + +"The others think the same thing." + +"They shall go to-morrow--that is, have they been rude to you?" + +"Not yet, but they will be." + +"When they are, they shall go." + +"I went into the corridor to seek other assistance, and I met--I +met----" + +"Who?" + +"Oh, to have fallen so low!" cried Frau von Treumann, clasping her +hands, and raising her streaming eyes to the ceiling. + +"But who did you meet?" + +"I met--I met the Penheim." + +"The Penheim? Do you mean Princess Ludwig?" + +"You never said she was here----" + +"I did not know that it would interest you." + +"--living on charity--she was always shameless--I was at school with +her. Oh, I would not have come for any inducement if I had known she was +here! She holds nothing sacred, she will boast of her own degradation, +she will write to all her friends that I am here too--I told them I was +coming only on a visit to you--they knew I knew your uncle--but the +Penheim--the Penheim----" and Frau von Treumann threw herself into a +chair and covered her face with her hands to shut out the horrid vision. + +The corners of Anna's mouth began to take the upward direction that +would end in a smile; and feeling how ill-placed such a contortion would +be in the presence of this tumultuous grief, she brought them carefully +back to a position of proper solemnity. Besides, why should she smile? +The poor lady was clearly desperately unhappy about something, though +what it was Anna did not quite know. She had looked forward to this +first evening with her new friends as to a thing apart, a thing beyond +the ordinary experience of life, profound in its peace, perfect in its +harmony, the first taste of rest after war, of port after stormy seas; +and here was Frau von Treumann plunged in a very audible grief, and in +the next room was the baroness, a disconcerting combination of +inquisitiveness and ice, and farther down the passage was Fräulein +Kuhräuber--in what state, Anna wondered, would she find Fräulein +Kuhräuber? Anyhow she had little reason to smile. But the horror with +which Princess Ludwig had been mentioned seemed droll beside her own +knowledge of the sterling qualities of that excellent woman. She went +over to the chair in which Frau von Treumann lay prostrate, and sat down +beside her. She was glad that they had reached the stage of sitting +down, for talking is difficult to a person who will not keep still. + +"How sorry I am," she said, in her pretty, hesitating German, "that you +should have been made unhappy the very first evening. Marie is a little +wretch. Don't let her stupidity make you miserable. You shall not see +her again, I promise you." And she patted Frau von Treumann's arm. "But +about Princess Ludwig, now," she went on cheerfully, "she has been here +some weeks and you soon learn to know a person you are with every day, +and really I have found her nothing but good and kind." + +"_Ach_, she is shameless--she recoils before no degradation!" burst out +Frau von Treumann, suddenly removing her hands from her face. "The +trouble she has given her relations! She delights in dragging her name +in the dirt. She has tried to get places in the most impossible +families, and made no attempt to hide what she was doing. She has broken +the old Fürst's heart. And she talks about it all, and has no shame, no +decency----" + +"But is it not admirable----" began Anna. + +"She will gloat over me, and tell everyone that I am here in the same +way as she is. If she is not ashamed for herself, do you think she will +spare me?" + +"But why should you think there is anything to be ashamed of in coming +to live with me and be my dear friend?" + +"No, there is nothing, so long as my motives in coming are known. But +people talk so cruelly, and will distort the facts so gladly, and we +have always held our heads so high. And now the Penheim!" She sobbed +afresh. + +"I shall ask the princess not to write to anyone about your being here." + +"_Ach_, I know her--she will do it all the same." + +"No, I don't think so. She does everything I ask. You see, she takes +care of my house for me. She is not here in the same way that--that you +and Baroness Elmreich are, and her interest is to stay here." + +Frau von Treumann's bowed head went up with a jerk. "_Ach?_ She has +found a place at last? She is your paid companion? Your housekeeper?" + +"Yes, and she is goodness itself, and I don't believe she would be +unkind and make mischief for worlds." + +"_Ach so!_" said Frau von Treumann, "_ach so-o-o-o!_"--a long drawn out +_so_ of complete comprehension. Her tears ceased as if by magic. She +dried her eyes. Yes, of course the Penheim would hold her tongue if Miss +Estcourt ordered her to do so. She had heard all about her efforts to +find places, and she would probably be very careful not to lose this +one. The poor Penheim. So she was actually working for wages. What a +come-down for a Dettingen! And the Dettingens had always treated the +Treumanns as though they belonged merely to the _kleine Adel_. Well, +well, each one in turn. She was the dear friend, and the Penheim was the +housekeeper. Well, well. + +She sat up straight, smoothed her hair, and resumed her first manner of +quiet dignity. "I am sorry that you should have witnessed my agitation," +she said, with a faint smile. "I am not easily betrayed into exhibitions +of feeling, but there are limits to one's endurance, there are certain +things the bravest cannot bear." + +"Yes," said Anna. + +"And for a Treumann, social disgrace, any action that in the least soils +our honour and makes us unable to hold up our heads, is worse than +death." + +"But I don't see any disgrace." + +"No, no, there is none so long as facts are not distorted. It is quite +simple--you need friends and I am willing to be your friend. That was +how my son looked at it. He said '_Liebe Mama_, she evidently needs +friends and sympathy--why should you hesitate to make yourself of use? +You must regard it as a good work.' You would like my son; his brother +officers adore him." + +"Really?" said Anna. + +"He is so sensible, so reasonable; he is beloved and respected by the +whole regiment. I will show you his photograph--_ach_, the trunks are +still unstrapped." + +"I'll go and send someone--but not Marie," said Anna, getting up +quickly. She had no desire to see the photograph, and the son's way of +looking at things had considerably astonished her. "It must be nearly +supper time. Would you not rather lie down and let me send you something +here? Your head must ache after crying so much. You have baptised our +new life with tears. I hope it is a good omen." + +"Oh, I will come down. You will do as you promised, will you not, and +forbid the Penheim to gossip?" + +"I shall tell the princess your wishes." + +"Or, if she must gossip, let her tell the truth at least. If my son had +not pressed me to come here I really do not think----" + +Anna went slowly and meditatively down the passage to Fräulein +Kuhräuber's room. For a moment she thought of omitting this last visit +altogether; she was afraid lest the Fräulein should be in some +unlooked-for and perplexing condition of mind. Discouraged? Oh no; she +was surely not discouraged already. How had the word come into her head? +She quickened her steps. When she reached the door she remembered the +cup and the sugar-tongs. Perhaps something in the bedroom was already +broken, and the Fräulein would be disclosed sitting in the ruins in +tears, for she was unexpectedly large, and the contents of her room were +frail. But then woe of that sort was as easily assuaged as broken +furniture was mended. It was the more complicated grief of Frau von +Treumann that she felt unable to soothe. As to that, she preferred not +to think about it at present, and barricaded her thoughts against its +image with that consoling sentence, _Tout comprendre c'est tout +pardonner._ It was a sentence she was fond of; but she had not expected +that she would need its reassurance so soon. + +She opened the door, and the puckers smoothed themselves out of her +forehead at once, for here, at last, was peace. There had been no +difficulties here with bells, and straps, and Marie. The trunks had been +opened and unpacked without assistance; and when Anna came in the +contents were all put away and Fräulein Kuhräuber, washed and combed and +in her Sunday blouse, was sitting in an easy chair by the window +absorbed in a book. Satisfaction was written broadly on her face; +content was expressed by every lazy line of her attitude. When she saw +Anna, she got up and made a curtsey and beamed. The beams were instantly +reflected in Anna's face, and they beamed at each other. + +"Well," said Anna, who felt perfectly at her ease with this member of +her trio, "are you happy?" + +Fräulein Kuhräuber blushed, and beamed more than ever. She was far less +shy of Anna than she was of those two terrible _adelige Damen_, her +travelling companions; but at no time had she had much conversation. +Hers had been a ruminative existence, for its uncertainty but rarely +disturbed her. Had she not an excellent digestion, and a fixed belief +that the righteous, of whom she was one, would never be forsaken? And +are not these the primary conditions of happiness? Indeed, if everything +else is wanting, these two ingredients by themselves are sufficient for +the concoction of a very palatable life. + +"You have found an interesting book already?" Anna asked, pleased that +the literature chosen with such care should have met with instant +appreciation. She took it up to see what it was, but put it down again +hastily, for it was the cookery book. + +"I read much," observed Fräulein Kuhräuber. + +"Yes?" said Anna, a flicker of hope reviving in her heart. Perhaps the +cookery book was an accident. + +"I know by heart more than a hundred recipes for sweet dishes alone." + +"Really?" said Anna, the flicker expiring. + +"So you can have an idea of the number of books I have read." + +"Here are a great many more for you to read." + +"_Ach ja, ach ja_," said Fräulein Kuhräuber, glancing doubtfully at the +shelves; "but one must not waste too much time over it--there are other +things in life. I read only useful books." + +"Well, that is very praiseworthy," said Anna, smiling. "If you like +cookery books, I must get you some more." + +"How good you are--how very, very good!" said the Fräulein, gazing at +the charming figure before her with heartfelt admiration and gratitude. +"This beautiful room--I cannot look at it enough. I cannot believe it is +really for me--for me to sleep in and be in whenever I choose. What have +I done to deserve all this?" + +What had she done, indeed? She had not even been unhappy, although of +course she had had every opportunity of being so, sent from place to +place, from one indignant _Hausfrau_ to another, ever since she left +school. But Anna, persuaded that she had rescued her from depths of +unspeakable despair, was overjoyed by this speech. "Don't talk about +deserving," she said tenderly. "You have had such a life that if you +were to be happy now without stopping once for the next fifty years it +would only be just and right." + +Fräulein Kuhräuber's approval of this sentiment was so entire that she +seized Anna's hand and kissed it fervently. Anna laughed while this was +going on, and her eyes grew brighter. She had not wanted gratitude, but +now that it had come it was very encouraging after all, and very +warming. She put one arm impulsively round the Fräulein's neck and +kissed her, and this was practically the first kiss that lady had ever +received, for the perfunctory embraces of reluctantly dutiful aunts can +hardly be called by that pretty name. + +"Now," said Anna, with a happy laugh, "we are going to be friends for +ever. Come, let us go down. That was the supper bell." + +And they went downstairs together, appearing in the doorway of the +drawing-room arm in arm, as though they had loved each other for years. + +"As though they were twins," muttered the baroness to Frau von Treumann, +who shrugged one shoulder slightly by way of reply. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +But in spite of this little outburst of gratitude and appreciation from +Fräulein Kuhräuber, the first evening of the new life was a +disappointment. The Fräulein, who entered the room so happily under the +impression of that recent kiss, became awkward and uncomfortable the +moment she caught sight of the others; lapsing, indeed, into a quite +pitiful state of nervous flutter on being brought for the first time +within the range of the princess's critical and unsympathetic eye. Her +experience had not included princesses, and, as she made a series of +agitated curtseys, deeming one altogether insufficient for so great a +lady, she felt as though that cold eye were piercing her through easily, +and had already discovered the inmost recess of her soul, where lay, so +carefully hidden, the memory of the postman. Every time the princess +looked at her, a sudden vivid consciousness of the postman flamed up +within her, utterly refusing to be extinguished by the soothing +recollection that he had been angelic for thirty years. That obviously +experienced eye and those pursed lips upset her so completely that she +made no remark whatever during the meal that followed, but sat next to +Anna and ate _Leberwurst_ in a kind of uneasy dream; and she ate it with +a degree of emphasis so unusual among the polite and so disastrous to +the peace of the ultra-fastidious that Anna felt there really was some +slight excuse for the frequent and lengthy stares that came from the +other end of the table. "Yet she is an immortal soul--what does it +matter how she eats _Leberwurst_?" said Anna to herself. "What do such +trifles, such little mannerisms, really matter? I should indeed be a +miserable creature if I let them annoy me." But she turned her head +away, nevertheless, and talked assiduously to Letty. + +There was no one else for her to talk to. Frau von Treumann and the +baroness had seated themselves at once one on either side of the +princess, and devoted their conversation entirely to her. In the +drawing-room later on, the same thing happened,--the three German ladies +clustering together near the sofa, and the three English being left +somehow to themselves, except for Fräulein Kuhräuber, who clung to them. +To avoid this division into what looked like hostile camps Anna pushed +her chair to a place midway between the groups, and tried to join, +though not very successfully, in the talk of each in turn. Outward calm +prevailed in the room, subdued voices, the tranquillity of fancy-work, +and the peace of albums; yet Anna could not avoid a chilled impression, +a feeling as though each person present were distrustful of the others, +and more or less on the defensive. Frau von Treumann, it is true, was +graciousness itself to the princess, conversing with her constantly and +amiably, and showing herself kind; but, on the other hand, the princess +was hardly gracious to Frau von Treumann. An unbiassed observer would +have said that she disapproved of Frau von Treumann, but was +endeavouring to conceal her disapproval. She busied herself with her +embroidery and talked as little as she could, receiving both the +advances of Frau von Treumann and the attentions of the baroness with +equal coldness. + +As for the baroness, her doubts as to Anna's respectability were blown +away completely and forever when, on opening the drawing-room door +before supper, she had beheld no less a person than the _geborene_ +Dettingen seated on the sofa. The baroness had spent her life in a +remote and tiny provincial town, but she knew the great Dettingen and +Penheim families well by name, and a princess in her opinion was a +princess, an altogether precious and admirable creature, whatever she +might choose to do. Her scruples, then, were set at rest, but her ice as +far as Anna was concerned showed no signs of thawing. All her amiability +and her efforts to produce a good impression were lavished on the +princess, who besides being by birth and marriage the grandest person +the baroness had yet met, spoke her own tongue properly, had no dimples, +and did not try to stroke her hand. She looked on with mingled awe and +irritation at the easy manner in which Frau von Treumann treated this +great lady. It almost seemed as though she were patronising her. Really +these Treumanns were a brazen-faced race; audacious East Prussian +Junkers, who thought themselves as good as or better than the best. And +this one was not even a true Treumann, but an Ilmas, and of the inferior +Kadenstein branch; and the baroness's brother--that brother whose end +was so abrupt--had been quartered once during the man[oe]uvres at +Kadenstein, and had told her that it was a wretched place, with a +fowl-run that wanted mending within a few yards of the front door, and +that, the door standing open all day long, he had frequently met fowls +walking about in the hall and passages. Yet remembering the brother's +story, and how there was no shadow of the sort resting at present on +Frau von Treumann, though as she had a son there was no telling how long +her shadowless state would last, she tried to ingratiate herself with +that lady, who met her advances coolly, only warming into something like +responsiveness when Fräulein Kuhräuber was in question. + +Fräulein Kuhräuber sat behind Letty and Miss Leech, as far away from the +others as she could. She had a stocking in her hand, but she did not +knit. She never knitted if she could avoid it, and was conscious that +from want of practice her needles moved more slowly than is usual--so +slowly, indeed, as to be conspicuous. Letty showed her photographs and +was very kind to her, instinctively perceiving that here was someone who +was as uneasy under the tall lady's stares as she was herself. She +privately thought her by far the best of the new arrivals, and wished +she knew enough German to inquire into her views respecting Schiller; +there was something in the Fräulein's looks and manner that made her +think they would agree about Schiller. + +Anna, too, ended by talking exclusively to this group. Her attempts to +join in what the others were saying had been unsuccessful; and with a +little twinge of disappointment, and a feeling of being for some +unexplained reason curiously out of it, she turned to Fräulein +Kuhräuber, and devoted herself more and more to her. + +"They are inseparables already," remarked the baroness in a low voice to +Frau von Treumann. "The Miss finds her congenial, it seems." She could +not forgive those doors she had gone through last. + +The princess looked up for a moment over the spectacles she wore when +she worked, at Anna. + +"Fräulein Kuhräuber makes an excellent foil," said Frau von Treumann. +"Miss Estcourt looks quite ethereal next to her." + +"Do you think her pretty?" asked the baroness. + +"She is very distinguished-looking." + +A servant came in at that moment and announced Dellwig's usual evening +visit, and Anna got up and went out. They watched her as she walked down +the long room, and when she had disappeared began to discuss her more at +their ease, their rapid German being quite incomprehensible to Letty and +Miss Leech. + +"Where has she gone?" asked the baroness. + +"She has gone to talk to her inspector," said the princess. + +"_Ach so_," said the baroness. + +"_Ach so_," said Frau von Treumann. + +"Is the inspector young?" asked the baroness. + +"Oh no, quite old," said the princess. + +"These English are a strange race," said Frau von Treumann. "What German +girl of that age would you find with so much energy and enterprise?" + +"Is she so very young?" inquired the baroness, with a look of mild +surprise. + +"Why, she is plainly little more than a child," said Frau von Treumann. + +"She is twenty-five," said the princess. + +"Rather an old child," observed the baroness. + +"She looks much younger. But twenty-five is surely young enough for this +life, away from her own people," said Frau von Treumann. + +"Yes--why does she lead it?" asked the baroness eagerly. "Can you tell +us, Frau Prinzessin? Has she then quarrelled with all her friends?" + +"Miss Estcourt has not told me so." + +"But she must have quarrelled. Eccentric as the English are, there are +limits to their eccentricity, and no one leaves home and friends and +country without some good reason." And Frau von Treumann shook her head. + +"She has quarrelled, I am sure," said the baroness. + +"I think so too," said Frau von Treumann; "I thought so from the first. +My son also thought so. You remember Karlchen, princess?" + +"Perfectly." + +"I discussed the question thoroughly with him, of course, as to whether +I should come here or not. I confess I did not want to come. It was a +great wrench, giving up everything, and going so far from my son. But +after all one must not be selfish." And Frau von Treumann sighed and +paused. + +No one said anything, so she continued: "One feels, as one grows older, +how great are the claims of others. And a widow with only one son can do +so much, can make herself of so much use. That is what Karlchen said. +When I hesitated--for I fear one does hesitate before inconvenience--he +said, '_Liebste Mama_, it would be a charity to go to the poor young +lady. You who have always been the first to extend a sympathetic hand to +the friendless, how is it that you hesitate now? Depend upon it, she has +had differences at home and needs countenance and help. You have no +encumbrances. You can go more easily than others. You must regard it as +a good work.' And that decided me." + +The princess let her work drop for a moment into her lap, and gazed over +her spectacles at Frau von Treumann. "_Wirklich?_" she said in a voice +of deep interest. "Those were your reasons? _Aber herrlich._" + +"Yes, those were my reasons," replied Frau von Treumann, returning her +gaze with pensive but steady eyes. "Those were my chief reasons. I +regard it as a work of charity." + +"But this is noble," murmured the princess, resuming her work. + +"That is how _I_ have regarded it," put in the baroness. "I agree with +you entirely, dear Frau von Treumann." + +"I do not pretend to disguise," went on Frau von Treumann, "that it is +an economy for me to live here, but poor as I have been since my dear +husband's death--you remember Karl, princess?" + +"Perfectly." + +"Poor as I have been, I always had sufficient for my simple wants, and +should not have dreamed of altering my life if Miss Estcourt's letters +had not been so appealing." + +"_Ach_--they were appealing?" + +"Oh, a heart of stone would have been melted by them. And a widow's +heart is not of stone, as you must know yourself. The orphan appealing +to the widow--it was irresistible." + +"Well, you see she is not by any means alone," said the princess +cheerfully. "Here we are, five of us counting the little Letty, +surrounding her. So you must not sacrifice yourself unnecessarily." + +"Oh, I am not one of those who having put their hand to the plough----" + +"But where is the plough, dear Frau von Treumann? You see there is, +after all, no plough." + +"Dear princess, you always were so literal." + +"Ah, you used to reproach me with that in the old days, when you wrote +poetry and read it to me and I was rude enough to ask if it meant +anything. We did not think then that we should meet here, did we?" + +"No, indeed. And I cannot tell you how much I admire your courage." + +"My courage? What fine qualities you invest me with!" + +"Miss Estcourt has told me how admirably you discharge your duties here. +It is wonderful to me. You are an example to us all, and you make me +feel ashamed of my own uselessness." + +"Oh, you underrate yourself. People who leave everything to go and help +others cannot talk of being useless. Yes, I look after her house for +her, and I hope to look after her as well." + +"After her? Is that one of your duties? Did she stipulate for personal +supervision when she engaged you? How times are changed! When my Karl +was alive, and we lived at Sommershof, I certainly would not have +tolerated that my housekeeper should keep me in order as well as my +house." + +"The case was surely different, dear Frau von Treumann. Here is an +unusually pretty young thing, with money. She will need all the +protection I can give her, and it is a satisfaction to me to feel that I +am here and able to give it." + +"But she may any day turn round and request you to go." + +"That of course may happen, but I hope it will not until she is safe." + +"But do you think her so pretty?" put in the baroness wonderingly. + +"Safe? What special dangers do you then apprehend for her?" asked Frau +von Treumann with a look of amusement. "Dear princess, you always did +take your duties so seriously. What a treasure you would have been to me +in many ways. It is admirable. But do your duties really include +watching over Miss Estcourt's heart? For I suppose you are thinking of +her heart?" + +"I am thinking of adventurers," said the princess. "Any young man with +no money would naturally be delighted to secure this young lady and +Kleinwalde. And those who instead of money have debts, would naturally +be still more delighted." And the princess in her turn gazed pensively +but steadily at Frau von Treumann. "No," she said, taking up her work +again, "I was not thinking of her heart, but of the annoyance she might +be put to. I do not fancy that her heart would easily be touched." + +Anna came in at that moment for a paper she wanted, and heard the last +words. "What," she said, smiling, as she unlocked the drawer of her +writing-table and rummaged among the contents, "you are talking about +hearts? You see it is true that women can't be together half an hour +without getting on to subjects like that. If you were three men, now, +you would talk of pigs." Then, a sudden recollection of Uncle Joachim +coming into her mind, she added with conviction, "And pigs are better." + +Nor was it till she had closed the door behind her that it struck her +that when she came into the room both the princess and Frau von Treumann +were looking preternaturally bland. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +Axel Lohm was in the hall, having his coat taken from him by a servant. + +"You here?" exclaimed Anna, holding out both hands. She was more than +usually pleased to see him. + +"Manske had a pile of letters for you, and could not get them to you +because he has a pastors' conference at his house. I was there and saw +the letters, and thought you might want them." + +"Oh, I don't want them--at least, there is no hurry. But the letters are +only an excuse. Now isn't it so?" + +"An excuse?" he repeated, flushing. + +"You want to see the new arrivals." + +"Not in the very least." + +"Oh, oh! But as you have come one minute too soon, and happened to meet +me outside the door, your plan is spoilt. Are those the letters? What a +pile!" Her face fell. + +"But you are looking for nine more ladies. You want a wide choice. You +have still the greater part of your work before you." + +"I know. Why do you tell me that?" + +"Because you do not seem pleased to get them." + +"Oh yes, I am; but I am tired to-night, and the idea of nine more ladies +makes me feel--feel sleepy." + +She stood under the lamp, holding the packet loosely by its string and +smiling up to him. There were shadows in her eyes, he thought, where he +was used to seeing two cheerful little lights shining, and a faint +ruefulness in the smile. + +"Well, if you are tired you must go to bed," he said, in such a matter +of fact tone that they both laughed. + +"No, I mustn't," said Anna; "I am on my way to Herr Dellwig at this very +moment. He's in there," she said, with a motion of her head towards the +dining-room door. "Tell me," she added, lowering her voice, "have you +got a brick-kiln at Lohm?" + +"A brick-kiln? No. Why do you want to know?" + +"But why haven't you got a brick-kiln?" + +"Because there is nothing to make bricks with. Lohm is almost entirely +sand." + +"He says there is splendid clay here in one part, and wants to build +one." + +"Who? Dellwig?" + +"Sh--sh." + +"Your uncle would have built one long ago if there really had been clay. +I must look at the place he means. I cannot remember any such place. And +it is unlikely that it should be as he says. Pray do not agree to any +propositions of the kind hastily." + +"It would cost heaps to set it going, wouldn't it?" + +"Yes, and probably bring in nothing at all." + +"But he tries to make out that it would be quite cheap. He says the +timber could all be got out of the forest. I can't bear the thought of +cutting down a lot of trees." + +"If you can't bear the thought of anything he proposes, then simply +refuse to consider it." + +"But he talks and talks till it really seems that he is right. He told +me just now that it would double the value of the estate." + +"I don't believe it." + +"If I made bricks, according to him I could take in twice as many poor +ladies." + +"I believe you will be happier with fewer ladies and no bricks," said +Axel with great positiveness. + +Anna stood thinking. Her eyes were fixed on the tip of the finger she +had passed through the loop of string that tied the letters together, +and she watched it as the packet twisted round and round and pinched it +redder and redder. "I suppose you never wanted to be a woman," she said, +considering this phenomenon with apparent interest. + +Axel laughed. + +"The mere question makes you laugh," she said, looking up quickly. "I +never heard of a man who did want to. But lots of women would give +anything to be men." + +"And you are one of them?" + +"Yes." + +He laughed again. + +"You think I would make a queer little man?" she said, laughing too; but +her face became sober immediately, and with a glance at the shut +dining-room door she continued: "It is so horrid to feel weak. My sister +Susie says I am very obstinate. Perhaps I was with her, but different +people have different effects on one." She sank her voice to a whisper, +and looked at him anxiously. "You can't think what an _effort_ it is to +me to say No to that man." + +"What, to Dellwig?" + +"Sh--sh." + +"But if that is how you feel, my dear Miss Estcourt, it is very evident +that the man must go." + +"How easy it is to say that! Pray, who is to tell him to go?" + +"I will, if you wish." + +"If you were a woman, do you suppose you would be able to turn out an +old servant who has worked here so many years?" + +"Yes, I am sure I would, if I felt that he was getting beyond my +control." + +"No, you wouldn't. All sorts of things would stop you. You would +remember that your uncle specially told you to keep him on, that he has +been here ages, that he was faithful and devoted----" + +"I do not believe there was much devotion." + +"Oh yes, there was. The first evening he cried about dear Uncle +Joachim." + +"He cried?" repeated Axel incredulously. + +"He did indeed." + +"It was about something else, then." + +"No, he really cried about Uncle Joachim. He really loved him." + +Axel looked profoundly unconvinced. + +"But after all those are not the real reasons," said Anna; "they ought +to be, but they're not. The simple truth is that I am a coward, and I am +frightened--dreadfully frightened--of possible scenes." And she looked +at him and laughed ruefully. "There--you see what it is to be a woman. +If I were a man, how easy things would be. Please consider the +mortification of knowing that if he persuades long enough I shall give +in, against my better judgment. He has the strongest will I think I ever +came across." + +"But you have not yet given in, I hope, on any point of importance?" + +"Up to now I have managed to say No to everything I don't want to do. +But you would laugh if you knew what those Nos cost me. Why cannot the +place go on as it was? I am perfectly satisfied. But hardly a day passes +without some wonderful new plan being laid before me, and he talks--oh, +how he talks! I believe he would convince even you." + +"The man is quite beyond your control," said Axel in a voice of anger; +and voices of anger commonly being loud voices, this one produced the +effect of three doors being simultaneously opened: the door leading to +the servants' quarters, through which Marie looked and vanished again, +retreating to the kitchen to talk prophetically of weddings; the +dining-room door, behind which Dellwig had grown more and more impatient +at being kept waiting so long; and the drawing-room door, on the other +side of which the baroness had been lingering for some moments, desiring +to go upstairs for her scissors, but hesitating to interrupt Anna's +business with the inspector, whose voice she thought it was that she +heard. + +The baroness shut her door again immediately. "_Aha_--the admirer!" she +said to herself; and went back quickly to her seat. "The Miss is talking +to a _jünge Herr_," she announced, her eyes wider open than ever. + +"A _jünge Herr_?" echoed Frau von Treumann. "I thought the inspector was +old?" + +"It must be Axel Lohm," said the princess, not raising her eyes from her +work. "He often comes in." + +"He comes courting, evidently," said the baroness with a sub-acid smile. + +"It has not been evident to me," said the princess coldly. + +"I thought it looked like it," said the baroness, with more meekness. + +"Is that the Lohm who was engaged to one of the Kiederfels girls some +years ago?" asked Frau von Treumann. + +"Yes, and she died." + +"But did he not marry soon afterwards? I heard he married." + +"That was the second brother. This one is the eldest, and lives next to +us, and is single." + +Frau von Treumann was silent for a moment. Then she said blandly, "Now +confess, princess, that _he_ is the perilous person from whom you think +it necessary to defend Miss Estcourt." + +"Oh no," said the princess with equal blandness; "I have no fears about +him." + +"What, is he too possessed of an invulnerable heart?" + +"I know nothing of his heart. I said, I believe, adventurers. And no one +could call Axel Lohm an adventurer. I was thinking of men who have run +through all their own and all their relations' money in betting and +gambling, and who want a wife who will pay their debts." + +"_Ach so_," said Frau von Treumann with perfect urbanity. And if this +talk about protecting Miss Estcourt from adventurers in a place where +there were apparently no human beings of any kind, but only trees and +marshes, might seem to a bystander to be foolishness, to the speakers it +was luminousness itself, and in no way increased their love for each +other. + +Meanwhile Dellwig, looking through the door and seeing Lohm, brought his +heels together and bowed with his customary exaggeration. "I beg a +thousand times pardon," he said; "I thought the gracious Miss was +engaged and would not return, and I was about to go home." + +"I have found the paper, and am coming," said Anna coldly. "Well, +good-night," she added in English, holding out her hand to Axel. + +"If you will allow me, I should like to pay my respects to Princess +Ludwig before I go," he said, thinking thus to see her later. + +"Ah! wasn't I right?" she said, smiling. "You are determined to look at +the new arrivals. How can a man be so inquisitive? But I will say +good-night all the same. I shall be ages with Herr Dellwig, and shall +not see you again." She shook hands with him, and went into the +dining-room, Dellwig standing aside with deep respect to let her pass. +But she turned to say something to him as he shut the door, and Axel +caught the expression of her face, the intense boredom on it, the +profound distrust of self; and he went in to the princess with an +unusually severe and determined look on his own. + +Dellwig went home that night in a savage mood. "That young man," he said +to his wife, flinging his hat and coat on to a chair and himself on to a +sofa, "is thrusting himself more and more into our affairs." + +"That Lohm?" she asked, rolling up her work preparatory to fetching his +evening drink. + +"I had almost got the Miss to consent to the brick-kiln. She was quite +reasonable, and went out to get the plan I had made. Then she met +him--he is always hanging about." + +"And then?" inquired Frau Dell wig eagerly. + +"Pah--this petticoat government--having to beg and pray for the smallest +concession--it makes an honest man sick." + +"She will not consent?" + +"She came back as obstinate as a mule. It all had to be gone into again +from the beginning." + +"She will not consent?" + +"She said Lohm would look at the place and advise her." + +"_Aber so was!_" cried Frau Dellwig, crimson with wrath. "Advise her? +Did you not tell her that you were her adviser?" + +"You may be sure I did. I told her plainly enough, I fancy, that Lohm +had nothing to say here, and that her uncle had always listened to me. +She sat without speaking, as she generally does, not even looking at +me--I never can be sure that she is even listening." + +"And then?" + +"I asked her at last if she had lost confidence in me." + +"And then?" + +"She said _oh nein_, in her affected foreign way--in the sort of voice +that might just as well mean _oh ja_." And he imitated, with great +bitterness, Anna's way of speaking German. "Mark my words, Frau, she is +as weak as water for all her obstinacy, and the last person who talks to +her can always bring her round." + +"Then you must be the last person." + +"If it were not for that prig Lohm, that interfering ass, that +incomparable rhinoceros----" + +"He wants to marry her, of course." + +"If he marries her----" Dellwig stopped short, and stared gloomily at +his muddy boots. + +"If he marries her----" repeated his wife; but she too stopped short. +They both knew well enough what would happen to them if he married her. + +The building of the brick-kiln had come to be a point of honour with the +Dellwigs. Ever since Anna's arrival, their friends the neighbouring +farmers and inspectors had been congratulating them on their complete +emancipation from all manner of control; for of course a young ignorant +lady would leave the administration of her estate entirely in her +inspector's hands, confining her activities, as became a lady of birth, +to paying the bills. Dellwig had not doubted that this would be so, and +had boasted loudly and continually of the different plans he had made +and was going to carry out. The estate of which he was now practically +master was to become renowned in the province for its enterprise and the +extent, in every direction, of its operations. The brick-kiln was a +long-cherished scheme. His oldest friend and rival, the head inspector +of a place on the other side of Stralsund, had one, and had constantly +urged him to have one too; but old Joachim, without illusions as to the +quality of the clay, and by no manner of means to be talked into +disbelieving the evidence of his own eyes, would not hear of it, and +Dellwig felt there was nothing to be done in the face of that curt +refusal. The friend, triumphing in his own brick-kiln and his own more +pliable master, jeered, dug him in the ribs at the Sunday gatherings, +and talked of dependence, obedience, and restricted powers. Such friends +are difficult to endure with composure; and Dellwig, and still less his +wife, for many months past had hardly been able to bear the word "brick" +mentioned in their presence. When Anna appeared on the scene, so young, +so foreign, and so obviously foolish, Dellwig, certain now of success, +told his friend on the very first Sunday night that the brick-kiln was +now a mere matter of weeks. Always a boaster, he could not resist +boasting a little too soon. Besides, he felt very sure; and the friend, +too, had taken it for granted, when he heard of the impending young +mistress, that the thing was as good as built. + +That was in March. It was now the end of April, and every Sunday the +friend inquired when the building was to be begun, and every Sunday +Dellwig said it would begin when the days grew longer. The days had +grown longer, would have grown in a few weeks to their longest, as the +friend repeatedly pointed out, and still nothing had been done. To the +many people who do not care what their neighbours think of them, the +torments of the two Dellwigs because of the unbuilt brick-kiln will be +incomprehensible. Yet these torments were so acute that in the weaker +moments immediately preceding meals they both felt that it would almost +be better to leave Kleinwalde than to stay and endure them; indeed, +before dinner, or during wakeful nights, Frau Dellwig was convinced that +it would be better to die outright. The good opinion of their +neighbours--more exactly, the envy of their neighbours--was to them the +very breath of their nostrils. In their set they must be the first, the +undisputedly luckiest, cleverest, and best off. Any position less mighty +would be unbearable. And since Anna came there had been nothing but +humiliations. First the dinner to the Manskes, from which they had been +excluded--Frau Dellwig grew hot all over at the recollection of the +Sunday gathering succeeding it; then the renovation of the _Schloss_ +without the least reference to them, without the smallest asking for +advice or help; then the frequent communications with the pastor, +putting him quite out of his proper position, the confidence placed in +him, the ridiculous respect shown him, his connection with the mad +charitable scheme; and now, most dreadful of all, this obstinacy in +regard to the brick-kiln. It was becoming clear that they were fairly on +the way to being pitied by the neighbours. Pitied! Horrid thought. The +great thing in life was to be so situated that you can pity others. But +to be pitied yourself? Oh, thrice-accursed folly of old Joachim, to +leave Kleinwalde to a woman! Frau Dellwig could not sleep that night for +hating Anna. She lay awake staring into the darkness with hot eyes, and +hating her with a heartiness that would have petrified that unconscious +young woman as she sat about a stone's throw off in her bedroom, +motionless in the chair into which she had dropped on first coming +upstairs, too tired even to undress, after her long struggle with Frau +Dellwig's husband. "The _Engländerin_ will ruin us!" cried Frau Dellwig +suddenly, unable to hate in silence any longer. + +"_Wie? Was?_" exclaimed Dellwig, who had dozed off, and was startled. + +"She will--she will!" cried his wife. + +"Will what? Ruin us? The _Engländerin_? _Ach was--Unsinn._ _She_ can be +managed. It is Lohm who is the danger. It is Lohm who will ruin us. If +we could get rid of him----" + +"_Ach Gott_, if he would die!" exclaimed Frau Dellwig, with fervent +hands raised heavenwards. "_Ach Gott_, if he would only die!" + +"_Ach Gott, ach Gott!_" mimicked her husband irritably, for he disliked +being suddenly awakened. "People never die when anything depends on it," +he grumbled, turning over on his side. And he cursed Axel several times, +and went to sleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +The philosopher tells us that, after the healing interval of sleep, we +are prepared to meet each other every morning as gods and goddesses; so +fresh, so strong, so lusty, so serene, did he consider the newly-risen +and the some-time separated must of necessity be. It is a pleasing +belief; and Experience, that hopelessly prosaic governess who never +gives us any holidays, very quickly disposes of it. For what is to +become of the god-like mood if only one in a company possess it? The +middle-aged and old, who abound in all companies, are seldom god-like, +and are never so at breakfast. + +The morning after the arrival of the Chosen, Anna woke up in the true +Olympian temper. She had been brought back to the happy world of +realities from the happy world of dreams by the sun of an unusually +lovely April shining on her face. She had only to open her window to be +convinced that all which she beheld was full of blessings. Just beneath +her window on the grass was a double cherry tree in flower, an exquisite +thing to look down on with the sunshine and the bees busy among its +blossoms. The unreasoning joyfulness that invariably took possession of +her heart whenever the weather was fine, filled it now with a rapture of +hope and confidence. This world, this wonderful morning world that she +saw and smelt from her window, was manifestly a place in which to be +happy. Everything she saw was very good. Even the remembrance of Dellwig +was transfigured in that clear light. And while she dressed she took +herself seriously to task for the depression of the night before. +Depressed she had certainly been; and why? Simply because she was +over-excited and over-tired, and her spirit was still so mortifyingly +unable to rise superior to the weakness of her tiresome flesh. And to +let herself be made wretched by Dellwig, merely because he talked loud +and had convictions which she did not share! The god-like morning mood +was strong upon her, and she contemplated her listless self of the +previous evening, the self that had sat so long despondently thinking +instead of going to bed, with contempt. These evening interviews with +Dellwig, she reflected, were a mistake. He came at hours when she was +least able to bear his wordiness and shouting, and it was the knowledge +of his impending visit that made her irritable beforehand and ruffled +the absolute serenity that she felt was alone appropriate in a house +dedicated to love. But it was not only Dellwig and the brick-kiln that +had depressed her; she had actually had doubts about her three new +friends, doubts as to the receptivity of their souls, as to the capacity +of their souls for returning love. At one awful moment she had even +doubted whether they had souls at all, but had hastily blown out the +candle at this point, extinguishing the doubt at the same time, +smothering it beneath the bedclothes, and falling asleep at once, after +the fashion of healthy young people. + +Now, at the beginning of the new day, with all her misgivings healed by +sleep, she thought calmly over the interview she had had with Frau von +Treumann before supper; for it was that interview that had been the +chief cause of her dejection. Frau von Treumann had told her an untruth, +a quite obvious and absurd untruth in the face of the correspondence, as +to the reason of her coming to Kleinwalde. She had said she had only +come at the instigation of her son, who looked upon Anna as a deserving +object of help. And Anna had been hurt, had been made miserable, by the +paltriness of this fib. Her great desire was to reach her friends' souls +quickly, to attain the beautiful intimacy in which the smallest fiction +is unnecessary; and so little did Frau von Treumann understand her, that +she had begun a friendship that was to be for life with an untruth that +would not have misled a child. But see the effect of sleep and a +gracious April morning. The very shabbiness and paltriness of the fib +made Anna's heart yearn over the poor lady. Surely the pride that tried +to hide its wounds with rags of such pitiful flimsiness was profoundly +pathetic? With such pride, all false from Anna's point of view, but real +and painful enough to its possessor, the necessity that drove her to +accept Anna's offer must have been more cruel than necessity, always +cruel, generally is. Her heart yearned over her friend as she dressed, +and she felt that the weakness that must lie was a weakness greatly +requiring love. For nobody, she argued, would ever lie unless driven to +it by fear of some suffering. If, then, it made her happy, and made her +life easier, let her think that Anna believed she had come for her sake. +What did it matter? No one was perfect, and many people were +surprisingly pathetic. + +Meanwhile the day was glorious, and she went downstairs with the springy +step of hope. She was thinking exhilarating thoughts, thinking that +there were to be no ripples of misgivings and misunderstandings on the +clear surface of this first morning. They would all look into each +others' candid eyes at breakfast, and read a mutual consciousness of +interests henceforward to be shared, of happiness to be shared, of life +to be shared,--the life of devoted and tender sisters. + +The hall door stood open, and the house was full of the smell of April; +the smell of new leaves budding, of old leaves rotting, of damp earth, +pine needles, wet moss, and marshes. "Oh, the lovely, lovely morning!" +whispered Anna, running out on to the steps with outstretched arms and +upturned face, as though she would have clasped all the beauty round and +held it close. She drew in a long breath, and turned back into the house +singing in an impassioned but half-suppressed voice the first verse of +the Magnificat. The door leading to the kitchen opened, and to her +surprise Baroness Elmreich emerged from those dark regions. The +Magnificat broke off abruptly. Anna was surprised. Why the kitchen? The +baroness saw her hostess's figure motionless against the light of the +open door; but the light behind was strong and the hall was dark, and +she thought it was Anna's back. Hoping that she had not been noticed she +softly closed the door again and waited behind it till she could come +out unseen. + +Anna supposed that the princess must be showing her the servants' +quarters, and went into the breakfast room; but in it sat the princess, +making coffee. + +"There you are," said the princess heartily. "That is nice. Now we can +drink our coffee comfortably together before the others come down. Have +you been out? You smell of fresh air." + +"Only a moment on the doorstep." + +"Come, sit next to me. You have slept well, I can see. Notice the +advantage of coming straight in to breakfast, and not running about the +forest--you get here first, and so get the best cup of coffee." + +"But it isn't proper for me to have the best," said Anna, smiling as she +took the cup, "when I have guests here." + +"Yes, it is--very proper indeed. Besides, you told me they were +sisters." + +"So they are. Has the baroness not been here?" + +"No, she is still in bed." + +"No, I saw her a moment ago. I thought you were with her." + +"Oh, my dear--so early in the morning!" protested the princess. "When +did I see her last? Less than nine hours ago. She followed me into my +bedroom and talked much. I could not begin again with her the first +thing in the morning, even to please you." And she looked at Anna very +affectionately. "You were tired last night, were you not?" she +continued. "Axel Lohm stayed so late, I think he wanted to speak to you. +But you went straight up to bed." + +"I had seen him before he went in to you. He didn't want to speak to me. +He was consumed by curiosity about our new friends." + +"Was he? He did not show much interest in them. He talked to me nearly +all the time. He thought for a moment that he knew the baroness--at +least, he stared at her at first and seemed surprised. But it turned out +that she was only like someone he knew. She had evidently never seen him +before. It is a great pleasure to me to talk to that young man," the +princess went on, while Anna ate her toast. + +"So it is to me," said Anna. + +"I have met many people in my life, and have often wondered at the +dearth of nice ones--how few there are that one likes to be with and +wishes to see again and again. Axel is one of the few, decidedly." + +"So he is," agreed Anna. + +"There is goodness written on every line of his face." + +"Oh, he has the kindest face. And so strong. I feel that if anything +happened here, anything dreadful, that he would make it right again at +once. He would mend us if we got smashed, and build us up again if we +got burned, and protect us, this houseful of lone women, if ever anybody +tried to run away with us." And Anna nodded reassuringly at the +princess, and took another piece of toast "That is how I feel about +him," she said. "So agreeably certain, not only of his willingness to +help, but of his power to do it." Talking about Axel she quite forgot +the apparition of the baroness that she had just seen. He was so kind, +so good, so strong. How much she admired strength of purpose, +independence, the character that was determined to find its happiness in +doing its best. + +"If I had a daughter," said the princess, filling Anna's cup, "she +should marry Axel Lohm." + +"If _I_ had a daughter," said Anna, "she should marry him, so yours +couldn't. I wouldn't even ask her if she liked it. I'd be so sure that +it was a good thing for her that I'd just say: 'My dear, I have chosen +my son-in-law. Get your hat, and come to church and marry him.' And +there'd be an end of _that_." + +The princess felt that it was an unprofitable employment, trying to help +on Axel's cause. She could not but see what he thought of Anna; and +after the touching manner of widows, was convinced of the superiority of +marriage, as a means of real happiness for a woman, over any and every +other form of occupation. Yet whenever she talked of him she was met by +the same hearty agreement and frank enthusiasm, the very words being +taken out of her mouth and her own praises of him doubled and trebled. +It was a promising friendship, but it was a singularly unpromising +prelude to love. + +"Please make some fresh coffee," begged Anna; "the others will be coming +down soon, and must not have cold stuff." Her voice grew tender at the +mere mention of "the others." For the princess and Axel, both of whom +she liked so much, it never took on those tender tones, as the princess +had already noted. There was nothing in either of them to appeal to that +side of her nature, the tender, mother side, which is in all good women +and most bad ones. They were her friends, staunch friends, she felt, and +of course she liked and respected them; but they were sturdy, capable +people, firmly planted on their own feet, able to battle successfully +with life--as different as possible from these helpless ones who needed +her, whom she had saved, to whom she was everything, between whom and +want and sorrow she was fixed as a shield. + +Two of the helpless ones came in at that moment, with frosty, +early-morning faces. Anna put the vision she had seen at the kitchen +door from her mind, and went to meet them with happy smiles and +greetings. Frau von Treumann did her best to respond warmly, but it was +very early to be enthusiastic, and at that hour of the day she was +accustomed to being a little cross. Besides, she had had no coffee yet, +and her hostess evidently had, and that made a great difference to one's +sentiments. The baroness looked pinched and bloodless; she was as frigid +as ever to Anna, said nothing about having seen her before, and seemed +to want to be left alone. So that the mutual gazing into each other's +eyes did not, after all, take place. + +The princess waited to see that they had all they wanted, and then went +out rattling her keys; and after an interval, during which Anna +chattered cheerful and ungrammatical German, and the window was shut, +and warming food eaten, Frau von Treumann became amiable and began to +talk. + +She drew from her pocket a letter and a photograph. "This is my son," +she said. "I brought it down to show you. And I have had a long letter +from him already. He never neglects his mother. Truly a good son is a +source of joy." + +"I suppose so," said Anna. + +The baroness turned her eyes slowly round and fixed them on the +photograph. "Aha," she thought, "the son again. Last night the son, this +morning the son--always the son. The excellent Treumann loses no time." + +"He is good-looking, my Karlchen, is he not?" + +"Yes," said Anna. "It is a becoming uniform." + +"Oh--becoming! He looks adorable in it. Especially on his horse. I would +not let him be anything but a hussar because of the charming uniform. +And he suits it exactly--such a lightly built, graceful figure. _He_ +never stumbles over people's feet. Herr von Lohm nearly crushed my poor +foot last night. It was difficult not to scream. I never did admire +those long men made by the meter, who seem as though they would go on +for ever if there were no ceilings." + +"He _is_ rather long," agreed Anna, smiling. + +"Heartwhole," thought Frau von Treumann. "Tell me, dear Miss +Estcourt----" she said, laying her hand on Anna's. + +"Oh, don't call me Miss Estcourt." + +"But what, then?" + +"Oh, you must call me Anna. We are to be like sisters here--and you, +too, please, call me Anna," she said, turning to the baroness. + +"You are very good," said the baroness. + +"Well, my little sister," said Frau von Treumann, smiling, "my baby +sister----" + +"Baby sister!" thought the baroness. "Excellent Treumann." + +"--you know an old woman of my age could not really have a sister of +yours." + +"Yes, she could--not a whole sister, perhaps, but a half one." + +"Well, as you please. The idea is sweet to me. I was going to ask +you--but Karlchen's letter is too touching, really--such thoughts in +it--such high ideals----" And she turned over the sheets, of which there +were three, and began to blow her nose. + +"He has written you a very long letter," said Anna pleasantly; the +extent to which the nose blowing was being carried made her uneasy. Was +there to be crying? + +"You have a cold, dear Frau von Treumann?" inquired the baroness with +solicitude. + +"_Ach nein--doch nein_," murmured Frau von Treumann, turning the sheets +over, and blowing her nose harder than ever. + +"It will come off," thought Letty, who had slipped in unnoticed, and was +eating bread and butter alone at the further end of the table. + +"Poor thing," thought Anna, "she adores that Karlchen." + +There was a pause, during which the nose continued to be blown. + +"His letter is beautiful, but sad--very sad," said Frau von Treumann, +shaking her head despondingly. "Poor boy--poor dear boy--he misses his +mother, of course. I knew he would, but I did not dream it would be as +bad as this. Oh, my dear Miss Estcourt--well, Anna then"--smiling +faintly--"I could never describe to you the wrench it was, the terrible, +terrible wrench, leaving him who for five years--I am a widow five +years--has been my all." + +"It must have been dreadful," murmured Anna sympathetically. + +The baroness sat straight and motionless, staring fixedly at Frau von +Treumann. + +"'When shall I see you again, my dearest mamma?' were his last words. +And I could give him no hope--no answer." The handkerchief went up to +her eyes. + +"What _is_ she gassing about?" wondered Letty. + +"I can see him now, fading away on the platform as my train bore me off +to an unknown life. An only son--the only son of a widow--is everything, +everything to his mother." + +"He must be," said Anna. + +There was another silence. Then Frau von Treumann wiped her eyes and +took up the letter again. "Now he writes that though I have only been +away two days from Rislar, the town he is stationed at, it seems already +like years. Poor boy! He is quite desperate--listen to this--poor +boy----" And she smiled a little, and read aloud, "'I must see you, +_liebste, beste Mama_, from time to time. I had no idea the separation +would be like this, or I could never have let you go. Pray beg Miss +Estcourt----'" + +"Aha," thought the baroness. + +"'--to allow me to visit my mother occasionally. There must be an inn in +the village. If not, I could stay at Stralsund, and would in no way +intrude on her. But I must see my dearest mother, the being I have +watched over and cared for ever since my father's death.' Poor, dear, +foolish boy--he is desperate----" And she folded up the letter, shook +her head, smiled, and suddenly buried her face in her handkerchief. + +"Excellent Treumann," thought the unblinking baroness. + +Anna sat in some perplexity. Sons had not entered into her calculations. +In the correspondence, she remembered, the son had been lightly passed +over as an officer living on his pay and without a superfluous penny for +the support of his parent. Not a word had been said of any unusual +affection existing between them. Now it appeared that the mother and son +were all in all to each other. If so, of course the separation was +dreadful. A mother's love was a sentiment that inspired Anna with +profound respect. Before its unknown depths and heights she stood in awe +and silence. How could she, a spinster, even faintly comprehend that +sacred feeling? It was a mysterious and beautiful emotion that she could +only reverence from afar. Clearly she must not come between parent and +child; but yet--yet she wished she had had more time to think it over. + +She looked rather helplessly at Frau von Treumann, and gave her hand a +little squeeze. The hand did not return the squeeze, and the face +remained buried in the handkerchief. Well, it would be absurd to want to +cut off the son entirely from his mother. If he came occasionally to see +her it could not matter much. She gave the hand a firmer squeeze, and +said with an effort that she did her best to conceal, "But he must come +then, when he can. It is rather a long way--didn't you say you had to +stay a night in Berlin?" + +"Oh, my dear Miss Estcourt--my dear Anna!" cried Frau von Treumann, +snatching the handkerchief from her face and seizing Anna's hand in both +hers, "what a weight from my heart--what a heavy, heavy weight! All +night I was thinking how shall I bear this? I may write to him, then, +and tell him what you say? A long journey? You are afraid it will tire +him? Oh, it will be nothing, nothing at all to Karlchen if only he can +see his mother. How can I thank you! You will say my gratitude is +excessive for such a little thing, and truly only a mother could +understand it----" + +In short, Karlchen's appearance at Kleinwalde was now only a matter of +days. + +"_Unverschämt_," was the baroness's mental comment. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +Anna put on her hat and went out to think it over. Fräulein Kuhräuber +was apparently still asleep. Letty, accompanied by Miss Leech, had to go +to Lohm parsonage for her first lesson with Herr Klutz, who had +undertaken to teach her German. Frau von Treumann said she must write at +once to Karlchen, and shut herself up to do it. The baroness was vague +as to her intentions, and disappeared. So Anna started off by herself, +crossed the road, and walked quickly away into the forest. "If it makes +her so happy, then I am glad," she said to herself. "She is here to be +happy; and if she wants Karlchen so badly, why then she must have him +from time to time. I wonder why I don't like Karlchen." + +She walked quickly, with her eyes on the ground. The mood in which she +sang magnificats had left her, nor did she look to see what the April +morning was doing. Frau von Treumann had not been under her roof +twenty-four hours, and already her son had been added--if only +occasionally, still undoubtedly added--to the party. Suppose the +baroness and Fräulein Kuhräuber should severally disclose an inability +to live without being visited by some cherished relative? Suppose the +other nine, the still Unchosen, should each turn out to have a relative +waiting tragically in the background for permission to make repeated +calls? And suppose these relatives should all be male? + +These were grave questions; so grave that she was quite at a loss how to +answer them. And then she felt that somebody was looking at her; and +raising her eyes, she saw Axel on the mossy path quite close to her. + +"So deep in thought?" he asked, smiling at her start. + +Anna wondered how it was that he so often went through the forest. Was +it a short cut from Lohm to anywhere? She had met him three or four +times lately, in quite out of the way parts. He seemed to ride through +it and walk through it at all hours of the day. + +"How is your potato-planting getting on?" she asked involuntarily. She +knew what a rush there was just then putting the potatoes in, for she +did not drive every day about her fields in a cart without springs with +Dellwig for nothing. Axel must have potatoes to plant too; why didn't he +stay at home, then, and do it? + +"What a truly proper question for a country lady to ask," he said, +looking amused. "You waste no time in conventional good mornings or +asking how I do, but begin at once with potatoes. Well, I do not believe +that you are really interested in mine, so I shall tell you nothing +about them. You only want to remind me that I ought to be seeing them +planted instead of walking about your woods." + +Anna smiled. "I believe I did mean something like that," she said. + +"Well, I am not so aimless as you suppose," he returned, walking by her +side. "I have been looking at that place." + +"What place?" + +"Where Dellwig wants to build the brick-kiln." + +"Oh! What do you think of it?" + +"What I knew I would think of it. It is a fool's plan. The clay is the +most wretched stuff. It has puzzled me, seeing how very poor it is, that +he should be so eager to have the thing. I should have credited him with +more sense." + +"He is quite absurdly keen on it. Last night I thought he would never +stop persuading." + +"But you did not give in?" + +"Not an inch. I said I would ask you to look at it, and then he was +simply rude. I do believe he will have to go. I don't really think we +shall ever get on together. Certainly, as you say the clay is bad, I +shall refuse to build a brick-kiln." + +Axel smiled at her energy. In the morning she was always determined +about Dellwig. "You are very brave to-day," he said. "Last night you +seemed afraid of him." + +"He comes when I am tired. I am not going to see him in the evening any +more. It is too dreadful as a finish to a happy day." + +"It was a happy day, then, yesterday?" he asked quickly. + +"Yes--that is, it ought to have been, and probably would have been +if--if I hadn't been tired." + +"But the others--the new arrivals--they must have been happy?" + +"Yes--oh yes--" said Anna, hesitating, "I think so. Fräulein Kuhräuber +was, I am sure, at intervals. I think the other two would have been if +they hadn't had a journey." + +"By the way, do you remember what I said yesterday about the Elmreichs?" + +"Yes, I do. You said horrid things." Her voice changed. + +"About a Baron Elmreich. But he had a sister who made a hash of her +life. I saw her once or twice in Berlin. She was dancing at the +Wintergarten, and under her own name." + +"Poor thing. But it doesn't interest me." + +"Don't get angry yet." + +"But it doesn't interest me. And why shouldn't she dance? I knew several +people who ended by dancing at London Wintergartens." + +"You admit, then, that it is an end?" + +"It is hardly a beginning," conceded Anna. + +"She was so amazingly like your baroness would be if she painted and +wore a wig----" + +"That you are convinced they must be sisters. Thank you. Now what do you +suppose is the good of telling me that?" And she stood still and faced +him, her eyes flashing. + +Do what he would, Axel could not help smiling at her wrath. It was the +wrath of a mother whose child has been hurt by someone on purpose, "I +wish," he said, "that you would not be so angry when I tell you things +that might be important for you to know. If your baroness is really the +sister of the dancing baroness----" + +"But she is not. She told me last night that she has no brothers and +sisters. And she wrote it in the letters before she came. Do you think +it is a praiseworthy occupation for a man, doing his best to find out +disgraceful things about a very poor and very helpless woman?" + +"No, I do not," said Axel decidedly. "Under any other circumstances I +would leave the poor lady to take her chance. But do consider," he said, +following her, for she had begun to walk on quickly again, "do consider +your unusual position. You are so young to be living away from your +friends, and so young and inexperienced to be at the head of a home for +homeless women--you ought to be quite extraordinarily particular about +the antecedents of the people you take in. It would be most unpleasant +if it got about that they were not respectable." + +"But they are respectable," said Anna, looking straight before her. + +"A sister who dances at the Wintergarten----" + +"Did I not tell you that she has no sister?" + +Axel shrugged his shoulders. "The resemblance is so striking that they +might be twins," he said. + +"Then you think she says what is not true?" + +"How can I tell?" + +Anna stopped again and faced him. "Well, suppose it were true--suppose +it is her sister, and she has tried to hide it--do you know how I should +feel about it?" + +"Properly scandalised, I hope." + +"I should love her all the more. Oh, I should love her twice as much! +Why, think of the misery and the shame--poor, poor little woman--trying +to hide it all, bearing it all by herself--she must have loved her +sister, she must have loved her brother. It isn't true, of course, but +supposing it were, could you tell me _any_ reason why I should turn my +back on her?" + +She stood looking at him, her eyes full of angry tears. + +He did not answer. If that was the way she felt, what could he do? + +"I never understood," she went on passionately, "why the innocent should +be punished. Do you suppose a woman would _like_ her brother to cheat +and then shoot himself? Or _like_ her sister to go and dance? But if +they do do these things, besides her own grief and horror, she is to be +shunned by everybody as though she were infectious. Is that fair? Is +that right? Is it in the least Christian?" + +"No, of course it is not. It is very hard and very ugly, but it is quite +natural. An old woman in a strong position might take such a person up, +perhaps, and comfort her and love her as you propose to do, but a young +girl ought not to do anything of the sort." + +Anna turned away with a quick movement of impatience and walked on. "If +you argue on the young girl basis," she said, "we shall never be able to +talk about a single thing. When will you leave off about my young +girlishness? In five years I shall be thirty--will you go on till I have +reached that blessed age?" + +"I have no right to go on to you about anything," said Axel. + +"Precisely," said Anna. + +"But please remember that I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to your +uncle, and make allowances for me if I am over-zealous in my anxiety to +shield his niece from possible unpleasantness." + +"Then don't keep telling me I am too young to do good. It is ludicrous, +considering my age, besides being dreadful. You will say that, I +believe, till I am thirty or forty, and then when you can't decently say +it any more, and I still want to do things, you'll say I'm old enough to +know better." + +Axel laughed. Anna's dimples appeared for an instant, but vanished +again. + +"Now," she said, "I am not going to talk about poor little Else any +more. Let her distant relations dance till they are tired--it concerns +nobody here at all." + +"Little Else?" + +"The baroness. Of course we shall call each other by our Christian +names. We are sisters." + +"I see." + +"You don't see at all," she said, with a swift sideward glance at him. + +"My dear Miss Estcourt----" + +"If my plan succeeds it will certainly not be because I have been +encouraged." + +"I think," he said with sudden warmth, "that the plan is beautiful, and +could only have been made by a beautiful nature." + +"Oh?" ejaculated Anna, surprised. A flush of gratification came into her +face. The heartiness of the tone surprised her even more than the words. +She stood still to look at him. "It is a pity," she said softly, "that +nearly always when we are together we get angry, for you can be so kind +when you choose. Say nice things to me. Let us be happy. I love being +happy." + +She held out her hand, smiling. He took it and gave it a hearty, matter +of fact shake, and dropped it. It was very awkward, but he was +struggling with an overpowering desire to take her in his arms and kiss +her, and not let her go again till she had said she would marry him. It +was exceedingly awkward, for he knew quite well that if he did so it +would be the end of all things. + +He turned rather white, and thrust his hands deep into his pockets. +"Yes, the plan is beautiful," he said cheerfully, "but very unpractical. +And the nature that made it is, I am sure, beautiful, but of course +quite as unpractical as the plan." And he smiled down at her, a broad, +genial smile. + +"I know I don't set about things the right way," she said. "If only you +wouldn't worry about the pasts of my poor friends and what their +relations may have done in pre-historic times, you could help me so +much." + +To his relief she began to walk on again. "Princess Ludwig is a sensible +and experienced woman," he said, "and can help you in many ways that I +cannot." + +"But she only looks at the _praktische_ side of a question, and that is +really only one side. I am too unpractical, I know, but she isn't +unpractical enough. But I don't want to talk about her. What I wanted to +say was, that once these poor ladies have been chosen and are here, the +time for making inquiries is over, isn't it? As far as I am concerned, +anyhow, it is. I shall never forsake them, never, _never_. So please +don't try to tell me things about them--it doesn't change my feelings +towards them, and only makes me angry with you. Which is a pity. I want +to live at peace with my neighbour." + +"Well?" he said, as she paused. "That, I take it, is a prelude to +something else." + +"Yes, it is. It's a prelude to Karlchen." + +"To Karlchen?" + +She looked at him, and laughed rather nervously. "I am afraid," she +said, "that Karlchen is coming to stay with me." + +"And who, pray, is Karlchen?" + +"The only son of his mother, and she is a widow." + +He came to a standstill again. "What," he said, "Frau von Treumann has +asked you to invite her son to Kleinwalde?" + +"She didn't actually ask, but she got a sad letter from him, and seemed +to feel the separation so much, and cried about it, and so--and so I +did." + +Axel was silent. + +"I don't yearn to see Karlchen," said Anna in rather a small voice. She +could not help feeling that the invitation had been wrung from her. + +Axel bored a hole in the moss with his stick, and did not answer. + +"But naturally his poor mother clings to him, and he to her." + +Axel was intent on his hole and did not answer. + +"They are all the world to each other." + +Axel filled up his hole again, and pressed the moss carefully over it +with his foot. Then he said, "I never yet heard of two Treumanns being +all the world to each other." + +"You appear to have a down on the Treumanns." + +"Not in the least. I do not think they interest me enough. It is an East +Prussian Junker family that has spread beyond its natural limits, and +one meets them everywhere, and knows their characteristics. What is this +young man? I do not remember having heard of him." + +"He is an officer at Rislar." + +"At Rislar? Those are the red hussars. Do you wish me to make inquiries +about him?" + +"Oh, no. It's no use. His mother can't be happy without him, so he must +come." + +"Then may I ask why, if I am not to help you in the matter, we are +talking about him at all?" + +"I wanted to ask you whether--whether you think he will come often." + +"I should think," said Axel positively, "that he will come very often +indeed." + +"Oh!" said Anna. + +They walked on in silence. + +"Have you considered," he said presently, "what you would do if your +other--sisters want their relations asked down to stay with them? +Christmas, for instance, is a time of general rejoicing, when the +coldest hearts grow warm. Relations who have quarrelled all the year, +seek each other out at Christmas and talk tearfully of ties of blood. +And birthdays--will your twelve sisters be content to spend their twelve +birthdays remote from all members of their family? Birthdays here are +important days. There will be one a month now for you to celebrate at +Kleinwalde." + +"I have not got farther than considering Karlchen," said Anna with some +impatience. + +"A male Kuhräuber," said Axel musingly, swinging his stick and gazing up +at the fleecy clouds floating over the pine tops, "a male Kuhräuber +would be quite unlike anything you have yet seen." + +"There are no male Kuhräubers," said Anna. "At least," she added, +correcting herself, "Fräulein Kuhräuber said so. She said she had no +relations at all, but perhaps--perhaps she has forgotten some, and will +remember them by and by. Oh, I wish they would tell me exactly how they +stand, and not try to hide anything! I thought we had left nothing +unexplained in the letters, but now Karlchen--it seems----" She stopped +and bit her lip. She was actually on the verge of criticising, to Axel, +the behaviour of her sisters. "Look," she said, catching sight of red +roofs through the thinning trees, "isn't that Lohm? I have seen you home +without knowing it." + +She held out her hand. "It isn't much good talking, is it?" she said, +moved by a sudden impulse, and looking up at him with a slightly wistful +smile. "How we talk and talk and never get any nearer anything or each +other. Such an amount of explaining oneself, and all no use. I don't +mean you and me especially--it is always so, with everyone and +everywhere. It is very weird. Good-bye." + +But he held her hand and would not let her go. "No," he said, in a voice +she did not know, "wait one moment. Why will you not let me really help +you? Do you think you will ever achieve anything by shutting your eyes +to what is true? Is it not better to face it, and then to do one's +best--after that, knowing the truth? Why are you angry whenever I try to +tell you the truth, or what I believe to be the truth about these +ladies? You are certain to find it out for yourself one day. You force +me to look on and see you being disappointed, and grieved, and perhaps +cheated--anyhow your confidence abused--and you reduce our talks +together to a sort of sparring match unworthy, quite unworthy of either +of us----" He broke off abruptly and released her hand. The passion in +his voice was unmistakable, and she was listening with astonished eyes. +"I am lecturing you," he said in his usual even tones, "Forgive me for +thinking that you are setting about your plan in a way that can never be +successful. As you say, we talk and talk, and the more we talk the less +do we understand each other. It is a foolish world, and a pre-eminently +lonely one." + +He lifted his hat and turned away. Anna opened her lips to say +something, but he was gone. + +She went home and meditated on volcanoes. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +The May that year in Northern Germany was the May of a poet's dream. The +days were like a chain of pearls, increasing in beauty and preciousness +as the chain lengthened. The lilacs flowered a fortnight earlier than in +other years. The winds, so restless usually on those flat shores, seemed +all asleep, and hardly stirred. About the middle of the month the moon +was at the full, and the forest became enchanted ground. It was a time +for love and lovers, for vows and kisses, for all pretty, happy, hopeful +things. Only those farmers who were too old to love and vow, looked at +their rye fields and grumbled because there was no rain. + +Karlchen, arriving on the first Saturday of that blessed month, felt all +disposed to love, if the _Engländerin_ should turn out to be in the +least degree lovable. He did not ask much of a young woman with a +fortune, but he inwardly prayed that she might not be quite so ugly as +wives with money sometimes are. He was a man used to having what he +wanted, and had spent his own and his mother's money in getting it. +There was a little bald patch on the top of his head, and there were +many debts on his mind, and he was nearing the critical point in an +officer's career, the turning of which is reserved exclusively for the +efficient; and so he had three excellent reasons for desiring to marry. +He had desired it, indeed, for some time, had attempted it often, and +had not achieved it. The fathers of wealthy German girls knew the state +of his finances with an exactitude that was unworthy; and they knew, +besides, every one of his little weaknesses. As a result, they gave +their daughters to other suitors. But here was a girl without a father, +who knew nothing about him at all. There was, of course, some story in +the background to account for her living in this way; but that was +precisely what would make her glad of a husband who would relieve her of +the necessity of building up the weaker parts of her reputation on a +foundation of what Karlchen, when he saw the inmates of the house, +rudely stigmatised as _alte Schachteln_. Reputations, he reflected, +staring at Fräulein Kuhräuber, may be too dearly bought. Naturally she +would prefer an easy-going husband, who would let her see life with all +its fun, to this dreary and aimless existence. + +The Treumanns, he thought, were in luck. What a burden his mother had +been on him for the last five years! Miss Estcourt had relieved him of +it. Now there were his debts, and she would relieve him of those; and +the little entanglement she must have had at home would not matter in +Germany, where no one knew anything about her, except that she was the +highly respectable Joachim's niece. Anyway, he was perfectly willing to +let bygones be bygones. He left his bag at the inn at Kleinwalde, an +impossible place as he noted with pleasure, sent away his _Droschke_, +and walked round to the house; but he did not see Anna. She kept out of +the way till the evening, and he had ample time to be happy with his +mother. When he did see her, he fell in love with her at once. He had +quite a simple nature, composed wholly of instincts, and fell in love +with an ease acquired by long practice. Anna's face and figure were far +prettier than he had dared to hope. She was a beauty, he told himself +with much satisfaction. Truly the Treumanns were in luck. He entirely +forgot the _rôle_ he was to play of loving son, and devoted himself, +with his habitual artlessness, to her. Indeed, if he had not forgotten +it, he and his mother were so little accustomed to displays of affection +that they would have been but clumsy actors. There is a great difference +between affectionate letters written quietly in one's room, and +affectionate conversation that has to sound as though it welled up from +one's heart. Nothing of the kind ever welled up from Karlchen's heart; +and Anna noticed at once that there were no signs of unusual attachment +between mother and son. Karlchen was not even commonly polite to his +mother, nor did she seem to expect him to be. When she dropped her +scissors, she had to pick them up for herself. When she lost her +thimble, she hunted for it alone. When she wanted a footstool, she got +up and fetched one from under his very nose. When she came into the room +and looked about for a chair, it was Letty who offered her hers. +Karlchen sat comfortably with his legs crossed, playing with the +paper-knife he had taken out of the book Anna had been reading, and +making himself pleasant. He had his mother's large black eyes, and very +long thick black eyelashes of which he was proud, conscious that they +rested becomingly on his cheeks when he looked down at the paper-knife. +Letty was greatly struck by them, and inquired of Miss Leech in a +whisper whether she had ever seen their like. + +"Mr. Jessup had silken eyelashes too," replied Miss Leech dreamily. + +"These aren't silk--they're cotton eyelashes," said Letty scornfully. + +"My dear Letty," murmured Miss Leech. + +Anna was at a disadvantage because of her imperfect German. She could +not repress Karlchen when he was unduly kind as she would have done in +English, and with his mother presiding, as it were, at their opening +friendship, she did not like to begin by looking lofty. Luckily the +princess was unusually chatty that evening. She sat next to Karlchen, +and continually joined in the talk. She was cheerful amiability itself, +and insisted upon being told all about those sons of her acquaintances +who were in his regiment. When he half turned his back on her and +dropped his voice to a rapid undertone, thereby making himself +completely incomprehensible to Anna, the princess pleasantly advised him +to speak very slowly and distinctly, for unless he did Miss Estcourt +would certainly not understand. In a word, she took him under her wing +whether he would or no, and persisted in her friendliness in spite of +his mother's increasingly desperate efforts to draw her into +conversation. + +"Why do we not go out, dear Anna?" cried Frau von Treumann at last, +unable to endure Princess Ludwig's behaviour any longer. "Look what a +fine evening it is--and quite warm." And she who till then had gone +about shutting windows, and had been unable to bear the least breath of +air, herself opened the glass doors leading into the garden and went +out. + +But although they all followed her, nothing was gained by it. She +could have stamped her foot with rage at the princess's conduct. +Here was everything needful for the beginning of a successful +courtship--starlight, a murmuring sea, warm air, fragrant bushes, a girl +who looked like Love itself in the dusk in her pale beauty, a young man +desiring nothing better than to be allowed to love her, and a mother +only waiting to bless. But here too, unfortunately, was the princess. + +She was quite appallingly sociable--"The spite of the woman!" thought +Frau von Treumann, for what could it matter to her?--and remained fixed +at Anna's side as they paced slowly up and down the grass, monopolising +Karlchen's attention with her absurd questions about his brother +officers. Anna walked between them, thinking of other things, holding up +her trailing white dress with one hand, and with the other the edges of +her blue cloak together at her neck. She was half a head taller than +Karlchen, and so was his mother, who walked on his other side. Karlchen, +becoming more and more enamoured the longer he walked, looked up at her +through his eyelashes and told himself that the Treumanns were certainly +in luck, for he had stumbled on a goddess. + +"The grass is damp," cried Frau von Treumann, interrupting the endless +questions. "My dear princess--your rheumatism--and I who so easily get +colds. Come, we will go off the grass--we are not young enough to risk +wet feet." + +"I do not feel it," said the princess, "I have thick shoes. But you, +dear Frau von Treumann, do not stay if you have fears." + +"It _is_ damp," said Anna, turning up the sole of her shoe. "Shall we go +on to the path?" + +On the path it was obvious that they must walk in couples. Arrived at +its edge, the princess stopped and looked round with an urbane smile. +"My dear child," she said to Anna, taking her arm, "we have been keeping +Herr von Treumann from his mother regardless of his feelings. I beg you +to pardon my thoughtlessness," she added, turning to him, "but my +interest in hearing of my old friends' sons has made me quite forget +that you took this long journey to be with your dear mother. We will not +interrupt you further. Come, my dear, I wanted to ask you----" And she +led Anna away, dropping her voice to a confidential questioning +concerning the engaging of a new cook. + +There was nothing to be done. The only crumb of comfort Karlchen +obtained--but it was a big one--was a reluctantly given invitation, on +his mother's vividly describing at the hour of parting the place where +he was to spend the night, to remove his luggage from the inn to Anna's +house, and to sleep there. + +"You are too good, _meine Gnädigste_," he said, consoled by this for the +_tęte-ŕ-tęte_ he had just had with his mother; "but if it in any way +inconveniences you--we soldiers are used to roughing it----" + +"But not like that, not like that, _lieber Junge_," interrupted his +mother anxiously. "It is not fit for a dog, that inn, and I heard this +very evening from the housemaid that one of the children there has the +measles." + +That quite settled it. Anna could not expose Karlchen to measles. Why +did he not stay, as he had written he would, at Stralsund? As he was +here, however, she could not let him fall a prey to measles, and she +asked the princess to order a room to be got ready. + +It is a proof of her solemnity on that first evening with Karlchen that +when his mother, praising her beauty, mentioned her dimples as specially +bewitching, he should have said, surprised, "What dimples?" + +It is a proof, too, of the duplicity of mothers, that the very next day +in church the princess, sitting opposite the innkeeper's rosy family, +and counting its members between the verses of the hymn, should have +found that not one was missing. + +Karlchen left on Sunday evening after a not very successful visit. He +had been to church, believing that it was expected of him, and had found +to his disgust that Anna had gone for a walk. So there he sat, between +his mother and Princess Ludwig, and extracted what consolation he could +from a studied neglect of the outer forms of worship and an elaborate +slumber during the sermon. + +The morning, then, was wasted. At luncheon Anna was unapproachable. +Karlchen was invited to sit next to his mother, and Anna was protected +by Letty on the one hand and Fräulein Kuhräuber on the other, and she +talked the whole time to Fräulein Kuhräuber. + +"Who _is_ Fräulein Kuhräuber?" he inquired irritably of his mother, when +they found themselves alone together again in the afternoon. + +"Well, you can see who she is, I should think," replied his mother +equally irritably. "She is just Fräulein Kuhräuber, and nothing more." + +"Anna talks to her more than to anyone," he said; she was already "Anna" +to him, _tout court_. + +"Yes. It is disgusting." + +"It is very disgusting. It is not right that Treumanns should be forced +to associate on equal terms with such a person." + +"It is scandalous. But you will change all that." + +Karlchen twisted up the ends of his moustache and looked down his nose. +He often looked down his nose because of his eyelashes. He began to hum +a tune, and felt happy again. Axel Lohm was right when he doubted +whether there had ever been a permanently crushed Treumann. + +"She has a strange assortment of _alte Schachteln_ here," he said, after +a pause during which his thoughts were rosy. "That Elmreich, now. What +relation does she say she is to Arthur Elmreich?" + +"The man who shot himself? Oh, she is no relation at all. At most a +distant cousin." + +"_Na, na_," was Karlchen's reply; a reply whose English equivalent would +be a profoundly sceptical wink. + +His mother looked at him, waiting for more. + +"What do you really think----?" she began, and then stopped. + +He stood before the glass readjusting his moustache into the regulation +truculent upward twist. "Think?" he said. "You know Arthur's sister +Lolli was engaged at the Wintergarten this winter. She was not much of a +success. Too old. But she was down on the bills as Baroness Elmreich, +and people went to see her because of that, and because of her brother." + +"Oh--terrible," murmured Frau von Treumann. + +"Well, I know her; and I shall ask her next time I see her if she has a +sister." + +"But this one has no relations living at all," said his mother, +horrified at the bare suggestion that Lolli was the sister of a person +with whom she ate her dinner every day. + +"_Na, na_," said Karlchen. + +"But my dear Karlchen, it is so unlikely--the baroness is the veriest +pattern of primness. She has such very strict views about all such +things--quite absurdly strict. She even had doubts, she told me, when +first she came here, as to whether Anna were a fit companion for her." + +Karlchen stopped twisting his moustache, and stared at his mother. Then +he threw back his head and shrieked with laughter. He laughed so much +that for some moments he could not speak. His mother's face, as she +watched him without a smile, made him laugh still more. "_Liebste +Mama_," he said at last, wiping his eyes, "it may of course not be true. +It is just possible that it is not. But I feel sure it _is_ true, for +this Elmreich and the little Lolli are as alike as two peas. Anna not a +fit companion for Lolli's sister! _Ach Gott, ach Gott!_" And he shrieked +again. + +"If it is true," said Frau von Treumann, drawing herself up to her full +height, "it is my duty to tell Anna. I cannot stay under the same roof +with such a woman. She must go." + +"Take care," said her son, illumined by an unaccustomed ray of sapience, +"take care, _Mutti_. It is not certain that Anna would send her away." + +"What! if she knew about this--this Lolli, as you call her?" + +Karlchen shook his head. "It is better not to begin with ultimatums," he +said sagely. "If you say you cannot stay under the same roof with the +Elmreich, and she does not after that go, why then you must. And that," +he added, looking alarmed, "would be disastrous. No, no, leave it alone. +In any case leave it alone till I have seen Lolli. I shall come down +soon again, you may be sure. I wish we could get rid of the Penheim. Now +that really would be a good thing. Think it over." + +But Frau von Treumann felt that by no amount of thinking it over would +they ever get rid of the Penheim. + +"You do not like my Karlchen?" she said plaintively to Anna that +evening, coming out into the dusky garden where she stood looking at the +stars. Karlchen was well on his way to Berlin by that time. + +"I am sure I should like him very much if I knew him," replied Anna, +putting all the heartiness she could muster into her voice. + +Frau von Treumann shook her head sadly. "But now? I see you do not like +him now. You hardly spoke to him. He was hurt. A mother"--"Oh," thought +Anna, "I am tired of mothers,"--"a mother always knows." + +Her handkerchief came out. She had put one hand through Anna's arm, and +with the other began to wipe her eyes. Anna watched her in silence. + +"What? What? Tears? Do I see tears? Are we then missing our son so +much?" exclaimed a cheery voice behind them. And there was the princess +again. + +"Serpent," thought Frau von Treumann; but what is the use of thinking +serpent? She had to submit to being consoled all the same, while Anna +walked away. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +Anna seemed always to be walking away during the days that separated +Karlchen's first visit from his second. Frau von Treumann noticed it +with some uneasiness, and hoped that it was only her fancy. The girl had +shown herself possessed of such an abnormally large and warm heart at +first, had been so eager in her offers of affection, so enthusiastic, so +sympathetic, so--well, absurd; was it possible that there was no warmth +and no affection left over from those vast stores for such a +good-looking, agreeable man as Karlchen? But she set such thoughts aside +as ridiculous. Her son's simple doctrine from his fourteenth year on had +been that all girls like all men. It had often been laid down by him in +their talks together, and her own experience of girls had sufficiently +proved its soundness. "The Penheim must have poisoned her mind against +him," she decided at last, unable otherwise to explain the apathy with +which Anna received any news of Karlchen. Was there ever such sheer +spite? For what could it matter to a woman with no son of her own, who +married Anna? Somebody would marry her, for certain, and the Penheim +would lose her place; then why should it not be Karlchen? + +The princess, however, most innocent of excellent women, had never +spoken privately to Anna of Karlchen except once, when she inquired +whether he were to have the best sheets on his bed, or the second best +sheets; and Anna had replied, "The worst." + +But if Frau von Treumann was uneasy about Anna, Anna was still more +uneasy about Frau von Treumann. Whenever she could, she went away into +the forest and tried to think things out. She objected very much to the +feeling that life seemed somehow to be thickening round her--yet, after +Karlchen's visit there it was. Each day there were fewer and fewer quiet +pauses in the trivial bustle of existence; clear moments, like windows +through which she caught glimpses of the serene tranquillity with which +the real day, nature's day, the day she ought to have had, was passing. +Frau von Treumann followed her about and talked to her of Karlchen. +Fräulein Kuhräuber followed her about, with a humble, dog-like +affection, and seemed to want to tell her something, and never got +further than dark utterances that perplexed her. Baroness Elmreich +repulsed all her advances, carefully called her Miss Estcourt, and made +acid comments on everything that was said and done. "I believe she +dislikes me," thought Anna, puzzled. "I wonder why?" The baroness did; +and the reason was simplicity itself. She disliked her because she was +younger, prettier, richer, healthier than herself. For this she disliked +her heartily; but with far greater heartiness did she dislike her +because she knew she ought to be grateful to her. The baroness detested +having to feel grateful--it is a detestation not confined to +baronesses--and in this case the burden of the obligations she was under +was so great that it was almost past endurance. And there was no escape. +She had been starving when Anna took her in, and she would starve again +if Anna turned her out. She owed her everything; and what more natural, +then, than to dislike her? The rarest of loves is the love of a debtor +for his creditor. + +At night, alone in her room, Anna would wonder at the day lived through, +at the unsatisfactoriness of it, and the emptiness. When were they going +to begin the better life, the soul to soul life she was waiting for? How +busy they had all been, and what had they done? Why, nothing. A little +aimless talking, a little aimless sewing, a little aimless walking +about, a few letters to write that need not have been written, a +newspaper to glance into that did not really interest anybody, meals in +rapid succession, night, and oblivion. That was what was on the surface. +What was beneath the surface she could only guess at; for after a whole +fortnight with the Chosen she was still confronted solely by surfaces. +In the hot forest, drowsy and aromatic, where the white butterflies, +like points of light among the shadows of the pine-trunks, fluttered up +and down the unending avenues all day long, she wandered, during the +afternoon hour when the Chosen napped, to the most out-of-the-way nooks +she could find; and sitting on the moss where she could see some special +bit of loveliness, some distant radiant meadow in the sunlight beyond +the trees, some bush with its delicate green shower of budding leaves at +the foot of a giant pine, some exquisite effect of blue and white +between the branches so far above her head, she would ponder and ponder +till she was weary. + +There was no mistaking Karlchen's looks; she had not been a pretty girl +for several seasons at home in vain. Karlchen meant to marry her. She, +of course, did not mean to marry Karlchen, but that did not smooth any +of the ruggedness out of the path she saw opening before her. She would +have to endure the preliminary blandishments of the wooing, and when the +wooing itself had reached the state of ripeness which would enable her +to let him know plainly her own intentions, there would be a grievous +number of scenes to be gone through with his mother. And then his mother +would shake the Kleinwalde dust from her offended feet and go, and +failure number one would be upon her. In the innermost recesses of her +heart, offensive as Karlchen's wooing would certainly be, she thought +that once it was over it would not have been a bad thing; for, since his +visit, it was clear that Frau von Treumann was not the sort of inmate +she had dreamed of for her home for the unhappy. Unhappy she had +undoubtedly been, poor thing, but happy with Anna she would never be. +She had forgiven the first fibs the poor lady had told her, but she +could not go on forgiving fibs for ever. All those elaborate untruths, +written and spoken, about Karlchen's visit, how dreadful they were. +Surely, thought Anna, truthfulness was not only a lovely and a pleasant +thing but it was absolutely indispensable as the basis to a real +friendship. How could any soul approach another soul through a network +of lies? And then more painful still--she confessed with shame that it +was more painful to her even than the lies--Frau von Treumann evidently +took her for a fool. Not merely for a person wanting in intelligence, or +slow-witted, but for a downright fool. She must think so, or she would +have taken more pains, at least some pains, to make her schemes a little +less transparent. Anna hated herself for feeling mortified by this; but +mortified she certainly was. Even a philosopher does not like to be +honestly mistaken during an entire fortnight for a fool. Though he may +smile, he will almost surely wince. Not being a philosopher, Anna winced +and did not smile. + +"I think," she said to Manske, when he came in one morning with a list +of selected applications, "I think we will wait a little before choosing +the other nine." + +"The gracious one is not weary of well-doing?" he asked quickly. + +"Oh no, not at all; I like well-doing," Anna said rather lamely, "but it +is not quite--not quite as simple as it looks." + +"I have found nine most deserving cases," he urged, "and later there may +not be----" + +"No, no," interrupted Anna, "we will wait. In the autumn, perhaps--not +now. First I must make the ones who are here happy. You know," she said, +smiling, "they came here to be made happy." + +"Yes, truly I know it. And happy indeed must they be in this home, +surrounded by all that makes life fair and desirable." + +"One would think so," said Anna, musing. "It is pretty here, isn't +it--it should be easy to be happy here,--yet I am not sure that they +are." + +"Not sure----?" Manske looked at her, startled. + +"What do people--most people, ordinary people, need, to make them +happy?" she asked wistfully. She was speaking to herself more than to +him, and did not expect any very illuminating answer. + +"The fear of the Lord," he replied promptly; which put an end to the +conversation. + +But besides her perplexities about the Chosen, Anna had other worries. +Dellwig had received the refusal to let him build the brick-kiln with +such insolence, and had, in his anger, said such extraordinary things +about Axel Lohm, that Anna had blazed out too, and had told him he must +go. It had been an unpleasant scene, and she had come out from it white +and trembling. She had intended to ask Axel to do the dismissing for her +if she should ever definitely decide to send him away; but she had been +overwhelmed by a sudden passion of wrath at the man's intolerable +insinuations--only half understood, but sounding for that reason worse +than they were--and had done it herself. Since then she had not seen +him. By the agreement her uncle had made with him, he was entitled to +six months' notice, and would not leave until the winter, and she knew +she could not continue to refuse to see him; but how she dreaded the +next interview! And how uneasy she felt at the thought that the +management of her estate was entirely in the hands of a man who must now +be her enemy. Axel was equally anxious, when he heard what she had done. +It had to be done, of course; but he did not like Dellwig's looks when +he met him. He asked Anna to allow him to ride round her place as often +as he could, and she was grateful to him, for she knew that not only her +own existence, but the existence of her poor friends, depended on the +right cultivation of Kleinwalde. And she was so helpless. What creature +on earth could be more helpless than an English girl in her position? +She left off reading Maeterlinck, borrowed books on farming from Axel, +and eagerly studied them, learning by heart before breakfast long pages +concerning the peculiarities of her two chief products, potatoes and +pigs. + +"He cannot do much harm," Axel assured her; "the potatoes, I see, are +all in, and what can he do to the pigs? His own vanity would prevent his +leaving the place in a bad state. I have heard of a good man--shall I +have him down and interview him for you?" + +"How kind you are," said Anna gratefully; indeed, he seemed to her to be +a tower of strength. + +"Anyone would do what they could to help a forlorn young lady in the +straits you are in," he said, smiling at her. + +"I don't feel like a forlorn young lady with you next door to help me +out of the difficulties." + +"People in these lonely country places learn to be neighbourly," he +replied in his most measured tones. + +He had not again spoken of the Chosen since his walk with her through +the forest; and though he knew that Karlchen had been and gone he did +not mention his name. Nor did Anna. The longer she lived with her +sisters the less did she care to talk about them, especially to Axel. As +for Frau von Treumann's plans, how could she ever tell him of those? + +And just then Letty, the only being who was really satisfactory, became +a cause to her of fresh perplexity. Letty had been strangely content +with her German lessons from Herr Klutz. Every day she and Miss Leech +set out without a murmur, and came back looking placid. They brought +back little offerings from the parsonage, a bunch of narcissus, the +first lilac, cakes baked by Frau Manske, always something. Anna took the +flowers, and ate the cakes, and sent pleased messages in return. If she +had been less preoccupied by Dellwig and the eccentricities of her three +new friends, she would certainly have been struck by Letty's silence +about her lessons, and would have questioned her. There was no grumbling +after the first day, and no abuse of Schiller and the muses. Once Anna +met Klutz walking through Kleinwalde, and asked him how the studies were +progressing. "Colossal," was the reply, "the progress made is colossal." +And he crushed her rings into her fingers when she gave him her hand to +shake, and blushed, and looked at her with eyes that he felt must burn +into her soul. But Anna noticed neither his eyes nor his blush; for his +eyes, whatever he might feel them to be doing, were not the kind that +burn into souls, and he was a pale young man who, when he blushed, did +it only in his ears. They certainly turned crimson as he crushed Anna's +fingers, but she was not thinking of his ears. + +"Frau Manske is too kind," she said, as the nosegays, at first +intermittent, became things of daily occurrence. They grew bigger, too, +every day, attaining such a girth at last that Letty could hardly carry +them. "She must not plunder her garden like this." + +"It is very full of flowers," said Miss Leech. "Really a wonderful +display. The bunch is always ready, tied together and lying on the table +when we arrive. I tried to tell her yesterday that you were afraid she +was spoiling her garden, sending so much, but she did not seem to +understand. She is showing me how to make those cakes you said you +liked." + +"I wish I had some of these in my garden," said Anna, laying her cheek +against the posy of wallflowers Letty had just given her. There was +nothing in her garden except grass and trees; Uncle Joachim had not been +a man of flowers. + +She took them up to her room, kissing them on the way, and put them in a +jar on the window-sill; and it was not until two or three days later, +when they began to fade, that she saw the corner of an envelope peeping +out from among them. She pulled it out and opened it. It was addressed +to _Ihr Hochwohlgeboren Fräulein Anna Estcourt_; and inside was a sheet +of notepaper with a large red heart painted on it, mangled, and pierced +by an arrow; and below it the following poem in a cramped, hardly +readable writing:-- + + The earth am I, and thou the heaven, + The mass am I, and thou the leaven, + No other heaven do I want but thee, + Oh Anna, Anna, Anna, pity me! + + AUGUST KLUTZ, Kandidat. + +In an instant Letty's unnatural cheerfulness about her lessons flashed +across her. _What_ had they been doing, and where was Miss Leech, that +such things could happen? + +It was a very terrible, stern-browed aunt who met Letty that day on the +stairs when she came home. + +"Hullo, Aunt Anna, seen a ghost?" Letty inquired pleasantly; but her +heart sank into her boots all the same as she followed her into her +room. + +"Look," said Anna, showing her the paper, "how could you do it? For of +course you did it. Herr Klutz doesn't speak English." + +"Doesn't he though--he gets on like anything. He sits up all night----" + +"How is it that _this_ was possible?" interrupted Anna, striking the +paper with her hand. + +"It's pretty, isn't it," said Letty, faintly grinning. "The last line +had to be changed a little. It isn't original, you know, except the +Annas. I put in those. That footman mother got cheap because he had one +finger too few sent it to Hilton on her birthday last year--she liked it +awfully. The last line was 'Oh Hilton, Hilton, Hilton----'" + +"_How_ came you to talk such hideous nonsense with Herr Klutz, and about +me?" + +"I didn't. He began. He talked about you the whole time, and started +doing it the very first day Leechy cooked." + +"Cooked?" + +"She is always in the kitchen with Frau Manske. We brought you some of +the cakes one day, and you seemed as pleased as anything." + +"And instead of learning German you and he have been making up this sort +of thing?" + +Anna's voice and eyes frightened Letty. She shifted from one foot to the +other and looked down sullenly. "What's the good of being angry?" she +said, addressing the carpet; "it's only Mr. Jessup over again. Leechy +wasn't angry with Mr. Jessup. She was frightfully pleased. She says it's +the greatest compliment a person can pay anybody, going on about them +like Herr Klutz does, and talking rot." + +Anna stared at her, bewildered. "Mr. Jessup?" she repeated. "And do you +mean to tell me that Miss Leech knows of this--this disgusting +nonsense?" She held the mangled heart at arm's length, crushing it in +her hand. + +"I say, you'll spoil it. He worked at it for days. There weren't any +paints red enough for the wound, and he had to go to Stralsund on +purpose. He thought no end of it." And Letty, scared though she was, +could not resist giggling a little. + +"Do you mean to tell me that Miss Leech knows about this?" insisted +Anna. + +"Rather not. It's a secret. He made me promise faithfully never to tell +a soul. Of course it doesn't matter talking to you, because you're one +of the persons concerned. You can't be married, you know, without +knowing about it, so I'm not breaking my promise talking to you----" + +"Married? What unutterable rubbish have you got into your head?" + +"That's what I said--or something like it. I said it was jolly rot. He +said, 'What's rot?' I said 'That.'" + +"But what?" asked Anna angrily. She longed to shake her. + +"Why, that about marrying you. I told him it was rot, and I was sure you +wouldn't, but as he didn't know what rot was, it wasn't much good. He +hunted it out in the dictionary, and still he didn't know." + +Anna stood looking at her with indignant eyes. "You don't know what you +have done," she said, "evidently you don't. It is a dreadful thing that +the moment Miss Leech leaves you you should begin to talk of such +things--such horrid things--with a stranger. A little girl of your +age----" + +"I didn't begin," whimpered Letty, overcome by the wrath in Anna's +voice. + +"But all this time you have been going on with it, instead of at once +telling Miss Leech or me." + +"I never met a--a lover before--I thought it--great fun." + +"Then all those flowers were from him?" + +"Ye--es." Letty was in tears. + +"He thought I knew they were from him?" + +No answer. + +"Did he?" insisted Anna. + +"Ye--es." + +"You are a very wicked little girl," said Anna, with awful sternness. +"You have been acting untruths every day for ages, which is just as bad +as telling them. I don't believe you have an idea of the horridness of +what you have done--I hope you have not. Of course your lessons at Lohm +have come to an end. You will not go there again. Probably I shall send +you home to your mother. I am nearly sure that I shall. Go away." And +she pointed to the door. + +That night neither Letty nor Miss Leech appeared at supper; both were +shut up in their rooms in tears. Miss Leech was quite unable to forgive +herself. It was all her fault, she felt. She had been appalled when Anna +showed her the heart and told her what had been going on while she was +learning to cook in Frau Manske's kitchen. "Such a quiet, +respectable-looking young man!" she exclaimed, horror-stricken. "And +about to take holy orders!" + +"Well, you see he isn't quiet and respectable at all," said Anna. "He is +unusually enterprising, and quite without morals. Only a demoralised +person would take advantage of a poor little pupil in that way." + +She lit a candle, and burnt the heart. "There," she said, when it was in +ashes, "that's the end of that. Heaven knows what Letty has been led +into saying, or what ideas he has put into her head. I can't bear to +think of it. I hadn't the courage to cross-question her much--I was +afraid I should hear something that would make me too angry, and I'd +have to tell the parson. Anyhow, dear Miss Leech, we will not leave her +alone again, ever, will we? I don't suppose a thing like this will +happen twice, but we won't let it have a chance, will we? Now don't be +too unhappy. Tell me about Mr. Jessup." + +It was Miss Leech's fault, Anna knew; but she so evidently knew it +herself, and was so deeply distressed, that rebukes were out of the +question. She spent the evening and most of the night in useless +laments, while, in the room adjoining, Letty lay face downwards on her +bed, bathed in tears. For Letty's conscience was in a grievous state of +tumult. She had meant well, and she had done badly. She had not thought +her aunt would be angry--was she not in full possession of the facts +concerning Mr. Jessup's courtship? And had not Miss Leech said that no +higher honour could be paid to a woman than to fall in love with her and +make her an offer of marriage? Herr Klutz, it is true, was not the sort +of person her aunt could marry, for her aunt was stricken in years, and +he looked about the same age as her brother Peter; besides, he was +clearly, thought Letty, of the guttersnipe class, a class that bit its +nails and never married people's aunts. But, after all, her aunt could +always say No when the supreme moment arrived, and nobody ought to be +offended because they had been fallen in love with, and he was +frightfully in love, and talked the most awful rot. Nor had she +encouraged him. On the contrary, she had discouraged him; but it was +precisely this discouragement, so virtuously administered, that lay so +heavily on her conscience as she lay so heavily on her bed. She had been +proud of it till this interview with her aunt; since then it had taken +on a different complexion, and she was sure, dreadfully sure, that if +her aunt knew of it she would be very angry indeed--much, much angrier +than she was before. Letty rolled on her bed in torments; for the +discouragement administered to Klutz had been in the form of poetry, and +poetry written on her aunt's notepaper, and purporting to come from her. +She had meant so well, and what had she done? When no answer came by +return to his poem hidden in the wallflowers, he had refused to believe +that the bouquet had reached its destination. "There has been +treachery," he cried; "you have played me false." And he seemed to fold +up with affliction. + +"I gave it to her all right. She hasn't found the letter yet," said +Letty, trying to comfort, and astonished by the loudness of his grief. +"It's all right--you wait a bit. She liked the flowers awfully, and +kissed them." + +"Poor young lover," she thought romantically, "his heart must not bleed +too much. Aunt Anna, if she ever does find the letter, will only send +him a rude answer. I will answer it for her, and gently discourage him." +For if the words that proceeded from Letty's mouth were inelegant, her +thoughts, whenever they dwelt on either Mr. Jessup or Herr Klutz, were +invariably clothed in the tender language of sentiment. + +And she had sat up till very late, composing a poem whose mission was +both to discourage and console. It cost her infinite pains, but when it +was finished she felt that it had been worth them all. She copied it out +in capital letters on Anna's notepaper, folded it up carefully, and tied +it with one of her own hair-ribbons to a little bunch of +lilies-of-the-valley she had gathered for the purpose in the forest. + +This was the poem:-- + + It is a matter of regret + That circumstances won't + Allow me to call thee my pet, + But as it is they don't. + + For why? My many years forbid, + And likewise thy position. + So take advice, and strive amid + Thy tears for meek submission. + + ANNA. + +And this poem was, at that very moment, as she well knew, in Herr +Klutz's waistcoat pocket. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +The ordinary young man, German or otherwise, hungrily emerging from +boyhood into a toothsome world made to be eaten, cures himself of his +appetite by indulging it till he is ill, and then on a firm foundation +of his own foolish corpse, or, as the poet puts it, of his dead self, +begins to build up the better things of his later years. + +Klutz was an ordinary young man, and arrived at early manhood as hungry +as his fellows; but his father was a parson, his grandfather had been a +parson, his uncles were all parsons, and Fate, coming cruelly to him in +the gloomy robes of the Lutheran Church, his natural follies had had no +opportunity of getting out, developing, and dissolving, but remained +shut up in his heart, where they amused themselves by seething +uninterruptedly, to his great discomfort, while the good parson, in +whose care he was, talked to him of the world to come. + +"The world to come," thought Klutz, hungering and thirsting for a taste +of the world in which he was, "may or may not be very well in its way; +but its way is not my way." And he listened in a silence that might be +taken either for awed or bored to Manske's expatiations. Manske, of +course, interpreted it as awed. "Our young vicar," he said to his wife, +"thinks much. He is serious and contemplative beyond his years. He is +not a man of many and vain words." To which his wife replied only by a +sniff of scepticism. + +She had no direct proofs that Klutz was not serious and contemplative, +but during his first winter in their house he had fallen into her bad +graces because of a certain indelicately appreciative attitude he +displayed towards her apple jelly. Not that she grudged him apple jelly +in just quantities; both she and her husband were fond of it, and the +eating of it was luckily one of those pleasures whose indulgence is +innocent. But there are limits beyond which even jelly becomes vicious, +and these limits Herr Klutz continually overstepped. Every autumn she +made a sufficient number of pots of it to last discreet appetites a +whole year. There had always been vicars in their house, and there had +never been a dearth of jelly. But this year, so early as Easter, there +were only two pots left. She could not conveniently lock it up and +refuse to produce any, for then she and her husband would not have it +themselves; so all through the winter she had watched the pots being +emptied one after the other, and the thinner the rows in her storeroom +grew, the more pronounced became her conviction that Klutz's piety was +but skin deep. A young man who could behave in so unbridled a fashion +could not be really serious; there was something, she thought, that +smacked suspiciously of the flesh and the devil about such conduct. +Great, then, was her astonishment when, the penultimate pot being placed +at Easter on the table, Klutz turned from it with loathing. Nor did he +ever look at apple jelly again; nor did he, of other viands, eat enough +to keep him in health. He who had been so voracious forgot his meals, +and had to be coaxed before he would eat at all. He spent his spare time +writing, sitting up sometimes all night, and consuming candles at the +same head-long rate with which he had previously consumed the jelly; and +when towards May her husband once more commented on his seriousness, +Frau Manske's conscience no longer permitted her to sniff. + +"You must be ill," she said to him at last, on a day when he had sat +through the meals in silence and had refused to eat at all. + +"Ill!" burst out Klutz, whose body and soul seemed both to be in one +fierce blaze of fever, "I am sick--sick even unto death." + +And he did feel sick. Only two days had elapsed since he had received +Anna's poem and had been thrown by it into a tumult of delight and +triumph; for the discouragement it contained had but encouraged him the +more, appearing to be merely the becoming self-depreciation of a woman +before him who has been by nature appointed lord. He was perfectly ready +to overlook the obstacles to their union to which she alluded. She could +not help her years; there were, truly, more of them than he would have +wished, but luckily they were not visible on that still lovely face. As +to position, he supposed she meant that he was not _adelig_; but a man, +he reflected, compared to a woman, is always _adelig_, whatever his name +may be, by virtue of his higher and nobler nature. He had been for +rushing at once to Kleinwalde; but his pupil and confidant had said +"Don't," and had said it with such energy that for that day at least he +had resisted. And now, the very morning of the day on which the Frau +Pastor was asking him whether he were ill, he had received a curt note +from Miss Leech, informing him that Miss Letty Estcourt would for the +present discontinue her German studies. What had happened? Even the +poem, lying warm on his heart, was not able to dispel his fears. He had +flown at once to Kleinwalde, feeling that it was absurd not to follow +the dictates of his heart and cast himself in person at Anna's no doubt +expectant feet, and the door had been shut in his face--rudely shut, by +a coarse servant, whose manner had so much enraged him that he had +almost shown her the precious verses then and there, to convince her of +his importance in that house; indeed, the only consideration that +restrained him was a conviction of her ignorance of the English tongue. + +"Would you like to see the doctor?" inquired Frau Manske, startled by +his looks and words; perhaps he had caught something infectious; an +infectious vicar in the house would be horrible. + +"The doctor!" cried Klutz; and forthwith quoted the German rendering of +the six lines beginning, Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased. + +Frau Manske was seriously alarmed. Not aware that he was quoting, she +was horrified to hear him calling her _Du_, a privilege confined to +lovers, husbands, and near relations, and asking her questions that she +was sure no decent vicar would ever ask the respectable mother of a +family. "I am sure you ought to see the doctor," she said nervously, +getting up hastily and going to the door. + +"No, no," said Klutz; "the doctor does not exist who can help me." + +His hand went to the breast-pocket containing the poem, and he fingered +it feverishly. He longed to show it to Frau Manske, to translate it for +her, to let her see what the young Kleinwalde lady, joint patron with +Herr von Lohm of her husband's living, thought of him. + +"I will ask my husband about the doctor," persisted Frau Manske, +disappearing with unusual haste. If she had stayed one minute longer he +would have shown her the poem. + +Klutz did not wait to hear what the pastor said, but crushed his felt +hat on to his head and started for a violent walk. He would go through +Kleinwalde, past the house; he would haunt the woods; he would wait +about. It was a hot, gusty May afternoon, and the wind that had been +quiet so long was blowing up the dust in clouds; but he hurried along +regardless of heat and wind and dust, with an energy surprising in one +who had eaten nothing all day. Love had come to him very turbulently. He +had been looking for it ever since he left school; but his watchful +parents had kept him in solitary places, empty, uninhabited places like +Lohm, places where the parson's daughters were either married or were +still tied on the cushions of infancy. Sometimes he had been invited, as +a great condescension, to the Dellwigs' Sunday parties; and there too he +had looked around for Love. But the company consisted solely of stout +farmers' wives, ladies of thirty, forty, fifty--of a dizzy antiquity, +that is, and their talk was of butter-making and sausages, and they +cared not at all for Love. "Oh, Love, Love, Love, where shall I find +thee?" he would cry to the stars on his way home through the forest +after these evenings; but the stars twinkled coldly on, obviously +profoundly indifferent as to whether he found it or not. His chest of +drawers was full of the poems into which he had poured the emotions of +twenty, the emotions and longings that well-fed, unoccupied twenty +mistakes for soul. And then the English Miss had burst upon his gaze, +sitting in her carriage on that stormy March day, smiling at him from +the very first, piercing his heart through and through with eyes that +many persons besides Klutz saw were lovely, and so had he found Love, +and for ever lost his interest in apple jelly. + +It was a confident, bold Love, with more hopes than fears, more +assurance than misgivings. The poem seemed to burn his pocket, so +violently did he long to show it round, to tell everyone of his good +fortune. The lilies-of-the-valley to which it had been tied and that he +wore since all day long in his coat, were hardly brown, and yet he was +tired already of having such a secret to himself. What advantage was +there in being told by the lady of Kleinwalde that she regretted not +being able to call him _Lämmchen_ or _Schätzchen_ (the alternative +renderings his dictionary gave of "pet") if no one knew it? + +When he reached the house he walked past it at a snail's pace, staring +up at the blank, repellent windows. Not a soul was to be seen. He went +on discontentedly. What should he do? The door had been shut in his face +once already that day, why he could not imagine. He hesitated, and +turned back. He would try again. Why not? The Miss would have scolded +the servant roundly when she heard that the person who dwelt in her +thoughts as a _Lämmchen_ had been turned away. He went boldly round the +grass plot in front of the house and knocked. + +The same servant appeared. Instantly on seeing him she slammed the door, +and called out "_Nicht zu Haus!_" + +"_Ekelhaftes Benehmen!_" cried Klutz aloud, flaming into sudden passion. +His mind, never very strong, had grown weaker along with his body during +these exciting days of love and fasting. A wave of fury swept over him +as he stood before the shut door and heard the servant going away; and +hardly knowing what he did, he seized the knocker, and knocked and +knocked till the woods rang. + +There was a sound of hurried footsteps on the path behind him, and +turning his head, his hand still knocking, he saw Dellwig running +towards him. + +"_Nanu!_" cried Dellwig breathlessly, staring in blankest astonishment. +"What in the devil's name are you making this noise for? Is the parson +on fire?" + +Klutz stared back in a dazed sort of way, his fury dying out at once in +the presence of the stronger nature; then, because he was twenty, and +because he was half-starved, and because he felt he was being cruelly +used, there on Anna's doorstep, in the full light of the evening sun, +with Dellwig's eyes upon him, he burst into a torrent of tears. + +"Well of all--what's wrong at Lohm, you great sheep?" asked Dellwig, +seizing his arm and giving him a shake. + +Klutz signified by a movement of his head that nothing was wrong at +Lohm. He was crying like a baby, into a red pocket-handkerchief, and +could not speak. + +Dellwig, still gripping his arm, stared at him a moment in silence; then +he turned him round, pushed him down the steps, and walked him off. +"Come along, young man," he said, "I want some explanation of this. If +you are mad you'll be locked up. We don't fancy madmen about our place. +And if you're not mad you'll be fined by the Amtsvorsteher for +disorderly conduct. Knocking like that at a lady's door! I wonder you +didn't kick it in, while you were about it. It's a good thing the +_Herrschaften_ are out." + +Klutz really felt ill. He leaned on Dellwig's arm and let himself be +helped along, the energy gone out of him with the fury. "You have never +loved," was all he said, wiping his eyes. + +"Oh that's it, is it? It is love that made you want to break the +knocker? Why didn't you go round to the back? Which of them is it? The +cook, of course. You look hungry. A Kandidat crying after a cook!" And +Dellwig laughed loud and long. + +"The cook!" cried Klutz, galvanised by the word into life. "The cook!" +He thrust a shaking hand into his breast-pocket and dragged it out, the +precious paper, unfolding it with trembling fingers, and holding it +before Dellwig's eyes. "So much for your cooks," he said, tremulously +triumphant. They were in the road, out of sight of the house. Dellwig +took the paper and held it close to his eyes. "What's this?" he asked, +scrutinising it. "It is not German." + +"It is English," said Klutz. + +"What, the governess----?" + +Klutz merely pointed to the name at the end. Oh, the sweetness of that +moment! + +"Anna?" read out Dellwig, "Anna? That is Miss Estcourt's name." + +"It is," said Klutz, his tears all dried up. + +"It seems to be poetry," said Dellwig slowly. + +"It is," said Klutz. + +"Why have you got it?" + +"Why indeed! It's mine. She sent it to me. She wrote it for me. These +flowers----" + +"Miss Estcourt? Sent it to you? Poetry? To _you_?" Dellwig looked up +from the paper at Klutz, and examined him slowly from head to foot as if +he had never seen him before. His expression while he did it was not +flattering, but Klutz rarely noticed expressions. "What's it all about?" +he asked, when he had reached Klutz's boots, by which he seemed struck, +for he looked at them twice. + +"Love," said Klutz proudly. + +"Love?" + +"Let me come home with you," said Klutz eagerly, "I'll translate it +there. I can't here where we might be disturbed." + +"Come on, then," said Dellwig, walking off at a great pace with the +paper in his hand. + +Just as they were turning into the farmyard the rattle of a carriage was +heard coming down the road. "Stop," said Dellwig, laying his hand on +Klutz's arm, "the _Herrschaften_ have been drinking coffee in the +woods--here they are, coming home. You can get a greeting if you wait." + +They both stood on the edge of the road, and the carriage with Anna and +a selection from her house-party drove by. Dellwig and Klutz swept off +their hats. When Anna saw Klutz she turned scarlet--undeniably, +unmistakably scarlet--and looked away quickly. Dellwig's lips shaped +themselves into a whistle. "Come in, then," he said, glancing at Klutz, +"come in and translate your poem." + +Seldom had Klutz passed more delicious moments than those in which he +rendered Letty's verses into German, with both the Dellwigs drinking in +his words. The proud and exclusive Dellwigs! A month ago such a thing +would have been too wild a flight of fancy for the most ambitious dream. +In the very room in which he had been thrust aside at parties, forgotten +in corners, left behind when the others went in to supper, he was now +sitting the centre of interest, with his former supercilious hosts +hanging on his words. When he had done, had all too soon come to the end +of his delightful task, he looked round at them triumphantly; and his +triumph was immediately dashed out of him by Dellwig, who said with his +harshest laugh, "Put aside all your hopes, young man--Miss Estcourt is +engaged to Herr von Lohm." + +"Engaged? To Herr von Lohm?" Klutz echoed stupidly, his mouth open and +the hand holding the verses dropping limply to his side. + +"Engaged, engaged, engaged," Dellwig repeated in a loud sing-song, "not +openly, but all the same engaged." + +"It is truly scandalous!" cried his wife, greatly excited, and firmly +believing that the verses were indeed Anna's. Was she not herself of the +race of _Weiber_, and did she not therefore well know what they were +capable of? + +"Silence, Frau!" commanded Dellwig. + +"And she takes my flowers--my daily offerings, floral and poetical, and +she sends me these verses--and all the time she is betrothed to someone +else?" + +"She is," said Dellwig with another burst of laughter, for Klutz's face +amused him intensely. He got up and slapped him on the shoulder. "This +is your first experience of _Weiber_, eh? Don't waste your heartaches +over her. She is a young lady who likes to have her little joke and +means no harm----" + +"She is a person without shame!" cried his wife. + +"Silence, Frau!" snapped Dellwig. "Look here, young man--why, what does +he look like, sitting there with all the wind knocked out of him? Get +him a glass of brandy, Frau, or we shall have him crying again. Sit up, +and be a man. Miss Estcourt is not for you, and never will be. Only a +vicar could ever have dreamed she was, and have been imposed upon by +this poetry stuff. But though you're a vicar you're a man, eh? Here, +drink this, and tell us if you are not a man." + +Klutz feebly tried to push the glass away, but Dellwig insisted. Klutz +was pale to ghastliness, and his eyes were brimming again with tears. + +"Oh, this person! Oh, this Englishwoman! Oh, the shameful treatment of +an estimable young man!" cried Frau Dellwig, staring at the havoc Anna +had wrought. + +"Silence, Frau!" shouted Dellwig, stamping his foot. "You can't be +treated like this," he went on to Klutz, who, used to drinking much milk +at the abstemious parsonage, already felt the brandy running along his +veins like liquid fire, "you can't be made ridiculous and do nothing. A +vicar can't fight, but you must have some revenge." + +Klutz started. "Revenge! Yes, but what revenge?" he asked. + +"Nothing to do with Miss Estcourt, of course. Leave her alone----" + +"Leave her alone?" cried his wife, "what, when she it is----" + +"Silence, Frau!" roared Dellwig. "Leave her alone, I say. You won't gain +anything there, young man. But go to her _Bräutigam_ Lohm and tell him +about it, and show him the stuff. He'll be interested." + +Dellwig laughed boisterously, and took two or three rapid turns up and +down the room. He had not lived with old Joachim and seen much of old +Lohm and the surrounding landowners without having learned something of +their views on questions of honour. Axel Lohm he knew to be specially +strict and strait-laced, to possess in quite an unusual degree the +ideals that Dellwig thought so absurd and so unpractical, the ideals, +that is, of a Christian gentleman. Had he not known him since he was a +child? And he had always been a prig. How would he like Miss Estcourt to +be talked about, as of course she would be talked about? Klutz's mouth +could not be stopped, and the whole district would know what had been +going on. Axel Lohm could not and would not marry a young lady who wrote +verses to vicars; and if all relations between Lohm and Kleinwalde +ceased, why then life would resume its former pleasant course, he, +Dellwig, staying on at his post, becoming, as was natural, his +mistress's sole adviser, and certainly after due persuasion achieving +all he wanted, including the brick-kiln. The plainness and clearness of +the future was beautiful. He walked up and down the room making odd +sounds of satisfaction, and silencing his wife with vigour every time +she opened her lips. Even his wife, so quick as a rule of comprehension, +had not grasped how this poem had changed their situation, and how it +behoved them now not to abuse their mistress before a mischief-making +young man. She was blinded, he knew, by her hatred of Miss Estcourt. +Women were always the slaves, in defiance of their own interests, to +some emotion or other; if it was not love, then it was hatred. Never +could they wait for anything whatever. The passing passion must out and +be indulged, however fatal the consequences might be. What a set they +were! And the best of them, what fools. He glanced angrily at his wife +as he passed her, but his glance, travelling from her to Klutz, who sat +quite still with head sunk on his chest, legs straight out before him, +the hand with the paper loosely held in it hanging down out of the +cuffless sleeve nearly to the floor, and vacant eyes staring into space, +his good humour returned, and he gave another harsh laugh. "Well?" he +said, standing in front of this dejected figure. "How long will you sit +there? If I were you I'd lose no time. You don't want those two to be +making love and enjoying themselves an hour longer than is necessary, do +you? With you out in the cold? With you so cruelly deceived? And made to +look so ridiculous? I'd spoil that if I were you, at once." + +"Yes, you are right. I'll go to Herr von Lohm and see if I can have an +interview." + +Klutz got up with a great show of determination, put the paper in his +pocket, and buttoned his coat over it for greater security. Then he +hesitated. + +"It _is_ a shameful thing, isn't it?" he said, his eyes on Dellwig's +face. + +"Shameful? It's downright cruel." + +"Shameful?" began his wife. + +"Silence, I tell thee! Young ladies' jokes are sometimes cruel, you see. +I believe it was a joke, but a very heartless one, and one that has made +you look more foolish even than half-fledged pastors of your age +generally do look. It is only fair in return to spoil her game for her. +Take another glass of brandy, and go and do it." + +Klutz stared hard for a moment at Dellwig. Then he seized the brandy, +gulped it down, snatched up his hat, and taking no farewell notice of +either husband or wife, hurried out of the room. They saw him pass +beneath the window, his hat over his eyes, his face white, his ears +aflame. + +"There goes a fool," said Dellwig, rubbing his hands, "and as useful a +one as ever I saw. But here's another fool," he added, turning sharply +to his wife, "and I don't want them in my own house." + +And he proceeded to tell her, in the vigorous and convincing language of +a justly irritated husband, what he thought of her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +Klutz sped, as fast as his shaking limbs allowed, to Lohm. When he +passed Anna's house he flung it a look of burning contempt, which he +hoped she saw and felt from behind some curtain; and then, trying to put +her from his mind, he made desperate efforts to arrange his thoughts a +little for the coming interview. He supposed that it must be the brandy +that made it so difficult for him to discern exactly why he was to go to +Herr von Lohm instead of to the person principally concerned, the person +who had treated him so scandalously; but Herr Dellwig knew best, of +course, and judged the matter quite dispassionately. Certainly Herr von +Lohm, as an insolently happy rival, ought in mere justice to be annoyed +a little; and if the annoyance reached such a pitch of effectiveness as +to make him break off the engagement, why then--there was no +knowing--perhaps after all----? The ordinary Christian was bound to +forgive his erring brother; how much more, then, was it incumbent on a +pastor to forgive his erring sister? But Klutz did wish that someone +else could have done the annoying for him, leaving him to deal solely +with Anna, a woman, a member of the sex in whose presence he was always +at his ease. The brandy prevented him from feeling it as acutely as he +would otherwise have done, but the plain truth, the truth undisguised by +brandy, was that he looked up to Axel Lohm with a respect bordering on +fear, had never in his life been alone with him, or so much as spoken to +him beyond ordinary civilities when they met, and he was frightened. + +By the time he reached Axel's stables, which stood by the roadside about +five minutes' walk from Axel's gate, he found himself obliged to go over +his sufferings once again one by one, to count the dinners he had +missed, to remember the feverish nights and the restless days, to +rehearse what Dellwig had just told him of his present ridiculousness, +or he would have turned back and gone home. But these thoughts gave him +the courage necessary to get him through the gate; and by the time he +had rounded the bend in the avenue escape had become impossible, for +Axel was standing on the steps of the house. Axel had a cigar in his +mouth; his hands were in his pockets, and he was watching the paces of a +young mare which was being led up and down. Two pointers were sitting at +his feet, and when Klutz appeared they rushed down at him barking. Klutz +did not as a rule object to being barked at by dogs, but he was in a +highly nervous state, and shrank aside involuntarily. The groom leading +the mare grinned; Axel whistled the dogs off; and Klutz, with hot ears, +walked up and took off his hat. + +"What can I do for you, Herr Klutz?" asked Axel, his hands still in his +pockets and his eyes on the mare's legs. + +"I wish to speak with you privately," said Klutz. + +"_Gut._ Just wait a moment." And Klutz waited, while Axel, with great +deliberation, continued his scrutiny of the mare, and followed it up by +a lengthy technical discussion of her faults and her merits with the +groom. + +This was intolerable. Klutz had come on business of vital importance, +and he was left standing there for what seemed to him at least half an +hour, as though he were rather less than a dog or a beggar. As time +passed, and he still was kept waiting, the fury that had possessed him +as he stood helpless before Anna's shut door in the afternoon, returned. +All his doubts and fears and respect melted away. What a day he had had +of suffering, of every kind of agitation! The ground alone that he had +covered, going backwards and forwards between Lohm and Kleinwalde, was +enough to tire out a man in health; and he was not in health, he was +ill, fasting, shaking in every limb. While he had been suffering +(_leidend und schwitzend_, he said to himself, grinding his teeth), this +comfortable man in the gaiters and the aggressively clean cuffs had no +doubt passed very pleasant and easy hours, had had three meals at least +where he had had none, had smoked cigars and examined horses' legs, had +ridden a little, driven a little, and would presently go round, now that +the cool of the evening had come, to Kleinwalde, and sit in the twilight +while Miss Estcourt called him _Schatz_. Oh, it was not to be borne! +Dellwig was right--he must be annoyed, punished, at all costs shaken out +of his lofty indifference. "Let me remind you," Klutz burst out in a +voice that trembled with passion, "that I am still here, and still +waiting, and that I have only two legs. Your horse, I see, has four, and +is better able to stand and wait than I am." + +Axel turned and stared at him. "Why, what is the matter?" he asked, +astonished. "You _are_ Manske's vicar? Yes, of course you are. I did not +know you had anything very pressing to tell me. I am sorry I have kept +you--come in." + +He sent the mare to the stables, and led the way into his study. "Sit +down," he said, pushing a chair forward, and sitting down himself by his +writing-table. "Have a cigar?" + +"No." + +"No?" Axel stared again. "'No thank you' is the form prejudice prefers," +he said. + +"I care nothing for that." + +"What is the matter, my dear Herr Klutz? You are very angry about +something." + +"I have been shamefully treated by a woman." + +"It is what sometimes happens to young men," said Axel, smiling. + +"I do not want cheap wisdom like that," cried Klutz, his eyes ablaze. + +Axel's brows went up. "You are rude, my good Herr Klutz," he said. "Try +to be polite if you wish me to help you. If you cannot, I shall ask you +to go." + +"I will not go." + +"My dear Herr Klutz." + +"I say I will not go till I have told you what I came to tell you. The +woman is Miss Estcourt." + +"Miss Estcourt?" repeated Axel, amazed. Then he added, "Call her a +lady." + +"She is a woman to all intents and purposes----" + +"Call her a lady. It sounds better from a young man of your station." + +"Of my station! What, a man with the brains of a man, the mind of a man, +the sinews of a man, is not equal, is not superior, whatever his station +may be, to a mere woman?" + +"I will not discuss your internal arrangements. Has there, then, been +some mistake about the salary you are to receive?" + +"What salary?" + +"For teaching Miss Letty Estcourt?" + +"Pah--the salary. Love does not look at salaries." + +"That sounds magnificent. Did you say love?" + +"For weeks past, all the time that I have taught the niece, she has +taken my flowers, my messages, at first verbal and at last written----" + +"One moment. Of whom are we talking? I have met you with Miss Leech----" + +"The governess? _Ich danke._ It is Miss Estcourt who has encouraged me +and led me on, and now, after calling me her _Lämmchen_, takes away her +niece and shuts her door in my face----" + +"You have been drinking?" + +"Certainly not," cried Klutz, the more indignantly because of his +consciousness of the brandy. + +"Then you have no excuse at all for talking in this manner of my +neighbour?" + +"Excuse! To hear you, one would think she must be a queen," said Klutz, +laughing derisively. "If she were, I should still talk as I pleased. A +cat may look at a king, I suppose?" And he laughed again, very bitterly, +disliking even for one moment to imagine himself in the rôle of the cat. + +"A cat may look as long and as often as it likes," said Axel, "but it +must not get in the king's way. I am sure you can guess why." + +"I have not come here to guess why about anything." + +"Oh, it is not very abstruse--the cat would be kicked by somebody, of +course." + +"Oh, ho! Not if it could bite, and had what I have in its pocket." + +"Cats do not have pockets, my dear Herr Klutz. You must have noticed +that yourself. Pray, what is it that you have in yours?" + +"A little poem she sent me in answer to one of mine. A little, sweet +poem. I thought you might like to see how your future wife writes to +another man." + +"Ah--that is why you have called so kindly on me? Out of pure +thoughtfulness. My future wife, then, is Miss Estcourt?" + +"It is an open secret." + +"It is, most unfortunately, not true." + +"_Ach_--I knew you would deny it," cried Klutz, slapping his leg and +grinning horribly. "I knew you would deny it when you heard she had been +behaving badly. But denials do not alter anything--no one will believe +them----" + +Axel shrugged his shoulders. "Am I to see the poem?" he asked. + +Klutz took it out and handed it to him. The twilight had come into the +room, and Axel put the paper down a moment while he lit the candles on +his table. Then he smoothed out its creases, and holding it close to the +light read it attentively. Klutz leaned forward and watched his face. +Not a muscle moved. It had been calm before, and it remained calm. Klutz +could hardly keep himself from leaping up and striking that impassive +face, striking some sort of feeling into it. He had played his big card, +and Axel was quite unmoved. What could he do, what could he say, to hurt +him? + +"Shall we burn it?" inquired Axel, looking up from the paper. + +"Burn it? Burn my poem?" + +"It is such very great nonsense. It is written by a child. We know what +child. Only one in this part can write English." + +"Miss Estcourt wrote it, I tell you!" cried Klutz, jumping to his feet +and snatching the paper away. + +"Your telling me so does not in the very least convince me. Miss +Estcourt knows nothing about it." + +"She does--she did----" screamed Klutz, beside himself. "Your Miss +Estcourt--your _Braut_--you try to brazen it out because you are ashamed +of such a _Braut_. It is no use--everyone shall see this, and be told +about it--the whole province shall ring with it--_I_ will not be the +laughing-stock, but _you_ will be. Not a labourer, not a peasant, but +shall hear of it----" + +"It strikes me," said Axel, rising, "that you badly want kicking. I do +not like to do it in my house--it hardly seems hospitable. If you will +suggest a convenient place, neutral ground, I shall be pleased to come +and do it." + +He looked at Klutz with an encouraging smile. Then something in the +young man's twitching face arrested his attention. "Do you know what I +think?" he said quickly, in a different voice. "It is less a kicking +that you want than a good meal. You really look as though you had had +nothing to eat for a week. The difference a beefsteak would make to your +views would surprise you. Come, come," he said, patting him on the +shoulder, "I have been taking you too seriously. You are evidently not +in your usual state. When did you have food last? What has Frau Pastor +been about? And your eyelids are so red that I do believe----" Axel +looked closer--"I do believe you have been crying." + +"Sir," began Klutz, struggling hard with a dreadful inclination to cry +again, for self-pity is a very tender and tearful sentiment, "Sir----" + +"Let me order that beefsteak," said Axel kindly. "My cook will have it +ready in ten minutes." + +"Sir," said Klutz, with the tremendous dignity that immediately precedes +tears, "Sir, I am not to be bribed." + +"Well, take a cigar at least," said Axel, opening his case. "That will +not corrupt you as much as the beefsteak, and will soothe you a little +on your way home. For you must go home and get to bed. You are as near +an illness as any man I ever saw." + +The tears were so near, so terribly near, that, hardly knowing what he +did, and sooner than trust himself to speak, Klutz took a cigar and lit +it at the match Axel held for him. His hand shook pitifully. + +"Now go home, my dear Klutz," said Axel very kindly. "Tell Frau Pastor +to give you some food, and then get to bed. I wish you would have taken +the beefsteak--here is your hat. If you like, we will talk about this +nonsense later on. Believe me, it is nonsense. You will be the first to +say so next week." + +And he ushered him out to the steps, and watched him go down them, +uneasy lest he should stumble and fall, so weak did he seem to be. "What +a hot wind!" he exclaimed. "You will have a dusty walk home. Go slowly. +Good-night." + +"Poor devil," he thought, as Klutz without speaking went down the avenue +into the darkness with unsteady steps, "poor young devil--the highest +possible opinion of himself, and the smallest possible quantity of +brains; a weak will and strong instincts; much unwholesome study of the +Old Testament in Hebrew with Manske; a body twenty years old, and the +finest spring I can remember filling it with all sorts of anti-parsonic +longings. I believe I ought to have taken him home. He looked as though +he would faint." + +This last thought disturbed Axel. The image of Klutz fainting into a +ditch and remaining in it prostrate all night, refused to be set aside; +and at last he got his hat and went down the avenue after him. + +But Klutz, who had shuffled along quickly, was nowhere to be seen. Axel +opened the avenue gate and looked down the road that led past the +stables to the village and parsonage, and then across the fields to +Kleinwalde; he even went a little way along it, with an uneasy eye on +the ditches, but he did not see Klutz, either upright or prostrate. +Well, if he were in a ditch, he said to himself, he would not drown; the +ditches were all as empty, dry, and burnt-up as four weeks' incessant +drought and heat could make them. He turned back repeating that +eminently consolatory proverb, _Unkraut vergeht nicht_, and walked +quickly to his own gate; for it was late, and he had work to do, and he +had wasted more time than he could afford with Klutz. A man on a horse +coming from the opposite direction passed him. It was Dellwig, and each +recognised the other; but in these days of mutual and profound distrust +both were glad of the excuse the darkness gave for omitting the usual +greetings. Dellwig rode on towards Kleinwalde in silence, and Axel +turned in at his gate. + +But the poor young devil, as Axel called him, had not fainted. Hurrying +down the dark avenue, beyond Axel's influence, far from fainting, it was +all Klutz could do not to shout with passion at his own insufferable +weakness, his miserable want of self-control in the presence of the man +he now regarded as his enemy. The tears in his eyes had given Lohm an +opportunity for pretending he was sorry for him, and for making +insulting and derisive offers of food. What could equal in humiliation +the treatment to which he had been subjected? First he had been treated +as a dog, and then, far worse, far, far worse and more difficult to bear +with dignity, as a child. A beefsteak? Oh, the shame that seared his +soul as he thought of it! This revolting specimen of the upper class had +declared, with a hateful smile of indulgent superiority, that all his +love, all his sufferings, all his just indignation, depended solely for +their existence on whether he did or did not eat a beefsteak. Could +coarse-mindedness and gross insensibility go further? "Thrice miserable +nation!" he cried aloud, shaking his fist at the unconcerned stars, +"thrice miserable nation, whose ruling class is composed of men so +vile!" And, having removed his cigar in order to make this utterance, he +remembered, with a great start, that it was Axel's. + +He was in the road, just passing Axel's stables. The gate to the +stableyard stood open, and inside it, heaped against one of the +buildings, was a waggon-load of straw. Instantly Klutz became aware of +what he was going to do. A lightning flash of clear purpose illumined +the disorder of his brain. It was supper time, and no one was about. He +ran inside the gate and threw the lighted cigar on to the straw; and +because there was not an instantaneous blaze fumbled for his matchbox, +and lit one match after the other, pushing them in a kind of frenzy +under the loose ends of straw. + +There was a puff of smoke, and then a bright tongue of flame; and +immediately he had achieved his purpose he was terrified, and fled away +from the dreadful light, and hid himself, shuddering, in the darkness of +the country road. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +"It's in Stralsund," cried the princess, hurrying out into the +Kleinwalde garden when first the alarm was given. + +"It's in Lohm," cried someone else. + +Anna watched the light in silence, her face paler than ordinary, her +hair blown about by the hot wind. The trees in the dark garden swayed +and creaked, the air was parching and full of dust, the light glared +brighter each moment. Surely it was very near? Surely it was nearer than +Stralsund? "It's in Lohm," cried someone with conviction; and Anna +turned and began to run. + +"Where are you running to, Aunt Anna?" asked Letty, breathlessly +following her; for since the affair with Klutz she followed her aunt +about like a conscience-stricken dog. + +"The fire-engine--there is one at the farm--it must go----" + +They took each other's hands and ran in silence. Between the gusts of +wind they could hear the Lohm church-bells ringing; and almost +immediately the single Kleinwalde bell began to toll, to toll with a +forlorn, blood-curdling sound altogether different from its unmeaning +Sunday tinkle. + +In front of her house Frau Dellwig stood, watching the sky. "It is +Lohm," she said to Anna as she came up panting. + +"Yes--the fire-engine--is it ordered? Has it gone? No? Then at once--at +once----" + +"_Jawohl, jawohl_," said Frau Dellwig with great calm, the philosophic +calm of him who contemplates calamities other than his own. She said +something to one of the maids, who were standing about in pleased and +excited groups laughing and whispering, and the girl shuffled off in her +clattering wooden shoes. "My husband is not here," she explained, "and +the men are at supper." + +"Then they must leave their supper," cried Anna. "Go, go, you girls, and +tell them so--look how terrible it is getting----" + +"Yes, it is a big fire. The girl I sent will tell them. They say it is +the _Schloss_." + +"Oh, go yourself and tell the men--see, there is no sign of them--every +minute is priceless----" + +"It is always a business with the engine. It has not been required, +thank God, for years. Mietze, go and hurry them." + +The girl called Mietze went off at a trot. The others put their heads +together, looked at their young mistress, and whispered. A stable-boy +came to the pump and filled his pail. Everyone seemed composed, and yet +there was that bloody sky, and there was that insistent cry for help +from the anxious bell. + +Anna could hardly bear it. What was happening down there to her kind +friend? + +"It is the _Schloss_," said the stable-boy in answer to a question from +Frau Dellwig as he passed with his full pail, spilling the water at +every step. + +"_Ach_, I thought so," she said, glancing at Anna. + +Anna made a passionate movement, and ran down the steps after the girl +Mietze. Frau Dellwig could not but follow, which she did slowly, at a +disapproving distance. + +But Dellwig galloped into the yard at that moment, his horse covered +with sweat, and his loud and peremptory orders extracted the ancient +engine from its shed, got the horses harnessed to it, and after what +Anna thought an eternity it rattled away. When it started, the whole sky +to the south was like one dreadful sheet of blood. + +"It is the stables," he said to Anna. + +"Herr von Lohm's?" + +"Yes. They cannot be saved." + +"And the house?" + +He shrugged his shoulders. "It's a windy night," he said, "and the wind +is blowing that way. There are pine-trees between. Everything is as dry +as cinders." + +"The stables--are they insured?" + +But Dellwig was off again, after the engine. + +"What can we do, Letty? What can we _do_?" cried Anna, turning to Letty +when the sound of the wheels had died away and only the hurried bell was +heard above the whistling and banging of the wind. "It's horrible here, +listening to that bell tolling, and looking at the sky. If I could throw +one single bucketful of water on the fire I should not feel so useless, +so utterly, utterly of no use or good for anything." + +Neither of them had ever seen a fire, and horror had seized them both. +The night seemed so dark, the world all round so black, except in that +one dreadful spot. Anna knew Axel could not afford to lose money. From +things Trudi had said, from things the princess had said, she knew it. +There was at Lohm, she felt rather than knew, an abundance of everything +necessary to ordinary comfortable living, as there generally is in the +country on farms; but money was scarce, and a series of bad seasons, +perhaps even one bad season, or anything out of the way happening, might +make it very scarce, might make the further proper farming of the place +impossible. Suppose the stables were not insured, where would the money +come from to rebuild them? And the horses--she had heard that horses +went mad with fright in a fire, and refused to leave their stables. And +the house--suppose this cruel wind made the checking of the fire +impossible, and it licked its way across the trees to Axel's house? "Oh, +what can we _do_?" she cried to the frightened Letty. + +"Let's go there," said Letty. + +"Yes!" cried Anna, striking her hands together. "Yes! The carriage--Frau +Dellwig, order the carriage--order Fritz to bring the carriage out at +once. Tell him to be quick--quick!" + +"The gracious Miss will go to Lohm?" + +"Yes--call him, send for him--Fritz! Fritz!" She herself began to call. + +"But----" + +"Fritz! Fritz! Run, Letty, and see if you can find him." + +"If I may be permitted to advise----" + +"Fritz! Fritz! Fritz!" + +"Call the _herrschaftliche Kutscher_ Fritz," Frau Dellwig then commanded +a passing boy in a loud and stern voice. "Not only mad, but improper," +was her private comment. "She goes by night to her _Bräutigam_--to her +unacknowledged _Bräutigam_." Even a possible burning _Bräutigam_ did +not, in her opinion, excuse such a step. + +The darkness concealed the anger on her face, and Anna neither noticed +nor cared for the anger in her voice, but began herself to run in the +direction of the stables, leaving Frau Dellwig to her reflections. + +"Princess Ludwig is looking for you everywhere, Aunt Anna," said Letty, +coming towards her, having found Fritz and succeeded in making him +understand what she wanted. + +"Where is she? Is the carriage coming?" + +"He said five minutes. She was at the house, asking the servants if they +had seen you." + +"Come along then, we'll go to her." + +"I was afraid I should not find you here," said the princess as Anna +came up the steps of the house into the light of the entry, "and that +you had run off to Lohm to put the fire out. My dear child, what do you +look like? Come and look at yourself in the glass." + +She led her to the glass that hung above the Dellwig hat-stand. + +"I am just going there," said Anna, looking at her reflection without +seeing it. "The carriage is being got ready now." + +"Then I am coming too. What has the wind been doing to your hair? See, I +knew you were running about bare-headed, and have brought you a scarf. +Come, let me tie it over all these excited little curls, and turn you +into a sober and circumspect young woman." + +Anna bent her head and let the princess do as she pleased. "Herr Dellwig +is afraid the fire will spread to the house," she said breathlessly. +"Our engine has only just gone----" + +"I heard it." + +"It is such a lumbering thing, it will be hours getting there----" + +"Oh, not hours. Half a one, perhaps." + +"Are they insured?" + +"The buildings? They are sure to be. But there is always a loss that +cannot be covered--_ach_, Frau Dellwig, good-evening--you see we have +taken possession of your house. To have no stables and probably no +horses just when the busy time is beginning is terrible. Poor Axel. +There--now you are tidy. Wait, let me fasten your cloak and cover up +your pretty dress. Is Letty to come too?" + +"Oh--if she likes. Why doesn't the carriage come?" + +"It will be much better if Letty goes to bed," said the princess. + +"Oh!" said Letty. + +"It is long past her bedtime, and she has no hat, and nothing round her. +Shall we not ask Frau Dellwig to send a servant with her home?" + +"_Aber gewiss_----" began Frau Dellwig. + +But Anna was out again on the steps, was shutting out the flaming sky +with one hand while she strained her eyes into the darkness of the +corner where the coach-house was. She could hear Fritz's voice, and the +horses' hoofs on the cobbles, and she could see the light of a lantern +jogging up and down as the stable-boy who held it hurried to and fro. +"Quick, quick, Fritz," she cried. + +"_Jawohl, gnädiges Fräulein_," came back the answer in the old man's +cheery, reassuring tones. But it was like a nightmare, standing there +waiting, waiting, the precious minutes slipping by, terrible things +happening to Axel, and she herself unable to stir a step towards him. + +"Take me with you--let me come too," pleaded Letty from behind her, +slipping her hand into Anna's. + +"Then tie a handkerchief or something round your head," said Anna, her +eyes on the lantern moving about before the coach-house. Then the +carriage lamps flashed out, and in another moment the carriage rattled +up. + +It was a ghostly drive. As the tops of the pine-trees swayed aside they +caught glimpses of the red horror of the sky; and when they got out into +the open Anna cried out involuntarily, for it seemed as if the whole +world were on fire. The spire of Lohm church and the roofs of the +cottages stood out clear and sharp in the fierce light. The horses, more +and more frightened the nearer they drew, plunged and reared, and old +Fritz could hardly hold them in. On turning the corner by the parsonage +they were not to be induced to advance another yard, but swerved aside, +kicking and terrified, and threatening every moment to upset the +carriage into the ditch. + +Anna jumped out and ran on. The princess, slower and more bulky, was +helped out by Letty and followed after as quickly as she could. In the +road and in the field opposite the stables the whole population was +gathered, illuminated figures in eager, chattering groups. From the pump +on the green in front of the schoolhouse, a chain of helpers had been +formed, and buckets of water were being passed along from hand to hand +to the engines; and there was no other water. The engines were working +farther down the road, keeping the hose turned on to the trees between +the stables and the house. There were clumps of pine-trees among them, +and these were the trees that would carry the fire across to Axel's +house. Men in the garden were hacking at them, the blows of their axes +indistinguishable in the uproar, but every now and then one of the +victims fell with a crash among its fellows still standing behind it. + +"Oh, poor Axel, poor Axel!" murmured Anna, drawing her scarf across her +face as she passed along to protect it from the intolerable heat. But +she was an unmistakable figure in her blue cloak and white dress, +stumbling on to where the engines were; and the groups of onlookers +nudged each other and turned to stare after her as she passed. + +"How did it happen?" she asked, suddenly stopping before a knot of +women. They were in the act of discussing her, and started and looked +foolish. + +"No one knows," said the eldest, when Anna repeated her question. "They +say it was done on purpose." + +"Done on purpose!" echoed Anna, staring at the speaker. "Why, who would +set fire to a place on purpose?" + +But to this question no reply at all was forthcoming. They fidgeted and +looked at each other, and one of the younger ones tittered and then put +her hand before her mouth. + +In the potato field across the road, two storks, whose nest for many +springs had been on one of the roofs now burning, had placed their young +ones in safety and were watching over them. The young storks were only a +few days old, and had been thrown out of the nest by the parents, and +then dragged away out of danger into the field, the parents mounting +guard over their bruised and dislocated offspring, and the whole group +transformed in the glow into a beautiful, rosy, dazzling white, into a +family of spiritualised, glorified storks, as they huddled ruefully +together in their place of refuge. Anna saw them without knowing that +she saw them; there were three little ones, and one was dead. The +princess and Letty found her standing beside them, watching the roaring +furnace of the stableyard with parted lips and wide-open, +horror-stricken eyes. + +"Most of the horses were got out in time," said the princess, taking +Anna's arm, determined that she should not again slip away, "and they +say the buildings are fully insured, and he will be able to have much +better ones." + +"But the time lost--they can't be built in a day----" + +"The man I spoke to said they were such old buildings and in such a bad +state that Axel can congratulate himself that they have been burned. But +of course there will always be the time lost. Have you seen him? Let us +go on a little--we shall be scorched to cinders here." + +Both Axel and Dellwig were superintending the working of the hose. "I do +not want my trees destroyed," he said to Dellwig, with whom in the +stress of the moment he had resumed his earlier manner; "they are not +insured." He had watched the stables go with an impassiveness that +struck several of the bystanders as odd. Dellwig and many others of the +dwellers in that district were used to making a great noise on all +occasions great and small, and they could by no means believe that it +was natural to Axel to remain so calm at such a moment. "It is a great +nuisance," Axel said more than once; but that also was hardly an +adequate expression of feelings. + +"They are well insured, I believe?" said Dellwig. + +"Oh yes. I shall be able to have nice tight buildings in their place." + +"They were certainly rather--rather dilapidated," said Dellwig, eyeing +him. + +"They were very dilapidated," said Axel. + +Anna and the princess stood a little way from the engines watching the +efforts to check the spread of the fire for some time before Axel +noticed them. Manske, who had been the first to volunteer as a link in +the human chain to the pump, bowed and smiled from his place at them, +and was stared at in return by both women, who wondered who the begrimed +and friendly individual could be. "It is the pastor," then said the +princess, smiling back at him; on which Manske's smiles and bows +redoubled, and he spilt half the contents of the bucket passing through +his hands. + +"So it is," said Anna. + +"Take care there, No. 3!" roared Dellwig, affecting not to know who No. +3 was, and glad of an opportunity of calling the parson to order. +Dellwig was making so much noise flinging orders and reprimands about, +that a stranger would certainly have taken him for the frantic owner of +the burning property. + +"You see the pastor looks anything but alarmed," said the princess. "If +Axel were losing much by this, Manske would be weeping into his bucket +instead of smiling so kindly at us." + +"So he would," said Anna, a little reassured by that cheerful and grimy +countenance. Her eyes wandered to Axel, so cool and so vigilant, giving +the necessary orders so quietly, losing no precious moments in trying to +save what was past saving, and without any noise or any abuse getting +what he wanted done. "It _can't_ be a good thing, a fire like this," she +said to herself. "Whatever they say, it _can't_ be a good thing." + +A huge pine-tree was dragged down at that moment, dragged in a direction +away from its fellows, against a beech, whose branches it tore down in +its fall, ruining the beech for ever, but smothering a few of its own +twigs that had begun to burn among the fresh young leaves. Anna watched +the havoc going on among poor Axel's trees in silence. "He _can't_ not +care," she said to herself. He turned round quickly at that moment, as +though he heard her thinking of him, and looked straight into her eyes. +"You here!" he exclaimed, striding across the road to her at once. + +"Yes, we are here," replied the princess. "We cannot let our neighbour +burn without coming to see if we can do anything. But seriously, I hear +that it is a good thing for you." + +"I prefer the less good thing that I had before, just now. But it is +gone. I shall not waste time fretting over it." + +He ran back again to stop something that was being done wrong, but +returned immediately to tell them to go into his house and not stand +there in the heat. "You look so tired--and anxious," he said, his eyes +searching Anna's face. "Why are you anxious? The fire has frightened +you? It is all insured, I assure you, and there is only the bother of +having to build just now." + +He could not stay, and hurried back to his men. + +"We can go indoors a moment," said the princess, "and see what is going +on in his house. It will be standing empty and open, and it is not +necessary that he should suffer losses from thieves as well as from +fire. His Mamsell is like all bachelors' Mamsells--losing, I am sure, no +opportunity of feathering her nest at his expense." + +Anna thought this a practical way of helping Axel, since the throwing of +water on the flames was not required of her. She turned to call Letty, +and found that no Letty was to be seen. "Why, where is Letty?" she +asked, looking round. + +"I thought she was behind us," said the princess. + +"So did I," said Anna anxiously. + +They went back a few steps, looking for her among the bystanders. They +saw her at last a long way off, her handkerchief still round her head +and her long thick hair blowing round her shoulders, rapt in +contemplation of the fiery furnace. Then a shout went up from the people +in the road, and they all ran back into the potato field. Anna and the +princess stood rooted to the spot, clutching each other's hands. Letty +looked round when she heard the shout, and began to run too. The flaming +outer wall of the yard swayed and tottered and then fell outwards with a +terrific crash and crackling, filling the road with a smoking heap of +rubbish, and sending a shower of sparks on a puff of wind after the +flying spectators. + +The princess had certainly not run so fast since her girlhood as she did +with Anna towards the spot in the field where they had last seen Letty. +A crowd had gathered round it, they could see, an excited, gesticulating +crowd. But they found her apparently unhurt, sitting on the ground, +surrounded by sympathisers, and with someone's coat over her head. She +looked up, very pale, but smiling apologetically at her aunt. "It's all +gone," she said, pointing to her head. + +"What is gone?" cried Anna, dropping on her knees beside her. + +"_Ach Gott, die Haare--die herrlichen Haare!_" lamented a woman in the +crowd. The smell of burnt hair explained what had happened. + +Anna seized her in her arms. "You might have been killed--you might have +been killed," she panted, rocking her to and fro. "Oh, Letty--who saved +you?" + +"Somebody put this beastly thing over my head--it smells of herrings. +Sparks got into my hair, and it all frizzled up. Can't I take this off? +It's out now--and off too." + +The princess felt all over her head through the coat, patting and +pressing it carefully; then she took the coat off, and restored it with +effusive thanks to its sheepish owner. There was a murmur of sympathy +from the women as Letty emerged, shorn of those flowing curls that were +her only glory. "_Oh Weh, die herrlichen Haare!_" sighed the women to +one another, "_Oh Weh, oh Weh!_" But the handkerchief tied so tightly +round her head had saved her from a worse fate; she had been an ugly +little girl before--all that had happened was that she looked now like +an ugly little boy. + +"I say, Aunt Anna, don't mind," said Letty; for her aunt was crying, and +kissing her, and tying and untying the handkerchief, and arranging and +rearranging it, and stroking and smoothing the singed irregular wisps of +hair that were left as though she loved them. "I'm frightfully sorry--I +didn't know you were so fond of my hair." + +"Come, we'll go to the house," was all Anna said, stumbling on to her +feet and putting her arm round Letty. And they clung to each other so +close that they could hardly walk. + +"We are going indoors a moment," called the princess, who was very pale, +to Axel as they passed the engines. + +He smiled across at her, and lifted his hat. + +"I never saw anyone quite so composed," she observed to Anna, trying to +turn her attention to other things. "Your man Dellwig, who has nothing +to do with it all, is displaying the kind of behaviour the people expect +on these occasions. I am sure that Axel has puzzled a great many people +to-night." + +Anna did not answer. She was thinking only of Letty. What a slender +thread of chance had saved her from death, from a dreadful death, the +little Letty who was under her care, for whom she was responsible, and +whom she had quite forgotten in her stupid interest in Axel Lohm's +affairs. Woman-like, she felt very angry with Axel. What did it matter +to her whether his place burnt to ashes or not? But Letty mattered to +her, her own little niece, poor solitary Letty, practically motherless, +so ugly, and so full of good intentions. She had scolded her so much +about Klutz; wretched Klutz, it was entirely his fault that Letty had +been so silly, and yet only Letty had had the scoldings. Anna held her +closer. In the light of that narrow escape how trivial, how indifferent, +all this folly of love-talk and messages and anger seemed. For a short +space she touched the realities, she saw life and death in their true +proportion; and even while she was looking at them with clear and +startled vision they were blurred again into indistinctness, they faded +away and were gone--rubbed out by the inevitable details of the passing +hour. + +"I thought as much," said the princess, as they drew near the house. +"All the doors wide open and the place deserted." And Anna came back +with a start from the reality to the well-known dream of daily life, and +immediately felt as though that other flash had been the dream and only +this were real. + +The hall was in darkness, but there was light shining through the chinks +of a door, and they groped their way towards it. The house was as quiet +as death. They could hear the distant shouts of the men cutting down the +trees in the garden, and the blows of the axes. The princess pushed open +the door behind which the light was, and they found themselves in Axel's +study, where the candles he had lit in order to read Letty's poem were +still guttering and flaring in the draught from the open window. A clock +on the writing-table showed that it was past midnight. The room looked +very untidy and ill-cared for. + +"A man without a wife," said the princess, gazing round at the litter, +composed chiefly of cigar-ashes and old envelopes, "is a truly miserable +being. What condition can be more wretched than to be at the mercy of a +Mamsell? I shall go and inquire into the whereabouts of this one. Axel +will want some food when he comes in." + +She took up one of the candles and went out. Letty had sat down at once +on the nearest chair, and was looking very pale. Anna untied the +handkerchief, and tried to arrange what was left of her hair. "I must +cut off these uneven ends," she said, "but there won't be any scissors +here." + +"I say," began Letty, staring very hard at her. + +"I believe you were terribly scared, you poor little creature," said +Anna, struck by her pale face, and passing her hand tenderly over the +singed head. + +"Oh, not much. A bit, of course. But it was soon over. Don't worry. What +will mamma say to my head?" And Letty's mouth widened into a grin at +this thought. "I say," she began again, relapsing into solemnity. + +"Well, what?" smiled Anna, sitting down on the same chair and putting +her arm round her. + +"You don't know the whole of that poetry business." + +"That silly business with Herr Klutz? Oh, was there more of it? Oh, +Letty, what did you do more? I am so tired of it, and of him, and of +everything. Tell me, and then we'll forget it for ever." + +"I'm afraid you won't forget it. I'm afraid I'm a bigger beast than you +think, Aunt Anna," said Letty, with a conviction that frightened Anna. + +"Oh, Letty," she said faintly, "what did you do?" + +"Why, I--I _will_ get it out--I--he was so miserable, and went on so +when you didn't answer that poetry--that he sent with the heart, you +know----" + +"Oh yes, I know." + +"Well, he was in such a state about it that I--that I made up a poem, +just to comfort him, you know, and keep him quiet, and--and pretended it +came from you." She threw back her head and looked up at her aunt. +"There now, it's out," she said defiantly. + +Anna was silent for a moment. "Was it--was it very affectionate?" she +asked under her breath. Then she slipped down on to the floor, and put +both her arms round Letty. "Don't tell me," she cried, laying her face +on Letty's knees, "I don't want to know. Suppose you had been dreadfully +hurt just now, burnt, or--or dead, what would it have mattered? Oh, we +will forget all that ridiculous nonsense, and only never, never be so +silly again. Let us be happy together, and finish with Herr Klutz for +ever--it was all so stupid, and so little worth while." And she put up +her face, and they both began to cry and kiss each other through their +tears. And so it came about that Letty was in the same hour relieved of +the burden on her conscience, of most of her hair, and was taken once +again, and with redoubled enthusiasm, into Anna's heart. Logic had never +been Anna's strong point. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +When Axel came in two hours later, bringing Dellwig and Manske and two +or three other helpers, farmers, who had driven across the plain to do +what they could, he found his house lit up and food and drink set out +ready in the dining-room. + +Letty and Anna had had time to recover from their tears and vows, sundry +small blisters on the back of Letty's neck had been treated with cotton +wool, and they had emerged from their agitation to a calmer state in +which the helping of the princess in the middle of the night to make +somebody else's house comfortable was not without its joys. The Mamsell, +no more able than the Kleinwalde servants to withstand the authority of +the princess's name and eye, had collected the maids and worked with a +will; and when, all danger of the fire spreading being over, Axel came +in dirty and smoky and scorched, prepared to have to hunt himself in the +dark house for the refreshment he could not but offer his helpers, he +was agreeably surprised to find the lamp in the hall alight, and to be +met by a wide-awake Mamsell in a clean apron who proposed to provide the +gentlemen with hot water. This was very attentive. Axel had never known +her so thoughtful. The gentlemen, however, with one accord refused the +hot water; they would drink a glass of wine, perhaps, as Herr von Lohm +so kindly suggested, and then go to their homes and beds as quickly as +possible. Manske, by far the grimiest, was also the most decided in his +refusal; he was a godly man, but he did not love supererogatory +washings, under which heading surely a washing at two o'clock in the +morning came. Axel left them in the hall a moment, and went into his +study to fetch cigars; and there he found Letty, hiding behind the door. + +"You here, young lady?" he exclaimed surprised, stopping short. + +"Don't let anyone see me," she whispered. "Princess Ludwig and Aunt Anna +are in the dining-room. I ran in here when I heard people with you. My +hair is all burnt off." + +"What, you went too near?" + +"Sparks came after me. Don't let them come in----" + +"You were not hurt?" + +"No. A little--on the back of my neck, but it's hardly anything." + +"I am very glad your hair was burnt off," said Axel with great severity. + +"So am I," was the hearty reply. "The tangles at night were something +awful." + +He stood silent for a moment, the cigar-boxes under his arm, uncertain +whether he ought not to enlighten her as to the reprehensibility of her +late conduct in regard to her aunt and Klutz. Evidently her conscience +was cloudless, and yet she had done more harm than was quite calculable. +Axel was fairly certain that Klutz had set fire to the stables. +Absolutely certain he could not be, but the first blaze had occurred so +nearly at the moment when Klutz must have reached them on his way home, +that he had hardly a doubt about it. It was his duty as Amtsvorsteher to +institute inquiries. If these inquiries ended in the arrest of Klutz, +the whole silly story about Anna would come out, for Klutz would be only +too eager to explain the reasons that had driven him to the act; and +what an unspeakable joy for the province, and what a delicious +excitement for Stralsund! He could only hope that Klutz was not the +culprit, he could only hope it fervently with all his heart; for if he +was, the child peeping out at him so cheerfully from behind the door had +managed to make an amount of mischief and bring an amount of trouble on +Anna that staggered him. Such a little nonsense, and such far-reaching +consequences! He could not speak when he thought of it, and strode past +her indignantly, and left the room without a word. + +"Now what's the row with _him_?" Letty asked herself, her finger in her +mouth; for Axel had looked at her as he passed with very grave and angry +eyes. + +The men waiting in the hall were slightly disconcerted, on being taken +into the dining-room, to find the Kleinwalde ladies there. None of them, +except Manske, liked ladies; and ladies in the small hours of the +morning were a special weariness to the flesh. Dellwig, having made his +two deep bows to them, looked meaningly at his friends the other +farmers; Miss Estcourt's private engagement to Lohm seemed to be placed +beyond a doubt by her presence in his house on this occasion. + +"How delightful of you," said Axel to her in English. + +"I am glad to hear," she replied stiffly in German, for she was still +angry with him because of Letty's hair, "I am glad to hear that you will +have no losses from this." + +"Losses!" cried Manske. "On the contrary, it is the best thing that +could happen--the very best thing. Those stables have long been almost +unfit for use, Herr von Lohm, and I can say from my heart that I was +glad to see them go. They were all to pieces even in your father's +time." + +"Yes, they ought to have been rebuilt long ago, but one has not always +the money in one's pocket. Help yourself, my dear pastor." + +"Who is the enemy?" broke in Dellwig's harsh voice. + +"Ah, who indeed?" said Manske, looking sad. "That is the melancholy side +of the affair--that someone, presumably of my parish, should commit such +a crime." + +"He has done me a great service, anyhow," said Axel, filling the +glasses. + +"He has imperilled his immortal soul," said Manske. + +"Have you such an enemy?" asked Anna, surprised. + +"I did not know it. Most likely it was some poor, half-witted devil, or +perhaps--perhaps a child." + +"But I saw the blaze immediately after I passed you," said Dellwig. "You +were within a stone's throw of the stables, going home. I had hardly +reached them when the fire broke out. Did you then see no one on the +road?" + +"No, I did not," said Axel shortly. There was an aggressive note in +Dellwig's voice that made him fear he was going to be very zealous in +helping to bring the delinquent to justice. + +"It was the supper hour," said Dellwig, musing, "and the men would all +be indoors. Had you been to the stables, _gnädiger Herr_?" + +"No, I had not. Take another glass of wine. A cigar? Whoever it was, he +has done me a good turn." + +"Beyond all doubt he has," said Dellwig, his eyes fixed on Axel with an +odd expression. + +"Some of us would have no objection to the same thing happening at our +places," remarked one of the farmers jocosely. + +"No objection whatever," agreed another with a laugh. + +"If the man could be trusted to display the same discrimination +everywhere," said the third. + +"Joke not about crime," said Manske, rebuking them. + +"The discrimination was certainly remarkable," said Dellwig. + +"That is why I think it must have been done by some person more or less +imbecile," said Axel; "otherwise one of the good buildings, whose +destruction would really have harmed me, would have been chosen." + +"He must be hunted down, imbecile or not," said Dellwig. + +"I shall do my duty," said Axel stiffly. + +"You may rely on my help," said Dellwig. + +"You are very good," said Axel. + +Dellwig's voice had something ominous about it that made Anna shiver. +What a detestable man he was, always and at all times. His whole manner +to-night struck her as specially offensive. "What will be done to the +poor wretch when he is caught?" she asked Axel. + +"He will be imprisoned," Dellwig answered promptly. + +She turned her back on him. "Even though he is half-witted?" she said to +Axel. "Are you obliged to look for him? Can't you leave him alone? He +has done you a service, after all." + +"I must look for him," said Axel; "it is my duty as Amtsvorsteher." + +"And the gracious Miss should consider----" shouted Dellwig from behind. + +"I'll consider nothing," said Anna, turning to him quickly. + +"--should consider the demands of justice----" + +"First the demands of humanity," said Anna, her back to him. + +"Noble," murmured Manske. + +"The gracious Miss's sentiments invariably do credit to her heart," said +Dellwig, bowing profoundly. + +"But not to her head, he thinks," said Anna to Axel in English, faintly +smiling. + +"Don't talk to him," Axel replied in a low voice; "the man so palpably +hates us both. You must go home. Where is your carriage? Princess, take +her home." + +"_Ach, Herr Dellwig, seien Sie so freundlich_----" began the princess +mellifluously; and despatched him in search of Fritz. + +When they reached Kleinwalde, silent, wornout, and only desiring to +creep upstairs and into their beds, they were met by Frau von Treumann +and the baroness, who both wore injured and disapproving faces. Letty +slipped up to her room at once, afraid of criticisms of her +hairlessness. + +"We have waited for you all night, Anna," said Frau von Treumann in an +aggrieved voice. + +"You oughtn't to have," said Anna wearily. + +"We could not suppose that you were really looking at the fire all this +time," said the baroness. + +"And we were anxious," said Frau von Treumann. "My dear, you should not +make us anxious." + +"You might have left word, or taken us with you," said the baroness. + +"We are quite as much interested in Herr von Lohm as Letty or Princess +Ludwig can be," said Frau von Treumann. + +"Nobody could tell us here for certain whether you had really gone there +or not." + +"Nor could anybody give us any information as to the extent of the +disaster." + +"We presumed the princess was with you, but even that was not certain." + +"My dear baroness," murmured the princess, untying her shawl, "only you +would have had a doubt of it." + +"The reflection in the sky faded hours ago," said Frau vein Treumann. + +"And yet you did not return," said the baroness. "Where did you go +afterwards?" + +"Oh, I'll tell you everything to-morrow. Good-night," said Anna, candle +in hand. + +"What! Now that we have waited, and in such anxiety, you will tell us +nothing?" + +"There really is nothing to tell. And I am so tired--good-night." + +"We have kept the servants up and the kettle boiling in case you should +want coffee." + +"That was very kind, but I only want bed. Good-night." + +"We too were weary, but you see we have waited in spite of it." + +"Oh, you shouldn't have. You will be so tired. Good-night." + +She went upstairs, pulling herself up each step by the baluster. +The clock on the landing struck half-past three. Was it not +Napoleon, she thought, who said something to the point about +three-o'clock-in-the-morning courage? Had no one ever said anything to +the point about three-o'clock-in-the-morning love for one's +fellow-creatures? "Good-night," she said once more, turning her head and +nodding wearily to them as they watched her from below with indignant +faces. + +She glanced at the clock, and went into her room dejectedly; for she had +made a startling discovery: at three o'clock in the morning her feeling +towards the Chosen was one of indifference verging on dislike. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +Looking up from her breakfast the morning after the fire to see who it +was riding down the street, Frau Manske beheld Dellwig coming towards +her garden gate. Her husband was in his dressing-gown and slippers, a +costume he affected early in the day, and they were taking their coffee +this fine weather at a table in their roomy porch. There was, therefore, +no possibility of hiding the dressing-gown, nor yet the fact that her +cap was not as fresh as a cap on which the great Dellwig's eyes were to +rest, should be. She knew that Dellwig was not a star of the first +magnitude like Herr von Lohm, but he was a very magnificent specimen of +those of the second order, and she thought him much more imposing than +Axel, whose quiet ways she had never understood. Dellwig snubbed her so +systematically and so brutally that she could not but respect and admire +him: she was one of those women who enjoy kissing the rod. In a great +flutter she hurried to the gate to open it for him, receiving in return +neither thanks nor greeting. "Good-morning, good-morning," she said, +bowing repeatedly. "A fine morning, Herr Dellwig." + +"Where's Klutz?" he asked curtly, neither getting off his horse nor +taking off his hat. + +"Oh, the poor young man, Herr Dellwig!" she began with uplifted hands. +"He has had a letter from home, and is much upset. His father----" + +"Where is he?" + +"His father? In bed, and not expected to----" + +"Where's Klutz, I say--young Klutz? Herr Manske, just step down here a +minute--good-morning. I want to see your vicar." + +"My vicar has had bad news from home, and is gone." + +"Gone?" + +"This very morning. Poor fellow, his aged father----" + +"I don't care a curse for his aged father. What train?" + +"The half-past nine train. He went in the post-cart at seven." + +Dellwig jerked his horse round, and without a word rode away in the +direction of Stralsund. "I'll catch him yet," he thought, and rode as +hard as he could. + +"What can he want with the vicar?" wondered Frau Manske. + +"A rough manner, but I doubt not a good heart," said her husband, +sighing; and he folded his flapping dressing-gown pensively about his +legs. + +Klutz was on the platform waiting for the Berlin train, due in five +minutes, when Dellwig came up behind and laid a hand on his shoulder. + +"What! Are you going to jump out of your skin?" Dellwig inquired with a +burst of laughter. + +Klutz stared at him speechlessly after that first start, waiting for +what would follow. His face was ghastly. + +"Father so bad, eh?" said Dellwig heartily. "Nerves all gone, what? +Well, it's enough to make a boy look pale to have his father on his +last----" + +"What do you _want_?" whispered Klutz with pale lips. Several persons +who knew Dellwig were on the platform, and were staring. + +"Why," said Dellwig, sinking his voice a little, "you have heard of the +fire--I did not see you helping, by the way? You were with Herr von Lohm +last night--don't look so frightened, man--if I did not know about your +father I'd think there was something on your mind. I only want to ask +you--there is a strange rumour going about----" + +"I am going home--_home_, do you hear?" said Klutz wildly. + +"Certainly you are. No one wants to stop you. Who do you think they say +set fire to the stables?" + +Klutz looked as though he would faint. + +"They say Lohm did it himself," said Dellwig in a low voice, his eyes +fixed on the young man's face. + +Klutz's ears burnt suddenly bright red. He looked down, looked up, +looked over his shoulder in the direction from whence the train would +come. Small cold beads of agitation stood out on his narrow forehead. + +"The point is," said Dellwig, who had not missed a movement of that +twitching face, "that you must have been with Lohm nearly till the time +when--you went straight to him after leaving us?" + +Klutz bowed his head. + +"Then you couldn't have left him long before it broke out. I met him +myself between the stables and his gate five minutes, two minutes, +before the fire. He went past without a word, in a great hurry, as +though he hoped I had not recognised him. Now tell me what you know +about it. Just tell me if you saw anything. It is to both our interests +to cut his claws." + +Klutz pressed his hands together, and looked round again for the train. + +"Do you know what will certainly happen if you try to be generous and +shield him? He'll say _you_ did it, and so get rid of you and hush up +the affair with Miss Estcourt. I can see by your face you know who did +it. Everyone is saying it is Lohm." + +"But why? Why should he? Why should he burn his own----" stammered +Klutz, in dreadful agitation. + +"Why? Because they were in ruins, and well insured. Because he had no +money for new ones; and because now the insurance company will give him +the money. The thing is so plain--I am so convinced that he did it----" + +They heard the train coming. Klutz stooped down quickly and clutched his +bag. "No, no," said Dellwig, catching his arm and gripping it tight, "I +shall not let you go till you say what you know. You or Lohm to be +punished--which do you prefer?" + +Klutz gave Dellwig a despairing, hunted look. "He--he----" he began, +struggling to get the words over his dry lips. + +"He did it? You know it? You saw it?" + +"Yes, yes, I saw it--I saw him----" + +Klutz burst into a wild fit of sobbing. + +"_Armer Junge_," cried Dellwig very loud, patting his back very hard. +"It is indeed terrible--one's father so ill--on his death-bed--and such +a long journey of suspense before you----" + +And sympathising at the top of his voice he looked for an empty +compartment, hustled him into it, pushing him up the high steps and +throwing his bag in after him, and then stood talking loudly of sick +fathers till the last moment. "I trust you will find the _Herr Papa_ +better than you expect," he shouted after the moving train. "Don't give +way--don't give way. That is our vicar," he exclaimed to an acquaintance +who was standing near; "an only son, and he has just heard that his +father is dying. He is overwhelmed, poor devil, with grief." + +To his wife on his arrival home he said, "My dear Theresa,"--a mode of +address only used on the rare occasions of supremest satisfaction--"my +dear Theresa, you may set your mind at rest about our friend Lohm. The +Miss will never marry him, and he himself will not trouble us much +longer." And they had a short conversation in private, and later on at +dinner they opened a bottle of champagne, and explaining to the servant +that it was an aunt's birthday, drank the aunt's health over and over +again, and were merrier than they had been for years. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +It was an odd and a nearly invariable consequence of Anna's cold morning +bath that she made resolutions in great numbers. The morning after the +fire there were more of them than ever. In a glow she assured herself +that she was not going to allow dejection and discouragement to take +possession of her so easily, that she would not, in future, be so much +the slave of her bodily condition, growing selfish, indifferent, unkind, +in proportion as she grew tired. What, she asked, tying her waist-ribbon +with great vigour, was the use of having a soul and its longings after +perfection if it was so absolutely the slave of its encasing body, if it +only received permission from the body to flutter its wings a little in +those rare moments when its master was completely comfortable and +completely satisfied? She was ashamed of herself for being so easily +affected by the heat and stress of the days with the Chosen. How was it +that her ideals were crushed out of sight continually by the mere weight +of the details of everyday existence? She would keep them more carefully +in view, pursue them with a more unfaltering patience--in a word, she +was going to be wise. Life was such a little thing, she reflected, so +very quickly done; how foolish, then, to forget so constantly that +everything that vexed her and made her sorry was flying past and away +even while it grieved her, dwindling in the distance with every hour, +and never coming back. What she had done and suffered last year, how +indifferent, of what infinitely little importance it was, now; and yet +she had been very strenuous about it at the time, inclined to resist and +struggle, taking it over-much to heart, acting as though it were always +going to be there. Oh, she would be wise in future, enjoying all there +was to enjoy, loving all there was to love, and shutting her eyes to the +rest. She would not, for instance, expect more from her Chosen than +they, being as they were, could give. Obviously they could not give her +more than they possessed, either of love, or comprehension, or +charitableness, or anything else that was precious; and it was because +she looked for more that she was for ever feeling disappointed. She +would take them as they were, being happy in what they did give her, and +ignoring what was less excellent. She herself was irritating, she was +sure, and often she saw did produce an irritating effect on the Chosen. +Of sundry minor failings, so minor that she was ashamed of having +noticed them, but which had yet done much towards making the days +difficult, she tried not to think. Indeed, they could hardly be made the +subject of resolutions at all, they were so very trivial. They included +a habit Frau von Treumann had of shutting every window and door that +stood open, whatever the weather was, and however pointedly the others +gasped for air; the exceedingly odd behaviour, forced upon her notice +four times a day, of Fräulein Kuhräuber at table; and an insatiable +curiosity displayed by the baroness in regard to other people's +correspondence and servants--every postcard she read, every envelope she +examined, every telegram, for some always plausible reason, she thought +it her duty to open: and her interest in the doings of the maids was +unquenchable. "These are little ways," thought Anna, "that don't +matter." And she thought it impatiently, for the little ways persisted +in obtruding themselves on her remembrance in the middle of her fine +plans of future wisdom. "If we could all get outside our bodies, even +for one day, and simply go about in our souls, how nice it would be!" +she sighed; but meanwhile the souls of the Chosen were still enveloped +in aggressive bodies that continued to shut windows, open telegrams, and +convey food into their mouths on knives. + +The one belonging to Frau von Treumann was at that moment engaged in +writing with feverish haste to Karlchen, bidding him lose no time in +coming, for mischief was afoot, and Anna was showing an alarming +interest in the affairs of that specious hypocrite Lohm. "Come +unexpectedly," she wrote; "it will be better to take her by surprise; +and above all things come at once." + +She gave the letter herself to the postman, and then, having nothing to +do but needlework that need not be done, and feeling out of sorts after +the long night's watch, and uneasy about Axel Lohm's evident attraction +for Anna, she went into the drawing-room and spent the morning +elaborately differing from the baroness. + +They differed often; it could hardly be called quarrelling, but there +was a continual fire kept up between them of remarks that did not make +for peace. Over their needlework they addressed those observations to +each other that were most calculated to annoy. Frau von Treumann would +boast of her ancestral home at Kadenstein, its magnificence, and the +style in which, with a superb disregard for expense, her brother kept it +up, well knowing that the baroness had had no home more ancestral than a +flat in a provincial town; and the baroness would retort by relating, as +an instance of the grievous slanderousness of so-called friends, a +palpably malicious story she had heard of manure heaps before the +ancestral door, and of unprevented poultry in the _Schloss_ itself. +Once, stirred beyond the bounds of prudence enjoined by Karlchen, Frau +von Treumann had begun to sympathise with the Elmreich family's +misfortune in including a member like Lolli; but had been so much +frightened by her victim's immediate and dreadful pallor that she had +turned it off, deciding to leave the revelation of her full knowledge of +Lolli to Karlchen. + +The only occasions on which they agreed were when together they attacked +Fräulein Kuhräuber; and more than once already that hapless young woman +had gone away to cry. Anna's thoughts had been filled lately by other +things, and she had not paid much attention to what was being talked +about; but yet it seemed to her that Frau von Treumann and the baroness +had discovered a subject on which Fräulein Kuhräuber was abnormally +sensitive and secretive, and that again and again when they were tired +of sparring together they returned to this subject, always in amiable +tones and with pleasant looks, and always reducing the poor Fräulein to +a pitiable state of confusion; which state being reached, and she gone +out to hide her misery in her bedroom, they would look at each other and +smile. + +In all that concerned Fräulein Kuhräuber they were in perfect accord, +and absolutely pitiless. It troubled Anna, for the Fräulein was the one +member of the trio who was really happy--so long, that is, as the others +left her alone. Invigorated by her cold tub into a belief in the +possibility of peace-making, she made one more resolution: to establish +without delay concord between the three. It was so clearly to their own +advantage to live together in harmony; surely a calm talking-to would +make them see that, and desire it. They were not children, neither were +they, presumably, more unreasonable than other people; nor could they, +she thought, having suffered so much themselves, be intentionally +unkind. That very day she would make things straight. + +She could not of course dream that the periodical putting to confusion +of Fräulein Kuhräuber was the one thing that kept the other two alive. +They found life at Kleinwalde terribly dull. There were no neighbours, +and they did not like forests. The princess hardly showed herself; Anna +was English, besides being more or less of a lunatic--the combination, +when you came to think of it, was alarming,--and they soon wearied of +pouring into each other's highly sceptical ears descriptions of the +splendours of their prosperous days. The visits of the parson had at +first been a welcome change, for they were both religious women who +loved to impress a new listener with the amount of their faith and +resignation; but when they knew him a little better, and had said the +same things several times, and found that as soon as they paused he +began to expatiate on the advantages and joys of their present mode of +life with Miss Estcourt, of which no one had been talking, they were +bored, and left off being pleased to see him, and fell back for +amusement on their own bickerings, and the probing of Fräulein +Kuhräuber's tender places. + +About midday Anna, who had been writing German letters all the morning +helped by the princess, letters of inquiry concerning a new teacher for +Letty, came round by the path outside the drawing-room window looking +for the Chosen, and prepared to talk to them of concord. The window was +shut, and she knocked on the pane, trying to see into the shady room. It +was a broiling day, and she had no hat; therefore she knocked again, and +held her hands above her head, for the sun was intolerable. She wore one +of her last summer's dresses, a lilac muslin that in spite of its age +seemed in Kleinwalde to be quite absurdly pretty. She herself looked +prettier than ever out there in the light, the sun beating down on her +burnished hair. + +"Anna wants to come in," said Frau von Treumann, looking up from her +embroidery at the figure in the sun. + +"I suppose she does," said the baroness tranquilly. + +Neither of them moved. + +Anna knocked again. + +"She will be sunstruck," observed Frau von Treumann. + +"I think she will," agreed the baroness. + +Neither of them moved. + +Anna stooped down, and tried to look into the room, but could see +nothing. She knocked again; waited a moment; and then went away. + +The two ladies embroidered in silence. + +"Absurd old maid," Frau von Treumann thought, glancing at the baroness. +"As though a married woman of my age and standing could get up and open +windows when she is in the room." + +"Ridiculous old Treumann," thought the baroness, outwardly engrossed by +her work. "What does she think, I wonder? I shall teach her that I am as +good as herself, and am not here to open windows any more than she is." + +"Why, you _are_ here," said Anna, surprised, coming in at the door. + +"Where have you been all the morning?" inquired Frau von Treumann +amiably. "We hardly ever see you, dear Anna. I hope you have come now to +sit with us a little while. Come, sit next to me, and let us have a nice +chat." + +She made room for her on the sofa. + +"Where is Emilie?" Anna asked; Emilie was Fräulein Kuhräuber, and Anna +was the only person in the house who called her so. + +"She came in some time ago, but went away at once. She does not, I fear, +feel at ease with us." + +"That is exactly what I want to talk about," said Anna. + +"Is it? Why, how strange. Last night, while we were waiting for you, the +baroness and I had a serious conversation about Fräulein Kuhräuber, and +we decided to tell you what conclusions we came to on the first +opportunity." + +"Certainly," said the baroness. + +"It is surprising that Princess Ludwig should not have opened your +eyes." + +"It is truly surprising," said the baroness. + +"But they are open. And they have seen that you are not very--not +quite--well, not _very_ kind to poor Emilie. Don't you like her?" + +"My dear Anna, we have found it quite impossible to like Fräulein +Kuhräuber." + +"Or even endure her," amended the baroness. + +"And yet I never saw a kinder, more absolutely amiable creature," said +Anna. + +"You are deceived in her," said Frau von Treumann. + +"We have found out that she is here under false pretences," said the +baroness. + +"Which," said Frau von Treumann, unable to forbear glancing at the +baroness, "is a very dreadful thing." + +"Certainly," agreed the baroness. + +Anna looked from one to the other. "Well?" she said, as they did not go +on. Then the thought of her peace-making errand came into her mind, and +her certainty that she only needed to talk quietly to these two in order +to convince. "What do you think I came in to say to you?" she said, with +a low laugh in which there was no mirth. "I was going to propose that +you should both begin now to love Emilie. You have made her cry so +often--I have seen her coming out of this room so often with red +eyes--that I was sure you must be tired of that now, and would like to +begin to live happily with her, loving her for all that is so good in +her, and not minding the rest." + +"My dear Anna," said Frau von Treumann testily, "it is out of the +question that ladies of birth and breeding should tolerate her." + +"Certainly it is," emphatically agreed the baroness. + +"And why? Isn't she a woman like ourselves? Wasn't she poor and +miserable too? And won't she go to heaven by and by, just as we, I hope, +shall?" + +They thought this profane. + +"We shall all, I trust, meet in heaven," said Frau von Treumann gently. +Then she went on, clearing her throat, "But meanwhile we think it our +duty to ask you if you know what her father was." + +"He was a man of letters," said Anna, remembering the very words of +Fräulein Kuhräuber's reply to her inquiries. + +"Exactly. But of what letters?" + +"She tried to give us that same answer," said the baroness. + +"Of what letters?" repeated Anna, looking puzzled. + +"He carried all the letters he ever had in a bag," said Frau von +Treumann. + +"In a bag?" + +"In a word, dear child, he was a postman, and she has told you +untruths." + +There was a silence. Anna pushed at a neighbouring footstool with the +toe of her shoe. "It is not pretty," she said after a while, her eyes on +the footstool, "to tell untruths." + +"Certainly it is not," agreed the baroness. + +"Especially in this case," said Frau von Treumann. + +"Yes, especially in this case," said Anna, looking up. + +"We thought you could not know the truth, and felt certain you would be +shocked. Now you will understand how impossible it is for ladies of +family to associate with such a person, and we are sure that you will +not ask us to do so, but will send her away." + +"No," said Anna, in a low voice. + +"No what, dear child?" inquired Frau von Treumann sweetly. + +"I cannot send her away." + +"You cannot send her away?" they cried together. Both let their work +drop into their laps, and both stared blankly at Anna, who looked at the +footstool. + +"Have you made a lifelong contract with her?" asked Frau von Treumann, +with great heat, no such contract having been made in her own case. + +"I did not quite say what I mean," said Anna, looking up again. "I do +not mean that I cannot really send her away, for of course I can if I +choose. Exactly what I mean is that I will not." + +There was a pause. Neither of the ladies had expected such an attitude. + +"This is very serious," then observed Frau von Treumann helplessly. She +took up her work again and pulled at the stitches, making knots in the +thread. Both she and the baroness had felt so certain that Anna would be +properly incensed when she heard the truth. Her manner without doubt +suggested displeasure, but the displeasure, strangely enough, seemed to +be directed against themselves instead of Fräulein Kuhräuber. What could +they, with dignity, do next? Frau von Treumann felt angry and perplexed. +She remembered Karlchen's advice in regard to ultimatums, and wished she +had remembered it sooner; but who could have imagined the extent of +Anna's folly? Never, she reflected, had she met anyone quite so foolish. + +"It is a case for the police," burst out the baroness passionately, all +the pride of all the Elmreichs surging up in revolt against a fate +threatening to condemn her to spend the rest of her days with the +progeny of a postman. "Your advertisement specially mentioned good birth +as essential, and she is here under false pretences. You have the proofs +in her letters. She is within reach of the arm of the law." + +Anna could not help smiling. "Don't denounce her," she said. "I should +be appalled if anything approaching the arm of the law got into my +house. I'll burn the proofs after dinner." Then she turned to Frau von +Treumann. "If you think it over," she said, "I _know_ you will not wish +me to be so merciless, so pitiless, as to send Emilie back to misery +only because her father, who has been dead thirty years, was a postman." + +"But, Anna, you must be reasonable--you must look at the other side. No +Treumann has ever yet been required to associate----" + +"But if he was a good man? If he did his work honestly, and said his +prayers, and behaved himself? We have no reason for doubting that he was +a most excellent postman," she went on, a twinkle in her eye; "punctual, +diligent, and altogether praiseworthy." + +"Then you object to nothing?" cried the baroness with extraordinary +bitterness. "You draw the line nowhere? All the traditions and +prejudices of gentlefolk are supremely indifferent to you?" + +"Oh, I object to a great many things. I would have liked it better if +the postman had really been the literary luminary poor Emilie said he +was--for her sake, and my sake, and your sakes. And I don't like +untruths, and never shall. But I do like Emilie, and I forgive it all." + +"Then she is to remain here?" + +"Yes, as long as she wants to. And do, _do_ try to see how good she is, +and how much there is to love in her. You have done her a real service," +Anna added, smiling, "for now she won't have it on her mind any more, +and will be able to be really happy." + +The baroness gathered up her work and rose. Frau von Treumann looked at +her nervously, and rose too. + +"Then----" began the baroness, pale with outraged pride and propriety. + +"Then really----" began Frau von Treumann more faintly, but feeling +bound in this matter to follow her example. After all, they could always +allow themselves to be persuaded to change their minds again. + +Anna got up too, and they stood facing each other. Something awful was +going to happen, she felt, but what? Were they, she wondered, both going +to give her notice? + +The baroness, drawn up to her full height, looked at her, opened her +lips to complete her sentence, and shut them again. She was exceedingly +agitated, and held her little thin, claw-like hands tightly together to +hide how they were shaking. All she had left in the world was the pride +of being an Elmreich and a baroness; and as, with the relentless years, +she had grown poorer, plainer, more insignificant, so had this pride +increased and strengthened, until, together with her passionate +propriety and horror of everything in the least doubtful in the way of +reputations, it had come to be the very mainspring of her being. +"Then----" she began again, with a great effort; for she remembered how +there had actually been no food sometimes when she was hungry, and no +fire when she was cold, and no doctor when she was sick, and how severe +weather had seemed to set in invariably at those times when she had +least money, making her first so much hungrier than usual, and +afterwards so much more sick, as though nature itself owed her a grudge. + +"Oh, these ultimatums!" inwardly deplored Frau von Treumann; the +baroness was very absurd, she thought, to take the thing so tragically. + +And at that instant the door was thrown open, and without waiting to be +announced, Karlchen, resplendent in his hussar uniform, and beaming from +ear to ear, hastened, clanking, into the room. + +"Karlchen! _Du engelsgute Junge!_" shrieked his mother, in accents of +supremest relief and joy. + +"I could not stay away longer," cried Karlchen, returning her embrace +with vigour, "I felt impelled to come. I obtained leave after many +prayers. It is for a few hours only. I return to-night. You forgive me?" +he added, turning to Anna and bowing over her hand. + +"Yes," she said, smiling; Karlchen had come this time, she felt, exactly +at the right moment. + +"I wrote this very morning----" began his mother in her excitement; but +she stopped in time, and covered her confusion by once again folding him +in her arms. + +Karlchen was so much delighted by this unexpectedly cordial reception +that he lost his head a little. Anna stood smiling at him as she had not +done once last time. Yes, there were the dimples--oh, sweet +vision!--they were, indeed, glorious dimples. He seized her hand a +second time and kissed it. The pretty hand--so delicate and slender. And +the dress--Karlchen had an eye for dress--how dainty it was! "Your kind +welcome quite overcomes me," he said enthusiastically; and he looked so +gay, and so intensely satisfied with himself and the whole world, that +Anna laughed again. Besides, the uniform was really surprisingly +becoming; his civilian clothes on his first visit had been melancholy +examples of what a military tailor cannot do. + +"Ah, baroness," said Karlchen, catching sight of the small, silent +figure. He brought his heels together, bowed, and crossing over to her +shook hands. "I have come laden with greetings for you," he said. + +"Greetings?" repeated the baroness, surprised. Then an odd look of fear +came into her eyes. + +He had not meant to do it then; he had not been certain whether he would +do it this time at all; but he was feeling so exhilarated, so buoyant, +that he could not resist. "I was at the Wintergarten last night," he +said, "and had a talk with your sister, Baroness Lolli. She dances +better than ever. She sends you her love, and says she is coming down to +see you." + +The baroness made a queer little sound, shut her eyes, spread out her +hands, and dropped on to the carpet as though she had been shot. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +"Is Herr von Treumann gone?" + +It was late the same afternoon, and Princess Ludwig had come into the +bedroom where the Stralsund doctor was still vainly endeavouring to +bring the baroness back to life, to ask Anna whether she would see Axel +Lohm, who was waiting downstairs and hoped to be allowed to speak to +her. "But is Herr von Treumann gone?" inquired Anna; and would not move +till she was sure of that. + +"Yes, and his mother has gone with him to the station." + +Anna had not left the baroness's side since the catastrophe. She could +not see the unconscious face on the pillow for tears. Was there ever +such barbarous, such gratuitous cruelty as young Treumann's? His mother +had been in once or twice on tiptoe, the last time to tell Anna that he +was leaving, and would she not come down so that he might explain how +sorry he was for having unwittingly done so much mischief? But Anna had +merely shaken her head and turned again to the piteous little figure on +the bed. Never again, she told herself, would she see or speak to +Karlchen. + +The movement with which she turned away was expressive; and Frau von +Treumann went out and heaped bitter reproaches on Karlchen, driving with +him to Stralsund in order to have ample time to heap all that were in +her mind, and doing it the more thoroughly that he was in a crushed +condition and altogether incapable of defending himself. For what had he +really cared about the baroness's relationship to Lolli? He had thought +it a huge joke, and had looked forward with enjoyment to seeing Anna +promptly order her out of the house. How could he, thick of skin and +slow of brain, have foreseen such a crisis? He was very much in love +with Anna, and shivered when he thought of the look she had given him as +she followed the people who were carrying the baroness out of the room. +Certainly he was exceedingly wretched, and his mother could not reproach +him more bitterly than he reproached himself. While she was vehemently +pointing out the obvious, he meditated sadly on the length of the +journey he had taken for worse than nothing. All the morning he had been +roasted in trains, and he was about to be roasted again for a dreary +succession of hours. His hot uniform, put on solely for Anna's +bedazzlement, added enormously to his torments; and the distance between +Rislar and Stralsund was great, and the journey proportionately +expensive--much too expensive, if all you got for it was one +intoxicating glimpse of dimples, followed by a flashing look of wrath +that made you feel cold with the thermometer at ninety. He had not felt +so dejected since the eighties, he reflected, in which dark ages he had +been forced to fight a duel. Karlchen had a prejudice against duelling; +he thought it foolish. But, being an officer--he was at that time a +conspicuously gay lieutenant--whatever he might think about it, if +anyone wanted to fight him fight he must, or drop into the awful ranks +of Unknowables. He had made a joke of a personal nature, and the other +man turned out to have no sense of humour, and took it seriously, and +expressed a desire for Karlchen's blood. Driving with his justly +incensed mother through the dust and heat to the station, he remembered +the dismal night he had passed before the duel, and thought how much his +dejection then had resembled in its profundity his dejection now; for he +had been afraid he was going to be hurt, and whatever people may say +about courage nobody really likes being hurt. Well, perhaps after all, +this business with Anna would turn out all right, just as that business +had turned out all right; for he had killed his man, and, instead of +wounds, had been covered with glory. Thus Karlchen endeavoured to snatch +comfort as he drove, but yet his heart was very heavy. + +"I hope," said his mother bitingly when he was in the train, patiently +waiting to be taken beyond the sound of her voice, "I do hope that you +are ashamed of yourself. It is a bitter feeling, I can tell you, the +feeling that one is the mother of a fool." + +To which Karlchen, still dazed, replied by unhooking his collar, wiping +his face, and appealing with a heart-rending plaintiveness to a passing +beer-boy to give him, _um Gottes Willen_, beer. + +Axel was in the drawing-room, where the remains of Karlchen's +valedictory coffee and cakes were littered on a table, when Anna came +down. "I am so sorry for you," he said. "Princess Ludwig has been +telling me what has happened." + +"Don't be sorry for me. Nothing is the matter with me. Be sorry for that +most unfortunate little soul upstairs." + +Axel kissed Anna's right hand, which was, she knew, the custom; and +immediately proceeded to kiss her other hand, which was not the custom +at all. She was looking woebegone, with red eyelids and white cheeks; +but a faint colour came into her face at this, for he did it with such +unmistakable devotion that for the first time she wondered uneasily +whether their pleasant friendship were not about to come to an end. + +"Don't be too kind," she said, drawing her hands away and trying to +smile. "I--I feel so stupid to-day, and want to cry dreadfully." + +"Well then, I should do it, and get it over." + +"I did do it, but I haven't got it over." + +"Well, don't think of it. How is the baroness?" + +"Just the same. The doctor thinks it serious. And she has no +constitution. She has not had enough of anything for years--not enough +food, or clothes, or--or anything." + +She went quickly across to the coffee table to hide how much she wanted +to cry. "Have some coffee," she said with her back to him, moving the +cups aimlessly about. + +"Don't forget," said Axel, "that the poor lady's past misery is over now +and done with. Think what luck has come in her way at last. When she +gets over this, here she is, safe with you, surrounded by love and care +and tenderness--blessings not given to all of us." + +"But she doesn't like love and care and tenderness. At least, if it +comes from me. She dislikes me." + +Axel could not exclaim in surprise, for he was not surprised. The +baroness had appeared to him to be so hopelessly sour; and how, he +thought, shall the hopelessly sour love the preternaturally sweet? He +looked therefore at Anna arranging the cups with restless, nervous +fingers, and waited for more. + +"Why do you say that?" she asked, still with her back to him. + +"Say what?" + +"That when she gets over this she will have all those nice things +surrounding her. You told me when first she came, that if she really +were the poor dancing woman's sister I ought on no account to keep her +here. Don't you remember?" + +"Quite well. But am I not right in supposing that you _will_ keep her? +You see, I know you better now than I did then." + +"If she liked being here--if it made her happy--I would keep her in +defiance of the whole world." + +"But as it is----?" + +She came to him with a cup of cold coffee in her hands. He took it, and +stirred it mechanically. + +"As it is," she said, "she is very ill, and has to get well again before +we begin to decide things. Perhaps," she added, looking up at him +wistfully, "this illness will change her?" + +He shook his head. "I am afraid it won't," he said. "For a little while, +perhaps--for a few weeks at first while she still remembers your +nursing, and then--why, the old self over again." + +He put the untasted coffee down on the nearest table. "There is no +getting away," he said, coming back to her, "from one's old self. That +is why this work you have undertaken is so hopeless." + +"Hopeless?" she exclaimed in a startled voice. He was saying aloud what +she had more than once almost--never quite--whispered in her heart of +hearts. + +"You ought to have begun with the baroness thirty years ago, to have had +a chance of success." + +"Why, she was five years old then, and I am sure quite cheerful. And I +wasn't there at all." + +"Five ought really to be the average age of the Chosen. What is the use +of picking out unhappy persons well on in life, and thinking you are +going to make them happy? How can you _make_ them be happy? If it had +been possible to their natures they would have been so long ago, however +poor they were. And they would not have been so poor or so unhappy if +they had been willing to work. Work is such an admirable tonic. The +princess works, and finds life very tolerable. You will never succeed +with people like Frau von Treumann and the baroness. They belong to a +class of persons that will grumble even in heaven. You could easily make +those who are happy already still happier, for it is in them--the +gratitude and appreciation for life and its blessings; but those of +course are not the people you want to get at. You think I am preaching?" +he asked abruptly. + +"But are you not?" + +"It is because I cannot stand by and watch you bruising yourself." + +"Oh," said Anna, "you are a man, and can fight your way well enough +through life. You are quite comfortable and prosperous. How can you +sympathise with women like Else? Because she is not young you haven't a +feeling for her--only indifference. You talk of my bruising myself--you +don't mind her bruises. And if I were forty, how sure I am that you +wouldn't mind mine." + +"Yes, I would," said Axel, with such conviction that she added quickly, +"Well--I don't want to talk about bruises." + +"I hope the baroness will soon get over the cruel ones that singularly +brutal young man has inflicted. You agree with me that he _is_ a +singularly brutal young man?" + +"Absolutely." + +"And I hope that when she is well again you will make her as happy as +she is capable of being." + +"If I knew how!" + +"Why, by letting her go away, and giving her enough to live on decently +by herself. It would be quite the best course to take, both for you and +for her." + +Anna looked down. "I have been thinking the same thing," she said in a +low voice; she felt as though she were hauling down her flag. + +"Perhaps you will let me help." + +"Help?" + +"Let me contribute. Why may I not be charitable too? If we join together +it will be to her advantage. She need not know. And you are not a +millionaire." + +"Nor are you," said Anna, smiling up at him. + +"We unfortunates who live by our potatoes are never millionaires. But +still we can be charitable." + +"But why should _you_ help the baroness? I found her out, and brought +her here, and I am the only person responsible for her." + +"It will be much more costly than just having her here." + +"I don't mind, if only she is happy. And I will not have you pay the +cost of my experiments in philanthropy." + +"Is Frau von Treumann happy?" he asked abruptly. + +"No," said Anna, with a faint smile. + +"Is Fräulein Kuhräuber happy?" + +"No." + +"Tell me one thing more," he said; "are _you_ happy?" + +Anna blushed. "That is a queer question," she said. "Why should I not be +happy?" + +"But are you?" + +She looked at him, hesitating. Then she said, in a very small voice, +"No." + +Axel took two or three turns up and down the room. "I knew it," he said; +and added something in German under his breath about _Weiber_. "After +this, you will not, I suppose, receive young Treumann again?" he asked, +coming to a halt in front of her. + +"Never again." + +"You have a difficult time before you, then, with his mother." + +Anna blushed. "I am afraid I have," she admitted. + +"You have a very difficult few weeks before you," he said. "The baroness +probably dangerously ill, and Frau von Treumann very angry with you. I +know Princess Ludwig does all she can, but still you are alone--against +odds." + +The odds, too, were greater than she knew. All day he had been +officially engaged in making inquiries into the origin of the fire the +night before, and every circumstance pointed to Klutz as the culprit. He +had sent for Klutz, and Klutz, they said, had gone home. Then he sent a +telegram after him, and his father replied that he was neither expecting +his son nor was he ill. Klutz, then, had disappeared in order to avoid +the consequences of what he had done; but it was only a question of days +before the police brought him back again, and then he would tell the +whole absurd story, and Pomerania would chuckle at Anna's expense. The +thought of this chuckling made Axel cold with rage. + +He stood looking out of the window at the parched garden, the drooping +lilac-bushes, the hazy island across the water. The wind had dropped, +and a gray film had drawn across the sky. At the bottom of the garden, +under a chestnut-tree, Miss Leech was sewing, while Letty read aloud to +her. The monotonous drone of Letty's reading, interrupted by her loud +complaints each time a mosquito stung her, reached Axel's ears as he +stood there in silence. A grim struggle was going on within him. He +loved Anna with a passion that would no longer be hidden; and he knew +that he must somehow hide it. He was so certain that she did not care +about him. He was so certain that she would never dream of marrying him. +And yet if ever a woman needed the protection of an all-enfolding love +it was Anna at that moment "That child down there has made a pretty fair +amount of mischief for a person of her age," he burst out with a +vehemence that startled Anna. + +"What child?" she said, coming up behind him and looking over his +shoulder. + +He turned round quickly. The feeling that she was so close to him tore +away the last shred of his self-control. "You know that I love you," he +said, his voice shaking with passion. + +Her face in an instant was colourless. She stood quite still, almost +touching him, as though she did not dare move. Her eyes were fixed on +his with a frightened, fascinated look. + +"You know it. You have known it a long time. Now what are you going to +say to me?" + +She looked at him without speaking or moving. + +"Anna, what are you going to say to me?" he cried; and he caught up her +hands and kissed them one after the other, hardly knowing what he did, +beside himself with love of her. + +She watched him helplessly. She felt faint and sick. She had had a +miserable day, and was completely overwhelmed by this last misfortune. +Her good friend Axel was gone, gone for ever. The pleasant friendship +was done. In place of the friend she so much needed, of the friendship +she had found so comforting, there was--this. + +"Won't you--won't you let my hands go?" she said faintly. She did not +know him again. Was it possible that this agony of love was for her? She +knew herself so well, she knew so well what it was for which he was +evidently going to break his heart. How wonderful, how pitiful beyond +expression, that a good man like Axel should suffer anything because of +her. And even in the midst of her fright and misery the thought would +not be put from her that if she had happened to look like the baroness +or Fräulein Kuhräuber, while inwardly remaining exactly as she was, he +would not have broken his heart for her. "Oh, let me go----" she +whispered; and turned her head aside, and shut her eyes, unable to look +any longer at the love and despair in his. + +"But what are you going to say to me?" + +"Oh, you know--you know----" + +"But you are so sorry always for people who suffer----" + +"Oh, stop--oh, stop!" + +"No, I won't stop; here have I been condemned to look on at you +lavishing love on people who don't want it, don't like it, are wearied +by it--who don't know how precious it is, how priceless it is, and how I +am hungering and thirsting--oh, starving, starving, for one drop of +it----" His voice shook, and he fell once more to covering her hands +with kisses that seemed to scorch her soul. + +This was very dreadful. Her soul had never been scorched before. +Something must be done to stop him. She could not stand there with her +eyes shut and her hands being kissed for ever. "_Please_ let me go," she +entreated faintly; and in her helplessness began to cry. + +He instantly released her, and she stood before him crying. What a +horrible thing it was to lose her friend, to be forced to hurt him. "I +never dreamt that you--that you----" she wept. + +"What, that I loved you?" he asked incredulously; but more gently, +subdued by her deep distress. His face grew very hopeless. She was +crying because she was sorry for him. + +"I don't know--I think I did dream that--lately--once or twice--but I +never dreamt that it was so bad--that you were such a--such a--such a +volcano. Oh, Axel, why are you a volcano?" she cried, looking up at him, +the tears rolling down her cheeks. "Why have you spoilt everything? It +was so nice before. We were such friends. And now--how can I be friends +with a volcano?" + +"Anna, if you make fun of me----" + +"Oh no, no--as though I would--as though I could do anything so +unutterable. But don't let us be tragic. Oh, don't let us be tragic. You +know my plans--you know my plans inside out, from beginning to end--how +can I, how _can_ I marry anybody?" + +"Good God, those women--those women who are not happy, who have spoilt +your happiness, they are to spoil mine now--ours, Anna?" He seized her +arm as though he would wake her at all costs from a fatal sleep. "Do you +mean to say that if it were not for those women you would be my wife?" + +"Oh, if only you wouldn't be tragic----" + +"Do you mean to say that is the reason?" + +"Oh, isn't it sufficient----" + +"No. If you cared for me it would be no reason at all." + +She cried bitterly. "But I don't," she sobbed. "Not like that--not in +that way. It is atrocious of me not to--I know how good you are, how +kind, how--how everything. And still I don't. I don't know why I don't, +but I don't. Oh, Axel, I am so sorry--don't look so wretched--I can't +bear it." + +"But what can it matter to you how I look if you don't care about me?" + +"Oh, oh," sobbed Anna, wringing her hands. + +He caught hold of her wrist. "See here, Anna. Look at me." + +But she would not look at him. + +"Look at me. I don't believe you know your own mind. I want to see into +your eyes. They were always honest--look at me." + +But she would not look at him. + +"Surely you will do that--only that--for me." + +"There isn't anything to see," she wept, "there really isn't. It is +dreadful of me, but I can't help it." + +"Well, but look at me." + +"Oh, Axel, what _is_ the use of looking at you?" she cried in despair; +and pulled her handkerchief away and did it. + +He searched her face for a moment in silence, as though he thought that +if only he could read her soul he might understand it better than she +did herself. Those dear eyes--they were full of pity, full of distress; +but search as he might he could find nothing else. + +He turned away without a word. + +"Don't, don't be tragic," she begged, anxiously following him a few +steps. "If only you are not tragic we shall still be able to be +friends----" + +But he did not look round. + +A servant with a tray was outside coming in to take the coffee away. +"Oh," exclaimed Anna, seeing that it was impossible to hide her +tear-stained face from the girl's calm scrutiny, "oh, Johanna, the poor +baroness--she is so ill--it is so dreadful----" And she dropped into a +chair and hid herself in the cushions, weeping hysterically with an +abandonment of woe that betokened a quite extraordinary affection for +the baroness. + +"_Gott, die arme Baronesse_," sympathised Johanna perfunctorily. To +herself she remarked, "This very moment has the Miss refused to marry +_gnädiger Herr_." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +What Anna most longed for in the days that followed was a mother. "If I +had a mother," she thought, not once, but again and again, and her eyes +had a wistful, starved look when she thought it, "if I only had a +mother, a sweet mother all to myself, of my very own, I'd put my head on +her dear shoulder and cry myself happy again. First I'd tell her +everything, and she wouldn't mind however silly it was, and she wouldn't +be tired however long it was, and she'd say 'Little darling child, you +are only a baby after all,' and would scold me a little, and kiss me a +great deal, and then I'd listen so comfortably, all the time with my +face against her nice soft dress, and I would feel so safe and sure and +wrapped round while she told me what to do next. It is lonely and cold +and difficult without a mother." + +The house was in confusion. The baroness had come out of her +unconsciousness to delirium, and the doctors, knowing that she was not +related to anyone there, talked openly of death. There were two doctors, +now, and two nurses; and Anna insisted on nursing too, wearing herself +out with all the more passion because she felt that it was of so little +importance really to anyone whether the baroness lived or died. + +They were all strangers, the people watching this frail fighter for +life, and they watched with the indifference natural to strangers. Here +was a middle-aged person who would probably die; if she died no one lost +anything, and if she lived it did not matter either. The doctors and +nurses, accustomed to these things, could not be expected to be +interested in so profoundly uninteresting a case; Frau von Treumann +observed once at least every day that it was _schrecklich_, and went on +with her embroidery; Fräulein Kuhräuber cried a little when, on her way +to her bedroom, she heard the baroness raving, but she cried easily, and +the raving frightened her; the princess felt that death in this case +would be a blessing; and Letty and Miss Leech avoided the house, and +spent the burning days rambling in woods that teemed with prodigal, +joyous life. + +As for Anna, to see her in the sick-room was to suppose her the nearest +and tenderest relative of the baroness; and yet the passion that +possessed her was not love, but only an endless, unfathomable pity. "If +she gets well, she shall never be unhappy again," vowed Anna in those +days when she thought she could hear Death's footsteps on the stairs. +"Here or somewhere else--anywhere she likes--she shall live and be +happy. She will see that her poor sister has made no difference, except +that there will be no shadow between us now." + +But what is the use of vowing? When June was in its second week the +baroness slowly and hesitatingly turned the corner of her illness; and +immediately the corner was turned and the exhaustion of turning it got +over, she became fractious. "You will have a difficult time," Axel had +said on the day he spoilt their friendship; and it was true. The +difficult time began after that corner was turned, and the farther the +baroness drew away from it, the nearer she got to complete +convalescence, the more difficult did life for Anna become. For it +resumed the old course, and they all resumed their old selves, the same +old selves, even to the shadow of an unmentioned Lolli between them, +that Axel had said they would by no means get away from; but with this +difference, that the peculiarities of both Frau von Treumann and the +baroness were more pronounced than before, and that not one of the trio +would speak to either of the other two. + +Frau von Treumann was still firmly fixed in the house, without the least +intention apparently of leaving it, and she spent her time lying in wait +for Anna, watching for an opportunity of beginning again about Karlchen. +Anna had avoided the inevitable day when she would be caught, but it +came at last, and she was caught in the garden, whither she had retired +to consider how best to approach the baroness, hitherto quite +unapproachable, on the burning question of Lolli. + +Frau von Treumann appeared suddenly, coming softly across the grass, so +that there was no time to run away. "Anna," she called out +reproachfully, seeing Anna make a movement as though she wanted to run, +which was exactly what she did want to do, "Anna, have I the plague?" + +"I hope not," said Anna. + +"You treat me as if I had it." + +Anna said nothing. "Why does she stay here? How can she stay here, after +what has happened?" she had wondered often. Perhaps she had come now to +announce her departure. She prepared herself therefore to listen with a +willing ear. + +She was sitting in the shade of a copper beech facing the oily sea and +the coast of Rügen quivering opposite in the heat-haze. She was not +doing anything; she never did seem to do anything, as these ladies of +the busy fingers often noticed. + +"Blue and white," said Anna, looking up at the gulls and the sky to give +Frau von Treumann time, "the Pomeranian colours. I see now where they +come from." + +But Frau von Treumann had not come out to talk about the Pomeranian +colours. "My Karlchen has been ill," she said, her eyes on Anna's face. + +Anna watched the gulls overhead in the deep blue. "So has Else," she +remarked. + +"Dear me," thought Frau von Treumann, "what rancour." + +She laid her hand on Anna's knee, and it was taken no notice of. "You +cannot forgive him?" she said gently. "You cannot pardon a momentary +indiscretion?" + +"I have nothing to forgive," said Anna, watching the gulls; one dropped +down suddenly, and rose again with a fish in its beak, the sun for an +instant catching the silver of the scales. "It is no affair of mine. It +is for Else to forgive him." + +Frau von Treumann began to weep; this way of looking at it was so +hopelessly unreasonable. She pulled out her handkerchief. "What a heap +she must use," thought Anna; never had she met people who cried so much +and so easily as the Chosen; she was quite used now to red eyes; one or +other of her sisters had them almost daily, for the farther their old +bodily discomforts and real anxieties lay behind them the more tender +and easily lacerated did their feelings become. + +"He could not bear to see you being imposed upon," said Frau von +Treumann. "As soon as he knew about this terrible sister he felt he must +hasten down to save you. 'Mother,' he said to me when first he suspected +it, 'if it is true, she must not be contaminated.'" + +"Who mustn't?" + +"Oh, Anna, you know he thinks only of you!" + +"Well, you see," said Anna, "I don't mind being contaminated." + +"Oh, dear child, a young pretty girl ought to mind very much." + +"Well, I don't. But what about yourself? Are you not afraid of--of +contamination?" She was frightened by her own daring when she had said +it, and would not have looked at Frau von Treumann for worlds. + +"No, dear child," replied that lady in tones of tearful sweetness, "I am +too old to suffer in any way from associating with queer people." + +"But I thought a Treumann----" murmured Anna, more and more frightened +at herself, but impelled to go on. + +"Dear Anna, a Treumann has never yet flinched before duty." + +Anna was silenced. After that she could only continue to watch the +gulls. + +"You are going to keep the baroness?" + +"If she cares to stay, yes." + +"I thought you would. It is for you to decide who you will have in your +house. But what would you do if this--this Lolli came down to see her +sister?" + +"I really cannot tell." + +"Well, be sure of one thing," burst out Frau von Treumann +enthusiastically, "I will not forsake you, dear Anna. Your position now +is exceedingly delicate, and I will not forsake you." + +So she was not going. Anna got up with a faint sigh. "It is frightfully +hot here," she said; "I think I will go to Else." + +"Ah--and I wanted to tell you about my poor Karlchen--and you avoid +me--you do not want to hear. If I am in the house, the house is too hot. +If I come into the garden, the garden is too hot. You no longer like +being with me." + +Anna did not contradict her. She was wondering painfully what she ought +to do. Ought she meekly to allow Frau von Treumann to stay on at +Kleinwalde, to the exclusion, perhaps, of someone really deserving? Or +ought she to brace herself to the terrible task of asking her to go? She +thought, "I will ask Axel"--and then remembered that there was no Axel +to ask. He never came near her. He had dropped out of her life as +completely as though he had left Lohm. Since that unhappy day, she had +neither seen him nor heard of him. Many times did she say to herself, "I +will ask Axel," and always the remembrance that she could not came with +a shock of loneliness; and then she would drop into the train of thought +that ended with "if I had a mother," and her eyes growing wistful. + +"Perhaps it is the hot weather," she said suddenly, an evening or two +later, after a long silence, to the princess. They had been speaking of +servants before that. + +"You think it is the hot weather that makes Johanna break the cups?" + +"That makes me think so much of mothers." + +The princess turned her head quickly, and examined Anna's face. It was +Sunday evening, and the others were at church. The baroness, whose +recovery was slow, was up in her room. + +"What mothers?" naturally inquired the princess. + +"I think this everlasting heat is dreadful," said Anna plaintively. "I +have no backbone left. I am all limp, and soft, and silly. In cold +weather I believe I wouldn't want a mother half so badly." + +"So you want a mother?" said the princess, taking Anna's hand in hers +and patting it kindly. She thought she knew why. Everyone in the house +saw that something must have been said to Axel Lohm to make him keep +away so long. Perhaps Anna was repenting, and wanted a mother's help to +set things right again. + +"I always thought it would be so glorious to be independent," said Anna, +"and now somehow it isn't. It is tiring. I want someone to tell me what +I ought to do, and to see that I do it. Besides petting me. I long and +long sometimes to be petted." + +The princess looked wise. "My dear," she said, shaking her head, "it is +not a mother that you want. Do you know the couplet:-- + + _Man bedarf der Leitung + Und der männlichen Begleitung?_ + +A truly excellent couplet." + +Anna smiled. "That is the German idea of female bliss--always to be led +round by the nose by some husband." + +"Not _some_ husband, my dear--one's own husband. You may call it leading +by the nose if you like. I can only say that I enjoyed being led by +mine, and have missed it grievously ever since." + +"But you had found the right man." + +"It is not very difficult to find the right man." + +"Yes it is--very difficult indeed." + +"I think not," said the princess. "He is never far off. Sometimes, even, +he is next door." And she gazed over Anna's head at the ceiling with +elaborate unconsciousness. + +"And besides," said Anna, "why does a woman everlastingly want to be led +and propped? Why can't she go about the business of life on her own +feet? Why must she always lean on someone?" + +"You said just now it is because it is hot." + +"The fact is," said Anna, "that I am not clever enough to see my way +through puzzles. And that depresses me." + +"I well know that you must be puzzled." + +"Yes, it is puzzling, isn't it? I can talk to you about it, for of +course you see it all. It seems so absurd that the only result of my +trying to make people happy is to make everyone, including myself, +wretched. That is waste, isn't it. Waste, I mean, of happiness. For I, +at least, was happy before." + +"And, my dear, you will be happy again." + +Anna knit her brows in painful thought. "If by being wretched I had +managed to make the others happy it wouldn't have been so bad. At least +it wouldn't have been so completely silly. The only thing I can think of +is that I must have hit upon the wrong people." + +"_I Gott bewahre!_" cried the princess with energy. "They are all alike. +Send these away, you get them back in a different shape. Faces and names +would be different, never the women. They would all be Treumanns and +Elmreichs, and not a single one worth anything in the whole heap." + +"Well, I shall not desert them--Else and Emilie, I mean. They need help, +both of them. And after all, it is simple selfishness for ever wanting +to be happy oneself. I have begun to see that the chief thing in life is +not to be as happy as one can, but to be very brave." + +The princess sighed. "Poor Axel," she said. + +Anna started, and blushed violently. "Pray what has my being brave to do +with Herr von Lohm?" she inquired severely. + +"Why, you are going to be brave at his expense, poor man. You must not +expect anything from me, my dear, but common sense. You give up all hope +of being happy because you think it your duty to go on sacrificing him +and yourself to a set of thankless, worthless women, and you call it +being brave. I call it being unnatural and silly." + +"It has never been a question of Herr von Lohm," said Anna coldly, +indeed freezingly. "What claims has he on me? My plans were all made +before I knew that he existed." + +"Oh, my dear, your plans are very irritating things. The only plan a +sensible young woman ought to make is to get as good a husband as +possible as quickly as she can." + +"Why," said Anna, rising in her indignation, and preparing to leave a +princess suddenly become objectionable, "why, you are as bad as Susie!" + +"Susie?" said the princess, who had not heard of her by that name. "Was +Susie also one who told you the truth?" + +But Anna walked out of the room without answering, in a very dignified +manner; went into the loneliest part of the garden; sat down behind some +bushes; and cried. + +She looked back on those childish tears afterwards, and on all that had +gone before, as the last part of a long sleep; a sleep disturbed by +troubling and foolish dreams, but still only a sleep and only dreams. +She woke up the very next day, and remained wide awake after that for +the rest of her life. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +Anna drove into Stralsund the next morning to her banker, accompanied by +Miss Leech. When they passed Axel's house she saw that his gate-posts +were festooned with wreaths, and that garlands of flowers were strung +across the gateway, swaying to and fro softly in the light breeze. "Why, +how festive it looks," she exclaimed, wondering. + +"Yesterday was Herr von Lohm's birthday," said Miss Leech. "I heard +Princess Ludwig say so." + +"Oh," said Anna. Her tone was piqued. She turned her head away, and +looked at the hay-fields on the opposite side of the road. Axel must +have birthdays, of course, and why should he not put things round his +gate-posts if he wanted to? Yet she would not look again, and was silent +the rest of the way; nor was it of any use for Miss Leech to attempt to +while away the long drive with pleasant conversation. Anna would not +talk; she said it was too hot to talk. What she was thinking was that +men were exceedingly horrid, all of them, and that life was a snare. + +Far from being festive, however, Axel's latest birthday was quite the +most solitary he had yet spent. The cheerful garlands had been put up by +an officious gardener on his own initiative. No one, except Axel's own +dependents, had passed beneath them to wish him luck. Trudi had +telegraphed her blessings, administering them thus in their easiest +form. His Stralsund friends had apparently forgotten him; in other years +they had been glad of the excuse the birthday gave for driving out into +the country in June, but this year the astonished Mamsell saw her +birthday cake remain untouched and her baked meats waiting vainly for +somebody to come and eat them. + +Axel neither noticed nor cared. The haymaking season had just begun, and +besides his own affairs he was preoccupied by Anna's. If she had not +been shut up so long in the baroness's sick-room she would have met him +often enough. She thought he never intended to come near her again, and +all the time, whenever he could spare a moment and often when he could +not, he was on her property, watching Dellwig's farming operations. She +should not suffer, he told himself, because he loved her; she should not +be punished because she was not able to love him. He would go on doing +what he could for her, and was certainly, at his age, not going to sulk +and leave her to face her difficulties alone. + +The first time he met Dellwig on these incursions into Anna's domain, he +expected to be received with a scowl; but Dellwig did not scowl at all; +was on the contrary quite affable, even volunteering information about +the work he had in hand. Nor had he been after all offensively zealous +in searching for the person who had set the stables on fire; and luckily +the Stralsund police had not been very zealous either. Klutz was looked +for for a little while after Axel had denounced him as the probable +culprit, but the matter had been dropped, apparently, and for the last +ten days nothing more had been said or done. Axel was beginning to hope +that the whole thing had blown over, that there was to be no +unpleasantness after all for Anna. Hearing that the baroness was nearly +well, he decided to go and call at Kleinwalde as though nothing had +happened. Some time or other he must meet Anna. They could not live on +adjoining estates and never see each other. The day after his birthday +he arranged to go round in the afternoon and take up the threads of +ordinary intercourse again, however much it made him suffer. + +Meanwhile Anna did her business in Stralsund, discovered on interviewing +her banker that she had already spent more than two-thirds of a whole +year's income, lunched pensively after that on ices with Miss Leech, +walked down to the quay and watched the unloading of the fishing-smacks +while Fritz and the horses had their dinner, was very much stared at by +the inhabitants, who seldom saw anything so pretty, and finally, about +two o'clock, started again for home. + +As they drew near Axel's gate, and she was preparing to turn her face +away from its ostentatious gaiety, a closed _Droschke_ came through it +towards them, followed at a short distance by a second. + +Miss Leech said nothing, strange though this spectacle was on that quiet +road, for she felt that these were the departing guests, and, like Anna, +she wondered how a man who loved in vain could have the heart to give +parties. Anna said nothing either, but watched the approaching +_Droschkes_ curiously. Axel was sitting in the first one, on the side +near her. He wore his ordinary farming clothes, the Norfolk jacket, and +the soft green hat. There were three men with him, seedy-looking +individuals in black coats. She bowed instinctively, for he was looking +out of the window full at her, but he took no notice. She turned very +white. + +The second _Droschke_ contained four more queer-looking persons in black +clothes. When they had passed, Fritz pulled up his horses of his own +accord, and twisting himself round stared after the receding cloud of +dust. + +Anna had been cut by Axel; but it was not that that made her turn so +white--it was something in his face. He had looked straight at her, and +he had not seen her. + +"Who are those people?" she asked Fritz in a voice that faltered, she +did not know why. + +Fritz did not answer. He stared down the road after the _Droschkes_, +shook his head, began to scratch it, jerked himself round again to his +horses, drove on a few yards, pulled them up a second time, looked back, +shook his head, and was silent. + +"Fritz, do you know them?" Anna asked more authoritatively. + +But Fritz only mumbled something soothing and drove on. + +Anna had not failed to notice the old man's face as he watched the +departing _Droschkes_; it wore an oddly amazed and scared expression. +Her heart seemed to sink within her like a stone, yet she could give +herself no reason for it. She tried to order him to turn up the avenue +to Axel's house, but her lips were dry, and the words would not come; +and while she was struggling to speak the gate was passed. Then she was +relieved that it was passed, for how could she, only because she had a +presentiment of trouble, go to Axel's house? What did she think of doing +there? Miss Leech glanced at her, and asked if anything was the matter. + +"No," said Anna in a whisper, looking straight before her. Nor was there +anything the matter; only that blind look on Axel's face, and the +strange feeling in her heart. + +A knot of people stood outside the post office talking eagerly. They all +stopped talking to stare at Anna when the carriage came round the +corner. Fritz whipped up his horses and drove past them at a gallop. + +"Wait--I want to get out," cried Anna as they came to the parsonage. "Do +you mind waiting?" she asked Miss Leech. "I want to speak to Herr +Pastor. I will not be a moment." + +She went up the little trim path to the porch. The maid-of-all-work was +clearing away the coffee from the table. Frau Manske came bustling out +when she heard Anna's voice asking for her husband. She looked +extraordinarily excited. "He has not come back yet," she cried before +Anna could speak, "he is still at the _Schloss_. _Gott Du Allmächtiger_, +did one ever hear of anything so terrible?" + +Anna looked at her, her face as white as her dress. "Tell me," she tried +to say; but no sound passed her lips. She made a great effort, and the +words came in a whisper: "Tell me," she said. + +"What, the gracious Miss has not heard? Herr von Lohm has been +arrested." + +It was impossible not to enjoy imparting so tremendous a piece of news, +however genuinely shocked one might be. Frau Manske brought it out with +a ring of pride. It would not be easy to beat, she felt, in the way of +news. Then she remembered the gossip about Anna and Axel, and observed +her with increased interest. Was she going to faint? It would be the +only becoming course for her to take if it were true that there had been +courting. + +But Anna, whose voice had failed her before, when once she had heard +what it was that had happened, seemed curiously cold and composed. + +"What was he accused of?" was all she asked; so calmly, Frau Manske +afterwards told her friends, that it was not even womanly in the face of +so great a misfortune. + +"He set fire to the stables," said Frau Manske. + +"It is a lie," said Anna; also, as Frau Manske afterwards pointed out to +her friends, an unwomanly remark. + +"He did it himself to get the insurance money." + +"It is a lie," repeated Anna, in that cold voice. + +"Eye-witnesses will swear to it." + +"They will lie," said Anna again; and turned and walked away. "Go on," +she said to Fritz, taking her place beside Miss Leech. + +She sat quite silent till they were near the house. Then she called to +the coachman to stop. "I am going into the forest for a little while," +she said, jumping out "You drive on home." And she crossed the road +quickly, her white dress fluttering for a moment between the +pine-trunks, and then disappearing in the soft green shadow. + +Miss Leech drove on alone, sighing gently. Something was troubling her +dear Miss Estcourt. Something out of the ordinary had happened. She +wished she could help her. She drove on, sighing. + +Directly the road was out of sight, Anna struck back again to the left, +across the moss and lichen, towards the place where she knew there was a +path that led to Lohm. She walked very straight and very quickly. She +did not miss her way, but found the path and hastened her steps to a +run. What were they doing to Axel? She was going to his house, alone. +People would talk. Who cared? And when she had heard all that could be +told her there, she was going to Axel himself. People would talk. Who +cared? The laughable indifference of slander, when big issues of life +and death were at stake! All the tongues of all the world should not +frighten her away from Axel. Her eyes had a new look in them. For the +first time she was wide awake, was facing life as it is without dreams, +facing its absolute cruelty and pitilessness. This was life, these were +the realities--suffering, injustice, and shame; not to be avoided +apparently by the most honourable and innocent of men; but at least to +be fought with all the weapons in one's power, with unflinching courage +to the end, whatever that end might be. That was what one needed most, +of all the gifts of the gods--not happiness--oh, foolish, childish +dream! how could there be happiness so long as men were wicked?--but +courage. That blind look on Axel's face--no, she would not think of +that; it tore her heart. She stumbled a little as she ran--no, she would +not think of that. + +Out in the open, between the forest and Lohm, she met Manske. "I was +coming to you," he said. + +"I am going to him," said Anna. + +"Oh, my dear young lady!" cried Manske; and two big tears rolled down +his face. + +"Don't cry," she said, "it does not help him." + +"How can I not do so after seeing what I have this day seen?" + +She hurried on. "Come," she said, "we must not waste time. He needs +help. I am going to his house to see what I can do. Where did they take +him?" + +"They took him to prison." + +"Where?" + +"Stralsund." + +"Will he be there long?" + +"Till after the trial." + +"And that will be?" + +"God knows." + +"I am going to him. Come with me. We will take his horses." + +"Oh, dear Miss, dear Miss," cried Manske, wringing his hands, "they will +not let us see him--you they will not let in under any circumstances, +and me only across mountains of obstacles. The official who conducted +the arrest, when I prayed for permission to visit my dear patron, was +brutality itself. 'Why should you visit him?' he asked, sneering. 'The +prison chaplain will do all that is needful for his soul.' 'Let it be, +Manske,' said my dear patron, but still I prayed. 'I cannot give you +permission,' said the man at last, weary of my importunity, 'it rests +with my chief. You must go to him.'" + +"Who is the chief?" + +"I know not. I know nothing. My head is in a whirl." + +"He must be somewhere in Stralsund. We will find him, if we have to ask +from door to door. And I'll get permission for myself." + +"Oh, dearest Miss, none will be given you. The man said only his nearest +relatives, and those only very seldom--for I asked all I could, I felt +the moments were priceless--my dear patron spoke not a word. 'His wife, +if he has one,' said the man, making hideous pleasantries--he well knew +there is no wife--or his _Braut_, if there is one, or a brother or a +sister, but no one else." + +"Do his brothers and Trudi know?" + +"I at once telegraphed to them." + +"Then they will be here to-night." + +The women and children in the village ran out to look at Anna as she +passed. She did not see them. Axel's house stood open. The Mamsell, +overcome by the shame of having been in such a service, was in hysterics +in the kitchen, and the inspector, a devoted servant who loved his +master, was upbraiding her with bitterest indignation for daring to say +such things of such a master. The Mamsell's laments and the inspector's +furious reproaches echoed through the empty house. The door, like the +gate, was garlanded with flowers. Little more than an hour had gone by +since Axel passed out beneath them to ruin. + +Anna went straight to the study. His papers were lying about in +disorder; the drawer of the writing-table was unlocked, and his keys +hung in it He had been writing letters, evidently, for an unfinished one +lay on the table. She stood a moment quite still in the silent room. +Manske had gone to find the coachman, and she could hear his steps on +the stones beneath the open windows. The desolation of the deserted +room, the terrible sense of misfortune worse than death that brooded +over it, struck her like a blow that for ever destroyed her cheerful +youth. She never forgot the look and the feeling of that room. She went +to the writing-table, dropped on her knees, and laid her cheek, with an +abandonment of tenderness, on the open, unfinished letter. "How are such +things possible--how are they possible----" she murmured passionately, +shutting her eyes to press back the useless tears. "So useless to cry, +so useless," she repeated piteously, as she felt the scalding tears, in +spite of all her efforts to keep them back, stealing through her +eyelashes. And everything else that she did or could do--how useless. +What could she do for him, who had no claim on him at all? How could she +reach him across this gulf of misery? Yes, it was good to be brave in +this world, it was good to have courage, but courage without weapons, of +what use was it? She was a woman, a stranger in a strange land, she had +no friends, no influence--she was useless. Manske found her kneeling +there, holding the writing-table tightly in her outstretched arms, +pressing her bosom against it as though it were something that could +feel, her eyes shut, her face a desolation. "Do not cry," he begged in +his turn, "dearest Miss, do not cry--it cannot help him." + +They locked up his papers and everything that they thought might be of +value before they left. Manske took the keys. Anna half put out her hand +for them, then dropped it at her side. She had less claim than Manske: +he was Axel's pastor; she was nothing to him at all. + +They left the dog-cart at the entrance to the town and went in search of +a _Droschke_. Manske's weather-beaten face flushed a dull red when he +gave the order to drive to the prison. The prison was in a by-street of +shabby houses. Heads appeared at the windows of the houses as the +_Droschke_ rattled up over the rough stones, and the children playing +about the doors and gutters stopped their games and crowded round to +stare. + +They went up the dirty steps and rang the bell. The door was immediately +opened a few inches by an official who shouted "The visiting hour is +past," and shut it again. + +Manske rang a second time. + +"Well, what do you want?" asked the man angrily, thrusting out his head. + +Manske stated, in the mildest, most conciliatory tones, that he would be +infinitely obliged if he would tell him what steps he ought to take to +obtain permission to visit one of the inmates. + +"You must have a written order," snapped the man, preparing to shut the +door again. The street children were clustering at the bottom of the +steps, listening eagerly. + +"To whom should I apply?" asked Manske. + +"To the judge who has conducted the preliminary inquiries." + +The door was slammed, and locked from within with a great noise of +rattling keys. The sound of the keys made Anna feel faint; Axel was on +the other side of that ostentation of brute force. She leaned against +the wall shivering. The children tittered; she was a very fine lady, +they thought, to have friends in there. + +"The judge who conducted the preliminary inquiries," repeated Manske, +looking dazed. "Who may he be? Where shall we find him? I fear I am +sadly inexperienced in these matters." + +There was nothing to be done but to face the official's wrath once more. +He timidly rang the bell again. This time he was kept waiting. There was +a little round window in the door, and he could see the man on the other +side leaning against a table trimming his nails. The man also could see +him. Manske began to knock on the glass in his desperation. The man +remained absorbed by his nails. + +Anna was suffering a martyrdom. Her head drooped lower and lower. The +children laughed loud. Just then heavy steps were heard approaching on +the pavement, and the children fled with one accord. Immediately +afterwards an official, apparently of a higher grade than the man +within, came up. He glanced curiously at the two suppliants as he thrust +his hand into his pocket and pulled out a key. Before he could fit it in +the lock the man on the other side had seen him, had sprung to the door, +flung it open, and stood at attention. + +Manske saw that here was his opportunity. He snatched off his hat. +"Sir," he cried, "one moment, for God's sake." + +"Well?" inquired the official sharply. + +"Where can I obtain an order of admission?" + +"To see----?" + +"My dear patron, Herr von Lohm, who by some incomprehensible and +appalling mistake----" + +"You must go to the judge who conducted the preliminary inquiries." + +"But who is he, and where is he to be found?" + +The official looked at his watch. "If you hurry you may still find him +at the Law Courts. In the next street. Examining Judge Schultz." + +And the door was shut. + +So they went to the Law Courts, and hurried up and down staircases and +along endless corridors, vainly looking for someone to direct them to +Examining Judge Schultz. The building was empty; they did not meet a +soul, and they went down one passage after the other, anguish in Anna's +heart, and misery hardly less acute in Manske's. At last they heard +distant voices echoing through the emptiness. They followed the sound, +and found two women cleaning. + +"Can you direct me to the room of the Examining Judge Schultz?" asked +Manske, bowing politely. + +"The gentlemen have all gone home. Business hours are over," was the +answer. Could they perhaps give his private address? No, they could not; +perhaps the porter knew. Where was the porter? Somewhere about. + +They hurried downstairs again in search of the porter. Another ten +minutes was wasted looking for him. They saw him at last through the +glass of the entrance door, airing himself on the steps. + +The porter gave them the address, and they lost some more minutes trying +to find their _Droschke_, for they had come out at a different entrance +to the one they had gone in by. By this time Manske was speechless, and +Anna was half dead. + +They climbed three flights of stairs to the Examining Judge's flat, and +after being kept waiting a long while--"_Der Herr Untersuchungsrichter +ist bei Tisch_," the slovenly girl had announced--were told by him very +curtly that they must go to the Public Prosecutor for the order. Anna +went out without a word. Manske bowed and apologised profusely for +having disturbed the _Herr Untersuchungsrichter_ at his repast; he felt +the necessity of grovelling before these persons whose power was so +almighty. The Examining Judge made no reply whatever to these piteous +amiabilities, but turned on his heel, leaving them to find the door as +best they could. + +The Public Prosecutor lived at the other end of the town. They neither +of them spoke a word on the way there. In answer to their anxious +inquiry whether they could speak to him, the woman who opened the door +said that her master was asleep; it was his hour for repose, having just +supped, and he could not possibly be disturbed. + +Anna began to cry. Manske gripped hold of her hand and held it fast, +patting it while he continued to question the servant. "He will see no +one so late," she said. "He will sleep now till nine, and then go out. +You must come to-morrow." + +"At what time?" + +"At ten he goes to the Law Courts. You must come before then." + +"Thank you," said Manske, and drew Anna away. "Do not cry, _liebes +Kind_," he implored, his own eyes brimming with miserable tears. "Do not +let the coachman see you like this. We must go home now. There is +nothing to be done. We will come early to-morrow, and have more +success." + +They stopped a moment in the dark entrance below, trying to compose +their faces before going out. They did not dare look at each other. Then +they went out and drove away. + +The stars were shining as they passed along the quiet country road, and +all the way was drenched with the fragrance of clover and freshly-cut +hay. The sky above the rye fields on the left was still rosy. Not a leaf +stirred. Once, when the coachman stopped to take a stone out of a +horse's shoe, they could hear the crickets, and the cheerful humming of +a column of gnats high above their heads. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +Gustav von Lohm found Manske's telegram on his table when he came in +with his wife from his afternoon ride in the Thiergarten. + +"What is it?" she inquired, seeing him turn pale; and she took it out of +his hand and read it. "Disgraceful," she murmured. + +"I must go at once," he said, looking round helplessly. + +"Go?" + +When a wife says "Go?" in that voice, if she is a person of +determination and her husband is a person of peace, he does not go; he +stays. Gustav stayed. It is true that at first he decided to leave +Berlin by the early train next morning; but his wife employed the hours +of darkness addressing him, as he lay sleepless, in the language of +wisdom; and the wisdom being of that robust type known as worldly, it +inevitably produced its effect on a mind naturally receptive. + +"Relations," she said, "are at all times bad enough. They do less for +you and expect more from you than anyone else. They are the last to +congratulate if you succeed, and the first to abandon if you fail. They +are at one and the same time abnormally truthful, and abnormally +sensitive. They regard it as infinitely more blessed to administer +home-truths than to receive them back again. But, so long as they do not +actually break the laws, prejudice demands that they shall be borne +with. In my family, no one ever broke the laws. It has been reserved for +my married life, this connection with criminals." + +She was a woman of ready and frequent speech, and she continued in this +strain for some time. Towards morning, nature refusing to endure more, +Gustav fell asleep; and when he woke the early train was gone. + +In the same manner did his wife prevent his writing to his unhappy +brother. "It is sad that such things should be," she said, "sad that a +man of birth should commit so vulgar a crime; but he has done it, he has +disgraced us, he has struck a blow at our social position which may +easily, if we are not careful, prove fatal. Take my advice--have nothing +to do with him. Leave him to be dealt with as the law shall demand. We +who abide by the laws are surely justified in shunning, in abhorring, +those who deliberately break them. Leave him alone." + +And Gustav left him alone. + +Trudi was at a picnic when the telegram reached her flat. With several +of her female friends and a great many lieutenants she was playing at +being frisky among the haycocks beyond the town. Her two little boys, +Billy and Tommy, who would really have enjoyed haycocks, were left +sternly at home. She invited the whole party to supper at her flat, and +drove home in the dog-cart of the richest of the young men, making +immense efforts to please him, and feeling that she must be looking very +picturesque and sweet in her flower-trimmed straw hat and muslin dress, +silhouetted against the pale gold of the evening sky. + +Her eye fell on the telegram as the picnic party came crowding in. + +"Bill coming home?" inquired somebody. + +"I'm afraid he is," she said, opening it. + +She read it, and could not prevent a change of expression. There was a +burst of laughter. The young men declared they would never marry. The +young women, prone at all times to pity other women's husbands, +criticised Trudi's pale face, and secretly pitied Bill. She lit a +cigarette, flung herself into a chair, and became very cheerful. She had +never been so amusing. She kept them in a state of uproarious mirth till +the small hours. The richest lieutenant, who had found her distinctly a +bore during the drive home, went away feeling quite affectionate. When +they had all gone, she dropped on to her bed, and cried, and cried. + +It was in the papers next morning, and at breakfast Trudi and her family +were in every mouth. Bibi came running round, genuinely distressed. She +had not been invited to the picnic, but she forgot that in her sympathy. +"I wanted to catch you before you start," she said, vigorously embracing +her poor friend. + +"Where should I start for?" asked Trudi, offering a cold cheek to Bibi's +kisses. + +"Are you not going to Herr von Lohm?" exclaimed Bibi, open-mouthed. + +"What, when he tries to cheat insurance companies?" + +"But he never, never set fire to those buildings himself." + +"Didn't he, though?" Trudi turned her head, and looked straight into +Bibi's eyes. "I know him better than you do," she said slowly. + +She had decided that that was the only way--to cast him off altogether; +and it must be done at once and thoroughly. Indeed, how was it possible +not to hate him? It was the most dreadful thing to happen to her. She +would suffer by it in every way. If he were guilty or not guilty, he was +anyhow a fool to let himself get into such a position, and how she hated +such fools! She registered a solemn vow that she had done with Axel for +ever. + +At Kleinwalde the effect of the news was to make Frau Dellwig slay a pig +and send out invitations for an unusually large Sunday party. She and +her husband could hardly veil their beaming satisfaction with a decent +appearance of dismay. "What would his poor father, our gracious master's +oldest friend, have said!" ejaculated Dellwig at dinner, when the +servant was in the room. + +"It is truly merciful that he did not live to see it," said his wife, +with pious head-shakings. + +What Anna was doing at Stralsund, no one knew. She said she was having +some bother with her bank. Miss Leech related how they had been to the +bank on the Monday. "I must go again," Anna said on the evening of the +fruitless Tuesday, when she had been the whole day again with Manske, +vainly trying to obtain permission to visit Axel; and she added, her +head drooping, her voice faint, that it was a great bore. Certainly she +looked profoundly unhappy. + +"One cannot be too careful in money matters," remarked Frau von +Treumann, alarmed by Anna's white looks, and afraid lest by some foolish +neglect on her part supplies should cease. She enthusiastically +encouraged these visits to the bank. "Take care of your bank," she said, +"and your bank will take care of you. That is what we say in Germany." + +But Anna did not hear. There was but one thought in her mind, one cry in +her heart--how could she reach, how could she help, Axel? + +He was in a cell about five yards long by three wide. There was just +room to pass between the camp bedstead and the small deal table standing +against the opposite wall. Besides this furniture, there was one chair, +an empty wooden box turned up on end, with a tin basin on it--that was +his washstand--a little shelf fixed on the wall, and on the little shelf +a tin mug, a tin plate, a pot of salt, a small loaf of black bread, and +a Bible. The walls were painted brown, and the window, fitted with +ground glass, was high up near the ceiling; it was barred on the +outside, and could only be opened a few inches at the top. On the door a +neat printed card was fastened, giving, besides information for the +guidance of the habitually dirty as to the cleansing properties of +water, the quantity of oakum the occupant of the cell would be expected +to pick every day. The cell was used sometimes for condemned criminals, +hence the mention of the oakum; but the card caught Axel's eye whenever +he reached that end of the room in his pacings up and down, and without +knowing it he learnt its rules by heart. + +At first he had been completely dazed, absolutely unable to understand +the meaning and extent of the misfortune that had overtaken him; but +there was a grim, uncompromising reality about the prison, about the +heavy doors he passed through, each one barred and locked behind him, +each one cutting him off more utterly from the common free life outside, +about the look of the miserable beings he met being taken to or from +their work by armed warders, about the warders themselves with their +great keys, polished by frequent use--there was about these things an +inexorable reality that shook him out of the blind apathy into which he +had fallen after his arrest. Some extraordinary mistake had been made; +and, knowing that he had done nothing, when first he began to think +connectedly he was certain that it could only be a matter of hours +before he was released. But the horror of his position was there. +Released or not released, who would make good to him what he was +suffering and what he would have lost? He had been searched on his +arrival--his money, watch, and a ring he wore of his mother's taken from +him. The young official who arrested him--he was the Junior Public +Prosecutor--presided at these operations with immense zeal. Being young +and obscure, he thirsted to make a name for himself, and opportunities +were few in that little town. To be put in charge, therefore, of this +sensational case, was to behold opening out before him the rosiest +prospects for the future. His name, which was Meyer, would flare up in +flames of glory from the ashes of Axel's honour. Stralsund, ringing with +the ancient name of Lohm, would be forced to ring simultaneously with +the less ancient and not in itself interesting name of Meyer. He had +arrested Lohm, he had special charge of the case, he could not but be +talked about at last. His zeal and satisfaction accordingly were great, +carrying him far beyond the limits usual on such occasions. Axel stood +amazed at the trick of fortune that had so suddenly flung him into the +power of a young man called Meyer. + +Soon after he was locked in his cell, a warder came in with a great pot +of liquid food, a sort of thick soup made chiefly of beans, with other +bodies, unknown to Axel, floating about among them. + +"Your plate," said the warder, jerking his head in the direction of the +little shelf on which stood Axel's dining facilities; and he raised the +pot preparatory to pouring out some of its contents. + +"Thank you," said Axel, "I don't want any." + +"You'll be hungry then," said the man, going away. "There is no more +food to-day." + +Axel said nothing, and he went out. The smell of the soup, which was +apparently of great potency, filled the little room. Axel tried to open +the window wider, but though he was tall and he stood on his table, he +could not reach it. + +It began to get dark. The lamps in the street below were lit, and the +shouts of the children at play came up to him. He guessed that it must +be past nine, and wondered how long he was to be left there without a +light. As it grew darker, his thoughts grew very dark. He paced up and +down more and more restlessly, trying to force them into clearness. In +the hurry and dismay he had left his keys at Lohm, he remembered, and +all his money and papers were at the mercy of the first-comer. And he +was poor; he could not afford to lose any money, or any time. Supposing +he were to be kept here more than a few hours, what would become of his +farming, just now at its busiest season, his people used to his constant +direction and control, his inspector accustomed to do nothing without +the master's orders? And what would be the moral effect on them of his +arrest? If he had a pencil and paper he would write some hasty messages +to keep them all at their posts till his return; but he had no writing +materials, he was quite helpless. He had sent urgent word to his lawyer +in Stralsund, telegraphing to him through Manske before leaving home, +and he had expected to find him waiting for him at the prison. But he +had not come. Why did he not come? Why did he leave him helpless at such +a moment? Axel was determined to face his misfortune quietly; yet the +feeling of absolute impotence, of being as it were bound hand and foot +when there was such dire necessity for immediate action, almost broke +down his resolution. + +But it was only for a few hours, he assured himself, walking faster, +thrusting his hands deeper into his pockets, and he could bear anything +for a few hours. His brothers would come to him--to-morrow the first +thing his lawyer would certainly come. It was all so extremely absurd; +yet it was amazing the amount of suffering one such absurd mistake could +inflict. "Thank God," he exclaimed aloud, stopping in his walk, struck +by a new thought, "thank God that I have neither wife nor children." And +he paced up and down again more slowly, his shoulders bent, his head +sunk, a dull flush on his face; he was thinking of Anna. + +The door was unlocked, and a warder with a bull's-eye lantern came in +quickly. "The Public Prosecutor is coming up," he said breathlessly. +"When he comes in, you stand at attention and recite your name and the +crime of which you are accused." + +He had hardly finished when the Public Prosecutor appeared. The warder +sprang to attention. Axel slowly and unwillingly did the same. + +"Well?" snarled the great man, as Axel did not speak. He was an old man, +with a face grown sly and hard during years of association with +criminals, of experiences confined solely to the ugly sides of life. + +"My name is Lohm," said Axel, feeling the folly of attempting to defy +anyone so absolutely powerful in the place where he was; and he +proceeded to explain the crime of which he was suspected. + +The Public Prosecutor, who knew perfectly well everything about him, +having himself arranged every detail of the arrest, said something +incomprehensible and was going away. + +"May I have a light of some sort?" asked Axel, "and writing materials? I +absolutely must be able to----" + +"You cannot expect the luxuries of a _Schloss_ here," said the Public +Prosecutor with a scowl, turning on his heel and signing to the warder +to lock the door again. And he continued his rounds, congratulating +himself on having demonstrated that in his independent eye the bearer of +the most ancient name and the offscourings of the street, tried or +untried, were equal--sinners, that is, all of them--and would receive +exactly the same treatment at his hands. Indeed, he was so anxious to +impress this laudable impartiality on the members of the little +prison-world, which was the only world he knew, that he overshot the +mark, refusing Axel small conveniences that he would have unhesitatingly +granted a suppliant called Schmidt, Schultz, or Meyer. + +It was now quite dark, except for the faint light from the lamps in the +street below. Weary to death, Axel flung himself down on the little bed. +He had brought a few necessaries, hastily thrown into a bag by his +servant, necessaries that had first been carefully handled and inspected +with every symptom of distrust by the Junior Public Prosecutor Meyer; +but he did not unpack them. Judging from the shortness of the bed, he +concluded that criminals must be a stunted race. Sleeping was not made +easy by this bed, and he lay awake staring at the shadows cast by the +iron bars outside his window on to the ceiling. These shadows affected +him oddly. He shut his eyes, but still he saw them; he turned his head +to the wall and tried not to think of them, but still he saw them. They +expressed the whole misery of his situation. + +He had dozed off, worn out, when a bright light on his face woke him. He +started up in bed, confused, hardly remembering where he was. A feeling +very nearly resembling horror came over him. A bull's-eye lantern was +being held close to his face. He could see nothing but the bright light. +The man holding it did not speak, and presently backed out again, +bolting the door behind him. Axel lay down, reflecting that such +surprises, added to anxiety and bad food, must wear out a suspected +culprit's nerves with extraordinary rapidity and thoroughness. There +could not, he thought, be much left of a man in the way of brains and +calmness by the time he was taken before the judge to clear himself. The +incident completely banished all tendency to sleep. He remained wide +awake after that, tormented by anxious thoughts. + +Towards dawn, for which he thanked God when it came, the silence of the +prison was broken by screams. He started up again and listened, his +blood frozen by the sound of them. They were terrible to hear, echoing +through that place. Again a feeling of sheer horror came over him. How +long would he be able to endure these things? The screams grew more and +more appalling. He sprang up and went to the door, and listened there. +He thought he heard steps outside, and knocked. "What is that +screaming?" he cried out. But no one answered. The shrieks reached a +climax of anguish, and suddenly stopped. Death-like stillness fell again +upon the prison. Axel spent what was left of the night pacing up and +down. + +The prison day did not begin till six. Axel, used to his busy country +life that got him out of his bed and on to his horse at four these fine +summer mornings, heard sounds of life below in the street--early carts +and voices--long before life stirred within the walls. He understood +afterwards why the inmates were allowed to lie in bed so long: it was +convenient for the warders. The prisoners rose at six, and went to bed +again at six, in the full sunshine of those June afternoons. Thus +disposed of, the warders could relax their vigilance and enjoy some +hours of rest. The effect, moralising or the reverse, on the prisoners, +who could by no means get themselves off to sleep at six o'clock, was of +the supremest indifference to everyone concerned. Axel, not yet having +been tried, and not yet therefore having been placed in the common +dormitory, was not forced into bed at any particular time. He might +enjoy evenings as long as those of the warders if he chose, and he might +get up as early as though his horse were waiting below to take him to +his hay-fields if he liked; but this privilege, without the means of +employing the extra hours, was valueless. He watched anxiously for the +broad daylight that would bring his lawyer and put an end to this first +martyrdom of helpless waiting. Towards seven, one of the prisoners, +whose good conduct had procured him promotion to cleaning the passages +and doing other work of the kind, brought him another loaf of bread and +a pot of coffee. From this young man, a white-faced, artful-looking +youth, with closely-cropped hair and wearing the coarse, brown prison +dress, Axel heard that the ghastly screams in the night came from a +prisoner who had _delirium tremens_; he had been put in the cellar to +get over the attack; he could scream as loud as he liked there, and no +one would hear him; they always put him in the cellar when the attacks +came on. The young man grinned. Evidently he thought the arrangement +both good and funny. + +"Poor wretch," said Axel, profoundly pitying those other wretched human +beings, his fellow-prisoners. + +"Oh, he is very happy there. He plays all day long at catching the +rats." + +"The rats?" + +"They say there are no rats--that he only thinks he sees them. But +whether the rats are real or not it amuses him trying to catch them. +When he is quiet again, he is brought back to us." + +A warder appeared and said there was too much talking. The young man +slid away swiftly and silently. He was a thief by profession, of +superior skill and intelligence. + +Axel ate part of the bread, and succeeded in swallowing some of the +coffee, and then began his walk again, up and down, up and down, +listening intently at the door each time he came to it for sounds of his +lawyer's approach. The morning must be halfway through, he thought; why +did he not come? How could he let him wait at such a crisis? How could +any of them--Gustav, Trudi, Manske--let him wait at such a crisis? He +grew terribly anxious. He had expected Gustav by the first train from +Berlin; he might have been with him by nine o'clock. The other brother, +he knew, would be less easily reached by the telegram--he was attached +to the person of a prince whose movements were uncertain; but Gustav? +Well, he must be patient; he may not have been at home; the next train +arrived in the afternoon; he would come by that. + +The door opened, and he turned eagerly; but it was the Public Prosecutor +again. + +"Name, name, and crime!" frantically whispered the accompanying warder, +as Axel stood silent. Axel repeated the formula of the night before. +Every time these visits were made he had to go through this performance, +his heels together, his body rigid. + +"Bed not made," said the Public Prosecutor. + +"Bed not made," repeated the warder, glaring at Axel. + +"Make it," ordered the chief; and went out. + +"Make it," hissed the warder; and followed him. + +His lawyer came in simultaneously with his dinner. + +"Plate," said the warder with the pot. + +"This is a sad sight, Herr von Lohm," said the lawyer. + +"It is," agreed Axel, reaching down his plate. He allowed some of the +mess to be poured into it; he was not going to starve only because the +soup was potent. + +"I expected you yesterday," he said to the lawyer. + +"Ah--I was engaged yesterday." + +The lawyer's manner was so peculiar that Axel stared at him, doubtful if +he really were the right man. He was a native of Stralsund, and Axel had +employed him ever since he came into his estate, and had found his work +satisfactory, and his manners exceedingly polite--so polite, indeed, as +to verge on cringing; but then, as Manske would have pointed out, he was +a Jew. Now the whole man was changed. The ingratiating smiles, the bows, +the rubbed hands, where were they? The lawyer sat at his ease on the one +chair, his hands in his pockets, a toothpick in his mouth, and +scrutinised Axel while he told him his case, with an insolent look of +incredulity. + +"He actually believes I set the place on fire," thought Axel, struck by +the look. + +He did actually believe it. He always believed the worst, for his +experience had been that the worst is what comes most often nearest the +truth; but then, as Manske would have explained, he was a Jew. + +The interview was extremely unsatisfactory. "I have an appointment," +said the lawyer, pulling out his watch before they had half discussed +the situation. + +"You appear to forget that this is a matter of enormous importance to +me," said Axel, wrath in his eyes and voice. + +"That is what each of my clients invariably says," replied the lawyer, +stretching across the table for his gloves. + +"How can we arrange anything in a ten minutes' conversation?" inquired +Axel indignantly. + +The lawyer shrugged his shoulders. "I cannot neglect all my other +business." + +"I do not remember your having been so pressed for time formerly. I +shall expect you again this afternoon." + +"An impossibility." + +"Then to-morrow the first thing. That is, if I am still here." + +The lawyer grinned. "It is not so easy to get out of these places as it +is to get in," he said, drawing on his gloves. "By the way, my fees in +such cases are payable beforehand." + +Axel flushed. He could hardly believe the evidence of his senses that +this was the obsequious person who had for so long managed his affairs. +"My brother Gustav will arrange all that," he said stiffly. "You know I +can do nothing here. He is coming this afternoon." + +"Oh, is he?" said the lawyer sceptically. "Is he indeed, now? That will +be a remarkable instance of brotherly devotion. I am truly glad to hear +that. Good-afternoon," he nodded; and went out, leaving Axel in a fury. + +The one good result of his visit was that some time later Axel was +provided with writing materials. He immediately fell to writing letters +and telegrams; urgent letters and telegrams, of a desperate importance +to himself. When his coffee was brought he gave them to the warder, and +begged him to see that they were despatched at once; then he paced up +and down again, relieved at least by feeling that he could now +communicate with the outer world. + +"They have gone?" he asked anxiously, next time he saw the warder. +"_Jawohl_," was the reply. And gone they had, but only by slow stages to +the office of the Examining Judge Schultz, where they lay in a heap +waiting till he should have leisure and inclination to read them, and, +if he approved of their contents, order them to be posted. There they +lay for three days, and most of them were not passed after all, because +the Examining Judge disliked the tone of the assurances in them that the +writer was innocent. He knew that trick; every prisoner invariably +protested the same thing. But these protestations were unusually strong. +They were of such strength that they actually produced in his own +hardened and experienced mind a passing doubt, absurd of course, and not +for one moment to be considered, whether the Stralsund authorities might +not have blundered. It was a dangerous notion to put into people's +heads, that the Stralsund authorities, of whom he was one, could +blunder. Blunders meant a reproof from headquarters and a retarded +career; their possibility, therefore, was not to be entertained for a +moment. Even should they have been made, it must not get about that they +had been made. He accordingly suppressed nearly all the letters. + +Gustav must have missed the second train as well, for when the sky grew +rosy, and Axel knew that the sun was setting, he was still alone. + +The few hours he had thought to stay in that place were lengthening out +into days, he reflected. If Gustav did not come soon, what should he do? +Someone he must have to look after his affairs, to arrange with the +lawyer, to be a link connecting him with outside. And who but his +brother and heir? Still, he would certainly come soon, and Trudi too. +Poor little Trudi--he was afraid she would be terribly upset. + +But the hours passed, and no one came. + +That evening he was given a lamp. It burnt badly and smelt atrociously. +He asked if the window might be opened a little wider. The request had +to be made in writing, said the warder, and submitted through the usual +channels to the Public Prosecutor, without whose permission no window +might be touched. Axel wrote the request, and the warder took it away. +It came back two days later with an intimation scrawled across it that +if the prisoner von Lohm were not satisfied with his cell he would be +given a worse one. + +The night came, and had to be gone through somehow. Axel sat for hours +on the side of his bed, his head supported in his hands, struggling with +despair. A profound gloom was settling down on him. The knowledge that +he had done nothing had ceased to reassure him. The lawyer was right +when he said that it was easier to get into such a place than to get out +again. Klutz had denounced him, to save himself; of that he had not a +doubt. And Dellwig, well known and greatly respected, had supported +Klutz. This explained Dellwig's conduct lately completely. Axel's +courage was perilously near giving way as he recognised the difficulty +he would have in proving that he was innocent. If no one helped him from +outside, his case was indeed desperate. He did not remember ever to have +turned his back on a friend in distress; how was it, then, that not a +friend was to be found to come to him in his extremity? Where were they +all, those jovial companions who shot over his estate with him so often, +driving any distance for the pleasure of killing his game? What was +keeping Gustav back? Why did he not even send a message? How was it that +Manske, who professed so much attachment to his house, besides such +stores of Christian charity, did not make an effort to reach him? He had +never asked or wanted anything of anyone in his life; but this was so +terrible, his need was so extreme. What a failure his whole life was. He +had been alone, always. During all the years when other men have wives +and children he had been working hard, alone. He had had no happy days, +as the old Romans would have said. And now total ruin was upon him. +Sitting there through the night, he began to understand the despair that +impels unhappy beings in a like situation, forsaken of God and men, to +make wild efforts to get out of such places, conscious that they avail +nothing, but at least bruising and crushing themselves into the blessed +indifference of exhaustion. + +The hours dragged by, each one a lifetime, each one so packed with +opportunities for going mad, he thought, as he counted how many of them +separated him already from his free, honourable past life. By the time +morning came, added to his other torturing anxieties, was the fear lest +he should fall ill in there before any steps had been taken for his +release. He sat leaning his head against the wall, indifferent to what +went on around him, hardly listening any more for Gustav's footsteps. He +had ceased to expect him. He had ceased to expect anyone. He sat +motionless, suffering bodily now, a strange feeling in his head, his +thoughts dwelling dully on his physical discomforts, on the closeness of +the cell, on the horrible nights. He made a great effort to eat some +dinner, but could not. What would become of him if he could neither eat +nor sleep? On what stores of energy would he be able to draw when the +time came for defending himself? He was sitting by the table, leaning +his head against the wall, his eyes closed, when the prisoner-attendant +came to take away his dinner. "Ill?" inquired the young man cheerfully. +Axel did not move or answer. It was too much trouble to speak. + +The warder, upon the attendant's remarking that No. 32 seemed unwell, +examined him through the peep-hole in the door, but decided that he was +not ill yet; not ill enough, that is. In another week he would be ready +for the prison doctor, but not yet. These things must take their course. +It was always the same course; he had been a warder twenty years, and +knew almost to an hour the date on which, after the arrest, the doctor +would be required. + +Axel was sitting in the same position when, about three o'clock, the +door was unlocked again. He did not move or open his eyes. + +"_Ihr Fräulein Braut ist hier_," said the warder. + +The word _Braut_, betrothed, sent Axel's thoughts back across the years +to Hildegard. His betrothed? Had he heard the mocking words, or had he +been dreaming? He turned his head and looked vaguely towards the door. +All the sunlight was out there in the wide corridor, and in it, on the +threshold, stood Anna. + +What had she meant to say? She never could remember. It had been +something deeply apologetic, ashamed. But her fears and her shame fell +from her like a garment when she saw him. "Oh, poor Axel--oh, poor +Axel----" she murmured with a quick sob. + +He tried to get up to come to her. In an instant she was at his side, +and, stumbling, he fell on his knees, holding her by the dress, clinging +to her as to his salvation. "It is not pity, Anna?" he asked in a voice +sharp with an intolerable fear. + +And Anna, half blinded by her tears, deliberately put her arms round his +neck, relinquishing by that one action herself and her future entirely +to him, hauling down for ever her flag of independent womanhood, and +bending down her face to that upturned face of agonised questioning laid +her lips on his. "No," she whispered, and she kissed him with a +passionate tenderness between the words, "it is only love--only +love----" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + +There was a grave beauty, an austerity almost, about this betrothal in +the prison. Here was no room for the archnesses and coynesses of +ordinary lovemaking. All that was not simple truth fell away from them +both like tawdry ornaments, for which there was no use in that sad +place. Soul to soul, unseparated by even the flimsiest veil of +conventionality, of custom; soul to soul, clear-visioned, steadfast, as +those may be who are quietly watching the approach of death, they looked +into each other's eyes and knew that they were alone, he and she, +against the world. To cleave to one another, to stand together, he and +she, against the whole world,--that was what their betrothal meant. +Axel, cut off for ever from his kind if he should not be able to clear +himself, Anna, cutting herself off for ever to follow him. Her feet had +found the right path at last. Her eyes were open. As two friends on the +eve of a battle in which both must fight and whose end may be death, or +as two friends starting on a long journey, whose end too, after tortuous +ways of suffering, may well be death, they quietly made their plans, +talked over what was best to be done, gravely encouraging each other, +always with the light of perfect trustfulness in their eyes. How strong +they felt together! How able to go fearlessly towards the future to meet +any pain, any sorrow, together! The warder standing by, the miserable +little room, the wretched details of the situation, no longer existed +for either of them. Nothing could harm them, nothing could hurt them any +more, if only they might be together. They were safe within a circle +drawn round them by love--safe, and warm, and blest. So long as he had +her and she him, though they saw how great their misery would be if they +came to be less brave, they could not but believe in the benevolence of +the future, they could not but have hope. If he were sentenced, she +said, what, at the worst, would it mean? Two years', three years', +waiting, and then together for the rest of their life. Was not that +worth looking forward to? Would not that take away every sting? she +asked, her hands on his shoulders, her face beautiful with confidence +and courage. When he told her that she ought not now to cast in her lot +with his, she only smiled, and laid her cheek against his sleeve. All +her childish follies, and incertitudes, and false starts were done with +now. Life had grown suddenly simple. It was to be a cleaving to him till +death. Yet they both knew that when that golden hour was over, and she +must go, the suffering would begin again. She was only to come twice a +week; and the days between would be days of torture. And when the moment +had come, and they had said good-bye with brave eyes, each telling the +other that so short a separation was nothing, that they did not mind it, +that it would be over before they had had time to feel it, and the door +was shut, and he was left behind, she went out to find misery again, +waiting for her there where she had left it, taking entire possession of +her, brooding heavily, immovably over her, a desolation of misery that +threatened by its dreadful weight to break her heart. + +A sense of physical cold crept over her as she drove home with +Letty--the bodily expression of the unutterable forlornness within. Away +from him, how weak she was, how unable to be brave. Would Letty +understand? Would she say some kind word, some little word, something, +anything, that might make her feel less terribly alone? With many pauses +and falterings she told her the story, looking at her with eyes tortured +by the thought of him waiting so patiently there till she should come +again. Letty was awestruck, as much by the profound grief of Anna's face +as by the revelation. She knew of course that Axel had been +arrested--did anyone at Kleinwalde talk of anything else all day +long?--but she had not dreamt of this. She could find nothing to say, +and put out her hand timidly and laid it on Anna's. "I am so cold," was +all Anna said, her head drooping; and she did not speak again. + +As they passed between his fields, by his open gate, through the village +that belonged, all of it, to him, she shut her eyes. She could not look +at the happy summer fields, at the placid faces, knowing him where he +was. Not the poorest of his servants, not a ragged child rolling in the +dust, not a wretched, half-starved dog sunning itself in a doorway, +whose lot was not blessed compared to his. The haymakers were piling up +his hay on the waggons. Girls in white sun-bonnets, with bare arms and +legs, stood on the top of the loads catching the fragrant stuff as the +men tossed it up. Their figures were sharply outlined against the serene +sky; their shouts and laughter floated across the fields. Freedom to +come and go at will in God's liberal sunlight--just that--how precious +it was, how unspeakably precious it was. Of all God's gifts, surely the +most precious. And how ordinary, how universal. Only for Axel there was +none. + +When they reached the house, the hall seemed to be full of people. The +supper bell had lately rung, and the inmates, talking and laughing, were +going into the dining-room. Dellwig, his hands full of papers, not +having found Anna at home, was in the act of making elaborate farewell +bows to the assembled ladies. After the two silent hours of suffering +that lay between herself and Axel, how strange it was, this noisy bustle +of daily life. She caught fragments of what they were saying, fragments +of the usual prattle, the same nothings that they said every day, +accompanied by the same vague laughs. How strange it was, and how awful, +the tremendousness of life, the nearness of death, the absolute +relentlessness of suffering, and all the prattle. + +"_Um Gottes Willen!_" shrieked Frau von Treumann, when she caught sight +of this white image of grief set suddenly in their midst. "It has +smashed up, then, your bank?" And she made a hasty movement towards the +hall table, on which lay a letter for Anna from Karlchen, containing, as +she knew, an offer of marriage. + +Anna turned with a blind sort of movement, and stretched out her hand +for Letty, drawing her to her side, instinctively seeking any comfort, +any support; and she stood a moment clinging to her, gazing at the +little crowd with sombre, unseeing eyes. + +"What has happened, Anna?" asked the princess uneasily. + +"You must congratulate me," said Anna slowly in German, her head held +very high, her face of a deathly whiteness. + +A lightening look of comprehension flashed into Dellwig's eyes; he +scarcely needed to hear the words that came next. + +"Herr von Lohm and I were to-day," she said. Then she looked round at +them with a vague, piteous look, and put her hand up to her throat. "We +shall be married--we shall be married--when--when it pleases God." + + + + +CONCLUSION + + +The moral of this story, as Manske, wise after the event, pointed out +when relating those parts of it that he knew on winter evenings to a +dear friend, plainly is that all females--_alle Weiber_--are best +married. "Their aspirations," he said, "may be high enough to do credit +to the noblest male spirit; indeed, our gracious lady's aspirations were +nobility itself. But the flesh of females is very weak. It cannot stand +alone. It cannot realise the aspirations formed by its own spirit. It +requires constant guidance. It is an excellent material, but it is only +material in the raw." + +"What?" cried his wife. + +"Peace, woman. I say it is only material in the raw. And it is never of +any practical use till the hand of the master has moulded it into +shape." + +"_Sehr richtig_," agreed the friend; with the more heartiness that he +was conscious of a wife at home who had successfully withstood moulding +during a married life of twenty years. + +"That," said Manske, "is the most obvious moral. But there is yet +another." + +"The story is full of them," said the friend, who had had them all +pointed out to him, different ones each time, during those evenings of +howling tempests and indoor peace--the perfect peace of pipes, hot +stoves, and _Glühwein_. + +"The other," said Manske, "is, that it is very sinful for little girls +to write love-poetry in the name of their aunts." + +"To write love-poetry is at no time the function of little girls," said +the friend. + +"Such conduct cannot be too strongly censured," said Manske. "But to do +it in the name of someone else is not only not _mädchenhaft_, it is +sinful." + +"These English little girls appear to know no shame," said his wife. + +"Truly they might learn much from our own female youth," said the +friend. + +Letty's poems had undoubtedly been the indirect cause of the fire, of +Axel's arrest, and of his marriage with Anna. But if they had brought +about Anna's happiness, a happiness more complete and perfect than any +of which she had dreamed, they had also brought about Klutz's ruin. For +Klutz, shattered in nerves, weak of will, overcome by the state of his +conscience and the possible terrors of the next world, with the blood of +three generations of pastors in his veins, every drop of which cried out +to him day and night to save his soul at least, whatever became of his +body, Klutz had confessed. He was only twenty, he knew himself to be +really harmless, he had never had any intentions worse than foolish, and +here he was, ruined. The act had been an act of temporary madness; and +influenced by Dellwig, he had saved his skin afterwards as best he +could. Now there was the price to pay, the heavy price, so tremendous +when compared to the smallness of the follies that had led him on step +by step. His bad genius, Dellwig, went free; and later on lived +sufficiently far away from Kleinwalde to be greatly respected to the end +of his days. Manske's eyes filled with tears when he came to the action +of Providence in this matter--the mysteriousness of it, the utter +inscrutableness of it, letting the morally responsible go unpunished, +and allowing the poor young vicar, handicapped from his very entrance +into the world by his weakness of character, to be overtaken on the +threshold of life by so terrific a fate. "Truly the ways of Providence +are past finding out," said Manske, sorrowfully shaking his head. + +"I never did believe in Klutz," said his wife, thinking of her apple +jelly. + +"Woman, kick not him who is down," said her husband, turning on her with +reproachful sternness. + +"Kick!" echoed his wife, tossing her head at this rebuke, administered +in the presence of the friend; "I am not, I hope, so unwomanly as to +kick." + +"It is a figure of speech," mildly explained the friend. + +"I like it not," said Frau Manske gloomily. + +"Peace," said her husband. + + + + +BY THE SAME AUTHOR + + +Elizabeth and Her German Garden + + "What a captivating book it is--how merry and gentle and sunny, how + whimsically wise and tender! There is real humor in these pages, + and for that reason, if for no other, it deserves to live. The new + chapter, describing the author's pious pilgrimage to the garden of + her childhood, is inimitable in its way, and should not be missed + by any admirer of this most winning Elizabeth."--_New York + Tribune._ + + "Elizabeth is pure sunshine and without a shadow, the reflection, + as it were, of a quiet existence, and never a commonplace one; for, + without knowing it or suspecting it, she is an idealist. Elizabeth + never tires, for has she not her husband, her little ones, and her + books to talk about? These passages, as found in 'Elizabeth' in the + quiet history of a woman's life, act as useful tonics or are the + necessary sedatives in our somewhat fevered existence."--_New York + Times._ + + +The Solitary Summer + + "'The Solitary Summer' affords a generous harvest of beautiful and + poetic thoughts, together with some keen observations of life, all + of which are expressed in a graceful and supple prose.... It is a + privilege to have stood for a time upon the veranda steps and to + have caught a glimpse of that sane refuge."--_Chicago Tribune._ + + "Full of sunshine and fresh breezes, riotous with the bloom and + fragrance of flowers, spicy with the damp cool breath of pines.... + The quaint, whimsical fancies of a cultivated, lovable woman create + a golden atmosphere through which we see her life, and we dream + with her on her bench in her garden, in the fields where the yellow + lupins grow, and in the mossy deeps of the pine forest. We feel we + have made another friend, one who sees life with gentle, smiling + eyes and from a deliciously humorous point of view."--_Recreation._ + + "A garden of absorbing interest to its owner, a library full of + books to comfort rainy days, a hamlet of German peasants, three + delightful babies, and a 'man of wrath' who by no means merits the + title,--these are the simple elements from which a bright woman, + too cosmopolitan to be thought wholly German, as she calls herself, + has evolved a charming little book."--_The Nation._ + + "She has a depth of feeling, a sense of humor, and an impetuous and + ardent manner that make her chronicles thoroughly alive. Beside + this lovable book other feminine essays on nature, literature, and + life seem only tame and artificial performances."--_New York + Tribune._ + + +The April Baby's Book of Tunes + +WITH THE STORY OF HOW THEY CAME TO BE WRITTEN + +Illustrated by KATE GREENAWAY + +A running commentary in the quaintly humorous style characteristic of +the writer, describes the teaching of a dozen or more popular nursery +songs to the author's three little maids, the April, May, and June Baby +respectively. The music for each is given, and charming illustrations in +color complete an unusually attractive holiday book. + +Full of the sayings of three of the most delightfully amusing and +original children in the book world--the June Baby who loudly sings "The +King of Love My Shepherd is," swinging her kitten around by its tail to +emphasize the rhythm,--the loving little May Baby who says, "Directly +you comes home, the fun begins," sitting very close to her mother,--and +the quaint April Baby, concerning whom there are fears that she may turn +out a genius and thus disgrace her parents, Elizabeth and "The Man of +Wrath." + +Readers of the charming companion volumes whose authorship has been the +subject of so much recent discussion will delight in this little sequel, +which will make a most appropriate gift during the coming season to many +a mother of little ones who has had at some time to meet the problem of +how the babies can be saved from corners when there are no lessons, and +storms have forbidden exercise for them and their nurses, too. Its +pictures of a German nursery and the delicious discussions of these +toddlers over the various songs are extremely bright and entertaining, +and most aptly supplemented by Kate Greenaway's quaint and daintily +colored illustrations, of which there are sixteen, besides decorative +designs, chapter headings, etc. + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Benefactress, by Elizabeth Beauchamp + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BENEFACTRESS *** + +***** This file should be named 30302-8.txt or 30302-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/3/0/30302/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Benefactress + +Author: Elizabeth Beauchamp + +Release Date: October 20, 2009 [EBook #30302] +[Last updated: January 20, 2023] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BENEFACTRESS *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + + +<h1>The Benefactress</h1> + +<h2>BY THE AUTHOR OF "ELIZABETH AND HER GERMAN GARDEN"</h2> + + +<h4>New York<br /> +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY<br /> +LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., <span class="smcap">Ltd.</span><br /> +1901</h4> + +<h4><i>All rights reserved</i></h4> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Copyright</span>, 1901,<br /> +<span class="smcap">By</span> THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.</h4> + +<h4>Norwood Press<br /> +J. S. Gushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith<br /> +Norwood Mass. U.S.A.</h4> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">Man bedarf der Leitung<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Und der männlichen Begleitung.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4"><span class="smcap">Wilhelm Busch</span>.<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<p> +<a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">CHAPTER XXIX</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">CHAPTER XXX</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">CHAPTER XXXI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">CHAPTER XXXII</a><br /> +<a href="#CONCLUSION">CONCLUSION</a><br /><br /> +<a href="#BY_THE_SAME_AUTHOR">BY THE SAME AUTHOR</a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE BENEFACTRESS</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + + +<p>When Anna Estcourt was twenty-five, and had begun to wonder whether the +pleasure extractable from life at all counterbalanced the bother of it, +a wonderful thing happened.</p> + +<p>She was an exceedingly pretty girl, who ought to have been enjoying +herself. She had a soft, irregular face, charming eyes, dimples, a +pleasant laugh, and limbs that were long and slender. Certainly she +ought to have been enjoying herself. Instead, she wasted her time in +that foolish pondering over the puzzles of existence, over those +unanswerable whys and wherefores, which is as a rule restricted, among +women, to the elderly and plain. Many and various are the motives that +impel a woman so to ponder; in Anna's case the motive was nothing more +exalted than the perpetual presence of a sister-in-law. The +sister-in-law was rich—in itself a pleasing circumstance; but the +sister-in-law was also frank, and her husband and Anna were entirely +dependent on her, and her richness and her frankness combined urged her +to make fatiguingly frequent allusions to the Estcourt poverty. Except +for their bad taste her husband did not mind these allusions much, for +he considered that he had given her a full equivalent for her money in +bestowing his name on a person who had practically none: he was Sir +Peter Estcourt of the Devonshire Estcourts, and she was a Dobbs of +Birmingham. Besides, he was a philosopher, and philosophers never mind +anything. But Anna was in a less agreeable situation. She was not a +philosopher, she was thin-skinned, she had bestowed nothing and was +taking everything, and she was of an independent nature; and an +independent nature, where there is no money, is a great nuisance to its +possessor.</p> + +<p>When she was younger and more high-flown she sometimes talked of +sweeping crossings; but her sister-in-law Susie would not hear of +crossings, and dressed her beautifully, and took her out, and made her +dance and dine and do as other girls did, being of opinion that a rich +husband of good position was more satisfactory than crossings, and far +more likely to make some return for all the expenses she had had.</p> + +<p>At eighteen Anna was so pretty that the perfect husband seemed to be a +mere question of days. What could the most desirable of men, thought +Susie, considering her, want more than so bewitching a young creature? +But he did not come, somehow, that man of Susie's dreams; and after a +year or two, when Anna began to understand what all this dressing and +dancing really meant, and after she had had offers from people she did +not like, and had herself fallen in love with a youth of no means who +was prudent enough to marry somebody else with money, she shrank back +and grew colder, and objected more and more decidedly to Susie's +strenuous private matrimonial urgings, and sometimes made remarks of a +cynical nature to her admirers, who took fright at such symptoms of +advancing age, and fell off considerably in numbers.</p> + +<p>It was at this period, when she was barely twenty-two, that she spoke of +crossings. Susie had seriously reproved her for not meeting the advances +of an old and rich and single person with more enthusiasm, and had at +the same time alluded to the number of pounds she had spent on her every +year for the last three years, and the necessity for putting an end, by +marrying, to all this outlay; and instead of being sensible, and talking +things over quietly, Anna had poured out a flood of foolish sentiments +about the misery of knowing that she was expected to be nice to every +man with money, the intolerableness of the life she was leading, and the +superior attractions of crossing-sweeping as a means of earning a +livelihood.</p> + +<p>"Why, you haven't enough money for the broom," said Susie impatiently. +"You can't sweep without a broom, you know. I wish you were a little +less silly, Anna, and a little more grateful. Most girls would jump at +the splendid opportunity you've got now of marrying, and taking up a +position of your own. You talk a great deal of stuff about being +independent, and when you get the chance, and I do all I can to help +you, you fly into a passion and want to sweep a crossing. Really," added +Susie, twitching her shoulder, "you might remember that it isn't all +roses for me either, trying to get some one else's daughter married."</p> + +<p>"Of course it isn't all roses," said Anna, leaning against the +mantelpiece and looking down at her with perplexed eyebrows. "I am very +sorry for you. I wish you weren't so anxious to get rid of me. I wish I +could do something to help you. But you know, Susie, you haven't taught +me a trade. I can't set up on my own account unless you'll give me a +last present of a broom, and let me try my luck at the nearest crossing. +The one at the end of the street is badly kept. What do you think if I +started there?" What answer could anyone make to such folly?</p> + +<p>By the time she was twenty-four, nearly all the girls who had come out +when she did were married, and she felt as though she were a ghost +haunting the ball-rooms of a younger generation. Disliking this feeling, +she stiffened, and became more and more unapproachable; and it was at +this period that she invented excuses for missing most of the functions +to which she was invited, and began to affect a simplicity of dress and +hair arrangement that was severe. Susie's exasperation was now at its +height. "I don't know why you should be bent on making the worst of +yourself," she said angrily, when Anna absolutely refused to alter her +hair.</p> + +<p>"I'm tired of being frivolous," said Anna. "Have you an idea how long +those waves took to do? And you know how Hilton talks. It all gets +whisked up now in two minutes, and I'm spared her conversation."</p> + +<p>"But you are quite plain," cried Susie. "You are not like the same girl. +The only thing your best friend could say about you now is that you look +clean."</p> + +<p>"Well, I like to look clean," said Anna, and continued to go about the +world with hair tucked neatly behind her ears; her immediate reward +being an offer from a clergyman within the next fortnight.</p> + +<p>Peter Estcourt was even more surprised than his wife that Anna had not +made a good match years before. Of course she had no money, but she was +a pretty girl of good family, and it ought to be easy enough for her to +find a husband. He wished heartily that she might soon be happily +married; for he loved her, and knew that she and Susie could never, with +their best endeavours, be great friends. Besides, every woman ought to +have a home of her own, and a husband and children. Whenever he thought +of Anna, he thought exactly this; and when he had reached the +proposition at the end he felt that he could do no more, and began to +think of something else.</p> + +<p>His marriage with Susie, a person of whom no one had ever heard, had +brought out and developed stores of unsuspected philosophy in him. +Before that he was quite poor, and very merry; but he loved Estcourt, +and could not bear to see it falling into ruin, and he loved his small +sister, who was then only ten, and wished to give her a decent +education, and what is a man to do? There happened to be no rich +American girls about at that time, so he married Miss Dobbs of +Birmingham, and became a philosopher.</p> + +<p>It was hard on Susie that he should become a philosopher at her expense. +She did not like philosophers. She did not understand their silent ways, +and their evenness of temper. After she had done all that Peter wanted +in regard to the place in Devonshire, and had provided Anna with every +luxury in the shape of governesses, and presented her husband with an +heir to the retrieved family fortunes, she thought that she had a right +to some enjoyment too, to some gratification from her position, and was +surprised to find how little was forthcoming. Really no one could do +more than she had done, and yet nothing was done for her. Peter fished, +and read, and was with difficulty removable from Estcourt. Anna was, of +course, too young to be grateful, but there she was, taking everything +as a matter of course, her very unconsciousness an irritation. Susie +wanted to get on in the world, and nobody helped her. She wanted to bury +the Dobbs part of herself, and develop the Estcourt part; but the Dobbs +part was natural, and the Estcourt superficial, and the Dobbses were one +and all singularly unattractive—a race of eager, restless, wiry little +men and women, anxious to get as much as they could, and keep it as long +as they could, a family succeeding in gathering a good deal of money +together in one place, and failing entirely in the art of making +friends. Susie was the best of them, and had been the pretty one at +home; yet she was not in the least a success in London. She put it down +to Peter's indifference, to his slowness in introducing her to his +friends. It was no more Peter's fault than it was her own. It was not +her fault that she was not pretty—there never had been a beautiful +Dobbs—and it was not her fault that she was so unfortunately frank, and +never could and never did conceal her feverish eagerness to make +desirable acquaintances, and to get into desirable sets. Until Anna came +out she was invited only to the big functions to which the whole world +went; and the hours she passed at them were not among the most blissful +of her life. The people who were at first inclined to be kind to her for +Peter's sake, dropped off when they found how her eagerness to attract +the attention of some one mightier made her unable to fix her thoughts +on the friendly remarks that they were taking pains to make. In society +she was absent-minded, fidgety, obviously on the look-out for a chance +of drawing the biggest fish into her little net; but, wealthy as she +was, she was not wealthy enough in an age of millionnaires, and not once +during the whole of her career was a big fish simple enough to be +caught.</p> + +<p>After a time her natural shrewdness and common sense made her perceive +that her one claim to the scanty attentions she did receive was her +money. Her money had bought her Peter, and a pleasant future for her +children; it had converted a Dobbs into an Estcourt; it had given her +everything she had that was worth anything at all. Once she had +thoroughly realised this, she began to attach a tremendous importance to +the mere possession of money, and grew very stingy, making difficulties +about spending that grieved Peter greatly; not because he ever wanted +her money now that Estcourt had been restored to its old splendour and +set going again for their boy, but because meanness about money in a +woman was something he could not comprehend—something repulsive, +unfeminine, contrary to her nature as he had always understood it. He +left off making the least suggestion about Anna's education or the +household arrangements; everything that was done was done of Susie's own +accord; and he spent more and more time in Devonshire, and grew more and +more philosophical, and when he did talk to his wife, restricted his +conversation to the language of abstract wisdom.</p> + +<p>Now this was very hard on Susie, who had no appreciation of abstract +wisdom, and who lived as lonely a life as it is possible to imagine. +Peter kept out of her way. Anna was subject to prolonged fits of chilly +silence. Susie used, at such times, to think regretfully of the cheerful +Dobbs days, of their frank and congenial vulgarity.</p> + +<p>When Anna was eighteen, Susie's prospects brightened for a time. Doors +that had been shut ever since she married, opened before her on her +appearing with such a pretty <i>débutante</i> under her wing, and she could +enjoy the reflected glory of Anna's little triumphs. And then, without +any apparent reason, Anna had altered so strangely, and had disappointed +every one's expectations; never encouraging the right man, never ready +to do as she was told, exasperatingly careless on all matters of vital +importance, and ending by showing symptoms of freezing into something of +the same philosophical state as Peter. Their mother had been German——a +lady-in-waiting to one of the German princesses; and their father had +met her and married her while he was secretary at the English Embassy in +St. Petersburg. And Susie, who had heard of German philosophy and German +stolidity, and despised them both with all her heart, concluded that the +German strain was accountable for everything about Peter and Anna that +was beyond her comprehension; and sometimes, when Peter was more than +usually wise and unapproachable, would call him Herr Schopenhauer—which +had an immediate effect of producing a silence that lasted for weeks; +for not only did he like her least when she was playful, but he had, as +a matter of fact, read a great deal of Schopenhauer, and was uneasily +conscious that it had not been good for him.</p> + +<p>While Peter fished, and meditated on the vanity of human wishes at +Estcourt, Anna, with rare exceptions, was wherever Susie was, and Susie +was wherever it was fashionable to be. For a week or two in the summer, +for a day or two at Easter, they went down to Devonshire; and Anna might +wander about the old house and grounds as she chose, and feel how much +better she had loved it in its tumble-down state, the state she had +known as a child, when her mother lived there and was happy. Everything +was aggressively spruce now, indoors and out. Susie's money and Susie's +taste had rubbed off all the mellowness and all the romance. Anna was +glad to leave it again, and be taken to Marienbad, or any place where +there was royalty, for Susie loved royalty. But what a life it was, +going round year after year with Susie! London, Devonshire, Marienbad, +Scotland, London again, following with patient feet wherever the +unconscious royalties led, meeting the same people, listening to the +same music, talking the same talk, eating the same dinners—would no one +ever invent anything new to eat? The inexpressible boredom of riding up +and down the Row every morning, the unutterable hours shopping and +trying on clothes, the weariness of all the new pictures, and all the +concerts, and all the operas, which seemed to grow less pleasing every +year, as her eye and ear grew more critical. She knew at last every note +of the stock operas and concerts, and every note seemed to have got on +to her nerves.</p> + +<p>And then the people they knew—the everlasting sameness of them, content +to go the same dull round for ever. Driving in the Park with Susie, +neither of them speaking a word, she used to watch the faces in the +other carriages, nearly all faces of acquaintances, to see whether any +of them looked cheerful; and it was the rarest thing to come across any +expression but one of blankest boredom. Bored and cross, hardly ever +speaking to the person with them, their friends drove up and down every +afternoon, and she and Susie did the same, as silent and as bored as any +of them. A few unusually beautiful, or unusually witty, or unusually +young persons appeared to find life pleasant and looked happy, but they +avoided Susie. Her set was made up of the dull and plain; and all the +amusing people, and all the interesting people, turned their backs with +one accord on her and it.</p> + +<p>These were the circumstances that drove Anna to reflect on the problems +of life every time she was beyond the sound of Susie's voice.</p> + +<p>She passionately resented her position of dependence on Susie, and she +passionately resented the fact that the only way to get out of it was to +marry. Every time she had an offer, she first of all refused it with an +energy that astonished the unhappy suitor, and then spent days and +nights of agony because she had refused it, and because Susie wanted her +to accept it, and because of an immense pity for Susie that had taken +possession of her heart. How could Peter live so placidly at Susie's +expense, and treat her with such a complete want of tenderness? Anna's +love for her brother diminished considerably directly she began to +understand Susie's life. It was such a pitiful little life of cringing, +and pushing, and heroically smiling in the face of ill-treatment. No one +cared for her in the very least. She had hundreds of acquaintances, who +would eat her dinners and go away and poke fun at her, but not a single +friend. Her husband lived on her and hardly spoke to her. Her boy at +Eton, an amazing prig, looked down on her. Her little daughter never +dreamed of obeying her. Anna herself was prevented by some stubborn +spirit of fastidiousness, evidently not possessed by any of her +contemporaries, from doing the only thing Susie had ever really wanted +her to do—marrying, and getting herself out of the way. What if Susie +were a vulgar little woman of no education and no family? That did not +make it any the more glorious for the Estcourts to take all they could +and ignore her existence. It was, after all, Susie who paid the bills. +Anna pitied her from the bottom of her heart; such a forlorn little +woman, taken out of her proper sphere, and left to shiver all alone, +without a shred of love to cover and comfort her.</p> + +<p>It was when she was away from Susie that she felt this. When she was +with her, she found herself as cold and quiet and contradictory as +Peter. She used, whenever she got the chance, to go to afternoon service +at St. Paul's. It was the only place and time in which all the bad part +of her was soothed into quiet, and the good allowed to prevail in peace. +The privacy of the great place, where she never met anyone she knew, the +beauty of the music, the stateliness of the service offered every day in +equal perfection to any poor wretch choosing to turn his back for an +hour on the perplexities of life, all helped to hush her grievances to +sleep and fill her heart with tenderness for those who were not happy, +and for those who did not know they were unhappy, and for those who +wasted their one precious life in being wretched when they might have +been happy. How little it would need, she thought (for she was young and +imaginative), to turn most people's worries and sadness into joy. Such a +little difference in Susie's ways and ideas would make them all so +happy; such a little change in Peter's habits would make his wife's life +radiant. But they all lived blindly on, each day a day of emptiness, +each of those precious days, so crowded with opportunities, and +possibilities, and unheeded blessings, and presently life would be +behind them, and their chances gone for ever.</p> + +<p>"The world is a dreadful place, full of unhappy people," she thought, +looking out on to the world with unhappy eyes. "Each one by himself, +with no one to comfort him. Each one with more than he can bear, and no +one to help him. Oh, if I could, I would help and comfort everyone that +is sad, or sick at heart, or sorry—oh, if I could!"</p> + +<p>And she dreamed of all that she would do if she were Susie—rich, and +free from any sort of interference—to help others, less fortunate, to +be happy too. But, since she was the very reverse of rich and free, she +shook off these dreams, and made numbers of good resolutions +instead—resolutions bearing chiefly on her future behaviour towards +Susie. And she would come out of the church filled with the sternest +resolves to be ever afterwards kind and loving to her; and the very +first words Susie uttered would either irritate her into speeches that +made her sorry, or freeze her back into her ordinary state of cold +aloofness.</p> + +<p>If Susie had had an idea that Anna was pitying her, and making good +resolutions of which she was the object at afternoon services, and that +in her eyes she had come to be merely a cross which must with heroism be +borne, she probably would have been indignant. Pitying people and being +pitied oneself are two very different things. The first is soothing and +sweet, the second is annoying, or even maddening, according to the +temperament of the patient. Susie, however, never suspected that anyone +could be sorry for her; and when, after a party, before they went to +bed, Anna would put her arms round her and give her a disproportionately +tender kiss, she would show her surprise openly. "Why, what's the +matter?" she would ask. "Another mood, Anna?" For she could not know how +much Anna felt the snubs she had seen her receive. How should she? She +was so used to them that she hardly noticed them herself.</p> + +<p>It was when Anna was twenty-five, and much vexed in body by efforts to +be and to do as Susie wished, and in soul by those unanswerable +questions as to the why and wherefore of the aimless, useless existence +she was leading, that the wonderful thing happened that changed her +whole life.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + + +<p>There was a German relation of Anna's, her mother's brother, known to +Susie as Uncle Joachim. He had been twice to England; once during his +sister's life, when Anna was little, and Peter was unmarried, and they +were all poor and happy together at Estcourt; and once after Susie's +introduction into the family, just at that period when Anna was +beginning to stiffen and put her hair behind her ears.</p> + +<p>Susie knew all about him, having inquired with her usual frankness on +first hearing of his existence whether he would be likely to leave Anna +anything on his death; and upon being informed that he had a family of +sons, and large estates and little money, looked upon it as a great +hardship to be obliged to have him in her London house. She objected to +all Germans, and thought this particular one a dreadful old man, and +never wearied of making humorous comments on his clothes and the oddness +of his manners at meals. She was vexed that he should be with them in +Hill Street, and refused to give dinners while he was there. She also +asked him several times if he would not enjoy a stay at Estcourt, and +said that the country was now at its best, and the primroses were in +full beauty.</p> + +<p>"I want not primroses," said Uncle Joachim, who seldom spoke at length; +"I live in the country. I will now see London."</p> + +<p>So he went about diligently to all the museums and picture-galleries, +sometimes alone and sometimes with Anna, who neglected her social duties +more than ever in order to be with him, for she loved him.</p> + +<p>They talked together chiefly in German, Uncle Joachim carefully +correcting her mistakes; and while they went frugally in omnibuses to +the different sights, and ate buns in confectioners' shops at +lunch-time, and walked long distances where no omnibuses were to be +found—for besides having a great fear of hansoms he was very +thrifty—he drew her out, saying little himself, and in a very short +time knew almost as much about her life and her perplexities as she did.</p> + +<p>She was very happy during his visit, and told herself contentedly that +blood, after all, was thicker than water. She did not stop to consider +what she meant exactly by this, but she had a vague notion that Susie +was the water. She felt that Uncle Joachim understood her better than +anyone had yet done; and was it not natural that her dear mother's +brother should? And it was only after she had taken him to service at +St. Paul's that she began to perceive that there might perhaps be points +on which their tastes differed. Uncle Joachim had remained seated while +other people knelt or stood; but that did not matter in that liberal +place, where nobody notices the degree of his neighbour's devoutness. +And he had slept during the anthem, one of those unaccompanied anthems +that are sung there with what seem of a certainty to be the voices of +angels. And on coming out, when a fugue was rolling in glorious +confusion down the echoing aisles, and Anna, who preferred her fugues +confused, felt that her spirit was being caught up to heaven, he had +looked at her rapt face and wet eyelashes, and patted her hand very +kindly, and said encouragingly, "In my youth I too cultivated Bach. Now +I cultivate pigs. Pigs are better."</p> + +<p>Anna's mother had been his only sister, and he had come over, not, as he +told Susie, to see London, but to see Susie herself, and to find out how +it was that Anna had reached an age that in Germany is the age of old +maids without marrying. By the time he had spent two evenings in Hill +Street he had formed his opinion of his nephew and his nephew's wife, +and they remained fixed until his death. "The good Peter," he said +suddenly one day to Anna when they were wandering together in the maze +at Hampton Court—for he faithfully went the rounds of sightseeing +prescribed by Baedeker, and Anna followed him wherever he went—"the +good Peter is but a <i>Quatschkopf</i>."</p> + +<p>"A <i>Quatschkopf</i>?" echoed Anna, whose acquaintance with her +mother-tongue did not extend to the byways of opprobrium. "What in the +world is a <i>Quatschkopf</i>?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Quatschkopf</i> is a <i>Duselfritz</i>," explained Uncle Joachim, "and also it +is the good Peter."</p> + +<p>"I believe you are calling him ugly names," said Anna, slipping her arm +through his; by this time, if not kindred spirits, they were the best of +friends.</p> + +<p>Uncle Joachim did not immediately reply. They had come to the open space +in the middle of the maze, and he sat down on the seat to recover his +breath, and to wipe his forehead; for though the wind was cold the sun +was fierce. "<i>Gott, was man Alles durchmacht auf Reisen!</i>" he sighed. +Then he put his handkerchief back into his pocket, looked up at Anna, +who was standing in front of him leaning on her sunshade, and said, "A +<i>Quatschkopf</i> is a foolish fellow who marries a woman like that."</p> + +<p>"Oh, poor Susie!" cried Anna, at once ready to defend her, and full of +the kindly feelings absence invariably produced. "Peter did a very +sensible thing. But I don't think Susie did, marrying Peter."</p> + +<p>"He is a <i>Quatschkopf</i>," said Uncle Joachim, not to be shaken in his +opinions, "and the <i>geborene</i> Dobbs is a vulgar woman who is not rich +enough."</p> + +<p>"Not rich enough? Why, we are all suffocated by her money. We never hear +of anything else. It would be dreadful if she had still more."</p> + +<p>"Not rich enough," persisted Uncle Joachim, pursing up his lips into an +expression of great disapproval, and shaking his head. "Such a woman +should be a millionnaire. Not of marks, but of pounds sterling. Short of +that, a man of birth does not impose her as a mother on his children. +Peter has done it. He is a <i>Quatschkopf</i>."</p> + +<p>"It is a great mercy that she isn't a millionnaire," said Anna, appalled +by the mere thought. "Things would be just the same, except that there +would be all that money more to hear about. I hate the very name of +money."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense. Money is very good."</p> + +<p>"But not somebody else's."</p> + +<p>"That is true," said Uncle Joachim approvingly. "One's own is the only +money that is truly pleasant." Then he added suddenly, "Tell me, how +comes it that you are not married?"</p> + +<p>Anna frowned. "Now you are growing like Susie," she said.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach</i>—she asks you that often?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—no, not quite like that. She says she knows why I am not married."</p> + +<p>"And what knows she?"</p> + +<p>"She says that I frighten everybody away," said Anna, digging the point +of her sunshade into the ground. Then she looked at Uncle Joachim, and +laughed.</p> + +<p>"What?" he said incredulously. This pretty creature standing before him, +so soft and young—for that she was twenty-four was hardly +credible—could not by any possibility be anything but lovable.</p> + +<p>"She says that I am disagreeable to people—that I look cross—that I +don't encourage them enough. Now isn't it simply terrible to be expected +to encourage any wretched man who has money? I don't want anybody to +marry me. I don't want to buy my independence that way. Besides, it +isn't really independence."</p> + +<p>"For a woman it is the one life," said Uncle Joachim with great +decision. "Talk not to me of independence. Such words are not for the +lips of girls. It is a woman's pride to lean on a good husband. It is +her happiness to be shielded and protected by him. Outside the narrow +circle of her home, for her happiness is not. The woman who never +marries has missed all things."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe it," said Anna.</p> + +<p>"It is nevertheless true."</p> + +<p>"Look at Susie—is she so happy?"</p> + +<p>"I said a <i>good</i> husband; not a <i>Duselfritz</i>."</p> + +<p>"And as for narrow circles, why, how happy, how gloriously happy, I +could be outside them, if only I were independent!"</p> + +<p>"Independent—independent," repeated Uncle Joachim testily, "always this +same foolish word. What hast thou in thy head, child, thy pretty woman's +head, made, if ever head was, to lean on a good man's shoulder?"</p> + +<p>"Oh—good men's shoulders," said Anna, shrugging her own, "I don't want +to lean on anybody's shoulder. I want to hold my head up straight, all +by itself. Do you then admire limp women, dear uncle, whose heads roll +about all loose till a good man comes along and props them up?"</p> + +<p>"These are English ideas. I like them not," said Uncle Joachim, looking +stony.</p> + +<p>Anna sat down on the seat by his side, and laid her cheek for a moment +against his sleeve. "This is the only good man's shoulder it will ever +lean on," she said. "If I were a preacher, do you know what I would +preach?"</p> + +<p>"Thou art not, and never wilt be, a preacher."</p> + +<p>"But if I were? Do you know what I would preach? Early and late? In +season and out of it?"</p> + +<p>"Much nonsense, I doubt not."</p> + +<p>"I would preach independence. Only that. Always that. They would be +sermons for women only; and they would be warnings against props."</p> + +<p>She sat up and looked at him out of the corners of her eyes, but he +continued to stare stonily into space.</p> + +<p>"I would thump the cushions, and cry out, 'Be independent, independent, +independent! Don't talk so much, and do more. Go your own way, and let +your neighbour go his. Don't meddle with other people when you have all +your own work cut out for you being good yourself. Shake off all the +props——'"</p> + +<p>"Anna, thou art talking folly."</p> + +<p>"'—shake them off, the props tradition and authority offer you, and go +alone—crawl, stumble, stagger, but go alone. You won't learn to walk +without tumbles, and knocks, and bruises, but you'll never learn to walk +at all so long as there are props.' Oh," she said fervently, casting up +her eyes, "there is nothing, nothing like getting rid of one's props!"</p> + +<p>"I never yet," observed Uncle Joachim, in his turn casting up his eyes, +"saw a girl who so greatly needs the guidance of a good man. Hast thou +never loved, then?" he added, turning on her suddenly.</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied Anna promptly. If Uncle Joachim chose to ask such direct +questions she would give him straight answers.</p> + +<p>"But——?"</p> + +<p>"He went away and married somebody else. I had no money, and she had a +great deal. So you see he was a very sensible young man." And she +laughed, for she had long ago ceased to be anything but amused by the +remembrance of her one excursion into the rocky regions of love.</p> + +<p>"That," said Uncle Joachim, "was not true love."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but it was."</p> + +<p>"Nay. One does not laugh at love."</p> + +<p>"It was all I had, anyhow. There isn't any more left. It was very bad +while it lasted, and it took at least two years to get over it. What +things I did to please that young man and appear lovely in his eyes! The +hours it took to dress, and get my hair done just right. I endured +tortures if I didn't look as beautiful as I thought I could look, and +was always giving my poor maid notice. And plots—the way I plotted to +get taken to the places where he would be! I never was so artful before +or since. Poor Susie was quite helpless. It is a mercy it all ended as +it did."</p> + +<p>"That," repeated Uncle Joachim, "was not true love."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it was."</p> + +<p>"No, my child."</p> + +<p>"Yes, my uncle. I laugh now, but it was very dreadful at the time."</p> + +<p>"Thou art but a goose," he said, shrugging his shoulders; but +immediately patted her hand lest her feelings should have been hurt. +And, declining further argument, he demanded to be taken to the Great +Vine.</p> + +<p>It was in this fashion, Anna talking and Uncle Joachim making brief +comments, that he came to know her as thoroughly as though he had lived +with her all his life.</p> + +<p>Soon after the excursion to Hampton Court a letter came that hurried his +departure, to Susie's ill-concealed relief.</p> + +<p>"My swines are ill," he informed her, greatly agitated, his fragile +English going altogether to pieces in his perturbation; "my inspector +writes they perpetually die. God keep thee, Anna," and he embraced her +very tenderly, and bending hastily over Susie's hand muttered some +conventionalities, and then disappeared into his four-wheeler and out of +their lives.</p> + +<p>They never saw him again.</p> + +<p>"My swines are ill," mimicked Susie, when Anna, feeling that she had +lost her one friend, came slowly back into the room, "my swines +perpetually die—"</p> + +<p>Anna was obliged to go and pray very hard at St. Paul's before she could +forgive her.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + + +<p>The old man died at Christmas, and in the following March, when Anna was +going about more sad and listless than ever, the news came that, though +his inherited estates had gone to his sons, he had bought a little place +some years before with the intention of retiring to it in his extreme +old age, and this little place he had left to his dear and only niece +Anna.</p> + +<p>She was alone when the letters bringing the news arrived, sitting in the +drawing-room with a book in her hands at which she did not look, feeling +utterly downcast, indifferent, too hopeless to want anything or mind +anything, accepting her destiny of years of days like this, with herself +going through them lonely, useless, and always older, and telling +herself that she did not after all care. "What does it matter, so long +as I have a comfortable bed, and fires when I am cold, and meals when I +am hungry?" she thought. "Not to have those is the only real misery. All +the rest is purest fancy. What right have I to be happier than other +people? If they are contented by such things, I can be contented too. +And what does a useless being like me deserve, I should like to know? It +was detestably ungrateful of me to have been unhappy all this time."</p> + +<p>She got up aimlessly, and looked out of the window into the sunny +street, where the dust was racing by on the gusty March wind, and the +women selling daffodils at the corner were more battered and blown about +and red-eyed than ever. She had often, in those moments when her whole +body tingled with a wild longing to be up and doing and justifying her +existence before it was too late, envied these poor women, because they +worked. She wondered vaguely now at her folly. "It is much better to be +comfortable," she thought, going back to the fire as aimlessly as she +had gone to the window, "and it is sheer idiocy quarrelling with a life +that other people would think quite tolerable."</p> + +<p>Then the door opened, and the letters were brought in—the wonderful +letters that struck the whole world into radiance—lying together with +bills and ordinary notes on a salver, carried by an indifferent servant, +handed to her as though they were things of naught—the wonderful +letters that changed her life.</p> + +<p>At first she did not understand what it was that they meant, and pored +over the cramped German writing, reading the long sentences over and +over again, till something suddenly seemed to clutch at her heart. Was +this possible? Was this actual truth? Was Uncle Joachim, who had so much +objected to her longing for independence, giving it to her with both +hands, and every blessing along with it? She read them through again, +very carefully, holding them with shaking hands. Yes, it was true. She +began to cry, sobbing over them for very love and tenderness, her whole +being melted into gratitude and humbleness, awestruck by a sense of how +little she had deserved it, dazzled by the thousand lovely colours life, +in the twinkling of an eye, had taken on.</p> + +<p>There were two letters—one from Uncle Joachim's lawyer, and one from +Uncle Joachim himself, written soon after his return from England, with +directions on the envelope that it was to be sent to Anna after his +death.</p> + +<p>Uncle Joachim was not a man to express sentiment otherwise than by +patting those he loved affectionately on the back, and the letter over +which Anna hung with such tender gratitude, and such an extravagance of +humility, was a mere bald statement of facts. Since Anna, with a +perversity that he entirely disapproved, refused to marry, and appeared +to be possessed of the obstinacy that had always been a peculiarity of +her German forefathers, and which was well enough in a man, but +undesirable in a woman, whose calling it was to be gentle and yielding +(<i>sanft und nachgiebig</i>), and convinced from what he had seen +during his visit to London that she could never by any possibility be +happy with her brother and sister-in-law, and moreover considering that +it was beneath the dignity of his sister's daughter, a young lady of +good family, for ever to roll herself in the feathers with which the +middle-class goose-born Dobbs had furnished Peter's otherwise defective +nest, he had decided to make her independent altogether of them, +numerous though his own sons were, and angry as they no doubt would be, +by bestowing on her absolutely after his death the only property he +could leave to whomsoever he chose, a small estate near Stralsund, where +he hoped to pass his last years. It was in a flourishing condition, easy +to manage, bringing in a yearly average of forty thousand marks, and +with an experienced inspector whom he earnestly recommended her to keep. +He trusted his dear Anna would go and live there, and keep it up to its +present state of excellence, and would finally marry a good German +gentleman, of whom there were many, and return in this way altogether to +the country of her forefathers. The estate was not so far from Stralsund +as to make it impossible for her to drive there when she wished to +indulge any feminine desire she might have to trim herself (<i>sich +putzen</i>), and he recommended her to begin a new life, settling there +with some grave and sober female advanced in years as companion and +protectress, until such time as she should, by marriage, pass into the +care of that natural protector, her husband.</p> + +<p>Then followed a short exposition of his views on women, especially those +women who go to parties all their lives and talk <i>Klatsch</i>; a spirited +comparing of such women with those whose interests keep them busy in +their own homes; and a final exhortation to Anna to seize this +opportunity of choosing the better life, which was always, he said, a +life of simplicity, frugality, and hard work.</p> + +<p>Anna wept and laughed together over this letter—the tenderest laughter +and the happiest tears. It seemed by turns the wildest improbability +that she should be well off, and the most natural thing in the world. +Susie was out. Never had her absence been terrible before. Anna could +hardly bear the waiting. She walked up and down the room, for sitting +still was impossible, holding the precious letters tight in her little +cold hands, her cheeks burning, her eyes sparkling, in an agony of +impatience and anxiety lest something should have happened to delay +Susie at this supreme moment. At the window end of the room she stopped +each time she reached it and looked eagerly up and down the street, the +flower-women and the blessedness of selling daffodils having within an +hour become profoundly indifferent to her. At the other end of the room, +where a bureau stood, she came to a standstill too, and snatching up a +pen began a letter to Peter in Devonshire; but, hearing wheels, threw it +down and flew to the window again. It was not Susie's carriage, and she +went back to the letter and wrote another line; then again to the +window; then again to the letter; and it was the letter's turn as Susie, +fagged from a round of calls, came in.</p> + +<p>Susie's afternoon had not been a success. She had made advances to a +woman of enviably high position with the intrepidity that characterised +all her social movements, and she had been snubbed for her pains with +more than usual rudeness. She had had, besides, several minor +annoyances. And to come in worn out, and have your sister-in-law, who +would hardly speak to you at luncheon, fall on your neck and begin +violently to kiss you, is really a little hard on a woman who is already +cross.</p> + +<p>"Now what in the name of fortune is the matter now?" gasped Susie, +breathlessly disengaging herself.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Susie! oh, Susie!" cried Anna incoherently, "what ages you have +been away—and the letters came directly you had gone—and I've been +watching for you ever since, and was so dreadfully afraid something had +happened——"</p> + +<p>"But what are you talking about, Anna?" interrupted Susie irritably. It +was late, and she wanted to rest for a few minutes before dressing to go +out again, and here was Anna in a new mood of a violent nature, and she +was weary beyond measure of all Anna's moods.</p> + +<p>"Oh, such a wonderful thing has happened!" cried Anna; "such a wonderful +thing! What will Peter say? And how glad you will be——" And she thrust +the letters with trembling fingers into Susie's unresponsive hand.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" said Susie, looking at them bewildered.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no—I forgot," said Anna, wildly as it seemed to Susie, pulling +them out of her hand again. "You can't read German—see here——" And +she began to unfold them and smooth out the creases she had made, her +hands shaking visibly.</p> + +<p>Susie stared. Clearly something extraordinary had happened, for the +frosty Anna of the last few months had melted into a radiance of emotion +that would only not be ridiculous if it turned out to be justified.</p> + +<p>"Two German letters," said Anna, sitting down on the nearest chair, +spreading them out on her lap, and talking as though she could hardly +get the words out fast enough, "one from Uncle Joachim——"</p> + +<p>"Uncle Joachim?" repeated Susie, a disagreeable and creepy doubt as to +Anna's sanity coming over her. "You know very well he's dead and can't +write letters," she said severely.</p> + +<p>"—and one from his lawyer," Anna went on, regardless of everything but +what she had to tell. "The lawyer's letter is full of technical words, +difficult to understand, but it is only to confirm what Uncle Joachim +says, and his is quite plain. He wrote it some time before he died, and +left it with his lawyer to send on to me."</p> + +<p>Susie was listening now with all her ears. Lawyers, deceased uncles, and +Anna's sparkling face could only have one meaning.</p> + +<p>"Uncle Joachim was our mother's only brother——"</p> + +<p>"I know, I know," interrupted Susie impatiently.</p> + +<p>"—and was the dearest and kindest of uncles to me——"</p> + +<p>"Never mind what he was," interrupted Susie still more impatiently. +"What has he done for you? Tell me that. You always pretended, both of +you—Peter too—that he had miles of sandy places somewhere in the +desert, and dozens of boys. What could he do for you?"</p> + +<p>"Do for me?" Anna rose up with a solemnity worthy of the great news +about to be imparted, put both her hands on Susie's little shoulders, +and looking down at her with shining eyes, said slowly, "He has left me +an estate bringing in forty thousand marks a year."</p> + +<p>"Forty thousand!" echoed Susie, completely awestruck.</p> + +<p>"Marks," said Anna.</p> + +<p>"Oh, marks," said Susie, chilled. "That's francs, isn't it? I really +thought for a moment——"</p> + +<p>"They're more than francs. It brings in, on an average, two thousand +pounds a year. Two—thousand—pounds—a—year," repeated Anna, nodding +her head at each word. "Now, Susie, what do you think of that?"</p> + +<p>"What do I think of it? Why, that it isn't much. Where would you all +have been, I wonder, if I had only had two thousand a year?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, congratulate me!" cried Anna, opening her arms. "Kiss me, and tell +me you are glad! Don't you see that I am off your hands at last? That we +need never think about husbands again? That you will never have to buy +me any more clothes, and never tire your poor little self out any more +trotting me round? I don't know which of us is to be congratulated +most," she added laughing, looking at Susie with her eyes full of tears. +Then she insisted on kissing her again, and murmured foolish things in +her ear about being so sorry for all her horrid ways, and so grateful to +her, and so determined now to be good for ever and ever.</p> + +<p>"My <i>dear</i> Anna," remonstrated Susie, who disliked sentiment and never +knew how to respond to exhibitions of feeling. "Of course I congratulate +you. It almost seems as if throwing away one's chances in the way you +have done was the right thing to do, and is being rewarded. Don't let us +waste time. You know we go out to dinner. What has he left Peter?"</p> + +<p>"Peter?" said Anna wonderingly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Peter. He was his nephew, I suppose, just as much as you were his +niece."</p> + +<p>"Well, but Susie, Peter is different. He—he doesn't need money as I do; +and of course Uncle Joachim knew that."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense. He hasn't got a penny. Let me look at the letters."</p> + +<p>"They're in German. You won't be able to read them."</p> + +<p>"Give them to me. I learned German at school, and got a prize. You're +not the only person in the world who can do things."</p> + +<p>She took them out of Anna's hand, and began slowly and painfully to read +the one from Uncle Joachim, determined to see whether there really was +no mention of Peter. Anna looked on, hot and cold by turns with fright +lest by some chance her early studies should not after all have been +quite forgotten.</p> + +<p>"Here's something about Peter—and me," Susie said suddenly. "At least, +I suppose he means me. It is something Dobbs. Why does he call me that? +It hasn't been my name for fifteen years."</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's some silly German way. He says the <i>geborene</i> Dobbs, to +distinguish you from other Lady Estcourts."</p> + +<p>"But there are no others."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, his sister was one. Give me the letter, Susie—I can tell you +what he says much more quickly than you can read it."</p> + +<p>"'<i>Unter der Würde einer jünge Dame aus guter Familie</i>,'" read out Susie +slowly, not heeding Anna, and with the most excruciating pronunciation +that was ever heard, "'<i>sich ewig auf den Federn, mit welchen die +bürgerliche Gans geborene Dobbs Peters sonst mangelhaftes Nest +ausgestattet hat, zu wälzen</i>.' What stuff he writes. I can hardly +understand it. Yet I must have been good at it at school, to get the +prize. What is that bit about me and Peter?"</p> + +<p>"Which bit?" said Anna, blushing scarlet. "Let me look." She got the +letter back into her possession. "Oh, that's where he says that—that he +doesn't think it fair that I should be a burden for ever on you and +Peter."</p> + +<p>"Well, that's sensible enough. The old man had some sense in him after +all, absurd though he was, and vulgar. It <i>isn't</i> fair, of course. I +don't mean to say anything disagreeable, or throw all I have done for +you in your face, but really, Anna, few mothers would have made the +sacrifices I have for you, and as for sisters-in-law—well, I'd just +like to see another."</p> + +<p>"Dear Susie," said Anna tenderly, putting her arm round her, ready to +acknowledge all, and more than all, the benefits she had received, "you +have been only too kind and generous. I know that I owe you everything +in the world, and just think how lovely it is for me to feel that now I +can take my weight off your shoulders! You must come and live with <i>me</i> +now, whenever you are sick of things, and I'll feel so proud, having you +in my house!"</p> + +<p>"Live with you?" exclaimed Susie, drawing herself away. "Where are you +going to live?"</p> + +<p>"Why, there, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"Live there! Is that a condition?"</p> + +<p>"No, but Uncle Joachim keeps on saying he hopes I will, and that I'll +settle down and look after the place."</p> + +<p>"Look after the place yourself? How silly!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, you haven't taught me much about farming, have you? He wants me to +turn quite into a German."</p> + +<p>"Good gracious!" cried Susie, genuinely horrified.</p> + +<p>"He seems to think that I ought to work, and not spend my life talking +<i>Klatsch</i>."</p> + +<p>"Talking what?"</p> + +<p>"It's what German women apparently talk when they get together. We +don't. I'd never do anything with such an ugly name, and I'm positive +you wouldn't."</p> + +<p>"Where is this place?"</p> + +<p>"Near Stralsund."</p> + +<p>"And where on earth is that?"</p> + +<p>"Ah," said Anna, investigating cobwebby corners of her memory, "that's +what I should like to be able to remember. Perhaps," she added honestly, +"I never knew. Let me call Letty, and ask her to bring her atlas."</p> + +<p>"Letty won't know," said Susie impatiently, "she only knows the things +she oughtn't to."</p> + +<p>"Oh, she isn't as wise as all that," said Anna, ringing the bell. +"Anyhow she has maps, which is more than we have."</p> + +<p>A servant was sent to request Miss Letty Estcourt to attend in the +drawing-room with her atlas.</p> + +<p>"Whatever's in the wind now?" inquired Letty, open-mouthed, of her +governess. "They're not going to examine me this time of night, are +they, Leechy?" For she suffered greatly from having a brother who was +always passing examinations and coming out top, and was consequently +subjected herself, by an ambitious mother who was sure that she must be +equally clever if she would only let herself go, to every examination +that happened to be going for girls of her age; so that she and Miss +Leech spent their days either on the defensive, preparing for these +unprovoked assaults, or in the state of collapse which followed the +regularly recurring defeat, and both found their lives a burden too +great to be borne.</p> + +<p>There was a preliminary scuffle of washing and brushing, and then Letty +marched into the drawing-room, her atlas under her arm and deep +suspicion on her face. But no bland and treacherous examiner was +visible, covering his preliminary movements with ghastly pleasantries; +only her mother and her pretty aunt.</p> + +<p>"Where's Stralsund?" they cried together, as she opened the door.</p> + +<p>Letty stopped short and stared. "What's that?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"It's a place—a place in Germany."</p> + +<p>"Letty, do you mean to tell me that you don't know where Stralsund is?" +asked Susie, in a voice that would have been of thunder if it had been +big enough. "Do you mean to say that after all the money I have spent on +your education you don't know <i>that</i>?"</p> + +<p>Was this a new form of torture? Was she to find the examining spirit +lurking even in the familiar and hitherto harmless forms of her mother +and her aunt? She openly showed her disgust. "If it's a place, it's in +this atlas," she said, "and if this is going to be an examination, I +don't think it's fair; and if it's a game, I don't like it." And she +threw her atlas unceremoniously on to the nearest chair; for though her +mother could force her to do many things, she could never, somehow, +force her to be respectful.</p> + +<p>"What a horror the child has of lessons!" cried Susie. "Don't be so +silly. We only want to see if you know where Stralsund is, that's all."</p> + +<p>"Tell us where it is, Letty," said Anna coaxingly, kneeling down in front +of the chair and opening the atlas. "Let us find the map of Germany and +look for it. Why, you did Germany for your last exam.—you must have it +all at your fingers' ends."</p> + +<p>"It didn't stay there, then," said Letty moodily; but she went over to +Anna, who was always kind to her, and began to turn over the +well-thumbed pages.</p> + +<p>Oh, what recollections lurked in those dirty corners! Surely it is hard +on a person of fourteen, who is as fond of enjoying herself as anybody +else, to be made to wrestle with maps upstairs in a dreary room, when +the sun is shining, and the voices of the children passing come up +joyously to the prison windows, and all the world is out of doors! Letty +thought so, and Miss Leech thought it hard on a person of thirty, and +each tried to console the other, but neither knew how, for their case +seemed very hopeless. Did not unending vistas of classes and lectures +stretch away before and behind them, dotted at intervals, oh, so +frequent! with the black spots of examinations? Was not the pavement of +Gower Street, and Kensington Square, and of all those districts where +girls can be lectured into wisdom, quite worn by their patient feet? And +then the accomplishments! Oh, what a life it was! A man came twice a +week and insisted on teaching her to fiddle; a highly nervous man, who +jerked her elbow and rapped her knuckles with his bow whenever she +played out of tune, which was all the time, and made bitter remarks of a +killingly sarcastic nature to Miss Leech when she stumbled over the +accompaniments. On Wednesdays there was a dancing class, where a pinched +young lady played the piano with the energy of despair, and a hot and +agile master with unduly turned-out toes taught the girls the Lancers, +earning his bread in the sweat of his brow. He also was sarcastic, but +he clothed his sarcasms in the garb of kindly fun, laughing gently at +them himself, and expecting his pupils to laugh too; which they did +uneasily, for the fun was of a personal nature, evoked by the clumsiness +or stupidity of one or other of them, and none knew when her own turn +might not come. The lesson ended with what he called the March of Grace +round the room, each girl by herself, no music to drown the noise her +shoes made on the bare boards, the others looking on, and the master +making comments. This march was terrible to Letty. All her nightmares +were connected with it. She was a podgy, dull-looking girl, fat and pale +and awkward, and her mother made her wear cheap shoes that creaked. +"Miss Estcourt has new shoes on again," the dancing master would say, +gently smiling, when Letty was well on her way round the room, cut off +from all human aid, conscious of every inch of her body, desperately +trying to be graceful. And everybody tittered except the victim. "You +know, Miss Estcourt," he would say at every second lesson, "there is a +saying that creaking shoes have not been paid for. I beg your pardon? +Did you say they had been paid for? Miss Estcourt says she does not +know." And he would turn to his other pupils with a shrug and a gentle +smile.</p> + +<p>On Saturday afternoons there were the Popular Concerts at St. James's +Hall to be gone to—Susie regarded them as educational, and +subscribed—and Letty, who always had chilblains on her feet in winter, +suffered tortures trying not to rub them; for as surely as she moved one +foot and began to rub the other with it, however gently, fierce +enthusiasts in the row in front would turn on her—old gentlemen of an +otherwise humane appearance, rapt ladies with eyeglasses and loose +clothes—and sh-sh her with furious hissings into immobility. "Oh, +Letty, <i>try</i> and sit still," Miss Leech, who dreaded publicity, would +implore in a whisper; but who that has not had them can know the torture +of chilblains inside thick boots, where they cannot be got at? As soon +as the chilblains went, the Saturday concerts left off, and it seemed as +though Fate had nothing better to do than to be spiteful.</p> + +<p>It was indeed a dreadful thing, thought Letty, as she bent over the map +of Germany, to be young and to have to be made clever at all costs. Here +was her aunt even, her pretty, kind aunt, asking her geography questions +at seven o'clock at night, when she thought that she had really done +with lessons for one more day, and had been so much enjoying Leechy's +description of the only man she ever loved, while she comfortably +toasted cheese at the schoolroom fire. Anna, who spent such lofty hours +of spiritual exaltation at St. Paul's, and came away with her soul +melted into pity for the unhappy, and yearned with her whole being to +help them, never thought of Letty as a creature who might perhaps be +helped to cheerfulness with a little trouble. Letty was too close at +hand; and enthusiastic philanthropists, casting about for objects of +charity, seldom see what is at their feet.</p> + +<p>It was so difficult to find Stralsund that by the time Letty's wandering +finger had paused upon it Susie could only give one glance of horror at +its position, and hurry away with Anna to dress. Anna, too, would have +preferred it to be farther south, in the Black Forest, or some other +romantic region, where it would have amused her to go occasionally, at +least, for a few weeks in the summer. But there it was, as far north as +it could be, in a part of the world she had hardly heard of, except in +connection with dogs.</p> + +<p>It did not, however, matter where it was. Uncle Joachim had merely +recommended and not enjoined. It would be rather extraordinary for her +to go there and set up housekeeping alone. She need not go; she was +almost sure she would not go. Anyhow there was no necessity to decide at +once. The money was what she wanted, and she could spend it where she +chose. Let Uncle Joachim's inspector, of whom he wrote in such praise, +go on getting forty thousand marks a year out of the place, and she +would be perfectly content.</p> + +<p>She ran upstairs to put on her prettiest dress, and to have her hair +done in the curls and waves she had so long eschewed. Should she not +make herself as charming as possible for this charming world, where +everybody was so good and kind, and add her measure of beauty and +kindness to the rest? She beamed on Letty as she passed her on the +stairs, climbing slowly up with her big atlas, and took it from her and +would carry it herself; she beamed on Miss Leech, who was watching for +her pupil at the schoolroom door; she beamed on her maid, she beamed on +her own reflection in the glass, which indeed at that moment was that of +a very beautiful young woman. Oh happy, happy world! What should she do +with so much money? She, who had never had a penny in her life, thought +it an enormous, an inexhaustible sum. One thing was certain—it was all +to be spent in doing good; she would help as many people with it as she +possibly could, and never, never, never let them feel that they were +under obligations. Did she not know, after fifteen years of dependence +on Susie, what it was like to be under obligations? And what was more +cruelly sad and crushing and deadening than dependence? She did not yet +know what sort of people she would help, or in what way she would help, +but oh, she was going to make heaps of people happy forever! While +Hilton was curling her hair, she thought of slums; but remembered that +they would bring her into contact with the clergy, and most of her +offers of late had been from the clergy. Even the vicar who had prepared +her for confirmation, his first wife being then alive, and a second +having since been mourned, had wanted to marry her. "It's because I am +twenty-five and staid that they think me suitable," she thought; but she +could not help smiling at the face in the glass.</p> + +<p>When she was dressed and ready to go down she was forced to ask herself +whether the person that she saw in the glass looked in the least like a +person who would ever lead the simple, frugal, hard-working life that +Uncle Joachim had called the better life, and in which he seemed to +think she would alone find contentment. Certainly she knew him to be +very wise. Well, nothing need be decided yet. Perhaps she would +go—perhaps she would not. "It's this white dress that makes me look +so—so unsuitable," she said to herself, "and Hilton's wonderful waves."</p> + +<p>And she went downstairs trying not to sing, the sweetest of feminine +creatures, happiness and love and kindness shining in her eyes, a lovely +thing saved from the blight of empty years, and brought back to beauty, +by Uncle Joachim's timely interference.</p> + +<p>Letty and Miss Leech heard the singing, and stopped involuntarily in +their conversation. It was a strange sound in that dull and joyless +house.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what's the matter, Leechy," Letty had said, on her return +from the drawing-room, "but mamma and Aunt Anna are too weird to-night +for anything. What do you think they had me down for? They didn't know +where Stralsund was, and wanted to find out. They pretended they wanted +to see if <i>I</i> knew, but I soon saw through that game. And Aunt Anna +looks frightfully happy. I believe she's going to be married, and wants +to go to Stralsund for the honeymoon."</p> + +<p>And Letty took up her toasting fork, while Miss Leech, as in duty bound, +refreshed her pupil's memory in regard to Stralsund and Wallenstein and +the Hansa cities generally.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + + +<p>Peter, meditating on the banks of the river at Estcourt, came to the +conclusion that a journey to London would be made unnecessary by the +equal efficacy of a congratulatory letter.</p> + +<p>He had been greatly moved by the news of his sister's good fortune, and +in the first flush of pleasure and sympathy had ordered his things to be +packed in readiness for his departure by the night train. Then he had +gone down to the river, and there, thinking the matter over quietly, +amid the soothing influences of grey sky, grey water, and green grass, +he gradually perceived that a letter would convey all that he felt quite +well, perhaps better than any verbal expressions of joy, and as he would +in any case only stay a few hours in town the long journey seemed hardly +worth while. He sent a letter, therefore, that very evening—a kind, +brotherly letter, in which, after heartily congratulating his dear +little sister, he said that it would be necessary for her to go over to +Germany, see the lawyer, and take possession of her property. When she +had done that, and made all arrangements as to the future payment of the +income derived from the estate, she would of course come back to them; +for Estcourt was always to be her home, and now that she was independent +she would no longer be obliged to be wherever Susie was, but would, he +hoped, come to him, and they could go fishing together,—"and there's +nothing to beat fishing," concluded Peter, "if you want peace."</p> + +<p>But Anna did not want peace; at least, not that kind of peace just at +that moment. Sitting in a punt was not what she wanted. She was thrilled +by the love of her less fortunate fellow-creatures, and the sense of +power to help them, and the longing to go and do it. What she really +wanted of Peter was that he should take her to Germany and help her +through the formalities; for before his letter arrived she too had seen +that that was the first thing to be done.</p> + +<p>Of this, however, he did not write a word. She thought he must have +forgotten, so natural did it appear to her that her brother should go +with her; and she wrote him a little note, asking when he would be able +to get away. She received a long letter in reply, full of regrets, +excuses, and good reasons, which she read wonderingly. Had she been +selfish, or was Peter selfish? She thought it all out carefully, and +found that it was she who had been selfish to expect Peter, always a +hater of business and a lover of quiet, to go all that way and worry +himself with tiresome money arrangements. Besides, perhaps he was not +feeling well. She knew he suffered from rheumatism; and when you have +rheumatism the mere thought of a long journey is appalling.</p> + +<p>Susie, whose head was very clear on all matters concerning money, had +also recognised the necessity of Anna's going to Germany, and had also +regarded Peter as the most natural companion and guide; but she was not +surprised when Anna told her that he could not go. "It was too much to +expect," apologised Anna. "He often has rheumatism in the spring, and +perhaps he has it now."</p> + +<p>Susie sniffed.</p> + +<p>"The question is," said Anna after a pause, "what am I to do, helpless +virgin, in spite of my years,—never able to do a thing for myself?"</p> + +<p>"I'll go with you."</p> + +<p>"You? But what about your engagements?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'll throw them over, and take you. Letty can come too. It will do +her German good. Herr Schumpf says he's ashamed of her."</p> + +<p>Susie had various reasons for offering herself so amiably, one being +certainly curiosity. But the chief one was that the same woman who had +been so rude to her the day Anna's news came, had sent out invitations +to all the world to her daughter's wedding after Easter, and had not +sent one to Susie.</p> + +<p>This was one of those trials that cannot be faced. If she, being in +London at the time, carefully explained to her friends that she was ill +that day, and did actually stay in bed and dose herself the days +preceding and following, who would believe her? Not if she waved a +doctor's certificate in their faces would they believe her. They would +know that she had not been invited, and would rejoice. She felt that she +could not bear it. An unavoidable business journey to the Continent was +exactly what she wanted to help her out of this desperate situation. On +her return she would be able to hear the wedding discussed and express +her disappointment at having missed it with a serene brow and a quiet +mind.</p> + +<p>It is doubtful whether she would have gone with Anna, however urgent +Anna's need, if she had been included in those invitations. But Anna, +who could not know the secret workings of her mind, once more remembered +her former treatment of Susie, so kind and willing to do all she could, +and hung her head with shame.</p> + +<p>They left London a day or two before Easter, Letty and Miss Leech, both +of them nearly ill with suppressed delight at the unexpected holiday, +going with them. They had announced their coming to Uncle Joachim's +lawyer, and asked him to make arrangements for their accommodation at +Kleinwalde, Anna's new possession. Susie proposed to stay a day in +Berlin, which would give Anna time to talk everything over with the +lawyer, and would enable Letty to visit the museums. She had a hopeful +idea that Letty would absorb German at every pore once she was in the +country itself, and that being brought face to face with the statues of +Goethe and Schiller on their native soil would kindle the sparks of +interest in German literature that she supposed every well-taught child +possessed, into the roaring flame of enthusiasm. She could not believe +that Letty had no sparks. One of her children being so abnormally +clever, it must be sheer obstinacy on the part of the other that +prevented it from acquiring the knowledge offered daily in such +unstinted quantities. She had no illusions in regard to Letty's person, +and felt that as she would never be pretty it was of importance that she +should at least be cultured. She sat opposite her daughter in the train, +and having nothing better to do during the long hours that they were +jolting across North Germany, looked at her; and the more she looked the +more unreasoningly angry she became that Peter's sister should be so +pretty and Peter's daughter so plain. And then so fat! What a horrible +thing to have to take a fat daughter about with you in society. Where +did she get it from? She herself and Peter were the leanest of mortals. +It must be that Letty ate too much, which was not only a disgusting +practice but an expensive one, and should be put down at once with +rigour. Susie had not had such an opportunity of thoroughly inspecting +her child for years, and the result of this prolonged examination of her +weak points was that she would not let any of the party have anything to +eat at all, declaring that it was vulgar to eat in trains, expressing +amazement that people should bring themselves to touch the +horrid-looking food offered, and turning her back in impatient disgust +on two stout German ladies who had got in at Oberhausen, and who were +enjoying their lunch quite unmoved by her contempt—one eating a chicken +from beginning to end without a fork, and the other taking repeated sips +of an obviously satisfactory nature from a big wine bottle, which was +used, in the intervals, as a support to her back.</p> + +<p>By the time Berlin was reached, these ladies, having been properly fed +all day, were very cheerful, whereas Susie's party was speechless from +exhaustion; especially poor Miss Leech, who was never very strong, and +so nearly fainted that Susie was obliged to notice it, and expressed a +conviction to Anna in a loud and peevish aside that Miss Leech was going +to be a nuisance.</p> + +<p>"It is strange," thought Anna, as she crept into bed, "how travelling +brings out one's worst passions."</p> + +<p>It is indeed strange; for it is certain that nothing equals the +expectant enthusiasm and mutual esteem of the start except the cold +dislike of the finish. Many are the friendships that have found an +unforeseen and sudden end on a journey, and few are those that survive +it. But if Horace Walpole and Grey fell out, if Byron and Leigh Hunt +were obliged to part, if a host of other personages, endowed with every +gift that makes companionship desirable, could not away with each other +after a few weeks together abroad, is it to be wondered at that weaker +vessels such as Susie and Anna, Letty and Miss Leech, should have found +the short journey from London to Berlin sufficient to enable them to see +one another's failings with a clearness of vision that was startling?</p> + +<p>On the lawyer, a keen-eyed man with a conspicuously fine face, Anna made +an entirely favourable impression. When he saw this gracious young lady, +so simple and so friendly, and looked into her frank and charming eyes, +he perfectly understood that old Joachim should have been bewitched. But +after a little conversation, it appeared that she had no present +intention of carrying out her uncle's wishes, but, setting them coolly +aside, proposed to spend all the good German money she could extract +from her property in that replete and bloated land, England.</p> + +<p>This annoyed him; first because he hated England and then because his +father had managed old Joachim's affairs before he himself had stepped +into the paternal shoes, and the feeling of both father and son for the +old man had been considerably warmer than is usual between lawyer and +client. Still he could not believe, judging after the manner of men, +that anything so pretty could also be unkind; and scrutinising Lady +Estcourt, because she was unattractive and had a sharp little face and a +restless little body, he was convinced that she it was who was the cause +of this setting aside of a dead benefactor's wishes. Susie, for her +part, patronised him because his collar turned down.</p> + +<p>Whenever Letty thought afterwards of Berlin, she thought of it as a +place where all the houses are museums, and where you drink so many cups +of chocolate with whipped cream on the top that you see things double +for the rest of the time.</p> + +<p>Anna thought of it as a charming place, where delightful lawyers fill +your purse with money.</p> + +<p>Susie thought of it with satisfaction as the one place abroad where, by +dint of sternest economy, walks from sight to sight in the rain, and +promiscuous cakes instead of the more satisfactory but less cheap meals +Letty called square, she had successfully defended herself from being, +as she put it, fleeced.</p> + +<p>To Miss Leech, it was merely a place where your feet get wet, and your +clothes are spoilt.</p> + +<p>Early the next morning they started for Kleinwalde.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + + +<p>Stralsund is an old town of gabled houses, ancient churches, and quaint, +roughly paved streets, forming an island, and joined to the mainland by +dikes. It looks its best in the early summer, when the green and marshy +plains on whose edge it stands are strewn with kingcups, and the little +white clouds hang over them almost motionless, and the cattle are out, +and the larks sing, and the orange and red sails of the fishing-smacks +on the narrow belt of sea that divides the town from the island of Rügen +make brilliant points of contrasting colour between the blue of water +and sky. There is a divine freshness and brightness about the +surrounding stretches of coarse grass and common flowers at that blest +season of the year. The air is full of the smell of the sea. The sun +beats down fiercely on plain and city. The people come out of the rooms +in which most of their life is spent, and stand in the doorways and +remark on the heat. An occasional heavy cart bumps over the stones, +heard in that sleepy place for several minutes before and after its +passing. There is an honest, tarry, fishy smell everywhere; and the +traveller of poetic temperament in search of the picturesque, and not +too nice about his comforts, could not fail, visiting it for the first +time in the month of June, to be wholly delighted that he had come.</p> + +<p>But in winter, and especially in those doubly gloomy days at the end of +winter, when spring ought to have shown some signs of its approach and +has not done so, those days of howling winds and driving rain and +frequent belated snowstorms, this plain is merely a bleak expanse of +dreariness, with a forlorn old town huddling in its farthest corner.</p> + +<p>It was at its very bleakest and dreariest on the morning that Susie and +her three companions travelled across it. "What a place!" exclaimed +Susie, as mile after mile was traversed, and there was still the same +succession of flat ploughed fields, marshes, and ploughed fields again, +with a rare group of furiously swaying pine trees or of silver birches +bent double before the wind. "What a part of the world to come and live +in! That old uncle of yours was as cracked as he could be to think you'd +ever stay here for good. And imagine spending even a single shilling +buying land here. I wouldn't take a barrowful at a gift."</p> + +<p>"Well, I am taking a great many barrowfuls," said Anna, "and I am sure +Uncle Joachim was right to buy a place here—he was always right."</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course, it's your duty now to praise him up. Perhaps it gets +better farther on, but I don't see how anybody can squeeze two thousand +a year out of a desert like this."</p> + +<p>The prospect from the railway that day was certainly not attractive; but +Anna told herself that any place would look dreary such weather, and was +much too happy in the first flush of independence to be depressed by +anything whatever. Had she not that very morning given the chambermaid +at the Berlin hotel so bounteous a reward for services not rendered that +the woman herself had said it was too much? Thus making amends for those +innumerable departures from hotels when Susie had escaped without giving +anything at all. Had she not also asked, and readily obtained, +permission of Susie at the station in Berlin to pay for the tickets of +the whole party? And had it not been a delightful and warming feeling, +buying those tickets for other people instead of having tickets bought +by other people for herself? At Pasewalk, a little town half way between +Berlin and Stralsund, where the train stopped ten minutes, she insisted +on getting out, defying the sleet and the puddles, and went into the +refreshment room, and bought eggs and rolls and cakes,—everything she +could find that was least offensive. Also a guidebook to Stralsund, +though she was not going to stop in Stralsund; also some postcards with +views on them, though she never used postcards with views on them, and +came back loaded with parcels, her face glowing with childish pleasure +at spending money.</p> + +<p>"My <i>dear</i> Anna," said Susie; but she was hungry, and ate a roll with +perfect complacency, allowing Letty to do the same, although only two +days had elapsed since she had so energetically lectured her on the +grossness of eating in trains.</p> + +<p>Susie was in a particularly amiable frame of mind, and in spite of the +weather was looking forward to seeing the place Uncle Joachim had +thought would be a fit home for his niece; and as she and Anna were +sitting together at one end of the carriage, and Letty and Miss Leech +were at the other, and there was no one else in the compartment, she was +neither upset by the too near contemplation of her daughter, nor by the +aspect of other travellers lunching. Miss Leech, always mindful of her +duties, was making the most of her five hours' journey by endeavouring, +in a low voice, to clear away the haze that hung in her pupil's mind +round the details of her last winter's German studies. "Don't you +remember anything of Professor Smith's lectures, Letty?" she inquired. +"Why, they were all about just this part of Germany, and it makes it so +much more interesting if one knows what happened at the different +places. Stralsund, you know, where we shall be presently, has had a most +turbulent and interesting past."</p> + +<p>"Has it?" said Letty. "Well, I can't help it, Leechy."</p> + +<p>"No; but my dear, you should try to recollect something at least of what +you heard at the lectures. Have you forgotten the paper you wrote about +Wallenstein?"</p> + +<p>"I remember I did a paper. Beastly hard it was, too."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Letty, don't say beastly—it really isn't a ladylike word."</p> + +<p>"Why, mamma's always saying it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well. Don't you know what Wallenstein said when he was besieging +Stralsund and found it such a difficult task?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose he said too that it was beastly hard."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Letty—it was something about chains. Now do you remember?"</p> + +<p>"Chains?" repeated Letty, looking bored. "Do <i>you</i> know, Leechy?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I still remember that, though I confess that I have forgotten the +greater part of what I heard."</p> + +<p>"Then what do you ask me for, when you know I don't know? What did he +say about chains?"</p> + +<p>"He said that he'd take the city, if it were rivetted to heaven with +chains of iron," said Miss Leech dramatically.</p> + +<p>"What a goat."</p> + +<p>"Oh, hush—don't say those horrible words. Where do you learn them? Not +from me, certainly not from me," said Miss Leech, distressed. She had a +profound horror of slang, and was bewildered by the way in which these +weeds of rhetoric sprang up on all occasions in Letty's speech.</p> + +<p>"Well, and was it?"</p> + +<p>"Was it what, my dear?"</p> + +<p>"Chained to heaven?"</p> + +<p>"The city? Why, how can a city be chained to heaven, Letty?"</p> + +<p>"Then what did he say it for?"</p> + +<p>"He was using a metaphor."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Letty, who did not know what a metaphor was, but supposed it +must be something used in sieges, and preferred not to inquire too +closely.</p> + +<p>"He was obliged to retire," said Miss Leech, "leaving enormous numbers +of slain on the field."</p> + +<p>"Poor beasts. I say, Leechy," she whispered, "don't let's bother about +history now. Go on with Mr. Jessup. You'd got to where he called you Amy +for the first time."</p> + +<p>Mr. Jessup was the person already alluded to in these pages as the only +man Miss Leech had ever loved, and his history was of absorbing interest +to Letty, who never tired of hearing his first appearance on Miss +Leech's horizon described, with his subsequent advances before the stage +of open courting was reached, the courting itself, and its melancholy +end; for Mr. Jessup, a clergyman of the Church of England, with a +vicarage all ready to receive his wife, had suddenly become a prey to +new convictions, and had gone over to the Church of Rome; whereupon Miss +Leech's father, also a clergyman of the Church of England, had talked a +great deal about the Scarlet Woman of Babylon, and had shut the door in +Mr. Jessup's face when next he called to explain. This had happened when +Miss Leech was twenty. Now, at thirty, an orphan resigned to the world's +buffets, she found a gentle consolation in repeating the story of her +ill-starred engagement to her keenly interested friend and pupil; and +the oftener she repeated it the less did it grieve her, till at last she +came actually to enjoy the remembrance of it, pleased to have played the +principal part even in a drama that was hissed off her little stage, +glad to find a sympathetic listener, dwelling much and fondly on every +incident of that short period of importance and glory.</p> + +<p>It is doubtful whether she would ever have extracted the same amount of +pleasure from Mr. Jessup had he remained fixed in the faith of his +fathers and married her in due season. By his secession he had +unconsciously become a sort of providence to Letty and herself, saving +them from endless hours of dulness, furnishing their lonely schoolroom +life with romance and mystery; and if in Miss Leech's mind he gradually +took on the sweet intangibility of a pleasant dream, he was the very +pith and marrow of Letty's existence. She glowed and thrilled at the +thought that perhaps she too would one day have a Mr. Jessup of her own, +who would have convictions, and give up everything, herself included, +for what he believed to be right.</p> + +<p>As usual, they at once became absorbed in Mr. Jessup, forgetting in the +contemplation of his excellencies everything else in the world, till +they were roused to realities by their arrival at Stralsund; and Susie, +thrusting books and bags and umbrellas into their passive hands, pushed +them out of the carriage into the wet.</p> + +<p>Hilton, the maid shared by Susie and Anna, had then to be found and +urged to clamber down quickly on to the low platform, where she stood +helplessly, the picture of injured superiority, hustled by the hurrying +porters and passengers, out of whose way she scorned to move, while Anna +went to look for the luggage and have it put into the cart that had been +sent for it.</p> + +<p>This cart was an ordinary farm cart, used for bringing in the hay in +June, but also used for carrying out the manure in November; and on a +sack of straw lying in the bottom it was expected that Hilton should +sit. The farm boy who drove it, and who helped the porter to tie the +trunks to its sides lest they should too violently bump against each +other and Hilton on the way, said so; the coachman of the carriage +waiting for the <i>Herrschaften</i> pointed with his whip first at Hilton and +then at the cart, and said so; the porter, who seemed to think it quite +natural, said so; and everybody was waiting for Hilton to get in, who, +when she had at length grasped the situation, went to Susie, who was +looking frightened and pretending to be absorbed by the sky, and with a +voice shaken by passion, and a face changing from white to red, +announced her intention of only going in that cart as a corpse, when +they might do with her as they pleased, but as a living body with breath +in it, never.</p> + +<p>Here was a difficulty. And idlers, whose curiosity was not +extinguishable by wind and sleet, began to press round, and people who +had come by the same train stopped on their way out to listen. The farm +boy patted the sack and declared that it was clean straw, the coachman +stood up on his box and swore that it was a new sack, the porter assured +the Fräulein that it was as comfortable as a feather bed, and nobody +seemed to understand that what she was being offered was an insult.</p> + +<p>Susie was afraid of Hilton, who had been in the service of duchesses, +and who held these duchesses over her mistress's head whenever her +mistress wanted to do anything that was inconvenient to herself; quoting +their sayings, pointing out how they would have acted in any given case, +and always, it appeared, they had done exactly what Hilton desired. +Susie's admiration for duchesses was slavish, and Hilton was treated +with an indulgent liberality that was absurd compared to the stinginess +displayed towards everyone else. Hilton was not more horrified than her +mistress when she saw the farm cart, and understood that it was for the +luggage and the maid. It was impossible to take her with them in what +the porter called the <i>herrschaftliche Wagen</i>, for it was a kind of +victoria, and how to get their four selves into it was a sufficient +puzzle. "What shall we do?" said Susie, in despair, to Anna.</p> + +<p>"Do? Why, she'll have to go in it. Hilton, don't be a foolish person, +and don't keep us here in the wet. This isn't England, and nobody thinks +anything here of driving in farm carts. It is patriarchal simplicity, +that's all. People are staring at you now because you are making such a +fuss. Get in like a good soul, and let us start."</p> + +<p>"Only as a corpse, m'm," reiterated Hilton with chattering teeth, "never +as a living body."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense," said Anna impatiently.</p> + +<p>"What shall we do?" repeated Susie. "Poor Hilton—what barbarians they +must be here."</p> + +<p>"We must send her in a <i>Droschky</i>, then, if it isn't too far, and we can +get one to go."</p> + +<p>"A <i>Droschky</i> all that distance! It will be ruinous."</p> + +<p>"Well, we can't stand here amusing these people for ever."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I wish we had never come to this horrible place!" cried Susie, +really made miserable by Hilton's rage.</p> + +<p>But Anna did not stay to listen either to her laments or to Hilton's +monotonous "Only as a corpse, m'lady," and was already arranging with an +unwilling driver, who had no desire whatever to drive to Kleinwalde, but +consented to do so on being promised twenty marks, a rest and feed of +oats for his horses, and any little addition in the shape of refreshment +and extra money that might suggest itself to Anna's generosity.</p> + +<p>"You know, Anna, you can't expect <i>me</i> to pay for the fly," said Susie +uneasily, when the appeased Hilton had been put into it and was out of +earshot. "That dreadful cart is your property, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"Of course it is," said Anna, smiling, "and of course the fly is my +affair. How magnificent I feel, disposing of carts and <i>Droschkies</i>. +Now, will you please to get into my carriage? And do you observe the +extreme respectfulness of my coachman?"</p> + +<p>The coachman, a strange-looking, round-shouldered being, with a long +grizzled beard, a dark-blue cloth cap on his head, and a body clothed in +a fawn-coloured suit and gaiters, on which a great many tarnished silver +buttons adorned with Uncle Joachim's coat of arms were fastened at short +intervals, removed his cap while his new mistress and her party were +entering the carriage, and did not put it on again till they were ready +to start.</p> + +<p>"Quite as though we were royalties," said Susie.</p> + +<p>"But the rest of him isn't," replied Anna, who was greatly amused by the +turn-out. "Do you like my horses, Susie? Or do you suspect them of +having been ploughing all the morning? Oh, well," she added quickly, +ashamed of laughing at any part of her dear uncle's gift, "I suppose one +has to have heavily built horses in this part of the world, where the +roads are probably frightfully bad."</p> + +<p>"Their tails might be a little shorter," said Susie.</p> + +<p>"They might," agreed Anna serenely.</p> + +<p>With the aid of the porter, who knew all about Uncle Joachim's will and +was deeply interested, they were at last somehow packed into the +carriage, and away they rattled over the rough stones, threading the +outskirts of the town on the mainland, the hail and wind in their faces, +out into the open country, with their horses' heads turned towards the +north. The fly containing Hilton followed more leisurely behind, and the +farm cart containing the unused sack of straw followed the fly.</p> + +<p>"We can't see much of Stralsund," said Anna, trying to peep round the +hood at the old town across the lakes separating it from the mainland.</p> + +<p>"It's a very historical town," observed Susie, who had happened to +notice, as she idly turned over the pages of her Baedeker on the way +down, that there was a long description of it with dates. "As of course +you know," she added, turning sharply to her daughter.</p> + +<p>"Rather," said Letty. "Wallenstein said he'd take it if it were chained +to heaven, and when he found it wasn't he was frightfully sick, and went +away and left them all in the fields."</p> + +<p>Miss Leech, who was on the little seat, struggling to defend herself +from the fury of the elements with an umbrella, looked anxious, but +Susie only said in a gratified voice, "I'm glad you remember what you've +been taught." To which Letty, who was in great spirits, and thought this +drive in the wet huge fun, again replied heartily, "Rather," and her +mother congratulated herself on having done the right thing in bringing +her to Germany, home of erudition and profundity, already evidently +beginning to do its work.</p> + +<p>The carriage smelt of fish, which presently upset Susie, who, +unfortunately for her, had a nose that smelt everything. While they were +in the town she thought the smell was in the streets, and bore it; but +out in the open, where there was not a house to be seen, she found that +it was in the carriage.</p> + +<p>She fidgeted, and looked about, feeling with her foot under the opposite +seat, expecting to find a basket somewhere, and determined if she found +one to push it out quietly and say nothing; for that she should drive +for two hours with her handkerchief up to her nose was more than anybody +could expect of her. Already she had done more than anybody ought to +expect of her, she reflected, in going to the expense of the journey and +the inconvenience of the absence from home for Anna's sake, and she +hoped that Anna felt grateful. She had never yet shrunk from her duty +towards Anna, or indeed from her duty towards anyone, and she was sure +she never would; but her duty certainly did not include the passive +endurance of offensive smells.</p> + +<p>"What are you looking for?" asked Anna.</p> + +<p>"Why, the fish."</p> + +<p>"Oh, do you smell it too?"</p> + +<p>"Smell it? I should think I did. It's killing me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, poor Susie!" laughed Anna, who was possessed by an uncontrollable +desire to laugh at everything. The conveyance (it could hardly be called +a carriage) in which they were seated, and which she supposed was the +one destined for her use if she lived at Kleinwalde, was unlike anything +she had yet seen. It was very old, with enormous wheels, and bumped +dreadfully, and the seat was so constructed that she was continually +slipping forward and having to push herself back again. It was lined +throughout, including the hood, with a white and black shepherd's plaid +in large squares, the white squares mellowed by the stains of use and +time to varying shades of brown and yellow; when Miss Leech's umbrella +was blown aside by a gust of wind Anna could see her coachman's drab +coat, with a little end of white tape that he had forgotten to tie, and +whose uses she was unable to guess, fluttering gaily between its tails +in the wind; on the left side of the box was a very big and gorgeous +coat of arms in green and white, Uncle Joachim's colours; and whichever +way she turned her head, there was the overpowering smell of fish. "We +must be taking our dinner home with us," she said, "but I don't see it +anywhere."</p> + +<p>"There isn't anything under the seats. Perhaps the man has got it on the +box. Ask him, Anna; I really can't stand it."</p> + +<p>Anna did not quite know how to attract his attention. It seemed +undignified to poke him, but she did not know his name, and the wind +blew her voice back in the direction of Stralsund when she had cleared +it, and coughed, and called out rather shyly, "Oh, <i>Kutscher! +Kutscher!</i>"</p> + +<p>Then she remembered that oh was not German, and that Uncle Joachim had +used sonorous achs in its place, and she began again, "<i>Ach, Kutscher! +Kutscher!</i>"</p> + +<p>Letty giggled. "Go it, Aunt Anna," she said encouragingly, "dig him in +the ribs with your umbrella—or I will, if you like."</p> + +<p>Her mother, with her handkerchief to her nose, exhorted her not to be +vulgar. Letty explained at some length that she was only being nice, and +offering assistance.</p> + +<p>"I really shall have to poke him," said Anna, her faint cries of +<i>Kutscher</i> quite lost in the rattling of the carriage and the howling of +the wind. "Or perhaps you would touch his arm, Miss Leech."</p> + +<p>Miss Leech turned, and very gingerly touched his sleeve. He at once +whistled to his horses, who stopped dead, snatched off his cap, and +looking down at Anna inquired her commands.</p> + +<p>It was done so quickly that Anna, whose conversational German was +exceedingly rusty, was quite unable to remember the word for fish, and +sat looking up at him helplessly, while she vainly searched her brains.</p> + +<p>"What <i>is</i> fish in German?" she said, appealing to Susie, distressed +that the man should be waiting capless in the rain.</p> + +<p>"Letty, what's the word for fish?" inquired Susie sternly.</p> + +<p>"Fish?" repeated Letty, looking stupid.</p> + +<p>"Fish?" echoed Miss Leech, trying to help.</p> + +<p>"<i>Fisch?</i>" said the coachman himself, catching at the word.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes; how utterly silly I am," cried Anna blushing and showing her +dimples, "it's <i>Fisch</i>, of course. <i>Kutscher, wo ist Fisch?</i>"</p> + +<p>The man looked blank; then his face brightened, and pointing with his +whip to the rolling sea on their right, visible across the flat +intervening fields, he said that there was much fish in it, especially +herrings.</p> + +<p>"What does he say?" asked Susie from behind her handkerchief.</p> + +<p>"He says there are herrings in the sea."</p> + +<p>"Is the man a fool?"</p> + +<p>Letty laughed uproariously. The coachman, seeing Letty and Anna laugh, +thought he must have said the right thing after all, and looked very +pleasant.</p> + +<p>"<i>Aber im Wagen</i>," persisted Anna, "<i>wo ist Fisch im Wagen?</i>"</p> + +<p>The coachman stared. Then he said vaguely, in a soothing voice, not in +the least knowing what she meant, "<i>Nein, nein, gnädiges Fräulein</i>," and +evidently hoped she would be satisfied.</p> + +<p>"<i>Aber es riecht, es riecht!</i>" cried Anna, not satisfied at all, and +lifting up her nose in unmistakeable displeasure.</p> + +<p>His face brightened again. "<i>Ach so—jawohl, jawohl</i>," he exclaimed +cheerfully; and hastened to explain that there were no fish nearer than +the sea, but that the grease he had used that morning to make the +leather of the hood and apron shine certainly had a fishy smell, as he +himself had noticed. "The gracious Miss loves not the smell?" he +inquired anxiously; for he had seven children, and was very desirous +that his new mistress should be pleased.</p> + +<p>Anna laughed and shook her head, and though she said with great emphasis +that she did not love it at all, she looked so friendly that he felt +reassured.</p> + +<p>"What does he say?" asked Susie.</p> + +<p>"Why, I'm afraid we shall have it all the way. It's the grease he's been +rubbing the leather with."</p> + +<p>"Barbarian!" cried Susie angrily, feeling sick already, and certain that +she would be quite ill by the end of the drive. "And you laugh at him +and encourage him, instead of taking up your position at once and +showing him that you won't stand any nonsense. He ought to be—to be +unboxed!" she added in great wrath; for she had heard of delinquent +clergymen being unfrocked, and why should not delinquent coachmen be +unboxed?</p> + +<p>Anna laughed again. She tried not to, but she could not help it; and +Susie, made still more angry by this childish behaviour, sulked during +the rest of the drive.</p> + +<p>"Go on—<i>avanti</i>!" said Anna, who knew hardly any Italian, and when she +was in Italy and wanted her words never could find them, but had been +troubled the last two days by the way in which these words came to her +lips every time she opened them to speak German.</p> + +<p>The coachman understood her, however, and they went on again along the +straight high-road, that stretched away before them to a distant bend. +The high-road, or <i>chaussée</i>, was planted on either side with maples, +and between the maples big whitewashed stones had been set to mark the +way at night, and behind the rows of trees and stones, ditches had been +dug parallel with the road as a protection to the crops in summer from +the possible wanderings of erring carts. If a cart erred, it tumbled +into the ditch. The arrangement was simple and efficacious. On the +right, across some marshy land, they could see the sea for a little +while, with the flat coast of Rügen opposite; and then some rising +ground, bare of trees and brilliantly green with winter corn, hid it +from view. On the left was the dreary plain, dotted at long intervals +with farms and their little groups of trees, and here and there with +windmills working furiously in the gale. The wind was icy, and the +December snow still lay in drifts in the ditches. In that leaden +landscape, made up of grey and brown and black, the patches of winter +rye were quite startling in their greenness.</p> + +<p>Susie thought it the most God-forsaken country she had ever seen, and +expressed this opinion plainly on her face and in her attitudes without +any need for opening her lips, shuddering back ostentatiously into her +corner, wrapping herself with elaborate care in her furs, and behaving +as slaves to duty sometimes do when the paths they have to tread are +rough.</p> + +<p>After driving along the <i>chaussée</i> for about an hour, they passed a big +house standing among trees back from the road on the right, and a little +farther on came to a small village. The carriage, pulled up with a jerk, +and looking eagerly round the hood Anna found they had come to a +standstill in front of a new red-brick building, whose steps were +crowded with children. Two or three men and some women were with the +children. Two of the men appeared to be clergymen, and the elder, a +middle-aged, mild-faced man, came down the steps, and bowing profoundly +proceeded to welcome Anna solemnly, on behalf of those children from +Kleinwalde who attended this school, to her new home. He concluded that +Anna was the person to be welcomed because he could see nothing of the +lady in the other corner but her eyes, and they looked anything but +friendly; whereas the young lady on the left was leaning forward and +smiling and holding out her hand.</p> + +<p>He took it, and shook it slowly up and down, while he begged her to +allow the hood of the carriage to be put back, so that the children from +her village, who had walked three miles to welcome her, might be able to +see her; and on Anna's readily agreeing to this, himself helped the +coachman with his own white-gloved hands to put it down. Susie was +therefore exposed to the full fury of the blast, and shrank still +farther into her corner—an interesting and tantalising object to the +school-children, a dark, mysterious combination of fur, cocks' feathers, +and black eyebrows.</p> + +<p>Then the clergyman, hat in hand, made a speech. He spoke distinctly, as +one accustomed to speaking often and long, and Anna understood every +word. She was wholly taken aback by these ceremonies, and had no idea of +what she should say in reply, but sat smiling vaguely at him, looking +very pretty and very shy. She soon found that her smiles were +inappropriate, and they died away; for, warming as he proceeded, the +parson, it appeared, was taking it for granted that she intended to live +on her property, and was eloquently descanting on the comfort she was +going to be to the poor, assuring those present that she would be a +mother to the sick, nursing them with her tender woman's hands, an angel +of mercy to the hungry, feeding them in the hour of their distress, a +friend and sister to the little children, succouring them, caring for +them, pitiful of their weakness and their sins. His face lit up with +enthusiasm as he went on, and Anna was thankful that Susie could not +understand. This crowd of children, the women, the young parson, her +coachman, were all hearing promises made on her behalf that she had no +thought of fulfilling. She looked down, and twisted her fingers about +nervously, and felt uncomfortable.</p> + +<p>At the end of his speech, the parson, his eyes full of the tears drawn +forth by his own eloquence, held up his hand and solemnly blessed her, +rounding off his blessing with a loud Amen, after which there was an +awkward pause. Susie heard the Amen, and guessed that something in the +nature of a blessing was being invoked, and made a movement of +impatience. The parson was odious in her eyes, first because he looked +like the ministers of the Baptist chapels of her unmarried youth, but +principally because he was keeping her there in the gale and prolonging +the tortures she was enduring from the smell of fish. Anna did not know +what to say after the Amen, and looked up more shyly than ever, and +stammered in her confusion <i>Danke sehr</i>, hoping that it was a proper +remark to make; whereupon the parson bowed again, as one who should say +Pray don't mention it. Then another man, evidently the schoolmaster, +took out a tuning-fork, gave out a note, and the children sang a +<i>chorale</i>, following it up with other more cheerful songs, in which the +words <i>Frühling</i> and <i>Willkommen</i> were repeated a great many times, +while the wind howled flattest contradiction.</p> + +<p>When this was over, the parson begged leave to introduce the other +clerical-looking person, a tall narrow youth, also in white kid gloves, +buttoned up tightly in a long coat of broadcloth, with a pallid face and +thick, upright flaxen hair.</p> + +<p>"Herr Vicar Klutz," said the elder parson, with a wave of the hand; and +the Herr Vicar, making his bow, and having his limp hand heartily +grasped by that other little hand, and his furtive eyes smiled into by +those other friendly eyes, became on the spot desperately enamoured; +which was very natural, seeing that he had not spoken to a woman under +forty for six months, and was himself twenty and a poet. He spent the +rest of the afternoon shut up in his bedroom, where, refusing all +nourishment, he composed a poem in which <i>berauschten Sinn</i> was made to +rhyme with <i>Engländerin</i>, while the elder parson, in whose house he +lived, thought he was writing his Good Friday sermon.</p> + +<p>Then the schoolmaster was introduced, and then came the two women—the +schoolmaster's wife and the parson's wife; and when Anna had smiled and +murmured polite and incoherent little speeches to each in turn, and had +nodded and bowed at least a dozen times to each of these ladies, who +could by no means have done with their curtseys, and had introduced them +to the dumb figure in the corner, during which ceremonies Letty stared +round-eyed and open-mouthed at the school-children, and the +school-children stared round-eyed and open-mouthed at Letty, and Miss +Leech looked demure, and Susie's brows were contracted by suffering, she +wondered whether she might not now with propriety continue her journey, +and if so whether it were expected that she should give the signal.</p> + +<p>Everybody was smiling at everybody else by way of filling up this pause +of hesitation, except Susie, who shut her eyes with great dignity, and +shivered in so marked a manner that the parson himself came to the +rescue, and bade the coachman help him put up the hood again, explaining +to Anna as he did so that her <i>Frau Schwester</i> was not used to the +climate.</p> + +<p>Evidently the moment had come for going on, and the bows that had but +just left off began again with renewed vigour. Anna was anxious to say +something pleasant at the finish, so she asked the parson's wife, as she +bade her good-bye, whether she and her husband would come to Kleinwalde +the next day to dinner.</p> + +<p>This invitation produced a very deep curtsey and a flush of +gratification, but the recipient turned to her lord before accepting it, +to inquire his pleasure.</p> + +<p>"I fear not to-morrow, gracious Miss," said the parson, "for it is Good +Friday."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach ja</i>," stammered Anna, ashamed of herself for having forgotten.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach ja</i>," exclaimed the parson's wife, still more ashamed of herself +for having forgotten.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps Saturday, then?" suggested Anna.</p> + +<p>The parson murmured something about quiet hours preparatory to the +Sabbath; but his wife, a person who struck Anna as being quite +extraordinarily stout, was burning with curiosity to examine those +foreign ladies more conveniently, and especially to see what manner of +being would emerge from the pile of fur and feathers in the corner; and +she urged him, in a rapid aside, to do for once without quiet hours. +Whereupon he patted her on the cheek, smiled indulgently, and said he +would make an exception and do himself the honour of appearing.</p> + +<p>This being settled, Anna said <i>Gehen Sie</i> to her coachman, who again +showed his intelligence by understanding her; and in a cloud of smiles +and bows they drove away, the school-girls making curtseys, the +schoolboys taking off their caps, and the parson standing hat in hand +with his arm round his wife's waist as serenely as though it had been a +summer's day and no one looking.</p> + +<p>Anna became used to these displays of conjugal regard in public later +on; but this first time she turned to Susie with a laugh, when the hood +had hidden the group from view, and asked her if she had seen it. But +Susie had seen nothing, for her eyes were shut, and she refused to +answer any questions otherwise than by a feeble shake of the head.</p> + +<p>On the other side of the village the <i>chaussée</i> came to an end, and two +deep, sandy roads took its place. There was a sign-post at their +junction, one arm of which, pointing to the right-hand road that ran +down close to the sea, had Kleinwalde scrawled on it; and beside this +sign-post a man on a horse was waiting for them.</p> + +<p>"Good gracious! More rot?" ejaculated Susie as the carriage stopped +again, shaken out of the dignity of sulks by these repeated shocks.</p> + +<p>"Oberinspector Dellwig," said the man, introducing himself, and sweeping +off his hat and bowing lower and more obsequiously than anyone had yet +done.</p> + +<p>"This must be the inspector Uncle Joachim hoped I'd keep," said Anna in +an undertone.</p> + +<p>"I don't care who he is, but for heaven's sake don't let him make a +speech. I can't stand this sort of thing any longer. You'll have me ill +on your hands if you're not careful, and you won't like <i>that</i>, so you +had better stop him."</p> + +<p>"I can't stop him," said Anna, perplexed. She also had had enough of +speeches.</p> + +<p>"<i>Gestatten gnädiges Fräulein dass ich meine gehorsamste Ehrerbietung +ausspreche</i>," began the glib inspector, bowing at every second word over +his horse's ears.</p> + +<p>There was no escape, and they had to hear him out. The man had prepared +his speech, and say it he would. It was not so long as the parson's, but +was quite as flowery in another way, overflowing with respectful +allusions to the deceased master, and with expressions of unbounded +loyalty, obedience, and devotion to the new mistress.</p> + +<p>Susie shut her eyes again when she found he was not to be stopped, and +gave herself up for lost. What could Hilton, who must be close behind +waiting in the cold, uncomforted by any food since leaving Berlin, think +of all this? Susie dreaded the moment when she would have to face her.</p> + +<p>The inspector finished all he had intended saying, and then, assuming a +more colloquial tone, informed Anna that from the sign-post onward she +would be driving through her own property, and asked permission to ride +by her side the rest of the way. So they had his company for the last +two miles and his conversation, of which there was much; for he had a +ready tongue, and explained things to Anna in a very loud voice as they +went along, expatiating on the magnificence of the crops the previous +summer, and assuring her that the crops of the coming summer would be +even more magnificent, for he had invented a combination of manures +which would give such results that all Pomerania's breath would be taken +away.</p> + +<p>The road here was terrible, and the horses could hardly drag the +carriage through the sand. It lurched and heaved from side to side, +creaking and groaning alarmingly. Miss Leech was in imminent peril. Anna +held on with both hands, and hardly had leisure to put in appropriate +<i>achs</i> and <i>jas</i> and questions of a becoming intelligence when the +inspector paused to take breath. She did not like his looks, and wished +that she could follow Susie's example and avoid the necessity of seeing +him by the simple expedient of shutting her eyes. But somehow, she did +not quite know how, responsibilities and obligations were suddenly +pressing heavily upon her. These people had all made up their minds that +she was going to be and do certain things; and though she assured +herself that it did not in the least matter how they had made up their +minds, yet she felt obliged to behave in the way that was expected of +her. She did not want to talk to this unpleasant-looking man, and what +he told her about the crops and their marvellousness was half +unintelligible to her and wholly a bore. Yet she did talk to him, and +looked friendly, and affected to understand and be deeply interested in +all he said.</p> + +<p>They passed through a plantation of young beeches, planted, Dellwig +explained, by Uncle Joachim on his last visit; and after a few more +yards of lurching in the sand came to some woods and got on to a fair +road.</p> + +<p>"The park," said Dellwig superbly, with a wave of the hand.</p> + +<p>Susie opened her eyes at the word park, and looked about. "It isn't a +park," she said peevishly, "it's a forest—a horrid, gloomy, damp +wilderness."</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's lovely!" cried Letty, giving a jump of delight as she peered +down the serried ranks of pine trees.</p> + +<p>It was a thick wood of pines and beeches, railed off from the road on +either side by wooden rails painted in black and white stripes. Uncle +Joachim had been the loyalest of Prussians, and his loyalty overflowed +even into his fences. Æsthetic instincts he had none, and if he had been +brought to see it, would not have cared at all that the railings made +the otherwise beautiful avenue look like the entrance to a restaurant or +a railway station. The stripes, renewed every year, and of startling +distinctness, were an outward and visible sign of his staunch devotion +to the King of Prussia, the very lining of the carriage with its white +and black squares was symbolic; and when they came to the gate within +which the house itself stood, two Prussian eagles frowned down at them +from the gate-posts.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + + +<p>A low, white, two-storied house, separated from the forest only by a +circular grass plot and a ditch with half-melted snow in it and muddy +water, a house apparently quite by itself among the creaking pines, +neither very old nor very new, with a great many windows, and a +brown-tiled roof, was the home bestowed by Uncle Joachim on his dear and +only niece Anna.</p> + +<p>"So <i>this</i> is where I was to lead the better life?" she thought, as the +carriage drew up at the door, and the moaning of the uneasy trees, and +all the lonely sounds of a storm-beaten forest replaced the rattling of +the wheels in her ears. "The better life, then, is a life of utter +solitude, Uncle Joachim thought? I wish I knew—I wish I knew——" But +what it was she wished she knew was hardly clear in her mind; and her +thoughts were interrupted by a very untidy, surprised-looking +maid-servant, capless, and in felt slippers, who had darted down the +steps and was unfastening the leather apron and pulling out the rugs +with hasty, agitated hands, and trying to pull Susie out as well.</p> + +<p>The doorway was garlanded with evergreen wreaths, over which a green and +white flag flapped; and curtseying and smiling beneath the wreaths stood +Dellwig's wife, a short lady with smooth hair, weather-beaten face, and +brown silk gloves, who would have been the stoutest person Anna had ever +seen if she had not just come from the presence of the parson's wife.</p> + +<p>"I never saw so many bows in my life," grumbled Susie, pushing the +servant aside, and getting out cautiously, feeling very stiff and cold +and miserable. "Letty, you are on my dress—oh, how d'you do—how d'you +do," she murmured frostily, as the Frau Inspector seized her hand and +began to talk German to her. "Anna, are you coming? This—er—person +thinks I'm you, and is making me a speech."</p> + +<p>Dellwig, who had sent his horse away in charge of a small boy, rapidly +explained to his wife that the young lady now getting out of the +carriage was their late master's niece, and that the other one must be +the sister-in-law mentioned in the lawyer's letter; upon which Frau +Dellwig let Susie go, and transferred her smiles and welcome to Anna. +Susie went into the house to get out of the cold, only to find herself +in a square hall whose iciness was the intolerable iciness of a place in +which no sun had been allowed to shine and no windows had been opened +for summers without number. When Uncle Joachim came down he lived in two +rooms at the back of the house, with a door leading into the garden +through which he went to the farm, and the hall had never been used, and +the closed shutters never opened. There was no fireplace, or stove, or +heating arrangement of any sort. Glass doors divided it from an inner +and still more spacious hall, with a wide wooden staircase, and doors +all round it. The walls in both halls were painted grass green; and from +little chains in the ceiling stuffed hawks and eagles, shot by Uncle +Joachim, and grown with years very dusty and moth-eaten, hung swinging +in the draught. The floor was boarded, and was still damp from a recent +scrubbing. There was no carpet. A wooden bracket on the wall, with brass +hooks, held a large assortment of whips and hunting crops; and in one +corner stood an arrangement for coats, with Uncle Joachim's various +waterproofs and head-coverings hanging monumentally on its pegs.</p> + +<p>"Oh, how dreadful!" thought Susie, shivering more violently than ever. +"And what a musty smell—it's damp, of course, and I shall be laid up. +Poor Hilton! What will she think of this? Oh, how d'you do," she added +aloud, as a female figure in a white apron suddenly emerged from the +gloom and took her hand and kissed it; "Anna, who's this? Anna! Aren't +you coming? Here's somebody kissing my hand."</p> + +<p>"It's the cook," said Anna, coming into the inner hall with the others, +Dellwig and his wife keeping one on either side of her, and both talking +at once in their anxiety to make a good impression.</p> + +<p>"The cook? Then tell her to give us some food. I shall die if I don't +have something soon. Do you know what time it is? Past four. Can't you +get rid of these people? And where's Hilton?"</p> + +<p>Susie hardly seemed to see the Dellwigs, and talked to Anna while they +were talking to her as though they did not exist. If Anna felt an +obligation to be polite to these different persons she felt none at all. +They did not understand English, but if they had it would not have +mattered to her, and she would have gone on talking about them as though +they had not been there.</p> + +<p>Both the Dellwigs had very loud voices, so Susie had to raise hers in +order to be heard, and there was consequently such a noise in the empty, +echoing house, that after looking round bewildered, and trying to answer +everybody at once, Anna gave it up, and stood and laughed.</p> + +<p>"I don't see anything to laugh at," said Susie crossly, "we are all +starving, and these people won't go."</p> + +<p>"But how can I make them go?"</p> + +<p>"They're your servants, I suppose. I should just say that I'd send for +them when I wanted them."</p> + +<p>"They'd be very much astonished. The man is so far from being my servant +that I believe he means to be my master."</p> + +<p>The two Dellwigs, perplexed by Anna's laughter when nobody had said +anything amusing, and uneasy lest she should be laughing at something +about themselves, looked from her to Susie suspiciously, and for that +brief moment were quiet.</p> + +<p>"<i>Wir sind hungrig</i>," said Anna to the wife.</p> + +<p>"The food comes immediately," she replied; and hastened away with the +cook and the other servant through a door evidently leading to the +kitchen.</p> + +<p>"<i>Und kalt</i>," continued Anna plaintively to the husband, who at once +flung open another door, through which they saw a table spread for +dinner. "<i>Bitte, bitte</i>," he said, ushering them in as though the place +belonged to him.</p> + +<p>"Does this person live in the house?" inquired Susie, eying him with +little goodwill.</p> + +<p>"He told me he lives at the farm. But of course he has always looked +after everything here."</p> + +<p>When they were all in the dining-room, driven in by Dellwig, as Susie +remarked, like a flock of sheep by a shepherd determined to stand no +nonsense, he helped them with officious politeness to take off their +wraps, and then, bowing almost to the ground, asked permission to +withdraw while the <i>Herrschaften</i> ate, a permission that was given with +alacrity, Anna's face falling, however, upon his informing her that he +would come round later on in order to lay his plans for the summer +before her.</p> + +<p>"What does he say?" asked Susie, as the door shut behind him.</p> + +<p>"He's coming round again later on."</p> + +<p>"That man's going to be a nuisance—you see if he isn't," said Susie +with conviction.</p> + +<p>"I believe he is," agreed Anna, going over to the white porcelain stove +to warm her hands.</p> + +<p>"He's the limpet, and you're going to be the rock. Don't let him fleece +you too much."</p> + +<p>"But limpets don't fleece rocks," said Anna.</p> + +<p>"He wouldn't be able to fleece me, <i>I</i> know, if I could talk German as +well as you do. But you'll be soft and weak and amiable, and he'll do as +he likes with you."</p> + +<p>"Soft, and weak, and amiable!" repeated Anna, smiling at Susie's +adjectives, "why, I thought I was obstinate—you always said I was."</p> + +<p>"So you are. But you won't be to that man. He'll get round you."</p> + +<p>"Uncle Joachim said he was excellent."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I daresay he wasn't bad with a man over him who knew all about +farming, but mark my words, <i>you</i> won't get two thousand a year out of +the place."</p> + +<p>Anna was silent. Susie was invariably shrewd and sensible, if inclined, +Anna thought, to be over suspicious, in matters where money was +concerned. Dellwig's face was not one to inspire confidence: and his way +of shouting when he talked, and of talking incessantly, was already +intolerable to her. She was not sure, either, that his wife was any more +satisfactory. She too shouted, and Anna detested noise. The wife did not +appear again, and had evidently gone home with her husband, for a great +silence had fallen upon the house, broken only by the monotonous sighing +of the forest, and the pattering of rain against the window.</p> + +<p>The dining-room was a long narrow room, with one big window forming its +west end looking out on to the grass plot, the ditch, and the gate-posts +with the eagles on them. It was a study in chocolate—brown paper, brown +carpet, brown rep curtains, brown cane chairs. There were two wooden +sideboards painted brown facing each other down at the dark end, with a +collection of miscellaneous articles on them: a vinegar cruet that had +stood there for years, with remains of vinegar dried up at the bottom; +mustard pots containing a dark and wicked mixture that had once been +mustard; a broken hand-bell used at long-past dinners, to summon +servants long since dead; an old wine register with entries in it of a +quarter of a century back; a mouldy bottle of Worcester sauce, still +boasting on its label that it would impart a relish to viands otherwise +dull; and some charming Dresden china fruit-dishes, adorned with +cheerful shepherds and shepherdesses, incurable optimists, persistently +pleased with themselves and their surroundings through all the days and +nights of all the cold silent years that they had been smiling at each +other in the dark. On the round dinner-table was a pot of lilies of the +valley, enveloped in crinkly pink tissue paper tied round with pink +satin ribbon, with ears of the paper drawn up between the flower-stalks +to produce a pleasing contrast of pink and white.</p> + +<p>"Well, it's warm enough here, isn't it?" said Susie, going round the +room and examining these things with an interest far exceeding that +called forth by the art treasures of Berlin.</p> + +<p>"Rather," said Letty, answering for everybody, and rubbing her hands. +She frolicked about the room, peeping into all the corners, opening the +cupboards, trying the sofa, and behaving in so frisky a fashion that her +mother, who seldom saw her at home, and knew her only as a naughty +gloomy girl, turned once or twice from the interesting sideboards to +stare at her inquiringly through her lorgnette.</p> + +<p>The servant with the surprised eyebrows, who presently brought in the +soup, had put on a pair of white cotton gloves for the ceremony of +waiting, but still wore her felt slippers. She put the plates in a pile +on the edge of the table, murmured something in German, and ran out +again; nor did she come back till she brought the next course, when she +behaved in a precisely similar manner, and continued to do so throughout +the meal; the diners, having no bell, being obliged to sit patiently +during the intervals, until she thought that they might perhaps be ready +for some more.</p> + +<p>It was an odd meal, and began with cold chocolate soup with frothy white +things that tasted of vanilla floating about in it. Susie was so much +interested in this soup that she forgot all about Hilton, who had been +driven ignominiously to the back door and was left sitting in the +kitchen till the two servants should have time to take her upstairs, and +was employing the time composing a speech of a spirited nature in which +she intended giving her mistress notice the moment she saw her again.</p> + +<p>Her mistress meanwhile was meditatively turning over the vanilla balls +in her soup. "Well, I don't like it," she said at last, laying down her +spoon.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's ripping!" cried her daughter ecstatically. "It's like having +one's pudding at the other end."</p> + +<p>"How can you look at chocolate after Berlin, greedy girl?" asked her +mother, disgusted by her child's obvious tendency towards a too free +indulgence in the pleasures of the table. But Letty was feeling so +jovial that in the face of this question she boldly asked for more—a +request that was refused indignantly and at once.</p> + +<p>There was such a long pause after the soup that in their hunger they +began to eat the stewed apples and bottled cherries that were on the +table. The brown bread, arranged in thin slices on a white crochet mat +in a japanned dish, felt so damp and was so full of caraway seeds that +it was uneatable. After a while some roach, caught on the estate, and +with a strong muddy flavour and bewildering multitudes of bones, was +brought in; and after that came cutlets from Anna's pigs; and after that +a queer red gelatinous pudding that tasted of physic; and after that, +the meal being evidently at an end, Susie, who was very hungry, remarked +that if all the food were going to be like those specimens they had +better return at once to England, or they would certainly be starved. +"It's a good thing you are not going to stay here, Anna," she said, "for +you'd have to make a tremendous fuss before you'd get them to leave off +treating you like a pig. Look here—teaspoons to eat the pudding with, +and the same fork all the way through. It's a beastly hole"—Letty's +eyebrows telegraphed triumphantly across to Miss Leech, "Well, did you +hear that?"—"and we ought to have stayed in Berlin. There was nothing +to be gained at all by coming here."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps the dinner to-night will be better," said Anna, trying to +comfort her, and little knowing that they had just eaten the dinner; but +people who are hungry are surprisingly impervious to the influence of +fair words. "It couldn't be worse, anyhow, so it really will probably be +better. I'm very glad though that we did come, for I like it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, so do I, Aunt Anna!" cried Letty. "It's frightfully nice. It's +like a picnic that doesn't leave off. When are we going over the house, +and out into the garden? I do so want to go—oh, I do so want to go!" +And she jumped up and down impatiently on her chair, till her ardour was +partially quenched by her mother's forbidding her to go out of doors in +the rain. "Well, let's go over the house, then," said Letty, dying to +explore.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, you may go over the house," said her mother with a shrug of +displeasure; though why she should be displeased it would have puzzled +anyone who had dined satisfactorily to explain. Then she suddenly +remembered Hilton, and with an exclamation started off in search of her.</p> + +<p>The others put on their furs before going into the Arctic atmosphere of +the hall, and began to explore, spending the next hour very pleasantly +rambling all over the house, while Susie, who had found Hilton, remained +shut up in the bedroom allotted her till supper time.</p> + +<p>The cook showed Anna her bedroom, and when she had gone, Anna gave one +look round at the evergreen wreaths with which it was decorated and +which filled it with a pungent, baked smell, and then ran out to see +what her house was like. Her heart was full of pride and happiness as +she wandered about the rooms and passages. The magic word <i>mine</i> rang in +her ears, and gave each piece of furniture a charm so ridiculously great +that she would not have told any one of it for the world. She took up +the different irrelevant ornaments that were scattered through the +rooms, collected as such things do collect, nobody knew when or why, and +she put them down again somewhere else, only because she had the right +to alter things and she loved to remind herself of it. She patted the +walls and the tables as she passed; she smoothed down the folds of the +curtains with tender touches; she went up to every separate +looking-glass and stood in front of it a moment, so that there should be +none that had not reflected the image of its mistress. She was so +childishly delighted with her scanty possessions that she was thankful +Susie remained invisible and did not come out and scoff.</p> + +<p>What if it seemed an odd, bare place to eyes used to the superfluity of +hangings and stuffings that prevailed at Estcourt? These bare boards, +these shabby little mats by the side of the beds, the worn foxes' skins +before the writing-tables, the cane or wooden chairs, the white calico +curtains with meek cotton fringes, the queer little prints on the walls, +the painted wooden bedsteads, seemed to her in their very poorness and +unpretentiousness to be emblematical of all the virtues. As she lingered +in the quiet rooms, while Letty raced along the passages, Anna said to +herself that this Spartan simplicity, this absence of every luxury that +could still further soften an already languid and effeminate soul, was +beautiful. Here, as in the whitewashed praying-places of the Puritans, +if there were any beauty and any glory it must all come from within, be +all of the spirit, be only the beauty of a clean life and the glory of +kind thoughts. She pictured herself waking up in one of those unadorned +beds with the morning sun shining on her face, and rising to go her +daily round of usefulness in her quiet house, where there would be no +quarrels, and no pitiful ambitions, and none of those many bitter +heartaches that need never be. Would they not be happy days, those days +of simple duties? "The better life—the better life," she repeated +musingly, standing in the middle of the big room through whose tall +windows she could see the garden, and a strip of marshy land, and then +the grey sea and the white of the gulls and the dark line of the Rügen +coast over which the dusk was gathering; and she counted on her fingers +mechanically, "Simplicity, frugality, hard work. Uncle Joachim said +<i>that</i> was the better life, and he was wise—oh, he was very wise—but +still——And he loved me, and understood me, but still——"</p> + +<p>Looking up she caught sight of herself in a long glass opposite, a slim +figure in a fur cloak, with bare head and pensive eyes, lost in +reflection. It reminded her of the day the letter came, when she stood +before the glass in her London bedroom dressed for dinner, with that +same sentence of his persistently in her ears, and how she had not been +able to imagine herself leading the life it described. Now, in her +travelling dress, pale and tired and subdued after the long journey, +shorn of every grace of clothes and curls, she criticised her own +fatuity in having held herself to be of too fine a clay, too delicate, +too fragile, for a life that might be rough. "Oh, vain and foolish one!" +she said aloud, apostrophising the figure in the glass with the familiar +<i>Du</i> of the days before her mother died, "Art thou then so much better +than others, that thou must for ever be only ornamental and an expense? +Canst thou not live, except in luxury? Or walk, except on carpets? Or +eat, except thy soup be not of chocolate? Go to the ants, thou sluggard; +consider their ways, and be wise." And she wrapped herself in her cloak, +and frowned defiance at that other girl.</p> + +<p>She was standing scowling at herself with great disapproval when the +housemaid, who had been searching for her everywhere, came to tell her +that the Herr Oberinspector was downstairs, and had sent up to know if +his visit were convenient.</p> + +<p>It was not at all convenient; and Anna thought that he might have spared +her this first evening at least. But she supposed that she must go down +to him, feeling somehow unequal to sending so authoritative a person +away.</p> + +<p>She found him standing in the inner hall with a portfolio under his arm. +He was blowing his nose, making a sound like the blast of a trumpet, and +waking the echoes. Not even that could he do quietly, she thought, her +new sense of proprietorship oddly irritated by a nose being blown so +aggressively in her house. Besides, they were her echoes that he was +disturbing. She smiled at her own childishness.</p> + +<p>She greeted him kindly, however, in response to his elaborate +obeisances, and shook hands on seeing that he expected to be shaken +hands with, though she had done so twice already that afternoon; and +then she let herself be ushered by him into the drawing-room, a room on +the garden side of the house, with French windows, and bookshelves, and +a huge round polished table in the middle.</p> + +<p>It had been one of the two rooms used by Uncle Joachim, and was full of +traces of his visits. She sat down at a big writing-table with a green +cloth top, her feet plunged in the long matted hairs of a grey rug, and +requested Dellwig to sit down near her, which he did, saying +apologetically, "I will be so free."</p> + +<p>The servant, Marie, brought in a lamp with a green shade, shut the +shutters, and went out again on tiptoe; and Anna settled herself to +listen with what patience she could to the loud voice that jarred so on +her nerves, fortifying herself with reminders that it was her duty, and +really taking pains to understand him. Nor did she say a word, as she +had done to the lawyer, that might lead him to suppose she did not +intend living there.</p> + +<p>But Dellwig's ceaseless flow of talk soon wearied her to such an extent +that she found steady attention impossible. To understand the mere words +was in itself an effort, and she had not yet learned the German for rye +and oats and the rest, and it was of these that he chiefly talked. What +was the use of explaining to her in what way he had ploughed and manured +and sown certain fields, how they lay, how big they were, and what their +soil was, when she had not seen them? Did he imagine that she could keep +all these figures and details in her head? "I know nothing of farming," +she said at last, "and shall understand your plans better when I have +seen the estate."</p> + +<p>"<i>Natürlich, natürlich</i>," shouted Dellwig, his voice in strangest +contrast to hers, which was particularly sweet and gentle. "Here I have +a map—does the gracious Miss permit that I show it?"</p> + +<p>The gracious Miss inclined her tired head, and he unrolled it and spread +it out on the table, pointing with his fat forefinger as he explained +the boundaries, and the divisions into forest, pasture, and arable.</p> + +<p>"It seems to be nearly all forest," said Anna.</p> + +<p>"Forest! The forest covers two-thirds of the estate. It is the only +forest on the entire promontory. Such care as I have bestowed on the +forest has seldom been seen. It is <i>grossartig—colossal</i>!" And he +lifted his hands the better to express his admiration, and was about to +go into lengthy raptures when the map rolled itself up again with loud +cracklings, and cut him short. He spread it out once more, and securing +its corners began to describe the effects of the various sorts of +artificial manure on the different crops, his cleverness in combining +them, and his latest triumphant discovery of the superlative mixture +that was to strike all Pomerania with awe.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ja</i>," said Anna, balancing a paper-knife on one finger, and profoundly +bored. "Whose land is that next to mine?" she asked, pointing.</p> + +<p>"The land on the north and west belongs to peasants," said Dellwig. "On +the east is the sea. On the south it is all Lohm. The gracious one +passed through the village of Lohm this afternoon."</p> + +<p>"The village where the school is?"</p> + +<p>"Quite correct. The pastor, Herr Manske, a worthy man, but, like all +pastors, taking ells when he is offered inches, serves both that church +and the little one in Kleinwalde village, of which the gracious Miss is +patroness. Herr von Lohm, who lives in the house standing back from the +road, and perhaps noticed by the gracious Miss, is Amtsvorsteher in both +villages."</p> + +<p>"What is Amtsvorsteher?" asked Anna, languidly. She was leaning back in +her chair, idly balancing the paper-knife, and listening with half an +ear only to Dellwig, throwing in questions every now and then when she +thought she ought to say something. She did not look at him, preferring +much to look at the paper-knife, and he could examine her face at his +ease in the shadow of the lamp-shade, her dark eyelashes lowered, her +profile only turned to him, with its delicate line of brow and nose, and +the soft and gracious curves of the mouth and chin and throat. One hand +lay on the table in the circle of light, a slender, beautiful hand, full +of character and energy, and the other hung listlessly over the arm of +the chair. Anna was very tired, and showed it in every line of her +attitude; but Dellwig was not tired at all, was used to talking, enjoyed +at all times the sound of his voice, and on this occasion felt it to be +his duty to make things clear. So he went into the lengthiest details as +to the nature and office of Amtsvorstehers, details that were perfectly +incomprehensible and wholly indifferent to Anna, and spared neither +himself nor her. While he talked, however, he was criticising her, +comparing the laziness of her attitude with the brisk and respectful +alertness of other women when he talked. He knew that these other women +belonged to a different class; his wife, the parson's wife, the wives of +the inspectors on other estates, these were not, of course, in the same +sphere as the new mistress of Kleinwalde; but she was only a woman, and +dress up a woman as you will, call her by what name you will, she is +nothing but a woman, born to help and serve, never by any possibility +even equal to a clever man like himself. Old Joachim might have lounged +as he chose, and put his feet on the table if it had seemed good to him, +and Dellwig would have accepted it with unquestioning respect as an +eccentricity of <i>Herrschaften</i>; but a woman had no sort of right, he +said to himself, while he so fluently discoursed, to let herself go in +the presence of her natural superior. Unfortunately, old Joachim, so +level-headed an old gentleman in all other respects, had placed the +power over his fortunes in the hands of this weak female leaning back so +unbecomingly in her chair, playing with the objects on the table, never +raising her eyes to his, and showing indeed, incredible as it seemed, +every symptom of thinking of something else. The women of his +acquaintance were, he was certain, worth individually fifty such +affected, indifferent young ladies. They worked early and late to make +their husbands comfortable; they were well practised in every art +required of women living in the country; they were models of thrift and +diligence; yet, with all their virtues and all their accomplishments, +they never dreamed of lounging or not listening when a man was speaking, +but sat attentively on the edge of their chairs, straight in the back +and seemly, and when he had finished said <i>Jawohl</i>.</p> + +<p>Anna certainly did sit very much at her ease, and instead of attending, +as she ought to have done, to his description of Amtsvorstehers, was +thinking of other things. Dellwig had thick lips that could not be +hidden entirely by his grizzled moustache and beard, and he had the sort +of eyes known to the inelegant but truthful as fishy, and a big +obstinate nose, and a narrow obstinate forehead, and a long body and +short legs; and though all this, Anna told herself, was not in the least +his fault and should not in any way prejudice her against him, she felt +that she was justified in wishing that his manners were less offensive, +less boastful and boisterous, and that he did not bite his nails. "I +wonder," she thought, her eyes carefully fixed on the paper-knife, but +conscious of his every look and movement, "I wonder if he is as artful +as he looks. Surely Uncle Joachim must have known what he was like, and +would never have told me to keep him if he had not been honest. Perhaps +he is perfectly honest, and when I meet him in heaven how ashamed I +shall be of myself for having had doubts!" And then she fell to musing +on what sort of an appearance a chastened and angelic Dellwig would +probably present, and looked up suddenly at him with new interest.</p> + +<p>"I trust I have made myself comprehensible?" he was asking, having just +come to the end of what he felt was a masterly <i>résumé</i> of Herr von +Lohm's duties.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon?" said Anna, bringing her thoughts back with +difficulty from the consideration of nimbuses, "Oh, about +Amtsvorstehers—no," she said, shaking her head, "you have not. But that +is my fault. I can't understand everything at once. I shall do better +later on."</p> + +<p>"<i>Natürlich, natürlich</i>," Dellwig vehemently assured her, while he made +inward comments on the innate incapacity of all <i>Weiber</i>, as he called +them, to grasp the simplest fact connected with law and justice.</p> + +<p>"Tell me about the livestock," said Anna, remembering Uncle Joachim's +frequent and affectionate allusions to his swine. "Are there many pigs?"</p> + +<p>"Pigs?" repeated Dellwig, lifting up his hands as though mere words were +insufficient to express his feelings, "such pigs as the gracious Miss +now possesses are nowhere else to be found in Pomerania. They are the +pride, and at the same time the envy, of the whole province. 'Let my +sausages,' said the Herr Landrath last winter, when the time for killing +drew near, 'let my sausages consist solely of the pigs reared at +Kleinwalde by my friend the Oberinspector Dellwig.' The Frau Landräthin +was deeply injured, for she too breeds and fattens pigs, but not like +ours—not like ours."</p> + +<p>"Who is the Herr Landrath?" asked Anna absently; but immediately +remembering the description of the Amtsvorsteher she added quickly, +"Never mind—don't explain. I suppose he is some sort of an official, +and I shall not be quite clear about these different officials till I +have lived here some time."</p> + +<p>"<i>Natürlich, natürlich</i>," agreed Dellwig; and leaving the Landrath +unexplained he launched forth into a dissertation on Anna's pigs, whose +excellencies, it appeared, were wholly due to the unrivalled skill he +had for years displayed in their treatment. "I have no children," he +said, with a resigned and pious upward glance, "and my wife's maternal +instincts find their satisfaction in tending and fattening these fine +animals. She cannot listen to their cries the day they are killed, and +withdraws into the cellar, where she prepares the stuffing. The gracious +Miss ate the cutlets of one this very day. It was killed on purpose."</p> + +<p>"Was it? I wish it hadn't been," said Anna, frowning at the remembrance +of that meal. "I—I don't want things killed on my account. I—don't +like pig."</p> + +<p>"Not like pig?" echoed Dellwig, dropping his lower jaw in his amazement. +"Did I understand aright that the gracious one does not eat pig's flesh +gladly? And my wife and I who thought to prepare a joy for her!" He +clasped his hands together and stared at her in dismay. Indeed, he was +so much overcome by this extraordinary and wilful spurning of nature's +best gifts that for a moment he was silent, and knew not how he should +proceed. Were there not concentrated in the body of a single pig a +greater diversity of joys than in any other form of pleasure that he +could call to mind? Did it not include, besides the profounder delights +of its roasted ribs, such solid satisfactions as hams, sausages, and +bacon? Did not its liver, discreetly manipulated, rival the livers of +Strasburg geese in delicacy? Were not its brains a source of mutual +congratulation to an entire family at supper? Did not its very snout, +boiled with peas, make an otherwise inferior soup delicious? The ribs of +this particular pig were reposing at that moment in a cool place, +carefully shielded from harm by his wife, reserved for the Easter Sunday +dinner of their new mistress, who, having begun at her first meal with +the lesser joys of cutlets, was to be fed with different parts in the +order of their excellence till the climax of rejoicing was reached on +Easter Day in the dish of <i>Schweinebraten</i>, and who was now declaring, +in a die-away, affected sort of voice, that she did not want to eat pig +at all. Where, then, was her vulnerable point? How would he ever be able +to touch her, to influence her, if she was indifferent to the chief +means of happiness known to the dwellers in those parts? That was the +real aim and end of his labours, of the labours, as far as he could see, +of everyone else—to make as much money as possible in order to live as +well as possible; and what did living well mean if it did not mean the +best food? And what was the best food if not pig? Not to be killed on +her account! On whose account, then, could they be killed? With an owner +always about the place, and refusing to have pigs killed, how would he +and his wife be able to indulge, with satisfactory frequency, in their +favourite food, or offer it to their expectant friends on Sundays? He +mourned old Joachim, who so seldom came down, and when he did ate his +share of pork like a man, more sincerely at that moment than he would +have thought possible. "<i>Mein seliger Herr</i>," he burst out brokenly, +completely upset by the difference between uncle and niece, "<i>mein +seliger Herr</i>——" And then, unable to go on, fell to blowing his nose +with violence, for there were real tears in his eyes.</p> + +<p>Anna looked up, surprised. She thought he had been speaking of pigs, and +here he was on a sudden bewailing his late master. When she saw the +tears she was deeply touched. "Poor man," she said to herself, "how +unjust I have been. Of course he loved dear Uncle Joachim; and my coming +here, an utter stranger, taking possession of everything, must be very +dreadful for him." She got up, at once anxious, as she always was, to +comfort and soothe anyone who was sad, and put her hand gently on his +arm. "I loved him too," she said softly, "and you who knew him so long +must feel his death dreadfully. We will try and keep everything just as +he would have liked it, won't we? You know what his wishes were, and +must help me to carry them out. You cannot have loved him more than I +did—dear Uncle Joachim!"</p> + +<p>She felt very near tears herself, and condoned the sonorous nose-blowing +as the expression of an honourable emotion.</p> + +<p>And Dellwig, when he presently reached his home and was met at the door +by his wife's eager "Well, how was she?" laconically replied "Mad."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + + +<p>When Anna woke next morning she had a confused idea that something +annoying had happened the evening before, but she had slept so heavily +that she could not at once recollect what it was. Then, the sun on her +face waking her up more thoroughly, she remembered that Susie had stayed +upstairs with Hilton till supper time, had then come down, glanced with +unutterable disgust at the raw ham, cold sausage, eggs, and tepid coffee +of which the evening meal was composed, refused to eat, refused to +speak, refused utterly to smile, and afterwards in the drawing-room had +announced her fixed intention of returning to England the next day.</p> + +<p>Anna had protested and argued in vain; nothing could shake this sudden +determination. To all her expostulations and entreaties Susie replied +that she had never yet dwelt among savages and she was not going to +begin now; so Anna was forced to conclude that Hilton had been making a +scene, and knowing the effect of Hilton's scenes she gave up attempting +to persuade, but told her with outward firmness and inward quakings that +she herself could not possibly go too.</p> + +<p>Susie had been very angry at this, and still more angry at the reason +Anna gave, which was that, having invited the parson and his wife to +dinner on Saturday, she could not break her engagement. Susie told her +that as she would never see either of them again—for surely she would +never again want to come to this place?—it was absurd to care twopence +what they thought of her. What on earth did it matter if two inhabitants +of the desert were offended or not offended once she was on the other +side of the sea? And what did it matter at all how she treated them? She +heaped such epithets as absurd, stupid, and idiotic on Anna's head, but +Anna was not to be moved. She threatened to take Miss Leech and Letty +away with her, and leave Anna a prey to the criticisms of Mrs. Grundy, +and Anna said she could not prevent her doing so if she chose. Susie +became more and more excited, more and more Dobbs, goaded by the +recollection of what she had gone through with Hilton, and Anna, as +usual under such circumstances, grew very silent. Letty sat listening in +an agony of fright lest this cup of new experiences were about to be +dashed prematurely from her eager lips; and Miss Leech discreetly left +the room, though not in the least knowing where to go, finally seeking +to drive away the nervous fears that assailed her in her lonely, +creaking bedroom, where rats were gnawing at the woodwork, by thinking +hard of Mr. Jessup, who on this occasion proved to be but a broken reed, +pitted against the stern reality of rats.</p> + +<p>The end of it, after Susie had poured out the customary reproaches of +gross ingratitude and forgetfulness of all she had done for Anna for +fifteen long years, was that Miss Leech and Letty were to stay on as +originally intended, and come home with Anna towards the end of the +holidays, and Susie would leave with Hilton the very next day.</p> + +<p>Anna's attempt to make it up when she said good-night was repulsed with +energy. Anna was for ever doing aggravating things, and then wanting to +make it up; but makings up without having given in an inch seemed to +Susie singularly unsatisfactory ceremonies. Oh, these Estcourts and +their obstinacy! She marched off to bed in high indignation, an +indignation not by any means allowed to cool by Hilton during the +process of undressing; and Anna, worn out, fell asleep the moment she +lay down, and woke up, as she had pictured herself doing in that odd +wooden bed, with the morning sun shining full on her face.</p> + +<p>It was a bright and lovely day, and on the side of the house where she +slept she could not hear the wind, which was still blowing from the +north-west. She opened one of her three big windows and let the cold air +rush into her room, where the curious perfume of the baked evergreen +wreaths festooned round the walls and looking-glass and dressing-table, +joined to the heat from the stove, produced a heavy atmosphere that made +her gasp. Somebody must already have been in her room, for the stove had +been lit again, and she could see the peat blazing inside its open door. +But outside, what a divine coldness and purity! She leaned out, drinking +it in in long breaths, the warm March sun shining on her head. The +garden, a mere uncared-for piece of rough grass with big trees, was +radiant with rain-drops; the strip of sea was a deep blue now, with +crests of foam; the island coast opposite was a shadowy streak stretched +across the feet of the sun. Oh, it was beautiful to stand at that open +window in the freshness, listening to the robin on the bare lilac bush a +few yards away, to the quarrelling of the impudent sparrows on the path +below, to the wind in the branches of the trees, to all the happy +morning sounds of nature. A joyous feeling took possession of her heart, +a sudden overpowering delight in what are called common things—mere +earth, sky, sun, and wind. How lovely life was on such a morning, in +such a clean, rain-washed, wind-scoured world. The wet smell of the +garden came up to her, a whiff of marshy smell from the water, a long +breath from the pines in the forest on the other side of the house. How +had she ever breathed at Estcourt? How had she escaped suffocation +without this life-giving smell of sea and forest? She looked down with +delight at the wildness of the garden; after the trim Estcourt lawns, +what a relief this was. This was all liberty, freedom from +conventionality, absolute privacy; that was an everlasting clipping, and +trimming, and raking, a perpetual stumbling upon gardeners at every +step, for Susie would not be outdone by her greater neighbours in these +matters. What was Hill Street looking like this fine March morning? All +the blinds down, all the people in bed—how far away, how shadowy it +was; a street inhabited by sleepy ghosts, with phantom milkmen rattling +spectral cans beneath their windows. What a dream that life lived up to +three days ago seemed in this morning light of reality. White clouds, +like the clouds in Raphael's backgrounds, were floating so high overhead +that they could not be hurried by the wind; a black cat sat in a patch +of sunshine on the path washing itself; somebody opened a lower window, +and there was a noise of sweeping, presently made indistinguishable by +the chorale sung by the sweeper, no doubt Marie, in a pious, Good Friday +mood. "<i>Lob Gott ihr Christen allzugleich</i>," chanted Marie, keeping time +with her broom. Her voice was loud and monotonous, but Anna listened +with a smile, and would have liked to join in, and so let some of her +happiness find its way out.</p> + +<p>She dressed quickly. There was no hot water, and no bell to ring for +some, and she did not choose to call down from the window and interrupt +the hymn, so she used cold water, assuring herself that it was bracing. +Then she put on her hat and coat and stole out, afraid of disturbing +Susie, who was lying a few yards away filled with smouldering wrath, +anxious to have at least one quiet hour before beginning a day that she +felt sure was going to be a day of worries. "There will be great peace +to-night when she is gone," she thought, and immediately felt ashamed +that she should look forward to being without her. "But I have never +been without her since I was ten," she explained apologetically to her +offended conscience, "and I want to see how I feel."</p> + +<p>"<i>Guten Morgen</i>," said Marie, as Anna came into the drawing-room on her +way out through its French windows.</p> + +<p>"<i>Guten Morgen</i>," said Anna cheerfully.</p> + +<p>Marie leaned on her broom and watched her go down the garden, greedily +taking in every detail of her clothes, profoundly interested in a being +who went out into the mud where nobody could see her with such a dress +on, and whose shoes would not have been too big for Marie's small sister +aged nine.</p> + +<p>The evening before, indeed, Marie had beheld such a vision as she had +never yet in her life seen, or so much as imagined; her new mistress had +appeared at supper in what was evidently a <i>herrschaftliche Ballkleid</i>, +with naked arms and shoulders, and the other ladies were attired in much +the same way. The young Fräulein, it is true, showed no bare flesh, but +even she was arrayed in white, and her hair magnificently tied up with +ribbons. Marie had rushed out to tell the cook, and the cook, refusing +to believe it, had carried in a supererogatory dish of compot as an +excuse for securing the assurance of her own eyes; and Bertha from the +farm, coming round with a message from the Frau Oberinspector, had seen +it too through the crack of the kitchen door as the ladies left the +dining-room, and had gone off breathlessly to spread the news; and the +post cart just leaving with the letters had carried it to Lohm, and +every inhabitant of every house between Kleinwalde and Stralsund knew +all about it before bedtime. "What did I tell thee, wife?" said Dellwig, +who, in spite of his superiority to the sex that served, listened as +eagerly as any member of it to gossip; and his wife was only too ready +to label Anna mad or eccentric as a slight private consolation for +having passed out of the service of a comprehensible German gentleman +into that of a woman and a foreigner.</p> + +<p>Unconscious of the interest and curiosity she was exciting for miles +round, pleased by Marie's artless piety, and filled with kindly feelings +towards all her neighbours, Anna stood at the end of the garden looking +over the low hedge that divided it from the marsh and the sea, and +thought that she had never seen a place where it would be so easy to be +good. Complete freedom from the wearisome obligations of society, an +ideal privacy surrounded by her woods and the water, a scanty population +of simple and devoted people—did not Dellwig shed tears at the +remembrance of his master?—every day spent here would be a day that +made her better, that would bring her nearer to that heaven in which all +good and simple souls dwelt while still on earth, the heaven of a serene +and quiet mind. Always she had longed to be good, and to help and +befriend those who had the same longing but in whom it had been +partially crushed by want of opportunity and want of peace. The healthy +goodness that goes hand in hand with happiness was what she meant; not +that tragic and futile goodness that grows out of grief, that lifts its +head miserably in stony places, that flourishes in sick rooms and among +desperate sorrows, and goes to God only because all else is lost. She +went round the house and crossed the road into the forest. The fresh +wind blew in her face, and shook down the drops from the branches on her +as she passed. The pine needles of other years made a thick carpet for +her feet. The sun gleamed through the straight trunks and warmed her. +The restless sighing overheard in the tree tops filled her ears with +sweetest music. "I do believe the place is pleased that I have come!" +she thought, with a happy laugh. She came to a clearing in the trees, +opening out towards the north, and she could see the flat fields and the +wide sky and the sunshine chasing the shadows across the vivid green +patches that she had learned were winter rye. A hole at her feet, where +a tree had been uprooted, still had snow in it; but the larks were +singing above in the blue, as though from those high places they could +see Spring far away in the south, coming up slowly with the first +anemones in her hands, her face turned at last towards the patient +north.</p> + +<p>The strangest feeling of being for the first time in her life at home +came over Anna. This poor country, how sweet and touching it was. After +the English country, with its thickly scattered villages, and gardens, +and fields that looked like parks, it did seem very poor and very empty, +but intensely lovable. Like the furniture of her house, it struck her as +symbolic in its bareness of the sturdier virtues. The people who lived +in it must of necessity be frugal and hard-working if they would live at +all, wresting by sheer labour their life from the soil, braced by the +long winters to endurance and self-denial, their vices and their +languors frozen out of them whether they would or no. At least so +thought Anna, as she stood gazing out across the clearing at the fields +and sky. "Could one not be good here? Could one not be so, so good?" she +kept on murmuring. Then she remembered that she had been asking herself +vague questions like this ever since her arrival; and with a sudden +determination to face what was in her mind and think it out honestly, +she sat down on a tree stump, buttoned her coat up tight, for the wind +was blowing full on her, and fell to considering what she meant to do.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Susie did not go down to breakfast, but stayed in her bedroom on the +sofa drinking a glass of milk into which an egg had been beaten, and +listening to Hilton's criticisms of the German nation, delivered with +much venom while she packed. But Hilton, though her contempt for German +ways was so great as to be almost unutterable, was reconciled to a +mistress who had so quickly given in to her wish to be taken back to +Hill Street, and the venom was of an abstract nature, containing no +personal sting of unfavourable comparisons with duchesses; so that Susie +was sipping her milk in a fairly placid frame of mind when there was a +knock at the door, and Anna asked if she might come in.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, come in. Have you looked out the trains?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. There's only one decent one, and you'll have to leave directly +after luncheon. Won't you stay, Susie? You'll be so tired, going home +without resting."</p> + +<p>"Can't we leave before luncheon?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course, if you prefer to lunch at Stralsund."</p> + +<p>"Much. Have you ordered the shandrydan?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, for half-past one."</p> + +<p>"Then order it for half-past twelve. Hilton can drive with me."</p> + +<p>"So I thought."</p> + +<p>"Has that wretch been rubbing fish oil on it again?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think so, after what I said yesterday."</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't think what you said yesterday could have frightened him +much. You beamed at him as though he were your best friend."</p> + +<p>"Did I?"</p> + +<p>Anna was looking odd, Susie thought, and answering her remarks with a +nervous, abstracted air. She had apparently been out, for her dress was +muddy, and she was quite rosy, and her hair was not so neat as usual. +She stood about in an undecided sort of way, and glanced several times +at Hilton on her knees before a trunk.</p> + +<p>"Is that all the breakfast you are going to have?" she asked, becoming +aware of the glass of milk.</p> + +<p>"What other breakfast is there to have?" snapped Susie, who was hungry, +and would have liked a great deal more.</p> + +<p>"Well, the eggs and butter are very nice, anyway," said Anna, quite +evidently thinking of other things.</p> + +<p>"Now what has she got into her head?" Susie asked herself, watching her +sister-in-law with misgiving. Anna's new moods were never by any chance +of a sort to give Susie pleasure. Aloud she said tartly, "I can't eat +eggs and butter by themselves. I shouldn't have had anything at all if +it hadn't been for Hilton, who went into the kitchen and made me this +herself."</p> + +<p>"Excellent Hilton," said Anna absently. "Haven't you done packing yet, +Hilton?"</p> + +<p>"No, m'm."</p> + +<p>Anna sat down on the end of the sofa and began to twist the frills of +Susie's dressing-gown round her fingers.</p> + +<p>"I haven't closed my eyes all night," said Susie, putting on her martyr +look, "nor has Hilton."</p> + +<p>"Haven't you? Why not? I slept the sleep of the just—better, indeed, +than any just that I ever heard of."</p> + +<p>"What, didn't that man go into your room?"</p> + +<p>"What man? Oh, yes, Miss Leech was telling me about it. He lit the +stoves, didn't he? I never heard a sound."</p> + +<p>"You must have slept like a log then. Any one in the least sensitive +would have been frightened out of their senses. I was, and so was +Hilton. I wouldn't spend another night in this house for anything you +could give me."</p> + +<p>It appeared that Susie really had just cause for complaint. She had been +nervous the night before after Hilton had left her, unable to sleep, and +scared by the thought of their defencelessness—six women alone in that +wild place. She wished then with all her heart that Dellwig did live in +the house. Rats scampering about in the attic above added to her +terrors. The wind shook the windows of her room and howled +disconsolately up and down. She bore it as long as she could, which was +longer than most women would have borne it, and then knocked on the wall +dividing her room from Hilton's. But Hilton, with the bedclothes over +her head and all the candles she had been able to collect alight, would +not have stirred out of her room to save her mistress from dying; and +Susie, desperate at the prospect of the awful hours round midnight, made +one great effort of courage and sallied out to fetch her. Poor Susie, +standing shivering before her maid's bolted door, scantily clothed, +anxiously watching the flame of her candle that threatened each second +to be blown out, alone on the wide, draughty landing, frightened at the +sound of her own calls mingling weirdly with the creakings and hangings +of the tempest-shaken house, was an object deserving of pity. It took +some minutes to induce Hilton to open the door, and such minutes Susie +had not, in the course of an ordered and normal existence, yet passed. +They both went into Susie's room, locked themselves in, and Hilton lay +down on the sofa; and after a long time they fell into an uneasy sleep. +At half-past three Susie started up in bed; some one was trying to open +the door and knocking. The candles had burnt themselves out, and she +could not tell what time it was, but thought it must be early morning +and that the servant wanted to bring her hot water; and she woke Hilton +and bade her open the door. Hilton did so, gave a faint scream, and +flung herself back on the sofa, where she lay as one dead, her face +buried in the pillow. A man with a lantern and no shoes on was at the +door, and came in noiselessly. Susie was never nearer fainting in her +life. She sat in her bed, her cold hands clasped tightly round her +knees, her eyes fixed on this dreadful apparition, unable to speak or +move, paralysed by terror. This was the end, then, of all her hopes and +ambitions—to come to Pomerania and die like a dog. Then the sickening +feeling of fear gave way to one of overwhelming wrath when she found +that all the man wanted was to light her stove. On the same principle +that a child is shaken who has not after all been lost or run over, she +was speechless with rage now that she found that she was not, after all, +to be murdered. He was a very old man, and the light from the lantern +cast strange reflections on his face and figure as he crouched before +the stove. He mumbled as he worked, talking to the fire he was making as +though it were a person. "<i>Du willst nicht, brennen, Lump? Was? Na, +warte mal!</i>" And when he had finished, crept out again without glancing +at the occupants of the room, still mumbling.</p> + +<p>"It's the custom of the country, I suppose," said Anna.</p> + +<p>"Is it? Well the sooner we get out of such a country the better. You are +determined to stay in spite of everything? I can tell you I don't at all +like my child being here, but you force me to leave her because you know +very well that I can't let you stay here alone."</p> + +<p>Anna glanced at Hilton, folding a dress with immense deliberation.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Hilton knows what I think," said Susie, with a shrug.</p> + +<p>"But she doesn't know what <i>I</i> think," said Anna. "I must talk to you +before you leave, so please let her finish packing afterwards. Go and +have your breakfast, Hilton."</p> + +<p>"Did you say breakfast, m'm?" inquired Hilton with an innocent look.</p> + +<p>"Breakfast?" repeated Susie; "poor thing, I'd like to know how and where +she is to get any."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, go and don't have your breakfast," said Anna impatiently. +She had something to tell Susie that must be told soon, and was not in a +mood to bear with Hilton's ways.</p> + +<p>"How hospitable," remarked Susie as the door closed. "Really you are a +delightful hostess."</p> + +<p>Anna laughed. "I don't mean to be brutal," she said, "but if we can +exist on the food without looking tragic I suppose she can too, +especially as it is only for one day."</p> + +<p>"My one consolation in leaving Letty here is that she will be dieted in +spite of herself. I expect you to bring her back quite thin."</p> + +<p>Anna got up restlessly and went to the window.</p> + +<p>"And whatever you do, don't forget that the return tickets only last +till the 24th. But you'll be sick of it long before then."</p> + +<p>Anna turned round and leaned her back against the window. The strong +morning light was on her hair, and her face was in shadow, yet Susie had +a feeling that she was looking guilty.</p> + +<p>"Susie, I've been thinking," she said with an effort.</p> + +<p>"Really? How nice."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it was, for I found out what it is that I must do if I mean to be +happy. But I'm afraid that <i>you</i> won't think it nice, and will scold me. +Now don't scold me."</p> + +<p>"Well, tell me what it is." Susie lay staring at Anna's form against the +light, bracing herself to hear something disagreeable. She knew very +well from past experience that Anna's new plan, whatever it was, was +certain to be wild and foolish.</p> + +<p>"I am going to stay here."</p> + +<p>"I know you are, and I know that nothing I can say will make you change +your mind. Peter is just like you—the more I show him what a fool he's +going to make of himself the more he insists on doing it. He calls it +determination. Average people like myself, with smaller and more easily +managed brains than you two wonders have got, call it pigheadedness."</p> + +<p>"I don't mean only for Letty's holidays; I mean for good."</p> + +<p>"For good?" Susie opened her mouth and stared in much the same blank +consternation that Dellwig had shown on hearing that she did not like +eating pig.</p> + +<p>"Don't be angry with me," said Anna, coming over to the sofa and sitting +on the floor by Susie's side; and she caught hold of her hand and began +to talk fast and eagerly. "I always intended spending this money in +helping poor people, but didn't quite know in what way—now I see my way +clearly, and I must, <i>must</i> go it. Don't you remember in the catechism +there's the duty towards God and the duty towards one's neighbour——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, if you're going to talk religion——" said Susie, pulling away her +hand in great disgust.</p> + +<p>"No, no, do listen," said Anna, catching it again and stroking it while +she talked, to Susie's intense irritation, who hated being stroked.</p> + +<p>"If you are going into the catechism," she said, "Hilton had better come +in again. It might do her good."</p> + +<p>"No, no—I only wanted to say that there's another duty not in the +catechism, greater than the duty towards one's neighbour——"</p> + +<p>"My dear Anna, it isn't likely that you can improve on the catechism. +And fancy wanting to, at breakfast time. Don't stroke my hand—it gives +me the fidgets."</p> + +<p>"But I want to explain things—do listen. The duty the catechism leaves +out is the duty towards oneself. You can't get away from your duties, +you know, Susie——" And she knit her brows in her effort to follow out +her thought.</p> + +<p>"My goodness, as though I ever tried! If ever a poor woman did her duty, +I'm that woman."</p> + +<p>"—and I believe that if I do those two duties, towards my neighbour and +myself, I shall be doing my duty towards God."</p> + +<p>Susie gave her body an impatient twist. She thought it positively +indecent to speak of sacred things so early in the morning in cold +blood. "What has this drivel to do with your stopping here?" she asked +angrily.</p> + +<p>"It has everything to do with it—my duty towards myself is to be as +happy and as good as possible, and my duty towards my neighbour——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, bother your neighbour and your duty!" cried Susie in exasperation.</p> + +<p>"—is to help him to be good and happy too."</p> + +<p>"Him? Her, I hope. Don't forget decency, my dear. A girl has no duties +whatever towards male neighbours."</p> + +<p>"Well, I do mean her," said Anna, looking up and laughing.</p> + +<p>"So you think that by living here you'll make yourself happy?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I do—I do think so. Perhaps I am wrong, and shall find out I'm +wrong, but I must try."</p> + +<p>"You'll leave all your friends and relations and stay in this +God-forsaken place where you can't even live like a lady?"</p> + +<p>"Uncle Joachim said it was my one chance of leading the better life."</p> + +<p>"Unutterable old fool," said Susie with bitterest contempt. "That money, +then, is going to be thrown away on Germans? As though there weren't +poor people enough in England, if your ambition is to pose as a +benefactress!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't want to pose as anything—I only want to help unhappy +wretches," cried Anna, laying her cheek caressingly on Susie's unwilling +hand. "Now don't scold me—forgive me if I'm silly, and be patient with +me till I find out that I've made a goose of myself and come creeping +back to you and Peter. But I <i>must</i> do it—I <i>must</i> try—I <i>will</i> do +what I think is right."</p> + +<p>"And who are the wretches, pray, who are to be made happy?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, those I am sorriest for—that no one else helps—the genteel ones, +if I can only get at them."</p> + +<p>"I never heard of genteel wretches," said Susie.</p> + +<p>Anna laughed again. "I was thinking it all out in the forest this +morning," she said, "and it suddenly flashed across me that this big +roomy house was never meant not to be used, and that instead of going to +see poor people and giving them money in the ordinary way, it would be +so much better to let women of the better classes, who have no money, +and who are dependent and miserable, come and live with me and share +mine, and have everything that I have—exactly the same, with no +difference of any sort. There is room for twelve at least, and wouldn't +it be beautiful to make twelve people, who had lost all hope and all +courage, happy for the rest of their days?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, the girl's mad!" cried Susie, springing up from the sofa, no longer +able to bear herself. She began to walk about the room, not knowing what +to say or do, absolutely without sympathy for beneficent impulses, at +all times possessed of a fine scorn for ideals, feeling that no argument +would be of any avail with an Estcourt whose mind was made up, shocked +that good money, so hard to get, and so very precious when got, should +be thrown away in such a manner, bewildered by the difficulties of the +situation, for how could a girl of Anna's age live alone, and direct a +house full of objects of charity? Would the objects themselves be a +sufficient chaperonage? Would her friends at home think so? Would they +not blame her, Susie, for having allowed all this? As though she could +prevent it! Or would they expect her to stay with Anna in this place +till she should marry? As though anybody would ever marry such a +lunatic! "Mad, mad, mad!" cried Susie, wringing her hands.</p> + +<p>"I was afraid that you wouldn't like it," said the culprit on the floor, +watching her with a distressed face.</p> + +<p>"Like it? Oh—mad, mad!" And she continued to walk and wring her hands.</p> + +<p>"Well, you'll stay, then," she said, suddenly stopping in front of Anna, +"I know you well enough, and shall waste no breath arguing. That +infatuated old man's money has turned your head—I didn't know it was so +weak. But look into your heart when I am gone—you'll have time enough +and quiet enough—and ask yourself honestly whether what you are going +to do is a proper way of paying back all I have done for you, and all +the expense you have been. You know what my wishes are about you, and +you don't care one jot. Gratitude! There isn't a spark of it in your +whole body. Never was there a more selfish creature, and I can't believe +that ingratitude and selfishness are the stuff that makes saints. Don't +dare to talk any more rot about duty to your neighbour to me. An +Englishwoman to come and spend her money on German charities——"</p> + +<p>"It's German money," murmured Anna.</p> + +<p>"And to <i>live</i> here—to live <i>here</i>—oh, mad, mad!" And Susie's +indignation threatening to choke her, she resumed her walk and her +gesticulations, her high heels tapping furiously on the bare boards.</p> + +<p>She longed to take Letty and Miss Leech away with her that very morning, +and punish Anna by leaving her entirely alone; but she did not dare +because of Peter. Peter was always on Anna's side when there were +differences, and would be sure to do something dreadful when he heard of +it—perhaps come and live here too, and never go back to his wife any +more. Oh, these half Germans! Why had she married into a family with +such a taint in its blood? "You will have to have some one here," she +said, turning on Anna, who still sat on the floor by the sofa, a look on +her face of apology and penitence mixed with firmness that Susie well +knew. "How can you stay here alone? I shall leave Miss Leech with you +till the end of the holidays, though I hate to seem to encourage you; +but then you see I do my duty and always have, though I don't talk about +it. When I get home I shall look for some elderly woman who won't mind +coming here and seeing that you don't make yourself too much of a +by-word, and the day she comes you are to send me back my child."</p> + +<p>"It is good of you to let me keep Letty, dear Susie——"</p> + +<p>"Dear Susie!"</p> + +<p>"But I don't mean to be a by-word, as you call it," continued Anna, the +ghost of a smile lurking in her eyes, "and I don't want an Englishwoman. +What use would she be here? She wouldn't understand if it was a German +by-word that I turned into. I thought about asking the parson how I had +better set about getting a German lady—a grave and sober female, +advanced in years, as Uncle Joachim wrote."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Uncle Joachim——" Susie could hardly endure to hear the name. It +was that odious old man who had filled Anna's head with these ideas. To +leave her money was admirable, but to influence a weak girl's mind with +his wishy-washy German philosophy about the better life and such +rubbish, as he evidently had done during those excursions with her, was +conduct so shameful that she found no words strong enough to express her +opinion of it. Everyone would blame her for what had happened, everyone +would jeer at her, and say that the moment an opportunity of escape had +presented itself Anna had seized it, preferring an existence of +loneliness and hardship—any sort of existence—to all the pleasures of +civilised life in Susie's company. Peter would certainly be very angry +with her, and reproach her with not having made Anna happy enough. Happy +enough! The girl had cost her at least three hundred a year, what with +her expensive education and all her clothes since she came out; and if +three hundred good pounds spent on a girl could not make her happy, +she'd like to know what could. And no one—not one of those odious +people in London whom she secretly hated—would have a single word of +censure for Anna. No one ever had. All her vagaries and absurdities +during the last few years when she had been so provoking had been smiled +at, had been, Susie knew, put down to her treatment of her. Treatment of +her, indeed! The thought of these things made Susie writhe. She had been +looking forward to the next season, to having her pretty sister-in-law +with her in the happy mood she had been in since she heard of her good +fortune, and had foreseen nothing but advantages to herself from Anna's +presence in her house—an Anna spending and not being spent upon, and no +doubt to be persuaded to share the expenses of housekeeping. And now she +must go home by herself to blame, scoldings, and derision. The prospect +was almost more than she could bear. She went to the door, opened it, +and turning to Anna fired a parting shot. "Let no one," she said, her +voice shaken by deepest disgust, "who wants to be happy, ever spend a +penny on her husband's relations."</p> + +<p>And then she called Hilton; nor did she leave off calling till Hilton +appeared, and so prevented Anna from saying another word.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + + +<p>But if Susie's rage was such that she refused to say good-bye, and +terrified Miss Leech while she was waiting in the hall for the carriage +by dark allusions to strait-waistcoats, when the parson was taken into +Anna's confidence after dinner on the following night his raptures knew +no bounds. "<i>Liebes, edeldenkendes Fräulein!</i>" he burst out, clasping +his hands and gazing with a moist, ecstatic eye at this young sprig of +piety. He was a good man, not very learned, not very refined, +sentimental exceedingly, and much inclined to become tearfully eloquent +on such subjects as <i>die liebe kleine Kinder, die herrliche Natur, die +Frau als Schutzengel</i>, and the sacredness of <i>das Familienleben</i>.</p> + +<p>Anna felt that he was the only person at hand who could perhaps help her +to find twelve dejected ladies willing to be made happy, and had +unfolded her plan to him as tersely as possible in her stumbling German, +with none of those accompanying digressions into the question of +feelings that Susie stigmatised as drivel; and she sat uncomfortable +enough while he burst forth into praises that would not end of her +goodness and nobleness. It is hard to look anything but fatuous when +somebody is extolling your virtues to your face, and she could not help +both looking and feeling foolish during his extravagant glorification. +She did not doubt his sincerity, and indeed he was absolutely sincere, +but she wished that he would be less flowery and less long, and would +skip the raptures and get on to the main subject, which was practical +advice.</p> + +<p>She wore the simple white dress that had caused such a sensation in the +neighbourhood, a garment that hung in long, soft folds, accentuating her +slender length of limb. Her bright hair was parted and tucked behind her +ears. Everything about her breathed an absolute want of +self-consciousness and vanity, a perfect freedom from the least thought +of the impression she might be making; yet she was beautiful, and the +good man observing her beauty, and supposing from what she had just told +him an equal beauty of character, for ever afterwards when he thought of +angels on quiet Sunday evenings in his garden, clothed them as Anna was +clothed that night, not even shrinking from the pretty, bare shoulders +and scantily sleeved arms, but facing them with a courage worthy of a +man, however doubtfully it might become a pastor.</p> + +<p>His wife, in her best dress, which was also her tightest, sat on the +edge of a chair some way off, marvelling greatly at many things. She +could not hear what it was Anna had said to set her husband off +exclaiming, because the governess persisted in trying to talk German to +her, and would not be satisfied with vague replies. She was disappointed +by the sudden disappearance of the sister-in-law, gone before she had +shown herself to a single soul; astonished that she had not been +requested to sit on the sofa, in which place of honour the young +Fräulein sprawled in a way that would certainly ruin her clothes; +disgusted that she had not been pressed at table, nay, not even asked, +to partake of every dish a second time; indeed, no one had seemed to +notice or care whether she ate anything at all. These were strange ways. +And where were the Dellwigs, those great people accustomed to patronise +her because she was the parson's wife? Was it possible that they had not +been invited? Were there then quarrels already? She could not of course +dream that Anna would never have thought of asking her inspector and his +wife to dinner, and that in her ignorance she regarded the parson as a +person on an altogether higher social level than the inspector. These +things, joined to conjectures as to the probable price by the yard of +Anna's, Letty's, and Miss Leech's clothes, gave Frau Manske more food +for reflection than she had had for years; and she sat turning them over +slowly in her mind in the intervals between Miss Leech's sentences, +while her dress, which was of silk, creaked ominously with every painful +breath she drew.</p> + +<p>"The best way to act," said the parson, when he had exhausted the +greater part of his raptures, "will be to advertise in a newspaper of a +Christian character."</p> + +<p>"But not in my name," said Anna.</p> + +<p>"No, no, we must be discreet—we must be very discreet. The +advertisement must be drawn up with skill. I will make, simultaneously, +inquiries among my colleagues in the holy office, but there must also be +an advertisement. What would the gracious Miss's opinion be of the +desirability of referring all applicants, in the first instance, to me?"</p> + +<p>"Why, I think it would be an excellent plan, if you do not mind the +trouble."</p> + +<p>"Trouble! Joy fills me at the thought of taking part in this good work. +Little did I think that our poor corner of the fatherland was to become +a holy place, a blessed refuge for the world-worn, a nook fragrant with +charity——"</p> + +<p>"No, not charity," interposed Anna.</p> + +<p>"Whose perfume," continued the parson, determined to finish his +sentence, "whose perfume will ascend day and night to the attentive +heavens. But such are the celestial surprises Providence keeps in +reserve and springs upon us when we least expect it."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Anna. "But what shall we put in the advertisement?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach ja</i>, the advertisement. In the contemplation of this beautiful +scheme I forget the advertisement." And again the moisture of ecstasy +suffused his eyes, and again he clasped his hands and gazed at her with +his head on one side, almost as though the young lady herself were the +beautiful scheme.</p> + +<p>Anna got up and went to the writing-table to fetch a pencil and a sheet +of paper, anxious to keep him to the point; and the parson watching the +graceful white figure was more than ever struck by her resemblance to +his idea of angels. He did not consider how easy it was to look like a +being from another world, a creature purified of every earthly +grossness, to eyes accustomed to behold the redundant exuberance of his +own excellent wife.</p> + +<p>She brought the paper, and sat down again at the table on which the lamp +stood. "How does one write any sort of advertisement in German?" she +said. "I could not write one for a housemaid. And this one must be done +so carefully."</p> + +<p>"Very true; for, alas, even ladies are sometimes not all that they +profess to be. Sad that in a Christian country there should be +impostors. Doubly sad that there should be any of the female sex."</p> + +<p>"Very sad," said Anna, smiling. "You must tell me which are the +impostors among those that answer."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach</i>, it will not be easy," said the parson, whose experience of +ladies was limited, and who began to see that he was taking upon himself +responsibilities that threatened to become grave. Suppose he recommended +an applicant who afterwards departed with the gracious Miss's spoons in +her bag? "<i>Ach</i>, it will not be easy," he said, shaking his head.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well," said Anna, "we must risk the impostors. There may not be any +at all. How would you begin?"</p> + +<p>The parson threw himself back in his chair, folded his hands, cast up +his eyes to the ceiling, and meditated. Anna waited, pencil in hand, +ready to write at his dictation. Frau Manske at the other end of the +room was straining her ears to hear what was going on, but Miss Leech, +desirous both of entertaining her and of practising her German, would +not cease from her spasmodic talk, even expecting her mistakes to be +corrected. And there were no refreshments, no glasses of cooling beer +being handed round, no liquid consolation of any sort, not even seltzer +water. She regarded her evening as a failure.</p> + +<p>"A Christian lady of noble sentiments," dictated the parson, apparently +reading the words off the ceiling, "offers a home in her house——"</p> + +<p>"Is this the advertisement?" asked Anna.</p> + +<p>"—offers a home in her house——"</p> + +<p>"I don't quite like the beginning," hesitated Anna. "I would rather +leave out about the noble sentiments."</p> + +<p>"As the gracious one pleases. Modesty can never be anything but an +ornament. 'A Christian lady——'"</p> + +<p>"But why a <i>Christian</i> lady? Why not simply a lady? Are there, then, +heathen ladies about, that you insist on the Christian?"</p> + +<p>"Worse, worse than heathen," replied the parson, sitting up straight, +and fixing eyeballs suddenly grown fiery on her; and his voice fell to a +hissing whisper, in strange contrast to his previous honeyed tones. "The +heathen live in far-off lands, where they keep quiet till our +missionaries gather them into the Church's fold—but here, here in our +midst, here everywhere, taking the money from our pockets, nay, the very +bread from our mouths, are the <i>Jews</i>."</p> + +<p>Impossible to describe the tone of fear and hatred with which this word +was pronounced.</p> + +<p>Anna gazed at him, mystified. "The Jews?" she echoed. One of her +greatest friends at home was a Jew, a delightful person, the mere +recollection of whom made her smile, so witty and charming and kind was +he. And of Jews in general she could not remember to have heard anything +at all.</p> + +<p>"But not only money from our pockets and bread from our mouths," +continued the parson, leaning forward, his light grey eyes opened to +their widest extent, and speaking in a whisper that made her flesh begin +the process known as creeping, "but blood—blood from our veins."</p> + +<p>"Blood from your veins?" she repeated faintly. It sounded horrid. It +offended her ears. It had nothing to do with the advertisement. The +strange light in his eyes made her think of fanaticism, cruelty, and the +Middle Ages. The mildest of men in general, as she found later on, +rabidness seized him at the mere mention of Jews.</p> + +<p>"Blood," he hissed, "from the veins of Christians, for the performance +of their unholy rites. Did the gracious one never hear of ritual +murders?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Anna, shrinking back, the nearer he leaned towards her, +"never in my life. Don't tell me now, for it—it sounds interesting. I +should like to hear about it all another time. 'A Christian lady offers +her home,'" she went on quickly, scribbling that much down, and then +looking at him inquiringly.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach ja</i>," he said in his natural voice, leaning back in his chair and +reducing his eyes to their normal size, "I forgot again the +advertisement. 'A Christian lady offers her home to others of her sex +and station who are without means——'"</p> + +<p>"And without friends, and without hope," added Anna, writing.</p> + +<p>"<i>Gut, gut, sehr gut.</i>"</p> + +<p>"She has room in her house in the country," Anna went on, writing as she +spoke, "for twelve such ladies, and will be glad to share with them all +that she possesses of fortune and happiness."</p> + +<p>"<i>Gut, gut, sehr gut.</i>"</p> + +<p>"Is the German correct?"</p> + +<p>"Quite correct. I would add, 'Strictest inquiries will be made before +acceptance of any application by Herr Pastor Manske of Lohm, to whom all +letters are to be addressed. Applicants must be ladies of good family, +who have fallen on evil days by the will of God.'"</p> + +<p>Anna wrote this down as far as "days," after which she put a full stop.</p> + +<p>"It pleases me not entirely," said Manske, musing; "the language is not +sufficiently noble. Noble schemes should be alluded to in noble words."</p> + +<p>"But not in an advertisement."</p> + +<p>"Why not? We ought not to hide our good thoughts from our fellows, but +rather open our hearts, pour out our feelings, spend freely all that we +have in us of virtue and piety, for the edification and exhilaration of +others."</p> + +<p>"But not in an advertisement. I don't want to exhilarate the public."</p> + +<p>"And why not exhilarate the public, dear Miss? Is it not composed of +units of like passions to ourselves? Units on the way to heaven, units +bowed down by the same sorrows, cheered by the same hopes, torn asunder +by the same temptations as the gracious one and myself?" And immediately +he launched forth into a flood of eloquence about units; for in Germany +sermons are all extempore, and the clergy, from constant practice, +acquire a fatal fluency of speech, bursting out in the week on the least +provocation into preaching, and not by any known means to be stopped.</p> + +<p>"Oh—words, words, words!" thought Anna, waiting till he should have +finished. His wife, hearing the well-known rapid speech of his inspired +moments, glowed with pride. "My Adolf surpasses himself," she thought; +"the Miss must wonder."</p> + +<p>The Miss did wonder. She sat and wondered, her elbows on the arms of the +chair, her finger tips joined together, and her eyes fixed on her finger +tips. She did not like to look at him, because, knowing how different +was the effect produced on her to that which he of course imagined, she +was sorry for him.</p> + +<p>"It is so good of you to help me," she said with gentle irrelevance when +the longed-for pause at length came. "There was something else that I +wanted to consult you about. I must look for a companion—an elderly +German lady, who will help me in the housekeeping."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, I comprehend. But would not the twelve be sufficient +companions, and helps in the housekeeping?"</p> + +<p>"No, because I would not like them to think that I want anything done +for me in return for their home. I want them to do exactly what makes +them happiest. They will all have had sad lives, and must waste no more +time in doing things they don't quite like."</p> + +<p>"Ah—noble, noble," murmured the parson, quite as unpractical as Anna, +and fascinated by the very vagueness of her plan of benevolence.</p> + +<p>"The companion I wish to find would be another sort of person, and would +help me in return for a salary."</p> + +<p>"Certainly, I comprehend."</p> + +<p>"I thought perhaps you would tell me how to advertise for such a +person?"</p> + +<p>"Surely, surely. My wife has a sister——"</p> + +<p>He paused. Anna looked up quickly. She had not reckoned with the +possibility of his wife's having sisters.</p> + +<p>"<i>Lieber Schatz</i>," he called to his wife, "what does thy sister Helena +do now?"</p> + +<p>Frau Manske got up and came over to them with the alacrity of relief. +"What dost thou say, dear Adolf?" she asked, laying her hand on his +shoulder. He took it in his, stroked it, kissed it, and finally put his +arm round her waist and held it there while he talked; all to the +exceeding joy of Letty, to whom such proceedings had the charm of +absolute freshness.</p> + +<p>"Thy sister Helena—is she at present in the parental house?" he asked, +looking up at her fondly, warmed into an affection even greater than +ordinary by the circumstance of having spectators.</p> + +<p>Frau Manske was not sure. She would write and inquire. Anna proposed +that she should sit down, but the parson playfully held her closer. +"This is my guardian angel," he explained, smiling beatifically at her, +"the faithful mother of my children, now grown up and gone their several +ways. Does the gracious Miss remember the immortal lines of Schiller, +'<i>Ehret die Frauen, sie flechten und weben himmlische Rosen in's +irdische Leben</i>'? Such has been the occupation of this dear wife, only +interrupted by her occasional visits to bathing resorts, since the day, +more than twenty-five years ago, when she consented to tread with me the +path leading heavenwards. Not a day has there been, except when she was +at the seaside, without its roses."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Anna. She felt that the remark was not at the height of the +situation, and added, "How—how interesting." This also struck her as +inadequate; but all further inspiration failing her, she was reduced to +the silent sympathy of smiles.</p> + +<p>"Ten children did the Lord bless us with," continued the parson, +expanding into confidences, "and six it was His will again to remove."</p> + +<p>"The drains—" murmured Frau Manske.</p> + +<p>"Yes, truly the drains in the town where we lived then were bad, very +bad. But one must not question the wisdom of Providence."</p> + +<p>"No, but one might mend——" Anna stopped, feeling that under some +circumstances even the mending of drains might be impious. She had heard +so much about piety and Providence within the last two hours that she +was confused, and was no longer clear as to the exact limit of conduct +beyond which a flying in the face of Providence might be said to begin.</p> + +<p>But the parson, clasping his wife to his side, paid no heed to anything +she might be saying, for he was already well on in a detailed account of +the personal appearance, habits, and career of his four remaining +children, and dwelt so fondly on each in turn that he forgot sister +Helena and the second advertisement; and when he had explained all their +numerous excellencies and harmless idiosyncrasies, including their +preferences in matters of food and drink, he abruptly quitted this +topic, and proceeded to expound Anna's scheme to his wife, who had +listened with ill-concealed impatience to the first part of his +discourse, consumed as she was with curiosity to hear what it was that +Anna had confided to him.</p> + +<p>So Anna had to listen to the raptures all over again. The eager interest +of the wife disturbed her. She doubted whether Frau Manske had any real +sympathy with her plan. Her inquisitiveness was unquestionable; but Anna +felt that opening her heart to the parson and opening it to his wife +were two different things. Though he was wordy, he was certainly +enthusiastic; his wife, on the other hand, appeared to be chiefly +interested in the question of cost. "The cost will be colossal," she +said, surveying Anna from head to foot. "But the gracious Miss is rich," +she added.</p> + +<p>Anna began to examine her finger tips again.</p> + +<p>On the way home through the dark fields, after having criticised each +dish of the dinner and expressed the opinion that the entertainment was +not worthy of such a wealthy lady, Frau Manske observed to her husband +that it was true, then, what she had always heard of the English, that +they were peculiarly liable to prolonged attacks of craziness.</p> + +<p>"Craziness! Thou callest this craziness? It is my wife, the wife of a +pastor, that I hear applying such a word to so beautiful, so Christian, +a scheme?"</p> + +<p>"But the good money—to give it all away. Yes, it is very Christian, but +it is also crazy."</p> + +<p>"Woman, shut thy mouth!" cried the parson, beside himself with +indignation at hearing such sentiments from such lips.</p> + +<p>Clearly Frau Manske was not at that moment engaged with her roses.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + + +<p>The next morning early, Anna went over to the farm to ask Dellwig to +lend her any newspapers he might have. She was anxious to advertise as +soon as possible for a companion, and now that she knew of the existence +of sister Helena, thought it better to write this advertisement without +the parson's aid, copying any other one of the sort that she might see +in the papers. Until she had secured the services of a German lady who +would tell her how to set about the reforms she intended making in her +house, she was perfectly helpless. She wanted to put her home in order +quickly, so that the twelve unhappy ones should not be kept waiting; and +there were many things to be done. Servants, furniture, everything, was +necessary, and she did not know where such things were to be had. She +did not even know where washerwomen were obtainable, and Frau Dellwig +never seemed to be at home when she sent for her, or went to her seeking +information. On Good Friday, after Susie's departure, she had sent a +message to the farm desiring the attendance of the inspector's wife, +whom she wished to consult about the dinner to be prepared for the +Manskes, all provisions apparently passing through Frau Dellwig's hands; +and she had been told that the lady was at church. On Saturday morning, +disturbed by the emptiness of her larder and the imminence of her +guests, she had gone herself to the farm, but was told that the lady was +in the cow-sheds—in which cow-shed nobody exactly knew. Anna had been +forced to ask Dellwig about the food. On Sunday she took Letty with her, +abashed by the whisperings and starings she had had to endure when she +went alone. Nor on this occasion did she see the inspector's wife, and +she began to wonder what had become of her.</p> + +<p>The Dellwigs' wrath and amazement when they found that the parson and +his wife had been invited to dinner and they themselves left out was +indescribable. Never had such an insult been offered them. They had +always been the first people of their class in the place, always held +their heads up and condescended to the clergy, always been helped first +at table, gone first through doors, sat in the right-hand corners of +sofas. If he was furious, she was still more so, filled with venom and +hatred unutterable for the innocent, but it must be added overjoyed, +Frau Manske; and though her own interest demanded it, she was altogether +unable to bring herself to meet Anna for the purpose, as she knew, of +being consulted about the menu to be offered to the wretched upstart. +Indeed, Frau Dellwig's position was similar to that painful one in which +Susie found herself when her influential London acquaintance left her +out of the invitations to the wedding; on which occasion, as we know, +Susie had been constrained to flee to Germany in order to escape the +comments of her friends. Frau Dellwig could not flee anywhere. She was +obliged to stay where she was and bear it as best she might, humiliated +in the eyes of the whole neighbourhood, an object of derision to her +very milkmaids. Philosophers smile at such trials; but to persons who +are not philosophers, and at Kleinwalde these were in the majority, they +are more difficult to endure than any family bereavement. There is no +dignity about them, and friends, instead of sympathising, rejoice more +or less openly according to the degree of their civilisation. The degree +of civilisation among Frau Dellwig's friends was not great, and the +rejoicings on the next Sunday when they all met would be but +ill-concealed; there was no escape from them, they had to be faced, and +the malicious condolences accepted with what countenance she could. +Instead of making sausages, therefore, she shut herself in her bedroom +and wept.</p> + +<p>And so it came about that the unconscious Anna, whose one desire was to +live at peace with her neighbours, made two enemies within two days. +"All women," said Dellwig to his wife, "high and low, are alike. Unless +they have a husband to keep them in their right places, they become +religious and run after pastors. Manske has wormed himself in very +cleverly, truly very cleverly. But we will worm him out again with equal +cleverness. As for his wife, what canst thou expect from so great a +fool?"</p> + +<p>"No, indeed, from her I expect nothing," replied his wife, tossing her +head, "but from the niece of our late master I expected the behaviour of +a lady." And at that moment, the niece of her late master being +announced, she fled into her bedroom.</p> + +<p>Anna, friendly as ever, specially kind to Dellwig since his tears on the +night of her arrival, came with Letty into the gloomy little office +where he was working, with all the morning sunshine in her face. Though +she was perplexed by many things, she was intensely happy. The perfect +freedom, after her years of servitude, was like heaven. Here she was in +her own home, from which nobody could take her, free to arrange her life +as she chose. Oh, it was a beautiful world, and this the most beautiful +corner of it! She was sure the sky was bluer at Kleinwalde than in other +places, and that the larks sang louder. And then was she not on the very +verge of realising her dreams of bringing the light of happiness into +dark and hopeless lives? Oh, the beautiful, beautiful world! She came +into Dellwig's room with the love of it shining in her eyes.</p> + +<p>He was as obsequious as ever, for unfortunately his bread and butter +depended on this perverse young woman; but he was also graver and less +talkative, considering within himself that he could not be expected to +pass over such a slight without some alteration in his manner. He ought, +he felt, to show that he was pained, and he ought to show it so +unmistakably that she would perhaps be led to offer some explanation of +her conduct. Accordingly he assumed the subdued behaviour of one whose +feelings have been hurt, and Anna thought how greatly he improved on +acquaintance.</p> + +<p>He would have given much to know why she wanted the papers, for surely +it was unusual for women to read newspapers? When there was a murder, or +anything of that sort, his wife liked to see them, but not at other +times. "Is the gracious Miss interested in politics?" he inquired, as he +put several together.</p> + +<p>"No, not particularly," said Anna; "at least, not yet in German +politics. I must live here a little while first."</p> + +<p>"In—in literature, perhaps?"</p> + +<p>"No, not particularly. I know so little about German books."</p> + +<p>"There are some well-written articles occasionally on the modes in +ladies' dresses."</p> + +<p>"Really?"</p> + +<p>"My wife tells me she often gets hints from them as to what is being +worn. Ladies, we know," he added with a superior smile, checked, +however, on his remembering that he was pained, "are interested in these +matters."</p> + +<p>"Yes, they are," agreed Anna, smiling, and holding out her hand for the +papers.</p> + +<p>"Ah, then, it is that that the gracious Miss wishes to read?" he said +quickly.</p> + +<p>"No, not particularly," said Anna, who began to see that he too suffered +from the prevailing inquisitiveness. Besides, she was too much afraid of +his having sisters, or of his wife's having sisters, eager to come and +be a blessing to her, to tell him about her advertisement.</p> + +<p>On the steps of his house, to which Dellwig accompanied the two girls, +stood a man who had just got off his horse. He was pulling off his +gloves as he watched it being led away by a boy. He had his back to +Anna, and she looked at it interested, for it was unlike any back she +had yet seen in Kleinwalde, in that it was the back of a gentleman.</p> + +<p>"It is Herr von Lohm," said Dellwig, "who has business here this +morning. Some of our people unfortunately drink too much on holidays +like Good Friday, and there are quarrels. I explained to the gracious +one that he is our Amtsvorsteher."</p> + +<p>Herr von Lohm turned at the sound of Dellwig's voice, and took off his +hat. "Pray present me to these ladies," he said to Dellwig, and bowed as +gravely to Letty as to Anna, to her great satisfaction.</p> + +<p>"So this is my neighbour?" thought Anna, looking down at him from the +higher step on which she stood with her papers under her arm.</p> + +<p>"So this is old Joachim's niece, of whom he was always talking?" thought +Lohm, looking up at her. "Wise old man to leave the place to her instead +of to those unpleasant sons." And he proceeded to make a few +conventional remarks, hoping that she liked her new home and would soon +be quite used to the country life. "It is very quiet and lonely for a +lady not used to our kind of country, with its big estates and few +neighbours," he said in English. "May I talk English to you? It gives me +pleasure to do so."</p> + +<p>"Please do," said Anna. Here was a person who might be very helpful to +her if ever she reached her wits' end; and how nice he looked, how +clean, and what a pleasant voice he had, falling so gratefully on ears +already aching with Dellwig's shouts and the parson's emphatic oratory.</p> + +<p>He was somewhere between thirty and forty, not young at all, she +thought, having herself never got out of the habit of feeling very +young; and beyond being long and wiry, with not even a tendency to fat, +as she noticed with pleasure, there was nothing striking about him. His +top boots and his green Norfolk jacket and green felt hat with a little +feather stuck in it gave him an air of being a sportsman. It was +refreshing to come across him, if only because he did not bow. Also, +considering him from the top of the steps, she became suddenly conscious +that Dellwig and the parson neglected their persons more than was +seemly. They were both no doubt very excellent; but she did like nicely +washed men.</p> + +<p>Herr von Lohm began to talk about Uncle Joachim, with whom he had been +very intimate. Anna came down the steps and he went a few yards with +her, leaving Dellwig standing at the door, and followed by the eyes of +Dellwig's wife, concealed behind her bedroom curtain.</p> + +<p>"I shall be with you in one moment," called Lohm over his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"<i>Gut</i>," said Dellwig; and he went in to tell his wife that these +English ladies were very free with gentlemen, and to bid her mark his +words that Lohm and Kleinwalde would before long be one estate.</p> + +<p>"And us? What will become of us?" she asked, eying him anxiously.</p> + +<p>"I too would like to know that," replied her husband. "This all comes of +leaving land away from the natural heirs." And with great energy he +proceeded to curse the memory of his late master.</p> + +<p>Lohm's English was so good that it astonished Anna. It was stiff and +slow, but he made no mistakes at all. His manner was grave, and looking +at him more attentively she saw traces on his face of much hard work and +anxiety. He told her that his mother had been a cousin of Uncle +Joachim's wife. "So that there is a slight relationship by marriage +existing between us," he said.</p> + +<p>"Very slight," said Anna, smiling, "faint almost beyond recognition."</p> + +<p>"Does your niece stay with you for an indefinite period?" he asked. "I +cannot avoid knowing that this young lady is your niece," he added with +a smile, "and that she is here with her governess, and that Lady +Estcourt left suddenly on Good Friday, because all that concerns you is +of the greatest interest to the inhabitants of this quiet place, and +they talk of little else."</p> + +<p>"How long will it take them to get used to me? I don't like being an +object of interest. No, Letty is going home as soon as I have found a +companion. That is why I am taking the inspector's newspapers home with +me. I can't construct an advertisement out of my stores of German, and +am going to see if I can find something that will serve as model."</p> + +<p>"Oh, may I help you? What difficulties you must meet with every hour of +the day!"</p> + +<p>"I do," agreed Anna, thinking of all there was to be done before she +could open her doors and her arms to the twelve.</p> + +<p>"Any service that I can render to my oldest friend's niece will give me +the greatest pleasure. Will you allow me to send the advertisement for +you? You can hardly know how or where to send it."</p> + +<p>"I don't," said Anna. "It would be very kind—I really would be +grateful. It is so important that I should find somebody soon."</p> + +<p>"It is of the first importance," said Lohm.</p> + +<p>"Has the parson told him of my plans already?" thought Anna. But Lohm +had not seen Manske that morning, and was only picturing this little +thing to himself, this dainty little lady, used to such a different +life, alone in the empty house, struggling with her small supply of +German to make the two raw servants understand her ways. Anna was not a +little thing at all, and she would have been half-amused and +half-indignant if she had known that that was the impression she had +made on him.</p> + +<p>"My sister, Gräfin Hasdorf," he began—"Heavens," she thought, "has <i>he</i> +got an unattached sister?"—"sometimes stays with me with her children, +and when she is here will be able to help you in many ways if you will +allow her to. She too knew your uncle from her childhood. She will be +greatly interested to know that you have had the courage to settle +here."</p> + +<p>"Courage?" echoed Anna. "Why, I love it. It's the most beautiful place +in the world."</p> + +<p>Lohm looked doubtfully at her for a moment; but there was no mistaking +the sincerity of those eyes. "It is pleasant to hear you say so," he +said. "My sister Trudi would scarcely credit her ears if she were +present. To her it is a terrible place, and she pities me with all her +heart because my lot is cast in it."</p> + +<p>Anna laughed. She thought she knew very well what sister Trudis were +like. "I do not pity you," she said; "I couldn't pity any being who +lived in this air, and under this sky. Look how blue it is—and the +geese—did you ever see such white geese?"</p> + +<p>A flock of geese were being driven across the sunny yard, dazzling in +their whiteness. Anna lifted up her face to the sun and drew in a long +breath of the sharp air. She forgot Lohm for a moment—it was such a +glorious Easter Sunday, and the world was so full of the abundant gifts +of God.</p> + +<p>Dellwig, who had been watching them from his wife's window, thought that +the brawlers who were going to be fined had been kept waiting long +enough, and came out again on to the steps.</p> + +<p>Lohm saw him, and felt that he must go. "I must do my business," he +said, "but as you have given me permission I will send an advertisement +to the papers to-night. Of course you desire to have an elderly lady of +good family?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but not too elderly—not so elderly that she won't be able to +work. There will be so much to do, so very much to do."</p> + +<p>Lohm went away wondering what work there could possibly be, except the +agreeable and easy work of seeing that this young lady was properly fed, +and properly petted, and in every way taken care of.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + + +<p>He sent the advertisement by the evening post to two or three of the +best newspapers. He had seen the pastor after morning church, who had at +once poured into his ears all about Anna's twelve ladies, garnishing the +story with interjections warmly appreciative of the action of Providence +in the matter. Lohm had been considerably astonished, but had said +little; it was not his way to say much at any time to the parson, and +the ecstasies about the new neighbour jarred on him. Miss Estcourt's +need of advice must have been desperate for her to have confided in +Manske. He appreciated his good qualities, but his family had never been +intimate with the parson; perhaps because from time immemorial the Lohms +had been chiefly males, and the attitude of male Germans towards parsons +is, at its best, one of indulgence. This Lohm restricted his dealings +with him, as his father had done before him, to the necessary +deliberations on the treatment of the sick and poor, and to official +meetings in the schoolhouse. He was invariably kind to him, and lent as +willing an ear as his slender purse allowed to applications for +assistance; but the idea of discussing spiritual experiences with him, +or, in times of personal sorrow, of dwelling conversationally on his +griefs, would never have occurred to him. The easy familiarity with +which Manske spoke of the Deity offended his taste. These things, these +sacred and awful mysteries, were the secrets between the soul and its +God. No man, thought Lohm, should dare to touch with profane questioning +the veil shrouding his neighbour's inner life. Manske, however, knew no +fear and no compunction. He would ask the most tremendous questions +between two mouthfuls of pudding, backing himself up with the whole +authority of the Lutheran Church, besides the Scriptures; and if the +poor people and the partly educated liked it, and were edified, and +enjoyed stirring up and talking over their religious emotions almost as +much as they did the latest village scandal, Lohm, who had no taste +either for scandal or emotions, kept the parson at arm's length.</p> + +<p>He thought a good deal about what Manske had told him during the +afternoon. She had gone to the parson, then, for help, because there was +no one else to go to. Poor little thing. He could imagine the sort of +speeches Manske had made her, and the sort of advertisement he would +have told her to write. Poor little thing. Well, what he could do was to +put her in the way of getting a companion as quickly as possible, and a +very sensible, capable woman it ought to be. No wonder she was not to be +past hard work. Work there would certainly be, with twelve women in the +house undergoing the process of being made happy. Lohm could not help +smiling at the plan. He thought of Miss Estcourt courageously trying to +demolish the crust of dejection that had formed in the course of years +over the hearts of her patients, and he trusted that she would not +exhaust her own youth and joyousness in the effort. Perhaps she would +succeed. He did not remember having heard of any scheme quite analogous, +and possibly she would override all obstacles in triumph, and the +patients who entered her home with the burden of their past misery heavy +upon them, would develop in the sunshine of her presence into twelve +riotously jovial ladies. But would not she herself suffer? Would not her +own strength and hopefulness be sapped up by those she benefited? He +could not think that it would be to the advantage of the world at large +to substitute twelve, nay fifty, nay any number of jolly old ladies, for +one girl with such sweet and joyous eyes.</p> + +<p>This, of course, was the purely masculine point of view. The women to be +benefited—why he thought of them as old is not clear, for you need not +be old to be unhappy—would have protested, probably, with indignant +cries that individually they were well worth Miss Estcourt, in any case +were every bit as good as she was, and collectively—oh, absurd.</p> + +<p>He thought of his sister Trudi. Perhaps she knew of some one who would +be both kind and clever, and protect Miss Estcourt in some measure from +the twelve. Trudi's friends, it is true, were not the sort among whom +staid companions are found. Their husbands were chiefly lieutenants, and +they spent their time at races. They lived in flats in Hanover, where +the regiment was quartered, and flats are easy to manage, and none of +these young women would endure, he supposed, to have an elderly +companion always hanging round. Still, there was a remote possibility +that some one of them might be able to recommend a suitable person. If +Trudi were staying with him now she would be a great help; not so much +because of what she would do, but because he could go with her to +Kleinwalde, and Miss Estcourt could come to his house when she wanted +anything, and need not depend solely on the parson. It was his duty, +considering old Joachim's unchanging kindness towards him, and the pains +the old man had taken to help him in the management of his estate, and +to encourage him at a time when he greatly needed help and +encouragement, to do all that lay in his power for old Joachim's niece. +When he heard that she was coming he had decided that this was his plain +duty: that she was so pretty, so adorably pretty and simple and friendly +only made it an unusually pleasant one. "I will write to Trudi," he +thought, "and ask her to come over for a week or two."</p> + +<p>He sat down at his writing-table in the big window overlooking the +farmyard, and began the letter. But he felt that it would be absurd to +ask her to come on Miss Estcourt's account. Why should she do anything +for Miss Estcourt, and why should he want his sister to do anything for +her? That would be the first thing that would strike the astute Trudi. +So he merely wrote reminding her that she had not stayed with him since +the previous summer, and suggested that she should come for a few days +with her children, now that the spring was coming and the snow had gone. +"The woods will soon be blue with anemones," he wrote, though he well +knew that Trudi's attitude towards anemones was cold. Perhaps her little +boys would like to pick them; anyhow, some sort of an inducement had to +be held out.</p> + +<p>Outside his window was a duck-pond, thin sheets of ice still floating in +broken pieces on its surface; behind the duck-pond was the dairy; and on +either side of the yard were cow-sheds and pig-styes. The farm carts +stood in a peaceful Sunday row down one side, and at the other end of +the yard, shutting out the same view of the sea and island that Anna saw +from her bedroom window, was a mountainous range of manure. When Trudi +came, she never entered the rooms on this side of the house, because, as +she explained, it was one of her peculiarities not to like manure; and +she slept and ate and aired her opinions on the west side, where the +garden lay between the house and the road. She never would have come to +Lohm at all, not being burdened with any undue sentiment in regard to +ties of blood, if it had not been necessary to go somewhere in the +summer, and if the other places had not been beyond the resources of the +family purse, always at its emptiest when the racing season was over and +the card-playing at an end. As it was, this was a cheap and convenient +haven, and her brother Axel was kind to the little boys, and not too +angry when they plundered his apple-trees, damaged the knees of his +ponies, and did their best to twist off the tails of his disconcerted +sucking-pigs.</p> + +<p>He was the eldest of three brothers, and she came last. She was +twenty-six, and he was ten years older. When the father died, the land +ought properly to have been divided between the four children, but such +a proceeding would have been extremely inconvenient, and the two younger +brothers, and the sister just married, agreed to accept their share in +money, and to leave the estate entirely to Axel. It was the best course +to take, but it threw Axel into difficulties that continued for years. +His father, with four times the money, had lived very comfortably at +Lohm, and the children had been brought up in prosperity. For eight +years his eldest son had farmed the estate with a quarter the means, and +had found it so far from simple that his hair had turned grey in the +process. It needed considerable skill and vigilance to enable a man to +extract a decent living from the soil of Lohm. Part of it was too boggy, +and part of it too sandy, and the trees had all been cut down thirty +years before by a bland grandfather, serenely indifferent to the opinion +of posterity. Axel's first work had been to make plantations of young +firs and pines wherever the soil was poorest, and when he rode through +the beautiful Kleinwalde forest he endeavoured to extract what pleasure +he could from the thought that in a hundred years Lohm too would have a +forest. But the pleasure to be extracted from this thought was of a +surprisingly subdued quality. All his pleasures were of a subdued +quality. His days were made up of hard work, of that effort to induce +both ends to meet which knocks the savour out of life with such a +singular completeness. He was born with an uncomfortably exact +conception of duty; and now at the end of the best half of his life, +after years of struggling on that poor soil against the odds of that +stern climate, this conception had shaped itself into a fixed belief +that the one thing entirely beautiful, the one thing wholly worthy of a +man's ambition, is the right doing of his duty. So, he thought, shall a +man have peace at the last.</p> + +<p>It is a way of thinking common to the educated dwellers in solitary +places, who have not been very successful. Trudi scorned it. "Peace," +she said, "at the last, is no good at all. What one wants is peace at +the beginning and in the middle. But you only think stuff like that +because you haven't got enough money. Poor people always talk about the +beauty of duty and peace at the last. If somebody left you a fortune +you'd never mention either of them again. Or if you married a girl with +money, now. I wish, I do wish, that <i>that</i> duty would strike you as the +one thing wholly worth doing."</p> + +<p>But a man who is all day and every day in his fields, who farms not for +pleasure but for his bare existence, has no time to set out in search of +girls with money, and none came up his way. Besides, he had been engaged +a few years before, and the girl had died, and he had not since had the +least inclination towards matrimony. After that he had worked harder +than ever; and the years flew by, filled with monotonous labour. +Sometimes they were good years, and the ends not only met but lapped +over a little; but generally the bare meeting of the ends was all that +he achieved. His wish was that his brother Gustav who came after him +should find the place in good order; if possible in better order than +before. But the working up of an estate for a brother Gustav, with +whatever determination it may be carried on, is not a labour that evokes +an unflagging enthusiasm in the labourer; and Axel, however beautiful a +life of duty might be to him in theory, found it, in practice, of an +altogether remarkable greyness. Two-thirds of his house were shut up. In +the evenings his servants stole out to court and be courted, and left +the place to himself and echoes and memories. It was a house built for a +large family, for troops of children, and frequent friends. Axel sat in +it alone when the dusk drove him indoors, defending himself against his +remembrances by prolonged interviews with his head inspector, or a +zealous study of the latest work on potato diseases.</p> + +<p>"I see that Bibi Bornstedt is staying with your Regierungspräsident," +Trudi had written a little while before. "Now, then, is your chance. She +is a true gold-fish. You cannot continue to howl over Hildegard's memory +for ever. Bibi will have two hundred thousand marks a year when the old +ones die, and is quite a decent girl. Her nose is a fiasco, but when you +have been married a week you will not so much as see that she has a +nose. And the two hundred thousand marks will still be there. <i>Ach</i>, +Axel, what comfort, what consolation, in two hundred thousand marks! You +could put the most glorious wreaths on Hildegard's tomb, besides keeping +racehorses."</p> + +<p>Lohm suddenly remembered this letter as he sat, having finished his own, +looking out of the window at two girls in Sunday splendour kissing one +of the stable boys behind a farm cart. They were all three apparently +enjoying themselves very much, the girls laughing, the boy with an +expression at once imbecile and beatific. They thought the master's eye +could not see them there, but the master's eye saw most things. He took +up his pen again and added a postscript. "If you come soon you will be +able to enjoy the society of your friend Bibi. She came on Wednesday, I +believe." Then, feeling slightly ashamed of using the innocent Miss Bibi +as a bait to catch his sister, he wrote the advertisement for Anna, and +put both letters in the post-bag.</p> + +<p>The effect of his postscript was precisely the one he had expected. +Trudi was drinking her morning coffee in her bedroom at twelve o'clock, +when the letter came. Her hair was being done by a <i>Friseur</i>, an artist +in hairdressing, who rode about Hanover every day on a bicycle, his +pockets bulging out with curling-tongs, and for three marks decorated +the heads of Trudi and her friends with innumerable waves. Trudi was +devoted to him, with the devotion naturally felt for the person on whom +one's beauty depends, for he was a true artist, and really did work +amazing transformations. "What! You have never had Herr Jungbluth?" +Trudi cried, on the last occasion on which she met Bibi, the daughter of +a Hanover banker, and quite outside her set but for the riches that +ensured her an enthusiastic welcome wherever she went, "<i>aber</i> Bibi!" +There was so much genuine surprise and compassion in this "<i>aber</i> Bibi" +that the young person addressed felt as though she had been for years +missing a possibility of happiness. Trudi added, as a special +recommendation, that Jungbluth smelt of soap. He had carefully studied +the nature of women, and if he had to do with a pretty one would find an +early opportunity of going into respectful raptures over what he +described as her <i>klassisches Profil</i>; and if it was a woman whose face +was not all she could have wished, he would tell her, in a tone of +subdued enthusiasm, that her profile, as to which she had long been in +doubt, was <i>höchst interessant</i>. The popularity of this young man in +Trudi's set was enormous; and as all the less aristocratic Hanoverian +ladies hastened to imitate, Jungbluth lived in great contentment and +prosperity with a young wife whose hair was reposefully straight, and a +baby whose godmother was Trudi.</p> + +<p>"Blue woods! Anemones!" read Trudi with immense contempt. "Is the boy in +his senses? The idea of expecting me to go to that dreary place now. Ah, +now I understand," she added, turning the page, "it is Bibi—he is +really after her, and of course can get along quicker if I am there to +help. Excellent Axel! And why did he go to the pains of trotting out the +anemones? What is the use of not being frank with me? I can see through +him, whatever he does. He is so good-natured that I am sure he will lend +us heaps of Bibi's money once he has got it. <i>So, lieber Jungbluth</i>," +she said aloud, "that will do to-day. Beautiful—beautiful—better than +ever. I am in a hurry. I travel to Berlin this very afternoon."</p> + +<p>And the next day she arrived at Stralsund, and was met by her brother at +the station.</p> + +<p>She greeted him with enthusiasm. "As we are here," she said, when they +were driving through the town, "let us pay our respects to the +Regierungspräsidentin. It will save our coming in again to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"No, I cannot to-day. I must get back as quickly as possible. The hands +had their Easter ball yesterday, and when I left Lohm this morning half +of them were still in bed."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, the horses will have to do the journey again to-morrow, for +no time should be lost."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you can come in to-morrow, if you long so much to see your +friend."</p> + +<p>"And you?" asked Trudi, in a tone of astonishment.</p> + +<p>"And I? I am up to my ears now in work. Last week was the first week for +four months that we could plough. Now we have lost these three days at +Easter. I cannot spare a single hour."</p> + +<p>"But, my dear Axel, Bibi is of far greater importance for the future of +Lohm than any amount of ploughing."</p> + +<p>"I confess I do not see how."</p> + +<p>"I don't understand you."</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you bring the little boys?"</p> + +<p>"What have you asked me to come here for?"</p> + +<p>"Come, Trudi, you've not been near me for eight months. Isn't it natural +that you should pay me a little visit?"</p> + +<p>"No, it isn't natural at all to come to such a place in winter, and +leave all the fun at home. I came because of Bibi."</p> + +<p>"What! You'll come for Bibi, but not for your own brother?"</p> + +<p>"Now, Axel, you know very well that I have come for you both."</p> + +<p>"For us both? What would Miss Bibi say if she heard you talking of +herself and of me as 'you both'?"</p> + +<p>"I wish you would not bother to go on like this. It's a great waste of +time."</p> + +<p>"So it is, my dear. Any talk about Bibi Bornstedt, as far as I am +concerned, is a hopeless waste of time."</p> + +<p>"Axel!"</p> + +<p>"Trudi?"</p> + +<p>"You don't mean to say that you are not thinking of her?"</p> + +<p>"Thinking of her? I never let my thoughts linger round strange young +ladies."</p> + +<p>"Then what in heaven's name have you got me here for?"</p> + +<p>"The anemones are coming out——"</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach</i>——"</p> + +<p>"They really are."</p> + +<p>"Suppose instead of teasing me as though I were still ten and you a +great bully, you talked sensibly. The Hohensteins give a <i>bal masqué</i> +to-night, and I gave it up to come to you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear, that was really kind," said Lohm, touched by the +tremendousness of this sacrifice.</p> + +<p>"Then be a good boy," said Trudi caressingly, edging herself closer to +him, "and tell me you are going to be wise about Bibi. Don't throw such +a chance away—it's positively wicked."</p> + +<p>"My dear Trudi, you'll have us in the ditch. It is very nice when you +lean against me, but I can't drive. By the way, you remember my old +Kleinwalde neighbour? The old man who spoilt you so atrociously?"</p> + +<p>"Bibi will make a most excellent wife," said Trudi, ungratefully +indifferent to the memory of old Joachim. "Oh, what a cold wind there is +to-day. Do drive faster, Axel. What a taste, to live here and to like it +into the bargain!"</p> + +<p>"You know that I must live here."</p> + +<p>"But you needn't like it."</p> + +<p>"You've heard that old Joachim left Kleinwalde to his English niece?"</p> + +<p>"You have only seen Bibi once, and she grows on one tremendously."</p> + +<p>"I want to talk about old Joachim."</p> + +<p>"And I want to talk about Bibi."</p> + +<p>"Well, Bibi can wait. She is the younger. You know about the old man's +will?"</p> + +<p>"I should think I did. One of his unfortunate sons has just joined our +regiment. You should hear him on the subject."</p> + +<p>"A most disagreeable, grasping lot," said Lohm decidedly. "They received +every bit of their dues, and are all well off. Surely the old man could +do as he liked with the one place that was not entailed?"</p> + +<p>"It isn't the usual thing to leave one's land to a foreigner. Is she +coming to live in it?"</p> + +<p>"She came last week."</p> + +<p>"Oh?" This in a tone of sudden interest.</p> + +<p>There was a pause. Then Trudi said, "Is she young?"</p> + +<p>"Quite young."</p> + +<p>"Pretty?"</p> + +<p>"Exceedingly pretty."</p> + +<p>Trudi looked up at him and smiled.</p> + +<p>"Well?" said Axel, smiling back at her.</p> + +<p>"Well?" said Trudi, continuing to smile.</p> + +<p>Axel laughed outright. "My dear Trudi, your astuteness terrifies me. You +not only know already why I wrote to you, but you know more reasons for +the letter than I myself dream of. I want to be able to help this +extremely helpless young lady, and I can hardly be of any use to her +because I have no woman in the house. If I had a wife I could be of the +greatest assistance."</p> + +<p>"Only then you wouldn't want to be."</p> + +<p>"Certainly I should."</p> + +<p>"Pray, why?"</p> + +<p>"Because I have a greater debt of obligations to her uncle than I can +ever repay to his niece."</p> + +<p>"Oh, nonsense—nobody pays their debts of obligations. The natural thing +to do is to hate the person who has forced you to be grateful, and to +get out of his way."</p> + +<p>"My dear Trudi, this shrewdness——" murmured her brother. Then he +added, "I know perfectly well that your thoughts have already flown to a +wedding. Mine don't reach farther than an elderly companion."</p> + +<p>"Who for? For you?"</p> + +<p>"Miss Estcourt is looking for an elderly companion, and I would be +grateful to you if you would help her."</p> + +<p>"But the elderly companion does not exclude the wedding."</p> + +<p>"When you see Miss Estcourt you will understand how completely such a +possibility is outside her calculations. You won't of course believe +that it is outside mine. Why should you want to marry me to every girl +within reach? Five minutes ago it was Bibi, and now it is Miss Estcourt. +You do not in the least consider what views the girls themselves might +have. Miss Estcourt is absorbed at this moment in a search for twelve +old ladies."</p> + +<p>"Twelve——?"</p> + +<p>"Her ambition is to spend herself and her money on twelve old ladies. +She thinks happiness and money are as good for them as for herself, and +wants to share her own with persons who have neither."</p> + +<p>"My dear Axel—is she mad?"</p> + +<p>"She did not give me that impression."</p> + +<p>"And you say she is young?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And really pretty?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And could be so well off in that flourishing place!"</p> + +<p>"Of course she could."</p> + +<p>"I'll go and call on her to-morrow," said Trudi decidedly.</p> + +<p>"It will be kind of you," said Lohm.</p> + +<p>"Kind! It isn't kindness, it's curiosity," said Trudi with a laugh. "Let +us be frank, and call things by their right names."</p> + +<p>Anna was in the garden, admiring the first crocus, when Trudi appeared. +She drove Axel's cobs up to the door in what she felt was excellent +style, and hoped Miss Estcourt was watching her from a window and would +see that Englishwomen were not the only sportswomen in the world. But +Anna saw nothing but the crocus.</p> + +<p>The wilderness down to the marsh that did duty as a garden was so +sheltered and sunny that spring stopped there first each year before +going on into the forest; and Anna loved to walk straight out of the +drawing-room window into it, bare-headed and coatless, whenever she had +time. Trudi saw her coming towards the house upon the servant's telling +her that a lady had called. "Nothing on, on a cold day like this!" she +thought. She herself wore a particularly sporting driving-coat, with an +immense collar turned up over her ears. "I wonder," mused Trudi, +watching the approaching figure, "how it is that English girls, so tidy +in the clothes, so trim in the shoes, so neat in the tie and collar, +never apparently brush their hair. A German Miss Estcourt vegetating in +this quiet place would probably wear grotesque and disconnected +garments, doubtful boots and striking stockings, her figure would +rapidly give way before the insidiousness of <i>Schweinebraten</i>, but her +hair would always be beautifully done, each plait smooth and in its +proper place, each little curl exactly where it ought to be, the parting +a model of straightness, and the whole well deserving to be dignified by +the name <i>Frisur</i>. English girls have hair, but they do not have +<i>Frisurs</i>."</p> + +<p>Anna came in through the open window, and Trudi's face expanded into the +most genial smiles. "How glad I am to make your acquaintance!" she cried +enthusiastically. She spoke English quite as correctly as her brother, +and much more glibly. "I hope you will let me help you if I can be of +any use. My brother says your uncle was so good to him. When I lived +here he was very kind to me too. How brave of you to stay here! And what +wonderful plans you have made! My brother has told me about your twelve +ladies. What courage to undertake to make twelve women happy. I find it +hard enough work making one person happy."</p> + +<p>"One person? Oh, Graf Hasdorf."</p> + +<p>"Oh no, myself. You see, if each person devoted his energies to making +himself happy, everybody would be happy."</p> + +<p>"No, they wouldn't," said Anna, "because they do, but they're not."</p> + +<p>They looked at each other and laughed. "She only needs Jungbluth to be +perfect," thought Trudi; and with her usual impulsiveness began +immediately to love her.</p> + +<p>Anna was delighted to meet someone of her own class and age after the +severe though short course she had had of Dellwigs and Manskes; and +Trudi was so much interested in her plans, and so pressing in her offers +of help, that she very soon found herself telling her all her +difficulties about servants, sheets, wall-papers, and whitewash. "Look +at this paper," she said, "could you live in the same room with it? No +one will ever be able to feel cheerful as long as it is here. And the +one in the dining-room is worse."</p> + +<p>"It isn't beautiful," said Trudi, examining it, "but it is what we call +<i>praktisch</i>."</p> + +<p>"Then I don't like what you call <i>praktisch</i>."</p> + +<p>"Neither do I. All the hideous things are <i>praktisch</i>—oil-cloth, black +wall-papers, handkerchiefs a yard square, thick boots, ugly women—if +ever you hear a woman praised as a <i>praktische Frau</i>, be sure she's +frightful in every way—ugly and dull. The uglier she is the +<i>praktischer</i> she is. Oh," said Trudi, casting up her eyes, "how +terrible, how tragic, to be an ugly woman!" Then, bringing her gaze down +again to Anna's face, she added, "My flat in Hanover is all pinks and +blues—the most becoming rooms you can imagine. I look so nice in them."</p> + +<p>"Pinks and blues? That is just what I want here. Can't I get any in +Stralsund?"</p> + +<p>Trudi was doubtful. She could not think it possible that anybody should +ever get anything in Stralsund.</p> + +<p>"But I must do my shopping there. I am in such a hurry. It would be +dreadful to have to keep anyone waiting only because my house isn't +ready."</p> + +<p>"Well, we can try," said Trudi. "You will let me go with you, won't +you?"</p> + +<p>"I shall be more than grateful if you will come."</p> + +<p>"What do you think if we went now?" suggested Trudi, always for prompt +action, and quickly tired of sitting still. "My brother said I might +drive into Stralsund to-day if I liked, and I have the cobs here now. +Don't you think it would be a good thing, as you are in such a hurry?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, a very good thing," exclaimed Anna. "How kind you are! You are sure +it won't bore you frightfully?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, not a bit. It will be rather amusing to go into those shops for +once, and I shall like to feel that I have helped the good work on a +little."</p> + +<p>Anna thought Trudi delightful. Trudi's new friends always did think her +delightful; and she never had any old ones.</p> + +<p>She drove recklessly, and they lurched and heaved through the sand +between Kleinwalde and Lohm at an alarming rate. They passed Letty and +Miss Leech, going for their afternoon walk, who stood on one side and +stared.</p> + +<p>"Who's that?" asked Trudi.</p> + +<p>"My brother's little girl and her governess."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, I heard about them. They are to stay and take care of you till +you have a companion. Your sister-in-law didn't like Kleinwalde?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>Trudi laughed.</p> + +<p>They passed Dellwig, riding, who swept off his hat with his customary +deference, and stared.</p> + +<p>"Do you like him?" asked Trudi.</p> + +<p>"Who?"</p> + +<p>"Dellwig. I know him from the days before I married."</p> + +<p>"I don't know him very well yet," said Anna, "but he seems to be +very—very polite."</p> + +<p>Trudi laughed again, and cracked her whip.</p> + +<p>"My uncle had great faith in him," said Anna, slightly aggrieved by the +laugh.</p> + +<p>"Your uncle was one of the best farmers in Germany, I have always heard. +He was so experienced, and so clever, that he could have led a hundred +Dellwigs round by the nose. Dellwig was naturally quite small, as we +say, in the presence of your uncle. He knew very well it would be +useless to be anything but immaculate under such a master. Perhaps your +uncle thought he would go on being immaculate from sheer habit, with +nobody to look after him."</p> + +<p>"I suppose he did," said Anna doubtfully. "He told me to keep him. It's +quite certain that <i>I</i> can't look after him."</p> + +<p>They passed Axel Lohm, also riding. He was on Trudi's side of the road. +He looked pleased when he saw Anna with his sister. Trudi whipped up the +cobs, regardless of his feelings, and tore past him, scattering the sand +right and left. When she was abreast of him, she winked her eye at him +with perfect solemnity.</p> + +<p>Axel looked stony.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + + +<p>Neither Trudi nor Anna had ever worked so hard as they did during the +few days that ended March and began April. Everything seemed to happen +at once. The house was in a sudden uproar. There were people +whitewashing, people painting, people putting up papers, people bringing +things in carts from Stralsund, people trimming up the garden, people +coming out to offer themselves as servants, Dellwig coming in and +shouting, Manske coming round and glorifying—Anna would have been +completely bewildered if it had not been for Trudi, who was with her all +day long, going about with a square of lace and muslin tucked under her +waist-ribbon which she felt was becoming and said was an apron.</p> + +<p>Trudi was enjoying herself hugely. She saw Jungbluth's waves slowly +straightening themselves out of her hair, and for the first time in her +life remained calm as she watched them go. She even began to have +aspirations towards Uncle Joachim's better life herself, and more than +once entered into a serious consideration of the advantages that might +result from getting rid at one stroke of Bill her husband, and Billy and +Tommy her two sons, and from making a fresh start as one of Anna's +twelve.</p> + +<p>Frau Manske and Frau Dellwig could not face her infinite +superciliousness more than once, and kept out of the way in spite of +their burning curiosity. When Dellwig's shouts became intolerable, she +did not hesitate to wince conspicuously and to put up her hand to her +head. When Manske forgot that it was not Sunday, and began to preach, +she would interrupt him with a brisk "<i>Ja, ja, sehr schön, sehr schön, +aber lieber Herr Pastor</i>, you must tell us all this next Sunday in +church when we have time to listen—my friend has not a minute now in +which to appreciate the opinions of the <i>Apostel Paulus</i>."</p> + +<p>"I believe you are being unkind to my parson," said Anna, who could not +always understand Trudi's rapid German, but saw that Manske went away +dejected.</p> + +<p>"My dear, he must be kept in his place if he tries to come out of it. +You don't know what a set these pastors are. They are not like your +clergymen. If you are too kind to that man you'll have no peace. I +remember in my father's time he came to dinner every Sunday, sat at the +bottom of the table, and when the pudding appeared made a bow and went +away."</p> + +<p>"He didn't like pudding?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know if he liked it or not, but he never got any. It was a good +old custom that the pastor should withdraw before the pudding, and Axel +has not kept it up. My father never had any bother with him."</p> + +<p>"But what has the pudding that he didn't get ten years ago to do with +your being unkind to him now?"</p> + +<p>"I wanted to explain the proper footing for him to be on."</p> + +<p>"And the proper footing is a puddingless one? Well, in my house neither +pudding nor kindness in suitable quantities shall be withheld from him, +so don't ill-use him more than you feel is absolutely necessary for his +good."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you are a dear little thing!" said Trudi, putting her hands on +Anna's shoulders and looking into her eyes—they were both tall young +women, and their eyes were on a level—"I wonder what the end of you +will be. When you know all these people better you'll see that my way of +treating them, which you think unkind, is the only way. You must turn up +your nose as high as it will go at them, and they will burst with +respect. Don't be too friendly and confiding—they won't understand it, +and will be sure to think that something must be wrong about you, and +will begin to backbite you, and invent all sorts of horrid stories about +you. And as for the pastor, why should he be allowed to treat your rooms +as though they were so many pulpits, and you as though you had never +heard of the <i>Apostel Paulus</i>?"</p> + +<p>Anna admitted that she was not always in the proper frame of mind for +these unprovoked sermons, but refused to believe in the necessity for +turning up her nose. She ostentatiously pressed Manske, the very next +time he came, to stay to the evening meal, which was rather of the +nature of a picnic in those unsettled days, but at which, for Letty's +sake, there was always a pudding; and she invited him to eat pudding +three times running, and each time he accepted the offer; and each time, +when she had helped him, she fixed her eyes with a defiant gravity on +Trudi's face.</p> + +<p>Axel came in sometimes when he had business at the farm, and was shown +what progress had been made. Trudi was as interested as though it had +been her own house, and took him about, demanding his approval and +admiration with an enthusiasm that spread to Anna, and she and Axel soon +became good friends. The Stralsund wall-papers were so dreadful that +Anna had declared she would have most of the rooms whitewashed; the hall +had been done, exchanging its pea-green coat for one of virgin purity, +and she had thought it so fresh and clean, and so appropriate to the +simplicity of the better life, that to the amazement of the workmen she +insisted on the substitution of whitewash in both dining and +drawing-room for the handsome chocolate-coloured papers already in those +rooms.</p> + +<p>"The twelve will think it frightful," said Trudi.</p> + +<p>"But why?" asked Anna, who had fallen in love with whitewash. "It is +purity itself. It will be symbolical of the innocence and cleanliness +that will be in our hearts when we have got used to each other, and are +happy."</p> + +<p>Trudi looked again at the hall, into which the afternoon sun was +streaming. It did look very clean, certainly, and exceedingly cheerful; +she was sure, however, that it would never be symbolical of any heart +that came into it. But then Trudi was sceptical about hearts.</p> + +<p>At the end of Easter week, when Trudi was beginning to feel slightly +tired of whitewash and scrambled meals, and to have doubts as to the +permanent becomingness of aprons, and misgivings as to the effect on her +complexion of running about a cold house all day long, answers to the +advertisements began to arrive, and soon arrived in shoals. These +letters acted as bellows on the flickering flame of her zeal. She found +them extraordinarily entertaining, and would meet Manske in the hall +when he brought them round, and take them out of his hands, and run with +them to Anna, leaving him standing there uncertain whether he ought to +stay and be consulted, or whether it was expected of him that he should +go home again without having unburdened himself of all the advice he +felt that he contained. He deplored what he called <i>das impulsive +Temperament</i> of the Gräfin. Always had she been so, since the days she +climbed his cherry-trees and helped the birds to strip them; and when, +with every imaginable precaution, he had approached her father on the +subject, and carefully excluding the word cherry hinted that the +climbing of trees was a perilous pastime for young ladies, old Lohm had +burst into a loud laugh, and had sworn that neither he nor anyone else +could do anything with Trudi. He actually had seemed proud that she +should steal cherries, for he knew very well why she climbed the trees, +and predicted a brilliant future for his only daughter; to which Manske +had listened respectfully as in duty bound, and had gone home +unconvinced.</p> + +<p>But Anna did not let him stand long in the hall, and came to fetch him +and beg him to help her read the letters and tell her what he thought of +them. In spite of Trudi's advice and example she continued to treat the +pastor with the deference due to a good and simple man. What did it +matter if he talked twice as much as he need have done, and wearied her +with his habit of puffing Christianity as though it were a quack +medicine of which he was the special patron? He was sincere, he really +believed something, and really felt something, and after five days with +Trudi Anna turned to Manske's elementary convictions with relief. In +five days she had come to be very glad that Trudi stood in no need of a +place among the twelve.</p> + +<p>Most of the women who wrote in answer to the advertisement sent +photographs, and their letters were pitiful enough, either because of +what they said or because of what they tried to hide; and Anna's +appreciation of Trudi received a great shock when she found that the +letters amused her, and that the photographs, especially those of the +old ones or the ugly ones, moved her to a mirth little short of +unseemly. After all, Trudi was taking a great deal upon herself, Anna +thought, reading the letters unasked, helping her to open them unasked, +hurrying down to fetch them unasked, and deluging her with advice about +them unasked. She saw she had made a mistake in allowing her to see them +at all. She had no right to expose the petitions of these unhappy +creatures to Trudi's inquisitive and diverted eyes. This fact was made +very patent to her when one of the letters that Trudi opened turned out +to be from a person she had known. "Why," cried Trudi, her face +twinkling with excitement, "here's one from a girl who was at school +with me. And her photo, too—what a shocking scarecrow she has grown +into! She is only two years older than I am, but might be forty. Just +look at her—and she used to think none of us were good enough for her. +Don't have her, whatever you do—she married one of the officers in +Bill's first regiment, and treated him so shamefully that he shot +himself. Imagine her boldness in writing like this!" And she began +eagerly to read the letter.</p> + +<p>Anna got up and took it out of her hands. It was an unexpected action, +or Trudi would have held on tighter. "She never dreamed you would see +what she wrote," said Anna, "and it would be dishonourable of me to let +you. And the other letters too—I have been thinking it over—they are +only meant for me; and no one else, except perhaps the parson, ought to +see them."</p> + +<p>"Except perhaps the parson!" cried Trudi, greatly offended. "And why +except perhaps the parson?"</p> + +<p>"I can't always read the German writing," explained Anna.</p> + +<p>"But surely a woman of your own age, who isn't such a simpleton as the +parson, is the best adviser you can have."</p> + +<p>"But you laugh at the letters, and they are all so unhappy."</p> + +<p>Trudi went back to Lohm early that day. "She has taken it into her head +that I am not to read the letters," she said to her brother with no +little indignation.</p> + +<p>"It would be a great breach of confidence if she allowed you to," he +replied; which was so unsatisfactory that she drove into Stralsund that +very afternoon, and consoled herself with the pliable Bibi.</p> + +<p>Bibi's nose seemed more unsuccessful than ever after having had Anna's +before her for nearly a week; but then the richness of the girl! And +such a good-natured, generous girl, who would adore her sister-in-law +and make her presents. Contemplating the good Bibi in her afternoon +splendour from Paris, Trudi's heart stirred within her at the thought of +all that was within Axel's reach if only he could be induced to put out +his hand and take it. Anna would never marry him, Trudi was +certain—would never marry anyone, being completely engrossed by her +philanthropic follies; but if she did, what was her probable income +compared to Bibi's? And Axel would never look at Bibi so long as that +other girl lived next door to him; nobody could expect him to. Anna was +too pretty; it was not fair. And Bibi was so very plain; which was not +fair either.</p> + +<p>The Regierungspräsidentin, a cousin by marriage of Bibi's, but a member +of an ancient family of the Mark, was delighted to see Trudi and to +question her about the new and eccentric arrival. Trudi had offered to +take Anna to call on this lady, and had explained that it was her duty +to call; but Anna had said there was no hurry, and had talked of some +day, and had been manifestly bored by the prospect of making new +acquaintances.</p> + +<p>"Is she quite—quite in her right senses?" asked the +Regierungspräsidentin, when Trudi had described all they had been doing +in Anna's house, and all Anna meant to do with her money, and had made +her description so smart and diverting that the Regierungspräsidentin, +an alert little lady, with ears perpetually pricked up in the hope of +catching gossip, felt that she had not enjoyed an afternoon so much for +years.</p> + +<p>Bibi sat listening with her mouth wide open. It was an artless way of +hers when she was much interested in a conversation, and was deplored by +those who wished her well.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, she is quite in her senses. Rather too sure she knows best, +always, but quite in her senses."</p> + +<p>"Then she is very religious?"</p> + +<p>"Not in the ordinary way, I should think. She goes in for nature. <i>Gott +in der Natur</i>, and that sort of thing. If the sun shines more than usual +she goes and stands in it, and turns up her eyes and gushes. There's a +crocus in the garden, and when we came to it yesterday she stopped in +front of it and rhapsodised for ten minutes about things that have +nothing to do with crocuses—chiefly about the <i>lieben Gott</i>. And all in +English, of course, and it sounds worse in English."</p> + +<p>"But then, my dear, she <i>is</i> religious?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, the pastor would not call it religion. It's a sort of +huddle-muddle pantheism as far as it is anything at all." From which it +will be seen that Trudi was even more frank about her friends behind +their backs than she was to their faces.</p> + +<p>She drove back to Lohm in a discontented frame of mind. "What's the good +of anything?" was the mood she was in. She had over-tired herself +helping Anna, and she was afraid that being so much in cold rooms and +passages, and washing in hard water, had made her skin coarse. She had +caught sight of herself in a glass as she was leaving the +Regierungspräsidentin, and had been disconcerted by finding that she did +not look as pretty as she felt. Nor was she consoled for this by the +consciousness that she had been unusually amusing at Anna's expense; for +she was only too certain that the Regierungspräsidentin, when repeating +all she had told her to her friends, would add that Trudi Hasdorf had +terribly <i>eingepackt</i>—dreadful word, descriptive of the faded state +immediately preceding wrinkles, and held in just abhorrence by every +self-respecting woman. Of what earthly use was it to be cleverer and +more amusing than other people if at the same time you had <i>eingepackt</i>?</p> + +<p>"What a stupid world it is," thought Trudi, driving along the <i>chaussée</i> +in the early April twilight. A mist lay over the sea, and the pale +sickle of the young moon rose ghost-like above the white shroud. Inland +the stars were faintly shining, and all the earth beneath was damp and +fragrant. It was Saturday evening, and the two bells of Lohm church were +plaintively ringing their reminder to the countryside that the week's +work was ended and God's day came next. "Oh, the stupid world," thought +Trudi. "If I stay here I shall be bored to death—that Estcourt child +and her governess have got on to my nerves—horrid fat child with +turned-in toes, and flabby, boneless woman, only held together by her +hairpins. I am sick of governesses and children—wherever one goes, +there they are. If I go home, there are those noisy little boys and +Fräulein Schultz worrying all day, and then there's that tiresome Bill +coming in to meals. Anna and Bibi are just in the position I would like +to be in—no husbands and children, and lots of money." And staring +straight before her, with eyes dark with envy, she fell into gloomy +musings on the beauty of Bibi's dress, and the blindness of fate, +throwing away a dress like that on a Bibi, when it was so eminently +suited to tall, slim women like herself; and it was fortunate for Axel's +peace that when she reached Lohm the first thing she saw was a letter +from the objectionable Bill telling her to come home, because the +foreign prince who was honorary colonel of the regiment was expected +immediately in Hanover, and there were to be great doings in his honour.</p> + +<p>She left, all smiles, the next morning by the first train.</p> + +<p>"Miss Estcourt will miss you," said Axel, "and will wonder why you did +not say good-bye. I am afraid your journey will be unpleasant, too, +to-day. I wish you had stayed till to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't mind the Sunday people once in a way," said Trudi gaily. +"And please tell Anna how it was I had to go so suddenly. I have started +her, at least, with the workmen and people she wants. I shall see her in +a few weeks again, you know, when Bill is at the manœuvres."</p> + +<p>"A few weeks! Six months."</p> + +<p>"Well, six months. You must both try to exist without me for that time."</p> + +<p>"You seem very pleased to be off," he said, smiling, as she climbed +briskly into the dog-cart and took the reins, while her maid, with her +arms full of bags, was hoisted up behind.</p> + +<p>"Oh, so pleased!" said Trudi, looking down at him with sparkling eyes. +"Princes and parties are jollier any day than whitewash and the better +life."</p> + +<p>"And brothers."</p> + +<p>"Oh—brothers. By the way, I never saw Bibi look better than she did +yesterday. She has improved so much nobody would know——"</p> + +<p>"You will miss your train," said Axel, pulling out his watch.</p> + +<p>"Well, good-bye then, <i>alter Junge</i>. Work hard, do your duty, and don't +let your thoughts linger too much round strange young ladies. They never +do, I think you said? Well, so much the better, for it's no good, no +good, no good!" And Trudi, who was in tremendous spirits, put her whip +to the brim of her hat by way of a parting salute, touched up the cobs, +and rattled off down the drive on the road to Jungbluth and glory. She +turned her head before she finally disappeared, to call back her +oracular "No good!" once again to Axel, who stood watching her from the +steps of his solitary house.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + + +<p>So Anna was left to herself again. She was astonished at the rapidity of +Trudi's movements. Within one week she had heard of her, met her, liked +her, begun to like her less, and lost her. She had flashed across the +Kleinwalde horizon, and left a trail of workmen and new servants behind, +with whom Anna was now occupied, unaided, from morning till night. Miss +Leech and Letty did all they could, but their German being restricted to +quotations from the <i>Erl-König</i> and the <i>Lied von der Glocke</i>, it could +not be brought to bear with any profitable results on the workmen. The +servants, too, were a perplexity to Anna. Their cheapness was +extraordinary, but their quality curious. Her new parlourmaid—for she +felt unequal to coping with German men-servants—wore her arms naked all +day long. Anna thought she had tucked up her sleeves in her zeal for +thoroughness, but when she appeared with the afternoon coffee—the local +tea was undrinkable—she still had bare arms; and, examining her more +closely, Anna saw that it was her usual state, for her dress was +sleeveless. Nor was her want of sleeves her only peculiarity. Anna began +to wonder whether her house would ever be ready for the twelve.</p> + +<p>The answers to the philanthropic advertisement were in a proportion of +fifty to one answer to the advertisement for a companion. There were +fifty ladies without means willing to be idle, to one lady without means +willing to work. It worried Anna terribly, being obliged by want of room +and money to limit the number to twelve. She could hardly bear to read +the letters, knowing that nearly all had to be rejected. "See how many +sad lives are being dragged through while we are so comfortable," she +said to Manske, when he brought round fresh piles of letters to add to +those already heaped on her table.</p> + +<p>He shook his head in perplexity. He was bewildered by the masses of +answers, by the apparent universality of impoverishment and hopelessness +among Christian ladies of good family.</p> + +<p>He could not come himself more than once a day, and the letters arrived +by every post; so in the afternoon he sent Herr Klutz, the young cleric +of poetic promptings, who had celebrated Anna on her arrival in a poem +which for freshness and spontaneousness equalled, he considered, the +best sonnets that had ever been written. What a joy it was to a youth of +imagination, to a poet who thought his features not unlike Goethe's, and +who regarded it as by no means an improbability that his brain should +turn out to be stamped with the same resemblance, to walk daily through +the gleaming, whispering forest, swinging his stick and composing +snatches not unworthy of her of whom they treated, his face towards the +magic <i>Schloss</i> and its enchanted princess, and his pockets full of her +letters! Herr Klutz's coat was clerical, but his brown felt hat and the +flower in his buttonhole were typical of the worldliness within. "A +poet," he assured himself often, "is a citizen of the world, and is not +to be narrowed down to any one circle or creed." But he did not expound +this view to the good man who was helping him to prepare for the +examination that would make him a full-fledged pastor, and received his +frequent blessings, and assisted at prayers and intercessions of which +he was the subject, with outward decorum.</p> + +<p>The first time he brought the letters, Anna received him with her usual +kindness; but there was something in his manner that displeased her, +whether it was self-assurance, or conceit, or a way he had of looking at +her, she could not tell, nor did she waste many seconds trying to +decide; but the next day when he came he was not admitted to her +presence, nor the next after that, nor for some time to come. This +surprised Herr Klutz, who was of Dellwig's opinion that the most +superior woman was not equal to the average man; and take away any +advantage of birth or position or wealth that she might possess, why, +there she was, only a woman, a creature made to be conquered and brought +into obedience to man. Being young and poetic he differed from Dellwig +on one point: to Dellwig, woman was a servant; to Klutz, an admirable +toy. Clearly such a creature could only be gratified by opportunities of +seeing and conversing with members of the opposite sex. The Miss's +conduct, therefore, in allowing her servant to take the letters from him +at the door, puzzled him.</p> + +<p>He often met Miss Leech and Letty on his way to or from Kleinwalde, and +always stopped to speak to them and to teach them a few German sentences +and practise his own small stock of English; and from them he easily +discovered all that the young woman he favoured with his admiration was +doing. Lohm, riding over to Kleinwalde to settle differences between +Dellwig and the labourers, or to try offenders, met these three several +times, and supposed that Klutz must be courting the governess.</p> + +<p>The day Trudi left, Lohm had gone round to Anna and delivered his +sister's message in a slightly embellished form. "You will have +everything to do now unassisted," he said. "I do trust that in any +difficulty you will let me help you. If the workmen are insolent, for +instance, or if your new servants are dishonest or in any way give you +trouble. You know it is my duty as Amtsvorsteher to interfere when such +things happen."</p> + +<p>"You are very kind," said Anna gratefully, looking up at the grave, good +face, "but no one is insolent. And look—here is some one who wants to +come as companion. It is the first of the answers to that advertisement +that pleases me."</p> + +<p>Lohm took the letter and photograph and examined them. "She is a +Penheim, I see," he said. "It is a very good family, but some of its +branches have been reduced to poverty, as so many of our old families +have been."</p> + +<p>"Don't you think she would do very well?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, if she is and does all she says in her letter. You might propose +that she should come at first for a few weeks on trial. You may not like +her, and she may not appreciate philanthropic housekeeping."</p> + +<p>Anna laughed. "I am doubly anxious to get someone soon," she said, +"because my sister-in-law wants Letty and Miss Leech."</p> + +<p>Letty and Miss Leech heaved tragic sighs at this; they had no desire +whatever to go home.</p> + +<p>"Will you not feel rather forlorn when they are gone, and you are quite +alone among strangers?"</p> + +<p>"I shall miss them, but I don't mean to be forlorn," said Anna, smiling.</p> + +<p>"The courage of the little thing!" thought Lohm. "Ready to brave +anything in pursuit of her ideals. It makes one ashamed of one's own +grumblings and discouragements."</p> + +<p>Anna arranged with Frau von Penheim that she should come at once on a +three months' trial; and immediately this was settled she wrote to Susie +to ask what day Letty was to be sent home. She had had no communication +with Susie since that angry lady's departure. To Peter she had written, +explaining her plans and her reasons, and her hopes and yearnings, and +had received a hasty scrawl in reply dated from Estcourt, conveying his +blessing on herself and her scheme. "Susie came straight down here," he +wrote, "because of the Alderton wedding to which she was not asked, and +went to bed. You know, my dear little sister, anything that makes you +happy contents me. I wish you could have seen your way to benefiting +reduced English ladies, for you are a long way off; but of course you +have the house free over there. Don't let Miss Leech leave you till you +are perfectly satisfied with your companion. Yesterday I landed the +biggest——" etc. In a word, Peter, in accordance with his invariable +custom, was on her side.</p> + +<p>The day before Frau von Penheim was to arrive, Susie's answer to Anna's +letter came. Here it is:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Anna</span>,—Your letter surprised me, though I might have known by +now what to expect of you.—Still, I was surprised that you should +not even offer to make the one return in your power for all I have +done for you. As I feel I have a right to some return I don't +hesitate to tell you that I think you ought to keep Letty for a +year or two, or even longer. Even if you kept her till she is +eighteen, and dressed her and fed her (don't feed her too much), it +would only be four years; and what are four years I should like to +know, compared to the fifteen I had you on my hands? I was talking +to Herr Schumpf about her the other day—his bills were so absurd +that I made him take something off—and he said by all means let +her stay in Germany. Everybody speaks German nowadays, and Letty +will pick it up at once in that awful place of yours. I was so ill +when I got back that I went to Estcourt, and had to stay in bed for +days, the doctor coming every day, and sometimes twice. He said he +didn't wonder, when I told him all I had gone through. Peter was +quite sorry for me. Send Miss Leech back. Give her a month's notice +for me the day you get this, and see if you can't find some German +who will go to your place—I can't remember its wretched name +without looking in my address book—and give Letty lessons every +day. The rest of the time she can talk German to your twelve +victims. I believe masters in Germany only charge about 6d. an +hour, so it won't ruin you. Make her take lots of exercise, and let +her ride. She has outgrown her old habit, but German tailors are so +cheap that a new one will cost next to nothing, and any horse that +shakes her up well will do. I shall be quite happy about her diet, +because I know you don't have anything to eat. I was at the +Ennistons' last night. They seemed very sorry for me being so +nearly related to somebody cracked; but after all, as I tell +people, I'm not responsible for my husband's relations.—Your +affectionate, <span class="smcap">Susie Estcourt.</span></p> + +<p>"I have never seen Hilton so upset as she was after that German +trip. She cried if anyone looked at her. Poor thing, no wonder. The +doctor says she is all nerves."</p></div> + +<p>The evening meal was in progress at Kleinwalde when this letter came. +The dining-room was finished, and it was the first meal served there +since its transformation. No one who had seen it on that dark day of +Anna's arrival would have recognised it, so cheerful did it look with +its whitewashed walls. There were no dark corners now where china +shepherds smiled in vain; the western light filled it, and to a person +lately come from Susie's Hill Street house, it was a refreshment to sit +in any place so simple and so clean. Reforms, too, had been made in the +food, and the bread was no longer disfigured by caraway seeds. A great +bowl of blue hepaticas, fresh from the forest, stood on the table; and +the hepaticas were the exact colour of Anna's eyes. When Letty saw her +mother's handwriting she turned cold. It was the warrant that was to +banish her from Eden, casting her back into the outer darkness of the +Popular Concerts and the literature lectures. She was in the act of +raising a spoonful of pudding to her already opened mouth, when she +caught sight of the well-known writing. She hesitated, her hand shook, +and finally she laid her spoon down again and pushed her plate back. At +the great crises of life who can go on eating pudding? What then was her +relief and joy to see her aunt get up, come round to where she was +sitting braced to hear the worst, put her arms round her neck, and to +feel herself being kissed. "You are going to stay with me after all!" +cried Anna delightedly. "Dear little Letty—I should have missed you +horribly. Aren't you glad? Your mother says I'm to keep you for ever so +long."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I say—how ripping!" exclaimed Letty; and being a practical person +at once resumed and finished her pudding.</p> + +<p>Miss Leech, too, looked exceedingly pleased. How could she be anything +but pleased at the prospect of staying with a person who was always so +kind and thoughtful as Anna? Her feelings, somehow, were never hurt by +Anna; Lady Estcourt seemed to have a special knack of jumping on them +every time she spoke to her. She knew she ought not to have such +sensitive feelings, and felt that it was more her fault than anyone +else's if they were hurt; yet there they were, and being hurt was +painful, and living with someone so even tempered as Anna was very +peaceful and pleasant. Mr. Jessup would have liked Anna. She wished he +could have known her. A higher compliment it was not in Miss Leech's +power to pay.</p> + +<p>And when Anna saw the pleasure on Miss Leech's face, and saw that she +thought she was to stay too, she felt that for no sister-in-law in the +world would she wipe it out with that month's notice. She decided to say +nothing, but simply to keep her as well as Letty. Her two thousand a +year was in her eyes of infinite elasticity. Never having had any money, +she had no notion of how far it would go; and she did not hesitate to +come to a decision which would probably ultimately oblige her to reduce +the number of those persons Susie described as victims.</p> + +<p>The next day the companion arrived. Anna went out into the hall to meet +her when she heard the approaching wheels of the shepherd-plaid chariot. +She felt rather nervous as she watched her emerging from beneath the +hood, for she knew how much of the comfort and peace of the twelve would +depend on this lady. She felt exceedingly nervous when the lady, +immediately upon shaking hands, asked if she could speak to her alone.</p> + +<p>"<i>Natürlich,</i>" said Anna, a vague fear lest Fritz, the coachman, +should have insulted her on the way coming over her, though she only +knew Fritz as the mildest of men.</p> + +<p>She led the way into the drawing-room. "Now what is she going to tell me +dreadful?" she thought, as she invited her to sit on the sofa, having +been instructed by Trudi that that was the place where strangers +expected to sit. "Suppose she isn't going to stay, and I shall have to +look for someone all over again? Perhaps the lining of the carriage has +been too much for her. <i>Bitte</i>" she said aloud, with an uneasy smile, +motioning Frau von Penheim towards the sofa.</p> + +<p>The new companion was a big, elderly lady with a sensible face. Her +boots were thick, and she wore a mackintosh. She sat down, and looking +more attentively at Anna, smiled. Most people who saw her for the first +time did that. It was such a change and a pleasure after seeing plain +faces, and dull faces, and vain, pretty faces for an indefinite period, +to rest one's eyes on a person so charming yet manifestly preoccupied by +other matters than her charms.</p> + +<p>"I feel it my duty," said the lady in German, "before we go any further +to tell you the truth."</p> + +<p>This was alarming. The lady's manner was solemn. Anna inclined her head, +and felt scared. She wished that Axel Lohm were somewhere near.</p> + +<p>"I see you are young," continued the lady, "and I presume that you are +inexperienced."</p> + +<p>"Not so young," murmured Anna, who felt particularly young and +uncomfortable at that moment, and very unlike the mistress of a house +interviewing a companion. "Not so young—twenty-five."</p> + +<p>"Twenty-five? You do not look it. But what is twenty-five?"</p> + +<p>Anna did not know, so said nothing.</p> + +<p>"My position here would be a responsible one," continued the lady, +scrutinising Anna's face, and smiling again at what she saw there. +"Taking charge of a motherless girl always is. And the circumstances in +this case are peculiar."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Anna, "they are even more peculiar than you imagine——" And +she was about to explain the approaching advent of the victims, when the +lady held up her hand in a masterful way, as though enjoining silence, +and said, "First hear me. Through a series of misfortunes I have been +reduced to poverty since my husband's death. But I do not choose to live +on the charity of relatives, which is the most unbearable form of +charity calling itself by that holy name, and I am determined to work +for my bread."</p> + +<p>She paused. Anna could find nothing better to say than "Oh."</p> + +<p>"Out of consideration for my relatives, who are enraged at my +resolution, and think I ought to starve quietly on what they choose to +give me sooner than make myself conspicuous by working, I have called +myself Frau von Penheim. I will not come here under false pretences, and +to you, privately, I will confess that my proper title is the Princess +Ludwig, of that house."</p> + +<p>She stopped to observe the effect of this announcement. Anna was +confounded. A princess was not at all what she wanted. She felt that she +had no use whatever for princesses. How could she ever expect one to get +up early and see that the twelve received their meat in due season? +"Oh," she said again, and then was silent.</p> + +<p>The princess watched her closely. She was very poor, and very anxious to +have the place. "'Oh' is so English," she said, smiling to hide her +anxiety. "We say '<i>ach</i>!"</p> + +<p>Anna laughed.</p> + +<p>"And do not think that all German princesses are like your English +ones," she went on eagerly. "My father-in-law was raised to the rank of +Fürst for services rendered to the state. He had a large family, and my +husband was a younger son."</p> + +<p>Still Anna was silent. Then she said "I—I wish——" and then stopped.</p> + +<p>"What do you wish, my dear child?"</p> + +<p>"I wish—that I—that you——"</p> + +<p>"That you had known it beforehand? Then you would never have taken me, +even on trial," was the prompt reply.</p> + +<p>Anna's eyes said plainly, "No, I would not."</p> + +<p>"And it is so important that I should find something to do. At first I +answered advertisements in my real name, and received my photograph back +by the next post. This, and the anger of my family, decided me to drop +the title altogether. But I had always resolved that if I did find a +place I would confess to my employer. It is a terrible thing to be very +poor," she added, staring straight before her with eyes growing dim at +her remembrances.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Anna, under her breath.</p> + +<p>"To have nothing, nothing at all, and to be burdened at the same time by +one's birth."</p> + +<p>"Oh," murmured Anna, with a little catch in her voice.</p> + +<p>"And to be dependent on people who only wish that you were safely out of +the way—dead."</p> + +<p>"Married," whispered Anna.</p> + +<p>"Why, what do you know about it?" said the princess, turning quickly to +her; for she had been thinking aloud rather than addressing anyone.</p> + +<p>"I know everything about it," said Anna; and in a rush of bad but eager +German she told her of those old days when even the sweeping of +crossings had seemed better than living on relations, and how since then +all her heart had been filled with pity for the type of poverty called +genteel, and how now that she was well off she was going to help women +who were in the same sad situation in which she had been. Her eyes were +wet when she finished. She had spoken with extraordinary enthusiasm, a +fresh wave of passionate sympathy with such lives passing over her; and +not until she had done did she remember that she had never before seen +this lady, and that she was saying things to her that she had not as yet +said to the most intimate of her friends.</p> + +<p>She felt suddenly uncomfortable; her eyelashes quivered and drooped, and +she blushed.</p> + +<p>The princess contemplated her curiously. "I congratulate you," she said, +laying her hand lightly for a moment on Anna's. "The idea and the good +intentions will have been yours, whatever the result may be."</p> + +<p>This was not very encouraging as a response to an outburst. "I have told +you more than I tell most people," Anna said, looking up shamefacedly, +"because you have had much the same experiences that I have."</p> + +<p>"Except the uncle at the end. He makes such a difference. May I ask if +many of the ladies answered <i>both</i> advertisements?"</p> + +<p>"No, they did not."</p> + +<p>"Not one?"</p> + +<p>"Not one."</p> + +<p>The princess thought that working for one's bread was distinctly +preferable to taking Anna's charity; but then she was of an unusually +sturdy and independent nature. "I can assure you," she said after a +short silence, "that I would do my best to look after your house and +your—your friends and yourself."</p> + +<p>"But I want someone who will do <i>everything</i>—order the meals, train the +servants—everything. And get up early besides," said Anna, her voice +full of doubt. The princess really belonged, she felt, to the category +of sad, sick, and sorry; and if she had asked for a place among the +twelve there would have been little difficulty in giving her one. But +the companion she had imagined was to be a real help, someone she could +order about as she chose, certainly not a person unused to being ordered +about. Even the parson's sister-in-law Helena would have been better +than this.</p> + +<p>"I would do all that, naturally. Do you think if I am not too proud to +take wages that I shall be too proud to do the work for which they are +paid?"</p> + +<p>"Would you not prefer——" began Anna, and hesitated.</p> + +<p>"Would I not prefer what, my child?"</p> + +<p>"Prefer to—would it not be more agreeable for you to come and live here +without working? I could find another companion, and I would be happy if +you will stay here as—as one of the others."</p> + +<p>The princess laughed; a hearty, big laugh in keeping with her big +person.</p> + +<p>"No," she said. "I would not like that at all. But thank you, dear +child, for making the offer. Let me stay here and do what work you want +done, and then you pay me for it, and we are quits. I assure you there +is a solid satisfaction in being quits. I shall certainly not expect any +more consideration than you would give to a Frau Schultz. And I will be +able to take care of you; and I think, if you will not be angry with me +for saying so, that you greatly need taking care of."</p> + +<p>"Well, then," said Anna, with an effort, "let us try it for three +months."</p> + +<p>An immense load was lifted off the princess's heart by these words. "You +will not regret it," she said emphatically.</p> + +<p>But Anna was not so sure. Though she did her best to put a cheerful face +on her new bargain, she could not help fearing that her enterprise had +begun badly. She was unusually pensive throughout the evening.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + + +<p>What the Princess Ludwig thought of her new place it would be difficult +to say. She accepted her position as minister to the comforts of the +hitherto comfortless without remark and entirely as a matter of course. +She got up at hours exemplary in their earliness, and was about the +house rattling a bunch of keys all day long. She was wholly practical, +and as destitute of illusions as she was of education in the ordinary +sense. Her knowledge of German literature was hardly more extensive than +Letty's, and of other tongues and other literatures she knew and cared +nothing. As for illusions, she saw things as they are, and had never at +any period of her life possessed enthusiasms. Nor had she the least +taste for hidden meanings and symbols. Maeterlinck, if she had heard of +him, would have been dismissed by her with an easy smile. Anna's +whitewash to her was whitewash; a disagreeable but economical +wall-covering. She knew and approved of it as cheap; how could she dream +that it was also symbolic? She never dreamed at all, either sleeping or +waking. If by some chance she had fallen into musings, she would have +mused blood and iron, the superiority of the German nation, cookery in +its three forms <i>feine</i>, <i>bürgerliche</i>, and <i>Hausmannskost</i>, in all +which forms she was preëminent in skill—she would have mused, that is, +on facts, plain and undisputed. If she had had children she would have +made an excellent mother; as it was she made excellent cakes—also a +form of activity to be commended. She was a Dettingen before her +marriage, and the Dettingens are one of the oldest Prussian families, +and have produced more first-rate soldiers and statesmen and a larger +number of mothers of great men than any other family in that part. The +Penheims and Dettingens had intermarried continually, and it was to his +mother's Dettingen blood that the first Fürst Penheim owed the +energy that procured him his elevation. Princess Ludwig was a good +example of the best type of female Dettingen. Like many other +illiterates, she prided herself particularly on her sturdy common sense. +Regarding this quality, which she possessed, as more precious than +others which she did not possess, she was not likely to sympathise much +either with Anna's plan for making people happy, or with those who were +willing to be made happy in such a way. A sensible woman, she thought, +will always find work, and need not look far for a home. She herself had +been handicapped in the search by her unfortunate title, yet with +patience even she had found a haven. Only the lazy and lackadaisical, +the morally worthless, that is, would, she was convinced, accept such an +offer as Anna's. It was not, however, her business. Her business was to +look after Anna's house; and she did it with a zeal and thoroughness +that struck terror into the hearts of the maid-servants. Trudi's fitful +energy was nothing to it. Trudi had introduced workmen and chaos; the +princess, with a rapidity and skill little short of amazing to anyone +unacquainted with the capabilities of the well-trained German +<i>Hausfrau</i>, cleared out the workmen and reduced the chaos to order. +Within three weeks the house was ready, and Anna, palpitating, saw the +moment approaching when the first batch of unhappy ones might be +received.</p> + +<p>Manske's time was entirely taken up writing letters of inquiry +concerning the applicants, and it was surprising in what huge batches +they had to be weeded out. Of fifty applications received in one day, +three or four, after due inquiry, would alone remain for further +consideration; and of these three or four, after yet closer inquiry, +sometimes not one would be left.</p> + +<p>At first Anna asked the princess's advice as well as Manske's, and it +was when she was present at the consultations that the heap into which +the letters of the unworthy were gathered was biggest. All those ladies +belonging to the <i>bürgerliche</i> or middle classes were in her eyes wholly +unworthy. If Anna had proposed to take washerwomen into her home, and +required the princess's help in brightening their lives, it would have +been given in the full measure, pressed down and running over, that +befits a Christian gentlewoman; but for the <i>Bürgerlichen</i>, those +belonging to the class more immediately below her own, the princess's +feeling was only Christian so long as they kept a great way off. There +was so much good sense in the objections she made that Anna, who did her +best to keep an open mind and listen attentively to advice, was forced +to agree with her, and added letters to the ever-increasing heap of the +rejected which she might otherwise have reserved for riper +consideration. After two or three days, however, it became clear to her +that if she continued to consult the princess, no one would be accepted +at all, for Manske's respect for that lady was so profound that he was +invariably of her opinion. She did not, therefore, invite her again to +assist at the interviews. Still, all she had said, and the knowledge +that she must know her own countrywomen fairly thoroughly, made Anna +prudent; and so it came about that the first arrivals were to be only +three in number, chosen without reference to the princess, and one of +them was <i>bürgerlich</i>.</p> + +<p>"We can meanwhile proceed with our inquiries about the remaining nine," +said Manske, "and the gracious Miss will be always gaining experience."</p> + +<p>She trod on air during the days preceding the arrival of the chosen. To +say that she was blissful would be but an inadequate description of her +state of mind. The weather was beautiful, and it increased her happiness +tenfold to know that their new life was to begin in sunshine. She had +never a doubt as to their delight in the sun-chequered forest, in the +freshness of the glittering sea, in the peacefulness of the quiet +country life, so quiet that the week seemed to be all Sundays. Were not +these things sufficient for herself? Did she ever tire of those long +pine vistas, with the narrow strip of clearest blue between the gently +waving tree-tops? The dreamy murmur of the forest gave her an exquisite +pleasure. To see the bloom on the pink and grey trunks of the pines, and +the sun on the moss and lichen beneath, was so deep a satisfaction to +her soul that the thought that others who had been knocked about by life +would not feel it too, would not enter with profoundest thankfulness +into this other world of peace, never struck her at all. When these poor +tired women, freed at last from every care and every anxiety, had +refreshed themselves with the music and fragrance of the forest, there +was the garden across the road to enjoy, with the marsh already strewn +with kingcups on the other side of the hedge already turning green; and +the sea with the fishing-smacks passing up and down, and the silver +gleam of gulls' wings circling round the orange sails, and eagles +floating high up aloft, specks in the infinite blue; and then there were +drives along the coast towards the north, where the wholesome wind blew +fresher than in the woods; and quiet evenings in the roomy house, where +all that was asked of them was that they should be happy.</p> + +<p>"It's a lovely plan, isn't it, Letty?" she said joyously, the evening +before they were to arrive, as she stood with her arm round Letty's +shoulder at the bottom of the garden, where they had both been watching +the sails of the fishing-smacks during those short sunset moments when +they looked like the bright wings of spirits moving over the face of the +placid waters.</p> + +<p>"I should rather think it was," replied Letty, who was profoundly +interested.</p> + +<p>They got up at sunrise the next morning, and went out into the forest in +search of hepaticas and windflowers with which to decorate the three +bedrooms. These bedrooms were the largest and pleasantest in the house. +Anna had given up her own because she thought the windows particularly +pleasing, and had gone into a little one in the fervour of her desire to +lavish all that was best on her new friends. The rooms were furnished +with special care, an immense amount of thought having been bestowed on +the colour of the curtains, the pattern of the porcelain, and the books +filling the shelves above each writing-table. The colours and patterns +were the nearest approach Berlin could produce to Anna's own favourite +colours and patterns. She wasted half her time, when the rooms were +ready, sitting in them and picturing what her own delight would have +been if she, like the poor ladies for whom they were intended, had come +straight out of a cold, unkind world into such pretty havens.</p> + +<p>The choice of books had been a great difficulty, and there had been much +correspondence on the subject with Berlin before a selection had been +made. Books there must be, for no room, she thought, was habitable +without them; and she had tried to imagine what manner of literature +would most appeal to her unhappy ones. It was to be presumed that their +ages were such as to exclude frivolity; therefore she bought very few +novels. She thought Dickens translated into German would be a safe +choice; also Schlegel's Shakespeare for loftier moments. The German +classics were represented by Goethe in one room, Schiller in another, +and Heine in the third. In each room also there was a German-English +dictionary, for the facilitation of intercourse. Finally, she asked the +princess to recommend something they would be sure to like, and she +recommended cookery books.</p> + +<p>"But they are not going to cook," said Anna, surprised.</p> + +<p>"<i>Es ist egal</i>—it is always interesting to read good recipes. No other +reading affords me the same pleasure."</p> + +<p>"But only when you want something new cooked."</p> + +<p>"No, no, at all times," insisted the princess.</p> + +<p>Anna could not quite believe that such a taste was general; but in case +one of the three should share it, she put a cookery book in one +bookcase. In the other two severally to balance it, she slipt at the +last moment a volume of Maeterlinck, to which at that period she was +greatly attached; and Matthew Arnold's poems, to which also at that +period she was greatly attached.</p> + +<p>The princess went about with pursed lips while these preparations were +in progress; and when, at sunrise on the last morning, she was awakened +by stealthy footsteps and smothered laughter on the landing outside her +room, and, opening her door an inch and peering out as in duty bound in +case the sounds should be emanating from some unaccountably mirthful +maid-servant, she saw Anna and Letty creeping downstairs with their hats +on and baskets in their hands, she guessed what they were going to do, +and got back into bed with lips more pursed than ever. Did she not know +who had been chosen, and that one of the three was a <i>Bürgerliche</i>?</p> + +<p>About eight o'clock, when the two girls were coming out of the forest +with their baskets full and their faces happy, Axel Lohm was riding +thoughtfully past, having just settled an unpleasant business at +Kleinwalde. Dellwig had sent him an urgent message in the small hours; +there had been a brawl among the labourers about a woman, and a man had +been stabbed. Axel had ordered the aggressor to be locked up in the +little room that served as a temporary prison till he could be handed +over to the Stralsund authorities. His wife, a girl of twenty, was ill, +and she and her three small children depended entirely on the man's +earnings. The victim appeared to be dying, and the man would certainly +be punished. What, then, thought Axel, was to become of the wife and the +children? Frau Dellwig had told him that she sent soup every day at +dinner-time, but soup once a day would neither comfort them nor make +them fat. Besides, he had a notion that the soup of Frau Dellwig's +charity was very thin. He was riding dejectedly enough down the road on +his way home, looking straight before him, his mouth a mere grim line, +thinking how grievous it was that the consequences of sin should fall +with their most terrific weight nearly always on the innocent, on the +helpless women-folk and the weak little children, when Anna and Letty +appeared, talking and laughing, on the edge of the forest.</p> + +<p>Letty, we know, had not been kindly treated by nature, but even she was +a pleasing object in her harmless morning cheerfulness after the faces +he had just seen; and Anna's beauty, made radiant by happiness and +contentment, startled him. He had a momentary twinge, gone almost before +he had realised it, a sudden clear conception of his great loneliness. +The satisfaction he strove to extract from improving his estate for the +benefit of his brother Gustav appeared to him at that moment to bear a +singular resemblance, in its thinness, to Frau Dellwig's charitable +soup. He got off his horse to speak to her, and rested his eyes, tired +by looking at the hideous passions on the brawler's face, on hers. +"To-day is the important day, is it not?" he asked, glancing from her +flower-like face to the flowers.</p> + +<p>"The first three come this afternoon."</p> + +<p>"So Manske told me. You are very happy, I can see," he said, smiling.</p> + +<p>"I never was so happy before."</p> + +<p>"Your uncle was a wise man. He told me he was going to leave you +Kleinwalde because he felt sure you would be happy leading the simple +life here."</p> + +<p>"Did he talk about me to you?"</p> + +<p>"After his last visit to England he talked about you all the time."</p> + +<p>"Oh?" said Anna, looking at him thoughtfully. Uncle Joachim, she +remembered perfectly, had urged two things—the leading of the better +life, and the marrying of a good German gentleman. A faint flush came +into her face and faded again. She had suddenly become aware that Axel +was the good German gentleman he had meant. Well, the wisest uncle was +subject to errors of judgment.</p> + +<p>"I trust those women will not worry you too much," he said, thinking how +immense would be the pity if those happy eyes ever lost their +joyousness.</p> + +<p>"Worry me? Poor things, they won't have any energy of any sort left +after all they have gone through. I never read such pitiful letters."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know," said Axel doubtfully. "Manske says one of them is +a Treumann. It is a family distinguished by its size and its +disagreeableness."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but she only married a Treumann, and isn't one herself."</p> + +<p>"But a woman generally adopts the peculiarities of the family she +marries into, especially if they are unpleasant."</p> + +<p>"But she has been a widow for years. And is so poor. And is so crushed."</p> + +<p>"I never yet heard of a permanently crushed Treumann," said Axel, +shaking his head.</p> + +<p>"You are trying to make me uneasy," said Anna, a slight touch of +impatience in her voice. She was singularly sensitive about her chosen +ones; sensitive in the way mothers are about a child that is deformed.</p> + +<p>"No, no," he said quickly, "I only wish to warn you. You maybe +disappointed—it is just possible." He could not bear to think of her as +disappointed.</p> + +<p>"Pray, do you know anything against the other two?" she asked with some +defiance. "One of them is a Baroness Elmreich, and the other is a +Fräulein Kuhräuber."</p> + +<p>Axel looked amused. "I never heard of Fräulein Kuhräuber," he said. +"What does Princess Ludwig say to her coming?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing at all. What should she say?"</p> + +<p>It was Fräulein Kuhräuber's coming that had more particularly occasioned +the pursing of the princess's lips.</p> + +<p>"I know some Elmreichs," said Axel. "A few of them are respectable; but +one branch at least of the family is completely demoralised. A Baron +Elmreich shot himself last year because he had been caught cheating at +cards. And one of his sisters—oh, well, some of them are harmless, I +believe."</p> + +<p>"Thank you."</p> + +<p>"You are angry with me?"</p> + +<p>"Very."</p> + +<p>"And why?"</p> + +<p>"You want to prejudice me against these poor things. They can't help +what distant relations do. They will get away from them in my house, at +least, and have peace."</p> + +<p>"Miss Letty, is your aunt often—what is the word—so fractious?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know," said Letty, who found it dull waiting in silence +while other people talked. "It's breakfast time, you know, and people +can't stand much just about then."</p> + +<p>"Oh, youthful philosopher!" exclaimed Axel. "So young, and of the female +sex, and yet to have pierced to the very root of human weakness!"</p> + +<p>"Stuff," said Letty, offended.</p> + +<p>"What, are you going to be angry too? Then let me get on my horse and +go."</p> + +<p>"It's the best thing you can do," said Letty, always frank, but doubly +so when she was hungry.</p> + +<p>"Shall you come and see us soon?" Anna asked, gathering up her skirts in +her one free hand, preparatory to crossing the muddy road.</p> + +<p>"But you are angry with me."</p> + +<p>She looked up and laughed. "Not now," she said; "I've finished. Do you +think I'm going to be angry long this pleasant April morning?"</p> + +<p>"I smell the coffee," observed Letty, sniffing.</p> + +<p>"Then I will come to-morrow if I may," said Axel, "and make the +acquaintance of Frau von Treumann and Baroness Elmreich."</p> + +<p>"And Fräulein Kuhräuber," said Anna, with emphasis. She thought she saw +the same tendency in him that was so manifest in the princess, a +tendency to ignore the very existence of any one called Kuhräuber.</p> + +<p>"And Fräulein Kuhräuber," repeated Axel gravely.</p> + +<p>"They've burnt the toast again," said Letty; "I can hear them scraping +off the black."</p> + +<p>"I wish you good luck, then," said Axel, taking off his hat; "with all +my heart I wish you good luck, and that these ladies may very soon be as +happy as you are yourself."</p> + +<p>"That's nice," said Anna, approvingly; "so much, much nicer than the +other things you have been saying." And she nodded to him, all smiles, +as she crossed over to the house and he rode away.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + + +<p>Long before the carriage bringing the three chosen ones from the station +could possibly arrive, Anna and Letty began to wait in the hall, +standing at the windows, going out on to the steps, looking into the +different rooms every few minutes to make sure that everything was +ready. The bedrooms were full of the hepaticas of the morning; the +coffee had been set out with infinite care and an eye to effect by Anna +herself on a little table in the drawing-room by the open window, +through which the mild April air came in and gently fanned the curtains +to and fro; and the princess had baked her best cakes for the occasion, +inwardly deploring, as she did so, that such cakes should be offered to +such people. When she had seen that all was as it should be, she +withdrew into her own room, where she remained darning sheets, for she +had asked Anna to excuse her from being present at the arrival. "It is +better that you should make their acquaintance by yourself," she said. +"The presence of too many strangers at first might disconcert them under +the circumstances."</p> + +<p>Miss Leech profited by this remark, made in her hearing, and did not +appear either; so that when the carriage drove in at the gate only Anna +and Letty were standing at the door in the sunshine.</p> + +<p>Anna's heart bumped so as the three slowly disentangled themselves and +got out, that she could hardly speak. Her face flushed and grew pale by +turns, and her eyes were shining with something suspiciously like tears. +What she wanted to do was to put her arms right round the three poor +ladies, and kiss them, and comfort them, and make up for all their +griefs. What she did was to put out a very cold, shaking hand, and say +in a voice that trembled, "<i>Guten Tag</i>."</p> + +<p>"<i>Guten Tag</i>," said the first lady to descend; evidently, from her +mourning, the widowed Frau von Treumann.</p> + +<p>Anna took her extended hand in both hers, and clasping it tight looked +at its owner with all her heart in her eyes. "<i>Es freut mich so—es +freut mich so</i>," she murmured incoherently.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach</i>—you are Miss Estcourt?" asked the lady in German.</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes," said Anna, still clinging to her hand, "and so happy, so +very happy to see you."</p> + +<p>Frau von Treumann hereupon made some remarks which Anna supposed were of +a grateful nature, but she spoke so rapidly and in such subdued tones, +glancing round uneasily as she did so at the coachman and at the others, +and Anna herself was so much agitated, that what she said was quite +incomprehensible. Again Anna longed to throw her arms round the poor +woman's neck, and interrupt her with kisses, and tell her that gratitude +was not required of her, but only that she should be happy; but she felt +that if she did so she would begin to cry, and tears were surely out of +place on such a joyful occasion, especially as nobody else looked in the +least like crying.</p> + +<p>"You are Frau von Treumann, I know," she said, holding her hand, and +turning to the next one and beaming on her, "and this is Baroness +Elmreich?"</p> + +<p>"No, no," said the third lady quickly, "<i>I</i> am Baroness Elmreich."</p> + +<p>Fräulein Kuhräuber, an ample person whose body, swathed in travelling +cloaks, had blotted out the other little woman, looked frightened and +apologetic, and made deep curtseys.</p> + +<p>Anna shook their hands one after the other with all the warmth that was +glowing in her heart. Her defective German forsook her almost +completely. She did nothing but repeat disconnected ejaculations, "<i>so +reizend—so glücklich—so erfreut</i>——" and fill in the gaps with happy, +quivering smiles at each in turn, and timid little pats on any hand +within her reach.</p> + +<p>Letty meanwhile stood in the shadow of the doorway, wishing that she +were young enough to suck her thumb. It kept on going up to her mouth of +its own accord, and she kept on pulling it down again. This was one of +the occasions, she felt, when the sucking of thumbs is a relief and a +blessing. It gives one's superfluous hands occupation, and oneself a +countenance. She shifted from one foot to the other uneasily, and held +on tight to the rebellious thumb, for the tall lady who had got out +first was fixing her with a stare that chilled her blood. The tall lady, +who was very tall and thin, and had round unblinking dark eyes set close +together like an owl's, and strongly marked black eyebrows, said +nothing, but examined her slowly from the tip of the bow of ribbon +trembling on her head to the buckles of the shoes creaking on her feet. +Ought she to offer to shake hands with her, or ought she to wait to be +shaken hands with, Letty asked herself distractedly. Anyhow it was +rather rude to stare like that. She had always been taught that it was +rude to stare like that.</p> + +<p>Anna had forgotten all about her, and only remembered her when they were +in the drawing-room and she had begun to pour out the coffee. "Oh, +Letty, where are you? This is my niece," she said; and Letty was at last +shaken hands with.</p> + +<p>"Ah—she keeps you company," said the baroness. "You found it lonely +here, naturally."</p> + +<p>"Oh no, I am never lonely," said Anna cheerfully, filling the cups and +giving them to Letty to carry round.</p> + +<p>"How pleasant the air is to-day," observed Frau von Treumann, edging her +chair away from the window. "Damp, but pleasant. You like fresh air, I +see."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I love it," said Anna; "and it is so beautiful here—so pure, and +full of the sea."</p> + +<p>"You are not afraid of catching cold, sitting so near an open window?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, is it too much for you? Letty, shut the window. It is getting +chilly. The days are so fine that one forgets it is only April."</p> + +<p>Anna talked German and poured out the coffee with a nervous haste +unusual to her. The three women sitting round the little table staring +at her made her feel terribly nervous. She was happy beyond words to +have got them safely under her own roof at last, but she was nervous. +She was determined that there should be no barriers of conventionality +from the first between themselves and her; not a minute more of their +lives was to be wasted; this was their home, and she was all ready to +love them; she had made up her mind that however shy she felt she was +going to behave as though they were her dear friends—which indeed, she +assured herself, was exactly what they were. Therefore she struggled +bravely against her nervousness, addressing them collectively and +singly, saying whatever came first into her head in her anxiety to say +something, smiling at them, pressing the princess's cakes on them, +hardly letting them drink their coffee before she wanted to give them +more. But it was no good; she was and remained nervous, and her hand +shook so when she lifted it that she was ashamed.</p> + +<p>Fräulein Kuhräuber was the one who stared least. If she caught Anna's +eye her own drooped, whereas the eyes of the other two never wavered. +She sat on the edge of her chair in a way made familiar to Anna by +intercourse with Frau Manske, and whatever anybody said she nodded her +head and murmured "<i>Ja, eben</i>." She was obviously ill at ease, and +dropped the sugar-tongs when she was offered sugar with a loud clatter +on to the varnished floor, nearly sweeping the cups off the table in her +effort to pick them up again.</p> + +<p>"Oh, do not mind," said Anna, "Letty will pick them up. They are stupid +things—much too big for the sugar-basin."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ja, eben</i>," said Fräulein Kuhräuber, sitting up and looking perturbed. +The other two removed their eyes from Anna's face for a moment to stare +at the Fräulein. The baroness, a small, fair person with hair arranged +in those little flat curls called kiss-me-quicks on each cheek, and +wide-open pale blue eyes, and a little mouth with no lips, or lips so +thin that they were hardly visible, sat very still and straight, and had +a way of moving her eyes round from one face to the other without at the +same time moving her head. She was unmarried, and was probably about +thirty-five, Anna thought, but she had always evaded questions in the +correspondence about her age. Fräulein Kuhräuber was also thirty-five, +and as large and blooming as the baroness was small and pale. Frau von +Treumann was over fifty, and had had more sorrows, judging from her +letters, than the other two. She sat nearest Anna, who every now and +then laid her hand gently on hers and let it rest there a moment, in her +determination to thaw all frost from the very beginning. "Oh, I quite +forgot," she said cheerfully—the amount of cheerfulness she put into +her voice made her laugh at herself—"I quite forgot to introduce you to +each other."</p> + +<p>"We did it at the station," said Frau von Treumann, "when we found +ourselves all entering your carriage."</p> + +<p>"The Elmreichs are connected with the Treumanns," observed the baroness.</p> + +<p>"We are such a large family," said Frau von Treumann quickly, "that we +are connected with nearly everybody."</p> + +<p>The tone was cold, and there was a silence. Neither of them, apparently, +was connected with Fräulein Kuhräuber, who buried her face in her cup, +in which the tea-spoon remained while she drank, and heartily longed for +connections.</p> + +<p>But she had none. She was absolutely without relations except deceased +ones. She had been an orphan since she was two, cared for by her one +aunt till she was ten. The aunt died, and she found a refuge in an +orphanage till she was sixteen, when she was told that she must earn her +bread. She was a lazy girl even in those days, who liked eating her +bread better than earning it. No more, however, being forthcoming in the +orphanage, she went into a pastor's family as <i>Stütze der Hausfrau</i>. +These <i>Stütze</i>, or supports, are common in middle-class German families, +where they support the mistress of the house in all her manifold duties, +cooking, baking, mending, ironing, teaching or amusing the +children—being in short a comfort and blessing to harassed mothers. But +Fräulein Kuhräuber had no talent whatever for comforting mothers, and +she was quickly requested to leave the busy and populous parsonage; +whereupon she entered upon the series of driftings lasting twenty years, +which landed her, by a wonderful stroke of fortune, in Anna's arms.</p> + +<p>When she saw the advertisement, her future was looking very black. She +was, as usual, under notice to quit, and had no other place in view, and +had saved nothing. It is true the advertisement only offered a home to +women of good family; but she got over that difficulty by reflecting +that her family was all in heaven, and that there could be no relations +more respectable than angels. She wrote therefore in glowing terms of +the paternal Kuhräuber, "<i>gegenwärtig mit Gott</i>," as she put it, +expatiating on his intellect and gifts (he was a man of letters, she +said), while he yet dwelt upon earth. Manske, with all his inquiries, +could find out nothing about her except that she was, as she said, an +orphan, poor, friendless, and struggling; and Anna, just then impatient +of the objections the princess made to every applicant, quickly decided +to accept this one, against whom not a word had been said. So Fräulein +Kuhräuber, who had spent her life in shirking work, who was quite +thriftless and improvident, who had never felt particularly unhappy, and +whose father had been a postman, found herself being welcomed with an +enthusiasm that astonished her to Anna's home, being smiled upon and +patted, having beautiful things said to her, things the very opposite to +those to which she had been used, things to the effect that she was now +to rest herself for ever and to be sure and not do anything except just +that which made her happiest.</p> + +<p>It was very wonderful. It seemed much, much too good to be true. And the +delight that filled her as she sat eating excellent cakes, and the +discomfort she endured because of the stares of the other two women, and +the consciousness that she had never learned how to behave in the +society of persons with <i>von</i> before their names, produced such mingled +feelings of ecstasy and fright in her bosom that it was quite natural +she should drop the sugar-tongs, and upset the cream-jug, and choke over +her coffee—all of which things she did, to Anna's distress, who +suffered with her in her agitation, while the eyes of the other two +watched each successive catastrophe with profoundest attention.</p> + +<p>It was an uncomfortable half hour. "I am shy, and they are shy," Anna +said to herself, apologising as it were for the undoubted flatness that +prevailed. How could it be otherwise, she thought? Did she expect them +to gush? Heaven forbid. Yet it was an important crisis in their lives, +this passing for ever from neglect and loneliness to love, and she +wondered vaguely that the obviously paramount feeling should be interest +in the awkwardness of Fräulein Kuhräuber.</p> + +<p>Her German faltered, and threatened to give out entirely. The inevitable +pause came, and they could hear the sparrows quarrelling in the golden +garden, and the creaking of a distant pump.</p> + +<p>"How still it is," observed the baroness with a slight shiver.</p> + +<p>"You have no farmyard near the house to make it more cheerful," said +Frau von Treumann. "My father's house had the garden at the back, and +the farmyard in the front, and one did not feel so cut off from +everything. There was always something going on in the yard—always life +and noises."</p> + +<p>"Really?" said Anna; and again the pump and the sparrows became audible.</p> + +<p>"The stillness is truly remarkable," observed the baroness again.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ja, eben</i>," said Fräulein Kuhräuber.</p> + +<p>"But it is beautiful, isn't it," said Anna, gazing out at the light on +the water. "It is so restful, so soothing. Look what a lovely sunset +there must be this evening. We can't see it from this side of the house, +but look at the colour of the grass and the water."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach</i>—you are a friend of nature," said Frau von Treumann, turning her +head for a brief moment towards the window, and then examining Anna's +face. "I am also. There is nothing I like more than nature. Do you +paint?"</p> + +<p>"I wish I could."</p> + +<p>"Ah, then you sing—or play?"</p> + +<p>"I can do neither."</p> + +<p>"<i>So?</i> But what have you here, then, in the way of distractions, of +pastimes?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think I have any," said Anna, smiling. "I have been very busy +till now making things ready for you, and after this I shall just enjoy +being alive."</p> + +<p>Frau von Treumann looked puzzled for a moment. Then she said "<i>Ach so.</i>"</p> + +<p>There was another silence.</p> + +<p>"Have some more coffee," said Anna, laying hold of the pot persuasively. +She was feeling foolish, and had blushed stupidly after that <i>Ach so</i>.</p> + +<p>"No, no," said Frau von Treumann, putting up a protesting hand, "you are +very kind. Two cups are a limit beyond which voracity itself could not +go. What do you say? You have had three? Oh, well, you are young, and +young people can play tricks with their digestions with less danger than +old ones."</p> + +<p>At this speech Fräulein Kuhräuber's four cups became plainly written on +her guilty face. The thought that she had been voracious at the very +first meal was appalling to her. She hastily pushed away her half-empty +cup—too hastily, for it upset, and in her effort to save it it fell on +to the floor and was broken. "<i>Ach, Herr Je!</i>" she cried in her +distress.</p> + +<p>The other two looked at each other; the expression is an unusual one on +the lips of gentle-women.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it does not matter—really it does not," Anna hastened to assure +her. "Don't pick it up—Letty will. The table is too small really. There +is no room on it for anything."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ja, eben</i>," said Fräulein Kuhräuber, greatly discomfited.</p> + +<p>"You would like to go upstairs, I am sure," said Anna hurriedly, turning +to the others. "You must be very tired," she added, looking at Frau von +Treumann.</p> + +<p>"I am," replied that lady, closing her eyes for a moment with a little +smile expressive of patient endurance.</p> + +<p>"Then we will go up. Come," she said, holding out her hand to Fräulein +Kuhräuber. "No, no—let Letty pick up the pieces——" for the Fräulein, +in her anxiety to repair the disaster, was about to sweep the remaining +cups off the table with the sleeve of her cloak.</p> + +<p>Anna drew her hand through her arm, and gave it a furtive and +encouraging stroke. "I will go first and show you the way," she said +over her shoulder to the others.</p> + +<p>And so it came about that Frau von Treumann and Baroness Elmreich +actually found themselves going through doors and up stairs behind a +person called Kuhräuber. They exchanged glances again. Whatever might be +their private objections to each other, they had one point already on +which they agreed, for with equal heartiness they both disapproved of +Fräulein Kuhräuber.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> + + +<p>As soon as Baroness Elmreich found herself alone in her bedroom, she +proceeded to examine its contents with minute care. Supper, she had been +told, was not till eight o'clock, and she had not much to unpack; so +laying aside her hat and cloak, and glancing at the reflection of her +little curls in the glass to see whether they were as they should be, +she began her inspection of each separate article in her room, taking +each one up and scrutinising it, holding the jars of hepaticas high +above her head in order to see whether the price was marked underneath, +untidying the bed to feel the quality of the sheets, poking the mattress +to discover the nature of the stuffing, and investigating with special +attention the embroidery on the pillow-cases. But everything was as +dainty and as perfect as enthusiasm could make it. Nowhere, with her +best endeavours, could she discover the signs she was looking for of +cheapness and shabbiness in less noticeable things that would have +helped her to understand her hostess. "This embroidery has cost at least +two marks the meter," she said to herself, fingering it. "She must roll +in money. And the wall-paper—how unpractical! It is so light that every +mark will be seen. The flies alone will ruin it in a month."</p> + +<p>She shrugged her shoulders, and smiled; strange to say, the thought of +Anna's paper being spoiled pleased her.</p> + +<p>Never had she been in a room the least like this one. If whitewash +prevailed downstairs, and in Anna's special haunts, it had not been +permitted to invade the bedrooms of the Chosen. Anna's reflections had +led her to the conclusion that the lives of these ladies had till then +probably been spent in bare places, and that they would accordingly feel +as much pleasure in the contemplation of carpets, papered walls, and +stuffed chairs, as she herself did in the severity of her whitewashed +rooms after the lavishly upholstered years of her youth. But the +daintiness and luxury only filled the baroness with doubts. She stood in +the middle of it looking round her when she had finished her tour of +inspection and had made guesses at the price of everything, and asked +herself who this Miss Estcourt could be. Anna would have been +considerably disappointed, and perhaps even moved to tears, if she had +known that the room she thought so pretty struck the baroness, whose +taste in furniture had not advanced beyond an appreciation for the dark +and heavy hangings and walnut-wood tables of her more prosperous years, +merely as odd. Odd, and very expensive. Where did the money come from +for this reckless furnishing with stuffs and colours that were bound to +show each stain? Her eye wandered along the shelves above the +writing-table—hers was the Heine and Maeterlinck room—and she wondered +what all the books were there for. She did not touch them as she had +touched everything else, for except an occasional novel, and, more +regularly, a journal beloved of German woman called the <i>Gartenlaube</i>, +she never read.</p> + +<p>On the writing-table lay a blotter, a pretty, embroidered thing that +said as plainly as blotter could say that it had been chosen with +immense care; and opening it she found notepaper and envelopes stamped +with the Kleinwalde address and her own monogram. This was Anna's little +special gift, a childish addition, the making of which had given her an +absurd amount of pleasure. The happy idea, as she called it, had come to +her one night when she lay awake thinking about her new friends and +going through the familiar process of discovering their tastes by +imagining herself in their place. "<i>Sonderbar</i>," was the baroness's +comment; and she decided that the best thing she could do would be to +ring the bell and endeavour to obtain private information about Miss +Estcourt by means of a prolonged cross-examination of the housemaid.</p> + +<p>She rang it, and then sat very straight and still on the sofa with her +hands folded in her lap, and waited. Her soul was full of doubts. Who +was this Miss, and where were the proofs that she was, as she had +pretended, of good birth? That she was not so very pious was evident; +for if she had been, some remark of a religious nature would inevitably +have been forthcoming when she first welcomed them to her house. No such +word, not the least approach to any such word, had been audible. There +had not even been an allusion, a sigh, or an upward glance. Yet the +pastor who had opened the correspondence had filled many pages with +expatiations on her zeal after righteousness. And then she was so young. +The baroness had expected to see an elderly person, or at least a person +of the age of everybody else, which was her own age; but this was a mere +girl, and a girl, too, who from the way she dressed, clearly thought +herself pretty. Surely it was strange that so young a woman should be +living here quite unattached, quite independent apparently of all +control, with a great deal of money at her disposal, and only one little +girl to give her a countenance? Suppose she were not a proper person at +all, suppose she were an outcast from society, a being on whom her own +countrypeople turned their backs? This desire to share her fortune with +respectable ladies could only be explained in two ways: either she had +been moved thereto by an enthusiastic piety of which not a trace had as +yet appeared, or she was an improper person anxious to rebuild her +reputation with the aid and countenance of the ladies of good family she +had entrapped into her house.</p> + +<p>The baroness stiffened as she sat. It was her brother who had cheated at +cards and shot himself, and it was her sister of whom Axel Lohm had +heard strange tales; and few people are more savagely proper than the +still respectable relations of the demoralised. "The service in this +house is very bad," she said aloud and irascibly, getting up to ring +again. "No doubt she has trouble with her servants."</p> + +<p>But there was a knock at the door while her hand was on the bell, and on +her calling "Come in," instead of the servant her hostess appeared, +dressed to the baroness's eye in a truly amazing and reprehensible +fashion, and looking as cheerful as an innocent infant for whom no such +thing as evil-doing exists. Also she seemed quite unconscious of her +clothes and bare neck, nor did she offer to explain why she was arrayed +as though she were going to a ball; and she stood a moment in the +doorway trying to say something in German and pretending to laugh at her +own ineffectual efforts, but really laughing, the baroness felt sure, in +order to show that she had dimples; which were not, after all, very +wonderful things to have—before she had grown so thin she almost had +one herself.</p> + +<p>"May I come in?" said Anna at last, giving up the other and more +complicated speech.</p> + +<p>"<i>Bitte</i>," said the baroness, with the smile the French call <i>pincé</i>.</p> + +<p>"Has no one been to unpack your things?"</p> + +<p>"I rang."</p> + +<p>"And no one came? Oh, I shall scold Marie. It is the only thing I can do +well in German. Can you speak English?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Nor understand it?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"French?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, you must be patient then with my bad German. When I am alone +with anyone it goes better, but if there are many people listening I am +nervous and can hardly speak at all. How glad I am that you are here!"</p> + +<p>Anna's shyness, now that she was by herself with one of her forlorn +ones, had vanished, and she prattled happily for some time, putting as +many mistakes into her sentences as they would hold, before she became +aware that the baroness's replies were monosyllabic, and that she was +examining her from head to foot with so much attention that there was +obviously none left over for the appreciation of her remarks.</p> + +<p>This made her feel shy again. Clothes to her were such secondary +considerations, things of so little importance. Susie had provided them, +and she had put them on, and there it had ended; and when she found that +it was her dress and not herself that was interesting the baroness, she +longed to have the courage to say, "Don't waste time over it now—I'll +send it to your room to-night, if you like, and you can look at it +comfortably—only don't waste time now. I want to talk to you, to <i>you</i> +who have suffered so much; I want to make friends with you quickly, to +make you begin to be happy quickly; so don't let us waste the precious +time thinking of clothes." But she had neither sufficient courage nor +sufficient German.</p> + +<p>She put out her hand rather timidly, and making an effort to bring her +companion's thoughts back to the things that mattered, said, "I hope you +will like living with me. I hope we shall be very happy together. I +can't tell you how happy it makes me to think that you are safely here, +and that you are going to stay with me always."</p> + +<p>The baroness's hands were clasped in front of her, and they did not +unclasp to meet Anna's; but at this speech she left off eyeing the +dress, and began to ask questions. "You are very lonely, I can see," she +said with another of the pinched smiles. "Have you then no relations? No +one of your own family who will live with you? Will not your <i>Frau Mama</i> +come to Germany?"</p> + +<p>"My mother is dead."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach</i>—mine also. And the <i>Herr Papa</i>?"</p> + +<p>"He is dead."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach</i>—mine also."</p> + +<p>"I know, I know," said Anna, stroking the unresponsive hands—a trick of +hers when she wanted to comfort that had often irritated Susie. "You +told me how lonely you were in your letters. I lived with my brother and +his wife till I came here. You have no brothers or sisters, I think you +wrote."</p> + +<p>"None," said the baroness with a rigid look.</p> + +<p>"Well, I am going to be your sister, if you will let me."</p> + +<p>"You are very good."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I am not good, only so happy—I have everything in the world that I +have ever wished to have, and now that you have come to share it all +there is nothing more I can think of that I want."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach</i>," said the baroness. Then she added, "Have you no aunts, or +cousins, who would come and stay with you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, heaps. But they are all well off and quite pleased, and they +wouldn't like staying here with me at all."</p> + +<p>"They would not like staying with you? How strange."</p> + +<p>"Very strange," laughed Anna. "You see they don't know how pleasant I +can be in my own house."</p> + +<p>"And your friends—they too will not come?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know if they would or not. I didn't ask them."</p> + +<p>"You have no one, no one at all who would come and live with you so that +you should not be so lonely?"</p> + +<p>"But I am not lonely," said Anna, looking down at the little woman with +a slightly amused expression, "and I don't in the least want to be lived +with."</p> + +<p>"Then why do you wish to fill your house with strangers?"</p> + +<p>"Why?" repeated Anna, a puzzled look coming into her eyes. Had not the +correspondence with the ultimately chosen been long? And were not all +her reasons duly set forth therein? "Why, because I want you to have +some of my nice things too."</p> + +<p>"But not your own friends and relations?"</p> + +<p>"They have everything they want."</p> + +<p>There was a silence. Anna left off stroking the baroness's hands. She +was thinking that this was a queer little person—outside, that is. +Inside, of course, she was very different, poor little lonely thing; but +her outer crust seemed thick; and she wondered how long it would take +her to get through it to the soul that she was sure was sweet and +lovable. She was also unable to repress a conviction that most people +would call these questions rude.</p> + +<p>But this train of thought was not one to be encouraged. "I am keeping +you here talking," she said, resuming her first cheerfulness, "and your +things are not unpacked yet. I shall go and scold Marie for not coming +when you rang, and I'll send her to you." And she went out quickly, +vexed with herself for feeling chilled, and left the baroness more full +of doubts than ever.</p> + +<p>When she had rebuked Marie, who looked gloomy, she tapped at Frau von +Treumann's door. No one answered. She knocked again. No one answered. +Then she opened the door softly and looked in.</p> + +<p>These were precious moments, she felt, these first moments of being +alone with each of her new friends, precious opportunities for breaking +ice. It is true she had not been able to break much of the ice encasing +the baroness, but she was determined not to be cast down by any of the +little difficulties she was sure to encounter at first, and she looked +into Frau von Treumann's room with fresh hope in her heart.</p> + +<p>What, then, was her dismay to find that lady walking up and down with +the long strides of extreme excitement, her face bathed in tears.</p> + +<p>"Oh—what's the matter?" gasped Anna, shutting the door quickly and +hurrying in.</p> + +<p>Frau von Treumann had not heard the gentle taps, and when she saw her, +started, and tried to hide her face in her handkerchief.</p> + +<p>"Tell me what is the matter," begged Anna, her voice full of tenderness.</p> + +<p>"<i>Nichts, nichts</i>," was the hasty reply. "I did not hear you knock——"</p> + +<p>"Tell me what is the matter," begged Anna again, fairly putting her arms +round the poor lady. "Our letters have said so much already—surely +there is nothing you cannot tell me now? And if I can help you——"</p> + +<p>Frau von Treumann freed herself by a hasty movement, and began to walk +up and down again. "No, no, you can do nothing—you can do nothing," she +said, and wept as she walked.</p> + +<p>Anna watched her in consternation.</p> + +<p>"See to what I have come—see to what I have come!" said the agitated +lady under her breath but with passionate intensity, as she passed and +repassed her dismayed hostess; "oh, to have fallen so low! oh, to have +fallen so low!"</p> + +<p>"So low?" echoed Anna, greatly concerned.</p> + +<p>"At my age—I, a Treumann—I, a <i>geborene</i> Gräfin Ilmas-Kadenstein—to +live on charity—to be a member of a charitable institution!"</p> + +<p>"Institution? Charity? Oh no, no!" cried Anna. "It is a home here, and +there is no charity in it from the attic to the cellar." And she went +towards her with outstretched hands.</p> + +<p>"A home! Yes, that is it," cried Frau von Treumann, waving her back, "it +is a home, a charitable home!"</p> + +<p>"No, not a home like that—a real home, my home, your home—<i>ein Heim</i>," +Anna protested; but vainly, because the German word <i>Heim</i> and the +English word "home" have little meaning in common.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ein Heim, ein Heim</i>," repeated Frau von Treumann with extraordinary +bitterness, "<i>ein Frauenheim</i>—yes, that is what it is, and everybody +knows it."</p> + +<p>"Everybody knows it?"</p> + +<p>"How could I think," she said, wringing her hands, "how could I think +when I decided to come here that the whole world was to be made +acquainted with your plans? I thought they were to be kept private, that +the world was to think we were your friends——"</p> + +<p>"And so you are."</p> + +<p>"—your guests——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, more than guests—this is home."</p> + +<p>"Home! Home! Always that word——" And she burst into a fresh torrent of +tears.</p> + +<p>Anna stood helpless. What she said appeared only to aggravate Frau von +Treumann's sorrow and rage—for surely there was anger as well as +sorrow? She was at a complete loss for the reason of this outburst. Had +not every detail been discussed in the correspondence? Had not that +correspondence been exhaustive even to boredom?</p> + +<p>"You have told your servants——"</p> + +<p>"My servants?"</p> + +<p>"You have told them that we are objects of charity——"</p> + +<p>"I——" began Anna, and then was silent.</p> + +<p>"It is not true—I have come here from very different motives—but they +think me an object of charity. I rang the bell—I cannot unstrap my +trunks—I never have been expected to unstrap trunks." The sobs here +interfered for a moment with further speech. "After a long while—your +servant came—she was insolent—the trunks are there still +unstrapped—you see them—she knows—everything."</p> + +<p>"She shall go to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"The others think the same thing."</p> + +<p>"They shall go to-morrow—that is, have they been rude to you?"</p> + +<p>"Not yet, but they will be."</p> + +<p>"When they are, they shall go."</p> + +<p>"I went into the corridor to seek other assistance, and I met—I +met——"</p> + +<p>"Who?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, to have fallen so low!" cried Frau von Treumann, clasping her +hands, and raising her streaming eyes to the ceiling.</p> + +<p>"But who did you meet?"</p> + +<p>"I met—I met the Penheim."</p> + +<p>"The Penheim? Do you mean Princess Ludwig?"</p> + +<p>"You never said she was here——"</p> + +<p>"I did not know that it would interest you."</p> + +<p>"—living on charity—she was always shameless—I was at school with +her. Oh, I would not have come for any inducement if I had known she was +here! She holds nothing sacred, she will boast of her own degradation, +she will write to all her friends that I am here too—I told them I was +coming only on a visit to you—they knew I knew your uncle—but the +Penheim—the Penheim——" and Frau von Treumann threw herself into a +chair and covered her face with her hands to shut out the horrid vision.</p> + +<p>The corners of Anna's mouth began to take the upward direction that +would end in a smile; and feeling how ill-placed such a contortion would +be in the presence of this tumultuous grief, she brought them carefully +back to a position of proper solemnity. Besides, why should she smile? +The poor lady was clearly desperately unhappy about something, though +what it was Anna did not quite know. She had looked forward to this +first evening with her new friends as to a thing apart, a thing beyond +the ordinary experience of life, profound in its peace, perfect in its +harmony, the first taste of rest after war, of port after stormy seas; +and here was Frau von Treumann plunged in a very audible grief, and in +the next room was the baroness, a disconcerting combination of +inquisitiveness and ice, and farther down the passage was Fräulein +Kuhräuber—in what state, Anna wondered, would she find Fräulein +Kuhräuber? Anyhow she had little reason to smile. But the horror with +which Princess Ludwig had been mentioned seemed droll beside her own +knowledge of the sterling qualities of that excellent woman. She went +over to the chair in which Frau von Treumann lay prostrate, and sat down +beside her. She was glad that they had reached the stage of sitting +down, for talking is difficult to a person who will not keep still.</p> + +<p>"How sorry I am," she said, in her pretty, hesitating German, "that you +should have been made unhappy the very first evening. Marie is a little +wretch. Don't let her stupidity make you miserable. You shall not see +her again, I promise you." And she patted Frau von Treumann's arm. "But +about Princess Ludwig, now," she went on cheerfully, "she has been here +some weeks and you soon learn to know a person you are with every day, +and really I have found her nothing but good and kind."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach</i>, she is shameless—she recoils before no degradation!" burst out +Frau von Treumann, suddenly removing her hands from her face. "The +trouble she has given her relations! She delights in dragging her name +in the dirt. She has tried to get places in the most impossible +families, and made no attempt to hide what she was doing. She has broken +the old Fürst's heart. And she talks about it all, and has no shame, no +decency——"</p> + +<p>"But is it not admirable——" began Anna.</p> + +<p>"She will gloat over me, and tell everyone that I am here in the same +way as she is. If she is not ashamed for herself, do you think she will +spare me?"</p> + +<p>"But why should you think there is anything to be ashamed of in coming +to live with me and be my dear friend?"</p> + +<p>"No, there is nothing, so long as my motives in coming are known. But +people talk so cruelly, and will distort the facts so gladly, and we +have always held our heads so high. And now the Penheim!" She sobbed +afresh.</p> + +<p>"I shall ask the princess not to write to anyone about your being here."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach</i>, I know her—she will do it all the same."</p> + +<p>"No, I don't think so. She does everything I ask. You see, she takes +care of my house for me. She is not here in the same way that—that you +and Baroness Elmreich are, and her interest is to stay here."</p> + +<p>Frau von Treumann's bowed head went up with a jerk. "<i>Ach?</i> She has +found a place at last? She is your paid companion? Your housekeeper?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and she is goodness itself, and I don't believe she would be +unkind and make mischief for worlds."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach so!</i>" said Frau von Treumann, "<i>ach so-o-o-o!</i>"—a long drawn out +<i>so</i> of complete comprehension. Her tears ceased as if by magic. She +dried her eyes. Yes, of course the Penheim would hold her tongue if Miss +Estcourt ordered her to do so. She had heard all about her efforts to +find places, and she would probably be very careful not to lose this +one. The poor Penheim. So she was actually working for wages. What a +come-down for a Dettingen! And the Dettingens had always treated the +Treumanns as though they belonged merely to the <i>kleine Adel</i>. Well, +well, each one in turn. She was the dear friend, and the Penheim was the +housekeeper. Well, well.</p> + +<p>She sat up straight, smoothed her hair, and resumed her first manner of +quiet dignity. "I am sorry that you should have witnessed my agitation," +she said, with a faint smile. "I am not easily betrayed into exhibitions +of feeling, but there are limits to one's endurance, there are certain +things the bravest cannot bear."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Anna.</p> + +<p>"And for a Treumann, social disgrace, any action that in the least soils +our honour and makes us unable to hold up our heads, is worse than +death."</p> + +<p>"But I don't see any disgrace."</p> + +<p>"No, no, there is none so long as facts are not distorted. It is quite +simple—you need friends and I am willing to be your friend. That was +how my son looked at it. He said '<i>Liebe Mama</i>, she evidently needs +friends and sympathy—why should you hesitate to make yourself of use? +You must regard it as a good work.' You would like my son; his brother +officers adore him."</p> + +<p>"Really?" said Anna.</p> + +<p>"He is so sensible, so reasonable; he is beloved and respected by the +whole regiment. I will show you his photograph—<i>ach</i>, the trunks are +still unstrapped."</p> + +<p>"I'll go and send someone—but not Marie," said Anna, getting up +quickly. She had no desire to see the photograph, and the son's way of +looking at things had considerably astonished her. "It must be nearly +supper time. Would you not rather lie down and let me send you something +here? Your head must ache after crying so much. You have baptised our +new life with tears. I hope it is a good omen."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I will come down. You will do as you promised, will you not, and +forbid the Penheim to gossip?"</p> + +<p>"I shall tell the princess your wishes."</p> + +<p>"Or, if she must gossip, let her tell the truth at least. If my son had +not pressed me to come here I really do not think——"</p> + +<p>Anna went slowly and meditatively down the passage to Fräulein +Kuhräuber's room. For a moment she thought of omitting this last visit +altogether; she was afraid lest the Fräulein should be in some +unlooked-for and perplexing condition of mind. Discouraged? Oh no; she +was surely not discouraged already. How had the word come into her head? +She quickened her steps. When she reached the door she remembered the +cup and the sugar-tongs. Perhaps something in the bedroom was already +broken, and the Fräulein would be disclosed sitting in the ruins in +tears, for she was unexpectedly large, and the contents of her room were +frail. But then woe of that sort was as easily assuaged as broken +furniture was mended. It was the more complicated grief of Frau von +Treumann that she felt unable to soothe. As to that, she preferred not +to think about it at present, and barricaded her thoughts against its +image with that consoling sentence, <i>Tout comprendre c'est tout +pardonner.</i> It was a sentence she was fond of; but she had not expected +that she would need its reassurance so soon.</p> + +<p>She opened the door, and the puckers smoothed themselves out of her +forehead at once, for here, at last, was peace. There had been no +difficulties here with bells, and straps, and Marie. The trunks had been +opened and unpacked without assistance; and when Anna came in the +contents were all put away and Fräulein Kuhräuber, washed and combed and +in her Sunday blouse, was sitting in an easy chair by the window +absorbed in a book. Satisfaction was written broadly on her face; +content was expressed by every lazy line of her attitude. When she saw +Anna, she got up and made a curtsey and beamed. The beams were instantly +reflected in Anna's face, and they beamed at each other.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Anna, who felt perfectly at her ease with this member of +her trio, "are you happy?"</p> + +<p>Fräulein Kuhräuber blushed, and beamed more than ever. She was far less +shy of Anna than she was of those two terrible <i>adelige Damen</i>, her +travelling companions; but at no time had she had much conversation. +Hers had been a ruminative existence, for its uncertainty but rarely +disturbed her. Had she not an excellent digestion, and a fixed belief +that the righteous, of whom she was one, would never be forsaken? And +are not these the primary conditions of happiness? Indeed, if everything +else is wanting, these two ingredients by themselves are sufficient for +the concoction of a very palatable life.</p> + +<p>"You have found an interesting book already?" Anna asked, pleased that +the literature chosen with such care should have met with instant +appreciation. She took it up to see what it was, but put it down again +hastily, for it was the cookery book.</p> + +<p>"I read much," observed Fräulein Kuhräuber.</p> + +<p>"Yes?" said Anna, a flicker of hope reviving in her heart. Perhaps the +cookery book was an accident.</p> + +<p>"I know by heart more than a hundred recipes for sweet dishes alone."</p> + +<p>"Really?" said Anna, the flicker expiring.</p> + +<p>"So you can have an idea of the number of books I have read."</p> + +<p>"Here are a great many more for you to read."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach ja, ach ja</i>," said Fräulein Kuhräuber, glancing doubtfully at the +shelves; "but one must not waste too much time over it—there are other +things in life. I read only useful books."</p> + +<p>"Well, that is very praiseworthy," said Anna, smiling. "If you like +cookery books, I must get you some more."</p> + +<p>"How good you are—how very, very good!" said the Fräulein, gazing at +the charming figure before her with heartfelt admiration and gratitude. +"This beautiful room—I cannot look at it enough. I cannot believe it is +really for me—for me to sleep in and be in whenever I choose. What have +I done to deserve all this?"</p> + +<p>What had she done, indeed? She had not even been unhappy, although of +course she had had every opportunity of being so, sent from place to +place, from one indignant <i>Hausfrau</i> to another, ever since she left +school. But Anna, persuaded that she had rescued her from depths of +unspeakable despair, was overjoyed by this speech. "Don't talk about +deserving," she said tenderly. "You have had such a life that if you +were to be happy now without stopping once for the next fifty years it +would only be just and right."</p> + +<p>Fräulein Kuhräuber's approval of this sentiment was so entire that she +seized Anna's hand and kissed it fervently. Anna laughed while this was +going on, and her eyes grew brighter. She had not wanted gratitude, but +now that it had come it was very encouraging after all, and very +warming. She put one arm impulsively round the Fräulein's neck and +kissed her, and this was practically the first kiss that lady had ever +received, for the perfunctory embraces of reluctantly dutiful aunts can +hardly be called by that pretty name.</p> + +<p>"Now," said Anna, with a happy laugh, "we are going to be friends for +ever. Come, let us go down. That was the supper bell."</p> + +<p>And they went downstairs together, appearing in the doorway of the +drawing-room arm in arm, as though they had loved each other for years.</p> + +<p>"As though they were twins," muttered the baroness to Frau von Treumann, +who shrugged one shoulder slightly by way of reply.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + + +<p>But in spite of this little outburst of gratitude and appreciation from +Fräulein Kuhräuber, the first evening of the new life was a +disappointment. The Fräulein, who entered the room so happily under the +impression of that recent kiss, became awkward and uncomfortable the +moment she caught sight of the others; lapsing, indeed, into a quite +pitiful state of nervous flutter on being brought for the first time +within the range of the princess's critical and unsympathetic eye. Her +experience had not included princesses, and, as she made a series of +agitated curtseys, deeming one altogether insufficient for so great a +lady, she felt as though that cold eye were piercing her through easily, +and had already discovered the inmost recess of her soul, where lay, so +carefully hidden, the memory of the postman. Every time the princess +looked at her, a sudden vivid consciousness of the postman flamed up +within her, utterly refusing to be extinguished by the soothing +recollection that he had been angelic for thirty years. That obviously +experienced eye and those pursed lips upset her so completely that she +made no remark whatever during the meal that followed, but sat next to +Anna and ate <i>Leberwurst</i> in a kind of uneasy dream; and she ate it with +a degree of emphasis so unusual among the polite and so disastrous to +the peace of the ultra-fastidious that Anna felt there really was some +slight excuse for the frequent and lengthy stares that came from the +other end of the table. "Yet she is an immortal soul—what does it +matter how she eats <i>Leberwurst</i>?" said Anna to herself. "What do such +trifles, such little mannerisms, really matter? I should indeed be a +miserable creature if I let them annoy me." But she turned her head +away, nevertheless, and talked assiduously to Letty.</p> + +<p>There was no one else for her to talk to. Frau von Treumann and the +baroness had seated themselves at once one on either side of the +princess, and devoted their conversation entirely to her. In the +drawing-room later on, the same thing happened,—the three German ladies +clustering together near the sofa, and the three English being left +somehow to themselves, except for Fräulein Kuhräuber, who clung to them. +To avoid this division into what looked like hostile camps Anna pushed +her chair to a place midway between the groups, and tried to join, +though not very successfully, in the talk of each in turn. Outward calm +prevailed in the room, subdued voices, the tranquillity of fancy-work, +and the peace of albums; yet Anna could not avoid a chilled impression, +a feeling as though each person present were distrustful of the others, +and more or less on the defensive. Frau von Treumann, it is true, was +graciousness itself to the princess, conversing with her constantly and +amiably, and showing herself kind; but, on the other hand, the princess +was hardly gracious to Frau von Treumann. An unbiassed observer would +have said that she disapproved of Frau von Treumann, but was +endeavouring to conceal her disapproval. She busied herself with her +embroidery and talked as little as she could, receiving both the +advances of Frau von Treumann and the attentions of the baroness with +equal coldness.</p> + +<p>As for the baroness, her doubts as to Anna's respectability were blown +away completely and forever when, on opening the drawing-room door +before supper, she had beheld no less a person than the <i>geborene</i> +Dettingen seated on the sofa. The baroness had spent her life in a +remote and tiny provincial town, but she knew the great Dettingen and +Penheim families well by name, and a princess in her opinion was a +princess, an altogether precious and admirable creature, whatever she +might choose to do. Her scruples, then, were set at rest, but her ice as +far as Anna was concerned showed no signs of thawing. All her amiability +and her efforts to produce a good impression were lavished on the +princess, who besides being by birth and marriage the grandest person +the baroness had yet met, spoke her own tongue properly, had no dimples, +and did not try to stroke her hand. She looked on with mingled awe and +irritation at the easy manner in which Frau von Treumann treated this +great lady. It almost seemed as though she were patronising her. Really +these Treumanns were a brazen-faced race; audacious East Prussian +Junkers, who thought themselves as good as or better than the best. And +this one was not even a true Treumann, but an Ilmas, and of the inferior +Kadenstein branch; and the baroness's brother—that brother whose end +was so abrupt—had been quartered once during the manœuvres at +Kadenstein, and had told her that it was a wretched place, with a +fowl-run that wanted mending within a few yards of the front door, and +that, the door standing open all day long, he had frequently met fowls +walking about in the hall and passages. Yet remembering the brother's +story, and how there was no shadow of the sort resting at present on +Frau von Treumann, though as she had a son there was no telling how long +her shadowless state would last, she tried to ingratiate herself with +that lady, who met her advances coolly, only warming into something like +responsiveness when Fräulein Kuhräuber was in question.</p> + +<p>Fräulein Kuhräuber sat behind Letty and Miss Leech, as far away from the +others as she could. She had a stocking in her hand, but she did not +knit. She never knitted if she could avoid it, and was conscious that +from want of practice her needles moved more slowly than is usual—so +slowly, indeed, as to be conspicuous. Letty showed her photographs and +was very kind to her, instinctively perceiving that here was someone who +was as uneasy under the tall lady's stares as she was herself. She +privately thought her by far the best of the new arrivals, and wished +she knew enough German to inquire into her views respecting Schiller; +there was something in the Fräulein's looks and manner that made her +think they would agree about Schiller.</p> + +<p>Anna, too, ended by talking exclusively to this group. Her attempts to +join in what the others were saying had been unsuccessful; and with a +little twinge of disappointment, and a feeling of being for some +unexplained reason curiously out of it, she turned to Fräulein +Kuhräuber, and devoted herself more and more to her.</p> + +<p>"They are inseparables already," remarked the baroness in a low voice to +Frau von Treumann. "The Miss finds her congenial, it seems." She could +not forgive those doors she had gone through last.</p> + +<p>The princess looked up for a moment over the spectacles she wore when +she worked, at Anna.</p> + +<p>"Fräulein Kuhräuber makes an excellent foil," said Frau von Treumann. +"Miss Estcourt looks quite ethereal next to her."</p> + +<p>"Do you think her pretty?" asked the baroness.</p> + +<p>"She is very distinguished-looking."</p> + +<p>A servant came in at that moment and announced Dellwig's usual evening +visit, and Anna got up and went out. They watched her as she walked down +the long room, and when she had disappeared began to discuss her more at +their ease, their rapid German being quite incomprehensible to Letty and +Miss Leech.</p> + +<p>"Where has she gone?" asked the baroness.</p> + +<p>"She has gone to talk to her inspector," said the princess.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach so</i>," said the baroness.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach so</i>," said Frau von Treumann.</p> + +<p>"Is the inspector young?" asked the baroness.</p> + +<p>"Oh no, quite old," said the princess.</p> + +<p>"These English are a strange race," said Frau von Treumann. "What German +girl of that age would you find with so much energy and enterprise?"</p> + +<p>"Is she so very young?" inquired the baroness, with a look of mild +surprise.</p> + +<p>"Why, she is plainly little more than a child," said Frau von Treumann.</p> + +<p>"She is twenty-five," said the princess.</p> + +<p>"Rather an old child," observed the baroness.</p> + +<p>"She looks much younger. But twenty-five is surely young enough for this +life, away from her own people," said Frau von Treumann.</p> + +<p>"Yes—why does she lead it?" asked the baroness eagerly. "Can you tell +us, Frau Prinzessin? Has she then quarrelled with all her friends?"</p> + +<p>"Miss Estcourt has not told me so."</p> + +<p>"But she must have quarrelled. Eccentric as the English are, there are +limits to their eccentricity, and no one leaves home and friends and +country without some good reason." And Frau von Treumann shook her head.</p> + +<p>"She has quarrelled, I am sure," said the baroness.</p> + +<p>"I think so too," said Frau von Treumann; "I thought so from the first. +My son also thought so. You remember Karlchen, princess?"</p> + +<p>"Perfectly."</p> + +<p>"I discussed the question thoroughly with him, of course, as to whether +I should come here or not. I confess I did not want to come. It was a +great wrench, giving up everything, and going so far from my son. But +after all one must not be selfish." And Frau von Treumann sighed and +paused.</p> + +<p>No one said anything, so she continued: "One feels, as one grows older, +how great are the claims of others. And a widow with only one son can do +so much, can make herself of so much use. That is what Karlchen said. +When I hesitated—for I fear one does hesitate before inconvenience—he +said, '<i>Liebste Mama</i>, it would be a charity to go to the poor young +lady. You who have always been the first to extend a sympathetic hand to +the friendless, how is it that you hesitate now? Depend upon it, she has +had differences at home and needs countenance and help. You have no +encumbrances. You can go more easily than others. You must regard it as +a good work.' And that decided me."</p> + +<p>The princess let her work drop for a moment into her lap, and gazed over +her spectacles at Frau von Treumann. "<i>Wirklich?</i>" she said in a voice +of deep interest. "Those were your reasons? <i>Aber herrlich.</i>"</p> + +<p>"Yes, those were my reasons," replied Frau von Treumann, returning her +gaze with pensive but steady eyes. "Those were my chief reasons. I +regard it as a work of charity."</p> + +<p>"But this is noble," murmured the princess, resuming her work.</p> + +<p>"That is how <i>I</i> have regarded it," put in the baroness. "I agree with +you entirely, dear Frau von Treumann."</p> + +<p>"I do not pretend to disguise," went on Frau von Treumann, "that it is +an economy for me to live here, but poor as I have been since my dear +husband's death—you remember Karl, princess?"</p> + +<p>"Perfectly."</p> + +<p>"Poor as I have been, I always had sufficient for my simple wants, and +should not have dreamed of altering my life if Miss Estcourt's letters +had not been so appealing."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach</i>—they were appealing?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, a heart of stone would have been melted by them. And a widow's +heart is not of stone, as you must know yourself. The orphan appealing +to the widow—it was irresistible."</p> + +<p>"Well, you see she is not by any means alone," said the princess +cheerfully. "Here we are, five of us counting the little Letty, +surrounding her. So you must not sacrifice yourself unnecessarily."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I am not one of those who having put their hand to the plough——"</p> + +<p>"But where is the plough, dear Frau von Treumann? You see there is, +after all, no plough."</p> + +<p>"Dear princess, you always were so literal."</p> + +<p>"Ah, you used to reproach me with that in the old days, when you wrote +poetry and read it to me and I was rude enough to ask if it meant +anything. We did not think then that we should meet here, did we?"</p> + +<p>"No, indeed. And I cannot tell you how much I admire your courage."</p> + +<p>"My courage? What fine qualities you invest me with!"</p> + +<p>"Miss Estcourt has told me how admirably you discharge your duties here. +It is wonderful to me. You are an example to us all, and you make me +feel ashamed of my own uselessness."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you underrate yourself. People who leave everything to go and help +others cannot talk of being useless. Yes, I look after her house for +her, and I hope to look after her as well."</p> + +<p>"After her? Is that one of your duties? Did she stipulate for personal +supervision when she engaged you? How times are changed! When my Karl +was alive, and we lived at Sommershof, I certainly would not have +tolerated that my housekeeper should keep me in order as well as my +house."</p> + +<p>"The case was surely different, dear Frau von Treumann. Here is an +unusually pretty young thing, with money. She will need all the +protection I can give her, and it is a satisfaction to me to feel that I +am here and able to give it."</p> + +<p>"But she may any day turn round and request you to go."</p> + +<p>"That of course may happen, but I hope it will not until she is safe."</p> + +<p>"But do you think her so pretty?" put in the baroness wonderingly.</p> + +<p>"Safe? What special dangers do you then apprehend for her?" asked Frau +von Treumann with a look of amusement. "Dear princess, you always did +take your duties so seriously. What a treasure you would have been to me +in many ways. It is admirable. But do your duties really include +watching over Miss Estcourt's heart? For I suppose you are thinking of +her heart?"</p> + +<p>"I am thinking of adventurers," said the princess. "Any young man with +no money would naturally be delighted to secure this young lady and +Kleinwalde. And those who instead of money have debts, would naturally +be still more delighted." And the princess in her turn gazed pensively +but steadily at Frau von Treumann. "No," she said, taking up her work +again, "I was not thinking of her heart, but of the annoyance she might +be put to. I do not fancy that her heart would easily be touched."</p> + +<p>Anna came in at that moment for a paper she wanted, and heard the last +words. "What," she said, smiling, as she unlocked the drawer of her +writing-table and rummaged among the contents, "you are talking about +hearts? You see it is true that women can't be together half an hour +without getting on to subjects like that. If you were three men, now, +you would talk of pigs." Then, a sudden recollection of Uncle Joachim +coming into her mind, she added with conviction, "And pigs are better."</p> + +<p>Nor was it till she had closed the door behind her that it struck her +that when she came into the room both the princess and Frau von Treumann +were looking preternaturally bland.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + + +<p>Axel Lohm was in the hall, having his coat taken from him by a servant.</p> + +<p>"You here?" exclaimed Anna, holding out both hands. She was more than +usually pleased to see him.</p> + +<p>"Manske had a pile of letters for you, and could not get them to you +because he has a pastors' conference at his house. I was there and saw +the letters, and thought you might want them."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't want them—at least, there is no hurry. But the letters are +only an excuse. Now isn't it so?"</p> + +<p>"An excuse?" he repeated, flushing.</p> + +<p>"You want to see the new arrivals."</p> + +<p>"Not in the very least."</p> + +<p>"Oh, oh! But as you have come one minute too soon, and happened to meet +me outside the door, your plan is spoilt. Are those the letters? What a +pile!" Her face fell.</p> + +<p>"But you are looking for nine more ladies. You want a wide choice. You +have still the greater part of your work before you."</p> + +<p>"I know. Why do you tell me that?"</p> + +<p>"Because you do not seem pleased to get them."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, I am; but I am tired to-night, and the idea of nine more ladies +makes me feel—feel sleepy."</p> + +<p>She stood under the lamp, holding the packet loosely by its string and +smiling up to him. There were shadows in her eyes, he thought, where he +was used to seeing two cheerful little lights shining, and a faint +ruefulness in the smile.</p> + +<p>"Well, if you are tired you must go to bed," he said, in such a matter +of fact tone that they both laughed.</p> + +<p>"No, I mustn't," said Anna; "I am on my way to Herr Dellwig at this very +moment. He's in there," she said, with a motion of her head towards the +dining-room door. "Tell me," she added, lowering her voice, "have you +got a brick-kiln at Lohm?"</p> + +<p>"A brick-kiln? No. Why do you want to know?"</p> + +<p>"But why haven't you got a brick-kiln?"</p> + +<p>"Because there is nothing to make bricks with. Lohm is almost entirely +sand."</p> + +<p>"He says there is splendid clay here in one part, and wants to build +one."</p> + +<p>"Who? Dellwig?"</p> + +<p>"Sh—sh."</p> + +<p>"Your uncle would have built one long ago if there really had been clay. +I must look at the place he means. I cannot remember any such place. And +it is unlikely that it should be as he says. Pray do not agree to any +propositions of the kind hastily."</p> + +<p>"It would cost heaps to set it going, wouldn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and probably bring in nothing at all."</p> + +<p>"But he tries to make out that it would be quite cheap. He says the +timber could all be got out of the forest. I can't bear the thought of +cutting down a lot of trees."</p> + +<p>"If you can't bear the thought of anything he proposes, then simply +refuse to consider it."</p> + +<p>"But he talks and talks till it really seems that he is right. He told +me just now that it would double the value of the estate."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe it."</p> + +<p>"If I made bricks, according to him I could take in twice as many poor +ladies."</p> + +<p>"I believe you will be happier with fewer ladies and no bricks," said +Axel with great positiveness.</p> + +<p>Anna stood thinking. Her eyes were fixed on the tip of the finger she +had passed through the loop of string that tied the letters together, +and she watched it as the packet twisted round and round and pinched it +redder and redder. "I suppose you never wanted to be a woman," she said, +considering this phenomenon with apparent interest.</p> + +<p>Axel laughed.</p> + +<p>"The mere question makes you laugh," she said, looking up quickly. "I +never heard of a man who did want to. But lots of women would give +anything to be men."</p> + +<p>"And you are one of them?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>He laughed again.</p> + +<p>"You think I would make a queer little man?" she said, laughing too; but +her face became sober immediately, and with a glance at the shut +dining-room door she continued: "It is so horrid to feel weak. My sister +Susie says I am very obstinate. Perhaps I was with her, but different +people have different effects on one." She sank her voice to a whisper, +and looked at him anxiously. "You can't think what an <i>effort</i> it is to +me to say No to that man."</p> + +<p>"What, to Dellwig?"</p> + +<p>"Sh—sh."</p> + +<p>"But if that is how you feel, my dear Miss Estcourt, it is very evident +that the man must go."</p> + +<p>"How easy it is to say that! Pray, who is to tell him to go?"</p> + +<p>"I will, if you wish."</p> + +<p>"If you were a woman, do you suppose you would be able to turn out an +old servant who has worked here so many years?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am sure I would, if I felt that he was getting beyond my +control."</p> + +<p>"No, you wouldn't. All sorts of things would stop you. You would +remember that your uncle specially told you to keep him on, that he has +been here ages, that he was faithful and devoted——"</p> + +<p>"I do not believe there was much devotion."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, there was. The first evening he cried about dear Uncle +Joachim."</p> + +<p>"He cried?" repeated Axel incredulously.</p> + +<p>"He did indeed."</p> + +<p>"It was about something else, then."</p> + +<p>"No, he really cried about Uncle Joachim. He really loved him."</p> + +<p>Axel looked profoundly unconvinced.</p> + +<p>"But after all those are not the real reasons," said Anna; "they ought +to be, but they're not. The simple truth is that I am a coward, and I am +frightened—dreadfully frightened—of possible scenes." And she looked +at him and laughed ruefully. "There—you see what it is to be a woman. +If I were a man, how easy things would be. Please consider the +mortification of knowing that if he persuades long enough I shall give +in, against my better judgment. He has the strongest will I think I ever +came across."</p> + +<p>"But you have not yet given in, I hope, on any point of importance?"</p> + +<p>"Up to now I have managed to say No to everything I don't want to do. +But you would laugh if you knew what those Nos cost me. Why cannot the +place go on as it was? I am perfectly satisfied. But hardly a day passes +without some wonderful new plan being laid before me, and he talks—oh, +how he talks! I believe he would convince even you."</p> + +<p>"The man is quite beyond your control," said Axel in a voice of anger; +and voices of anger commonly being loud voices, this one produced the +effect of three doors being simultaneously opened: the door leading to +the servants' quarters, through which Marie looked and vanished again, +retreating to the kitchen to talk prophetically of weddings; the +dining-room door, behind which Dellwig had grown more and more impatient +at being kept waiting so long; and the drawing-room door, on the other +side of which the baroness had been lingering for some moments, desiring +to go upstairs for her scissors, but hesitating to interrupt Anna's +business with the inspector, whose voice she thought it was that she +heard.</p> + +<p>The baroness shut her door again immediately. "<i>Aha</i>—the admirer!" she +said to herself; and went back quickly to her seat. "The Miss is talking +to a <i>jünge Herr</i>," she announced, her eyes wider open than ever.</p> + +<p>"A <i>jünge Herr</i>?" echoed Frau von Treumann. "I thought the inspector was +old?"</p> + +<p>"It must be Axel Lohm," said the princess, not raising her eyes from her +work. "He often comes in."</p> + +<p>"He comes courting, evidently," said the baroness with a sub-acid smile.</p> + +<p>"It has not been evident to me," said the princess coldly.</p> + +<p>"I thought it looked like it," said the baroness, with more meekness.</p> + +<p>"Is that the Lohm who was engaged to one of the Kiederfels girls some +years ago?" asked Frau von Treumann.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and she died."</p> + +<p>"But did he not marry soon afterwards? I heard he married."</p> + +<p>"That was the second brother. This one is the eldest, and lives next to +us, and is single."</p> + +<p>Frau von Treumann was silent for a moment. Then she said blandly, "Now +confess, princess, that <i>he</i> is the perilous person from whom you think +it necessary to defend Miss Estcourt."</p> + +<p>"Oh no," said the princess with equal blandness; "I have no fears about +him."</p> + +<p>"What, is he too possessed of an invulnerable heart?"</p> + +<p>"I know nothing of his heart. I said, I believe, adventurers. And no one +could call Axel Lohm an adventurer. I was thinking of men who have run +through all their own and all their relations' money in betting and +gambling, and who want a wife who will pay their debts."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach so</i>," said Frau von Treumann with perfect urbanity. And if this +talk about protecting Miss Estcourt from adventurers in a place where +there were apparently no human beings of any kind, but only trees and +marshes, might seem to a bystander to be foolishness, to the speakers it +was luminousness itself, and in no way increased their love for each +other.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Dellwig, looking through the door and seeing Lohm, brought his +heels together and bowed with his customary exaggeration. "I beg a +thousand times pardon," he said; "I thought the gracious Miss was +engaged and would not return, and I was about to go home."</p> + +<p>"I have found the paper, and am coming," said Anna coldly. "Well, +good-night," she added in English, holding out her hand to Axel.</p> + +<p>"If you will allow me, I should like to pay my respects to Princess +Ludwig before I go," he said, thinking thus to see her later.</p> + +<p>"Ah! wasn't I right?" she said, smiling. "You are determined to look at +the new arrivals. How can a man be so inquisitive? But I will say +good-night all the same. I shall be ages with Herr Dellwig, and shall +not see you again." She shook hands with him, and went into the +dining-room, Dellwig standing aside with deep respect to let her pass. +But she turned to say something to him as he shut the door, and Axel +caught the expression of her face, the intense boredom on it, the +profound distrust of self; and he went in to the princess with an +unusually severe and determined look on his own.</p> + +<p>Dellwig went home that night in a savage mood. "That young man," he said +to his wife, flinging his hat and coat on to a chair and himself on to a +sofa, "is thrusting himself more and more into our affairs."</p> + +<p>"That Lohm?" she asked, rolling up her work preparatory to fetching his +evening drink.</p> + +<p>"I had almost got the Miss to consent to the brick-kiln. She was quite +reasonable, and went out to get the plan I had made. Then she met +him—he is always hanging about."</p> + +<p>"And then?" inquired Frau Dell wig eagerly.</p> + +<p>"Pah—this petticoat government—having to beg and pray for the smallest +concession—it makes an honest man sick."</p> + +<p>"She will not consent?"</p> + +<p>"She came back as obstinate as a mule. It all had to be gone into again +from the beginning."</p> + +<p>"She will not consent?"</p> + +<p>"She said Lohm would look at the place and advise her."</p> + +<p>"<i>Aber so was!</i>" cried Frau Dellwig, crimson with wrath. "Advise her? +Did you not tell her that you were her adviser?"</p> + +<p>"You may be sure I did. I told her plainly enough, I fancy, that Lohm +had nothing to say here, and that her uncle had always listened to me. +She sat without speaking, as she generally does, not even looking at +me—I never can be sure that she is even listening."</p> + +<p>"And then?"</p> + +<p>"I asked her at last if she had lost confidence in me."</p> + +<p>"And then?"</p> + +<p>"She said <i>oh nein</i>, in her affected foreign way—in the sort of voice +that might just as well mean <i>oh ja</i>." And he imitated, with great +bitterness, Anna's way of speaking German. "Mark my words, Frau, she is +as weak as water for all her obstinacy, and the last person who talks to +her can always bring her round."</p> + +<p>"Then you must be the last person."</p> + +<p>"If it were not for that prig Lohm, that interfering ass, that +incomparable rhinoceros——"</p> + +<p>"He wants to marry her, of course."</p> + +<p>"If he marries her——" Dellwig stopped short, and stared gloomily at +his muddy boots.</p> + +<p>"If he marries her——" repeated his wife; but she too stopped short. +They both knew well enough what would happen to them if he married her.</p> + +<p>The building of the brick-kiln had come to be a point of honour with the +Dellwigs. Ever since Anna's arrival, their friends the neighbouring +farmers and inspectors had been congratulating them on their complete +emancipation from all manner of control; for of course a young ignorant +lady would leave the administration of her estate entirely in her +inspector's hands, confining her activities, as became a lady of birth, +to paying the bills. Dellwig had not doubted that this would be so, and +had boasted loudly and continually of the different plans he had made +and was going to carry out. The estate of which he was now practically +master was to become renowned in the province for its enterprise and the +extent, in every direction, of its operations. The brick-kiln was a +long-cherished scheme. His oldest friend and rival, the head inspector +of a place on the other side of Stralsund, had one, and had constantly +urged him to have one too; but old Joachim, without illusions as to the +quality of the clay, and by no manner of means to be talked into +disbelieving the evidence of his own eyes, would not hear of it, and +Dellwig felt there was nothing to be done in the face of that curt +refusal. The friend, triumphing in his own brick-kiln and his own more +pliable master, jeered, dug him in the ribs at the Sunday gatherings, +and talked of dependence, obedience, and restricted powers. Such friends +are difficult to endure with composure; and Dellwig, and still less his +wife, for many months past had hardly been able to bear the word "brick" +mentioned in their presence. When Anna appeared on the scene, so young, +so foreign, and so obviously foolish, Dellwig, certain now of success, +told his friend on the very first Sunday night that the brick-kiln was +now a mere matter of weeks. Always a boaster, he could not resist +boasting a little too soon. Besides, he felt very sure; and the friend, +too, had taken it for granted, when he heard of the impending young +mistress, that the thing was as good as built.</p> + +<p>That was in March. It was now the end of April, and every Sunday the +friend inquired when the building was to be begun, and every Sunday +Dellwig said it would begin when the days grew longer. The days had +grown longer, would have grown in a few weeks to their longest, as the +friend repeatedly pointed out, and still nothing had been done. To the +many people who do not care what their neighbours think of them, the +torments of the two Dellwigs because of the unbuilt brick-kiln will be +incomprehensible. Yet these torments were so acute that in the weaker +moments immediately preceding meals they both felt that it would almost +be better to leave Kleinwalde than to stay and endure them; indeed, +before dinner, or during wakeful nights, Frau Dellwig was convinced that +it would be better to die outright. The good opinion of their +neighbours—more exactly, the envy of their neighbours—was to them the +very breath of their nostrils. In their set they must be the first, the +undisputedly luckiest, cleverest, and best off. Any position less mighty +would be unbearable. And since Anna came there had been nothing but +humiliations. First the dinner to the Manskes, from which they had been +excluded—Frau Dellwig grew hot all over at the recollection of the +Sunday gathering succeeding it; then the renovation of the <i>Schloss</i> +without the least reference to them, without the smallest asking for +advice or help; then the frequent communications with the pastor, +putting him quite out of his proper position, the confidence placed in +him, the ridiculous respect shown him, his connection with the mad +charitable scheme; and now, most dreadful of all, this obstinacy in +regard to the brick-kiln. It was becoming clear that they were fairly on +the way to being pitied by the neighbours. Pitied! Horrid thought. The +great thing in life was to be so situated that you can pity others. But +to be pitied yourself? Oh, thrice-accursed folly of old Joachim, to +leave Kleinwalde to a woman! Frau Dellwig could not sleep that night for +hating Anna. She lay awake staring into the darkness with hot eyes, and +hating her with a heartiness that would have petrified that unconscious +young woman as she sat about a stone's throw off in her bedroom, +motionless in the chair into which she had dropped on first coming +upstairs, too tired even to undress, after her long struggle with Frau +Dellwig's husband. "The <i>Engländerin</i> will ruin us!" cried Frau Dellwig +suddenly, unable to hate in silence any longer.</p> + +<p>"<i>Wie? Was?</i>" exclaimed Dellwig, who had dozed off, and was startled.</p> + +<p>"She will—she will!" cried his wife.</p> + +<p>"Will what? Ruin us? The <i>Engländerin</i>? <i>Ach was—Unsinn.</i> <i>She</i> can be +managed. It is Lohm who is the danger. It is Lohm who will ruin us. If +we could get rid of him——"</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach Gott</i>, if he would die!" exclaimed Frau Dellwig, with fervent +hands raised heavenwards. "<i>Ach Gott</i>, if he would only die!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach Gott, ach Gott!</i>" mimicked her husband irritably, for he disliked +being suddenly awakened. "People never die when anything depends on it," +he grumbled, turning over on his side. And he cursed Axel several times, +and went to sleep.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + + +<p>The philosopher tells us that, after the healing interval of sleep, we +are prepared to meet each other every morning as gods and goddesses; so +fresh, so strong, so lusty, so serene, did he consider the newly-risen +and the some-time separated must of necessity be. It is a pleasing +belief; and Experience, that hopelessly prosaic governess who never +gives us any holidays, very quickly disposes of it. For what is to +become of the god-like mood if only one in a company possess it? The +middle-aged and old, who abound in all companies, are seldom god-like, +and are never so at breakfast.</p> + +<p>The morning after the arrival of the Chosen, Anna woke up in the true +Olympian temper. She had been brought back to the happy world of +realities from the happy world of dreams by the sun of an unusually +lovely April shining on her face. She had only to open her window to be +convinced that all which she beheld was full of blessings. Just beneath +her window on the grass was a double cherry tree in flower, an exquisite +thing to look down on with the sunshine and the bees busy among its +blossoms. The unreasoning joyfulness that invariably took possession of +her heart whenever the weather was fine, filled it now with a rapture of +hope and confidence. This world, this wonderful morning world that she +saw and smelt from her window, was manifestly a place in which to be +happy. Everything she saw was very good. Even the remembrance of Dellwig +was transfigured in that clear light. And while she dressed she took +herself seriously to task for the depression of the night before. +Depressed she had certainly been; and why? Simply because she was +over-excited and over-tired, and her spirit was still so mortifyingly +unable to rise superior to the weakness of her tiresome flesh. And to +let herself be made wretched by Dellwig, merely because he talked loud +and had convictions which she did not share! The god-like morning mood +was strong upon her, and she contemplated her listless self of the +previous evening, the self that had sat so long despondently thinking +instead of going to bed, with contempt. These evening interviews with +Dellwig, she reflected, were a mistake. He came at hours when she was +least able to bear his wordiness and shouting, and it was the knowledge +of his impending visit that made her irritable beforehand and ruffled +the absolute serenity that she felt was alone appropriate in a house +dedicated to love. But it was not only Dellwig and the brick-kiln that +had depressed her; she had actually had doubts about her three new +friends, doubts as to the receptivity of their souls, as to the capacity +of their souls for returning love. At one awful moment she had even +doubted whether they had souls at all, but had hastily blown out the +candle at this point, extinguishing the doubt at the same time, +smothering it beneath the bedclothes, and falling asleep at once, after +the fashion of healthy young people.</p> + +<p>Now, at the beginning of the new day, with all her misgivings healed by +sleep, she thought calmly over the interview she had had with Frau von +Treumann before supper; for it was that interview that had been the +chief cause of her dejection. Frau von Treumann had told her an untruth, +a quite obvious and absurd untruth in the face of the correspondence, as +to the reason of her coming to Kleinwalde. She had said she had only +come at the instigation of her son, who looked upon Anna as a deserving +object of help. And Anna had been hurt, had been made miserable, by the +paltriness of this fib. Her great desire was to reach her friends' souls +quickly, to attain the beautiful intimacy in which the smallest fiction +is unnecessary; and so little did Frau von Treumann understand her, that +she had begun a friendship that was to be for life with an untruth that +would not have misled a child. But see the effect of sleep and a +gracious April morning. The very shabbiness and paltriness of the fib +made Anna's heart yearn over the poor lady. Surely the pride that tried +to hide its wounds with rags of such pitiful flimsiness was profoundly +pathetic? With such pride, all false from Anna's point of view, but real +and painful enough to its possessor, the necessity that drove her to +accept Anna's offer must have been more cruel than necessity, always +cruel, generally is. Her heart yearned over her friend as she dressed, +and she felt that the weakness that must lie was a weakness greatly +requiring love. For nobody, she argued, would ever lie unless driven to +it by fear of some suffering. If, then, it made her happy, and made her +life easier, let her think that Anna believed she had come for her sake. +What did it matter? No one was perfect, and many people were +surprisingly pathetic.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the day was glorious, and she went downstairs with the springy +step of hope. She was thinking exhilarating thoughts, thinking that +there were to be no ripples of misgivings and misunderstandings on the +clear surface of this first morning. They would all look into each +others' candid eyes at breakfast, and read a mutual consciousness of +interests henceforward to be shared, of happiness to be shared, of life +to be shared,—the life of devoted and tender sisters.</p> + +<p>The hall door stood open, and the house was full of the smell of April; +the smell of new leaves budding, of old leaves rotting, of damp earth, +pine needles, wet moss, and marshes. "Oh, the lovely, lovely morning!" +whispered Anna, running out on to the steps with outstretched arms and +upturned face, as though she would have clasped all the beauty round and +held it close. She drew in a long breath, and turned back into the house +singing in an impassioned but half-suppressed voice the first verse of +the Magnificat. The door leading to the kitchen opened, and to her +surprise Baroness Elmreich emerged from those dark regions. The +Magnificat broke off abruptly. Anna was surprised. Why the kitchen? The +baroness saw her hostess's figure motionless against the light of the +open door; but the light behind was strong and the hall was dark, and +she thought it was Anna's back. Hoping that she had not been noticed she +softly closed the door again and waited behind it till she could come +out unseen.</p> + +<p>Anna supposed that the princess must be showing her the servants' +quarters, and went into the breakfast room; but in it sat the princess, +making coffee.</p> + +<p>"There you are," said the princess heartily. "That is nice. Now we can +drink our coffee comfortably together before the others come down. Have +you been out? You smell of fresh air."</p> + +<p>"Only a moment on the doorstep."</p> + +<p>"Come, sit next to me. You have slept well, I can see. Notice the +advantage of coming straight in to breakfast, and not running about the +forest—you get here first, and so get the best cup of coffee."</p> + +<p>"But it isn't proper for me to have the best," said Anna, smiling as she +took the cup, "when I have guests here."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is—very proper indeed. Besides, you told me they were +sisters."</p> + +<p>"So they are. Has the baroness not been here?"</p> + +<p>"No, she is still in bed."</p> + +<p>"No, I saw her a moment ago. I thought you were with her."</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear—so early in the morning!" protested the princess. "When +did I see her last? Less than nine hours ago. She followed me into my +bedroom and talked much. I could not begin again with her the first +thing in the morning, even to please you." And she looked at Anna very +affectionately. "You were tired last night, were you not?" she +continued. "Axel Lohm stayed so late, I think he wanted to speak to you. +But you went straight up to bed."</p> + +<p>"I had seen him before he went in to you. He didn't want to speak to me. +He was consumed by curiosity about our new friends."</p> + +<p>"Was he? He did not show much interest in them. He talked to me nearly +all the time. He thought for a moment that he knew the baroness—at +least, he stared at her at first and seemed surprised. But it turned out +that she was only like someone he knew. She had evidently never seen him +before. It is a great pleasure to me to talk to that young man," the +princess went on, while Anna ate her toast.</p> + +<p>"So it is to me," said Anna.</p> + +<p>"I have met many people in my life, and have often wondered at the +dearth of nice ones—how few there are that one likes to be with and +wishes to see again and again. Axel is one of the few, decidedly."</p> + +<p>"So he is," agreed Anna.</p> + +<p>"There is goodness written on every line of his face."</p> + +<p>"Oh, he has the kindest face. And so strong. I feel that if anything +happened here, anything dreadful, that he would make it right again at +once. He would mend us if we got smashed, and build us up again if we +got burned, and protect us, this houseful of lone women, if ever anybody +tried to run away with us." And Anna nodded reassuringly at the +princess, and took another piece of toast "That is how I feel about +him," she said. "So agreeably certain, not only of his willingness to +help, but of his power to do it." Talking about Axel she quite forgot +the apparition of the baroness that she had just seen. He was so kind, +so good, so strong. How much she admired strength of purpose, +independence, the character that was determined to find its happiness in +doing its best.</p> + +<p>"If I had a daughter," said the princess, filling Anna's cup, "she +should marry Axel Lohm."</p> + +<p>"If <i>I</i> had a daughter," said Anna, "she should marry him, so yours +couldn't. I wouldn't even ask her if she liked it. I'd be so sure that +it was a good thing for her that I'd just say: 'My dear, I have chosen +my son-in-law. Get your hat, and come to church and marry him.' And +there'd be an end of <i>that</i>."</p> + +<p>The princess felt that it was an unprofitable employment, trying to help +on Axel's cause. She could not but see what he thought of Anna; and +after the touching manner of widows, was convinced of the superiority of +marriage, as a means of real happiness for a woman, over any and every +other form of occupation. Yet whenever she talked of him she was met by +the same hearty agreement and frank enthusiasm, the very words being +taken out of her mouth and her own praises of him doubled and trebled. +It was a promising friendship, but it was a singularly unpromising +prelude to love.</p> + +<p>"Please make some fresh coffee," begged Anna; "the others will be coming +down soon, and must not have cold stuff." Her voice grew tender at the +mere mention of "the others." For the princess and Axel, both of whom +she liked so much, it never took on those tender tones, as the princess +had already noted. There was nothing in either of them to appeal to that +side of her nature, the tender, mother side, which is in all good women +and most bad ones. They were her friends, staunch friends, she felt, and +of course she liked and respected them; but they were sturdy, capable +people, firmly planted on their own feet, able to battle successfully +with life—as different as possible from these helpless ones who needed +her, whom she had saved, to whom she was everything, between whom and +want and sorrow she was fixed as a shield.</p> + +<p>Two of the helpless ones came in at that moment, with frosty, +early-morning faces. Anna put the vision she had seen at the kitchen +door from her mind, and went to meet them with happy smiles and +greetings. Frau von Treumann did her best to respond warmly, but it was +very early to be enthusiastic, and at that hour of the day she was +accustomed to being a little cross. Besides, she had had no coffee yet, +and her hostess evidently had, and that made a great difference to one's +sentiments. The baroness looked pinched and bloodless; she was as frigid +as ever to Anna, said nothing about having seen her before, and seemed +to want to be left alone. So that the mutual gazing into each other's +eyes did not, after all, take place.</p> + +<p>The princess waited to see that they had all they wanted, and then went +out rattling her keys; and after an interval, during which Anna +chattered cheerful and ungrammatical German, and the window was shut, +and warming food eaten, Frau von Treumann became amiable and began to +talk.</p> + +<p>She drew from her pocket a letter and a photograph. "This is my son," +she said. "I brought it down to show you. And I have had a long letter +from him already. He never neglects his mother. Truly a good son is a +source of joy."</p> + +<p>"I suppose so," said Anna.</p> + +<p>The baroness turned her eyes slowly round and fixed them on the +photograph. "Aha," she thought, "the son again. Last night the son, this +morning the son—always the son. The excellent Treumann loses no time."</p> + +<p>"He is good-looking, my Karlchen, is he not?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Anna. "It is a becoming uniform."</p> + +<p>"Oh—becoming! He looks adorable in it. Especially on his horse. I would +not let him be anything but a hussar because of the charming uniform. +And he suits it exactly—such a lightly built, graceful figure. <i>He</i> +never stumbles over people's feet. Herr von Lohm nearly crushed my poor +foot last night. It was difficult not to scream. I never did admire +those long men made by the meter, who seem as though they would go on +for ever if there were no ceilings."</p> + +<p>"He <i>is</i> rather long," agreed Anna, smiling.</p> + +<p>"Heartwhole," thought Frau von Treumann. "Tell me, dear Miss +Estcourt——" she said, laying her hand on Anna's.</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't call me Miss Estcourt."</p> + +<p>"But what, then?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, you must call me Anna. We are to be like sisters here—and you, +too, please, call me Anna," she said, turning to the baroness.</p> + +<p>"You are very good," said the baroness.</p> + +<p>"Well, my little sister," said Frau von Treumann, smiling, "my baby +sister——"</p> + +<p>"Baby sister!" thought the baroness. "Excellent Treumann."</p> + +<p>"—you know an old woman of my age could not really have a sister of +yours."</p> + +<p>"Yes, she could—not a whole sister, perhaps, but a half one."</p> + +<p>"Well, as you please. The idea is sweet to me. I was going to ask +you—but Karlchen's letter is too touching, really—such thoughts in +it—such high ideals——" And she turned over the sheets, of which there +were three, and began to blow her nose.</p> + +<p>"He has written you a very long letter," said Anna pleasantly; the +extent to which the nose blowing was being carried made her uneasy. Was +there to be crying?</p> + +<p>"You have a cold, dear Frau von Treumann?" inquired the baroness with +solicitude.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach nein—doch nein</i>," murmured Frau von Treumann, turning the sheets +over, and blowing her nose harder than ever.</p> + +<p>"It will come off," thought Letty, who had slipped in unnoticed, and was +eating bread and butter alone at the further end of the table.</p> + +<p>"Poor thing," thought Anna, "she adores that Karlchen."</p> + +<p>There was a pause, during which the nose continued to be blown.</p> + +<p>"His letter is beautiful, but sad—very sad," said Frau von Treumann, +shaking her head despondingly. "Poor boy—poor dear boy—he misses his +mother, of course. I knew he would, but I did not dream it would be as +bad as this. Oh, my dear Miss Estcourt—well, Anna then"—smiling +faintly—"I could never describe to you the wrench it was, the terrible, +terrible wrench, leaving him who for five years—I am a widow five +years—has been my all."</p> + +<p>"It must have been dreadful," murmured Anna sympathetically.</p> + +<p>The baroness sat straight and motionless, staring fixedly at Frau von +Treumann.</p> + +<p>"'When shall I see you again, my dearest mamma?' were his last words. +And I could give him no hope—no answer." The handkerchief went up to +her eyes.</p> + +<p>"What <i>is</i> she gassing about?" wondered Letty.</p> + +<p>"I can see him now, fading away on the platform as my train bore me off +to an unknown life. An only son—the only son of a widow—is everything, +everything to his mother."</p> + +<p>"He must be," said Anna.</p> + +<p>There was another silence. Then Frau von Treumann wiped her eyes and +took up the letter again. "Now he writes that though I have only been +away two days from Rislar, the town he is stationed at, it seems already +like years. Poor boy! He is quite desperate—listen to this—poor +boy——" And she smiled a little, and read aloud, "'I must see you, +<i>liebste, beste Mama</i>, from time to time. I had no idea the separation +would be like this, or I could never have let you go. Pray beg Miss +Estcourt——'"</p> + +<p>"Aha," thought the baroness.</p> + +<p>"'—to allow me to visit my mother occasionally. There must be an inn in +the village. If not, I could stay at Stralsund, and would in no way +intrude on her. But I must see my dearest mother, the being I have +watched over and cared for ever since my father's death.' Poor, dear, +foolish boy—he is desperate——" And she folded up the letter, shook +her head, smiled, and suddenly buried her face in her handkerchief.</p> + +<p>"Excellent Treumann," thought the unblinking baroness.</p> + +<p>Anna sat in some perplexity. Sons had not entered into her calculations. +In the correspondence, she remembered, the son had been lightly passed +over as an officer living on his pay and without a superfluous penny for +the support of his parent. Not a word had been said of any unusual +affection existing between them. Now it appeared that the mother and son +were all in all to each other. If so, of course the separation was +dreadful. A mother's love was a sentiment that inspired Anna with +profound respect. Before its unknown depths and heights she stood in awe +and silence. How could she, a spinster, even faintly comprehend that +sacred feeling? It was a mysterious and beautiful emotion that she could +only reverence from afar. Clearly she must not come between parent and +child; but yet—yet she wished she had had more time to think it over.</p> + +<p>She looked rather helplessly at Frau von Treumann, and gave her hand a +little squeeze. The hand did not return the squeeze, and the face +remained buried in the handkerchief. Well, it would be absurd to want to +cut off the son entirely from his mother. If he came occasionally to see +her it could not matter much. She gave the hand a firmer squeeze, and +said with an effort that she did her best to conceal, "But he must come +then, when he can. It is rather a long way—didn't you say you had to +stay a night in Berlin?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear Miss Estcourt—my dear Anna!" cried Frau von Treumann, +snatching the handkerchief from her face and seizing Anna's hand in both +hers, "what a weight from my heart—what a heavy, heavy weight! All +night I was thinking how shall I bear this? I may write to him, then, +and tell him what you say? A long journey? You are afraid it will tire +him? Oh, it will be nothing, nothing at all to Karlchen if only he can +see his mother. How can I thank you! You will say my gratitude is +excessive for such a little thing, and truly only a mother could +understand it——"</p> + +<p>In short, Karlchen's appearance at Kleinwalde was now only a matter of +days.</p> + +<p>"<i>Unverschämt</i>," was the baroness's mental comment.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + + +<p>Anna put on her hat and went out to think it over. Fräulein Kuhräuber +was apparently still asleep. Letty, accompanied by Miss Leech, had to go +to Lohm parsonage for her first lesson with Herr Klutz, who had +undertaken to teach her German. Frau von Treumann said she must write at +once to Karlchen, and shut herself up to do it. The baroness was vague +as to her intentions, and disappeared. So Anna started off by herself, +crossed the road, and walked quickly away into the forest. "If it makes +her so happy, then I am glad," she said to herself. "She is here to be +happy; and if she wants Karlchen so badly, why then she must have him +from time to time. I wonder why I don't like Karlchen."</p> + +<p>She walked quickly, with her eyes on the ground. The mood in which she +sang magnificats had left her, nor did she look to see what the April +morning was doing. Frau von Treumann had not been under her roof +twenty-four hours, and already her son had been added—if only +occasionally, still undoubtedly added—to the party. Suppose the +baroness and Fräulein Kuhräuber should severally disclose an inability +to live without being visited by some cherished relative? Suppose the +other nine, the still Unchosen, should each turn out to have a relative +waiting tragically in the background for permission to make repeated +calls? And suppose these relatives should all be male?</p> + +<p>These were grave questions; so grave that she was quite at a loss how to +answer them. And then she felt that somebody was looking at her; and +raising her eyes, she saw Axel on the mossy path quite close to her.</p> + +<p>"So deep in thought?" he asked, smiling at her start.</p> + +<p>Anna wondered how it was that he so often went through the forest. Was +it a short cut from Lohm to anywhere? She had met him three or four +times lately, in quite out of the way parts. He seemed to ride through +it and walk through it at all hours of the day.</p> + +<p>"How is your potato-planting getting on?" she asked involuntarily. She +knew what a rush there was just then putting the potatoes in, for she +did not drive every day about her fields in a cart without springs with +Dellwig for nothing. Axel must have potatoes to plant too; why didn't he +stay at home, then, and do it?</p> + +<p>"What a truly proper question for a country lady to ask," he said, +looking amused. "You waste no time in conventional good mornings or +asking how I do, but begin at once with potatoes. Well, I do not believe +that you are really interested in mine, so I shall tell you nothing +about them. You only want to remind me that I ought to be seeing them +planted instead of walking about your woods."</p> + +<p>Anna smiled. "I believe I did mean something like that," she said.</p> + +<p>"Well, I am not so aimless as you suppose," he returned, walking by her +side. "I have been looking at that place."</p> + +<p>"What place?"</p> + +<p>"Where Dellwig wants to build the brick-kiln."</p> + +<p>"Oh! What do you think of it?"</p> + +<p>"What I knew I would think of it. It is a fool's plan. The clay is the +most wretched stuff. It has puzzled me, seeing how very poor it is, that +he should be so eager to have the thing. I should have credited him with +more sense."</p> + +<p>"He is quite absurdly keen on it. Last night I thought he would never +stop persuading."</p> + +<p>"But you did not give in?"</p> + +<p>"Not an inch. I said I would ask you to look at it, and then he was +simply rude. I do believe he will have to go. I don't really think we +shall ever get on together. Certainly, as you say the clay is bad, I +shall refuse to build a brick-kiln."</p> + +<p>Axel smiled at her energy. In the morning she was always determined +about Dellwig. "You are very brave to-day," he said. "Last night you +seemed afraid of him."</p> + +<p>"He comes when I am tired. I am not going to see him in the evening any +more. It is too dreadful as a finish to a happy day."</p> + +<p>"It was a happy day, then, yesterday?" he asked quickly.</p> + +<p>"Yes—that is, it ought to have been, and probably would have been +if—if I hadn't been tired."</p> + +<p>"But the others—the new arrivals—they must have been happy?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—oh yes—" said Anna, hesitating, "I think so. Fräulein Kuhräuber +was, I am sure, at intervals. I think the other two would have been if +they hadn't had a journey."</p> + +<p>"By the way, do you remember what I said yesterday about the Elmreichs?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I do. You said horrid things." Her voice changed.</p> + +<p>"About a Baron Elmreich. But he had a sister who made a hash of her +life. I saw her once or twice in Berlin. She was dancing at the +Wintergarten, and under her own name."</p> + +<p>"Poor thing. But it doesn't interest me."</p> + +<p>"Don't get angry yet."</p> + +<p>"But it doesn't interest me. And why shouldn't she dance? I knew several +people who ended by dancing at London Wintergartens."</p> + +<p>"You admit, then, that it is an end?"</p> + +<p>"It is hardly a beginning," conceded Anna.</p> + +<p>"She was so amazingly like your baroness would be if she painted and +wore a wig——"</p> + +<p>"That you are convinced they must be sisters. Thank you. Now what do you +suppose is the good of telling me that?" And she stood still and faced +him, her eyes flashing.</p> + +<p>Do what he would, Axel could not help smiling at her wrath. It was the +wrath of a mother whose child has been hurt by someone on purpose, "I +wish," he said, "that you would not be so angry when I tell you things +that might be important for you to know. If your baroness is really the +sister of the dancing baroness——"</p> + +<p>"But she is not. She told me last night that she has no brothers and +sisters. And she wrote it in the letters before she came. Do you think +it is a praiseworthy occupation for a man, doing his best to find out +disgraceful things about a very poor and very helpless woman?"</p> + +<p>"No, I do not," said Axel decidedly. "Under any other circumstances I +would leave the poor lady to take her chance. But do consider," he said, +following her, for she had begun to walk on quickly again, "do consider +your unusual position. You are so young to be living away from your +friends, and so young and inexperienced to be at the head of a home for +homeless women—you ought to be quite extraordinarily particular about +the antecedents of the people you take in. It would be most unpleasant +if it got about that they were not respectable."</p> + +<p>"But they are respectable," said Anna, looking straight before her.</p> + +<p>"A sister who dances at the Wintergarten——"</p> + +<p>"Did I not tell you that she has no sister?"</p> + +<p>Axel shrugged his shoulders. "The resemblance is so striking that they +might be twins," he said.</p> + +<p>"Then you think she says what is not true?"</p> + +<p>"How can I tell?"</p> + +<p>Anna stopped again and faced him. "Well, suppose it were true—suppose +it is her sister, and she has tried to hide it—do you know how I should +feel about it?"</p> + +<p>"Properly scandalised, I hope."</p> + +<p>"I should love her all the more. Oh, I should love her twice as much! +Why, think of the misery and the shame—poor, poor little woman—trying +to hide it all, bearing it all by herself—she must have loved her +sister, she must have loved her brother. It isn't true, of course, but +supposing it were, could you tell me <i>any</i> reason why I should turn my +back on her?"</p> + +<p>She stood looking at him, her eyes full of angry tears.</p> + +<p>He did not answer. If that was the way she felt, what could he do?</p> + +<p>"I never understood," she went on passionately, "why the innocent should +be punished. Do you suppose a woman would <i>like</i> her brother to cheat +and then shoot himself? Or <i>like</i> her sister to go and dance? But if +they do do these things, besides her own grief and horror, she is to be +shunned by everybody as though she were infectious. Is that fair? Is +that right? Is it in the least Christian?"</p> + +<p>"No, of course it is not. It is very hard and very ugly, but it is quite +natural. An old woman in a strong position might take such a person up, +perhaps, and comfort her and love her as you propose to do, but a young +girl ought not to do anything of the sort."</p> + +<p>Anna turned away with a quick movement of impatience and walked on. "If +you argue on the young girl basis," she said, "we shall never be able to +talk about a single thing. When will you leave off about my young +girlishness? In five years I shall be thirty—will you go on till I have +reached that blessed age?"</p> + +<p>"I have no right to go on to you about anything," said Axel.</p> + +<p>"Precisely," said Anna.</p> + +<p>"But please remember that I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to your +uncle, and make allowances for me if I am over-zealous in my anxiety to +shield his niece from possible unpleasantness."</p> + +<p>"Then don't keep telling me I am too young to do good. It is ludicrous, +considering my age, besides being dreadful. You will say that, I +believe, till I am thirty or forty, and then when you can't decently say +it any more, and I still want to do things, you'll say I'm old enough to +know better."</p> + +<p>Axel laughed. Anna's dimples appeared for an instant, but vanished +again.</p> + +<p>"Now," she said, "I am not going to talk about poor little Else any +more. Let her distant relations dance till they are tired—it concerns +nobody here at all."</p> + +<p>"Little Else?"</p> + +<p>"The baroness. Of course we shall call each other by our Christian +names. We are sisters."</p> + +<p>"I see."</p> + +<p>"You don't see at all," she said, with a swift sideward glance at him.</p> + +<p>"My dear Miss Estcourt——"</p> + +<p>"If my plan succeeds it will certainly not be because I have been +encouraged."</p> + +<p>"I think," he said with sudden warmth, "that the plan is beautiful, and +could only have been made by a beautiful nature."</p> + +<p>"Oh?" ejaculated Anna, surprised. A flush of gratification came into her +face. The heartiness of the tone surprised her even more than the words. +She stood still to look at him. "It is a pity," she said softly, "that +nearly always when we are together we get angry, for you can be so kind +when you choose. Say nice things to me. Let us be happy. I love being +happy."</p> + +<p>She held out her hand, smiling. He took it and gave it a hearty, matter +of fact shake, and dropped it. It was very awkward, but he was +struggling with an overpowering desire to take her in his arms and kiss +her, and not let her go again till she had said she would marry him. It +was exceedingly awkward, for he knew quite well that if he did so it +would be the end of all things.</p> + +<p>He turned rather white, and thrust his hands deep into his pockets. +"Yes, the plan is beautiful," he said cheerfully, "but very unpractical. +And the nature that made it is, I am sure, beautiful, but of course +quite as unpractical as the plan." And he smiled down at her, a broad, +genial smile.</p> + +<p>"I know I don't set about things the right way," she said. "If only you +wouldn't worry about the pasts of my poor friends and what their +relations may have done in pre-historic times, you could help me so +much."</p> + +<p>To his relief she began to walk on again. "Princess Ludwig is a sensible +and experienced woman," he said, "and can help you in many ways that I +cannot."</p> + +<p>"But she only looks at the <i>praktische</i> side of a question, and that is +really only one side. I am too unpractical, I know, but she isn't +unpractical enough. But I don't want to talk about her. What I wanted to +say was, that once these poor ladies have been chosen and are here, the +time for making inquiries is over, isn't it? As far as I am concerned, +anyhow, it is. I shall never forsake them, never, <i>never</i>. So please +don't try to tell me things about them—it doesn't change my feelings +towards them, and only makes me angry with you. Which is a pity. I want +to live at peace with my neighbour."</p> + +<p>"Well?" he said, as she paused. "That, I take it, is a prelude to +something else."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is. It's a prelude to Karlchen."</p> + +<p>"To Karlchen?"</p> + +<p>She looked at him, and laughed rather nervously. "I am afraid," she +said, "that Karlchen is coming to stay with me."</p> + +<p>"And who, pray, is Karlchen?"</p> + +<p>"The only son of his mother, and she is a widow."</p> + +<p>He came to a standstill again. "What," he said, "Frau von Treumann has +asked you to invite her son to Kleinwalde?"</p> + +<p>"She didn't actually ask, but she got a sad letter from him, and seemed +to feel the separation so much, and cried about it, and so—and so I +did."</p> + +<p>Axel was silent.</p> + +<p>"I don't yearn to see Karlchen," said Anna in rather a small voice. She +could not help feeling that the invitation had been wrung from her.</p> + +<p>Axel bored a hole in the moss with his stick, and did not answer.</p> + +<p>"But naturally his poor mother clings to him, and he to her."</p> + +<p>Axel was intent on his hole and did not answer.</p> + +<p>"They are all the world to each other."</p> + +<p>Axel filled up his hole again, and pressed the moss carefully over it +with his foot. Then he said, "I never yet heard of two Treumanns being +all the world to each other."</p> + +<p>"You appear to have a down on the Treumanns."</p> + +<p>"Not in the least. I do not think they interest me enough. It is an East +Prussian Junker family that has spread beyond its natural limits, and +one meets them everywhere, and knows their characteristics. What is this +young man? I do not remember having heard of him."</p> + +<p>"He is an officer at Rislar."</p> + +<p>"At Rislar? Those are the red hussars. Do you wish me to make inquiries +about him?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no. It's no use. His mother can't be happy without him, so he must +come."</p> + +<p>"Then may I ask why, if I am not to help you in the matter, we are +talking about him at all?"</p> + +<p>"I wanted to ask you whether—whether you think he will come often."</p> + +<p>"I should think," said Axel positively, "that he will come very often +indeed."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Anna.</p> + +<p>They walked on in silence.</p> + +<p>"Have you considered," he said presently, "what you would do if your +other—sisters want their relations asked down to stay with them? +Christmas, for instance, is a time of general rejoicing, when the +coldest hearts grow warm. Relations who have quarrelled all the year, +seek each other out at Christmas and talk tearfully of ties of blood. +And birthdays—will your twelve sisters be content to spend their twelve +birthdays remote from all members of their family? Birthdays here are +important days. There will be one a month now for you to celebrate at +Kleinwalde."</p> + +<p>"I have not got farther than considering Karlchen," said Anna with some +impatience.</p> + +<p>"A male Kuhräuber," said Axel musingly, swinging his stick and gazing up +at the fleecy clouds floating over the pine tops, "a male Kuhräuber +would be quite unlike anything you have yet seen."</p> + +<p>"There are no male Kuhräubers," said Anna. "At least," she added, +correcting herself, "Fräulein Kuhräuber said so. She said she had no +relations at all, but perhaps—perhaps she has forgotten some, and will +remember them by and by. Oh, I wish they would tell me exactly how they +stand, and not try to hide anything! I thought we had left nothing +unexplained in the letters, but now Karlchen—it seems——" She stopped +and bit her lip. She was actually on the verge of criticising, to Axel, +the behaviour of her sisters. "Look," she said, catching sight of red +roofs through the thinning trees, "isn't that Lohm? I have seen you home +without knowing it."</p> + +<p>She held out her hand. "It isn't much good talking, is it?" she said, +moved by a sudden impulse, and looking up at him with a slightly wistful +smile. "How we talk and talk and never get any nearer anything or each +other. Such an amount of explaining oneself, and all no use. I don't +mean you and me especially—it is always so, with everyone and +everywhere. It is very weird. Good-bye."</p> + +<p>But he held her hand and would not let her go. "No," he said, in a voice +she did not know, "wait one moment. Why will you not let me really help +you? Do you think you will ever achieve anything by shutting your eyes +to what is true? Is it not better to face it, and then to do one's +best—after that, knowing the truth? Why are you angry whenever I try to +tell you the truth, or what I believe to be the truth about these +ladies? You are certain to find it out for yourself one day. You force +me to look on and see you being disappointed, and grieved, and perhaps +cheated—anyhow your confidence abused—and you reduce our talks +together to a sort of sparring match unworthy, quite unworthy of either +of us——" He broke off abruptly and released her hand. The passion in +his voice was unmistakable, and she was listening with astonished eyes. +"I am lecturing you," he said in his usual even tones, "Forgive me for +thinking that you are setting about your plan in a way that can never be +successful. As you say, we talk and talk, and the more we talk the less +do we understand each other. It is a foolish world, and a pre-eminently +lonely one."</p> + +<p>He lifted his hat and turned away. Anna opened her lips to say +something, but he was gone.</p> + +<p>She went home and meditated on volcanoes.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2> + + +<p>The May that year in Northern Germany was the May of a poet's dream. The +days were like a chain of pearls, increasing in beauty and preciousness +as the chain lengthened. The lilacs flowered a fortnight earlier than in +other years. The winds, so restless usually on those flat shores, seemed +all asleep, and hardly stirred. About the middle of the month the moon +was at the full, and the forest became enchanted ground. It was a time +for love and lovers, for vows and kisses, for all pretty, happy, hopeful +things. Only those farmers who were too old to love and vow, looked at +their rye fields and grumbled because there was no rain.</p> + +<p>Karlchen, arriving on the first Saturday of that blessed month, felt all +disposed to love, if the <i>Engländerin</i> should turn out to be in the +least degree lovable. He did not ask much of a young woman with a +fortune, but he inwardly prayed that she might not be quite so ugly as +wives with money sometimes are. He was a man used to having what he +wanted, and had spent his own and his mother's money in getting it. +There was a little bald patch on the top of his head, and there were +many debts on his mind, and he was nearing the critical point in an +officer's career, the turning of which is reserved exclusively for the +efficient; and so he had three excellent reasons for desiring to marry. +He had desired it, indeed, for some time, had attempted it often, and +had not achieved it. The fathers of wealthy German girls knew the state +of his finances with an exactitude that was unworthy; and they knew, +besides, every one of his little weaknesses. As a result, they gave +their daughters to other suitors. But here was a girl without a father, +who knew nothing about him at all. There was, of course, some story in +the background to account for her living in this way; but that was +precisely what would make her glad of a husband who would relieve her of +the necessity of building up the weaker parts of her reputation on a +foundation of what Karlchen, when he saw the inmates of the house, +rudely stigmatised as <i>alte Schachteln</i>. Reputations, he reflected, +staring at Fräulein Kuhräuber, may be too dearly bought. Naturally she +would prefer an easy-going husband, who would let her see life with all +its fun, to this dreary and aimless existence.</p> + +<p>The Treumanns, he thought, were in luck. What a burden his mother had +been on him for the last five years! Miss Estcourt had relieved him of +it. Now there were his debts, and she would relieve him of those; and +the little entanglement she must have had at home would not matter in +Germany, where no one knew anything about her, except that she was the +highly respectable Joachim's niece. Anyway, he was perfectly willing to +let bygones be bygones. He left his bag at the inn at Kleinwalde, an +impossible place as he noted with pleasure, sent away his <i>Droschke</i>, +and walked round to the house; but he did not see Anna. She kept out of +the way till the evening, and he had ample time to be happy with his +mother. When he did see her, he fell in love with her at once. He had +quite a simple nature, composed wholly of instincts, and fell in love +with an ease acquired by long practice. Anna's face and figure were far +prettier than he had dared to hope. She was a beauty, he told himself +with much satisfaction. Truly the Treumanns were in luck. He entirely +forgot the <i>rôle</i> he was to play of loving son, and devoted himself, +with his habitual artlessness, to her. Indeed, if he had not forgotten +it, he and his mother were so little accustomed to displays of affection +that they would have been but clumsy actors. There is a great difference +between affectionate letters written quietly in one's room, and +affectionate conversation that has to sound as though it welled up from +one's heart. Nothing of the kind ever welled up from Karlchen's heart; +and Anna noticed at once that there were no signs of unusual attachment +between mother and son. Karlchen was not even commonly polite to his +mother, nor did she seem to expect him to be. When she dropped her +scissors, she had to pick them up for herself. When she lost her +thimble, she hunted for it alone. When she wanted a footstool, she got +up and fetched one from under his very nose. When she came into the room +and looked about for a chair, it was Letty who offered her hers. +Karlchen sat comfortably with his legs crossed, playing with the +paper-knife he had taken out of the book Anna had been reading, and +making himself pleasant. He had his mother's large black eyes, and very +long thick black eyelashes of which he was proud, conscious that they +rested becomingly on his cheeks when he looked down at the paper-knife. +Letty was greatly struck by them, and inquired of Miss Leech in a +whisper whether she had ever seen their like.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Jessup had silken eyelashes too," replied Miss Leech dreamily.</p> + +<p>"These aren't silk—they're cotton eyelashes," said Letty scornfully.</p> + +<p>"My dear Letty," murmured Miss Leech.</p> + +<p>Anna was at a disadvantage because of her imperfect German. She could +not repress Karlchen when he was unduly kind as she would have done in +English, and with his mother presiding, as it were, at their opening +friendship, she did not like to begin by looking lofty. Luckily the +princess was unusually chatty that evening. She sat next to Karlchen, +and continually joined in the talk. She was cheerful amiability itself, +and insisted upon being told all about those sons of her acquaintances +who were in his regiment. When he half turned his back on her and +dropped his voice to a rapid undertone, thereby making himself +completely incomprehensible to Anna, the princess pleasantly advised him +to speak very slowly and distinctly, for unless he did Miss Estcourt +would certainly not understand. In a word, she took him under her wing +whether he would or no, and persisted in her friendliness in spite of +his mother's increasingly desperate efforts to draw her into +conversation.</p> + +<p>"Why do we not go out, dear Anna?" cried Frau von Treumann at last, +unable to endure Princess Ludwig's behaviour any longer. "Look what a +fine evening it is—and quite warm." And she who till then had gone +about shutting windows, and had been unable to bear the least breath of +air, herself opened the glass doors leading into the garden and went +out.</p> + +<p>But although they all followed her, nothing was gained by it. She +could have stamped her foot with rage at the princess's conduct. +Here was everything needful for the beginning of a successful +courtship—starlight, a murmuring sea, warm air, fragrant bushes, a girl +who looked like Love itself in the dusk in her pale beauty, a young man +desiring nothing better than to be allowed to love her, and a mother +only waiting to bless. But here too, unfortunately, was the princess.</p> + +<p>She was quite appallingly sociable—"The spite of the woman!" thought +Frau von Treumann, for what could it matter to her?—and remained fixed +at Anna's side as they paced slowly up and down the grass, monopolising +Karlchen's attention with her absurd questions about his brother +officers. Anna walked between them, thinking of other things, holding up +her trailing white dress with one hand, and with the other the edges of +her blue cloak together at her neck. She was half a head taller than +Karlchen, and so was his mother, who walked on his other side. Karlchen, +becoming more and more enamoured the longer he walked, looked up at her +through his eyelashes and told himself that the Treumanns were certainly +in luck, for he had stumbled on a goddess.</p> + +<p>"The grass is damp," cried Frau von Treumann, interrupting the endless +questions. "My dear princess—your rheumatism—and I who so easily get +colds. Come, we will go off the grass—we are not young enough to risk +wet feet."</p> + +<p>"I do not feel it," said the princess, "I have thick shoes. But you, +dear Frau von Treumann, do not stay if you have fears."</p> + +<p>"It <i>is</i> damp," said Anna, turning up the sole of her shoe. "Shall we go +on to the path?"</p> + +<p>On the path it was obvious that they must walk in couples. Arrived at +its edge, the princess stopped and looked round with an urbane smile. +"My dear child," she said to Anna, taking her arm, "we have been keeping +Herr von Treumann from his mother regardless of his feelings. I beg you +to pardon my thoughtlessness," she added, turning to him, "but my +interest in hearing of my old friends' sons has made me quite forget +that you took this long journey to be with your dear mother. We will not +interrupt you further. Come, my dear, I wanted to ask you——" And she +led Anna away, dropping her voice to a confidential questioning +concerning the engaging of a new cook.</p> + +<p>There was nothing to be done. The only crumb of comfort Karlchen +obtained—but it was a big one—was a reluctantly given invitation, on +his mother's vividly describing at the hour of parting the place where +he was to spend the night, to remove his luggage from the inn to Anna's +house, and to sleep there.</p> + +<p>"You are too good, <i>meine Gnädigste</i>," he said, consoled by this for the +<i>tête-à-tête</i> he had just had with his mother; "but if it in any way +inconveniences you—we soldiers are used to roughing it——"</p> + +<p>"But not like that, not like that, <i>lieber Junge</i>," interrupted his +mother anxiously. "It is not fit for a dog, that inn, and I heard this +very evening from the housemaid that one of the children there has the +measles."</p> + +<p>That quite settled it. Anna could not expose Karlchen to measles. Why +did he not stay, as he had written he would, at Stralsund? As he was +here, however, she could not let him fall a prey to measles, and she +asked the princess to order a room to be got ready.</p> + +<p>It is a proof of her solemnity on that first evening with Karlchen that +when his mother, praising her beauty, mentioned her dimples as specially +bewitching, he should have said, surprised, "What dimples?"</p> + +<p>It is a proof, too, of the duplicity of mothers, that the very next day +in church the princess, sitting opposite the innkeeper's rosy family, +and counting its members between the verses of the hymn, should have +found that not one was missing.</p> + +<p>Karlchen left on Sunday evening after a not very successful visit. He +had been to church, believing that it was expected of him, and had found +to his disgust that Anna had gone for a walk. So there he sat, between +his mother and Princess Ludwig, and extracted what consolation he could +from a studied neglect of the outer forms of worship and an elaborate +slumber during the sermon.</p> + +<p>The morning, then, was wasted. At luncheon Anna was unapproachable. +Karlchen was invited to sit next to his mother, and Anna was protected +by Letty on the one hand and Fräulein Kuhräuber on the other, and she +talked the whole time to Fräulein Kuhräuber.</p> + +<p>"Who <i>is</i> Fräulein Kuhräuber?" he inquired irritably of his mother, when +they found themselves alone together again in the afternoon.</p> + +<p>"Well, you can see who she is, I should think," replied his mother +equally irritably. "She is just Fräulein Kuhräuber, and nothing more."</p> + +<p>"Anna talks to her more than to anyone," he said; she was already "Anna" +to him, <i>tout court</i>.</p> + +<p>"Yes. It is disgusting."</p> + +<p>"It is very disgusting. It is not right that Treumanns should be forced +to associate on equal terms with such a person."</p> + +<p>"It is scandalous. But you will change all that."</p> + +<p>Karlchen twisted up the ends of his moustache and looked down his nose. +He often looked down his nose because of his eyelashes. He began to hum +a tune, and felt happy again. Axel Lohm was right when he doubted +whether there had ever been a permanently crushed Treumann.</p> + +<p>"She has a strange assortment of <i>alte Schachteln</i> here," he said, after +a pause during which his thoughts were rosy. "That Elmreich, now. What +relation does she say she is to Arthur Elmreich?"</p> + +<p>"The man who shot himself? Oh, she is no relation at all. At most a +distant cousin."</p> + +<p>"<i>Na, na</i>," was Karlchen's reply; a reply whose English equivalent would +be a profoundly sceptical wink.</p> + +<p>His mother looked at him, waiting for more.</p> + +<p>"What do you really think——?" she began, and then stopped.</p> + +<p>He stood before the glass readjusting his moustache into the regulation +truculent upward twist. "Think?" he said. "You know Arthur's sister +Lolli was engaged at the Wintergarten this winter. She was not much of a +success. Too old. But she was down on the bills as Baroness Elmreich, +and people went to see her because of that, and because of her brother."</p> + +<p>"Oh—terrible," murmured Frau von Treumann.</p> + +<p>"Well, I know her; and I shall ask her next time I see her if she has a +sister."</p> + +<p>"But this one has no relations living at all," said his mother, +horrified at the bare suggestion that Lolli was the sister of a person +with whom she ate her dinner every day.</p> + +<p>"<i>Na, na</i>," said Karlchen.</p> + +<p>"But my dear Karlchen, it is so unlikely—the baroness is the veriest +pattern of primness. She has such very strict views about all such +things—quite absurdly strict. She even had doubts, she told me, when +first she came here, as to whether Anna were a fit companion for her."</p> + +<p>Karlchen stopped twisting his moustache, and stared at his mother. Then +he threw back his head and shrieked with laughter. He laughed so much +that for some moments he could not speak. His mother's face, as she +watched him without a smile, made him laugh still more. "<i>Liebste +Mama</i>," he said at last, wiping his eyes, "it may of course not be true. +It is just possible that it is not. But I feel sure it <i>is</i> true, for +this Elmreich and the little Lolli are as alike as two peas. Anna not a +fit companion for Lolli's sister! <i>Ach Gott, ach Gott!</i>" And he shrieked +again.</p> + +<p>"If it is true," said Frau von Treumann, drawing herself up to her full +height, "it is my duty to tell Anna. I cannot stay under the same roof +with such a woman. She must go."</p> + +<p>"Take care," said her son, illumined by an unaccustomed ray of sapience, +"take care, <i>Mutti</i>. It is not certain that Anna would send her away."</p> + +<p>"What! if she knew about this—this Lolli, as you call her?"</p> + +<p>Karlchen shook his head. "It is better not to begin with ultimatums," he +said sagely. "If you say you cannot stay under the same roof with the +Elmreich, and she does not after that go, why then you must. And that," +he added, looking alarmed, "would be disastrous. No, no, leave it alone. +In any case leave it alone till I have seen Lolli. I shall come down +soon again, you may be sure. I wish we could get rid of the Penheim. Now +that really would be a good thing. Think it over."</p> + +<p>But Frau von Treumann felt that by no amount of thinking it over would +they ever get rid of the Penheim.</p> + +<p>"You do not like my Karlchen?" she said plaintively to Anna that +evening, coming out into the dusky garden where she stood looking at the +stars. Karlchen was well on his way to Berlin by that time.</p> + +<p>"I am sure I should like him very much if I knew him," replied Anna, +putting all the heartiness she could muster into her voice.</p> + +<p>Frau von Treumann shook her head sadly. "But now? I see you do not like +him now. You hardly spoke to him. He was hurt. A mother"—"Oh," thought +Anna, "I am tired of mothers,"—"a mother always knows."</p> + +<p>Her handkerchief came out. She had put one hand through Anna's arm, and +with the other began to wipe her eyes. Anna watched her in silence.</p> + +<p>"What? What? Tears? Do I see tears? Are we then missing our son so +much?" exclaimed a cheery voice behind them. And there was the princess +again.</p> + +<p>"Serpent," thought Frau von Treumann; but what is the use of thinking +serpent? She had to submit to being consoled all the same, while Anna +walked away.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + + +<p>Anna seemed always to be walking away during the days that separated +Karlchen's first visit from his second. Frau von Treumann noticed it +with some uneasiness, and hoped that it was only her fancy. The girl had +shown herself possessed of such an abnormally large and warm heart at +first, had been so eager in her offers of affection, so enthusiastic, so +sympathetic, so—well, absurd; was it possible that there was no warmth +and no affection left over from those vast stores for such a +good-looking, agreeable man as Karlchen? But she set such thoughts aside +as ridiculous. Her son's simple doctrine from his fourteenth year on had +been that all girls like all men. It had often been laid down by him in +their talks together, and her own experience of girls had sufficiently +proved its soundness. "The Penheim must have poisoned her mind against +him," she decided at last, unable otherwise to explain the apathy with +which Anna received any news of Karlchen. Was there ever such sheer +spite? For what could it matter to a woman with no son of her own, who +married Anna? Somebody would marry her, for certain, and the Penheim +would lose her place; then why should it not be Karlchen?</p> + +<p>The princess, however, most innocent of excellent women, had never +spoken privately to Anna of Karlchen except once, when she inquired +whether he were to have the best sheets on his bed, or the second best +sheets; and Anna had replied, "The worst."</p> + +<p>But if Frau von Treumann was uneasy about Anna, Anna was still more +uneasy about Frau von Treumann. Whenever she could, she went away into +the forest and tried to think things out. She objected very much to the +feeling that life seemed somehow to be thickening round her—yet, after +Karlchen's visit there it was. Each day there were fewer and fewer quiet +pauses in the trivial bustle of existence; clear moments, like windows +through which she caught glimpses of the serene tranquillity with which +the real day, nature's day, the day she ought to have had, was passing. +Frau von Treumann followed her about and talked to her of Karlchen. +Fräulein Kuhräuber followed her about, with a humble, dog-like +affection, and seemed to want to tell her something, and never got +further than dark utterances that perplexed her. Baroness Elmreich +repulsed all her advances, carefully called her Miss Estcourt, and made +acid comments on everything that was said and done. "I believe she +dislikes me," thought Anna, puzzled. "I wonder why?" The baroness did; +and the reason was simplicity itself. She disliked her because she was +younger, prettier, richer, healthier than herself. For this she disliked +her heartily; but with far greater heartiness did she dislike her +because she knew she ought to be grateful to her. The baroness detested +having to feel grateful—it is a detestation not confined to +baronesses—and in this case the burden of the obligations she was under +was so great that it was almost past endurance. And there was no escape. +She had been starving when Anna took her in, and she would starve again +if Anna turned her out. She owed her everything; and what more natural, +then, than to dislike her? The rarest of loves is the love of a debtor +for his creditor.</p> + +<p>At night, alone in her room, Anna would wonder at the day lived through, +at the unsatisfactoriness of it, and the emptiness. When were they going +to begin the better life, the soul to soul life she was waiting for? How +busy they had all been, and what had they done? Why, nothing. A little +aimless talking, a little aimless sewing, a little aimless walking +about, a few letters to write that need not have been written, a +newspaper to glance into that did not really interest anybody, meals in +rapid succession, night, and oblivion. That was what was on the surface. +What was beneath the surface she could only guess at; for after a whole +fortnight with the Chosen she was still confronted solely by surfaces. +In the hot forest, drowsy and aromatic, where the white butterflies, +like points of light among the shadows of the pine-trunks, fluttered up +and down the unending avenues all day long, she wandered, during the +afternoon hour when the Chosen napped, to the most out-of-the-way nooks +she could find; and sitting on the moss where she could see some special +bit of loveliness, some distant radiant meadow in the sunlight beyond +the trees, some bush with its delicate green shower of budding leaves at +the foot of a giant pine, some exquisite effect of blue and white +between the branches so far above her head, she would ponder and ponder +till she was weary.</p> + +<p>There was no mistaking Karlchen's looks; she had not been a pretty girl +for several seasons at home in vain. Karlchen meant to marry her. She, +of course, did not mean to marry Karlchen, but that did not smooth any +of the ruggedness out of the path she saw opening before her. She would +have to endure the preliminary blandishments of the wooing, and when the +wooing itself had reached the state of ripeness which would enable her +to let him know plainly her own intentions, there would be a grievous +number of scenes to be gone through with his mother. And then his mother +would shake the Kleinwalde dust from her offended feet and go, and +failure number one would be upon her. In the innermost recesses of her +heart, offensive as Karlchen's wooing would certainly be, she thought +that once it was over it would not have been a bad thing; for, since his +visit, it was clear that Frau von Treumann was not the sort of inmate +she had dreamed of for her home for the unhappy. Unhappy she had +undoubtedly been, poor thing, but happy with Anna she would never be. +She had forgiven the first fibs the poor lady had told her, but she +could not go on forgiving fibs for ever. All those elaborate untruths, +written and spoken, about Karlchen's visit, how dreadful they were. +Surely, thought Anna, truthfulness was not only a lovely and a pleasant +thing but it was absolutely indispensable as the basis to a real +friendship. How could any soul approach another soul through a network +of lies? And then more painful still—she confessed with shame that it +was more painful to her even than the lies—Frau von Treumann evidently +took her for a fool. Not merely for a person wanting in intelligence, or +slow-witted, but for a downright fool. She must think so, or she would +have taken more pains, at least some pains, to make her schemes a little +less transparent. Anna hated herself for feeling mortified by this; but +mortified she certainly was. Even a philosopher does not like to be +honestly mistaken during an entire fortnight for a fool. Though he may +smile, he will almost surely wince. Not being a philosopher, Anna winced +and did not smile.</p> + +<p>"I think," she said to Manske, when he came in one morning with a list +of selected applications, "I think we will wait a little before choosing +the other nine."</p> + +<p>"The gracious one is not weary of well-doing?" he asked quickly.</p> + +<p>"Oh no, not at all; I like well-doing," Anna said rather lamely, "but it +is not quite—not quite as simple as it looks."</p> + +<p>"I have found nine most deserving cases," he urged, "and later there may +not be——"</p> + +<p>"No, no," interrupted Anna, "we will wait. In the autumn, perhaps—not +now. First I must make the ones who are here happy. You know," she said, +smiling, "they came here to be made happy."</p> + +<p>"Yes, truly I know it. And happy indeed must they be in this home, +surrounded by all that makes life fair and desirable."</p> + +<p>"One would think so," said Anna, musing. "It is pretty here, isn't +it—it should be easy to be happy here,—yet I am not sure that they +are."</p> + +<p>"Not sure——?" Manske looked at her, startled.</p> + +<p>"What do people—most people, ordinary people, need, to make them +happy?" she asked wistfully. She was speaking to herself more than to +him, and did not expect any very illuminating answer.</p> + +<p>"The fear of the Lord," he replied promptly; which put an end to the +conversation.</p> + +<p>But besides her perplexities about the Chosen, Anna had other worries. +Dellwig had received the refusal to let him build the brick-kiln with +such insolence, and had, in his anger, said such extraordinary things +about Axel Lohm, that Anna had blazed out too, and had told him he must +go. It had been an unpleasant scene, and she had come out from it white +and trembling. She had intended to ask Axel to do the dismissing for her +if she should ever definitely decide to send him away; but she had been +overwhelmed by a sudden passion of wrath at the man's intolerable +insinuations—only half understood, but sounding for that reason worse +than they were—and had done it herself. Since then she had not seen +him. By the agreement her uncle had made with him, he was entitled to +six months' notice, and would not leave until the winter, and she knew +she could not continue to refuse to see him; but how she dreaded the +next interview! And how uneasy she felt at the thought that the +management of her estate was entirely in the hands of a man who must now +be her enemy. Axel was equally anxious, when he heard what she had done. +It had to be done, of course; but he did not like Dellwig's looks when +he met him. He asked Anna to allow him to ride round her place as often +as he could, and she was grateful to him, for she knew that not only her +own existence, but the existence of her poor friends, depended on the +right cultivation of Kleinwalde. And she was so helpless. What creature +on earth could be more helpless than an English girl in her position? +She left off reading Maeterlinck, borrowed books on farming from Axel, +and eagerly studied them, learning by heart before breakfast long pages +concerning the peculiarities of her two chief products, potatoes and +pigs.</p> + +<p>"He cannot do much harm," Axel assured her; "the potatoes, I see, are +all in, and what can he do to the pigs? His own vanity would prevent his +leaving the place in a bad state. I have heard of a good man—shall I +have him down and interview him for you?"</p> + +<p>"How kind you are," said Anna gratefully; indeed, he seemed to her to be +a tower of strength.</p> + +<p>"Anyone would do what they could to help a forlorn young lady in the +straits you are in," he said, smiling at her.</p> + +<p>"I don't feel like a forlorn young lady with you next door to help me +out of the difficulties."</p> + +<p>"People in these lonely country places learn to be neighbourly," he +replied in his most measured tones.</p> + +<p>He had not again spoken of the Chosen since his walk with her through +the forest; and though he knew that Karlchen had been and gone he did +not mention his name. Nor did Anna. The longer she lived with her +sisters the less did she care to talk about them, especially to Axel. As +for Frau von Treumann's plans, how could she ever tell him of those?</p> + +<p>And just then Letty, the only being who was really satisfactory, became +a cause to her of fresh perplexity. Letty had been strangely content +with her German lessons from Herr Klutz. Every day she and Miss Leech +set out without a murmur, and came back looking placid. They brought +back little offerings from the parsonage, a bunch of narcissus, the +first lilac, cakes baked by Frau Manske, always something. Anna took the +flowers, and ate the cakes, and sent pleased messages in return. If she +had been less preoccupied by Dellwig and the eccentricities of her three +new friends, she would certainly have been struck by Letty's silence +about her lessons, and would have questioned her. There was no grumbling +after the first day, and no abuse of Schiller and the muses. Once Anna +met Klutz walking through Kleinwalde, and asked him how the studies were +progressing. "Colossal," was the reply, "the progress made is colossal." +And he crushed her rings into her fingers when she gave him her hand to +shake, and blushed, and looked at her with eyes that he felt must burn +into her soul. But Anna noticed neither his eyes nor his blush; for his +eyes, whatever he might feel them to be doing, were not the kind that +burn into souls, and he was a pale young man who, when he blushed, did +it only in his ears. They certainly turned crimson as he crushed Anna's +fingers, but she was not thinking of his ears.</p> + +<p>"Frau Manske is too kind," she said, as the nosegays, at first +intermittent, became things of daily occurrence. They grew bigger, too, +every day, attaining such a girth at last that Letty could hardly carry +them. "She must not plunder her garden like this."</p> + +<p>"It is very full of flowers," said Miss Leech. "Really a wonderful +display. The bunch is always ready, tied together and lying on the table +when we arrive. I tried to tell her yesterday that you were afraid she +was spoiling her garden, sending so much, but she did not seem to +understand. She is showing me how to make those cakes you said you +liked."</p> + +<p>"I wish I had some of these in my garden," said Anna, laying her cheek +against the posy of wallflowers Letty had just given her. There was +nothing in her garden except grass and trees; Uncle Joachim had not been +a man of flowers.</p> + +<p>She took them up to her room, kissing them on the way, and put them in a +jar on the window-sill; and it was not until two or three days later, +when they began to fade, that she saw the corner of an envelope peeping +out from among them. She pulled it out and opened it. It was addressed +to <i>Ihr Hochwohlgeboren Fräulein Anna Estcourt</i>; and inside was a sheet +of notepaper with a large red heart painted on it, mangled, and pierced +by an arrow; and below it the following poem in a cramped, hardly +readable writing:—</p> + +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The earth am I, and thou the heaven,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The mass am I, and thou the leaven,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No other heaven do I want but thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Oh Anna, Anna, Anna, pity me!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">August Klutz</span>, Kandidat.<br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<p>In an instant Letty's unnatural cheerfulness about her lessons flashed +across her. <i>What</i> had they been doing, and where was Miss Leech, that +such things could happen?</p> + +<p>It was a very terrible, stern-browed aunt who met Letty that day on the +stairs when she came home.</p> + +<p>"Hullo, Aunt Anna, seen a ghost?" Letty inquired pleasantly; but her +heart sank into her boots all the same as she followed her into her +room.</p> + +<p>"Look," said Anna, showing her the paper, "how could you do it? For of +course you did it. Herr Klutz doesn't speak English."</p> + +<p>"Doesn't he though—he gets on like anything. He sits up all night——"</p> + +<p>"How is it that <i>this</i> was possible?" interrupted Anna, striking the +paper with her hand.</p> + +<p>"It's pretty, isn't it," said Letty, faintly grinning. "The last line +had to be changed a little. It isn't original, you know, except the +Annas. I put in those. That footman mother got cheap because he had one +finger too few sent it to Hilton on her birthday last year—she liked it +awfully. The last line was 'Oh Hilton, Hilton, Hilton——'"</p> + +<p>"<i>How</i> came you to talk such hideous nonsense with Herr Klutz, and about +me?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't. He began. He talked about you the whole time, and started +doing it the very first day Leechy cooked."</p> + +<p>"Cooked?"</p> + +<p>"She is always in the kitchen with Frau Manske. We brought you some of +the cakes one day, and you seemed as pleased as anything."</p> + +<p>"And instead of learning German you and he have been making up this sort +of thing?"</p> + +<p>Anna's voice and eyes frightened Letty. She shifted from one foot to the +other and looked down sullenly. "What's the good of being angry?" she +said, addressing the carpet; "it's only Mr. Jessup over again. Leechy +wasn't angry with Mr. Jessup. She was frightfully pleased. She says it's +the greatest compliment a person can pay anybody, going on about them +like Herr Klutz does, and talking rot."</p> + +<p>Anna stared at her, bewildered. "Mr. Jessup?" she repeated. "And do you +mean to tell me that Miss Leech knows of this—this disgusting +nonsense?" She held the mangled heart at arm's length, crushing it in +her hand.</p> + +<p>"I say, you'll spoil it. He worked at it for days. There weren't any +paints red enough for the wound, and he had to go to Stralsund on +purpose. He thought no end of it." And Letty, scared though she was, +could not resist giggling a little.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to tell me that Miss Leech knows about this?" insisted +Anna.</p> + +<p>"Rather not. It's a secret. He made me promise faithfully never to tell +a soul. Of course it doesn't matter talking to you, because you're one +of the persons concerned. You can't be married, you know, without +knowing about it, so I'm not breaking my promise talking to you——"</p> + +<p>"Married? What unutterable rubbish have you got into your head?"</p> + +<p>"That's what I said—or something like it. I said it was jolly rot. He +said, 'What's rot?' I said 'That.'"</p> + +<p>"But what?" asked Anna angrily. She longed to shake her.</p> + +<p>"Why, that about marrying you. I told him it was rot, and I was sure you +wouldn't, but as he didn't know what rot was, it wasn't much good. He +hunted it out in the dictionary, and still he didn't know."</p> + +<p>Anna stood looking at her with indignant eyes. "You don't know what you +have done," she said, "evidently you don't. It is a dreadful thing that +the moment Miss Leech leaves you you should begin to talk of such +things—such horrid things—with a stranger. A little girl of your +age——"</p> + +<p>"I didn't begin," whimpered Letty, overcome by the wrath in Anna's +voice.</p> + +<p>"But all this time you have been going on with it, instead of at once +telling Miss Leech or me."</p> + +<p>"I never met a—a lover before—I thought it—great fun."</p> + +<p>"Then all those flowers were from him?"</p> + +<p>"Ye—es." Letty was in tears.</p> + +<p>"He thought I knew they were from him?"</p> + +<p>No answer.</p> + +<p>"Did he?" insisted Anna.</p> + +<p>"Ye—es."</p> + +<p>"You are a very wicked little girl," said Anna, with awful sternness. +"You have been acting untruths every day for ages, which is just as bad +as telling them. I don't believe you have an idea of the horridness of +what you have done—I hope you have not. Of course your lessons at Lohm +have come to an end. You will not go there again. Probably I shall send +you home to your mother. I am nearly sure that I shall. Go away." And +she pointed to the door.</p> + +<p>That night neither Letty nor Miss Leech appeared at supper; both were +shut up in their rooms in tears. Miss Leech was quite unable to forgive +herself. It was all her fault, she felt. She had been appalled when Anna +showed her the heart and told her what had been going on while she was +learning to cook in Frau Manske's kitchen. "Such a quiet, +respectable-looking young man!" she exclaimed, horror-stricken. "And +about to take holy orders!"</p> + +<p>"Well, you see he isn't quiet and respectable at all," said Anna. "He is +unusually enterprising, and quite without morals. Only a demoralised +person would take advantage of a poor little pupil in that way."</p> + +<p>She lit a candle, and burnt the heart. "There," she said, when it was in +ashes, "that's the end of that. Heaven knows what Letty has been led +into saying, or what ideas he has put into her head. I can't bear to +think of it. I hadn't the courage to cross-question her much—I was +afraid I should hear something that would make me too angry, and I'd +have to tell the parson. Anyhow, dear Miss Leech, we will not leave her +alone again, ever, will we? I don't suppose a thing like this will +happen twice, but we won't let it have a chance, will we? Now don't be +too unhappy. Tell me about Mr. Jessup."</p> + +<p>It was Miss Leech's fault, Anna knew; but she so evidently knew it +herself, and was so deeply distressed, that rebukes were out of the +question. She spent the evening and most of the night in useless +laments, while, in the room adjoining, Letty lay face downwards on her +bed, bathed in tears. For Letty's conscience was in a grievous state of +tumult. She had meant well, and she had done badly. She had not thought +her aunt would be angry—was she not in full possession of the facts +concerning Mr. Jessup's courtship? And had not Miss Leech said that no +higher honour could be paid to a woman than to fall in love with her and +make her an offer of marriage? Herr Klutz, it is true, was not the sort +of person her aunt could marry, for her aunt was stricken in years, and +he looked about the same age as her brother Peter; besides, he was +clearly, thought Letty, of the guttersnipe class, a class that bit its +nails and never married people's aunts. But, after all, her aunt could +always say No when the supreme moment arrived, and nobody ought to be +offended because they had been fallen in love with, and he was +frightfully in love, and talked the most awful rot. Nor had she +encouraged him. On the contrary, she had discouraged him; but it was +precisely this discouragement, so virtuously administered, that lay so +heavily on her conscience as she lay so heavily on her bed. She had been +proud of it till this interview with her aunt; since then it had taken +on a different complexion, and she was sure, dreadfully sure, that if +her aunt knew of it she would be very angry indeed—much, much angrier +than she was before. Letty rolled on her bed in torments; for the +discouragement administered to Klutz had been in the form of poetry, and +poetry written on her aunt's notepaper, and purporting to come from her. +She had meant so well, and what had she done? When no answer came by +return to his poem hidden in the wallflowers, he had refused to believe +that the bouquet had reached its destination. "There has been +treachery," he cried; "you have played me false." And he seemed to fold +up with affliction.</p> + +<p>"I gave it to her all right. She hasn't found the letter yet," said +Letty, trying to comfort, and astonished by the loudness of his grief. +"It's all right—you wait a bit. She liked the flowers awfully, and +kissed them."</p> + +<p>"Poor young lover," she thought romantically, "his heart must not bleed +too much. Aunt Anna, if she ever does find the letter, will only send +him a rude answer. I will answer it for her, and gently discourage him." +For if the words that proceeded from Letty's mouth were inelegant, her +thoughts, whenever they dwelt on either Mr. Jessup or Herr Klutz, were +invariably clothed in the tender language of sentiment.</p> + +<p>And she had sat up till very late, composing a poem whose mission was +both to discourage and console. It cost her infinite pains, but when it +was finished she felt that it had been worth them all. She copied it out +in capital letters on Anna's notepaper, folded it up carefully, and tied +it with one of her own hair-ribbons to a little bunch of +lilies-of-the-valley she had gathered for the purpose in the forest.</p> + +<p>This was the poem:—</p> + +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">It is a matter of regret<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That circumstances won't<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Allow me to call thee my pet,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But as it is they don't.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For why? My many years forbid,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And likewise thy position.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So take advice, and strive amid<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Thy tears for meek submission.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">Anna.</span><br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<p>And this poem was, at that very moment, as she well knew, in Herr +Klutz's waistcoat pocket.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2> + + +<p>The ordinary young man, German or otherwise, hungrily emerging from +boyhood into a toothsome world made to be eaten, cures himself of his +appetite by indulging it till he is ill, and then on a firm foundation +of his own foolish corpse, or, as the poet puts it, of his dead self, +begins to build up the better things of his later years.</p> + +<p>Klutz was an ordinary young man, and arrived at early manhood as hungry +as his fellows; but his father was a parson, his grandfather had been a +parson, his uncles were all parsons, and Fate, coming cruelly to him in +the gloomy robes of the Lutheran Church, his natural follies had had no +opportunity of getting out, developing, and dissolving, but remained +shut up in his heart, where they amused themselves by seething +uninterruptedly, to his great discomfort, while the good parson, in +whose care he was, talked to him of the world to come.</p> + +<p>"The world to come," thought Klutz, hungering and thirsting for a taste +of the world in which he was, "may or may not be very well in its way; +but its way is not my way." And he listened in a silence that might be +taken either for awed or bored to Manske's expatiations. Manske, of +course, interpreted it as awed. "Our young vicar," he said to his wife, +"thinks much. He is serious and contemplative beyond his years. He is +not a man of many and vain words." To which his wife replied only by a +sniff of scepticism.</p> + +<p>She had no direct proofs that Klutz was not serious and contemplative, +but during his first winter in their house he had fallen into her bad +graces because of a certain indelicately appreciative attitude he +displayed towards her apple jelly. Not that she grudged him apple jelly +in just quantities; both she and her husband were fond of it, and the +eating of it was luckily one of those pleasures whose indulgence is +innocent. But there are limits beyond which even jelly becomes vicious, +and these limits Herr Klutz continually overstepped. Every autumn she +made a sufficient number of pots of it to last discreet appetites a +whole year. There had always been vicars in their house, and there had +never been a dearth of jelly. But this year, so early as Easter, there +were only two pots left. She could not conveniently lock it up and +refuse to produce any, for then she and her husband would not have it +themselves; so all through the winter she had watched the pots being +emptied one after the other, and the thinner the rows in her storeroom +grew, the more pronounced became her conviction that Klutz's piety was +but skin deep. A young man who could behave in so unbridled a fashion +could not be really serious; there was something, she thought, that +smacked suspiciously of the flesh and the devil about such conduct. +Great, then, was her astonishment when, the penultimate pot being placed +at Easter on the table, Klutz turned from it with loathing. Nor did he +ever look at apple jelly again; nor did he, of other viands, eat enough +to keep him in health. He who had been so voracious forgot his meals, +and had to be coaxed before he would eat at all. He spent his spare time +writing, sitting up sometimes all night, and consuming candles at the +same head-long rate with which he had previously consumed the jelly; and +when towards May her husband once more commented on his seriousness, +Frau Manske's conscience no longer permitted her to sniff.</p> + +<p>"You must be ill," she said to him at last, on a day when he had sat +through the meals in silence and had refused to eat at all.</p> + +<p>"Ill!" burst out Klutz, whose body and soul seemed both to be in one +fierce blaze of fever, "I am sick—sick even unto death."</p> + +<p>And he did feel sick. Only two days had elapsed since he had received +Anna's poem and had been thrown by it into a tumult of delight and +triumph; for the discouragement it contained had but encouraged him the +more, appearing to be merely the becoming self-depreciation of a woman +before him who has been by nature appointed lord. He was perfectly ready +to overlook the obstacles to their union to which she alluded. She could +not help her years; there were, truly, more of them than he would have +wished, but luckily they were not visible on that still lovely face. As +to position, he supposed she meant that he was not <i>adelig</i>; but a man, +he reflected, compared to a woman, is always <i>adelig</i>, whatever his name +may be, by virtue of his higher and nobler nature. He had been for +rushing at once to Kleinwalde; but his pupil and confidant had said +"Don't," and had said it with such energy that for that day at least he +had resisted. And now, the very morning of the day on which the Frau +Pastor was asking him whether he were ill, he had received a curt note +from Miss Leech, informing him that Miss Letty Estcourt would for the +present discontinue her German studies. What had happened? Even the +poem, lying warm on his heart, was not able to dispel his fears. He had +flown at once to Kleinwalde, feeling that it was absurd not to follow +the dictates of his heart and cast himself in person at Anna's no doubt +expectant feet, and the door had been shut in his face—rudely shut, by +a coarse servant, whose manner had so much enraged him that he had +almost shown her the precious verses then and there, to convince her of +his importance in that house; indeed, the only consideration that +restrained him was a conviction of her ignorance of the English tongue.</p> + +<p>"Would you like to see the doctor?" inquired Frau Manske, startled by +his looks and words; perhaps he had caught something infectious; an +infectious vicar in the house would be horrible.</p> + +<p>"The doctor!" cried Klutz; and forthwith quoted the German rendering of +the six lines beginning, Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased.</p> + +<p>Frau Manske was seriously alarmed. Not aware that he was quoting, she +was horrified to hear him calling her <i>Du</i>, a privilege confined to +lovers, husbands, and near relations, and asking her questions that she +was sure no decent vicar would ever ask the respectable mother of a +family. "I am sure you ought to see the doctor," she said nervously, +getting up hastily and going to the door.</p> + +<p>"No, no," said Klutz; "the doctor does not exist who can help me."</p> + +<p>His hand went to the breast-pocket containing the poem, and he fingered +it feverishly. He longed to show it to Frau Manske, to translate it for +her, to let her see what the young Kleinwalde lady, joint patron with +Herr von Lohm of her husband's living, thought of him.</p> + +<p>"I will ask my husband about the doctor," persisted Frau Manske, +disappearing with unusual haste. If she had stayed one minute longer he +would have shown her the poem.</p> + +<p>Klutz did not wait to hear what the pastor said, but crushed his felt +hat on to his head and started for a violent walk. He would go through +Kleinwalde, past the house; he would haunt the woods; he would wait +about. It was a hot, gusty May afternoon, and the wind that had been +quiet so long was blowing up the dust in clouds; but he hurried along +regardless of heat and wind and dust, with an energy surprising in one +who had eaten nothing all day. Love had come to him very turbulently. He +had been looking for it ever since he left school; but his watchful +parents had kept him in solitary places, empty, uninhabited places like +Lohm, places where the parson's daughters were either married or were +still tied on the cushions of infancy. Sometimes he had been invited, as +a great condescension, to the Dellwigs' Sunday parties; and there too he +had looked around for Love. But the company consisted solely of stout +farmers' wives, ladies of thirty, forty, fifty—of a dizzy antiquity, +that is, and their talk was of butter-making and sausages, and they +cared not at all for Love. "Oh, Love, Love, Love, where shall I find +thee?" he would cry to the stars on his way home through the forest +after these evenings; but the stars twinkled coldly on, obviously +profoundly indifferent as to whether he found it or not. His chest of +drawers was full of the poems into which he had poured the emotions of +twenty, the emotions and longings that well-fed, unoccupied twenty +mistakes for soul. And then the English Miss had burst upon his gaze, +sitting in her carriage on that stormy March day, smiling at him from +the very first, piercing his heart through and through with eyes that +many persons besides Klutz saw were lovely, and so had he found Love, +and for ever lost his interest in apple jelly.</p> + +<p>It was a confident, bold Love, with more hopes than fears, more +assurance than misgivings. The poem seemed to burn his pocket, so +violently did he long to show it round, to tell everyone of his good +fortune. The lilies-of-the-valley to which it had been tied and that he +wore since all day long in his coat, were hardly brown, and yet he was +tired already of having such a secret to himself. What advantage was +there in being told by the lady of Kleinwalde that she regretted not +being able to call him <i>Lämmchen</i> or <i>Schätzchen</i> (the alternative +renderings his dictionary gave of "pet") if no one knew it?</p> + +<p>When he reached the house he walked past it at a snail's pace, staring +up at the blank, repellent windows. Not a soul was to be seen. He went +on discontentedly. What should he do? The door had been shut in his face +once already that day, why he could not imagine. He hesitated, and +turned back. He would try again. Why not? The Miss would have scolded +the servant roundly when she heard that the person who dwelt in her +thoughts as a <i>Lämmchen</i> had been turned away. He went boldly round the +grass plot in front of the house and knocked.</p> + +<p>The same servant appeared. Instantly on seeing him she slammed the door, +and called out "<i>Nicht zu Haus!</i>"</p> + +<p>"<i>Ekelhaftes Benehmen!</i>" cried Klutz aloud, flaming into sudden passion. +His mind, never very strong, had grown weaker along with his body during +these exciting days of love and fasting. A wave of fury swept over him +as he stood before the shut door and heard the servant going away; and +hardly knowing what he did, he seized the knocker, and knocked and +knocked till the woods rang.</p> + +<p>There was a sound of hurried footsteps on the path behind him, and +turning his head, his hand still knocking, he saw Dellwig running +towards him.</p> + +<p>"<i>Nanu!</i>" cried Dellwig breathlessly, staring in blankest astonishment. +"What in the devil's name are you making this noise for? Is the parson +on fire?"</p> + +<p>Klutz stared back in a dazed sort of way, his fury dying out at once in +the presence of the stronger nature; then, because he was twenty, and +because he was half-starved, and because he felt he was being cruelly +used, there on Anna's doorstep, in the full light of the evening sun, +with Dellwig's eyes upon him, he burst into a torrent of tears.</p> + +<p>"Well of all—what's wrong at Lohm, you great sheep?" asked Dellwig, +seizing his arm and giving him a shake.</p> + +<p>Klutz signified by a movement of his head that nothing was wrong at +Lohm. He was crying like a baby, into a red pocket-handkerchief, and +could not speak.</p> + +<p>Dellwig, still gripping his arm, stared at him a moment in silence; then +he turned him round, pushed him down the steps, and walked him off. +"Come along, young man," he said, "I want some explanation of this. If +you are mad you'll be locked up. We don't fancy madmen about our place. +And if you're not mad you'll be fined by the Amtsvorsteher for +disorderly conduct. Knocking like that at a lady's door! I wonder you +didn't kick it in, while you were about it. It's a good thing the +<i>Herrschaften</i> are out."</p> + +<p>Klutz really felt ill. He leaned on Dellwig's arm and let himself be +helped along, the energy gone out of him with the fury. "You have never +loved," was all he said, wiping his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Oh that's it, is it? It is love that made you want to break the +knocker? Why didn't you go round to the back? Which of them is it? The +cook, of course. You look hungry. A Kandidat crying after a cook!" And +Dellwig laughed loud and long.</p> + +<p>"The cook!" cried Klutz, galvanised by the word into life. "The cook!" +He thrust a shaking hand into his breast-pocket and dragged it out, the +precious paper, unfolding it with trembling fingers, and holding it +before Dellwig's eyes. "So much for your cooks," he said, tremulously +triumphant. They were in the road, out of sight of the house. Dellwig +took the paper and held it close to his eyes. "What's this?" he asked, +scrutinising it. "It is not German."</p> + +<p>"It is English," said Klutz.</p> + +<p>"What, the governess——?"</p> + +<p>Klutz merely pointed to the name at the end. Oh, the sweetness of that +moment!</p> + +<p>"Anna?" read out Dellwig, "Anna? That is Miss Estcourt's name."</p> + +<p>"It is," said Klutz, his tears all dried up.</p> + +<p>"It seems to be poetry," said Dellwig slowly.</p> + +<p>"It is," said Klutz.</p> + +<p>"Why have you got it?"</p> + +<p>"Why indeed! It's mine. She sent it to me. She wrote it for me. These +flowers——"</p> + +<p>"Miss Estcourt? Sent it to you? Poetry? To <i>you</i>?" Dellwig looked up +from the paper at Klutz, and examined him slowly from head to foot as if +he had never seen him before. His expression while he did it was not +flattering, but Klutz rarely noticed expressions. "What's it all about?" +he asked, when he had reached Klutz's boots, by which he seemed struck, +for he looked at them twice.</p> + +<p>"Love," said Klutz proudly.</p> + +<p>"Love?"</p> + +<p>"Let me come home with you," said Klutz eagerly, "I'll translate it +there. I can't here where we might be disturbed."</p> + +<p>"Come on, then," said Dellwig, walking off at a great pace with the +paper in his hand.</p> + +<p>Just as they were turning into the farmyard the rattle of a carriage was +heard coming down the road. "Stop," said Dellwig, laying his hand on +Klutz's arm, "the <i>Herrschaften</i> have been drinking coffee in the +woods—here they are, coming home. You can get a greeting if you wait."</p> + +<p>They both stood on the edge of the road, and the carriage with Anna and +a selection from her house-party drove by. Dellwig and Klutz swept off +their hats. When Anna saw Klutz she turned scarlet—undeniably, +unmistakably scarlet—and looked away quickly. Dellwig's lips shaped +themselves into a whistle. "Come in, then," he said, glancing at Klutz, +"come in and translate your poem."</p> + +<p>Seldom had Klutz passed more delicious moments than those in which he +rendered Letty's verses into German, with both the Dellwigs drinking in +his words. The proud and exclusive Dellwigs! A month ago such a thing +would have been too wild a flight of fancy for the most ambitious dream. +In the very room in which he had been thrust aside at parties, forgotten +in corners, left behind when the others went in to supper, he was now +sitting the centre of interest, with his former supercilious hosts +hanging on his words. When he had done, had all too soon come to the end +of his delightful task, he looked round at them triumphantly; and his +triumph was immediately dashed out of him by Dellwig, who said with his +harshest laugh, "Put aside all your hopes, young man—Miss Estcourt is +engaged to Herr von Lohm."</p> + +<p>"Engaged? To Herr von Lohm?" Klutz echoed stupidly, his mouth open and +the hand holding the verses dropping limply to his side.</p> + +<p>"Engaged, engaged, engaged," Dellwig repeated in a loud sing-song, "not +openly, but all the same engaged."</p> + +<p>"It is truly scandalous!" cried his wife, greatly excited, and firmly +believing that the verses were indeed Anna's. Was she not herself of the +race of <i>Weiber</i>, and did she not therefore well know what they were +capable of?</p> + +<p>"Silence, Frau!" commanded Dellwig.</p> + +<p>"And she takes my flowers—my daily offerings, floral and poetical, and +she sends me these verses—and all the time she is betrothed to someone +else?"</p> + +<p>"She is," said Dellwig with another burst of laughter, for Klutz's face +amused him intensely. He got up and slapped him on the shoulder. "This +is your first experience of <i>Weiber</i>, eh? Don't waste your heartaches +over her. She is a young lady who likes to have her little joke and +means no harm——"</p> + +<p>"She is a person without shame!" cried his wife.</p> + +<p>"Silence, Frau!" snapped Dellwig. "Look here, young man—why, what does +he look like, sitting there with all the wind knocked out of him? Get +him a glass of brandy, Frau, or we shall have him crying again. Sit up, +and be a man. Miss Estcourt is not for you, and never will be. Only a +vicar could ever have dreamed she was, and have been imposed upon by +this poetry stuff. But though you're a vicar you're a man, eh? Here, +drink this, and tell us if you are not a man."</p> + +<p>Klutz feebly tried to push the glass away, but Dellwig insisted. Klutz +was pale to ghastliness, and his eyes were brimming again with tears.</p> + +<p>"Oh, this person! Oh, this Englishwoman! Oh, the shameful treatment of +an estimable young man!" cried Frau Dellwig, staring at the havoc Anna +had wrought.</p> + +<p>"Silence, Frau!" shouted Dellwig, stamping his foot. "You can't be +treated like this," he went on to Klutz, who, used to drinking much milk +at the abstemious parsonage, already felt the brandy running along his +veins like liquid fire, "you can't be made ridiculous and do nothing. A +vicar can't fight, but you must have some revenge."</p> + +<p>Klutz started. "Revenge! Yes, but what revenge?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Nothing to do with Miss Estcourt, of course. Leave her alone——"</p> + +<p>"Leave her alone?" cried his wife, "what, when she it is——"</p> + +<p>"Silence, Frau!" roared Dellwig. "Leave her alone, I say. You won't gain +anything there, young man. But go to her <i>Bräutigam</i> Lohm and tell him +about it, and show him the stuff. He'll be interested."</p> + +<p>Dellwig laughed boisterously, and took two or three rapid turns up and +down the room. He had not lived with old Joachim and seen much of old +Lohm and the surrounding landowners without having learned something of +their views on questions of honour. Axel Lohm he knew to be specially +strict and strait-laced, to possess in quite an unusual degree the +ideals that Dellwig thought so absurd and so unpractical, the ideals, +that is, of a Christian gentleman. Had he not known him since he was a +child? And he had always been a prig. How would he like Miss Estcourt to +be talked about, as of course she would be talked about? Klutz's mouth +could not be stopped, and the whole district would know what had been +going on. Axel Lohm could not and would not marry a young lady who wrote +verses to vicars; and if all relations between Lohm and Kleinwalde +ceased, why then life would resume its former pleasant course, he, +Dellwig, staying on at his post, becoming, as was natural, his +mistress's sole adviser, and certainly after due persuasion achieving +all he wanted, including the brick-kiln. The plainness and clearness of +the future was beautiful. He walked up and down the room making odd +sounds of satisfaction, and silencing his wife with vigour every time +she opened her lips. Even his wife, so quick as a rule of comprehension, +had not grasped how this poem had changed their situation, and how it +behoved them now not to abuse their mistress before a mischief-making +young man. She was blinded, he knew, by her hatred of Miss Estcourt. +Women were always the slaves, in defiance of their own interests, to +some emotion or other; if it was not love, then it was hatred. Never +could they wait for anything whatever. The passing passion must out and +be indulged, however fatal the consequences might be. What a set they +were! And the best of them, what fools. He glanced angrily at his wife +as he passed her, but his glance, travelling from her to Klutz, who sat +quite still with head sunk on his chest, legs straight out before him, +the hand with the paper loosely held in it hanging down out of the +cuffless sleeve nearly to the floor, and vacant eyes staring into space, +his good humour returned, and he gave another harsh laugh. "Well?" he +said, standing in front of this dejected figure. "How long will you sit +there? If I were you I'd lose no time. You don't want those two to be +making love and enjoying themselves an hour longer than is necessary, do +you? With you out in the cold? With you so cruelly deceived? And made to +look so ridiculous? I'd spoil that if I were you, at once."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you are right. I'll go to Herr von Lohm and see if I can have an +interview."</p> + +<p>Klutz got up with a great show of determination, put the paper in his +pocket, and buttoned his coat over it for greater security. Then he +hesitated.</p> + +<p>"It <i>is</i> a shameful thing, isn't it?" he said, his eyes on Dellwig's +face.</p> + +<p>"Shameful? It's downright cruel."</p> + +<p>"Shameful?" began his wife.</p> + +<p>"Silence, I tell thee! Young ladies' jokes are sometimes cruel, you see. +I believe it was a joke, but a very heartless one, and one that has made +you look more foolish even than half-fledged pastors of your age +generally do look. It is only fair in return to spoil her game for her. +Take another glass of brandy, and go and do it."</p> + +<p>Klutz stared hard for a moment at Dellwig. Then he seized the brandy, +gulped it down, snatched up his hat, and taking no farewell notice of +either husband or wife, hurried out of the room. They saw him pass +beneath the window, his hat over his eyes, his face white, his ears +aflame.</p> + +<p>"There goes a fool," said Dellwig, rubbing his hands, "and as useful a +one as ever I saw. But here's another fool," he added, turning sharply +to his wife, "and I don't want them in my own house."</p> + +<p>And he proceeded to tell her, in the vigorous and convincing language of +a justly irritated husband, what he thought of her.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + + +<p>Klutz sped, as fast as his shaking limbs allowed, to Lohm. When he +passed Anna's house he flung it a look of burning contempt, which he +hoped she saw and felt from behind some curtain; and then, trying to put +her from his mind, he made desperate efforts to arrange his thoughts a +little for the coming interview. He supposed that it must be the brandy +that made it so difficult for him to discern exactly why he was to go to +Herr von Lohm instead of to the person principally concerned, the person +who had treated him so scandalously; but Herr Dellwig knew best, of +course, and judged the matter quite dispassionately. Certainly Herr von +Lohm, as an insolently happy rival, ought in mere justice to be annoyed +a little; and if the annoyance reached such a pitch of effectiveness as +to make him break off the engagement, why then—there was no +knowing—perhaps after all——? The ordinary Christian was bound to +forgive his erring brother; how much more, then, was it incumbent on a +pastor to forgive his erring sister? But Klutz did wish that someone +else could have done the annoying for him, leaving him to deal solely +with Anna, a woman, a member of the sex in whose presence he was always +at his ease. The brandy prevented him from feeling it as acutely as he +would otherwise have done, but the plain truth, the truth undisguised by +brandy, was that he looked up to Axel Lohm with a respect bordering on +fear, had never in his life been alone with him, or so much as spoken to +him beyond ordinary civilities when they met, and he was frightened.</p> + +<p>By the time he reached Axel's stables, which stood by the roadside about +five minutes' walk from Axel's gate, he found himself obliged to go over +his sufferings once again one by one, to count the dinners he had +missed, to remember the feverish nights and the restless days, to +rehearse what Dellwig had just told him of his present ridiculousness, +or he would have turned back and gone home. But these thoughts gave him +the courage necessary to get him through the gate; and by the time he +had rounded the bend in the avenue escape had become impossible, for +Axel was standing on the steps of the house. Axel had a cigar in his +mouth; his hands were in his pockets, and he was watching the paces of a +young mare which was being led up and down. Two pointers were sitting at +his feet, and when Klutz appeared they rushed down at him barking. Klutz +did not as a rule object to being barked at by dogs, but he was in a +highly nervous state, and shrank aside involuntarily. The groom leading +the mare grinned; Axel whistled the dogs off; and Klutz, with hot ears, +walked up and took off his hat.</p> + +<p>"What can I do for you, Herr Klutz?" asked Axel, his hands still in his +pockets and his eyes on the mare's legs.</p> + +<p>"I wish to speak with you privately," said Klutz.</p> + +<p>"<i>Gut.</i> Just wait a moment." And Klutz waited, while Axel, with great +deliberation, continued his scrutiny of the mare, and followed it up by +a lengthy technical discussion of her faults and her merits with the +groom.</p> + +<p>This was intolerable. Klutz had come on business of vital importance, +and he was left standing there for what seemed to him at least half an +hour, as though he were rather less than a dog or a beggar. As time +passed, and he still was kept waiting, the fury that had possessed him +as he stood helpless before Anna's shut door in the afternoon, returned. +All his doubts and fears and respect melted away. What a day he had had +of suffering, of every kind of agitation! The ground alone that he had +covered, going backwards and forwards between Lohm and Kleinwalde, was +enough to tire out a man in health; and he was not in health, he was +ill, fasting, shaking in every limb. While he had been suffering +(<i>leidend und schwitzend</i>, he said to himself, grinding his teeth), this +comfortable man in the gaiters and the aggressively clean cuffs had no +doubt passed very pleasant and easy hours, had had three meals at least +where he had had none, had smoked cigars and examined horses' legs, had +ridden a little, driven a little, and would presently go round, now that +the cool of the evening had come, to Kleinwalde, and sit in the twilight +while Miss Estcourt called him <i>Schatz</i>. Oh, it was not to be borne! +Dellwig was right—he must be annoyed, punished, at all costs shaken out +of his lofty indifference. "Let me remind you," Klutz burst out in a +voice that trembled with passion, "that I am still here, and still +waiting, and that I have only two legs. Your horse, I see, has four, and +is better able to stand and wait than I am."</p> + +<p>Axel turned and stared at him. "Why, what is the matter?" he asked, +astonished. "You <i>are</i> Manske's vicar? Yes, of course you are. I did not +know you had anything very pressing to tell me. I am sorry I have kept +you—come in."</p> + +<p>He sent the mare to the stables, and led the way into his study. "Sit +down," he said, pushing a chair forward, and sitting down himself by his +writing-table. "Have a cigar?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"No?" Axel stared again. "'No thank you' is the form prejudice prefers," +he said.</p> + +<p>"I care nothing for that."</p> + +<p>"What is the matter, my dear Herr Klutz? You are very angry about +something."</p> + +<p>"I have been shamefully treated by a woman."</p> + +<p>"It is what sometimes happens to young men," said Axel, smiling.</p> + +<p>"I do not want cheap wisdom like that," cried Klutz, his eyes ablaze.</p> + +<p>Axel's brows went up. "You are rude, my good Herr Klutz," he said. "Try +to be polite if you wish me to help you. If you cannot, I shall ask you +to go."</p> + +<p>"I will not go."</p> + +<p>"My dear Herr Klutz."</p> + +<p>"I say I will not go till I have told you what I came to tell you. The +woman is Miss Estcourt."</p> + +<p>"Miss Estcourt?" repeated Axel, amazed. Then he added, "Call her a +lady."</p> + +<p>"She is a woman to all intents and purposes——"</p> + +<p>"Call her a lady. It sounds better from a young man of your station."</p> + +<p>"Of my station! What, a man with the brains of a man, the mind of a man, +the sinews of a man, is not equal, is not superior, whatever his station +may be, to a mere woman?"</p> + +<p>"I will not discuss your internal arrangements. Has there, then, been +some mistake about the salary you are to receive?"</p> + +<p>"What salary?"</p> + +<p>"For teaching Miss Letty Estcourt?"</p> + +<p>"Pah—the salary. Love does not look at salaries."</p> + +<p>"That sounds magnificent. Did you say love?"</p> + +<p>"For weeks past, all the time that I have taught the niece, she has +taken my flowers, my messages, at first verbal and at last written——"</p> + +<p>"One moment. Of whom are we talking? I have met you with Miss Leech——"</p> + +<p>"The governess? <i>Ich danke.</i> It is Miss Estcourt who has encouraged me +and led me on, and now, after calling me her <i>Lämmchen</i>, takes away her +niece and shuts her door in my face——"</p> + +<p>"You have been drinking?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly not," cried Klutz, the more indignantly because of his +consciousness of the brandy.</p> + +<p>"Then you have no excuse at all for talking in this manner of my +neighbour?"</p> + +<p>"Excuse! To hear you, one would think she must be a queen," said Klutz, +laughing derisively. "If she were, I should still talk as I pleased. A +cat may look at a king, I suppose?" And he laughed again, very bitterly, +disliking even for one moment to imagine himself in the rôle of the cat.</p> + +<p>"A cat may look as long and as often as it likes," said Axel, "but it +must not get in the king's way. I am sure you can guess why."</p> + +<p>"I have not come here to guess why about anything."</p> + +<p>"Oh, it is not very abstruse—the cat would be kicked by somebody, of +course."</p> + +<p>"Oh, ho! Not if it could bite, and had what I have in its pocket."</p> + +<p>"Cats do not have pockets, my dear Herr Klutz. You must have noticed +that yourself. Pray, what is it that you have in yours?"</p> + +<p>"A little poem she sent me in answer to one of mine. A little, sweet +poem. I thought you might like to see how your future wife writes to +another man."</p> + +<p>"Ah—that is why you have called so kindly on me? Out of pure +thoughtfulness. My future wife, then, is Miss Estcourt?"</p> + +<p>"It is an open secret."</p> + +<p>"It is, most unfortunately, not true."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach</i>—I knew you would deny it," cried Klutz, slapping his leg and +grinning horribly. "I knew you would deny it when you heard she had been +behaving badly. But denials do not alter anything—no one will believe +them——"</p> + +<p>Axel shrugged his shoulders. "Am I to see the poem?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Klutz took it out and handed it to him. The twilight had come into the +room, and Axel put the paper down a moment while he lit the candles on +his table. Then he smoothed out its creases, and holding it close to the +light read it attentively. Klutz leaned forward and watched his face. +Not a muscle moved. It had been calm before, and it remained calm. Klutz +could hardly keep himself from leaping up and striking that impassive +face, striking some sort of feeling into it. He had played his big card, +and Axel was quite unmoved. What could he do, what could he say, to hurt +him?</p> + +<p>"Shall we burn it?" inquired Axel, looking up from the paper.</p> + +<p>"Burn it? Burn my poem?"</p> + +<p>"It is such very great nonsense. It is written by a child. We know what +child. Only one in this part can write English."</p> + +<p>"Miss Estcourt wrote it, I tell you!" cried Klutz, jumping to his feet +and snatching the paper away.</p> + +<p>"Your telling me so does not in the very least convince me. Miss +Estcourt knows nothing about it."</p> + +<p>"She does—she did——" screamed Klutz, beside himself. "Your Miss +Estcourt—your <i>Braut</i>—you try to brazen it out because you are ashamed +of such a <i>Braut</i>. It is no use—everyone shall see this, and be told +about it—the whole province shall ring with it—<i>I</i> will not be the +laughing-stock, but <i>you</i> will be. Not a labourer, not a peasant, but +shall hear of it——"</p> + +<p>"It strikes me," said Axel, rising, "that you badly want kicking. I do +not like to do it in my house—it hardly seems hospitable. If you will +suggest a convenient place, neutral ground, I shall be pleased to come +and do it."</p> + +<p>He looked at Klutz with an encouraging smile. Then something in the +young man's twitching face arrested his attention. "Do you know what I +think?" he said quickly, in a different voice. "It is less a kicking +that you want than a good meal. You really look as though you had had +nothing to eat for a week. The difference a beefsteak would make to your +views would surprise you. Come, come," he said, patting him on the +shoulder, "I have been taking you too seriously. You are evidently not +in your usual state. When did you have food last? What has Frau Pastor +been about? And your eyelids are so red that I do believe——" Axel +looked closer—"I do believe you have been crying."</p> + +<p>"Sir," began Klutz, struggling hard with a dreadful inclination to cry +again, for self-pity is a very tender and tearful sentiment, "Sir——"</p> + +<p>"Let me order that beefsteak," said Axel kindly. "My cook will have it +ready in ten minutes."</p> + +<p>"Sir," said Klutz, with the tremendous dignity that immediately precedes +tears, "Sir, I am not to be bribed."</p> + +<p>"Well, take a cigar at least," said Axel, opening his case. "That will +not corrupt you as much as the beefsteak, and will soothe you a little +on your way home. For you must go home and get to bed. You are as near +an illness as any man I ever saw."</p> + +<p>The tears were so near, so terribly near, that, hardly knowing what he +did, and sooner than trust himself to speak, Klutz took a cigar and lit +it at the match Axel held for him. His hand shook pitifully.</p> + +<p>"Now go home, my dear Klutz," said Axel very kindly. "Tell Frau Pastor +to give you some food, and then get to bed. I wish you would have taken +the beefsteak—here is your hat. If you like, we will talk about this +nonsense later on. Believe me, it is nonsense. You will be the first to +say so next week."</p> + +<p>And he ushered him out to the steps, and watched him go down them, +uneasy lest he should stumble and fall, so weak did he seem to be. "What +a hot wind!" he exclaimed. "You will have a dusty walk home. Go slowly. +Good-night."</p> + +<p>"Poor devil," he thought, as Klutz without speaking went down the avenue +into the darkness with unsteady steps, "poor young devil—the highest +possible opinion of himself, and the smallest possible quantity of +brains; a weak will and strong instincts; much unwholesome study of the +Old Testament in Hebrew with Manske; a body twenty years old, and the +finest spring I can remember filling it with all sorts of anti-parsonic +longings. I believe I ought to have taken him home. He looked as though +he would faint."</p> + +<p>This last thought disturbed Axel. The image of Klutz fainting into a +ditch and remaining in it prostrate all night, refused to be set aside; +and at last he got his hat and went down the avenue after him.</p> + +<p>But Klutz, who had shuffled along quickly, was nowhere to be seen. Axel +opened the avenue gate and looked down the road that led past the +stables to the village and parsonage, and then across the fields to +Kleinwalde; he even went a little way along it, with an uneasy eye on +the ditches, but he did not see Klutz, either upright or prostrate. +Well, if he were in a ditch, he said to himself, he would not drown; the +ditches were all as empty, dry, and burnt-up as four weeks' incessant +drought and heat could make them. He turned back repeating that +eminently consolatory proverb, <i>Unkraut vergeht nicht</i>, and walked +quickly to his own gate; for it was late, and he had work to do, and he +had wasted more time than he could afford with Klutz. A man on a horse +coming from the opposite direction passed him. It was Dellwig, and each +recognised the other; but in these days of mutual and profound distrust +both were glad of the excuse the darkness gave for omitting the usual +greetings. Dellwig rode on towards Kleinwalde in silence, and Axel +turned in at his gate.</p> + +<p>But the poor young devil, as Axel called him, had not fainted. Hurrying +down the dark avenue, beyond Axel's influence, far from fainting, it was +all Klutz could do not to shout with passion at his own insufferable +weakness, his miserable want of self-control in the presence of the man +he now regarded as his enemy. The tears in his eyes had given Lohm an +opportunity for pretending he was sorry for him, and for making +insulting and derisive offers of food. What could equal in humiliation +the treatment to which he had been subjected? First he had been treated +as a dog, and then, far worse, far, far worse and more difficult to bear +with dignity, as a child. A beefsteak? Oh, the shame that seared his +soul as he thought of it! This revolting specimen of the upper class had +declared, with a hateful smile of indulgent superiority, that all his +love, all his sufferings, all his just indignation, depended solely for +their existence on whether he did or did not eat a beefsteak. Could +coarse-mindedness and gross insensibility go further? "Thrice miserable +nation!" he cried aloud, shaking his fist at the unconcerned stars, +"thrice miserable nation, whose ruling class is composed of men so +vile!" And, having removed his cigar in order to make this utterance, he +remembered, with a great start, that it was Axel's.</p> + +<p>He was in the road, just passing Axel's stables. The gate to the +stableyard stood open, and inside it, heaped against one of the +buildings, was a waggon-load of straw. Instantly Klutz became aware of +what he was going to do. A lightning flash of clear purpose illumined +the disorder of his brain. It was supper time, and no one was about. He +ran inside the gate and threw the lighted cigar on to the straw; and +because there was not an instantaneous blaze fumbled for his matchbox, +and lit one match after the other, pushing them in a kind of frenzy +under the loose ends of straw.</p> + +<p>There was a puff of smoke, and then a bright tongue of flame; and +immediately he had achieved his purpose he was terrified, and fled away +from the dreadful light, and hid himself, shuddering, in the darkness of +the country road.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + + +<p>"It's in Stralsund," cried the princess, hurrying out into the +Kleinwalde garden when first the alarm was given.</p> + +<p>"It's in Lohm," cried someone else.</p> + +<p>Anna watched the light in silence, her face paler than ordinary, her +hair blown about by the hot wind. The trees in the dark garden swayed +and creaked, the air was parching and full of dust, the light glared +brighter each moment. Surely it was very near? Surely it was nearer than +Stralsund? "It's in Lohm," cried someone with conviction; and Anna +turned and began to run.</p> + +<p>"Where are you running to, Aunt Anna?" asked Letty, breathlessly +following her; for since the affair with Klutz she followed her aunt +about like a conscience-stricken dog.</p> + +<p>"The fire-engine—there is one at the farm—it must go——"</p> + +<p>They took each other's hands and ran in silence. Between the gusts of +wind they could hear the Lohm church-bells ringing; and almost +immediately the single Kleinwalde bell began to toll, to toll with a +forlorn, blood-curdling sound altogether different from its unmeaning +Sunday tinkle.</p> + +<p>In front of her house Frau Dellwig stood, watching the sky. "It is +Lohm," she said to Anna as she came up panting.</p> + +<p>"Yes—the fire-engine—is it ordered? Has it gone? No? Then at once—at +once——"</p> + +<p>"<i>Jawohl, jawohl</i>," said Frau Dellwig with great calm, the philosophic +calm of him who contemplates calamities other than his own. She said +something to one of the maids, who were standing about in pleased and +excited groups laughing and whispering, and the girl shuffled off in her +clattering wooden shoes. "My husband is not here," she explained, "and +the men are at supper."</p> + +<p>"Then they must leave their supper," cried Anna. "Go, go, you girls, and +tell them so—look how terrible it is getting——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is a big fire. The girl I sent will tell them. They say it is +the <i>Schloss</i>."</p> + +<p>"Oh, go yourself and tell the men—see, there is no sign of them—every +minute is priceless——"</p> + +<p>"It is always a business with the engine. It has not been required, +thank God, for years. Mietze, go and hurry them."</p> + +<p>The girl called Mietze went off at a trot. The others put their heads +together, looked at their young mistress, and whispered. A stable-boy +came to the pump and filled his pail. Everyone seemed composed, and yet +there was that bloody sky, and there was that insistent cry for help +from the anxious bell.</p> + +<p>Anna could hardly bear it. What was happening down there to her kind +friend?</p> + +<p>"It is the <i>Schloss</i>," said the stable-boy in answer to a question from +Frau Dellwig as he passed with his full pail, spilling the water at +every step.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach</i>, I thought so," she said, glancing at Anna.</p> + +<p>Anna made a passionate movement, and ran down the steps after the girl +Mietze. Frau Dellwig could not but follow, which she did slowly, at a +disapproving distance.</p> + +<p>But Dellwig galloped into the yard at that moment, his horse covered +with sweat, and his loud and peremptory orders extracted the ancient +engine from its shed, got the horses harnessed to it, and after what +Anna thought an eternity it rattled away. When it started, the whole sky +to the south was like one dreadful sheet of blood.</p> + +<p>"It is the stables," he said to Anna.</p> + +<p>"Herr von Lohm's?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. They cannot be saved."</p> + +<p>"And the house?"</p> + +<p>He shrugged his shoulders. "It's a windy night," he said, "and the wind +is blowing that way. There are pine-trees between. Everything is as dry +as cinders."</p> + +<p>"The stables—are they insured?"</p> + +<p>But Dellwig was off again, after the engine.</p> + +<p>"What can we do, Letty? What can we <i>do</i>?" cried Anna, turning to Letty +when the sound of the wheels had died away and only the hurried bell was +heard above the whistling and banging of the wind. "It's horrible here, +listening to that bell tolling, and looking at the sky. If I could throw +one single bucketful of water on the fire I should not feel so useless, +so utterly, utterly of no use or good for anything."</p> + +<p>Neither of them had ever seen a fire, and horror had seized them both. +The night seemed so dark, the world all round so black, except in that +one dreadful spot. Anna knew Axel could not afford to lose money. From +things Trudi had said, from things the princess had said, she knew it. +There was at Lohm, she felt rather than knew, an abundance of everything +necessary to ordinary comfortable living, as there generally is in the +country on farms; but money was scarce, and a series of bad seasons, +perhaps even one bad season, or anything out of the way happening, might +make it very scarce, might make the further proper farming of the place +impossible. Suppose the stables were not insured, where would the money +come from to rebuild them? And the horses—she had heard that horses +went mad with fright in a fire, and refused to leave their stables. And +the house—suppose this cruel wind made the checking of the fire +impossible, and it licked its way across the trees to Axel's house? "Oh, +what can we <i>do</i>?" she cried to the frightened Letty.</p> + +<p>"Let's go there," said Letty.</p> + +<p>"Yes!" cried Anna, striking her hands together. "Yes! The carriage—Frau +Dellwig, order the carriage—order Fritz to bring the carriage out at +once. Tell him to be quick—quick!"</p> + +<p>"The gracious Miss will go to Lohm?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—call him, send for him—Fritz! Fritz!" She herself began to call.</p> + +<p>"But——"</p> + +<p>"Fritz! Fritz! Run, Letty, and see if you can find him."</p> + +<p>"If I may be permitted to advise——"</p> + +<p>"Fritz! Fritz! Fritz!"</p> + +<p>"Call the <i>herrschaftliche Kutscher</i> Fritz," Frau Dellwig then commanded +a passing boy in a loud and stern voice. "Not only mad, but improper," +was her private comment. "She goes by night to her <i>Bräutigam</i>—to her +unacknowledged <i>Bräutigam</i>." Even a possible burning <i>Bräutigam</i> did +not, in her opinion, excuse such a step.</p> + +<p>The darkness concealed the anger on her face, and Anna neither noticed +nor cared for the anger in her voice, but began herself to run in the +direction of the stables, leaving Frau Dellwig to her reflections.</p> + +<p>"Princess Ludwig is looking for you everywhere, Aunt Anna," said Letty, +coming towards her, having found Fritz and succeeded in making him +understand what she wanted.</p> + +<p>"Where is she? Is the carriage coming?"</p> + +<p>"He said five minutes. She was at the house, asking the servants if they +had seen you."</p> + +<p>"Come along then, we'll go to her."</p> + +<p>"I was afraid I should not find you here," said the princess as Anna +came up the steps of the house into the light of the entry, "and that +you had run off to Lohm to put the fire out. My dear child, what do you +look like? Come and look at yourself in the glass."</p> + +<p>She led her to the glass that hung above the Dellwig hat-stand.</p> + +<p>"I am just going there," said Anna, looking at her reflection without +seeing it. "The carriage is being got ready now."</p> + +<p>"Then I am coming too. What has the wind been doing to your hair? See, I +knew you were running about bare-headed, and have brought you a scarf. +Come, let me tie it over all these excited little curls, and turn you +into a sober and circumspect young woman."</p> + +<p>Anna bent her head and let the princess do as she pleased. "Herr Dellwig +is afraid the fire will spread to the house," she said breathlessly. +"Our engine has only just gone——"</p> + +<p>"I heard it."</p> + +<p>"It is such a lumbering thing, it will be hours getting there——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, not hours. Half a one, perhaps."</p> + +<p>"Are they insured?"</p> + +<p>"The buildings? They are sure to be. But there is always a loss that +cannot be covered—<i>ach</i>, Frau Dellwig, good-evening—you see we have +taken possession of your house. To have no stables and probably no +horses just when the busy time is beginning is terrible. Poor Axel. +There—now you are tidy. Wait, let me fasten your cloak and cover up +your pretty dress. Is Letty to come too?"</p> + +<p>"Oh—if she likes. Why doesn't the carriage come?"</p> + +<p>"It will be much better if Letty goes to bed," said the princess.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Letty.</p> + +<p>"It is long past her bedtime, and she has no hat, and nothing round her. +Shall we not ask Frau Dellwig to send a servant with her home?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Aber gewiss</i>——" began Frau Dellwig.</p> + +<p>But Anna was out again on the steps, was shutting out the flaming sky +with one hand while she strained her eyes into the darkness of the +corner where the coach-house was. She could hear Fritz's voice, and the +horses' hoofs on the cobbles, and she could see the light of a lantern +jogging up and down as the stable-boy who held it hurried to and fro. +"Quick, quick, Fritz," she cried.</p> + +<p>"<i>Jawohl, gnädiges Fräulein</i>," came back the answer in the old man's +cheery, reassuring tones. But it was like a nightmare, standing there +waiting, waiting, the precious minutes slipping by, terrible things +happening to Axel, and she herself unable to stir a step towards him.</p> + +<p>"Take me with you—let me come too," pleaded Letty from behind her, +slipping her hand into Anna's.</p> + +<p>"Then tie a handkerchief or something round your head," said Anna, her +eyes on the lantern moving about before the coach-house. Then the +carriage lamps flashed out, and in another moment the carriage rattled +up.</p> + +<p>It was a ghostly drive. As the tops of the pine-trees swayed aside they +caught glimpses of the red horror of the sky; and when they got out into +the open Anna cried out involuntarily, for it seemed as if the whole +world were on fire. The spire of Lohm church and the roofs of the +cottages stood out clear and sharp in the fierce light. The horses, more +and more frightened the nearer they drew, plunged and reared, and old +Fritz could hardly hold them in. On turning the corner by the parsonage +they were not to be induced to advance another yard, but swerved aside, +kicking and terrified, and threatening every moment to upset the +carriage into the ditch.</p> + +<p>Anna jumped out and ran on. The princess, slower and more bulky, was +helped out by Letty and followed after as quickly as she could. In the +road and in the field opposite the stables the whole population was +gathered, illuminated figures in eager, chattering groups. From the pump +on the green in front of the schoolhouse, a chain of helpers had been +formed, and buckets of water were being passed along from hand to hand +to the engines; and there was no other water. The engines were working +farther down the road, keeping the hose turned on to the trees between +the stables and the house. There were clumps of pine-trees among them, +and these were the trees that would carry the fire across to Axel's +house. Men in the garden were hacking at them, the blows of their axes +indistinguishable in the uproar, but every now and then one of the +victims fell with a crash among its fellows still standing behind it.</p> + +<p>"Oh, poor Axel, poor Axel!" murmured Anna, drawing her scarf across her +face as she passed along to protect it from the intolerable heat. But +she was an unmistakable figure in her blue cloak and white dress, +stumbling on to where the engines were; and the groups of onlookers +nudged each other and turned to stare after her as she passed.</p> + +<p>"How did it happen?" she asked, suddenly stopping before a knot of +women. They were in the act of discussing her, and started and looked +foolish.</p> + +<p>"No one knows," said the eldest, when Anna repeated her question. "They +say it was done on purpose."</p> + +<p>"Done on purpose!" echoed Anna, staring at the speaker. "Why, who would +set fire to a place on purpose?"</p> + +<p>But to this question no reply at all was forthcoming. They fidgeted and +looked at each other, and one of the younger ones tittered and then put +her hand before her mouth.</p> + +<p>In the potato field across the road, two storks, whose nest for many +springs had been on one of the roofs now burning, had placed their young +ones in safety and were watching over them. The young storks were only a +few days old, and had been thrown out of the nest by the parents, and +then dragged away out of danger into the field, the parents mounting +guard over their bruised and dislocated offspring, and the whole group +transformed in the glow into a beautiful, rosy, dazzling white, into a +family of spiritualised, glorified storks, as they huddled ruefully +together in their place of refuge. Anna saw them without knowing that +she saw them; there were three little ones, and one was dead. The +princess and Letty found her standing beside them, watching the roaring +furnace of the stableyard with parted lips and wide-open, +horror-stricken eyes.</p> + +<p>"Most of the horses were got out in time," said the princess, taking +Anna's arm, determined that she should not again slip away, "and they +say the buildings are fully insured, and he will be able to have much +better ones."</p> + +<p>"But the time lost—they can't be built in a day——"</p> + +<p>"The man I spoke to said they were such old buildings and in such a bad +state that Axel can congratulate himself that they have been burned. But +of course there will always be the time lost. Have you seen him? Let us +go on a little—we shall be scorched to cinders here."</p> + +<p>Both Axel and Dellwig were superintending the working of the hose. "I do +not want my trees destroyed," he said to Dellwig, with whom in the +stress of the moment he had resumed his earlier manner; "they are not +insured." He had watched the stables go with an impassiveness that +struck several of the bystanders as odd. Dellwig and many others of the +dwellers in that district were used to making a great noise on all +occasions great and small, and they could by no means believe that it +was natural to Axel to remain so calm at such a moment. "It is a great +nuisance," Axel said more than once; but that also was hardly an +adequate expression of feelings.</p> + +<p>"They are well insured, I believe?" said Dellwig.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes. I shall be able to have nice tight buildings in their place."</p> + +<p>"They were certainly rather—rather dilapidated," said Dellwig, eyeing +him.</p> + +<p>"They were very dilapidated," said Axel.</p> + +<p>Anna and the princess stood a little way from the engines watching the +efforts to check the spread of the fire for some time before Axel +noticed them. Manske, who had been the first to volunteer as a link in +the human chain to the pump, bowed and smiled from his place at them, +and was stared at in return by both women, who wondered who the begrimed +and friendly individual could be. "It is the pastor," then said the +princess, smiling back at him; on which Manske's smiles and bows +redoubled, and he spilt half the contents of the bucket passing through +his hands.</p> + +<p>"So it is," said Anna.</p> + +<p>"Take care there, No. 3!" roared Dellwig, affecting not to know who No. +3 was, and glad of an opportunity of calling the parson to order. +Dellwig was making so much noise flinging orders and reprimands about, +that a stranger would certainly have taken him for the frantic owner of +the burning property.</p> + +<p>"You see the pastor looks anything but alarmed," said the princess. "If +Axel were losing much by this, Manske would be weeping into his bucket +instead of smiling so kindly at us."</p> + +<p>"So he would," said Anna, a little reassured by that cheerful and grimy +countenance. Her eyes wandered to Axel, so cool and so vigilant, giving +the necessary orders so quietly, losing no precious moments in trying to +save what was past saving, and without any noise or any abuse getting +what he wanted done. "It <i>can't</i> be a good thing, a fire like this," she +said to herself. "Whatever they say, it <i>can't</i> be a good thing."</p> + +<p>A huge pine-tree was dragged down at that moment, dragged in a direction +away from its fellows, against a beech, whose branches it tore down in +its fall, ruining the beech for ever, but smothering a few of its own +twigs that had begun to burn among the fresh young leaves. Anna watched +the havoc going on among poor Axel's trees in silence. "He <i>can't</i> not +care," she said to herself. He turned round quickly at that moment, as +though he heard her thinking of him, and looked straight into her eyes. +"You here!" he exclaimed, striding across the road to her at once.</p> + +<p>"Yes, we are here," replied the princess. "We cannot let our neighbour +burn without coming to see if we can do anything. But seriously, I hear +that it is a good thing for you."</p> + +<p>"I prefer the less good thing that I had before, just now. But it is +gone. I shall not waste time fretting over it."</p> + +<p>He ran back again to stop something that was being done wrong, but +returned immediately to tell them to go into his house and not stand +there in the heat. "You look so tired—and anxious," he said, his eyes +searching Anna's face. "Why are you anxious? The fire has frightened +you? It is all insured, I assure you, and there is only the bother of +having to build just now."</p> + +<p>He could not stay, and hurried back to his men.</p> + +<p>"We can go indoors a moment," said the princess, "and see what is going +on in his house. It will be standing empty and open, and it is not +necessary that he should suffer losses from thieves as well as from +fire. His Mamsell is like all bachelors' Mamsells—losing, I am sure, no +opportunity of feathering her nest at his expense."</p> + +<p>Anna thought this a practical way of helping Axel, since the throwing of +water on the flames was not required of her. She turned to call Letty, +and found that no Letty was to be seen. "Why, where is Letty?" she +asked, looking round.</p> + +<p>"I thought she was behind us," said the princess.</p> + +<p>"So did I," said Anna anxiously.</p> + +<p>They went back a few steps, looking for her among the bystanders. They +saw her at last a long way off, her handkerchief still round her head +and her long thick hair blowing round her shoulders, rapt in +contemplation of the fiery furnace. Then a shout went up from the people +in the road, and they all ran back into the potato field. Anna and the +princess stood rooted to the spot, clutching each other's hands. Letty +looked round when she heard the shout, and began to run too. The flaming +outer wall of the yard swayed and tottered and then fell outwards with a +terrific crash and crackling, filling the road with a smoking heap of +rubbish, and sending a shower of sparks on a puff of wind after the +flying spectators.</p> + +<p>The princess had certainly not run so fast since her girlhood as she did +with Anna towards the spot in the field where they had last seen Letty. +A crowd had gathered round it, they could see, an excited, gesticulating +crowd. But they found her apparently unhurt, sitting on the ground, +surrounded by sympathisers, and with someone's coat over her head. She +looked up, very pale, but smiling apologetically at her aunt. "It's all +gone," she said, pointing to her head.</p> + +<p>"What is gone?" cried Anna, dropping on her knees beside her.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach Gott, die Haare—die herrlichen Haare!</i>" lamented a woman in the +crowd. The smell of burnt hair explained what had happened.</p> + +<p>Anna seized her in her arms. "You might have been killed—you might have +been killed," she panted, rocking her to and fro. "Oh, Letty—who saved +you?"</p> + +<p>"Somebody put this beastly thing over my head—it smells of herrings. +Sparks got into my hair, and it all frizzled up. Can't I take this off? +It's out now—and off too."</p> + +<p>The princess felt all over her head through the coat, patting and +pressing it carefully; then she took the coat off, and restored it with +effusive thanks to its sheepish owner. There was a murmur of sympathy +from the women as Letty emerged, shorn of those flowing curls that were +her only glory. "<i>Oh Weh, die herrlichen Haare!</i>" sighed the women to +one another, "<i>Oh Weh, oh Weh!</i>" But the handkerchief tied so tightly +round her head had saved her from a worse fate; she had been an ugly +little girl before—all that had happened was that she looked now like +an ugly little boy.</p> + +<p>"I say, Aunt Anna, don't mind," said Letty; for her aunt was crying, and +kissing her, and tying and untying the handkerchief, and arranging and +rearranging it, and stroking and smoothing the singed irregular wisps of +hair that were left as though she loved them. "I'm frightfully sorry—I +didn't know you were so fond of my hair."</p> + +<p>"Come, we'll go to the house," was all Anna said, stumbling on to her +feet and putting her arm round Letty. And they clung to each other so +close that they could hardly walk.</p> + +<p>"We are going indoors a moment," called the princess, who was very pale, +to Axel as they passed the engines.</p> + +<p>He smiled across at her, and lifted his hat.</p> + +<p>"I never saw anyone quite so composed," she observed to Anna, trying to +turn her attention to other things. "Your man Dellwig, who has nothing +to do with it all, is displaying the kind of behaviour the people expect +on these occasions. I am sure that Axel has puzzled a great many people +to-night."</p> + +<p>Anna did not answer. She was thinking only of Letty. What a slender +thread of chance had saved her from death, from a dreadful death, the +little Letty who was under her care, for whom she was responsible, and +whom she had quite forgotten in her stupid interest in Axel Lohm's +affairs. Woman-like, she felt very angry with Axel. What did it matter +to her whether his place burnt to ashes or not? But Letty mattered to +her, her own little niece, poor solitary Letty, practically motherless, +so ugly, and so full of good intentions. She had scolded her so much +about Klutz; wretched Klutz, it was entirely his fault that Letty had +been so silly, and yet only Letty had had the scoldings. Anna held her +closer. In the light of that narrow escape how trivial, how indifferent, +all this folly of love-talk and messages and anger seemed. For a short +space she touched the realities, she saw life and death in their true +proportion; and even while she was looking at them with clear and +startled vision they were blurred again into indistinctness, they faded +away and were gone—rubbed out by the inevitable details of the passing +hour.</p> + +<p>"I thought as much," said the princess, as they drew near the house. +"All the doors wide open and the place deserted." And Anna came back +with a start from the reality to the well-known dream of daily life, and +immediately felt as though that other flash had been the dream and only +this were real.</p> + +<p>The hall was in darkness, but there was light shining through the chinks +of a door, and they groped their way towards it. The house was as quiet +as death. They could hear the distant shouts of the men cutting down the +trees in the garden, and the blows of the axes. The princess pushed open +the door behind which the light was, and they found themselves in Axel's +study, where the candles he had lit in order to read Letty's poem were +still guttering and flaring in the draught from the open window. A clock +on the writing-table showed that it was past midnight. The room looked +very untidy and ill-cared for.</p> + +<p>"A man without a wife," said the princess, gazing round at the litter, +composed chiefly of cigar-ashes and old envelopes, "is a truly miserable +being. What condition can be more wretched than to be at the mercy of a +Mamsell? I shall go and inquire into the whereabouts of this one. Axel +will want some food when he comes in."</p> + +<p>She took up one of the candles and went out. Letty had sat down at once +on the nearest chair, and was looking very pale. Anna untied the +handkerchief, and tried to arrange what was left of her hair. "I must +cut off these uneven ends," she said, "but there won't be any scissors +here."</p> + +<p>"I say," began Letty, staring very hard at her.</p> + +<p>"I believe you were terribly scared, you poor little creature," said +Anna, struck by her pale face, and passing her hand tenderly over the +singed head.</p> + +<p>"Oh, not much. A bit, of course. But it was soon over. Don't worry. What +will mamma say to my head?" And Letty's mouth widened into a grin at +this thought. "I say," she began again, relapsing into solemnity.</p> + +<p>"Well, what?" smiled Anna, sitting down on the same chair and putting +her arm round her.</p> + +<p>"You don't know the whole of that poetry business."</p> + +<p>"That silly business with Herr Klutz? Oh, was there more of it? Oh, +Letty, what did you do more? I am so tired of it, and of him, and of +everything. Tell me, and then we'll forget it for ever."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid you won't forget it. I'm afraid I'm a bigger beast than you +think, Aunt Anna," said Letty, with a conviction that frightened Anna.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Letty," she said faintly, "what did you do?"</p> + +<p>"Why, I—I <i>will</i> get it out—I—he was so miserable, and went on so +when you didn't answer that poetry—that he sent with the heart, you +know——"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, I know."</p> + +<p>"Well, he was in such a state about it that I—that I made up a poem, +just to comfort him, you know, and keep him quiet, and—and pretended it +came from you." She threw back her head and looked up at her aunt. +"There now, it's out," she said defiantly.</p> + +<p>Anna was silent for a moment. "Was it—was it very affectionate?" she +asked under her breath. Then she slipped down on to the floor, and put +both her arms round Letty. "Don't tell me," she cried, laying her face +on Letty's knees, "I don't want to know. Suppose you had been dreadfully +hurt just now, burnt, or—or dead, what would it have mattered? Oh, we +will forget all that ridiculous nonsense, and only never, never be so +silly again. Let us be happy together, and finish with Herr Klutz for +ever—it was all so stupid, and so little worth while." And she put up +her face, and they both began to cry and kiss each other through their +tears. And so it came about that Letty was in the same hour relieved of +the burden on her conscience, of most of her hair, and was taken once +again, and with redoubled enthusiasm, into Anna's heart. Logic had never +been Anna's strong point.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2> + + +<p>When Axel came in two hours later, bringing Dellwig and Manske and two +or three other helpers, farmers, who had driven across the plain to do +what they could, he found his house lit up and food and drink set out +ready in the dining-room.</p> + +<p>Letty and Anna had had time to recover from their tears and vows, sundry +small blisters on the back of Letty's neck had been treated with cotton +wool, and they had emerged from their agitation to a calmer state in +which the helping of the princess in the middle of the night to make +somebody else's house comfortable was not without its joys. The Mamsell, +no more able than the Kleinwalde servants to withstand the authority of +the princess's name and eye, had collected the maids and worked with a +will; and when, all danger of the fire spreading being over, Axel came +in dirty and smoky and scorched, prepared to have to hunt himself in the +dark house for the refreshment he could not but offer his helpers, he +was agreeably surprised to find the lamp in the hall alight, and to be +met by a wide-awake Mamsell in a clean apron who proposed to provide the +gentlemen with hot water. This was very attentive. Axel had never known +her so thoughtful. The gentlemen, however, with one accord refused the +hot water; they would drink a glass of wine, perhaps, as Herr von Lohm +so kindly suggested, and then go to their homes and beds as quickly as +possible. Manske, by far the grimiest, was also the most decided in his +refusal; he was a godly man, but he did not love supererogatory +washings, under which heading surely a washing at two o'clock in the +morning came. Axel left them in the hall a moment, and went into his +study to fetch cigars; and there he found Letty, hiding behind the door.</p> + +<p>"You here, young lady?" he exclaimed surprised, stopping short.</p> + +<p>"Don't let anyone see me," she whispered. "Princess Ludwig and Aunt Anna +are in the dining-room. I ran in here when I heard people with you. My +hair is all burnt off."</p> + +<p>"What, you went too near?"</p> + +<p>"Sparks came after me. Don't let them come in——"</p> + +<p>"You were not hurt?"</p> + +<p>"No. A little—on the back of my neck, but it's hardly anything."</p> + +<p>"I am very glad your hair was burnt off," said Axel with great severity.</p> + +<p>"So am I," was the hearty reply. "The tangles at night were something +awful."</p> + +<p>He stood silent for a moment, the cigar-boxes under his arm, uncertain +whether he ought not to enlighten her as to the reprehensibility of her +late conduct in regard to her aunt and Klutz. Evidently her conscience +was cloudless, and yet she had done more harm than was quite calculable. +Axel was fairly certain that Klutz had set fire to the stables. +Absolutely certain he could not be, but the first blaze had occurred so +nearly at the moment when Klutz must have reached them on his way home, +that he had hardly a doubt about it. It was his duty as Amtsvorsteher to +institute inquiries. If these inquiries ended in the arrest of Klutz, +the whole silly story about Anna would come out, for Klutz would be only +too eager to explain the reasons that had driven him to the act; and +what an unspeakable joy for the province, and what a delicious +excitement for Stralsund! He could only hope that Klutz was not the +culprit, he could only hope it fervently with all his heart; for if he +was, the child peeping out at him so cheerfully from behind the door had +managed to make an amount of mischief and bring an amount of trouble on +Anna that staggered him. Such a little nonsense, and such far-reaching +consequences! He could not speak when he thought of it, and strode past +her indignantly, and left the room without a word.</p> + +<p>"Now what's the row with <i>him</i>?" Letty asked herself, her finger in her +mouth; for Axel had looked at her as he passed with very grave and angry +eyes.</p> + +<p>The men waiting in the hall were slightly disconcerted, on being taken +into the dining-room, to find the Kleinwalde ladies there. None of them, +except Manske, liked ladies; and ladies in the small hours of the +morning were a special weariness to the flesh. Dellwig, having made his +two deep bows to them, looked meaningly at his friends the other +farmers; Miss Estcourt's private engagement to Lohm seemed to be placed +beyond a doubt by her presence in his house on this occasion.</p> + +<p>"How delightful of you," said Axel to her in English.</p> + +<p>"I am glad to hear," she replied stiffly in German, for she was still +angry with him because of Letty's hair, "I am glad to hear that you will +have no losses from this."</p> + +<p>"Losses!" cried Manske. "On the contrary, it is the best thing that +could happen—the very best thing. Those stables have long been almost +unfit for use, Herr von Lohm, and I can say from my heart that I was +glad to see them go. They were all to pieces even in your father's +time."</p> + +<p>"Yes, they ought to have been rebuilt long ago, but one has not always +the money in one's pocket. Help yourself, my dear pastor."</p> + +<p>"Who is the enemy?" broke in Dellwig's harsh voice.</p> + +<p>"Ah, who indeed?" said Manske, looking sad. "That is the melancholy side +of the affair—that someone, presumably of my parish, should commit such +a crime."</p> + +<p>"He has done me a great service, anyhow," said Axel, filling the +glasses.</p> + +<p>"He has imperilled his immortal soul," said Manske.</p> + +<p>"Have you such an enemy?" asked Anna, surprised.</p> + +<p>"I did not know it. Most likely it was some poor, half-witted devil, or +perhaps—perhaps a child."</p> + +<p>"But I saw the blaze immediately after I passed you," said Dellwig. "You +were within a stone's throw of the stables, going home. I had hardly +reached them when the fire broke out. Did you then see no one on the +road?"</p> + +<p>"No, I did not," said Axel shortly. There was an aggressive note in +Dellwig's voice that made him fear he was going to be very zealous in +helping to bring the delinquent to justice.</p> + +<p>"It was the supper hour," said Dellwig, musing, "and the men would all +be indoors. Had you been to the stables, <i>gnädiger Herr</i>?"</p> + +<p>"No, I had not. Take another glass of wine. A cigar? Whoever it was, he +has done me a good turn."</p> + +<p>"Beyond all doubt he has," said Dellwig, his eyes fixed on Axel with an +odd expression.</p> + +<p>"Some of us would have no objection to the same thing happening at our +places," remarked one of the farmers jocosely.</p> + +<p>"No objection whatever," agreed another with a laugh.</p> + +<p>"If the man could be trusted to display the same discrimination +everywhere," said the third.</p> + +<p>"Joke not about crime," said Manske, rebuking them.</p> + +<p>"The discrimination was certainly remarkable," said Dellwig.</p> + +<p>"That is why I think it must have been done by some person more or less +imbecile," said Axel; "otherwise one of the good buildings, whose +destruction would really have harmed me, would have been chosen."</p> + +<p>"He must be hunted down, imbecile or not," said Dellwig.</p> + +<p>"I shall do my duty," said Axel stiffly.</p> + +<p>"You may rely on my help," said Dellwig.</p> + +<p>"You are very good," said Axel.</p> + +<p>Dellwig's voice had something ominous about it that made Anna shiver. +What a detestable man he was, always and at all times. His whole manner +to-night struck her as specially offensive. "What will be done to the +poor wretch when he is caught?" she asked Axel.</p> + +<p>"He will be imprisoned," Dellwig answered promptly.</p> + +<p>She turned her back on him. "Even though he is half-witted?" she said to +Axel. "Are you obliged to look for him? Can't you leave him alone? He +has done you a service, after all."</p> + +<p>"I must look for him," said Axel; "it is my duty as Amtsvorsteher."</p> + +<p>"And the gracious Miss should consider——" shouted Dellwig from behind.</p> + +<p>"I'll consider nothing," said Anna, turning to him quickly.</p> + +<p>"—should consider the demands of justice——"</p> + +<p>"First the demands of humanity," said Anna, her back to him.</p> + +<p>"Noble," murmured Manske.</p> + +<p>"The gracious Miss's sentiments invariably do credit to her heart," said +Dellwig, bowing profoundly.</p> + +<p>"But not to her head, he thinks," said Anna to Axel in English, faintly +smiling.</p> + +<p>"Don't talk to him," Axel replied in a low voice; "the man so palpably +hates us both. You must go home. Where is your carriage? Princess, take +her home."</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach, Herr Dellwig, seien Sie so freundlich</i>——" began the princess +mellifluously; and despatched him in search of Fritz.</p> + +<p>When they reached Kleinwalde, silent, wornout, and only desiring to +creep upstairs and into their beds, they were met by Frau von Treumann +and the baroness, who both wore injured and disapproving faces. Letty +slipped up to her room at once, afraid of criticisms of her +hairlessness.</p> + +<p>"We have waited for you all night, Anna," said Frau von Treumann in an +aggrieved voice.</p> + +<p>"You oughtn't to have," said Anna wearily.</p> + +<p>"We could not suppose that you were really looking at the fire all this +time," said the baroness.</p> + +<p>"And we were anxious," said Frau von Treumann. "My dear, you should not +make us anxious."</p> + +<p>"You might have left word, or taken us with you," said the baroness.</p> + +<p>"We are quite as much interested in Herr von Lohm as Letty or Princess +Ludwig can be," said Frau von Treumann.</p> + +<p>"Nobody could tell us here for certain whether you had really gone there +or not."</p> + +<p>"Nor could anybody give us any information as to the extent of the +disaster."</p> + +<p>"We presumed the princess was with you, but even that was not certain."</p> + +<p>"My dear baroness," murmured the princess, untying her shawl, "only you +would have had a doubt of it."</p> + +<p>"The reflection in the sky faded hours ago," said Frau vein Treumann.</p> + +<p>"And yet you did not return," said the baroness. "Where did you go +afterwards?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'll tell you everything to-morrow. Good-night," said Anna, candle +in hand.</p> + +<p>"What! Now that we have waited, and in such anxiety, you will tell us +nothing?"</p> + +<p>"There really is nothing to tell. And I am so tired—good-night."</p> + +<p>"We have kept the servants up and the kettle boiling in case you should +want coffee."</p> + +<p>"That was very kind, but I only want bed. Good-night."</p> + +<p>"We too were weary, but you see we have waited in spite of it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you shouldn't have. You will be so tired. Good-night."</p> + +<p>She went upstairs, pulling herself up each step by the baluster. +The clock on the landing struck half-past three. Was it not +Napoleon, she thought, who said something to the point about +three-o'clock-in-the-morning courage? Had no one ever said anything to +the point about three-o'clock-in-the-morning love for one's +fellow-creatures? "Good-night," she said once more, turning her head and +nodding wearily to them as they watched her from below with indignant +faces.</p> + +<p>She glanced at the clock, and went into her room dejectedly; for she had +made a startling discovery: at three o'clock in the morning her feeling +towards the Chosen was one of indifference verging on dislike.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> + + +<p>Looking up from her breakfast the morning after the fire to see who it +was riding down the street, Frau Manske beheld Dellwig coming towards +her garden gate. Her husband was in his dressing-gown and slippers, a +costume he affected early in the day, and they were taking their coffee +this fine weather at a table in their roomy porch. There was, therefore, +no possibility of hiding the dressing-gown, nor yet the fact that her +cap was not as fresh as a cap on which the great Dellwig's eyes were to +rest, should be. She knew that Dellwig was not a star of the first +magnitude like Herr von Lohm, but he was a very magnificent specimen of +those of the second order, and she thought him much more imposing than +Axel, whose quiet ways she had never understood. Dellwig snubbed her so +systematically and so brutally that she could not but respect and admire +him: she was one of those women who enjoy kissing the rod. In a great +flutter she hurried to the gate to open it for him, receiving in return +neither thanks nor greeting. "Good-morning, good-morning," she said, +bowing repeatedly. "A fine morning, Herr Dellwig."</p> + +<p>"Where's Klutz?" he asked curtly, neither getting off his horse nor +taking off his hat.</p> + +<p>"Oh, the poor young man, Herr Dellwig!" she began with uplifted hands. +"He has had a letter from home, and is much upset. His father——"</p> + +<p>"Where is he?"</p> + +<p>"His father? In bed, and not expected to——"</p> + +<p>"Where's Klutz, I say—young Klutz? Herr Manske, just step down here a +minute—good-morning. I want to see your vicar."</p> + +<p>"My vicar has had bad news from home, and is gone."</p> + +<p>"Gone?"</p> + +<p>"This very morning. Poor fellow, his aged father——"</p> + +<p>"I don't care a curse for his aged father. What train?"</p> + +<p>"The half-past nine train. He went in the post-cart at seven."</p> + +<p>Dellwig jerked his horse round, and without a word rode away in the +direction of Stralsund. "I'll catch him yet," he thought, and rode as +hard as he could.</p> + +<p>"What can he want with the vicar?" wondered Frau Manske.</p> + +<p>"A rough manner, but I doubt not a good heart," said her husband, +sighing; and he folded his flapping dressing-gown pensively about his +legs.</p> + +<p>Klutz was on the platform waiting for the Berlin train, due in five +minutes, when Dellwig came up behind and laid a hand on his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"What! Are you going to jump out of your skin?" Dellwig inquired with a +burst of laughter.</p> + +<p>Klutz stared at him speechlessly after that first start, waiting for +what would follow. His face was ghastly.</p> + +<p>"Father so bad, eh?" said Dellwig heartily. "Nerves all gone, what? +Well, it's enough to make a boy look pale to have his father on his +last——"</p> + +<p>"What do you <i>want</i>?" whispered Klutz with pale lips. Several persons +who knew Dellwig were on the platform, and were staring.</p> + +<p>"Why," said Dellwig, sinking his voice a little, "you have heard of the +fire—I did not see you helping, by the way? You were with Herr von Lohm +last night—don't look so frightened, man—if I did not know about your +father I'd think there was something on your mind. I only want to ask +you—there is a strange rumour going about——"</p> + +<p>"I am going home—<i>home</i>, do you hear?" said Klutz wildly.</p> + +<p>"Certainly you are. No one wants to stop you. Who do you think they say +set fire to the stables?"</p> + +<p>Klutz looked as though he would faint.</p> + +<p>"They say Lohm did it himself," said Dellwig in a low voice, his eyes +fixed on the young man's face.</p> + +<p>Klutz's ears burnt suddenly bright red. He looked down, looked up, +looked over his shoulder in the direction from whence the train would +come. Small cold beads of agitation stood out on his narrow forehead.</p> + +<p>"The point is," said Dellwig, who had not missed a movement of that +twitching face, "that you must have been with Lohm nearly till the time +when—you went straight to him after leaving us?"</p> + +<p>Klutz bowed his head.</p> + +<p>"Then you couldn't have left him long before it broke out. I met him +myself between the stables and his gate five minutes, two minutes, +before the fire. He went past without a word, in a great hurry, as +though he hoped I had not recognised him. Now tell me what you know +about it. Just tell me if you saw anything. It is to both our interests +to cut his claws."</p> + +<p>Klutz pressed his hands together, and looked round again for the train.</p> + +<p>"Do you know what will certainly happen if you try to be generous and +shield him? He'll say <i>you</i> did it, and so get rid of you and hush up +the affair with Miss Estcourt. I can see by your face you know who did +it. Everyone is saying it is Lohm."</p> + +<p>"But why? Why should he? Why should he burn his own——" stammered +Klutz, in dreadful agitation.</p> + +<p>"Why? Because they were in ruins, and well insured. Because he had no +money for new ones; and because now the insurance company will give him +the money. The thing is so plain—I am so convinced that he did it——"</p> + +<p>They heard the train coming. Klutz stooped down quickly and clutched his +bag. "No, no," said Dellwig, catching his arm and gripping it tight, "I +shall not let you go till you say what you know. You or Lohm to be +punished—which do you prefer?"</p> + +<p>Klutz gave Dellwig a despairing, hunted look. "He—he——" he began, +struggling to get the words over his dry lips.</p> + +<p>"He did it? You know it? You saw it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, I saw it—I saw him——"</p> + +<p>Klutz burst into a wild fit of sobbing.</p> + +<p>"<i>Armer Junge</i>," cried Dellwig very loud, patting his back very hard. +"It is indeed terrible—one's father so ill—on his death-bed—and such +a long journey of suspense before you——"</p> + +<p>And sympathising at the top of his voice he looked for an empty +compartment, hustled him into it, pushing him up the high steps and +throwing his bag in after him, and then stood talking loudly of sick +fathers till the last moment. "I trust you will find the <i>Herr Papa</i> +better than you expect," he shouted after the moving train. "Don't give +way—don't give way. That is our vicar," he exclaimed to an acquaintance +who was standing near; "an only son, and he has just heard that his +father is dying. He is overwhelmed, poor devil, with grief."</p> + +<p>To his wife on his arrival home he said, "My dear Theresa,"—a mode of +address only used on the rare occasions of supremest satisfaction—"my +dear Theresa, you may set your mind at rest about our friend Lohm. The +Miss will never marry him, and he himself will not trouble us much +longer." And they had a short conversation in private, and later on at +dinner they opened a bottle of champagne, and explaining to the servant +that it was an aunt's birthday, drank the aunt's health over and over +again, and were merrier than they had been for years.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> + + +<p>It was an odd and a nearly invariable consequence of Anna's cold morning +bath that she made resolutions in great numbers. The morning after the +fire there were more of them than ever. In a glow she assured herself +that she was not going to allow dejection and discouragement to take +possession of her so easily, that she would not, in future, be so much +the slave of her bodily condition, growing selfish, indifferent, unkind, +in proportion as she grew tired. What, she asked, tying her waist-ribbon +with great vigour, was the use of having a soul and its longings after +perfection if it was so absolutely the slave of its encasing body, if it +only received permission from the body to flutter its wings a little in +those rare moments when its master was completely comfortable and +completely satisfied? She was ashamed of herself for being so easily +affected by the heat and stress of the days with the Chosen. How was it +that her ideals were crushed out of sight continually by the mere weight +of the details of everyday existence? She would keep them more carefully +in view, pursue them with a more unfaltering patience—in a word, she +was going to be wise. Life was such a little thing, she reflected, so +very quickly done; how foolish, then, to forget so constantly that +everything that vexed her and made her sorry was flying past and away +even while it grieved her, dwindling in the distance with every hour, +and never coming back. What she had done and suffered last year, how +indifferent, of what infinitely little importance it was, now; and yet +she had been very strenuous about it at the time, inclined to resist and +struggle, taking it over-much to heart, acting as though it were always +going to be there. Oh, she would be wise in future, enjoying all there +was to enjoy, loving all there was to love, and shutting her eyes to the +rest. She would not, for instance, expect more from her Chosen than +they, being as they were, could give. Obviously they could not give her +more than they possessed, either of love, or comprehension, or +charitableness, or anything else that was precious; and it was because +she looked for more that she was for ever feeling disappointed. She +would take them as they were, being happy in what they did give her, and +ignoring what was less excellent. She herself was irritating, she was +sure, and often she saw did produce an irritating effect on the Chosen. +Of sundry minor failings, so minor that she was ashamed of having +noticed them, but which had yet done much towards making the days +difficult, she tried not to think. Indeed, they could hardly be made the +subject of resolutions at all, they were so very trivial. They included +a habit Frau von Treumann had of shutting every window and door that +stood open, whatever the weather was, and however pointedly the others +gasped for air; the exceedingly odd behaviour, forced upon her notice +four times a day, of Fräulein Kuhräuber at table; and an insatiable +curiosity displayed by the baroness in regard to other people's +correspondence and servants—every postcard she read, every envelope she +examined, every telegram, for some always plausible reason, she thought +it her duty to open: and her interest in the doings of the maids was +unquenchable. "These are little ways," thought Anna, "that don't +matter." And she thought it impatiently, for the little ways persisted +in obtruding themselves on her remembrance in the middle of her fine +plans of future wisdom. "If we could all get outside our bodies, even +for one day, and simply go about in our souls, how nice it would be!" +she sighed; but meanwhile the souls of the Chosen were still enveloped +in aggressive bodies that continued to shut windows, open telegrams, and +convey food into their mouths on knives.</p> + +<p>The one belonging to Frau von Treumann was at that moment engaged in +writing with feverish haste to Karlchen, bidding him lose no time in +coming, for mischief was afoot, and Anna was showing an alarming +interest in the affairs of that specious hypocrite Lohm. "Come +unexpectedly," she wrote; "it will be better to take her by surprise; +and above all things come at once."</p> + +<p>She gave the letter herself to the postman, and then, having nothing to +do but needlework that need not be done, and feeling out of sorts after +the long night's watch, and uneasy about Axel Lohm's evident attraction +for Anna, she went into the drawing-room and spent the morning +elaborately differing from the baroness.</p> + +<p>They differed often; it could hardly be called quarrelling, but there +was a continual fire kept up between them of remarks that did not make +for peace. Over their needlework they addressed those observations to +each other that were most calculated to annoy. Frau von Treumann would +boast of her ancestral home at Kadenstein, its magnificence, and the +style in which, with a superb disregard for expense, her brother kept it +up, well knowing that the baroness had had no home more ancestral than a +flat in a provincial town; and the baroness would retort by relating, as +an instance of the grievous slanderousness of so-called friends, a +palpably malicious story she had heard of manure heaps before the +ancestral door, and of unprevented poultry in the <i>Schloss</i> itself. +Once, stirred beyond the bounds of prudence enjoined by Karlchen, Frau +von Treumann had begun to sympathise with the Elmreich family's +misfortune in including a member like Lolli; but had been so much +frightened by her victim's immediate and dreadful pallor that she had +turned it off, deciding to leave the revelation of her full knowledge of +Lolli to Karlchen.</p> + +<p>The only occasions on which they agreed were when together they attacked +Fräulein Kuhräuber; and more than once already that hapless young woman +had gone away to cry. Anna's thoughts had been filled lately by other +things, and she had not paid much attention to what was being talked +about; but yet it seemed to her that Frau von Treumann and the baroness +had discovered a subject on which Fräulein Kuhräuber was abnormally +sensitive and secretive, and that again and again when they were tired +of sparring together they returned to this subject, always in amiable +tones and with pleasant looks, and always reducing the poor Fräulein to +a pitiable state of confusion; which state being reached, and she gone +out to hide her misery in her bedroom, they would look at each other and +smile.</p> + +<p>In all that concerned Fräulein Kuhräuber they were in perfect accord, +and absolutely pitiless. It troubled Anna, for the Fräulein was the one +member of the trio who was really happy—so long, that is, as the others +left her alone. Invigorated by her cold tub into a belief in the +possibility of peace-making, she made one more resolution: to establish +without delay concord between the three. It was so clearly to their own +advantage to live together in harmony; surely a calm talking-to would +make them see that, and desire it. They were not children, neither were +they, presumably, more unreasonable than other people; nor could they, +she thought, having suffered so much themselves, be intentionally +unkind. That very day she would make things straight.</p> + +<p>She could not of course dream that the periodical putting to confusion +of Fräulein Kuhräuber was the one thing that kept the other two alive. +They found life at Kleinwalde terribly dull. There were no neighbours, +and they did not like forests. The princess hardly showed herself; Anna +was English, besides being more or less of a lunatic—the combination, +when you came to think of it, was alarming,—and they soon wearied of +pouring into each other's highly sceptical ears descriptions of the +splendours of their prosperous days. The visits of the parson had at +first been a welcome change, for they were both religious women who +loved to impress a new listener with the amount of their faith and +resignation; but when they knew him a little better, and had said the +same things several times, and found that as soon as they paused he +began to expatiate on the advantages and joys of their present mode of +life with Miss Estcourt, of which no one had been talking, they were +bored, and left off being pleased to see him, and fell back for +amusement on their own bickerings, and the probing of Fräulein +Kuhräuber's tender places.</p> + +<p>About midday Anna, who had been writing German letters all the morning +helped by the princess, letters of inquiry concerning a new teacher for +Letty, came round by the path outside the drawing-room window looking +for the Chosen, and prepared to talk to them of concord. The window was +shut, and she knocked on the pane, trying to see into the shady room. It +was a broiling day, and she had no hat; therefore she knocked again, and +held her hands above her head, for the sun was intolerable. She wore one +of her last summer's dresses, a lilac muslin that in spite of its age +seemed in Kleinwalde to be quite absurdly pretty. She herself looked +prettier than ever out there in the light, the sun beating down on her +burnished hair.</p> + +<p>"Anna wants to come in," said Frau von Treumann, looking up from her +embroidery at the figure in the sun.</p> + +<p>"I suppose she does," said the baroness tranquilly.</p> + +<p>Neither of them moved.</p> + +<p>Anna knocked again.</p> + +<p>"She will be sunstruck," observed Frau von Treumann.</p> + +<p>"I think she will," agreed the baroness.</p> + +<p>Neither of them moved.</p> + +<p>Anna stooped down, and tried to look into the room, but could see +nothing. She knocked again; waited a moment; and then went away.</p> + +<p>The two ladies embroidered in silence.</p> + +<p>"Absurd old maid," Frau von Treumann thought, glancing at the baroness. +"As though a married woman of my age and standing could get up and open +windows when she is in the room."</p> + +<p>"Ridiculous old Treumann," thought the baroness, outwardly engrossed by +her work. "What does she think, I wonder? I shall teach her that I am as +good as herself, and am not here to open windows any more than she is."</p> + +<p>"Why, you <i>are</i> here," said Anna, surprised, coming in at the door.</p> + +<p>"Where have you been all the morning?" inquired Frau von Treumann +amiably. "We hardly ever see you, dear Anna. I hope you have come now to +sit with us a little while. Come, sit next to me, and let us have a nice +chat."</p> + +<p>She made room for her on the sofa.</p> + +<p>"Where is Emilie?" Anna asked; Emilie was Fräulein Kuhräuber, and Anna +was the only person in the house who called her so.</p> + +<p>"She came in some time ago, but went away at once. She does not, I fear, +feel at ease with us."</p> + +<p>"That is exactly what I want to talk about," said Anna.</p> + +<p>"Is it? Why, how strange. Last night, while we were waiting for you, the +baroness and I had a serious conversation about Fräulein Kuhräuber, and +we decided to tell you what conclusions we came to on the first +opportunity."</p> + +<p>"Certainly," said the baroness.</p> + +<p>"It is surprising that Princess Ludwig should not have opened your +eyes."</p> + +<p>"It is truly surprising," said the baroness.</p> + +<p>"But they are open. And they have seen that you are not very—not +quite—well, not <i>very</i> kind to poor Emilie. Don't you like her?"</p> + +<p>"My dear Anna, we have found it quite impossible to like Fräulein +Kuhräuber."</p> + +<p>"Or even endure her," amended the baroness.</p> + +<p>"And yet I never saw a kinder, more absolutely amiable creature," said +Anna.</p> + +<p>"You are deceived in her," said Frau von Treumann.</p> + +<p>"We have found out that she is here under false pretences," said the +baroness.</p> + +<p>"Which," said Frau von Treumann, unable to forbear glancing at the +baroness, "is a very dreadful thing."</p> + +<p>"Certainly," agreed the baroness.</p> + +<p>Anna looked from one to the other. "Well?" she said, as they did not go +on. Then the thought of her peace-making errand came into her mind, and +her certainty that she only needed to talk quietly to these two in order +to convince. "What do you think I came in to say to you?" she said, with +a low laugh in which there was no mirth. "I was going to propose that +you should both begin now to love Emilie. You have made her cry so +often—I have seen her coming out of this room so often with red +eyes—that I was sure you must be tired of that now, and would like to +begin to live happily with her, loving her for all that is so good in +her, and not minding the rest."</p> + +<p>"My dear Anna," said Frau von Treumann testily, "it is out of the +question that ladies of birth and breeding should tolerate her."</p> + +<p>"Certainly it is," emphatically agreed the baroness.</p> + +<p>"And why? Isn't she a woman like ourselves? Wasn't she poor and +miserable too? And won't she go to heaven by and by, just as we, I hope, +shall?"</p> + +<p>They thought this profane.</p> + +<p>"We shall all, I trust, meet in heaven," said Frau von Treumann gently. +Then she went on, clearing her throat, "But meanwhile we think it our +duty to ask you if you know what her father was."</p> + +<p>"He was a man of letters," said Anna, remembering the very words of +Fräulein Kuhräuber's reply to her inquiries.</p> + +<p>"Exactly. But of what letters?"</p> + +<p>"She tried to give us that same answer," said the baroness.</p> + +<p>"Of what letters?" repeated Anna, looking puzzled.</p> + +<p>"He carried all the letters he ever had in a bag," said Frau von +Treumann.</p> + +<p>"In a bag?"</p> + +<p>"In a word, dear child, he was a postman, and she has told you +untruths."</p> + +<p>There was a silence. Anna pushed at a neighbouring footstool with the +toe of her shoe. "It is not pretty," she said after a while, her eyes on +the footstool, "to tell untruths."</p> + +<p>"Certainly it is not," agreed the baroness.</p> + +<p>"Especially in this case," said Frau von Treumann.</p> + +<p>"Yes, especially in this case," said Anna, looking up.</p> + +<p>"We thought you could not know the truth, and felt certain you would be +shocked. Now you will understand how impossible it is for ladies of +family to associate with such a person, and we are sure that you will +not ask us to do so, but will send her away."</p> + +<p>"No," said Anna, in a low voice.</p> + +<p>"No what, dear child?" inquired Frau von Treumann sweetly.</p> + +<p>"I cannot send her away."</p> + +<p>"You cannot send her away?" they cried together. Both let their work +drop into their laps, and both stared blankly at Anna, who looked at the +footstool.</p> + +<p>"Have you made a lifelong contract with her?" asked Frau von Treumann, +with great heat, no such contract having been made in her own case.</p> + +<p>"I did not quite say what I mean," said Anna, looking up again. "I do +not mean that I cannot really send her away, for of course I can if I +choose. Exactly what I mean is that I will not."</p> + +<p>There was a pause. Neither of the ladies had expected such an attitude.</p> + +<p>"This is very serious," then observed Frau von Treumann helplessly. She +took up her work again and pulled at the stitches, making knots in the +thread. Both she and the baroness had felt so certain that Anna would be +properly incensed when she heard the truth. Her manner without doubt +suggested displeasure, but the displeasure, strangely enough, seemed to +be directed against themselves instead of Fräulein Kuhräuber. What could +they, with dignity, do next? Frau von Treumann felt angry and perplexed. +She remembered Karlchen's advice in regard to ultimatums, and wished she +had remembered it sooner; but who could have imagined the extent of +Anna's folly? Never, she reflected, had she met anyone quite so foolish.</p> + +<p>"It is a case for the police," burst out the baroness passionately, all +the pride of all the Elmreichs surging up in revolt against a fate +threatening to condemn her to spend the rest of her days with the +progeny of a postman. "Your advertisement specially mentioned good birth +as essential, and she is here under false pretences. You have the proofs +in her letters. She is within reach of the arm of the law."</p> + +<p>Anna could not help smiling. "Don't denounce her," she said. "I should +be appalled if anything approaching the arm of the law got into my +house. I'll burn the proofs after dinner." Then she turned to Frau von +Treumann. "If you think it over," she said, "I <i>know</i> you will not wish +me to be so merciless, so pitiless, as to send Emilie back to misery +only because her father, who has been dead thirty years, was a postman."</p> + +<p>"But, Anna, you must be reasonable—you must look at the other side. No +Treumann has ever yet been required to associate——"</p> + +<p>"But if he was a good man? If he did his work honestly, and said his +prayers, and behaved himself? We have no reason for doubting that he was +a most excellent postman," she went on, a twinkle in her eye; "punctual, +diligent, and altogether praiseworthy."</p> + +<p>"Then you object to nothing?" cried the baroness with extraordinary +bitterness. "You draw the line nowhere? All the traditions and +prejudices of gentlefolk are supremely indifferent to you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I object to a great many things. I would have liked it better if +the postman had really been the literary luminary poor Emilie said he +was—for her sake, and my sake, and your sakes. And I don't like +untruths, and never shall. But I do like Emilie, and I forgive it all."</p> + +<p>"Then she is to remain here?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, as long as she wants to. And do, <i>do</i> try to see how good she is, +and how much there is to love in her. You have done her a real service," +Anna added, smiling, "for now she won't have it on her mind any more, +and will be able to be really happy."</p> + +<p>The baroness gathered up her work and rose. Frau von Treumann looked at +her nervously, and rose too.</p> + +<p>"Then——" began the baroness, pale with outraged pride and propriety.</p> + +<p>"Then really——" began Frau von Treumann more faintly, but feeling +bound in this matter to follow her example. After all, they could always +allow themselves to be persuaded to change their minds again.</p> + +<p>Anna got up too, and they stood facing each other. Something awful was +going to happen, she felt, but what? Were they, she wondered, both going +to give her notice?</p> + +<p>The baroness, drawn up to her full height, looked at her, opened her +lips to complete her sentence, and shut them again. She was exceedingly +agitated, and held her little thin, claw-like hands tightly together to +hide how they were shaking. All she had left in the world was the pride +of being an Elmreich and a baroness; and as, with the relentless years, +she had grown poorer, plainer, more insignificant, so had this pride +increased and strengthened, until, together with her passionate +propriety and horror of everything in the least doubtful in the way of +reputations, it had come to be the very mainspring of her being. +"Then——" she began again, with a great effort; for she remembered how +there had actually been no food sometimes when she was hungry, and no +fire when she was cold, and no doctor when she was sick, and how severe +weather had seemed to set in invariably at those times when she had +least money, making her first so much hungrier than usual, and +afterwards so much more sick, as though nature itself owed her a grudge.</p> + +<p>"Oh, these ultimatums!" inwardly deplored Frau von Treumann; the +baroness was very absurd, she thought, to take the thing so tragically.</p> + +<p>And at that instant the door was thrown open, and without waiting to be +announced, Karlchen, resplendent in his hussar uniform, and beaming from +ear to ear, hastened, clanking, into the room.</p> + +<p>"Karlchen! <i>Du engelsgute Junge!</i>" shrieked his mother, in accents of +supremest relief and joy.</p> + +<p>"I could not stay away longer," cried Karlchen, returning her embrace +with vigour, "I felt impelled to come. I obtained leave after many +prayers. It is for a few hours only. I return to-night. You forgive me?" +he added, turning to Anna and bowing over her hand.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, smiling; Karlchen had come this time, she felt, exactly +at the right moment.</p> + +<p>"I wrote this very morning——" began his mother in her excitement; but +she stopped in time, and covered her confusion by once again folding him +in her arms.</p> + +<p>Karlchen was so much delighted by this unexpectedly cordial reception +that he lost his head a little. Anna stood smiling at him as she had not +done once last time. Yes, there were the dimples—oh, sweet +vision!—they were, indeed, glorious dimples. He seized her hand a +second time and kissed it. The pretty hand—so delicate and slender. And +the dress—Karlchen had an eye for dress—how dainty it was! "Your kind +welcome quite overcomes me," he said enthusiastically; and he looked so +gay, and so intensely satisfied with himself and the whole world, that +Anna laughed again. Besides, the uniform was really surprisingly +becoming; his civilian clothes on his first visit had been melancholy +examples of what a military tailor cannot do.</p> + +<p>"Ah, baroness," said Karlchen, catching sight of the small, silent +figure. He brought his heels together, bowed, and crossing over to her +shook hands. "I have come laden with greetings for you," he said.</p> + +<p>"Greetings?" repeated the baroness, surprised. Then an odd look of fear +came into her eyes.</p> + +<p>He had not meant to do it then; he had not been certain whether he would +do it this time at all; but he was feeling so exhilarated, so buoyant, +that he could not resist. "I was at the Wintergarten last night," he +said, "and had a talk with your sister, Baroness Lolli. She dances +better than ever. She sends you her love, and says she is coming down to +see you."</p> + +<p>The baroness made a queer little sound, shut her eyes, spread out her +hands, and dropped on to the carpet as though she had been shot.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> + + +<p>"Is Herr von Treumann gone?"</p> + +<p>It was late the same afternoon, and Princess Ludwig had come into the +bedroom where the Stralsund doctor was still vainly endeavouring to +bring the baroness back to life, to ask Anna whether she would see Axel +Lohm, who was waiting downstairs and hoped to be allowed to speak to +her. "But is Herr von Treumann gone?" inquired Anna; and would not move +till she was sure of that.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and his mother has gone with him to the station."</p> + +<p>Anna had not left the baroness's side since the catastrophe. She could +not see the unconscious face on the pillow for tears. Was there ever +such barbarous, such gratuitous cruelty as young Treumann's? His mother +had been in once or twice on tiptoe, the last time to tell Anna that he +was leaving, and would she not come down so that he might explain how +sorry he was for having unwittingly done so much mischief? But Anna had +merely shaken her head and turned again to the piteous little figure on +the bed. Never again, she told herself, would she see or speak to +Karlchen.</p> + +<p>The movement with which she turned away was expressive; and Frau von +Treumann went out and heaped bitter reproaches on Karlchen, driving with +him to Stralsund in order to have ample time to heap all that were in +her mind, and doing it the more thoroughly that he was in a crushed +condition and altogether incapable of defending himself. For what had he +really cared about the baroness's relationship to Lolli? He had thought +it a huge joke, and had looked forward with enjoyment to seeing Anna +promptly order her out of the house. How could he, thick of skin and +slow of brain, have foreseen such a crisis? He was very much in love +with Anna, and shivered when he thought of the look she had given him as +she followed the people who were carrying the baroness out of the room. +Certainly he was exceedingly wretched, and his mother could not reproach +him more bitterly than he reproached himself. While she was vehemently +pointing out the obvious, he meditated sadly on the length of the +journey he had taken for worse than nothing. All the morning he had been +roasted in trains, and he was about to be roasted again for a dreary +succession of hours. His hot uniform, put on solely for Anna's +bedazzlement, added enormously to his torments; and the distance between +Rislar and Stralsund was great, and the journey proportionately +expensive—much too expensive, if all you got for it was one +intoxicating glimpse of dimples, followed by a flashing look of wrath +that made you feel cold with the thermometer at ninety. He had not felt +so dejected since the eighties, he reflected, in which dark ages he had +been forced to fight a duel. Karlchen had a prejudice against duelling; +he thought it foolish. But, being an officer—he was at that time a +conspicuously gay lieutenant—whatever he might think about it, if +anyone wanted to fight him fight he must, or drop into the awful ranks +of Unknowables. He had made a joke of a personal nature, and the other +man turned out to have no sense of humour, and took it seriously, and +expressed a desire for Karlchen's blood. Driving with his justly +incensed mother through the dust and heat to the station, he remembered +the dismal night he had passed before the duel, and thought how much his +dejection then had resembled in its profundity his dejection now; for he +had been afraid he was going to be hurt, and whatever people may say +about courage nobody really likes being hurt. Well, perhaps after all, +this business with Anna would turn out all right, just as that business +had turned out all right; for he had killed his man, and, instead of +wounds, had been covered with glory. Thus Karlchen endeavoured to snatch +comfort as he drove, but yet his heart was very heavy.</p> + +<p>"I hope," said his mother bitingly when he was in the train, patiently +waiting to be taken beyond the sound of her voice, "I do hope that you +are ashamed of yourself. It is a bitter feeling, I can tell you, the +feeling that one is the mother of a fool."</p> + +<p>To which Karlchen, still dazed, replied by unhooking his collar, wiping +his face, and appealing with a heart-rending plaintiveness to a passing +beer-boy to give him, <i>um Gottes Willen</i>, beer.</p> + +<p>Axel was in the drawing-room, where the remains of Karlchen's +valedictory coffee and cakes were littered on a table, when Anna came +down. "I am so sorry for you," he said. "Princess Ludwig has been +telling me what has happened."</p> + +<p>"Don't be sorry for me. Nothing is the matter with me. Be sorry for that +most unfortunate little soul upstairs."</p> + +<p>Axel kissed Anna's right hand, which was, she knew, the custom; and +immediately proceeded to kiss her other hand, which was not the custom +at all. She was looking woebegone, with red eyelids and white cheeks; +but a faint colour came into her face at this, for he did it with such +unmistakable devotion that for the first time she wondered uneasily +whether their pleasant friendship were not about to come to an end.</p> + +<p>"Don't be too kind," she said, drawing her hands away and trying to +smile. "I—I feel so stupid to-day, and want to cry dreadfully."</p> + +<p>"Well then, I should do it, and get it over."</p> + +<p>"I did do it, but I haven't got it over."</p> + +<p>"Well, don't think of it. How is the baroness?"</p> + +<p>"Just the same. The doctor thinks it serious. And she has no +constitution. She has not had enough of anything for years—not enough +food, or clothes, or—or anything."</p> + +<p>She went quickly across to the coffee table to hide how much she wanted +to cry. "Have some coffee," she said with her back to him, moving the +cups aimlessly about.</p> + +<p>"Don't forget," said Axel, "that the poor lady's past misery is over now +and done with. Think what luck has come in her way at last. When she +gets over this, here she is, safe with you, surrounded by love and care +and tenderness—blessings not given to all of us."</p> + +<p>"But she doesn't like love and care and tenderness. At least, if it +comes from me. She dislikes me."</p> + +<p>Axel could not exclaim in surprise, for he was not surprised. The +baroness had appeared to him to be so hopelessly sour; and how, he +thought, shall the hopelessly sour love the preternaturally sweet? He +looked therefore at Anna arranging the cups with restless, nervous +fingers, and waited for more.</p> + +<p>"Why do you say that?" she asked, still with her back to him.</p> + +<p>"Say what?"</p> + +<p>"That when she gets over this she will have all those nice things +surrounding her. You told me when first she came, that if she really +were the poor dancing woman's sister I ought on no account to keep her +here. Don't you remember?"</p> + +<p>"Quite well. But am I not right in supposing that you <i>will</i> keep her? +You see, I know you better now than I did then."</p> + +<p>"If she liked being here—if it made her happy—I would keep her in +defiance of the whole world."</p> + +<p>"But as it is——?"</p> + +<p>She came to him with a cup of cold coffee in her hands. He took it, and +stirred it mechanically.</p> + +<p>"As it is," she said, "she is very ill, and has to get well again before +we begin to decide things. Perhaps," she added, looking up at him +wistfully, "this illness will change her?"</p> + +<p>He shook his head. "I am afraid it won't," he said. "For a little while, +perhaps—for a few weeks at first while she still remembers your +nursing, and then—why, the old self over again."</p> + +<p>He put the untasted coffee down on the nearest table. "There is no +getting away," he said, coming back to her, "from one's old self. That +is why this work you have undertaken is so hopeless."</p> + +<p>"Hopeless?" she exclaimed in a startled voice. He was saying aloud what +she had more than once almost—never quite—whispered in her heart of +hearts.</p> + +<p>"You ought to have begun with the baroness thirty years ago, to have had +a chance of success."</p> + +<p>"Why, she was five years old then, and I am sure quite cheerful. And I +wasn't there at all."</p> + +<p>"Five ought really to be the average age of the Chosen. What is the use +of picking out unhappy persons well on in life, and thinking you are +going to make them happy? How can you <i>make</i> them be happy? If it had +been possible to their natures they would have been so long ago, however +poor they were. And they would not have been so poor or so unhappy if +they had been willing to work. Work is such an admirable tonic. The +princess works, and finds life very tolerable. You will never succeed +with people like Frau von Treumann and the baroness. They belong to a +class of persons that will grumble even in heaven. You could easily make +those who are happy already still happier, for it is in them—the +gratitude and appreciation for life and its blessings; but those of +course are not the people you want to get at. You think I am preaching?" +he asked abruptly.</p> + +<p>"But are you not?"</p> + +<p>"It is because I cannot stand by and watch you bruising yourself."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Anna, "you are a man, and can fight your way well enough +through life. You are quite comfortable and prosperous. How can you +sympathise with women like Else? Because she is not young you haven't a +feeling for her—only indifference. You talk of my bruising myself—you +don't mind her bruises. And if I were forty, how sure I am that you +wouldn't mind mine."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I would," said Axel, with such conviction that she added quickly, +"Well—I don't want to talk about bruises."</p> + +<p>"I hope the baroness will soon get over the cruel ones that singularly +brutal young man has inflicted. You agree with me that he <i>is</i> a +singularly brutal young man?"</p> + +<p>"Absolutely."</p> + +<p>"And I hope that when she is well again you will make her as happy as +she is capable of being."</p> + +<p>"If I knew how!"</p> + +<p>"Why, by letting her go away, and giving her enough to live on decently +by herself. It would be quite the best course to take, both for you and +for her."</p> + +<p>Anna looked down. "I have been thinking the same thing," she said in a +low voice; she felt as though she were hauling down her flag.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you will let me help."</p> + +<p>"Help?"</p> + +<p>"Let me contribute. Why may I not be charitable too? If we join together +it will be to her advantage. She need not know. And you are not a +millionaire."</p> + +<p>"Nor are you," said Anna, smiling up at him.</p> + +<p>"We unfortunates who live by our potatoes are never millionaires. But +still we can be charitable."</p> + +<p>"But why should <i>you</i> help the baroness? I found her out, and brought +her here, and I am the only person responsible for her."</p> + +<p>"It will be much more costly than just having her here."</p> + +<p>"I don't mind, if only she is happy. And I will not have you pay the +cost of my experiments in philanthropy."</p> + +<p>"Is Frau von Treumann happy?" he asked abruptly.</p> + +<p>"No," said Anna, with a faint smile.</p> + +<p>"Is Fräulein Kuhräuber happy?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Tell me one thing more," he said; "are <i>you</i> happy?"</p> + +<p>Anna blushed. "That is a queer question," she said. "Why should I not be +happy?"</p> + +<p>"But are you?"</p> + +<p>She looked at him, hesitating. Then she said, in a very small voice, +"No."</p> + +<p>Axel took two or three turns up and down the room. "I knew it," he said; +and added something in German under his breath about <i>Weiber</i>. "After +this, you will not, I suppose, receive young Treumann again?" he asked, +coming to a halt in front of her.</p> + +<p>"Never again."</p> + +<p>"You have a difficult time before you, then, with his mother."</p> + +<p>Anna blushed. "I am afraid I have," she admitted.</p> + +<p>"You have a very difficult few weeks before you," he said. "The baroness +probably dangerously ill, and Frau von Treumann very angry with you. I +know Princess Ludwig does all she can, but still you are alone—against +odds."</p> + +<p>The odds, too, were greater than she knew. All day he had been +officially engaged in making inquiries into the origin of the fire the +night before, and every circumstance pointed to Klutz as the culprit. He +had sent for Klutz, and Klutz, they said, had gone home. Then he sent a +telegram after him, and his father replied that he was neither expecting +his son nor was he ill. Klutz, then, had disappeared in order to avoid +the consequences of what he had done; but it was only a question of days +before the police brought him back again, and then he would tell the +whole absurd story, and Pomerania would chuckle at Anna's expense. The +thought of this chuckling made Axel cold with rage.</p> + +<p>He stood looking out of the window at the parched garden, the drooping +lilac-bushes, the hazy island across the water. The wind had dropped, +and a gray film had drawn across the sky. At the bottom of the garden, +under a chestnut-tree, Miss Leech was sewing, while Letty read aloud to +her. The monotonous drone of Letty's reading, interrupted by her loud +complaints each time a mosquito stung her, reached Axel's ears as he +stood there in silence. A grim struggle was going on within him. He +loved Anna with a passion that would no longer be hidden; and he knew +that he must somehow hide it. He was so certain that she did not care +about him. He was so certain that she would never dream of marrying him. +And yet if ever a woman needed the protection of an all-enfolding love +it was Anna at that moment "That child down there has made a pretty fair +amount of mischief for a person of her age," he burst out with a +vehemence that startled Anna.</p> + +<p>"What child?" she said, coming up behind him and looking over his +shoulder.</p> + +<p>He turned round quickly. The feeling that she was so close to him tore +away the last shred of his self-control. "You know that I love you," he +said, his voice shaking with passion.</p> + +<p>Her face in an instant was colourless. She stood quite still, almost +touching him, as though she did not dare move. Her eyes were fixed on +his with a frightened, fascinated look.</p> + +<p>"You know it. You have known it a long time. Now what are you going to +say to me?"</p> + +<p>She looked at him without speaking or moving.</p> + +<p>"Anna, what are you going to say to me?" he cried; and he caught up her +hands and kissed them one after the other, hardly knowing what he did, +beside himself with love of her.</p> + +<p>She watched him helplessly. She felt faint and sick. She had had a +miserable day, and was completely overwhelmed by this last misfortune. +Her good friend Axel was gone, gone for ever. The pleasant friendship +was done. In place of the friend she so much needed, of the friendship +she had found so comforting, there was—this.</p> + +<p>"Won't you—won't you let my hands go?" she said faintly. She did not +know him again. Was it possible that this agony of love was for her? She +knew herself so well, she knew so well what it was for which he was +evidently going to break his heart. How wonderful, how pitiful beyond +expression, that a good man like Axel should suffer anything because of +her. And even in the midst of her fright and misery the thought would +not be put from her that if she had happened to look like the baroness +or Fräulein Kuhräuber, while inwardly remaining exactly as she was, he +would not have broken his heart for her. "Oh, let me go——" she +whispered; and turned her head aside, and shut her eyes, unable to look +any longer at the love and despair in his.</p> + +<p>"But what are you going to say to me?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, you know—you know——"</p> + +<p>"But you are so sorry always for people who suffer——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, stop—oh, stop!"</p> + +<p>"No, I won't stop; here have I been condemned to look on at you +lavishing love on people who don't want it, don't like it, are wearied +by it—who don't know how precious it is, how priceless it is, and how I +am hungering and thirsting—oh, starving, starving, for one drop of +it——" His voice shook, and he fell once more to covering her hands +with kisses that seemed to scorch her soul.</p> + +<p>This was very dreadful. Her soul had never been scorched before. +Something must be done to stop him. She could not stand there with her +eyes shut and her hands being kissed for ever. "<i>Please</i> let me go," she +entreated faintly; and in her helplessness began to cry.</p> + +<p>He instantly released her, and she stood before him crying. What a +horrible thing it was to lose her friend, to be forced to hurt him. "I +never dreamt that you—that you——" she wept.</p> + +<p>"What, that I loved you?" he asked incredulously; but more gently, +subdued by her deep distress. His face grew very hopeless. She was +crying because she was sorry for him.</p> + +<p>"I don't know—I think I did dream that—lately—once or twice—but I +never dreamt that it was so bad—that you were such a—such a—such a +volcano. Oh, Axel, why are you a volcano?" she cried, looking up at him, +the tears rolling down her cheeks. "Why have you spoilt everything? It +was so nice before. We were such friends. And now—how can I be friends +with a volcano?"</p> + +<p>"Anna, if you make fun of me——"</p> + +<p>"Oh no, no—as though I would—as though I could do anything so +unutterable. But don't let us be tragic. Oh, don't let us be tragic. You +know my plans—you know my plans inside out, from beginning to end—how +can I, how <i>can</i> I marry anybody?"</p> + +<p>"Good God, those women—those women who are not happy, who have spoilt +your happiness, they are to spoil mine now—ours, Anna?" He seized her +arm as though he would wake her at all costs from a fatal sleep. "Do you +mean to say that if it were not for those women you would be my wife?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, if only you wouldn't be tragic——"</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to say that is the reason?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, isn't it sufficient——"</p> + +<p>"No. If you cared for me it would be no reason at all."</p> + +<p>She cried bitterly. "But I don't," she sobbed. "Not like that—not in +that way. It is atrocious of me not to—I know how good you are, how +kind, how—how everything. And still I don't. I don't know why I don't, +but I don't. Oh, Axel, I am so sorry—don't look so wretched—I can't +bear it."</p> + +<p>"But what can it matter to you how I look if you don't care about me?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, oh," sobbed Anna, wringing her hands.</p> + +<p>He caught hold of her wrist. "See here, Anna. Look at me."</p> + +<p>But she would not look at him.</p> + +<p>"Look at me. I don't believe you know your own mind. I want to see into +your eyes. They were always honest—look at me."</p> + +<p>But she would not look at him.</p> + +<p>"Surely you will do that—only that—for me."</p> + +<p>"There isn't anything to see," she wept, "there really isn't. It is +dreadful of me, but I can't help it."</p> + +<p>"Well, but look at me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Axel, what <i>is</i> the use of looking at you?" she cried in despair; +and pulled her handkerchief away and did it.</p> + +<p>He searched her face for a moment in silence, as though he thought that +if only he could read her soul he might understand it better than she +did herself. Those dear eyes—they were full of pity, full of distress; +but search as he might he could find nothing else.</p> + +<p>He turned away without a word.</p> + +<p>"Don't, don't be tragic," she begged, anxiously following him a few +steps. "If only you are not tragic we shall still be able to be +friends——"</p> + +<p>But he did not look round.</p> + +<p>A servant with a tray was outside coming in to take the coffee away. +"Oh," exclaimed Anna, seeing that it was impossible to hide her +tear-stained face from the girl's calm scrutiny, "oh, Johanna, the poor +baroness—she is so ill—it is so dreadful——" And she dropped into a +chair and hid herself in the cushions, weeping hysterically with an +abandonment of woe that betokened a quite extraordinary affection for +the baroness.</p> + +<p>"<i>Gott, die arme Baronesse</i>," sympathised Johanna perfunctorily. To +herself she remarked, "This very moment has the Miss refused to marry +<i>gnädiger Herr</i>."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX</h2> + + +<p>What Anna most longed for in the days that followed was a mother. "If I +had a mother," she thought, not once, but again and again, and her eyes +had a wistful, starved look when she thought it, "if I only had a +mother, a sweet mother all to myself, of my very own, I'd put my head on +her dear shoulder and cry myself happy again. First I'd tell her +everything, and she wouldn't mind however silly it was, and she wouldn't +be tired however long it was, and she'd say 'Little darling child, you +are only a baby after all,' and would scold me a little, and kiss me a +great deal, and then I'd listen so comfortably, all the time with my +face against her nice soft dress, and I would feel so safe and sure and +wrapped round while she told me what to do next. It is lonely and cold +and difficult without a mother."</p> + +<p>The house was in confusion. The baroness had come out of her +unconsciousness to delirium, and the doctors, knowing that she was not +related to anyone there, talked openly of death. There were two doctors, +now, and two nurses; and Anna insisted on nursing too, wearing herself +out with all the more passion because she felt that it was of so little +importance really to anyone whether the baroness lived or died.</p> + +<p>They were all strangers, the people watching this frail fighter for +life, and they watched with the indifference natural to strangers. Here +was a middle-aged person who would probably die; if she died no one lost +anything, and if she lived it did not matter either. The doctors and +nurses, accustomed to these things, could not be expected to be +interested in so profoundly uninteresting a case; Frau von Treumann +observed once at least every day that it was <i>schrecklich</i>, and went on +with her embroidery; Fräulein Kuhräuber cried a little when, on her way +to her bedroom, she heard the baroness raving, but she cried easily, and +the raving frightened her; the princess felt that death in this case +would be a blessing; and Letty and Miss Leech avoided the house, and +spent the burning days rambling in woods that teemed with prodigal, +joyous life.</p> + +<p>As for Anna, to see her in the sick-room was to suppose her the nearest +and tenderest relative of the baroness; and yet the passion that +possessed her was not love, but only an endless, unfathomable pity. "If +she gets well, she shall never be unhappy again," vowed Anna in those +days when she thought she could hear Death's footsteps on the stairs. +"Here or somewhere else—anywhere she likes—she shall live and be +happy. She will see that her poor sister has made no difference, except +that there will be no shadow between us now."</p> + +<p>But what is the use of vowing? When June was in its second week the +baroness slowly and hesitatingly turned the corner of her illness; and +immediately the corner was turned and the exhaustion of turning it got +over, she became fractious. "You will have a difficult time," Axel had +said on the day he spoilt their friendship; and it was true. The +difficult time began after that corner was turned, and the farther the +baroness drew away from it, the nearer she got to complete +convalescence, the more difficult did life for Anna become. For it +resumed the old course, and they all resumed their old selves, the same +old selves, even to the shadow of an unmentioned Lolli between them, +that Axel had said they would by no means get away from; but with this +difference, that the peculiarities of both Frau von Treumann and the +baroness were more pronounced than before, and that not one of the trio +would speak to either of the other two.</p> + +<p>Frau von Treumann was still firmly fixed in the house, without the least +intention apparently of leaving it, and she spent her time lying in wait +for Anna, watching for an opportunity of beginning again about Karlchen. +Anna had avoided the inevitable day when she would be caught, but it +came at last, and she was caught in the garden, whither she had retired +to consider how best to approach the baroness, hitherto quite +unapproachable, on the burning question of Lolli.</p> + +<p>Frau von Treumann appeared suddenly, coming softly across the grass, so +that there was no time to run away. "Anna," she called out +reproachfully, seeing Anna make a movement as though she wanted to run, +which was exactly what she did want to do, "Anna, have I the plague?"</p> + +<p>"I hope not," said Anna.</p> + +<p>"You treat me as if I had it."</p> + +<p>Anna said nothing. "Why does she stay here? How can she stay here, after +what has happened?" she had wondered often. Perhaps she had come now to +announce her departure. She prepared herself therefore to listen with a +willing ear.</p> + +<p>She was sitting in the shade of a copper beech facing the oily sea and +the coast of Rügen quivering opposite in the heat-haze. She was not +doing anything; she never did seem to do anything, as these ladies of +the busy fingers often noticed.</p> + +<p>"Blue and white," said Anna, looking up at the gulls and the sky to give +Frau von Treumann time, "the Pomeranian colours. I see now where they +come from."</p> + +<p>But Frau von Treumann had not come out to talk about the Pomeranian +colours. "My Karlchen has been ill," she said, her eyes on Anna's face.</p> + +<p>Anna watched the gulls overhead in the deep blue. "So has Else," she +remarked.</p> + +<p>"Dear me," thought Frau von Treumann, "what rancour."</p> + +<p>She laid her hand on Anna's knee, and it was taken no notice of. "You +cannot forgive him?" she said gently. "You cannot pardon a momentary +indiscretion?"</p> + +<p>"I have nothing to forgive," said Anna, watching the gulls; one dropped +down suddenly, and rose again with a fish in its beak, the sun for an +instant catching the silver of the scales. "It is no affair of mine. It +is for Else to forgive him."</p> + +<p>Frau von Treumann began to weep; this way of looking at it was so +hopelessly unreasonable. She pulled out her handkerchief. "What a heap +she must use," thought Anna; never had she met people who cried so much +and so easily as the Chosen; she was quite used now to red eyes; one or +other of her sisters had them almost daily, for the farther their old +bodily discomforts and real anxieties lay behind them the more tender +and easily lacerated did their feelings become.</p> + +<p>"He could not bear to see you being imposed upon," said Frau von +Treumann. "As soon as he knew about this terrible sister he felt he must +hasten down to save you. 'Mother,' he said to me when first he suspected +it, 'if it is true, she must not be contaminated.'"</p> + +<p>"Who mustn't?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Anna, you know he thinks only of you!"</p> + +<p>"Well, you see," said Anna, "I don't mind being contaminated."</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear child, a young pretty girl ought to mind very much."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't. But what about yourself? Are you not afraid of—of +contamination?" She was frightened by her own daring when she had said +it, and would not have looked at Frau von Treumann for worlds.</p> + +<p>"No, dear child," replied that lady in tones of tearful sweetness, "I am +too old to suffer in any way from associating with queer people."</p> + +<p>"But I thought a Treumann——" murmured Anna, more and more frightened +at herself, but impelled to go on.</p> + +<p>"Dear Anna, a Treumann has never yet flinched before duty."</p> + +<p>Anna was silenced. After that she could only continue to watch the +gulls.</p> + +<p>"You are going to keep the baroness?"</p> + +<p>"If she cares to stay, yes."</p> + +<p>"I thought you would. It is for you to decide who you will have in your +house. But what would you do if this—this Lolli came down to see her +sister?"</p> + +<p>"I really cannot tell."</p> + +<p>"Well, be sure of one thing," burst out Frau von Treumann +enthusiastically, "I will not forsake you, dear Anna. Your position now +is exceedingly delicate, and I will not forsake you."</p> + +<p>So she was not going. Anna got up with a faint sigh. "It is frightfully +hot here," she said; "I think I will go to Else."</p> + +<p>"Ah—and I wanted to tell you about my poor Karlchen—and you avoid +me—you do not want to hear. If I am in the house, the house is too hot. +If I come into the garden, the garden is too hot. You no longer like +being with me."</p> + +<p>Anna did not contradict her. She was wondering painfully what she ought +to do. Ought she meekly to allow Frau von Treumann to stay on at +Kleinwalde, to the exclusion, perhaps, of someone really deserving? Or +ought she to brace herself to the terrible task of asking her to go? She +thought, "I will ask Axel"—and then remembered that there was no Axel +to ask. He never came near her. He had dropped out of her life as +completely as though he had left Lohm. Since that unhappy day, she had +neither seen him nor heard of him. Many times did she say to herself, "I +will ask Axel," and always the remembrance that she could not came with +a shock of loneliness; and then she would drop into the train of thought +that ended with "if I had a mother," and her eyes growing wistful.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it is the hot weather," she said suddenly, an evening or two +later, after a long silence, to the princess. They had been speaking of +servants before that.</p> + +<p>"You think it is the hot weather that makes Johanna break the cups?"</p> + +<p>"That makes me think so much of mothers."</p> + +<p>The princess turned her head quickly, and examined Anna's face. It was +Sunday evening, and the others were at church. The baroness, whose +recovery was slow, was up in her room.</p> + +<p>"What mothers?" naturally inquired the princess.</p> + +<p>"I think this everlasting heat is dreadful," said Anna plaintively. "I +have no backbone left. I am all limp, and soft, and silly. In cold +weather I believe I wouldn't want a mother half so badly."</p> + +<p>"So you want a mother?" said the princess, taking Anna's hand in hers +and patting it kindly. She thought she knew why. Everyone in the house +saw that something must have been said to Axel Lohm to make him keep +away so long. Perhaps Anna was repenting, and wanted a mother's help to +set things right again.</p> + +<p>"I always thought it would be so glorious to be independent," said Anna, +"and now somehow it isn't. It is tiring. I want someone to tell me what +I ought to do, and to see that I do it. Besides petting me. I long and +long sometimes to be petted."</p> + +<p>The princess looked wise. "My dear," she said, shaking her head, "it is +not a mother that you want. Do you know the couplet:—</p> + +<div class="poetry"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2"><i>Man bedarf der Leitung</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Und der männlichen Begleitung?</i><br /></span> +</div></div> +</div> + +<p>A truly excellent couplet."</p> + +<p>Anna smiled. "That is the German idea of female bliss—always to be led +round by the nose by some husband."</p> + +<p>"Not <i>some</i> husband, my dear—one's own husband. You may call it leading +by the nose if you like. I can only say that I enjoyed being led by +mine, and have missed it grievously ever since."</p> + +<p>"But you had found the right man."</p> + +<p>"It is not very difficult to find the right man."</p> + +<p>"Yes it is—very difficult indeed."</p> + +<p>"I think not," said the princess. "He is never far off. Sometimes, even, +he is next door." And she gazed over Anna's head at the ceiling with +elaborate unconsciousness.</p> + +<p>"And besides," said Anna, "why does a woman everlastingly want to be led +and propped? Why can't she go about the business of life on her own +feet? Why must she always lean on someone?"</p> + +<p>"You said just now it is because it is hot."</p> + +<p>"The fact is," said Anna, "that I am not clever enough to see my way +through puzzles. And that depresses me."</p> + +<p>"I well know that you must be puzzled."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is puzzling, isn't it? I can talk to you about it, for of +course you see it all. It seems so absurd that the only result of my +trying to make people happy is to make everyone, including myself, +wretched. That is waste, isn't it. Waste, I mean, of happiness. For I, +at least, was happy before."</p> + +<p>"And, my dear, you will be happy again."</p> + +<p>Anna knit her brows in painful thought. "If by being wretched I had +managed to make the others happy it wouldn't have been so bad. At least +it wouldn't have been so completely silly. The only thing I can think of +is that I must have hit upon the wrong people."</p> + +<p>"<i>I Gott bewahre!</i>" cried the princess with energy. "They are all alike. +Send these away, you get them back in a different shape. Faces and names +would be different, never the women. They would all be Treumanns and +Elmreichs, and not a single one worth anything in the whole heap."</p> + +<p>"Well, I shall not desert them—Else and Emilie, I mean. They need help, +both of them. And after all, it is simple selfishness for ever wanting +to be happy oneself. I have begun to see that the chief thing in life is +not to be as happy as one can, but to be very brave."</p> + +<p>The princess sighed. "Poor Axel," she said.</p> + +<p>Anna started, and blushed violently. "Pray what has my being brave to do +with Herr von Lohm?" she inquired severely.</p> + +<p>"Why, you are going to be brave at his expense, poor man. You must not +expect anything from me, my dear, but common sense. You give up all hope +of being happy because you think it your duty to go on sacrificing him +and yourself to a set of thankless, worthless women, and you call it +being brave. I call it being unnatural and silly."</p> + +<p>"It has never been a question of Herr von Lohm," said Anna coldly, +indeed freezingly. "What claims has he on me? My plans were all made +before I knew that he existed."</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear, your plans are very irritating things. The only plan a +sensible young woman ought to make is to get as good a husband as +possible as quickly as she can."</p> + +<p>"Why," said Anna, rising in her indignation, and preparing to leave a +princess suddenly become objectionable, "why, you are as bad as Susie!"</p> + +<p>"Susie?" said the princess, who had not heard of her by that name. "Was +Susie also one who told you the truth?"</p> + +<p>But Anna walked out of the room without answering, in a very dignified +manner; went into the loneliest part of the garden; sat down behind some +bushes; and cried.</p> + +<p>She looked back on those childish tears afterwards, and on all that had +gone before, as the last part of a long sleep; a sleep disturbed by +troubling and foolish dreams, but still only a sleep and only dreams. +She woke up the very next day, and remained wide awake after that for +the rest of her life.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX</h2> + + +<p>Anna drove into Stralsund the next morning to her banker, accompanied by +Miss Leech. When they passed Axel's house she saw that his gate-posts +were festooned with wreaths, and that garlands of flowers were strung +across the gateway, swaying to and fro softly in the light breeze. "Why, +how festive it looks," she exclaimed, wondering.</p> + +<p>"Yesterday was Herr von Lohm's birthday," said Miss Leech. "I heard +Princess Ludwig say so."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Anna. Her tone was piqued. She turned her head away, and +looked at the hay-fields on the opposite side of the road. Axel must +have birthdays, of course, and why should he not put things round his +gate-posts if he wanted to? Yet she would not look again, and was silent +the rest of the way; nor was it of any use for Miss Leech to attempt to +while away the long drive with pleasant conversation. Anna would not +talk; she said it was too hot to talk. What she was thinking was that +men were exceedingly horrid, all of them, and that life was a snare.</p> + +<p>Far from being festive, however, Axel's latest birthday was quite the +most solitary he had yet spent. The cheerful garlands had been put up by +an officious gardener on his own initiative. No one, except Axel's own +dependents, had passed beneath them to wish him luck. Trudi had +telegraphed her blessings, administering them thus in their easiest +form. His Stralsund friends had apparently forgotten him; in other years +they had been glad of the excuse the birthday gave for driving out into +the country in June, but this year the astonished Mamsell saw her +birthday cake remain untouched and her baked meats waiting vainly for +somebody to come and eat them.</p> + +<p>Axel neither noticed nor cared. The haymaking season had just begun, and +besides his own affairs he was preoccupied by Anna's. If she had not +been shut up so long in the baroness's sick-room she would have met him +often enough. She thought he never intended to come near her again, and +all the time, whenever he could spare a moment and often when he could +not, he was on her property, watching Dellwig's farming operations. She +should not suffer, he told himself, because he loved her; she should not +be punished because she was not able to love him. He would go on doing +what he could for her, and was certainly, at his age, not going to sulk +and leave her to face her difficulties alone.</p> + +<p>The first time he met Dellwig on these incursions into Anna's domain, he +expected to be received with a scowl; but Dellwig did not scowl at all; +was on the contrary quite affable, even volunteering information about +the work he had in hand. Nor had he been after all offensively zealous +in searching for the person who had set the stables on fire; and luckily +the Stralsund police had not been very zealous either. Klutz was looked +for for a little while after Axel had denounced him as the probable +culprit, but the matter had been dropped, apparently, and for the last +ten days nothing more had been said or done. Axel was beginning to hope +that the whole thing had blown over, that there was to be no +unpleasantness after all for Anna. Hearing that the baroness was nearly +well, he decided to go and call at Kleinwalde as though nothing had +happened. Some time or other he must meet Anna. They could not live on +adjoining estates and never see each other. The day after his birthday +he arranged to go round in the afternoon and take up the threads of +ordinary intercourse again, however much it made him suffer.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Anna did her business in Stralsund, discovered on interviewing +her banker that she had already spent more than two-thirds of a whole +year's income, lunched pensively after that on ices with Miss Leech, +walked down to the quay and watched the unloading of the fishing-smacks +while Fritz and the horses had their dinner, was very much stared at by +the inhabitants, who seldom saw anything so pretty, and finally, about +two o'clock, started again for home.</p> + +<p>As they drew near Axel's gate, and she was preparing to turn her face +away from its ostentatious gaiety, a closed <i>Droschke</i> came through it +towards them, followed at a short distance by a second.</p> + +<p>Miss Leech said nothing, strange though this spectacle was on that quiet +road, for she felt that these were the departing guests, and, like Anna, +she wondered how a man who loved in vain could have the heart to give +parties. Anna said nothing either, but watched the approaching +<i>Droschkes</i> curiously. Axel was sitting in the first one, on the side +near her. He wore his ordinary farming clothes, the Norfolk jacket, and +the soft green hat. There were three men with him, seedy-looking +individuals in black coats. She bowed instinctively, for he was looking +out of the window full at her, but he took no notice. She turned very +white.</p> + +<p>The second <i>Droschke</i> contained four more queer-looking persons in black +clothes. When they had passed, Fritz pulled up his horses of his own +accord, and twisting himself round stared after the receding cloud of +dust.</p> + +<p>Anna had been cut by Axel; but it was not that that made her turn so +white—it was something in his face. He had looked straight at her, and +he had not seen her.</p> + +<p>"Who are those people?" she asked Fritz in a voice that faltered, she +did not know why.</p> + +<p>Fritz did not answer. He stared down the road after the <i>Droschkes</i>, +shook his head, began to scratch it, jerked himself round again to his +horses, drove on a few yards, pulled them up a second time, looked back, +shook his head, and was silent.</p> + +<p>"Fritz, do you know them?" Anna asked more authoritatively.</p> + +<p>But Fritz only mumbled something soothing and drove on.</p> + +<p>Anna had not failed to notice the old man's face as he watched the +departing <i>Droschkes</i>; it wore an oddly amazed and scared expression. +Her heart seemed to sink within her like a stone, yet she could give +herself no reason for it. She tried to order him to turn up the avenue +to Axel's house, but her lips were dry, and the words would not come; +and while she was struggling to speak the gate was passed. Then she was +relieved that it was passed, for how could she, only because she had a +presentiment of trouble, go to Axel's house? What did she think of doing +there? Miss Leech glanced at her, and asked if anything was the matter.</p> + +<p>"No," said Anna in a whisper, looking straight before her. Nor was there +anything the matter; only that blind look on Axel's face, and the +strange feeling in her heart.</p> + +<p>A knot of people stood outside the post office talking eagerly. They all +stopped talking to stare at Anna when the carriage came round the +corner. Fritz whipped up his horses and drove past them at a gallop.</p> + +<p>"Wait—I want to get out," cried Anna as they came to the parsonage. "Do +you mind waiting?" she asked Miss Leech. "I want to speak to Herr +Pastor. I will not be a moment."</p> + +<p>She went up the little trim path to the porch. The maid-of-all-work was +clearing away the coffee from the table. Frau Manske came bustling out +when she heard Anna's voice asking for her husband. She looked +extraordinarily excited. "He has not come back yet," she cried before +Anna could speak, "he is still at the <i>Schloss</i>. <i>Gott Du Allmächtiger</i>, +did one ever hear of anything so terrible?"</p> + +<p>Anna looked at her, her face as white as her dress. "Tell me," she tried +to say; but no sound passed her lips. She made a great effort, and the +words came in a whisper: "Tell me," she said.</p> + +<p>"What, the gracious Miss has not heard? Herr von Lohm has been +arrested."</p> + +<p>It was impossible not to enjoy imparting so tremendous a piece of news, +however genuinely shocked one might be. Frau Manske brought it out with +a ring of pride. It would not be easy to beat, she felt, in the way of +news. Then she remembered the gossip about Anna and Axel, and observed +her with increased interest. Was she going to faint? It would be the +only becoming course for her to take if it were true that there had been +courting.</p> + +<p>But Anna, whose voice had failed her before, when once she had heard +what it was that had happened, seemed curiously cold and composed.</p> + +<p>"What was he accused of?" was all she asked; so calmly, Frau Manske +afterwards told her friends, that it was not even womanly in the face of +so great a misfortune.</p> + +<p>"He set fire to the stables," said Frau Manske.</p> + +<p>"It is a lie," said Anna; also, as Frau Manske afterwards pointed out to +her friends, an unwomanly remark.</p> + +<p>"He did it himself to get the insurance money."</p> + +<p>"It is a lie," repeated Anna, in that cold voice.</p> + +<p>"Eye-witnesses will swear to it."</p> + +<p>"They will lie," said Anna again; and turned and walked away. "Go on," +she said to Fritz, taking her place beside Miss Leech.</p> + +<p>She sat quite silent till they were near the house. Then she called to +the coachman to stop. "I am going into the forest for a little while," +she said, jumping out "You drive on home." And she crossed the road +quickly, her white dress fluttering for a moment between the +pine-trunks, and then disappearing in the soft green shadow.</p> + +<p>Miss Leech drove on alone, sighing gently. Something was troubling her +dear Miss Estcourt. Something out of the ordinary had happened. She +wished she could help her. She drove on, sighing.</p> + +<p>Directly the road was out of sight, Anna struck back again to the left, +across the moss and lichen, towards the place where she knew there was a +path that led to Lohm. She walked very straight and very quickly. She +did not miss her way, but found the path and hastened her steps to a +run. What were they doing to Axel? She was going to his house, alone. +People would talk. Who cared? And when she had heard all that could be +told her there, she was going to Axel himself. People would talk. Who +cared? The laughable indifference of slander, when big issues of life +and death were at stake! All the tongues of all the world should not +frighten her away from Axel. Her eyes had a new look in them. For the +first time she was wide awake, was facing life as it is without dreams, +facing its absolute cruelty and pitilessness. This was life, these were +the realities—suffering, injustice, and shame; not to be avoided +apparently by the most honourable and innocent of men; but at least to +be fought with all the weapons in one's power, with unflinching courage +to the end, whatever that end might be. That was what one needed most, +of all the gifts of the gods—not happiness—oh, foolish, childish +dream! how could there be happiness so long as men were wicked?—but +courage. That blind look on Axel's face—no, she would not think of +that; it tore her heart. She stumbled a little as she ran—no, she would +not think of that.</p> + +<p>Out in the open, between the forest and Lohm, she met Manske. "I was +coming to you," he said.</p> + +<p>"I am going to him," said Anna.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear young lady!" cried Manske; and two big tears rolled down +his face.</p> + +<p>"Don't cry," she said, "it does not help him."</p> + +<p>"How can I not do so after seeing what I have this day seen?"</p> + +<p>She hurried on. "Come," she said, "we must not waste time. He needs +help. I am going to his house to see what I can do. Where did they take +him?"</p> + +<p>"They took him to prison."</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>"Stralsund."</p> + +<p>"Will he be there long?"</p> + +<p>"Till after the trial."</p> + +<p>"And that will be?"</p> + +<p>"God knows."</p> + +<p>"I am going to him. Come with me. We will take his horses."</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear Miss, dear Miss," cried Manske, wringing his hands, "they will +not let us see him—you they will not let in under any circumstances, +and me only across mountains of obstacles. The official who conducted +the arrest, when I prayed for permission to visit my dear patron, was +brutality itself. 'Why should you visit him?' he asked, sneering. 'The +prison chaplain will do all that is needful for his soul.' 'Let it be, +Manske,' said my dear patron, but still I prayed. 'I cannot give you +permission,' said the man at last, weary of my importunity, 'it rests +with my chief. You must go to him.'"</p> + +<p>"Who is the chief?"</p> + +<p>"I know not. I know nothing. My head is in a whirl."</p> + +<p>"He must be somewhere in Stralsund. We will find him, if we have to ask +from door to door. And I'll get permission for myself."</p> + +<p>"Oh, dearest Miss, none will be given you. The man said only his nearest +relatives, and those only very seldom—for I asked all I could, I felt +the moments were priceless—my dear patron spoke not a word. 'His wife, +if he has one,' said the man, making hideous pleasantries—he well knew +there is no wife—or his <i>Braut</i>, if there is one, or a brother or a +sister, but no one else."</p> + +<p>"Do his brothers and Trudi know?"</p> + +<p>"I at once telegraphed to them."</p> + +<p>"Then they will be here to-night."</p> + +<p>The women and children in the village ran out to look at Anna as she +passed. She did not see them. Axel's house stood open. The Mamsell, +overcome by the shame of having been in such a service, was in hysterics +in the kitchen, and the inspector, a devoted servant who loved his +master, was upbraiding her with bitterest indignation for daring to say +such things of such a master. The Mamsell's laments and the inspector's +furious reproaches echoed through the empty house. The door, like the +gate, was garlanded with flowers. Little more than an hour had gone by +since Axel passed out beneath them to ruin.</p> + +<p>Anna went straight to the study. His papers were lying about in +disorder; the drawer of the writing-table was unlocked, and his keys +hung in it He had been writing letters, evidently, for an unfinished one +lay on the table. She stood a moment quite still in the silent room. +Manske had gone to find the coachman, and she could hear his steps on +the stones beneath the open windows. The desolation of the deserted +room, the terrible sense of misfortune worse than death that brooded +over it, struck her like a blow that for ever destroyed her cheerful +youth. She never forgot the look and the feeling of that room. She went +to the writing-table, dropped on her knees, and laid her cheek, with an +abandonment of tenderness, on the open, unfinished letter. "How are such +things possible—how are they possible——" she murmured passionately, +shutting her eyes to press back the useless tears. "So useless to cry, +so useless," she repeated piteously, as she felt the scalding tears, in +spite of all her efforts to keep them back, stealing through her +eyelashes. And everything else that she did or could do—how useless. +What could she do for him, who had no claim on him at all? How could she +reach him across this gulf of misery? Yes, it was good to be brave in +this world, it was good to have courage, but courage without weapons, of +what use was it? She was a woman, a stranger in a strange land, she had +no friends, no influence—she was useless. Manske found her kneeling +there, holding the writing-table tightly in her outstretched arms, +pressing her bosom against it as though it were something that could +feel, her eyes shut, her face a desolation. "Do not cry," he begged in +his turn, "dearest Miss, do not cry—it cannot help him."</p> + +<p>They locked up his papers and everything that they thought might be of +value before they left. Manske took the keys. Anna half put out her hand +for them, then dropped it at her side. She had less claim than Manske: +he was Axel's pastor; she was nothing to him at all.</p> + +<p>They left the dog-cart at the entrance to the town and went in search of +a <i>Droschke</i>. Manske's weather-beaten face flushed a dull red when he +gave the order to drive to the prison. The prison was in a by-street of +shabby houses. Heads appeared at the windows of the houses as the +<i>Droschke</i> rattled up over the rough stones, and the children playing +about the doors and gutters stopped their games and crowded round to +stare.</p> + +<p>They went up the dirty steps and rang the bell. The door was immediately +opened a few inches by an official who shouted "The visiting hour is +past," and shut it again.</p> + +<p>Manske rang a second time.</p> + +<p>"Well, what do you want?" asked the man angrily, thrusting out his head.</p> + +<p>Manske stated, in the mildest, most conciliatory tones, that he would be +infinitely obliged if he would tell him what steps he ought to take to +obtain permission to visit one of the inmates.</p> + +<p>"You must have a written order," snapped the man, preparing to shut the +door again. The street children were clustering at the bottom of the +steps, listening eagerly.</p> + +<p>"To whom should I apply?" asked Manske.</p> + +<p>"To the judge who has conducted the preliminary inquiries."</p> + +<p>The door was slammed, and locked from within with a great noise of +rattling keys. The sound of the keys made Anna feel faint; Axel was on +the other side of that ostentation of brute force. She leaned against +the wall shivering. The children tittered; she was a very fine lady, +they thought, to have friends in there.</p> + +<p>"The judge who conducted the preliminary inquiries," repeated Manske, +looking dazed. "Who may he be? Where shall we find him? I fear I am +sadly inexperienced in these matters."</p> + +<p>There was nothing to be done but to face the official's wrath once more. +He timidly rang the bell again. This time he was kept waiting. There was +a little round window in the door, and he could see the man on the other +side leaning against a table trimming his nails. The man also could see +him. Manske began to knock on the glass in his desperation. The man +remained absorbed by his nails.</p> + +<p>Anna was suffering a martyrdom. Her head drooped lower and lower. The +children laughed loud. Just then heavy steps were heard approaching on +the pavement, and the children fled with one accord. Immediately +afterwards an official, apparently of a higher grade than the man +within, came up. He glanced curiously at the two suppliants as he thrust +his hand into his pocket and pulled out a key. Before he could fit it in +the lock the man on the other side had seen him, had sprung to the door, +flung it open, and stood at attention.</p> + +<p>Manske saw that here was his opportunity. He snatched off his hat. +"Sir," he cried, "one moment, for God's sake."</p> + +<p>"Well?" inquired the official sharply.</p> + +<p>"Where can I obtain an order of admission?"</p> + +<p>"To see——?"</p> + +<p>"My dear patron, Herr von Lohm, who by some incomprehensible and +appalling mistake——"</p> + +<p>"You must go to the judge who conducted the preliminary inquiries."</p> + +<p>"But who is he, and where is he to be found?"</p> + +<p>The official looked at his watch. "If you hurry you may still find him +at the Law Courts. In the next street. Examining Judge Schultz."</p> + +<p>And the door was shut.</p> + +<p>So they went to the Law Courts, and hurried up and down staircases and +along endless corridors, vainly looking for someone to direct them to +Examining Judge Schultz. The building was empty; they did not meet a +soul, and they went down one passage after the other, anguish in Anna's +heart, and misery hardly less acute in Manske's. At last they heard +distant voices echoing through the emptiness. They followed the sound, +and found two women cleaning.</p> + +<p>"Can you direct me to the room of the Examining Judge Schultz?" asked +Manske, bowing politely.</p> + +<p>"The gentlemen have all gone home. Business hours are over," was the +answer. Could they perhaps give his private address? No, they could not; +perhaps the porter knew. Where was the porter? Somewhere about.</p> + +<p>They hurried downstairs again in search of the porter. Another ten +minutes was wasted looking for him. They saw him at last through the +glass of the entrance door, airing himself on the steps.</p> + +<p>The porter gave them the address, and they lost some more minutes trying +to find their <i>Droschke</i>, for they had come out at a different entrance +to the one they had gone in by. By this time Manske was speechless, and +Anna was half dead.</p> + +<p>They climbed three flights of stairs to the Examining Judge's flat, and +after being kept waiting a long while—"<i>Der Herr Untersuchungsrichter +ist bei Tisch</i>," the slovenly girl had announced—were told by him very +curtly that they must go to the Public Prosecutor for the order. Anna +went out without a word. Manske bowed and apologised profusely for +having disturbed the <i>Herr Untersuchungsrichter</i> at his repast; he felt +the necessity of grovelling before these persons whose power was so +almighty. The Examining Judge made no reply whatever to these piteous +amiabilities, but turned on his heel, leaving them to find the door as +best they could.</p> + +<p>The Public Prosecutor lived at the other end of the town. They neither +of them spoke a word on the way there. In answer to their anxious +inquiry whether they could speak to him, the woman who opened the door +said that her master was asleep; it was his hour for repose, having just +supped, and he could not possibly be disturbed.</p> + +<p>Anna began to cry. Manske gripped hold of her hand and held it fast, +patting it while he continued to question the servant. "He will see no +one so late," she said. "He will sleep now till nine, and then go out. +You must come to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"At what time?"</p> + +<p>"At ten he goes to the Law Courts. You must come before then."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said Manske, and drew Anna away. "Do not cry, <i>liebes +Kind</i>," he implored, his own eyes brimming with miserable tears. "Do not +let the coachman see you like this. We must go home now. There is +nothing to be done. We will come early to-morrow, and have more +success."</p> + +<p>They stopped a moment in the dark entrance below, trying to compose +their faces before going out. They did not dare look at each other. Then +they went out and drove away.</p> + +<p>The stars were shining as they passed along the quiet country road, and +all the way was drenched with the fragrance of clover and freshly-cut +hay. The sky above the rye fields on the left was still rosy. Not a leaf +stirred. Once, when the coachman stopped to take a stone out of a +horse's shoe, they could hear the crickets, and the cheerful humming of +a column of gnats high above their heads.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI</h2> + + +<p>Gustav von Lohm found Manske's telegram on his table when he came in +with his wife from his afternoon ride in the Thiergarten.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" she inquired, seeing him turn pale; and she took it out of +his hand and read it. "Disgraceful," she murmured.</p> + +<p>"I must go at once," he said, looking round helplessly.</p> + +<p>"Go?"</p> + +<p>When a wife says "Go?" in that voice, if she is a person of +determination and her husband is a person of peace, he does not go; he +stays. Gustav stayed. It is true that at first he decided to leave +Berlin by the early train next morning; but his wife employed the hours +of darkness addressing him, as he lay sleepless, in the language of +wisdom; and the wisdom being of that robust type known as worldly, it +inevitably produced its effect on a mind naturally receptive.</p> + +<p>"Relations," she said, "are at all times bad enough. They do less for +you and expect more from you than anyone else. They are the last to +congratulate if you succeed, and the first to abandon if you fail. They +are at one and the same time abnormally truthful, and abnormally +sensitive. They regard it as infinitely more blessed to administer +home-truths than to receive them back again. But, so long as they do not +actually break the laws, prejudice demands that they shall be borne +with. In my family, no one ever broke the laws. It has been reserved for +my married life, this connection with criminals."</p> + +<p>She was a woman of ready and frequent speech, and she continued in this +strain for some time. Towards morning, nature refusing to endure more, +Gustav fell asleep; and when he woke the early train was gone.</p> + +<p>In the same manner did his wife prevent his writing to his unhappy +brother. "It is sad that such things should be," she said, "sad that a +man of birth should commit so vulgar a crime; but he has done it, he has +disgraced us, he has struck a blow at our social position which may +easily, if we are not careful, prove fatal. Take my advice—have nothing +to do with him. Leave him to be dealt with as the law shall demand. We +who abide by the laws are surely justified in shunning, in abhorring, +those who deliberately break them. Leave him alone."</p> + +<p>And Gustav left him alone.</p> + +<p>Trudi was at a picnic when the telegram reached her flat. With several +of her female friends and a great many lieutenants she was playing at +being frisky among the haycocks beyond the town. Her two little boys, +Billy and Tommy, who would really have enjoyed haycocks, were left +sternly at home. She invited the whole party to supper at her flat, and +drove home in the dog-cart of the richest of the young men, making +immense efforts to please him, and feeling that she must be looking very +picturesque and sweet in her flower-trimmed straw hat and muslin dress, +silhouetted against the pale gold of the evening sky.</p> + +<p>Her eye fell on the telegram as the picnic party came crowding in.</p> + +<p>"Bill coming home?" inquired somebody.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid he is," she said, opening it.</p> + +<p>She read it, and could not prevent a change of expression. There was a +burst of laughter. The young men declared they would never marry. The +young women, prone at all times to pity other women's husbands, +criticised Trudi's pale face, and secretly pitied Bill. She lit a +cigarette, flung herself into a chair, and became very cheerful. She had +never been so amusing. She kept them in a state of uproarious mirth till +the small hours. The richest lieutenant, who had found her distinctly a +bore during the drive home, went away feeling quite affectionate. When +they had all gone, she dropped on to her bed, and cried, and cried.</p> + +<p>It was in the papers next morning, and at breakfast Trudi and her family +were in every mouth. Bibi came running round, genuinely distressed. She +had not been invited to the picnic, but she forgot that in her sympathy. +"I wanted to catch you before you start," she said, vigorously embracing +her poor friend.</p> + +<p>"Where should I start for?" asked Trudi, offering a cold cheek to Bibi's +kisses.</p> + +<p>"Are you not going to Herr von Lohm?" exclaimed Bibi, open-mouthed.</p> + +<p>"What, when he tries to cheat insurance companies?"</p> + +<p>"But he never, never set fire to those buildings himself."</p> + +<p>"Didn't he, though?" Trudi turned her head, and looked straight into +Bibi's eyes. "I know him better than you do," she said slowly.</p> + +<p>She had decided that that was the only way—to cast him off altogether; +and it must be done at once and thoroughly. Indeed, how was it possible +not to hate him? It was the most dreadful thing to happen to her. She +would suffer by it in every way. If he were guilty or not guilty, he was +anyhow a fool to let himself get into such a position, and how she hated +such fools! She registered a solemn vow that she had done with Axel for +ever.</p> + +<p>At Kleinwalde the effect of the news was to make Frau Dellwig slay a pig +and send out invitations for an unusually large Sunday party. She and +her husband could hardly veil their beaming satisfaction with a decent +appearance of dismay. "What would his poor father, our gracious master's +oldest friend, have said!" ejaculated Dellwig at dinner, when the +servant was in the room.</p> + +<p>"It is truly merciful that he did not live to see it," said his wife, +with pious head-shakings.</p> + +<p>What Anna was doing at Stralsund, no one knew. She said she was having +some bother with her bank. Miss Leech related how they had been to the +bank on the Monday. "I must go again," Anna said on the evening of the +fruitless Tuesday, when she had been the whole day again with Manske, +vainly trying to obtain permission to visit Axel; and she added, her +head drooping, her voice faint, that it was a great bore. Certainly she +looked profoundly unhappy.</p> + +<p>"One cannot be too careful in money matters," remarked Frau von +Treumann, alarmed by Anna's white looks, and afraid lest by some foolish +neglect on her part supplies should cease. She enthusiastically +encouraged these visits to the bank. "Take care of your bank," she said, +"and your bank will take care of you. That is what we say in Germany."</p> + +<p>But Anna did not hear. There was but one thought in her mind, one cry in +her heart—how could she reach, how could she help, Axel?</p> + +<p>He was in a cell about five yards long by three wide. There was just +room to pass between the camp bedstead and the small deal table standing +against the opposite wall. Besides this furniture, there was one chair, +an empty wooden box turned up on end, with a tin basin on it—that was +his washstand—a little shelf fixed on the wall, and on the little shelf +a tin mug, a tin plate, a pot of salt, a small loaf of black bread, and +a Bible. The walls were painted brown, and the window, fitted with +ground glass, was high up near the ceiling; it was barred on the +outside, and could only be opened a few inches at the top. On the door a +neat printed card was fastened, giving, besides information for the +guidance of the habitually dirty as to the cleansing properties of +water, the quantity of oakum the occupant of the cell would be expected +to pick every day. The cell was used sometimes for condemned criminals, +hence the mention of the oakum; but the card caught Axel's eye whenever +he reached that end of the room in his pacings up and down, and without +knowing it he learnt its rules by heart.</p> + +<p>At first he had been completely dazed, absolutely unable to understand +the meaning and extent of the misfortune that had overtaken him; but +there was a grim, uncompromising reality about the prison, about the +heavy doors he passed through, each one barred and locked behind him, +each one cutting him off more utterly from the common free life outside, +about the look of the miserable beings he met being taken to or from +their work by armed warders, about the warders themselves with their +great keys, polished by frequent use—there was about these things an +inexorable reality that shook him out of the blind apathy into which he +had fallen after his arrest. Some extraordinary mistake had been made; +and, knowing that he had done nothing, when first he began to think +connectedly he was certain that it could only be a matter of hours +before he was released. But the horror of his position was there. +Released or not released, who would make good to him what he was +suffering and what he would have lost? He had been searched on his +arrival—his money, watch, and a ring he wore of his mother's taken from +him. The young official who arrested him—he was the Junior Public +Prosecutor—presided at these operations with immense zeal. Being young +and obscure, he thirsted to make a name for himself, and opportunities +were few in that little town. To be put in charge, therefore, of this +sensational case, was to behold opening out before him the rosiest +prospects for the future. His name, which was Meyer, would flare up in +flames of glory from the ashes of Axel's honour. Stralsund, ringing with +the ancient name of Lohm, would be forced to ring simultaneously with +the less ancient and not in itself interesting name of Meyer. He had +arrested Lohm, he had special charge of the case, he could not but be +talked about at last. His zeal and satisfaction accordingly were great, +carrying him far beyond the limits usual on such occasions. Axel stood +amazed at the trick of fortune that had so suddenly flung him into the +power of a young man called Meyer.</p> + +<p>Soon after he was locked in his cell, a warder came in with a great pot +of liquid food, a sort of thick soup made chiefly of beans, with other +bodies, unknown to Axel, floating about among them.</p> + +<p>"Your plate," said the warder, jerking his head in the direction of the +little shelf on which stood Axel's dining facilities; and he raised the +pot preparatory to pouring out some of its contents.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said Axel, "I don't want any."</p> + +<p>"You'll be hungry then," said the man, going away. "There is no more +food to-day."</p> + +<p>Axel said nothing, and he went out. The smell of the soup, which was +apparently of great potency, filled the little room. Axel tried to open +the window wider, but though he was tall and he stood on his table, he +could not reach it.</p> + +<p>It began to get dark. The lamps in the street below were lit, and the +shouts of the children at play came up to him. He guessed that it must +be past nine, and wondered how long he was to be left there without a +light. As it grew darker, his thoughts grew very dark. He paced up and +down more and more restlessly, trying to force them into clearness. In +the hurry and dismay he had left his keys at Lohm, he remembered, and +all his money and papers were at the mercy of the first-comer. And he +was poor; he could not afford to lose any money, or any time. Supposing +he were to be kept here more than a few hours, what would become of his +farming, just now at its busiest season, his people used to his constant +direction and control, his inspector accustomed to do nothing without +the master's orders? And what would be the moral effect on them of his +arrest? If he had a pencil and paper he would write some hasty messages +to keep them all at their posts till his return; but he had no writing +materials, he was quite helpless. He had sent urgent word to his lawyer +in Stralsund, telegraphing to him through Manske before leaving home, +and he had expected to find him waiting for him at the prison. But he +had not come. Why did he not come? Why did he leave him helpless at such +a moment? Axel was determined to face his misfortune quietly; yet the +feeling of absolute impotence, of being as it were bound hand and foot +when there was such dire necessity for immediate action, almost broke +down his resolution.</p> + +<p>But it was only for a few hours, he assured himself, walking faster, +thrusting his hands deeper into his pockets, and he could bear anything +for a few hours. His brothers would come to him—to-morrow the first +thing his lawyer would certainly come. It was all so extremely absurd; +yet it was amazing the amount of suffering one such absurd mistake could +inflict. "Thank God," he exclaimed aloud, stopping in his walk, struck +by a new thought, "thank God that I have neither wife nor children." And +he paced up and down again more slowly, his shoulders bent, his head +sunk, a dull flush on his face; he was thinking of Anna.</p> + +<p>The door was unlocked, and a warder with a bull's-eye lantern came in +quickly. "The Public Prosecutor is coming up," he said breathlessly. +"When he comes in, you stand at attention and recite your name and the +crime of which you are accused."</p> + +<p>He had hardly finished when the Public Prosecutor appeared. The warder +sprang to attention. Axel slowly and unwillingly did the same.</p> + +<p>"Well?" snarled the great man, as Axel did not speak. He was an old man, +with a face grown sly and hard during years of association with +criminals, of experiences confined solely to the ugly sides of life.</p> + +<p>"My name is Lohm," said Axel, feeling the folly of attempting to defy +anyone so absolutely powerful in the place where he was; and he +proceeded to explain the crime of which he was suspected.</p> + +<p>The Public Prosecutor, who knew perfectly well everything about him, +having himself arranged every detail of the arrest, said something +incomprehensible and was going away.</p> + +<p>"May I have a light of some sort?" asked Axel, "and writing materials? I +absolutely must be able to——"</p> + +<p>"You cannot expect the luxuries of a <i>Schloss</i> here," said the Public +Prosecutor with a scowl, turning on his heel and signing to the warder +to lock the door again. And he continued his rounds, congratulating +himself on having demonstrated that in his independent eye the bearer of +the most ancient name and the offscourings of the street, tried or +untried, were equal—sinners, that is, all of them—and would receive +exactly the same treatment at his hands. Indeed, he was so anxious to +impress this laudable impartiality on the members of the little +prison-world, which was the only world he knew, that he overshot the +mark, refusing Axel small conveniences that he would have unhesitatingly +granted a suppliant called Schmidt, Schultz, or Meyer.</p> + +<p>It was now quite dark, except for the faint light from the lamps in the +street below. Weary to death, Axel flung himself down on the little bed. +He had brought a few necessaries, hastily thrown into a bag by his +servant, necessaries that had first been carefully handled and inspected +with every symptom of distrust by the Junior Public Prosecutor Meyer; +but he did not unpack them. Judging from the shortness of the bed, he +concluded that criminals must be a stunted race. Sleeping was not made +easy by this bed, and he lay awake staring at the shadows cast by the +iron bars outside his window on to the ceiling. These shadows affected +him oddly. He shut his eyes, but still he saw them; he turned his head +to the wall and tried not to think of them, but still he saw them. They +expressed the whole misery of his situation.</p> + +<p>He had dozed off, worn out, when a bright light on his face woke him. He +started up in bed, confused, hardly remembering where he was. A feeling +very nearly resembling horror came over him. A bull's-eye lantern was +being held close to his face. He could see nothing but the bright light. +The man holding it did not speak, and presently backed out again, +bolting the door behind him. Axel lay down, reflecting that such +surprises, added to anxiety and bad food, must wear out a suspected +culprit's nerves with extraordinary rapidity and thoroughness. There +could not, he thought, be much left of a man in the way of brains and +calmness by the time he was taken before the judge to clear himself. The +incident completely banished all tendency to sleep. He remained wide +awake after that, tormented by anxious thoughts.</p> + +<p>Towards dawn, for which he thanked God when it came, the silence of the +prison was broken by screams. He started up again and listened, his +blood frozen by the sound of them. They were terrible to hear, echoing +through that place. Again a feeling of sheer horror came over him. How +long would he be able to endure these things? The screams grew more and +more appalling. He sprang up and went to the door, and listened there. +He thought he heard steps outside, and knocked. "What is that +screaming?" he cried out. But no one answered. The shrieks reached a +climax of anguish, and suddenly stopped. Death-like stillness fell again +upon the prison. Axel spent what was left of the night pacing up and +down.</p> + +<p>The prison day did not begin till six. Axel, used to his busy country +life that got him out of his bed and on to his horse at four these fine +summer mornings, heard sounds of life below in the street—early carts +and voices—long before life stirred within the walls. He understood +afterwards why the inmates were allowed to lie in bed so long: it was +convenient for the warders. The prisoners rose at six, and went to bed +again at six, in the full sunshine of those June afternoons. Thus +disposed of, the warders could relax their vigilance and enjoy some +hours of rest. The effect, moralising or the reverse, on the prisoners, +who could by no means get themselves off to sleep at six o'clock, was of +the supremest indifference to everyone concerned. Axel, not yet having +been tried, and not yet therefore having been placed in the common +dormitory, was not forced into bed at any particular time. He might +enjoy evenings as long as those of the warders if he chose, and he might +get up as early as though his horse were waiting below to take him to +his hay-fields if he liked; but this privilege, without the means of +employing the extra hours, was valueless. He watched anxiously for the +broad daylight that would bring his lawyer and put an end to this first +martyrdom of helpless waiting. Towards seven, one of the prisoners, +whose good conduct had procured him promotion to cleaning the passages +and doing other work of the kind, brought him another loaf of bread and +a pot of coffee. From this young man, a white-faced, artful-looking +youth, with closely-cropped hair and wearing the coarse, brown prison +dress, Axel heard that the ghastly screams in the night came from a +prisoner who had <i>delirium tremens</i>; he had been put in the cellar to +get over the attack; he could scream as loud as he liked there, and no +one would hear him; they always put him in the cellar when the attacks +came on. The young man grinned. Evidently he thought the arrangement +both good and funny.</p> + +<p>"Poor wretch," said Axel, profoundly pitying those other wretched human +beings, his fellow-prisoners.</p> + +<p>"Oh, he is very happy there. He plays all day long at catching the +rats."</p> + +<p>"The rats?"</p> + +<p>"They say there are no rats—that he only thinks he sees them. But +whether the rats are real or not it amuses him trying to catch them. +When he is quiet again, he is brought back to us."</p> + +<p>A warder appeared and said there was too much talking. The young man +slid away swiftly and silently. He was a thief by profession, of +superior skill and intelligence.</p> + +<p>Axel ate part of the bread, and succeeded in swallowing some of the +coffee, and then began his walk again, up and down, up and down, +listening intently at the door each time he came to it for sounds of his +lawyer's approach. The morning must be halfway through, he thought; why +did he not come? How could he let him wait at such a crisis? How could +any of them—Gustav, Trudi, Manske—let him wait at such a crisis? He +grew terribly anxious. He had expected Gustav by the first train from +Berlin; he might have been with him by nine o'clock. The other brother, +he knew, would be less easily reached by the telegram—he was attached +to the person of a prince whose movements were uncertain; but Gustav? +Well, he must be patient; he may not have been at home; the next train +arrived in the afternoon; he would come by that.</p> + +<p>The door opened, and he turned eagerly; but it was the Public Prosecutor +again.</p> + +<p>"Name, name, and crime!" frantically whispered the accompanying warder, +as Axel stood silent. Axel repeated the formula of the night before. +Every time these visits were made he had to go through this performance, +his heels together, his body rigid.</p> + +<p>"Bed not made," said the Public Prosecutor.</p> + +<p>"Bed not made," repeated the warder, glaring at Axel.</p> + +<p>"Make it," ordered the chief; and went out.</p> + +<p>"Make it," hissed the warder; and followed him.</p> + +<p>His lawyer came in simultaneously with his dinner.</p> + +<p>"Plate," said the warder with the pot.</p> + +<p>"This is a sad sight, Herr von Lohm," said the lawyer.</p> + +<p>"It is," agreed Axel, reaching down his plate. He allowed some of the +mess to be poured into it; he was not going to starve only because the +soup was potent.</p> + +<p>"I expected you yesterday," he said to the lawyer.</p> + +<p>"Ah—I was engaged yesterday."</p> + +<p>The lawyer's manner was so peculiar that Axel stared at him, doubtful if +he really were the right man. He was a native of Stralsund, and Axel had +employed him ever since he came into his estate, and had found his work +satisfactory, and his manners exceedingly polite—so polite, indeed, as +to verge on cringing; but then, as Manske would have pointed out, he was +a Jew. Now the whole man was changed. The ingratiating smiles, the bows, +the rubbed hands, where were they? The lawyer sat at his ease on the one +chair, his hands in his pockets, a toothpick in his mouth, and +scrutinised Axel while he told him his case, with an insolent look of +incredulity.</p> + +<p>"He actually believes I set the place on fire," thought Axel, struck by +the look.</p> + +<p>He did actually believe it. He always believed the worst, for his +experience had been that the worst is what comes most often nearest the +truth; but then, as Manske would have explained, he was a Jew.</p> + +<p>The interview was extremely unsatisfactory. "I have an appointment," +said the lawyer, pulling out his watch before they had half discussed +the situation.</p> + +<p>"You appear to forget that this is a matter of enormous importance to +me," said Axel, wrath in his eyes and voice.</p> + +<p>"That is what each of my clients invariably says," replied the lawyer, +stretching across the table for his gloves.</p> + +<p>"How can we arrange anything in a ten minutes' conversation?" inquired +Axel indignantly.</p> + +<p>The lawyer shrugged his shoulders. "I cannot neglect all my other +business."</p> + +<p>"I do not remember your having been so pressed for time formerly. I +shall expect you again this afternoon."</p> + +<p>"An impossibility."</p> + +<p>"Then to-morrow the first thing. That is, if I am still here."</p> + +<p>The lawyer grinned. "It is not so easy to get out of these places as it +is to get in," he said, drawing on his gloves. "By the way, my fees in +such cases are payable beforehand."</p> + +<p>Axel flushed. He could hardly believe the evidence of his senses that +this was the obsequious person who had for so long managed his affairs. +"My brother Gustav will arrange all that," he said stiffly. "You know I +can do nothing here. He is coming this afternoon."</p> + +<p>"Oh, is he?" said the lawyer sceptically. "Is he indeed, now? That will +be a remarkable instance of brotherly devotion. I am truly glad to hear +that. Good-afternoon," he nodded; and went out, leaving Axel in a fury.</p> + +<p>The one good result of his visit was that some time later Axel was +provided with writing materials. He immediately fell to writing letters +and telegrams; urgent letters and telegrams, of a desperate importance +to himself. When his coffee was brought he gave them to the warder, and +begged him to see that they were despatched at once; then he paced up +and down again, relieved at least by feeling that he could now +communicate with the outer world.</p> + +<p>"They have gone?" he asked anxiously, next time he saw the warder. +"<i>Jawohl</i>," was the reply. And gone they had, but only by slow stages to +the office of the Examining Judge Schultz, where they lay in a heap +waiting till he should have leisure and inclination to read them, and, +if he approved of their contents, order them to be posted. There they +lay for three days, and most of them were not passed after all, because +the Examining Judge disliked the tone of the assurances in them that the +writer was innocent. He knew that trick; every prisoner invariably +protested the same thing. But these protestations were unusually strong. +They were of such strength that they actually produced in his own +hardened and experienced mind a passing doubt, absurd of course, and not +for one moment to be considered, whether the Stralsund authorities might +not have blundered. It was a dangerous notion to put into people's +heads, that the Stralsund authorities, of whom he was one, could +blunder. Blunders meant a reproof from headquarters and a retarded +career; their possibility, therefore, was not to be entertained for a +moment. Even should they have been made, it must not get about that they +had been made. He accordingly suppressed nearly all the letters.</p> + +<p>Gustav must have missed the second train as well, for when the sky grew +rosy, and Axel knew that the sun was setting, he was still alone.</p> + +<p>The few hours he had thought to stay in that place were lengthening out +into days, he reflected. If Gustav did not come soon, what should he do? +Someone he must have to look after his affairs, to arrange with the +lawyer, to be a link connecting him with outside. And who but his +brother and heir? Still, he would certainly come soon, and Trudi too. +Poor little Trudi—he was afraid she would be terribly upset.</p> + +<p>But the hours passed, and no one came.</p> + +<p>That evening he was given a lamp. It burnt badly and smelt atrociously. +He asked if the window might be opened a little wider. The request had +to be made in writing, said the warder, and submitted through the usual +channels to the Public Prosecutor, without whose permission no window +might be touched. Axel wrote the request, and the warder took it away. +It came back two days later with an intimation scrawled across it that +if the prisoner von Lohm were not satisfied with his cell he would be +given a worse one.</p> + +<p>The night came, and had to be gone through somehow. Axel sat for hours +on the side of his bed, his head supported in his hands, struggling with +despair. A profound gloom was settling down on him. The knowledge that +he had done nothing had ceased to reassure him. The lawyer was right +when he said that it was easier to get into such a place than to get out +again. Klutz had denounced him, to save himself; of that he had not a +doubt. And Dellwig, well known and greatly respected, had supported +Klutz. This explained Dellwig's conduct lately completely. Axel's +courage was perilously near giving way as he recognised the difficulty +he would have in proving that he was innocent. If no one helped him from +outside, his case was indeed desperate. He did not remember ever to have +turned his back on a friend in distress; how was it, then, that not a +friend was to be found to come to him in his extremity? Where were they +all, those jovial companions who shot over his estate with him so often, +driving any distance for the pleasure of killing his game? What was +keeping Gustav back? Why did he not even send a message? How was it that +Manske, who professed so much attachment to his house, besides such +stores of Christian charity, did not make an effort to reach him? He had +never asked or wanted anything of anyone in his life; but this was so +terrible, his need was so extreme. What a failure his whole life was. He +had been alone, always. During all the years when other men have wives +and children he had been working hard, alone. He had had no happy days, +as the old Romans would have said. And now total ruin was upon him. +Sitting there through the night, he began to understand the despair that +impels unhappy beings in a like situation, forsaken of God and men, to +make wild efforts to get out of such places, conscious that they avail +nothing, but at least bruising and crushing themselves into the blessed +indifference of exhaustion.</p> + +<p>The hours dragged by, each one a lifetime, each one so packed with +opportunities for going mad, he thought, as he counted how many of them +separated him already from his free, honourable past life. By the time +morning came, added to his other torturing anxieties, was the fear lest +he should fall ill in there before any steps had been taken for his +release. He sat leaning his head against the wall, indifferent to what +went on around him, hardly listening any more for Gustav's footsteps. He +had ceased to expect him. He had ceased to expect anyone. He sat +motionless, suffering bodily now, a strange feeling in his head, his +thoughts dwelling dully on his physical discomforts, on the closeness of +the cell, on the horrible nights. He made a great effort to eat some +dinner, but could not. What would become of him if he could neither eat +nor sleep? On what stores of energy would he be able to draw when the +time came for defending himself? He was sitting by the table, leaning +his head against the wall, his eyes closed, when the prisoner-attendant +came to take away his dinner. "Ill?" inquired the young man cheerfully. +Axel did not move or answer. It was too much trouble to speak.</p> + +<p>The warder, upon the attendant's remarking that No. 32 seemed unwell, +examined him through the peep-hole in the door, but decided that he was +not ill yet; not ill enough, that is. In another week he would be ready +for the prison doctor, but not yet. These things must take their course. +It was always the same course; he had been a warder twenty years, and +knew almost to an hour the date on which, after the arrest, the doctor +would be required.</p> + +<p>Axel was sitting in the same position when, about three o'clock, the +door was unlocked again. He did not move or open his eyes.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ihr Fräulein Braut ist hier</i>," said the warder.</p> + +<p>The word <i>Braut</i>, betrothed, sent Axel's thoughts back across the years +to Hildegard. His betrothed? Had he heard the mocking words, or had he +been dreaming? He turned his head and looked vaguely towards the door. +All the sunlight was out there in the wide corridor, and in it, on the +threshold, stood Anna.</p> + +<p>What had she meant to say? She never could remember. It had been +something deeply apologetic, ashamed. But her fears and her shame fell +from her like a garment when she saw him. "Oh, poor Axel—oh, poor +Axel——" she murmured with a quick sob.</p> + +<p>He tried to get up to come to her. In an instant she was at his side, +and, stumbling, he fell on his knees, holding her by the dress, clinging +to her as to his salvation. "It is not pity, Anna?" he asked in a voice +sharp with an intolerable fear.</p> + +<p>And Anna, half blinded by her tears, deliberately put her arms round his +neck, relinquishing by that one action herself and her future entirely +to him, hauling down for ever her flag of independent womanhood, and +bending down her face to that upturned face of agonised questioning laid +her lips on his. "No," she whispered, and she kissed him with a +passionate tenderness between the words, "it is only love—only +love——"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII</h2> + + +<p>There was a grave beauty, an austerity almost, about this betrothal in +the prison. Here was no room for the archnesses and coynesses of +ordinary lovemaking. All that was not simple truth fell away from them +both like tawdry ornaments, for which there was no use in that sad +place. Soul to soul, unseparated by even the flimsiest veil of +conventionality, of custom; soul to soul, clear-visioned, steadfast, as +those may be who are quietly watching the approach of death, they looked +into each other's eyes and knew that they were alone, he and she, +against the world. To cleave to one another, to stand together, he and +she, against the whole world,—that was what their betrothal meant. +Axel, cut off for ever from his kind if he should not be able to clear +himself, Anna, cutting herself off for ever to follow him. Her feet had +found the right path at last. Her eyes were open. As two friends on the +eve of a battle in which both must fight and whose end may be death, or +as two friends starting on a long journey, whose end too, after tortuous +ways of suffering, may well be death, they quietly made their plans, +talked over what was best to be done, gravely encouraging each other, +always with the light of perfect trustfulness in their eyes. How strong +they felt together! How able to go fearlessly towards the future to meet +any pain, any sorrow, together! The warder standing by, the miserable +little room, the wretched details of the situation, no longer existed +for either of them. Nothing could harm them, nothing could hurt them any +more, if only they might be together. They were safe within a circle +drawn round them by love—safe, and warm, and blest. So long as he had +her and she him, though they saw how great their misery would be if they +came to be less brave, they could not but believe in the benevolence of +the future, they could not but have hope. If he were sentenced, she +said, what, at the worst, would it mean? Two years', three years', +waiting, and then together for the rest of their life. Was not that +worth looking forward to? Would not that take away every sting? she +asked, her hands on his shoulders, her face beautiful with confidence +and courage. When he told her that she ought not now to cast in her lot +with his, she only smiled, and laid her cheek against his sleeve. All +her childish follies, and incertitudes, and false starts were done with +now. Life had grown suddenly simple. It was to be a cleaving to him till +death. Yet they both knew that when that golden hour was over, and she +must go, the suffering would begin again. She was only to come twice a +week; and the days between would be days of torture. And when the moment +had come, and they had said good-bye with brave eyes, each telling the +other that so short a separation was nothing, that they did not mind it, +that it would be over before they had had time to feel it, and the door +was shut, and he was left behind, she went out to find misery again, +waiting for her there where she had left it, taking entire possession of +her, brooding heavily, immovably over her, a desolation of misery that +threatened by its dreadful weight to break her heart.</p> + +<p>A sense of physical cold crept over her as she drove home with +Letty—the bodily expression of the unutterable forlornness within. Away +from him, how weak she was, how unable to be brave. Would Letty +understand? Would she say some kind word, some little word, something, +anything, that might make her feel less terribly alone? With many pauses +and falterings she told her the story, looking at her with eyes tortured +by the thought of him waiting so patiently there till she should come +again. Letty was awestruck, as much by the profound grief of Anna's face +as by the revelation. She knew of course that Axel had been +arrested—did anyone at Kleinwalde talk of anything else all day +long?—but she had not dreamt of this. She could find nothing to say, +and put out her hand timidly and laid it on Anna's. "I am so cold," was +all Anna said, her head drooping; and she did not speak again.</p> + +<p>As they passed between his fields, by his open gate, through the village +that belonged, all of it, to him, she shut her eyes. She could not look +at the happy summer fields, at the placid faces, knowing him where he +was. Not the poorest of his servants, not a ragged child rolling in the +dust, not a wretched, half-starved dog sunning itself in a doorway, +whose lot was not blessed compared to his. The haymakers were piling up +his hay on the waggons. Girls in white sun-bonnets, with bare arms and +legs, stood on the top of the loads catching the fragrant stuff as the +men tossed it up. Their figures were sharply outlined against the serene +sky; their shouts and laughter floated across the fields. Freedom to +come and go at will in God's liberal sunlight—just that—how precious +it was, how unspeakably precious it was. Of all God's gifts, surely the +most precious. And how ordinary, how universal. Only for Axel there was +none.</p> + +<p>When they reached the house, the hall seemed to be full of people. The +supper bell had lately rung, and the inmates, talking and laughing, were +going into the dining-room. Dellwig, his hands full of papers, not +having found Anna at home, was in the act of making elaborate farewell +bows to the assembled ladies. After the two silent hours of suffering +that lay between herself and Axel, how strange it was, this noisy bustle +of daily life. She caught fragments of what they were saying, fragments +of the usual prattle, the same nothings that they said every day, +accompanied by the same vague laughs. How strange it was, and how awful, +the tremendousness of life, the nearness of death, the absolute +relentlessness of suffering, and all the prattle.</p> + +<p>"<i>Um Gottes Willen!</i>" shrieked Frau von Treumann, when she caught sight +of this white image of grief set suddenly in their midst. "It has +smashed up, then, your bank?" And she made a hasty movement towards the +hall table, on which lay a letter for Anna from Karlchen, containing, as +she knew, an offer of marriage.</p> + +<p>Anna turned with a blind sort of movement, and stretched out her hand +for Letty, drawing her to her side, instinctively seeking any comfort, +any support; and she stood a moment clinging to her, gazing at the +little crowd with sombre, unseeing eyes.</p> + +<p>"What has happened, Anna?" asked the princess uneasily.</p> + +<p>"You must congratulate me," said Anna slowly in German, her head held +very high, her face of a deathly whiteness.</p> + +<p>A lightening look of comprehension flashed into Dellwig's eyes; he +scarcely needed to hear the words that came next.</p> + +<p>"Herr von Lohm and I were to-day," she said. Then she looked round at +them with a vague, piteous look, and put her hand up to her throat. "We +shall be married—we shall be married—when—when it pleases God."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CONCLUSION" id="CONCLUSION"></a>CONCLUSION</h2> + + +<p>The moral of this story, as Manske, wise after the event, pointed out +when relating those parts of it that he knew on winter evenings to a +dear friend, plainly is that all females—<i>alle Weiber</i>—are best +married. "Their aspirations," he said, "may be high enough to do credit +to the noblest male spirit; indeed, our gracious lady's aspirations were +nobility itself. But the flesh of females is very weak. It cannot stand +alone. It cannot realise the aspirations formed by its own spirit. It +requires constant guidance. It is an excellent material, but it is only +material in the raw."</p> + +<p>"What?" cried his wife.</p> + +<p>"Peace, woman. I say it is only material in the raw. And it is never of +any practical use till the hand of the master has moulded it into +shape."</p> + +<p>"<i>Sehr richtig</i>," agreed the friend; with the more heartiness that he +was conscious of a wife at home who had successfully withstood moulding +during a married life of twenty years.</p> + +<p>"That," said Manske, "is the most obvious moral. But there is yet +another."</p> + +<p>"The story is full of them," said the friend, who had had them all +pointed out to him, different ones each time, during those evenings of +howling tempests and indoor peace—the perfect peace of pipes, hot +stoves, and <i>Glühwein</i>.</p> + +<p>"The other," said Manske, "is, that it is very sinful for little girls +to write love-poetry in the name of their aunts."</p> + +<p>"To write love-poetry is at no time the function of little girls," said +the friend.</p> + +<p>"Such conduct cannot be too strongly censured," said Manske. "But to do +it in the name of someone else is not only not <i>mädchenhaft</i>, it is +sinful."</p> + +<p>"These English little girls appear to know no shame," said his wife.</p> + +<p>"Truly they might learn much from our own female youth," said the +friend.</p> + +<p>Letty's poems had undoubtedly been the indirect cause of the fire, of +Axel's arrest, and of his marriage with Anna. But if they had brought +about Anna's happiness, a happiness more complete and perfect than any +of which she had dreamed, they had also brought about Klutz's ruin. For +Klutz, shattered in nerves, weak of will, overcome by the state of his +conscience and the possible terrors of the next world, with the blood of +three generations of pastors in his veins, every drop of which cried out +to him day and night to save his soul at least, whatever became of his +body, Klutz had confessed. He was only twenty, he knew himself to be +really harmless, he had never had any intentions worse than foolish, and +here he was, ruined. The act had been an act of temporary madness; and +influenced by Dellwig, he had saved his skin afterwards as best he +could. Now there was the price to pay, the heavy price, so tremendous +when compared to the smallness of the follies that had led him on step +by step. His bad genius, Dellwig, went free; and later on lived +sufficiently far away from Kleinwalde to be greatly respected to the end +of his days. Manske's eyes filled with tears when he came to the action +of Providence in this matter—the mysteriousness of it, the utter +inscrutableness of it, letting the morally responsible go unpunished, +and allowing the poor young vicar, handicapped from his very entrance +into the world by his weakness of character, to be overtaken on the +threshold of life by so terrific a fate. "Truly the ways of Providence +are past finding out," said Manske, sorrowfully shaking his head.</p> + +<p>"I never did believe in Klutz," said his wife, thinking of her apple +jelly.</p> + +<p>"Woman, kick not him who is down," said her husband, turning on her with +reproachful sternness.</p> + +<p>"Kick!" echoed his wife, tossing her head at this rebuke, administered +in the presence of the friend; "I am not, I hope, so unwomanly as to +kick."</p> + +<p>"It is a figure of speech," mildly explained the friend.</p> + +<p>"I like it not," said Frau Manske gloomily.</p> + +<p>"Peace," said her husband.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="BY_THE_SAME_AUTHOR" id="BY_THE_SAME_AUTHOR"></a>BY THE SAME AUTHOR</h2> + + +<h4>Elizabeth and Her German Garden</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"What a captivating book it is—how merry and gentle and sunny, how +whimsically wise and tender! There is real humor in these pages, +and for that reason, if for no other, it deserves to live. The new +chapter, describing the author's pious pilgrimage to the garden of +her childhood, is inimitable in its way, and should not be missed +by any admirer of this most winning Elizabeth."—<i>New York +Tribune.</i></p> + +<p>"Elizabeth is pure sunshine and without a shadow, the reflection, +as it were, of a quiet existence, and never a commonplace one; for, +without knowing it or suspecting it, she is an idealist. Elizabeth +never tires, for has she not her husband, her little ones, and her +books to talk about? These passages, as found in 'Elizabeth' in the +quiet history of a woman's life, act as useful tonics or are the +necessary sedatives in our somewhat fevered existence."—<i>New York +Times.</i></p></div> + + +<h4>The Solitary Summer</h4> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"'The Solitary Summer' affords a generous harvest of beautiful and +poetic thoughts, together with some keen observations of life, all +of which are expressed in a graceful and supple prose.... It is a +privilege to have stood for a time upon the veranda steps and to +have caught a glimpse of that sane refuge."—<i>Chicago Tribune.</i></p> + +<p>"Full of sunshine and fresh breezes, riotous with the bloom and +fragrance of flowers, spicy with the damp cool breath of pines.... +The quaint, whimsical fancies of a cultivated, lovable woman create +a golden atmosphere through which we see her life, and we dream +with her on her bench in her garden, in the fields where the yellow +lupins grow, and in the mossy deeps of the pine forest. We feel we +have made another friend, one who sees life with gentle, smiling +eyes and from a deliciously humorous point of view."—<i>Recreation.</i></p> + +<p>"A garden of absorbing interest to its owner, a library full of +books to comfort rainy days, a hamlet of German peasants, three +delightful babies, and a 'man of wrath' who by no means merits the +title,—these are the simple elements from which a bright woman, +too cosmopolitan to be thought wholly German, as she calls herself, +has evolved a charming little book."—<i>The Nation.</i></p> + +<p>"She has a depth of feeling, a sense of humor, and an impetuous and +ardent manner that make her chronicles thoroughly alive. Beside +this lovable book other feminine essays on nature, literature, and +life seem only tame and artificial performances."—<i>New York +Tribune.</i></p></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h3>The April Baby's Book of Tunes</h3> + +<h4>WITH THE STORY OF HOW THEY CAME TO BE WRITTEN</h4> + +<h4><span class="smcap">Illustrated by</span> KATE GREENAWAY</h4> + +<p>A running commentary in the quaintly humorous style characteristic of +the writer, describes the teaching of a dozen or more popular nursery +songs to the author's three little maids, the April, May, and June Baby +respectively. The music for each is given, and charming illustrations in +color complete an unusually attractive holiday book.</p> + +<p>Full of the sayings of three of the most delightfully amusing and +original children in the book world—the June Baby who loudly sings "The +King of Love My Shepherd is," swinging her kitten around by its tail to +emphasize the rhythm,—the loving little May Baby who says, "Directly +you comes home, the fun begins," sitting very close to her mother,—and +the quaint April Baby, concerning whom there are fears that she may turn +out a genius and thus disgrace her parents, Elizabeth and "The Man of +Wrath."</p> + +<p>Readers of the charming companion volumes whose authorship has been the +subject of so much recent discussion will delight in this little sequel, +which will make a most appropriate gift during the coming season to many +a mother of little ones who has had at some time to meet the problem of +how the babies can be saved from corners when there are no lessons, and +storms have forbidden exercise for them and their nurses, too. Its +pictures of a German nursery and the delicious discussions of these +toddlers over the various songs are extremely bright and entertaining, +and most aptly supplemented by Kate Greenaway's quaint and daintily +colored illustrations, of which there are sixteen, besides decorative +designs, chapter headings, etc.</p> + + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Benefactress, by Elizabeth Beauchamp + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BENEFACTRESS *** + +***** This file should be named 30302-h.htm or 30302-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/3/0/30302/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Benefactress + +Author: Elizabeth Beauchamp + +Release Date: October 20, 2009 [EBook #30302] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BENEFACTRESS *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + The Benefactress + + BY THE AUTHOR OF "ELIZABETH AND HER GERMAN GARDEN" + + +New York +THE MACMILLAN COMPANY +LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. +1901 + +_All rights reserved_ + +Copyright, 1901, +By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. + +Norwood Press +J. S. Gushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith +Norwood Mass. U.S.A. + + + + + Man bedarf der Leitung + Und der maennlichen Begleitung. + + WILHELM BUSCH. + + + + +THE BENEFACTRESS + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +When Anna Estcourt was twenty-five, and had begun to wonder whether the +pleasure extractable from life at all counterbalanced the bother of it, +a wonderful thing happened. + +She was an exceedingly pretty girl, who ought to have been enjoying +herself. She had a soft, irregular face, charming eyes, dimples, a +pleasant laugh, and limbs that were long and slender. Certainly she +ought to have been enjoying herself. Instead, she wasted her time in +that foolish pondering over the puzzles of existence, over those +unanswerable whys and wherefores, which is as a rule restricted, among +women, to the elderly and plain. Many and various are the motives that +impel a woman so to ponder; in Anna's case the motive was nothing more +exalted than the perpetual presence of a sister-in-law. The +sister-in-law was rich--in itself a pleasing circumstance; but the +sister-in-law was also frank, and her husband and Anna were entirely +dependent on her, and her richness and her frankness combined urged her +to make fatiguingly frequent allusions to the Estcourt poverty. Except +for their bad taste her husband did not mind these allusions much, for +he considered that he had given her a full equivalent for her money in +bestowing his name on a person who had practically none: he was Sir +Peter Estcourt of the Devonshire Estcourts, and she was a Dobbs of +Birmingham. Besides, he was a philosopher, and philosophers never mind +anything. But Anna was in a less agreeable situation. She was not a +philosopher, she was thin-skinned, she had bestowed nothing and was +taking everything, and she was of an independent nature; and an +independent nature, where there is no money, is a great nuisance to its +possessor. + +When she was younger and more high-flown she sometimes talked of +sweeping crossings; but her sister-in-law Susie would not hear of +crossings, and dressed her beautifully, and took her out, and made her +dance and dine and do as other girls did, being of opinion that a rich +husband of good position was more satisfactory than crossings, and far +more likely to make some return for all the expenses she had had. + +At eighteen Anna was so pretty that the perfect husband seemed to be a +mere question of days. What could the most desirable of men, thought +Susie, considering her, want more than so bewitching a young creature? +But he did not come, somehow, that man of Susie's dreams; and after a +year or two, when Anna began to understand what all this dressing and +dancing really meant, and after she had had offers from people she did +not like, and had herself fallen in love with a youth of no means who +was prudent enough to marry somebody else with money, she shrank back +and grew colder, and objected more and more decidedly to Susie's +strenuous private matrimonial urgings, and sometimes made remarks of a +cynical nature to her admirers, who took fright at such symptoms of +advancing age, and fell off considerably in numbers. + +It was at this period, when she was barely twenty-two, that she spoke of +crossings. Susie had seriously reproved her for not meeting the advances +of an old and rich and single person with more enthusiasm, and had at +the same time alluded to the number of pounds she had spent on her every +year for the last three years, and the necessity for putting an end, by +marrying, to all this outlay; and instead of being sensible, and talking +things over quietly, Anna had poured out a flood of foolish sentiments +about the misery of knowing that she was expected to be nice to every +man with money, the intolerableness of the life she was leading, and the +superior attractions of crossing-sweeping as a means of earning a +livelihood. + +"Why, you haven't enough money for the broom," said Susie impatiently. +"You can't sweep without a broom, you know. I wish you were a little +less silly, Anna, and a little more grateful. Most girls would jump at +the splendid opportunity you've got now of marrying, and taking up a +position of your own. You talk a great deal of stuff about being +independent, and when you get the chance, and I do all I can to help +you, you fly into a passion and want to sweep a crossing. Really," added +Susie, twitching her shoulder, "you might remember that it isn't all +roses for me either, trying to get some one else's daughter married." + +"Of course it isn't all roses," said Anna, leaning against the +mantelpiece and looking down at her with perplexed eyebrows. "I am very +sorry for you. I wish you weren't so anxious to get rid of me. I wish I +could do something to help you. But you know, Susie, you haven't taught +me a trade. I can't set up on my own account unless you'll give me a +last present of a broom, and let me try my luck at the nearest crossing. +The one at the end of the street is badly kept. What do you think if I +started there?" What answer could anyone make to such folly? + +By the time she was twenty-four, nearly all the girls who had come out +when she did were married, and she felt as though she were a ghost +haunting the ball-rooms of a younger generation. Disliking this feeling, +she stiffened, and became more and more unapproachable; and it was at +this period that she invented excuses for missing most of the functions +to which she was invited, and began to affect a simplicity of dress and +hair arrangement that was severe. Susie's exasperation was now at its +height. "I don't know why you should be bent on making the worst of +yourself," she said angrily, when Anna absolutely refused to alter her +hair. + +"I'm tired of being frivolous," said Anna. "Have you an idea how long +those waves took to do? And you know how Hilton talks. It all gets +whisked up now in two minutes, and I'm spared her conversation." + +"But you are quite plain," cried Susie. "You are not like the same girl. +The only thing your best friend could say about you now is that you look +clean." + +"Well, I like to look clean," said Anna, and continued to go about the +world with hair tucked neatly behind her ears; her immediate reward +being an offer from a clergyman within the next fortnight. + +Peter Estcourt was even more surprised than his wife that Anna had not +made a good match years before. Of course she had no money, but she was +a pretty girl of good family, and it ought to be easy enough for her to +find a husband. He wished heartily that she might soon be happily +married; for he loved her, and knew that she and Susie could never, with +their best endeavours, be great friends. Besides, every woman ought to +have a home of her own, and a husband and children. Whenever he thought +of Anna, he thought exactly this; and when he had reached the +proposition at the end he felt that he could do no more, and began to +think of something else. + +His marriage with Susie, a person of whom no one had ever heard, had +brought out and developed stores of unsuspected philosophy in him. +Before that he was quite poor, and very merry; but he loved Estcourt, +and could not bear to see it falling into ruin, and he loved his small +sister, who was then only ten, and wished to give her a decent +education, and what is a man to do? There happened to be no rich +American girls about at that time, so he married Miss Dobbs of +Birmingham, and became a philosopher. + +It was hard on Susie that he should become a philosopher at her expense. +She did not like philosophers. She did not understand their silent ways, +and their evenness of temper. After she had done all that Peter wanted +in regard to the place in Devonshire, and had provided Anna with every +luxury in the shape of governesses, and presented her husband with an +heir to the retrieved family fortunes, she thought that she had a right +to some enjoyment too, to some gratification from her position, and was +surprised to find how little was forthcoming. Really no one could do +more than she had done, and yet nothing was done for her. Peter fished, +and read, and was with difficulty removable from Estcourt. Anna was, of +course, too young to be grateful, but there she was, taking everything +as a matter of course, her very unconsciousness an irritation. Susie +wanted to get on in the world, and nobody helped her. She wanted to bury +the Dobbs part of herself, and develop the Estcourt part; but the Dobbs +part was natural, and the Estcourt superficial, and the Dobbses were one +and all singularly unattractive--a race of eager, restless, wiry little +men and women, anxious to get as much as they could, and keep it as long +as they could, a family succeeding in gathering a good deal of money +together in one place, and failing entirely in the art of making +friends. Susie was the best of them, and had been the pretty one at +home; yet she was not in the least a success in London. She put it down +to Peter's indifference, to his slowness in introducing her to his +friends. It was no more Peter's fault than it was her own. It was not +her fault that she was not pretty--there never had been a beautiful +Dobbs--and it was not her fault that she was so unfortunately frank, and +never could and never did conceal her feverish eagerness to make +desirable acquaintances, and to get into desirable sets. Until Anna came +out she was invited only to the big functions to which the whole world +went; and the hours she passed at them were not among the most blissful +of her life. The people who were at first inclined to be kind to her for +Peter's sake, dropped off when they found how her eagerness to attract +the attention of some one mightier made her unable to fix her thoughts +on the friendly remarks that they were taking pains to make. In society +she was absent-minded, fidgety, obviously on the look-out for a chance +of drawing the biggest fish into her little net; but, wealthy as she +was, she was not wealthy enough in an age of millionnaires, and not once +during the whole of her career was a big fish simple enough to be +caught. + +After a time her natural shrewdness and common sense made her perceive +that her one claim to the scanty attentions she did receive was her +money. Her money had bought her Peter, and a pleasant future for her +children; it had converted a Dobbs into an Estcourt; it had given her +everything she had that was worth anything at all. Once she had +thoroughly realised this, she began to attach a tremendous importance to +the mere possession of money, and grew very stingy, making difficulties +about spending that grieved Peter greatly; not because he ever wanted +her money now that Estcourt had been restored to its old splendour and +set going again for their boy, but because meanness about money in a +woman was something he could not comprehend--something repulsive, +unfeminine, contrary to her nature as he had always understood it. He +left off making the least suggestion about Anna's education or the +household arrangements; everything that was done was done of Susie's own +accord; and he spent more and more time in Devonshire, and grew more and +more philosophical, and when he did talk to his wife, restricted his +conversation to the language of abstract wisdom. + +Now this was very hard on Susie, who had no appreciation of abstract +wisdom, and who lived as lonely a life as it is possible to imagine. +Peter kept out of her way. Anna was subject to prolonged fits of chilly +silence. Susie used, at such times, to think regretfully of the cheerful +Dobbs days, of their frank and congenial vulgarity. + +When Anna was eighteen, Susie's prospects brightened for a time. Doors +that had been shut ever since she married, opened before her on her +appearing with such a pretty _debutante_ under her wing, and she could +enjoy the reflected glory of Anna's little triumphs. And then, without +any apparent reason, Anna had altered so strangely, and had disappointed +every one's expectations; never encouraging the right man, never ready +to do as she was told, exasperatingly careless on all matters of vital +importance, and ending by showing symptoms of freezing into something of +the same philosophical state as Peter. Their mother had been German----a +lady-in-waiting to one of the German princesses; and their father had +met her and married her while he was secretary at the English Embassy in +St. Petersburg. And Susie, who had heard of German philosophy and German +stolidity, and despised them both with all her heart, concluded that the +German strain was accountable for everything about Peter and Anna that +was beyond her comprehension; and sometimes, when Peter was more than +usually wise and unapproachable, would call him Herr Schopenhauer--which +had an immediate effect of producing a silence that lasted for weeks; +for not only did he like her least when she was playful, but he had, as +a matter of fact, read a great deal of Schopenhauer, and was uneasily +conscious that it had not been good for him. + +While Peter fished, and meditated on the vanity of human wishes at +Estcourt, Anna, with rare exceptions, was wherever Susie was, and Susie +was wherever it was fashionable to be. For a week or two in the summer, +for a day or two at Easter, they went down to Devonshire; and Anna might +wander about the old house and grounds as she chose, and feel how much +better she had loved it in its tumble-down state, the state she had +known as a child, when her mother lived there and was happy. Everything +was aggressively spruce now, indoors and out. Susie's money and Susie's +taste had rubbed off all the mellowness and all the romance. Anna was +glad to leave it again, and be taken to Marienbad, or any place where +there was royalty, for Susie loved royalty. But what a life it was, +going round year after year with Susie! London, Devonshire, Marienbad, +Scotland, London again, following with patient feet wherever the +unconscious royalties led, meeting the same people, listening to the +same music, talking the same talk, eating the same dinners--would no one +ever invent anything new to eat? The inexpressible boredom of riding up +and down the Row every morning, the unutterable hours shopping and +trying on clothes, the weariness of all the new pictures, and all the +concerts, and all the operas, which seemed to grow less pleasing every +year, as her eye and ear grew more critical. She knew at last every note +of the stock operas and concerts, and every note seemed to have got on +to her nerves. + +And then the people they knew--the everlasting sameness of them, content +to go the same dull round for ever. Driving in the Park with Susie, +neither of them speaking a word, she used to watch the faces in the +other carriages, nearly all faces of acquaintances, to see whether any +of them looked cheerful; and it was the rarest thing to come across any +expression but one of blankest boredom. Bored and cross, hardly ever +speaking to the person with them, their friends drove up and down every +afternoon, and she and Susie did the same, as silent and as bored as any +of them. A few unusually beautiful, or unusually witty, or unusually +young persons appeared to find life pleasant and looked happy, but they +avoided Susie. Her set was made up of the dull and plain; and all the +amusing people, and all the interesting people, turned their backs with +one accord on her and it. + +These were the circumstances that drove Anna to reflect on the problems +of life every time she was beyond the sound of Susie's voice. + +She passionately resented her position of dependence on Susie, and she +passionately resented the fact that the only way to get out of it was to +marry. Every time she had an offer, she first of all refused it with an +energy that astonished the unhappy suitor, and then spent days and +nights of agony because she had refused it, and because Susie wanted her +to accept it, and because of an immense pity for Susie that had taken +possession of her heart. How could Peter live so placidly at Susie's +expense, and treat her with such a complete want of tenderness? Anna's +love for her brother diminished considerably directly she began to +understand Susie's life. It was such a pitiful little life of cringing, +and pushing, and heroically smiling in the face of ill-treatment. No one +cared for her in the very least. She had hundreds of acquaintances, who +would eat her dinners and go away and poke fun at her, but not a single +friend. Her husband lived on her and hardly spoke to her. Her boy at +Eton, an amazing prig, looked down on her. Her little daughter never +dreamed of obeying her. Anna herself was prevented by some stubborn +spirit of fastidiousness, evidently not possessed by any of her +contemporaries, from doing the only thing Susie had ever really wanted +her to do--marrying, and getting herself out of the way. What if Susie +were a vulgar little woman of no education and no family? That did not +make it any the more glorious for the Estcourts to take all they could +and ignore her existence. It was, after all, Susie who paid the bills. +Anna pitied her from the bottom of her heart; such a forlorn little +woman, taken out of her proper sphere, and left to shiver all alone, +without a shred of love to cover and comfort her. + +It was when she was away from Susie that she felt this. When she was +with her, she found herself as cold and quiet and contradictory as +Peter. She used, whenever she got the chance, to go to afternoon service +at St. Paul's. It was the only place and time in which all the bad part +of her was soothed into quiet, and the good allowed to prevail in peace. +The privacy of the great place, where she never met anyone she knew, the +beauty of the music, the stateliness of the service offered every day in +equal perfection to any poor wretch choosing to turn his back for an +hour on the perplexities of life, all helped to hush her grievances to +sleep and fill her heart with tenderness for those who were not happy, +and for those who did not know they were unhappy, and for those who +wasted their one precious life in being wretched when they might have +been happy. How little it would need, she thought (for she was young and +imaginative), to turn most people's worries and sadness into joy. Such a +little difference in Susie's ways and ideas would make them all so +happy; such a little change in Peter's habits would make his wife's life +radiant. But they all lived blindly on, each day a day of emptiness, +each of those precious days, so crowded with opportunities, and +possibilities, and unheeded blessings, and presently life would be +behind them, and their chances gone for ever. + +"The world is a dreadful place, full of unhappy people," she thought, +looking out on to the world with unhappy eyes. "Each one by himself, +with no one to comfort him. Each one with more than he can bear, and no +one to help him. Oh, if I could, I would help and comfort everyone that +is sad, or sick at heart, or sorry--oh, if I could!" + +And she dreamed of all that she would do if she were Susie--rich, and +free from any sort of interference--to help others, less fortunate, to +be happy too. But, since she was the very reverse of rich and free, she +shook off these dreams, and made numbers of good resolutions +instead--resolutions bearing chiefly on her future behaviour towards +Susie. And she would come out of the church filled with the sternest +resolves to be ever afterwards kind and loving to her; and the very +first words Susie uttered would either irritate her into speeches that +made her sorry, or freeze her back into her ordinary state of cold +aloofness. + +If Susie had had an idea that Anna was pitying her, and making good +resolutions of which she was the object at afternoon services, and that +in her eyes she had come to be merely a cross which must with heroism be +borne, she probably would have been indignant. Pitying people and being +pitied oneself are two very different things. The first is soothing and +sweet, the second is annoying, or even maddening, according to the +temperament of the patient. Susie, however, never suspected that anyone +could be sorry for her; and when, after a party, before they went to +bed, Anna would put her arms round her and give her a disproportionately +tender kiss, she would show her surprise openly. "Why, what's the +matter?" she would ask. "Another mood, Anna?" For she could not know how +much Anna felt the snubs she had seen her receive. How should she? She +was so used to them that she hardly noticed them herself. + +It was when Anna was twenty-five, and much vexed in body by efforts to +be and to do as Susie wished, and in soul by those unanswerable +questions as to the why and wherefore of the aimless, useless existence +she was leading, that the wonderful thing happened that changed her +whole life. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +There was a German relation of Anna's, her mother's brother, known to +Susie as Uncle Joachim. He had been twice to England; once during his +sister's life, when Anna was little, and Peter was unmarried, and they +were all poor and happy together at Estcourt; and once after Susie's +introduction into the family, just at that period when Anna was +beginning to stiffen and put her hair behind her ears. + +Susie knew all about him, having inquired with her usual frankness on +first hearing of his existence whether he would be likely to leave Anna +anything on his death; and upon being informed that he had a family of +sons, and large estates and little money, looked upon it as a great +hardship to be obliged to have him in her London house. She objected to +all Germans, and thought this particular one a dreadful old man, and +never wearied of making humorous comments on his clothes and the oddness +of his manners at meals. She was vexed that he should be with them in +Hill Street, and refused to give dinners while he was there. She also +asked him several times if he would not enjoy a stay at Estcourt, and +said that the country was now at its best, and the primroses were in +full beauty. + +"I want not primroses," said Uncle Joachim, who seldom spoke at length; +"I live in the country. I will now see London." + +So he went about diligently to all the museums and picture-galleries, +sometimes alone and sometimes with Anna, who neglected her social duties +more than ever in order to be with him, for she loved him. + +They talked together chiefly in German, Uncle Joachim carefully +correcting her mistakes; and while they went frugally in omnibuses to +the different sights, and ate buns in confectioners' shops at +lunch-time, and walked long distances where no omnibuses were to be +found--for besides having a great fear of hansoms he was very +thrifty--he drew her out, saying little himself, and in a very short +time knew almost as much about her life and her perplexities as she did. + +She was very happy during his visit, and told herself contentedly that +blood, after all, was thicker than water. She did not stop to consider +what she meant exactly by this, but she had a vague notion that Susie +was the water. She felt that Uncle Joachim understood her better than +anyone had yet done; and was it not natural that her dear mother's +brother should? And it was only after she had taken him to service at +St. Paul's that she began to perceive that there might perhaps be points +on which their tastes differed. Uncle Joachim had remained seated while +other people knelt or stood; but that did not matter in that liberal +place, where nobody notices the degree of his neighbour's devoutness. +And he had slept during the anthem, one of those unaccompanied anthems +that are sung there with what seem of a certainty to be the voices of +angels. And on coming out, when a fugue was rolling in glorious +confusion down the echoing aisles, and Anna, who preferred her fugues +confused, felt that her spirit was being caught up to heaven, he had +looked at her rapt face and wet eyelashes, and patted her hand very +kindly, and said encouragingly, "In my youth I too cultivated Bach. Now +I cultivate pigs. Pigs are better." + +Anna's mother had been his only sister, and he had come over, not, as he +told Susie, to see London, but to see Susie herself, and to find out how +it was that Anna had reached an age that in Germany is the age of old +maids without marrying. By the time he had spent two evenings in Hill +Street he had formed his opinion of his nephew and his nephew's wife, +and they remained fixed until his death. "The good Peter," he said +suddenly one day to Anna when they were wandering together in the maze +at Hampton Court--for he faithfully went the rounds of sightseeing +prescribed by Baedeker, and Anna followed him wherever he went--"the +good Peter is but a _Quatschkopf_." + +"A _Quatschkopf_?" echoed Anna, whose acquaintance with her +mother-tongue did not extend to the byways of opprobrium. "What in the +world is a _Quatschkopf_?" + +"_Quatschkopf_ is a _Duselfritz_," explained Uncle Joachim, "and also it +is the good Peter." + +"I believe you are calling him ugly names," said Anna, slipping her arm +through his; by this time, if not kindred spirits, they were the best of +friends. + +Uncle Joachim did not immediately reply. They had come to the open space +in the middle of the maze, and he sat down on the seat to recover his +breath, and to wipe his forehead; for though the wind was cold the sun +was fierce. "_Gott, was man Alles durchmacht auf Reisen!_" he sighed. +Then he put his handkerchief back into his pocket, looked up at Anna, +who was standing in front of him leaning on her sunshade, and said, "A +_Quatschkopf_ is a foolish fellow who marries a woman like that." + +"Oh, poor Susie!" cried Anna, at once ready to defend her, and full of +the kindly feelings absence invariably produced. "Peter did a very +sensible thing. But I don't think Susie did, marrying Peter." + +"He is a _Quatschkopf_," said Uncle Joachim, not to be shaken in his +opinions, "and the _geborene_ Dobbs is a vulgar woman who is not rich +enough." + +"Not rich enough? Why, we are all suffocated by her money. We never hear +of anything else. It would be dreadful if she had still more." + +"Not rich enough," persisted Uncle Joachim, pursing up his lips into an +expression of great disapproval, and shaking his head. "Such a woman +should be a millionnaire. Not of marks, but of pounds sterling. Short of +that, a man of birth does not impose her as a mother on his children. +Peter has done it. He is a _Quatschkopf_." + +"It is a great mercy that she isn't a millionnaire," said Anna, appalled +by the mere thought. "Things would be just the same, except that there +would be all that money more to hear about. I hate the very name of +money." + +"Nonsense. Money is very good." + +"But not somebody else's." + +"That is true," said Uncle Joachim approvingly. "One's own is the only +money that is truly pleasant." Then he added suddenly, "Tell me, how +comes it that you are not married?" + +Anna frowned. "Now you are growing like Susie," she said. + +"_Ach_--she asks you that often?" + +"Yes--no, not quite like that. She says she knows why I am not married." + +"And what knows she?" + +"She says that I frighten everybody away," said Anna, digging the point +of her sunshade into the ground. Then she looked at Uncle Joachim, and +laughed. + +"What?" he said incredulously. This pretty creature standing before him, +so soft and young--for that she was twenty-four was hardly +credible--could not by any possibility be anything but lovable. + +"She says that I am disagreeable to people--that I look cross--that I +don't encourage them enough. Now isn't it simply terrible to be expected +to encourage any wretched man who has money? I don't want anybody to +marry me. I don't want to buy my independence that way. Besides, it +isn't really independence." + +"For a woman it is the one life," said Uncle Joachim with great +decision. "Talk not to me of independence. Such words are not for the +lips of girls. It is a woman's pride to lean on a good husband. It is +her happiness to be shielded and protected by him. Outside the narrow +circle of her home, for her happiness is not. The woman who never +marries has missed all things." + +"I don't believe it," said Anna. + +"It is nevertheless true." + +"Look at Susie--is she so happy?" + +"I said a _good_ husband; not a _Duselfritz_." + +"And as for narrow circles, why, how happy, how gloriously happy, I +could be outside them, if only I were independent!" + +"Independent--independent," repeated Uncle Joachim testily, "always this +same foolish word. What hast thou in thy head, child, thy pretty woman's +head, made, if ever head was, to lean on a good man's shoulder?" + +"Oh--good men's shoulders," said Anna, shrugging her own, "I don't want +to lean on anybody's shoulder. I want to hold my head up straight, all +by itself. Do you then admire limp women, dear uncle, whose heads roll +about all loose till a good man comes along and props them up?" + +"These are English ideas. I like them not," said Uncle Joachim, looking +stony. + +Anna sat down on the seat by his side, and laid her cheek for a moment +against his sleeve. "This is the only good man's shoulder it will ever +lean on," she said. "If I were a preacher, do you know what I would +preach?" + +"Thou art not, and never wilt be, a preacher." + +"But if I were? Do you know what I would preach? Early and late? In +season and out of it?" + +"Much nonsense, I doubt not." + +"I would preach independence. Only that. Always that. They would be +sermons for women only; and they would be warnings against props." + +She sat up and looked at him out of the corners of her eyes, but he +continued to stare stonily into space. + +"I would thump the cushions, and cry out, 'Be independent, independent, +independent! Don't talk so much, and do more. Go your own way, and let +your neighbour go his. Don't meddle with other people when you have all +your own work cut out for you being good yourself. Shake off all the +props----'" + +"Anna, thou art talking folly." + +"'--shake them off, the props tradition and authority offer you, and go +alone--crawl, stumble, stagger, but go alone. You won't learn to walk +without tumbles, and knocks, and bruises, but you'll never learn to walk +at all so long as there are props.' Oh," she said fervently, casting up +her eyes, "there is nothing, nothing like getting rid of one's props!" + +"I never yet," observed Uncle Joachim, in his turn casting up his eyes, +"saw a girl who so greatly needs the guidance of a good man. Hast thou +never loved, then?" he added, turning on her suddenly. + +"Yes," replied Anna promptly. If Uncle Joachim chose to ask such direct +questions she would give him straight answers. + +"But----?" + +"He went away and married somebody else. I had no money, and she had a +great deal. So you see he was a very sensible young man." And she +laughed, for she had long ago ceased to be anything but amused by the +remembrance of her one excursion into the rocky regions of love. + +"That," said Uncle Joachim, "was not true love." + +"Oh, but it was." + +"Nay. One does not laugh at love." + +"It was all I had, anyhow. There isn't any more left. It was very bad +while it lasted, and it took at least two years to get over it. What +things I did to please that young man and appear lovely in his eyes! The +hours it took to dress, and get my hair done just right. I endured +tortures if I didn't look as beautiful as I thought I could look, and +was always giving my poor maid notice. And plots--the way I plotted to +get taken to the places where he would be! I never was so artful before +or since. Poor Susie was quite helpless. It is a mercy it all ended as +it did." + +"That," repeated Uncle Joachim, "was not true love." + +"Yes, it was." + +"No, my child." + +"Yes, my uncle. I laugh now, but it was very dreadful at the time." + +"Thou art but a goose," he said, shrugging his shoulders; but +immediately patted her hand lest her feelings should have been hurt. +And, declining further argument, he demanded to be taken to the Great +Vine. + +It was in this fashion, Anna talking and Uncle Joachim making brief +comments, that he came to know her as thoroughly as though he had lived +with her all his life. + +Soon after the excursion to Hampton Court a letter came that hurried his +departure, to Susie's ill-concealed relief. + +"My swines are ill," he informed her, greatly agitated, his fragile +English going altogether to pieces in his perturbation; "my inspector +writes they perpetually die. God keep thee, Anna," and he embraced her +very tenderly, and bending hastily over Susie's hand muttered some +conventionalities, and then disappeared into his four-wheeler and out of +their lives. + +They never saw him again. + +"My swines are ill," mimicked Susie, when Anna, feeling that she had +lost her one friend, came slowly back into the room, "my swines +perpetually die--" + +Anna was obliged to go and pray very hard at St. Paul's before she could +forgive her. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +The old man died at Christmas, and in the following March, when Anna was +going about more sad and listless than ever, the news came that, though +his inherited estates had gone to his sons, he had bought a little place +some years before with the intention of retiring to it in his extreme +old age, and this little place he had left to his dear and only niece +Anna. + +She was alone when the letters bringing the news arrived, sitting in the +drawing-room with a book in her hands at which she did not look, feeling +utterly downcast, indifferent, too hopeless to want anything or mind +anything, accepting her destiny of years of days like this, with herself +going through them lonely, useless, and always older, and telling +herself that she did not after all care. "What does it matter, so long +as I have a comfortable bed, and fires when I am cold, and meals when I +am hungry?" she thought. "Not to have those is the only real misery. All +the rest is purest fancy. What right have I to be happier than other +people? If they are contented by such things, I can be contented too. +And what does a useless being like me deserve, I should like to know? It +was detestably ungrateful of me to have been unhappy all this time." + +She got up aimlessly, and looked out of the window into the sunny +street, where the dust was racing by on the gusty March wind, and the +women selling daffodils at the corner were more battered and blown about +and red-eyed than ever. She had often, in those moments when her whole +body tingled with a wild longing to be up and doing and justifying her +existence before it was too late, envied these poor women, because they +worked. She wondered vaguely now at her folly. "It is much better to be +comfortable," she thought, going back to the fire as aimlessly as she +had gone to the window, "and it is sheer idiocy quarrelling with a life +that other people would think quite tolerable." + +Then the door opened, and the letters were brought in--the wonderful +letters that struck the whole world into radiance--lying together with +bills and ordinary notes on a salver, carried by an indifferent servant, +handed to her as though they were things of naught--the wonderful +letters that changed her life. + +At first she did not understand what it was that they meant, and pored +over the cramped German writing, reading the long sentences over and +over again, till something suddenly seemed to clutch at her heart. Was +this possible? Was this actual truth? Was Uncle Joachim, who had so much +objected to her longing for independence, giving it to her with both +hands, and every blessing along with it? She read them through again, +very carefully, holding them with shaking hands. Yes, it was true. She +began to cry, sobbing over them for very love and tenderness, her whole +being melted into gratitude and humbleness, awestruck by a sense of how +little she had deserved it, dazzled by the thousand lovely colours life, +in the twinkling of an eye, had taken on. + +There were two letters--one from Uncle Joachim's lawyer, and one from +Uncle Joachim himself, written soon after his return from England, with +directions on the envelope that it was to be sent to Anna after his +death. + +Uncle Joachim was not a man to express sentiment otherwise than by +patting those he loved affectionately on the back, and the letter over +which Anna hung with such tender gratitude, and such an extravagance of +humility, was a mere bald statement of facts. Since Anna, with a +perversity that he entirely disapproved, refused to marry, and appeared +to be possessed of the obstinacy that had always been a peculiarity of +her German forefathers, and which was well enough in a man, but +undesirable in a woman, whose calling it was to be gentle and yielding +(_sanft und nachgiebig_), and convinced from what he had seen +during his visit to London that she could never by any possibility be +happy with her brother and sister-in-law, and moreover considering that +it was beneath the dignity of his sister's daughter, a young lady of +good family, for ever to roll herself in the feathers with which the +middle-class goose-born Dobbs had furnished Peter's otherwise defective +nest, he had decided to make her independent altogether of them, +numerous though his own sons were, and angry as they no doubt would be, +by bestowing on her absolutely after his death the only property he +could leave to whomsoever he chose, a small estate near Stralsund, where +he hoped to pass his last years. It was in a flourishing condition, easy +to manage, bringing in a yearly average of forty thousand marks, and +with an experienced inspector whom he earnestly recommended her to keep. +He trusted his dear Anna would go and live there, and keep it up to its +present state of excellence, and would finally marry a good German +gentleman, of whom there were many, and return in this way altogether to +the country of her forefathers. The estate was not so far from Stralsund +as to make it impossible for her to drive there when she wished to +indulge any feminine desire she might have to trim herself (_sich +putzen_), and he recommended her to begin a new life, settling there +with some grave and sober female advanced in years as companion and +protectress, until such time as she should, by marriage, pass into the +care of that natural protector, her husband. + +Then followed a short exposition of his views on women, especially those +women who go to parties all their lives and talk _Klatsch_; a spirited +comparing of such women with those whose interests keep them busy in +their own homes; and a final exhortation to Anna to seize this +opportunity of choosing the better life, which was always, he said, a +life of simplicity, frugality, and hard work. + +Anna wept and laughed together over this letter--the tenderest laughter +and the happiest tears. It seemed by turns the wildest improbability +that she should be well off, and the most natural thing in the world. +Susie was out. Never had her absence been terrible before. Anna could +hardly bear the waiting. She walked up and down the room, for sitting +still was impossible, holding the precious letters tight in her little +cold hands, her cheeks burning, her eyes sparkling, in an agony of +impatience and anxiety lest something should have happened to delay +Susie at this supreme moment. At the window end of the room she stopped +each time she reached it and looked eagerly up and down the street, the +flower-women and the blessedness of selling daffodils having within an +hour become profoundly indifferent to her. At the other end of the room, +where a bureau stood, she came to a standstill too, and snatching up a +pen began a letter to Peter in Devonshire; but, hearing wheels, threw it +down and flew to the window again. It was not Susie's carriage, and she +went back to the letter and wrote another line; then again to the +window; then again to the letter; and it was the letter's turn as Susie, +fagged from a round of calls, came in. + +Susie's afternoon had not been a success. She had made advances to a +woman of enviably high position with the intrepidity that characterised +all her social movements, and she had been snubbed for her pains with +more than usual rudeness. She had had, besides, several minor +annoyances. And to come in worn out, and have your sister-in-law, who +would hardly speak to you at luncheon, fall on your neck and begin +violently to kiss you, is really a little hard on a woman who is already +cross. + +"Now what in the name of fortune is the matter now?" gasped Susie, +breathlessly disengaging herself. + +"Oh, Susie! oh, Susie!" cried Anna incoherently, "what ages you have +been away--and the letters came directly you had gone--and I've been +watching for you ever since, and was so dreadfully afraid something had +happened----" + +"But what are you talking about, Anna?" interrupted Susie irritably. It +was late, and she wanted to rest for a few minutes before dressing to go +out again, and here was Anna in a new mood of a violent nature, and she +was weary beyond measure of all Anna's moods. + +"Oh, such a wonderful thing has happened!" cried Anna; "such a wonderful +thing! What will Peter say? And how glad you will be----" And she thrust +the letters with trembling fingers into Susie's unresponsive hand. + +"What is it?" said Susie, looking at them bewildered. + +"Oh, no--I forgot," said Anna, wildly as it seemed to Susie, pulling +them out of her hand again. "You can't read German--see here----" And +she began to unfold them and smooth out the creases she had made, her +hands shaking visibly. + +Susie stared. Clearly something extraordinary had happened, for the +frosty Anna of the last few months had melted into a radiance of emotion +that would only not be ridiculous if it turned out to be justified. + +"Two German letters," said Anna, sitting down on the nearest chair, +spreading them out on her lap, and talking as though she could hardly +get the words out fast enough, "one from Uncle Joachim----" + +"Uncle Joachim?" repeated Susie, a disagreeable and creepy doubt as to +Anna's sanity coming over her. "You know very well he's dead and can't +write letters," she said severely. + +"--and one from his lawyer," Anna went on, regardless of everything but +what she had to tell. "The lawyer's letter is full of technical words, +difficult to understand, but it is only to confirm what Uncle Joachim +says, and his is quite plain. He wrote it some time before he died, and +left it with his lawyer to send on to me." + +Susie was listening now with all her ears. Lawyers, deceased uncles, and +Anna's sparkling face could only have one meaning. + +"Uncle Joachim was our mother's only brother----" + +"I know, I know," interrupted Susie impatiently. + +"--and was the dearest and kindest of uncles to me----" + +"Never mind what he was," interrupted Susie still more impatiently. +"What has he done for you? Tell me that. You always pretended, both of +you--Peter too--that he had miles of sandy places somewhere in the +desert, and dozens of boys. What could he do for you?" + +"Do for me?" Anna rose up with a solemnity worthy of the great news +about to be imparted, put both her hands on Susie's little shoulders, +and looking down at her with shining eyes, said slowly, "He has left me +an estate bringing in forty thousand marks a year." + +"Forty thousand!" echoed Susie, completely awestruck. + +"Marks," said Anna. + +"Oh, marks," said Susie, chilled. "That's francs, isn't it? I really +thought for a moment----" + +"They're more than francs. It brings in, on an average, two thousand +pounds a year. Two--thousand--pounds--a--year," repeated Anna, nodding +her head at each word. "Now, Susie, what do you think of that?" + +"What do I think of it? Why, that it isn't much. Where would you all +have been, I wonder, if I had only had two thousand a year?" + +"Oh, congratulate me!" cried Anna, opening her arms. "Kiss me, and tell +me you are glad! Don't you see that I am off your hands at last? That we +need never think about husbands again? That you will never have to buy +me any more clothes, and never tire your poor little self out any more +trotting me round? I don't know which of us is to be congratulated +most," she added laughing, looking at Susie with her eyes full of tears. +Then she insisted on kissing her again, and murmured foolish things in +her ear about being so sorry for all her horrid ways, and so grateful to +her, and so determined now to be good for ever and ever. + +"My _dear_ Anna," remonstrated Susie, who disliked sentiment and never +knew how to respond to exhibitions of feeling. "Of course I congratulate +you. It almost seems as if throwing away one's chances in the way you +have done was the right thing to do, and is being rewarded. Don't let us +waste time. You know we go out to dinner. What has he left Peter?" + +"Peter?" said Anna wonderingly. + +"Yes, Peter. He was his nephew, I suppose, just as much as you were his +niece." + +"Well, but Susie, Peter is different. He--he doesn't need money as I do; +and of course Uncle Joachim knew that." + +"Nonsense. He hasn't got a penny. Let me look at the letters." + +"They're in German. You won't be able to read them." + +"Give them to me. I learned German at school, and got a prize. You're +not the only person in the world who can do things." + +She took them out of Anna's hand, and began slowly and painfully to read +the one from Uncle Joachim, determined to see whether there really was +no mention of Peter. Anna looked on, hot and cold by turns with fright +lest by some chance her early studies should not after all have been +quite forgotten. + +"Here's something about Peter--and me," Susie said suddenly. "At least, +I suppose he means me. It is something Dobbs. Why does he call me that? +It hasn't been my name for fifteen years." + +"Oh, it's some silly German way. He says the _geborene_ Dobbs, to +distinguish you from other Lady Estcourts." + +"But there are no others." + +"Oh, well, his sister was one. Give me the letter, Susie--I can tell you +what he says much more quickly than you can read it." + +"'_Unter der Wuerde einer juenge Dame aus guter Familie_,'" read out Susie +slowly, not heeding Anna, and with the most excruciating pronunciation +that was ever heard, "'_sich ewig auf den Federn, mit welchen die +buergerliche Gans geborene Dobbs Peters sonst mangelhaftes Nest +ausgestattet hat, zu waelzen_.' What stuff he writes. I can hardly +understand it. Yet I must have been good at it at school, to get the +prize. What is that bit about me and Peter?" + +"Which bit?" said Anna, blushing scarlet. "Let me look." She got the +letter back into her possession. "Oh, that's where he says that--that he +doesn't think it fair that I should be a burden for ever on you and +Peter." + +"Well, that's sensible enough. The old man had some sense in him after +all, absurd though he was, and vulgar. It _isn't_ fair, of course. I +don't mean to say anything disagreeable, or throw all I have done for +you in your face, but really, Anna, few mothers would have made the +sacrifices I have for you, and as for sisters-in-law--well, I'd just +like to see another." + +"Dear Susie," said Anna tenderly, putting her arm round her, ready to +acknowledge all, and more than all, the benefits she had received, "you +have been only too kind and generous. I know that I owe you everything +in the world, and just think how lovely it is for me to feel that now I +can take my weight off your shoulders! You must come and live with _me_ +now, whenever you are sick of things, and I'll feel so proud, having you +in my house!" + +"Live with you?" exclaimed Susie, drawing herself away. "Where are you +going to live?" + +"Why, there, I suppose." + +"Live there! Is that a condition?" + +"No, but Uncle Joachim keeps on saying he hopes I will, and that I'll +settle down and look after the place." + +"Look after the place yourself? How silly!" + +"Yes, you haven't taught me much about farming, have you? He wants me to +turn quite into a German." + +"Good gracious!" cried Susie, genuinely horrified. + +"He seems to think that I ought to work, and not spend my life talking +_Klatsch_." + +"Talking what?" + +"It's what German women apparently talk when they get together. We +don't. I'd never do anything with such an ugly name, and I'm positive +you wouldn't." + +"Where is this place?" + +"Near Stralsund." + +"And where on earth is that?" + +"Ah," said Anna, investigating cobwebby corners of her memory, "that's +what I should like to be able to remember. Perhaps," she added honestly, +"I never knew. Let me call Letty, and ask her to bring her atlas." + +"Letty won't know," said Susie impatiently, "she only knows the things +she oughtn't to." + +"Oh, she isn't as wise as all that," said Anna, ringing the bell. +"Anyhow she has maps, which is more than we have." + +A servant was sent to request Miss Letty Estcourt to attend in the +drawing-room with her atlas. + +"Whatever's in the wind now?" inquired Letty, open-mouthed, of her +governess. "They're not going to examine me this time of night, are +they, Leechy?" For she suffered greatly from having a brother who was +always passing examinations and coming out top, and was consequently +subjected herself, by an ambitious mother who was sure that she must be +equally clever if she would only let herself go, to every examination +that happened to be going for girls of her age; so that she and Miss +Leech spent their days either on the defensive, preparing for these +unprovoked assaults, or in the state of collapse which followed the +regularly recurring defeat, and both found their lives a burden too +great to be borne. + +There was a preliminary scuffle of washing and brushing, and then Letty +marched into the drawing-room, her atlas under her arm and deep +suspicion on her face. But no bland and treacherous examiner was +visible, covering his preliminary movements with ghastly pleasantries; +only her mother and her pretty aunt. + +"Where's Stralsund?" they cried together, as she opened the door. + +Letty stopped short and stared. "What's that?" she asked. + +"It's a place--a place in Germany." + +"Letty, do you mean to tell me that you don't know where Stralsund is?" +asked Susie, in a voice that would have been of thunder if it had been +big enough. "Do you mean to say that after all the money I have spent on +your education you don't know _that_?" + +Was this a new form of torture? Was she to find the examining spirit +lurking even in the familiar and hitherto harmless forms of her mother +and her aunt? She openly showed her disgust. "If it's a place, it's in +this atlas," she said, "and if this is going to be an examination, I +don't think it's fair; and if it's a game, I don't like it." And she +threw her atlas unceremoniously on to the nearest chair; for though her +mother could force her to do many things, she could never, somehow, +force her to be respectful. + +"What a horror the child has of lessons!" cried Susie. "Don't be so +silly. We only want to see if you know where Stralsund is, that's all." + +"Tell us where it is, Letty," said Anna coaxingly, kneeling down in front +of the chair and opening the atlas. "Let us find the map of Germany and +look for it. Why, you did Germany for your last exam.--you must have it +all at your fingers' ends." + +"It didn't stay there, then," said Letty moodily; but she went over to +Anna, who was always kind to her, and began to turn over the +well-thumbed pages. + +Oh, what recollections lurked in those dirty corners! Surely it is hard +on a person of fourteen, who is as fond of enjoying herself as anybody +else, to be made to wrestle with maps upstairs in a dreary room, when +the sun is shining, and the voices of the children passing come up +joyously to the prison windows, and all the world is out of doors! Letty +thought so, and Miss Leech thought it hard on a person of thirty, and +each tried to console the other, but neither knew how, for their case +seemed very hopeless. Did not unending vistas of classes and lectures +stretch away before and behind them, dotted at intervals, oh, so +frequent! with the black spots of examinations? Was not the pavement of +Gower Street, and Kensington Square, and of all those districts where +girls can be lectured into wisdom, quite worn by their patient feet? And +then the accomplishments! Oh, what a life it was! A man came twice a +week and insisted on teaching her to fiddle; a highly nervous man, who +jerked her elbow and rapped her knuckles with his bow whenever she +played out of tune, which was all the time, and made bitter remarks of a +killingly sarcastic nature to Miss Leech when she stumbled over the +accompaniments. On Wednesdays there was a dancing class, where a pinched +young lady played the piano with the energy of despair, and a hot and +agile master with unduly turned-out toes taught the girls the Lancers, +earning his bread in the sweat of his brow. He also was sarcastic, but +he clothed his sarcasms in the garb of kindly fun, laughing gently at +them himself, and expecting his pupils to laugh too; which they did +uneasily, for the fun was of a personal nature, evoked by the clumsiness +or stupidity of one or other of them, and none knew when her own turn +might not come. The lesson ended with what he called the March of Grace +round the room, each girl by herself, no music to drown the noise her +shoes made on the bare boards, the others looking on, and the master +making comments. This march was terrible to Letty. All her nightmares +were connected with it. She was a podgy, dull-looking girl, fat and pale +and awkward, and her mother made her wear cheap shoes that creaked. +"Miss Estcourt has new shoes on again," the dancing master would say, +gently smiling, when Letty was well on her way round the room, cut off +from all human aid, conscious of every inch of her body, desperately +trying to be graceful. And everybody tittered except the victim. "You +know, Miss Estcourt," he would say at every second lesson, "there is a +saying that creaking shoes have not been paid for. I beg your pardon? +Did you say they had been paid for? Miss Estcourt says she does not +know." And he would turn to his other pupils with a shrug and a gentle +smile. + +On Saturday afternoons there were the Popular Concerts at St. James's +Hall to be gone to--Susie regarded them as educational, and +subscribed--and Letty, who always had chilblains on her feet in winter, +suffered tortures trying not to rub them; for as surely as she moved one +foot and began to rub the other with it, however gently, fierce +enthusiasts in the row in front would turn on her--old gentlemen of an +otherwise humane appearance, rapt ladies with eyeglasses and loose +clothes--and sh-sh her with furious hissings into immobility. "Oh, +Letty, _try_ and sit still," Miss Leech, who dreaded publicity, would +implore in a whisper; but who that has not had them can know the torture +of chilblains inside thick boots, where they cannot be got at? As soon +as the chilblains went, the Saturday concerts left off, and it seemed as +though Fate had nothing better to do than to be spiteful. + +It was indeed a dreadful thing, thought Letty, as she bent over the map +of Germany, to be young and to have to be made clever at all costs. Here +was her aunt even, her pretty, kind aunt, asking her geography questions +at seven o'clock at night, when she thought that she had really done +with lessons for one more day, and had been so much enjoying Leechy's +description of the only man she ever loved, while she comfortably +toasted cheese at the schoolroom fire. Anna, who spent such lofty hours +of spiritual exaltation at St. Paul's, and came away with her soul +melted into pity for the unhappy, and yearned with her whole being to +help them, never thought of Letty as a creature who might perhaps be +helped to cheerfulness with a little trouble. Letty was too close at +hand; and enthusiastic philanthropists, casting about for objects of +charity, seldom see what is at their feet. + +It was so difficult to find Stralsund that by the time Letty's wandering +finger had paused upon it Susie could only give one glance of horror at +its position, and hurry away with Anna to dress. Anna, too, would have +preferred it to be farther south, in the Black Forest, or some other +romantic region, where it would have amused her to go occasionally, at +least, for a few weeks in the summer. But there it was, as far north as +it could be, in a part of the world she had hardly heard of, except in +connection with dogs. + +It did not, however, matter where it was. Uncle Joachim had merely +recommended and not enjoined. It would be rather extraordinary for her +to go there and set up housekeeping alone. She need not go; she was +almost sure she would not go. Anyhow there was no necessity to decide at +once. The money was what she wanted, and she could spend it where she +chose. Let Uncle Joachim's inspector, of whom he wrote in such praise, +go on getting forty thousand marks a year out of the place, and she +would be perfectly content. + +She ran upstairs to put on her prettiest dress, and to have her hair +done in the curls and waves she had so long eschewed. Should she not +make herself as charming as possible for this charming world, where +everybody was so good and kind, and add her measure of beauty and +kindness to the rest? She beamed on Letty as she passed her on the +stairs, climbing slowly up with her big atlas, and took it from her and +would carry it herself; she beamed on Miss Leech, who was watching for +her pupil at the schoolroom door; she beamed on her maid, she beamed on +her own reflection in the glass, which indeed at that moment was that of +a very beautiful young woman. Oh happy, happy world! What should she do +with so much money? She, who had never had a penny in her life, thought +it an enormous, an inexhaustible sum. One thing was certain--it was all +to be spent in doing good; she would help as many people with it as she +possibly could, and never, never, never let them feel that they were +under obligations. Did she not know, after fifteen years of dependence +on Susie, what it was like to be under obligations? And what was more +cruelly sad and crushing and deadening than dependence? She did not yet +know what sort of people she would help, or in what way she would help, +but oh, she was going to make heaps of people happy forever! While +Hilton was curling her hair, she thought of slums; but remembered that +they would bring her into contact with the clergy, and most of her +offers of late had been from the clergy. Even the vicar who had prepared +her for confirmation, his first wife being then alive, and a second +having since been mourned, had wanted to marry her. "It's because I am +twenty-five and staid that they think me suitable," she thought; but she +could not help smiling at the face in the glass. + +When she was dressed and ready to go down she was forced to ask herself +whether the person that she saw in the glass looked in the least like a +person who would ever lead the simple, frugal, hard-working life that +Uncle Joachim had called the better life, and in which he seemed to +think she would alone find contentment. Certainly she knew him to be +very wise. Well, nothing need be decided yet. Perhaps she would +go--perhaps she would not. "It's this white dress that makes me look +so--so unsuitable," she said to herself, "and Hilton's wonderful waves." + +And she went downstairs trying not to sing, the sweetest of feminine +creatures, happiness and love and kindness shining in her eyes, a lovely +thing saved from the blight of empty years, and brought back to beauty, +by Uncle Joachim's timely interference. + +Letty and Miss Leech heard the singing, and stopped involuntarily in +their conversation. It was a strange sound in that dull and joyless +house. + +"I don't know what's the matter, Leechy," Letty had said, on her return +from the drawing-room, "but mamma and Aunt Anna are too weird to-night +for anything. What do you think they had me down for? They didn't know +where Stralsund was, and wanted to find out. They pretended they wanted +to see if _I_ knew, but I soon saw through that game. And Aunt Anna +looks frightfully happy. I believe she's going to be married, and wants +to go to Stralsund for the honeymoon." + +And Letty took up her toasting fork, while Miss Leech, as in duty bound, +refreshed her pupil's memory in regard to Stralsund and Wallenstein and +the Hansa cities generally. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Peter, meditating on the banks of the river at Estcourt, came to the +conclusion that a journey to London would be made unnecessary by the +equal efficacy of a congratulatory letter. + +He had been greatly moved by the news of his sister's good fortune, and +in the first flush of pleasure and sympathy had ordered his things to be +packed in readiness for his departure by the night train. Then he had +gone down to the river, and there, thinking the matter over quietly, +amid the soothing influences of grey sky, grey water, and green grass, +he gradually perceived that a letter would convey all that he felt quite +well, perhaps better than any verbal expressions of joy, and as he would +in any case only stay a few hours in town the long journey seemed hardly +worth while. He sent a letter, therefore, that very evening--a kind, +brotherly letter, in which, after heartily congratulating his dear +little sister, he said that it would be necessary for her to go over to +Germany, see the lawyer, and take possession of her property. When she +had done that, and made all arrangements as to the future payment of the +income derived from the estate, she would of course come back to them; +for Estcourt was always to be her home, and now that she was independent +she would no longer be obliged to be wherever Susie was, but would, he +hoped, come to him, and they could go fishing together,--"and there's +nothing to beat fishing," concluded Peter, "if you want peace." + +But Anna did not want peace; at least, not that kind of peace just at +that moment. Sitting in a punt was not what she wanted. She was thrilled +by the love of her less fortunate fellow-creatures, and the sense of +power to help them, and the longing to go and do it. What she really +wanted of Peter was that he should take her to Germany and help her +through the formalities; for before his letter arrived she too had seen +that that was the first thing to be done. + +Of this, however, he did not write a word. She thought he must have +forgotten, so natural did it appear to her that her brother should go +with her; and she wrote him a little note, asking when he would be able +to get away. She received a long letter in reply, full of regrets, +excuses, and good reasons, which she read wonderingly. Had she been +selfish, or was Peter selfish? She thought it all out carefully, and +found that it was she who had been selfish to expect Peter, always a +hater of business and a lover of quiet, to go all that way and worry +himself with tiresome money arrangements. Besides, perhaps he was not +feeling well. She knew he suffered from rheumatism; and when you have +rheumatism the mere thought of a long journey is appalling. + +Susie, whose head was very clear on all matters concerning money, had +also recognised the necessity of Anna's going to Germany, and had also +regarded Peter as the most natural companion and guide; but she was not +surprised when Anna told her that he could not go. "It was too much to +expect," apologised Anna. "He often has rheumatism in the spring, and +perhaps he has it now." + +Susie sniffed. + +"The question is," said Anna after a pause, "what am I to do, helpless +virgin, in spite of my years,--never able to do a thing for myself?" + +"I'll go with you." + +"You? But what about your engagements?" + +"Oh, I'll throw them over, and take you. Letty can come too. It will do +her German good. Herr Schumpf says he's ashamed of her." + +Susie had various reasons for offering herself so amiably, one being +certainly curiosity. But the chief one was that the same woman who had +been so rude to her the day Anna's news came, had sent out invitations +to all the world to her daughter's wedding after Easter, and had not +sent one to Susie. + +This was one of those trials that cannot be faced. If she, being in +London at the time, carefully explained to her friends that she was ill +that day, and did actually stay in bed and dose herself the days +preceding and following, who would believe her? Not if she waved a +doctor's certificate in their faces would they believe her. They would +know that she had not been invited, and would rejoice. She felt that she +could not bear it. An unavoidable business journey to the Continent was +exactly what she wanted to help her out of this desperate situation. On +her return she would be able to hear the wedding discussed and express +her disappointment at having missed it with a serene brow and a quiet +mind. + +It is doubtful whether she would have gone with Anna, however urgent +Anna's need, if she had been included in those invitations. But Anna, +who could not know the secret workings of her mind, once more remembered +her former treatment of Susie, so kind and willing to do all she could, +and hung her head with shame. + +They left London a day or two before Easter, Letty and Miss Leech, both +of them nearly ill with suppressed delight at the unexpected holiday, +going with them. They had announced their coming to Uncle Joachim's +lawyer, and asked him to make arrangements for their accommodation at +Kleinwalde, Anna's new possession. Susie proposed to stay a day in +Berlin, which would give Anna time to talk everything over with the +lawyer, and would enable Letty to visit the museums. She had a hopeful +idea that Letty would absorb German at every pore once she was in the +country itself, and that being brought face to face with the statues of +Goethe and Schiller on their native soil would kindle the sparks of +interest in German literature that she supposed every well-taught child +possessed, into the roaring flame of enthusiasm. She could not believe +that Letty had no sparks. One of her children being so abnormally +clever, it must be sheer obstinacy on the part of the other that +prevented it from acquiring the knowledge offered daily in such +unstinted quantities. She had no illusions in regard to Letty's person, +and felt that as she would never be pretty it was of importance that she +should at least be cultured. She sat opposite her daughter in the train, +and having nothing better to do during the long hours that they were +jolting across North Germany, looked at her; and the more she looked the +more unreasoningly angry she became that Peter's sister should be so +pretty and Peter's daughter so plain. And then so fat! What a horrible +thing to have to take a fat daughter about with you in society. Where +did she get it from? She herself and Peter were the leanest of mortals. +It must be that Letty ate too much, which was not only a disgusting +practice but an expensive one, and should be put down at once with +rigour. Susie had not had such an opportunity of thoroughly inspecting +her child for years, and the result of this prolonged examination of her +weak points was that she would not let any of the party have anything to +eat at all, declaring that it was vulgar to eat in trains, expressing +amazement that people should bring themselves to touch the +horrid-looking food offered, and turning her back in impatient disgust +on two stout German ladies who had got in at Oberhausen, and who were +enjoying their lunch quite unmoved by her contempt--one eating a chicken +from beginning to end without a fork, and the other taking repeated sips +of an obviously satisfactory nature from a big wine bottle, which was +used, in the intervals, as a support to her back. + +By the time Berlin was reached, these ladies, having been properly fed +all day, were very cheerful, whereas Susie's party was speechless from +exhaustion; especially poor Miss Leech, who was never very strong, and +so nearly fainted that Susie was obliged to notice it, and expressed a +conviction to Anna in a loud and peevish aside that Miss Leech was going +to be a nuisance. + +"It is strange," thought Anna, as she crept into bed, "how travelling +brings out one's worst passions." + +It is indeed strange; for it is certain that nothing equals the +expectant enthusiasm and mutual esteem of the start except the cold +dislike of the finish. Many are the friendships that have found an +unforeseen and sudden end on a journey, and few are those that survive +it. But if Horace Walpole and Grey fell out, if Byron and Leigh Hunt +were obliged to part, if a host of other personages, endowed with every +gift that makes companionship desirable, could not away with each other +after a few weeks together abroad, is it to be wondered at that weaker +vessels such as Susie and Anna, Letty and Miss Leech, should have found +the short journey from London to Berlin sufficient to enable them to see +one another's failings with a clearness of vision that was startling? + +On the lawyer, a keen-eyed man with a conspicuously fine face, Anna made +an entirely favourable impression. When he saw this gracious young lady, +so simple and so friendly, and looked into her frank and charming eyes, +he perfectly understood that old Joachim should have been bewitched. But +after a little conversation, it appeared that she had no present +intention of carrying out her uncle's wishes, but, setting them coolly +aside, proposed to spend all the good German money she could extract +from her property in that replete and bloated land, England. + +This annoyed him; first because he hated England and then because his +father had managed old Joachim's affairs before he himself had stepped +into the paternal shoes, and the feeling of both father and son for the +old man had been considerably warmer than is usual between lawyer and +client. Still he could not believe, judging after the manner of men, +that anything so pretty could also be unkind; and scrutinising Lady +Estcourt, because she was unattractive and had a sharp little face and a +restless little body, he was convinced that she it was who was the cause +of this setting aside of a dead benefactor's wishes. Susie, for her +part, patronised him because his collar turned down. + +Whenever Letty thought afterwards of Berlin, she thought of it as a +place where all the houses are museums, and where you drink so many cups +of chocolate with whipped cream on the top that you see things double +for the rest of the time. + +Anna thought of it as a charming place, where delightful lawyers fill +your purse with money. + +Susie thought of it with satisfaction as the one place abroad where, by +dint of sternest economy, walks from sight to sight in the rain, and +promiscuous cakes instead of the more satisfactory but less cheap meals +Letty called square, she had successfully defended herself from being, +as she put it, fleeced. + +To Miss Leech, it was merely a place where your feet get wet, and your +clothes are spoilt. + +Early the next morning they started for Kleinwalde. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Stralsund is an old town of gabled houses, ancient churches, and quaint, +roughly paved streets, forming an island, and joined to the mainland by +dikes. It looks its best in the early summer, when the green and marshy +plains on whose edge it stands are strewn with kingcups, and the little +white clouds hang over them almost motionless, and the cattle are out, +and the larks sing, and the orange and red sails of the fishing-smacks +on the narrow belt of sea that divides the town from the island of Ruegen +make brilliant points of contrasting colour between the blue of water +and sky. There is a divine freshness and brightness about the +surrounding stretches of coarse grass and common flowers at that blest +season of the year. The air is full of the smell of the sea. The sun +beats down fiercely on plain and city. The people come out of the rooms +in which most of their life is spent, and stand in the doorways and +remark on the heat. An occasional heavy cart bumps over the stones, +heard in that sleepy place for several minutes before and after its +passing. There is an honest, tarry, fishy smell everywhere; and the +traveller of poetic temperament in search of the picturesque, and not +too nice about his comforts, could not fail, visiting it for the first +time in the month of June, to be wholly delighted that he had come. + +But in winter, and especially in those doubly gloomy days at the end of +winter, when spring ought to have shown some signs of its approach and +has not done so, those days of howling winds and driving rain and +frequent belated snowstorms, this plain is merely a bleak expanse of +dreariness, with a forlorn old town huddling in its farthest corner. + +It was at its very bleakest and dreariest on the morning that Susie and +her three companions travelled across it. "What a place!" exclaimed +Susie, as mile after mile was traversed, and there was still the same +succession of flat ploughed fields, marshes, and ploughed fields again, +with a rare group of furiously swaying pine trees or of silver birches +bent double before the wind. "What a part of the world to come and live +in! That old uncle of yours was as cracked as he could be to think you'd +ever stay here for good. And imagine spending even a single shilling +buying land here. I wouldn't take a barrowful at a gift." + +"Well, I am taking a great many barrowfuls," said Anna, "and I am sure +Uncle Joachim was right to buy a place here--he was always right." + +"Oh, of course, it's your duty now to praise him up. Perhaps it gets +better farther on, but I don't see how anybody can squeeze two thousand +a year out of a desert like this." + +The prospect from the railway that day was certainly not attractive; but +Anna told herself that any place would look dreary such weather, and was +much too happy in the first flush of independence to be depressed by +anything whatever. Had she not that very morning given the chambermaid +at the Berlin hotel so bounteous a reward for services not rendered that +the woman herself had said it was too much? Thus making amends for those +innumerable departures from hotels when Susie had escaped without giving +anything at all. Had she not also asked, and readily obtained, +permission of Susie at the station in Berlin to pay for the tickets of +the whole party? And had it not been a delightful and warming feeling, +buying those tickets for other people instead of having tickets bought +by other people for herself? At Pasewalk, a little town half way between +Berlin and Stralsund, where the train stopped ten minutes, she insisted +on getting out, defying the sleet and the puddles, and went into the +refreshment room, and bought eggs and rolls and cakes,--everything she +could find that was least offensive. Also a guidebook to Stralsund, +though she was not going to stop in Stralsund; also some postcards with +views on them, though she never used postcards with views on them, and +came back loaded with parcels, her face glowing with childish pleasure +at spending money. + +"My _dear_ Anna," said Susie; but she was hungry, and ate a roll with +perfect complacency, allowing Letty to do the same, although only two +days had elapsed since she had so energetically lectured her on the +grossness of eating in trains. + +Susie was in a particularly amiable frame of mind, and in spite of the +weather was looking forward to seeing the place Uncle Joachim had +thought would be a fit home for his niece; and as she and Anna were +sitting together at one end of the carriage, and Letty and Miss Leech +were at the other, and there was no one else in the compartment, she was +neither upset by the too near contemplation of her daughter, nor by the +aspect of other travellers lunching. Miss Leech, always mindful of her +duties, was making the most of her five hours' journey by endeavouring, +in a low voice, to clear away the haze that hung in her pupil's mind +round the details of her last winter's German studies. "Don't you +remember anything of Professor Smith's lectures, Letty?" she inquired. +"Why, they were all about just this part of Germany, and it makes it so +much more interesting if one knows what happened at the different +places. Stralsund, you know, where we shall be presently, has had a most +turbulent and interesting past." + +"Has it?" said Letty. "Well, I can't help it, Leechy." + +"No; but my dear, you should try to recollect something at least of what +you heard at the lectures. Have you forgotten the paper you wrote about +Wallenstein?" + +"I remember I did a paper. Beastly hard it was, too." + +"Oh, Letty, don't say beastly--it really isn't a ladylike word." + +"Why, mamma's always saying it." + +"Oh, well. Don't you know what Wallenstein said when he was besieging +Stralsund and found it such a difficult task?" + +"I suppose he said too that it was beastly hard." + +"Oh, Letty--it was something about chains. Now do you remember?" + +"Chains?" repeated Letty, looking bored. "Do _you_ know, Leechy?" + +"Yes, I still remember that, though I confess that I have forgotten the +greater part of what I heard." + +"Then what do you ask me for, when you know I don't know? What did he +say about chains?" + +"He said that he'd take the city, if it were rivetted to heaven with +chains of iron," said Miss Leech dramatically. + +"What a goat." + +"Oh, hush--don't say those horrible words. Where do you learn them? Not +from me, certainly not from me," said Miss Leech, distressed. She had a +profound horror of slang, and was bewildered by the way in which these +weeds of rhetoric sprang up on all occasions in Letty's speech. + +"Well, and was it?" + +"Was it what, my dear?" + +"Chained to heaven?" + +"The city? Why, how can a city be chained to heaven, Letty?" + +"Then what did he say it for?" + +"He was using a metaphor." + +"Oh," said Letty, who did not know what a metaphor was, but supposed it +must be something used in sieges, and preferred not to inquire too +closely. + +"He was obliged to retire," said Miss Leech, "leaving enormous numbers +of slain on the field." + +"Poor beasts. I say, Leechy," she whispered, "don't let's bother about +history now. Go on with Mr. Jessup. You'd got to where he called you Amy +for the first time." + +Mr. Jessup was the person already alluded to in these pages as the only +man Miss Leech had ever loved, and his history was of absorbing interest +to Letty, who never tired of hearing his first appearance on Miss +Leech's horizon described, with his subsequent advances before the stage +of open courting was reached, the courting itself, and its melancholy +end; for Mr. Jessup, a clergyman of the Church of England, with a +vicarage all ready to receive his wife, had suddenly become a prey to +new convictions, and had gone over to the Church of Rome; whereupon Miss +Leech's father, also a clergyman of the Church of England, had talked a +great deal about the Scarlet Woman of Babylon, and had shut the door in +Mr. Jessup's face when next he called to explain. This had happened when +Miss Leech was twenty. Now, at thirty, an orphan resigned to the world's +buffets, she found a gentle consolation in repeating the story of her +ill-starred engagement to her keenly interested friend and pupil; and +the oftener she repeated it the less did it grieve her, till at last she +came actually to enjoy the remembrance of it, pleased to have played the +principal part even in a drama that was hissed off her little stage, +glad to find a sympathetic listener, dwelling much and fondly on every +incident of that short period of importance and glory. + +It is doubtful whether she would ever have extracted the same amount of +pleasure from Mr. Jessup had he remained fixed in the faith of his +fathers and married her in due season. By his secession he had +unconsciously become a sort of providence to Letty and herself, saving +them from endless hours of dulness, furnishing their lonely schoolroom +life with romance and mystery; and if in Miss Leech's mind he gradually +took on the sweet intangibility of a pleasant dream, he was the very +pith and marrow of Letty's existence. She glowed and thrilled at the +thought that perhaps she too would one day have a Mr. Jessup of her own, +who would have convictions, and give up everything, herself included, +for what he believed to be right. + +As usual, they at once became absorbed in Mr. Jessup, forgetting in the +contemplation of his excellencies everything else in the world, till +they were roused to realities by their arrival at Stralsund; and Susie, +thrusting books and bags and umbrellas into their passive hands, pushed +them out of the carriage into the wet. + +Hilton, the maid shared by Susie and Anna, had then to be found and +urged to clamber down quickly on to the low platform, where she stood +helplessly, the picture of injured superiority, hustled by the hurrying +porters and passengers, out of whose way she scorned to move, while Anna +went to look for the luggage and have it put into the cart that had been +sent for it. + +This cart was an ordinary farm cart, used for bringing in the hay in +June, but also used for carrying out the manure in November; and on a +sack of straw lying in the bottom it was expected that Hilton should +sit. The farm boy who drove it, and who helped the porter to tie the +trunks to its sides lest they should too violently bump against each +other and Hilton on the way, said so; the coachman of the carriage +waiting for the _Herrschaften_ pointed with his whip first at Hilton and +then at the cart, and said so; the porter, who seemed to think it quite +natural, said so; and everybody was waiting for Hilton to get in, who, +when she had at length grasped the situation, went to Susie, who was +looking frightened and pretending to be absorbed by the sky, and with a +voice shaken by passion, and a face changing from white to red, +announced her intention of only going in that cart as a corpse, when +they might do with her as they pleased, but as a living body with breath +in it, never. + +Here was a difficulty. And idlers, whose curiosity was not +extinguishable by wind and sleet, began to press round, and people who +had come by the same train stopped on their way out to listen. The farm +boy patted the sack and declared that it was clean straw, the coachman +stood up on his box and swore that it was a new sack, the porter assured +the Fraeulein that it was as comfortable as a feather bed, and nobody +seemed to understand that what she was being offered was an insult. + +Susie was afraid of Hilton, who had been in the service of duchesses, +and who held these duchesses over her mistress's head whenever her +mistress wanted to do anything that was inconvenient to herself; quoting +their sayings, pointing out how they would have acted in any given case, +and always, it appeared, they had done exactly what Hilton desired. +Susie's admiration for duchesses was slavish, and Hilton was treated +with an indulgent liberality that was absurd compared to the stinginess +displayed towards everyone else. Hilton was not more horrified than her +mistress when she saw the farm cart, and understood that it was for the +luggage and the maid. It was impossible to take her with them in what +the porter called the _herrschaftliche Wagen_, for it was a kind of +victoria, and how to get their four selves into it was a sufficient +puzzle. "What shall we do?" said Susie, in despair, to Anna. + +"Do? Why, she'll have to go in it. Hilton, don't be a foolish person, +and don't keep us here in the wet. This isn't England, and nobody thinks +anything here of driving in farm carts. It is patriarchal simplicity, +that's all. People are staring at you now because you are making such a +fuss. Get in like a good soul, and let us start." + +"Only as a corpse, m'm," reiterated Hilton with chattering teeth, "never +as a living body." + +"Nonsense," said Anna impatiently. + +"What shall we do?" repeated Susie. "Poor Hilton--what barbarians they +must be here." + +"We must send her in a _Droschky_, then, if it isn't too far, and we can +get one to go." + +"A _Droschky_ all that distance! It will be ruinous." + +"Well, we can't stand here amusing these people for ever." + +"Oh, I wish we had never come to this horrible place!" cried Susie, +really made miserable by Hilton's rage. + +But Anna did not stay to listen either to her laments or to Hilton's +monotonous "Only as a corpse, m'lady," and was already arranging with an +unwilling driver, who had no desire whatever to drive to Kleinwalde, but +consented to do so on being promised twenty marks, a rest and feed of +oats for his horses, and any little addition in the shape of refreshment +and extra money that might suggest itself to Anna's generosity. + +"You know, Anna, you can't expect _me_ to pay for the fly," said Susie +uneasily, when the appeased Hilton had been put into it and was out of +earshot. "That dreadful cart is your property, I suppose." + +"Of course it is," said Anna, smiling, "and of course the fly is my +affair. How magnificent I feel, disposing of carts and _Droschkies_. +Now, will you please to get into my carriage? And do you observe the +extreme respectfulness of my coachman?" + +The coachman, a strange-looking, round-shouldered being, with a long +grizzled beard, a dark-blue cloth cap on his head, and a body clothed in +a fawn-coloured suit and gaiters, on which a great many tarnished silver +buttons adorned with Uncle Joachim's coat of arms were fastened at short +intervals, removed his cap while his new mistress and her party were +entering the carriage, and did not put it on again till they were ready +to start. + +"Quite as though we were royalties," said Susie. + +"But the rest of him isn't," replied Anna, who was greatly amused by the +turn-out. "Do you like my horses, Susie? Or do you suspect them of +having been ploughing all the morning? Oh, well," she added quickly, +ashamed of laughing at any part of her dear uncle's gift, "I suppose one +has to have heavily built horses in this part of the world, where the +roads are probably frightfully bad." + +"Their tails might be a little shorter," said Susie. + +"They might," agreed Anna serenely. + +With the aid of the porter, who knew all about Uncle Joachim's will and +was deeply interested, they were at last somehow packed into the +carriage, and away they rattled over the rough stones, threading the +outskirts of the town on the mainland, the hail and wind in their faces, +out into the open country, with their horses' heads turned towards the +north. The fly containing Hilton followed more leisurely behind, and the +farm cart containing the unused sack of straw followed the fly. + +"We can't see much of Stralsund," said Anna, trying to peep round the +hood at the old town across the lakes separating it from the mainland. + +"It's a very historical town," observed Susie, who had happened to +notice, as she idly turned over the pages of her Baedeker on the way +down, that there was a long description of it with dates. "As of course +you know," she added, turning sharply to her daughter. + +"Rather," said Letty. "Wallenstein said he'd take it if it were chained +to heaven, and when he found it wasn't he was frightfully sick, and went +away and left them all in the fields." + +Miss Leech, who was on the little seat, struggling to defend herself +from the fury of the elements with an umbrella, looked anxious, but +Susie only said in a gratified voice, "I'm glad you remember what you've +been taught." To which Letty, who was in great spirits, and thought this +drive in the wet huge fun, again replied heartily, "Rather," and her +mother congratulated herself on having done the right thing in bringing +her to Germany, home of erudition and profundity, already evidently +beginning to do its work. + +The carriage smelt of fish, which presently upset Susie, who, +unfortunately for her, had a nose that smelt everything. While they were +in the town she thought the smell was in the streets, and bore it; but +out in the open, where there was not a house to be seen, she found that +it was in the carriage. + +She fidgeted, and looked about, feeling with her foot under the opposite +seat, expecting to find a basket somewhere, and determined if she found +one to push it out quietly and say nothing; for that she should drive +for two hours with her handkerchief up to her nose was more than anybody +could expect of her. Already she had done more than anybody ought to +expect of her, she reflected, in going to the expense of the journey and +the inconvenience of the absence from home for Anna's sake, and she +hoped that Anna felt grateful. She had never yet shrunk from her duty +towards Anna, or indeed from her duty towards anyone, and she was sure +she never would; but her duty certainly did not include the passive +endurance of offensive smells. + +"What are you looking for?" asked Anna. + +"Why, the fish." + +"Oh, do you smell it too?" + +"Smell it? I should think I did. It's killing me." + +"Oh, poor Susie!" laughed Anna, who was possessed by an uncontrollable +desire to laugh at everything. The conveyance (it could hardly be called +a carriage) in which they were seated, and which she supposed was the +one destined for her use if she lived at Kleinwalde, was unlike anything +she had yet seen. It was very old, with enormous wheels, and bumped +dreadfully, and the seat was so constructed that she was continually +slipping forward and having to push herself back again. It was lined +throughout, including the hood, with a white and black shepherd's plaid +in large squares, the white squares mellowed by the stains of use and +time to varying shades of brown and yellow; when Miss Leech's umbrella +was blown aside by a gust of wind Anna could see her coachman's drab +coat, with a little end of white tape that he had forgotten to tie, and +whose uses she was unable to guess, fluttering gaily between its tails +in the wind; on the left side of the box was a very big and gorgeous +coat of arms in green and white, Uncle Joachim's colours; and whichever +way she turned her head, there was the overpowering smell of fish. "We +must be taking our dinner home with us," she said, "but I don't see it +anywhere." + +"There isn't anything under the seats. Perhaps the man has got it on the +box. Ask him, Anna; I really can't stand it." + +Anna did not quite know how to attract his attention. It seemed +undignified to poke him, but she did not know his name, and the wind +blew her voice back in the direction of Stralsund when she had cleared +it, and coughed, and called out rather shyly, "Oh, _Kutscher! +Kutscher!_" + +Then she remembered that oh was not German, and that Uncle Joachim had +used sonorous achs in its place, and she began again, "_Ach, Kutscher! +Kutscher!_" + +Letty giggled. "Go it, Aunt Anna," she said encouragingly, "dig him in +the ribs with your umbrella--or I will, if you like." + +Her mother, with her handkerchief to her nose, exhorted her not to be +vulgar. Letty explained at some length that she was only being nice, and +offering assistance. + +"I really shall have to poke him," said Anna, her faint cries of +_Kutscher_ quite lost in the rattling of the carriage and the howling of +the wind. "Or perhaps you would touch his arm, Miss Leech." + +Miss Leech turned, and very gingerly touched his sleeve. He at once +whistled to his horses, who stopped dead, snatched off his cap, and +looking down at Anna inquired her commands. + +It was done so quickly that Anna, whose conversational German was +exceedingly rusty, was quite unable to remember the word for fish, and +sat looking up at him helplessly, while she vainly searched her brains. + +"What _is_ fish in German?" she said, appealing to Susie, distressed +that the man should be waiting capless in the rain. + +"Letty, what's the word for fish?" inquired Susie sternly. + +"Fish?" repeated Letty, looking stupid. + +"Fish?" echoed Miss Leech, trying to help. + +"_Fisch?_" said the coachman himself, catching at the word. + +"Oh, yes; how utterly silly I am," cried Anna blushing and showing her +dimples, "it's _Fisch_, of course. _Kutscher, wo ist Fisch?_" + +The man looked blank; then his face brightened, and pointing with his +whip to the rolling sea on their right, visible across the flat +intervening fields, he said that there was much fish in it, especially +herrings. + +"What does he say?" asked Susie from behind her handkerchief. + +"He says there are herrings in the sea." + +"Is the man a fool?" + +Letty laughed uproariously. The coachman, seeing Letty and Anna laugh, +thought he must have said the right thing after all, and looked very +pleasant. + +"_Aber im Wagen_," persisted Anna, "_wo ist Fisch im Wagen?_" + +The coachman stared. Then he said vaguely, in a soothing voice, not in +the least knowing what she meant, "_Nein, nein, gnaediges Fraeulein_," and +evidently hoped she would be satisfied. + +"_Aber es riecht, es riecht!_" cried Anna, not satisfied at all, and +lifting up her nose in unmistakeable displeasure. + +His face brightened again. "_Ach so--jawohl, jawohl_," he exclaimed +cheerfully; and hastened to explain that there were no fish nearer than +the sea, but that the grease he had used that morning to make the +leather of the hood and apron shine certainly had a fishy smell, as he +himself had noticed. "The gracious Miss loves not the smell?" he +inquired anxiously; for he had seven children, and was very desirous +that his new mistress should be pleased. + +Anna laughed and shook her head, and though she said with great emphasis +that she did not love it at all, she looked so friendly that he felt +reassured. + +"What does he say?" asked Susie. + +"Why, I'm afraid we shall have it all the way. It's the grease he's been +rubbing the leather with." + +"Barbarian!" cried Susie angrily, feeling sick already, and certain that +she would be quite ill by the end of the drive. "And you laugh at him +and encourage him, instead of taking up your position at once and +showing him that you won't stand any nonsense. He ought to be--to be +unboxed!" she added in great wrath; for she had heard of delinquent +clergymen being unfrocked, and why should not delinquent coachmen be +unboxed? + +Anna laughed again. She tried not to, but she could not help it; and +Susie, made still more angry by this childish behaviour, sulked during +the rest of the drive. + +"Go on--_avanti_!" said Anna, who knew hardly any Italian, and when she +was in Italy and wanted her words never could find them, but had been +troubled the last two days by the way in which these words came to her +lips every time she opened them to speak German. + +The coachman understood her, however, and they went on again along the +straight high-road, that stretched away before them to a distant bend. +The high-road, or _chaussee_, was planted on either side with maples, +and between the maples big whitewashed stones had been set to mark the +way at night, and behind the rows of trees and stones, ditches had been +dug parallel with the road as a protection to the crops in summer from +the possible wanderings of erring carts. If a cart erred, it tumbled +into the ditch. The arrangement was simple and efficacious. On the +right, across some marshy land, they could see the sea for a little +while, with the flat coast of Ruegen opposite; and then some rising +ground, bare of trees and brilliantly green with winter corn, hid it +from view. On the left was the dreary plain, dotted at long intervals +with farms and their little groups of trees, and here and there with +windmills working furiously in the gale. The wind was icy, and the +December snow still lay in drifts in the ditches. In that leaden +landscape, made up of grey and brown and black, the patches of winter +rye were quite startling in their greenness. + +Susie thought it the most God-forsaken country she had ever seen, and +expressed this opinion plainly on her face and in her attitudes without +any need for opening her lips, shuddering back ostentatiously into her +corner, wrapping herself with elaborate care in her furs, and behaving +as slaves to duty sometimes do when the paths they have to tread are +rough. + +After driving along the _chaussee_ for about an hour, they passed a big +house standing among trees back from the road on the right, and a little +farther on came to a small village. The carriage, pulled up with a jerk, +and looking eagerly round the hood Anna found they had come to a +standstill in front of a new red-brick building, whose steps were +crowded with children. Two or three men and some women were with the +children. Two of the men appeared to be clergymen, and the elder, a +middle-aged, mild-faced man, came down the steps, and bowing profoundly +proceeded to welcome Anna solemnly, on behalf of those children from +Kleinwalde who attended this school, to her new home. He concluded that +Anna was the person to be welcomed because he could see nothing of the +lady in the other corner but her eyes, and they looked anything but +friendly; whereas the young lady on the left was leaning forward and +smiling and holding out her hand. + +He took it, and shook it slowly up and down, while he begged her to +allow the hood of the carriage to be put back, so that the children from +her village, who had walked three miles to welcome her, might be able to +see her; and on Anna's readily agreeing to this, himself helped the +coachman with his own white-gloved hands to put it down. Susie was +therefore exposed to the full fury of the blast, and shrank still +farther into her corner--an interesting and tantalising object to the +school-children, a dark, mysterious combination of fur, cocks' feathers, +and black eyebrows. + +Then the clergyman, hat in hand, made a speech. He spoke distinctly, as +one accustomed to speaking often and long, and Anna understood every +word. She was wholly taken aback by these ceremonies, and had no idea of +what she should say in reply, but sat smiling vaguely at him, looking +very pretty and very shy. She soon found that her smiles were +inappropriate, and they died away; for, warming as he proceeded, the +parson, it appeared, was taking it for granted that she intended to live +on her property, and was eloquently descanting on the comfort she was +going to be to the poor, assuring those present that she would be a +mother to the sick, nursing them with her tender woman's hands, an angel +of mercy to the hungry, feeding them in the hour of their distress, a +friend and sister to the little children, succouring them, caring for +them, pitiful of their weakness and their sins. His face lit up with +enthusiasm as he went on, and Anna was thankful that Susie could not +understand. This crowd of children, the women, the young parson, her +coachman, were all hearing promises made on her behalf that she had no +thought of fulfilling. She looked down, and twisted her fingers about +nervously, and felt uncomfortable. + +At the end of his speech, the parson, his eyes full of the tears drawn +forth by his own eloquence, held up his hand and solemnly blessed her, +rounding off his blessing with a loud Amen, after which there was an +awkward pause. Susie heard the Amen, and guessed that something in the +nature of a blessing was being invoked, and made a movement of +impatience. The parson was odious in her eyes, first because he looked +like the ministers of the Baptist chapels of her unmarried youth, but +principally because he was keeping her there in the gale and prolonging +the tortures she was enduring from the smell of fish. Anna did not know +what to say after the Amen, and looked up more shyly than ever, and +stammered in her confusion _Danke sehr_, hoping that it was a proper +remark to make; whereupon the parson bowed again, as one who should say +Pray don't mention it. Then another man, evidently the schoolmaster, +took out a tuning-fork, gave out a note, and the children sang a +_chorale_, following it up with other more cheerful songs, in which the +words _Fruehling_ and _Willkommen_ were repeated a great many times, +while the wind howled flattest contradiction. + +When this was over, the parson begged leave to introduce the other +clerical-looking person, a tall narrow youth, also in white kid gloves, +buttoned up tightly in a long coat of broadcloth, with a pallid face and +thick, upright flaxen hair. + +"Herr Vicar Klutz," said the elder parson, with a wave of the hand; and +the Herr Vicar, making his bow, and having his limp hand heartily +grasped by that other little hand, and his furtive eyes smiled into by +those other friendly eyes, became on the spot desperately enamoured; +which was very natural, seeing that he had not spoken to a woman under +forty for six months, and was himself twenty and a poet. He spent the +rest of the afternoon shut up in his bedroom, where, refusing all +nourishment, he composed a poem in which _berauschten Sinn_ was made to +rhyme with _Englaenderin_, while the elder parson, in whose house he +lived, thought he was writing his Good Friday sermon. + +Then the schoolmaster was introduced, and then came the two women--the +schoolmaster's wife and the parson's wife; and when Anna had smiled and +murmured polite and incoherent little speeches to each in turn, and had +nodded and bowed at least a dozen times to each of these ladies, who +could by no means have done with their curtseys, and had introduced them +to the dumb figure in the corner, during which ceremonies Letty stared +round-eyed and open-mouthed at the school-children, and the +school-children stared round-eyed and open-mouthed at Letty, and Miss +Leech looked demure, and Susie's brows were contracted by suffering, she +wondered whether she might not now with propriety continue her journey, +and if so whether it were expected that she should give the signal. + +Everybody was smiling at everybody else by way of filling up this pause +of hesitation, except Susie, who shut her eyes with great dignity, and +shivered in so marked a manner that the parson himself came to the +rescue, and bade the coachman help him put up the hood again, explaining +to Anna as he did so that her _Frau Schwester_ was not used to the +climate. + +Evidently the moment had come for going on, and the bows that had but +just left off began again with renewed vigour. Anna was anxious to say +something pleasant at the finish, so she asked the parson's wife, as she +bade her good-bye, whether she and her husband would come to Kleinwalde +the next day to dinner. + +This invitation produced a very deep curtsey and a flush of +gratification, but the recipient turned to her lord before accepting it, +to inquire his pleasure. + +"I fear not to-morrow, gracious Miss," said the parson, "for it is Good +Friday." + +"_Ach ja_," stammered Anna, ashamed of herself for having forgotten. + +"_Ach ja_," exclaimed the parson's wife, still more ashamed of herself +for having forgotten. + +"Perhaps Saturday, then?" suggested Anna. + +The parson murmured something about quiet hours preparatory to the +Sabbath; but his wife, a person who struck Anna as being quite +extraordinarily stout, was burning with curiosity to examine those +foreign ladies more conveniently, and especially to see what manner of +being would emerge from the pile of fur and feathers in the corner; and +she urged him, in a rapid aside, to do for once without quiet hours. +Whereupon he patted her on the cheek, smiled indulgently, and said he +would make an exception and do himself the honour of appearing. + +This being settled, Anna said _Gehen Sie_ to her coachman, who again +showed his intelligence by understanding her; and in a cloud of smiles +and bows they drove away, the school-girls making curtseys, the +schoolboys taking off their caps, and the parson standing hat in hand +with his arm round his wife's waist as serenely as though it had been a +summer's day and no one looking. + +Anna became used to these displays of conjugal regard in public later +on; but this first time she turned to Susie with a laugh, when the hood +had hidden the group from view, and asked her if she had seen it. But +Susie had seen nothing, for her eyes were shut, and she refused to +answer any questions otherwise than by a feeble shake of the head. + +On the other side of the village the _chaussee_ came to an end, and two +deep, sandy roads took its place. There was a sign-post at their +junction, one arm of which, pointing to the right-hand road that ran +down close to the sea, had Kleinwalde scrawled on it; and beside this +sign-post a man on a horse was waiting for them. + +"Good gracious! More rot?" ejaculated Susie as the carriage stopped +again, shaken out of the dignity of sulks by these repeated shocks. + +"Oberinspector Dellwig," said the man, introducing himself, and sweeping +off his hat and bowing lower and more obsequiously than anyone had yet +done. + +"This must be the inspector Uncle Joachim hoped I'd keep," said Anna in +an undertone. + +"I don't care who he is, but for heaven's sake don't let him make a +speech. I can't stand this sort of thing any longer. You'll have me ill +on your hands if you're not careful, and you won't like _that_, so you +had better stop him." + +"I can't stop him," said Anna, perplexed. She also had had enough of +speeches. + +"_Gestatten gnaediges Fraeulein dass ich meine gehorsamste Ehrerbietung +ausspreche_," began the glib inspector, bowing at every second word over +his horse's ears. + +There was no escape, and they had to hear him out. The man had prepared +his speech, and say it he would. It was not so long as the parson's, but +was quite as flowery in another way, overflowing with respectful +allusions to the deceased master, and with expressions of unbounded +loyalty, obedience, and devotion to the new mistress. + +Susie shut her eyes again when she found he was not to be stopped, and +gave herself up for lost. What could Hilton, who must be close behind +waiting in the cold, uncomforted by any food since leaving Berlin, think +of all this? Susie dreaded the moment when she would have to face her. + +The inspector finished all he had intended saying, and then, assuming a +more colloquial tone, informed Anna that from the sign-post onward she +would be driving through her own property, and asked permission to ride +by her side the rest of the way. So they had his company for the last +two miles and his conversation, of which there was much; for he had a +ready tongue, and explained things to Anna in a very loud voice as they +went along, expatiating on the magnificence of the crops the previous +summer, and assuring her that the crops of the coming summer would be +even more magnificent, for he had invented a combination of manures +which would give such results that all Pomerania's breath would be taken +away. + +The road here was terrible, and the horses could hardly drag the +carriage through the sand. It lurched and heaved from side to side, +creaking and groaning alarmingly. Miss Leech was in imminent peril. Anna +held on with both hands, and hardly had leisure to put in appropriate +_achs_ and _jas_ and questions of a becoming intelligence when the +inspector paused to take breath. She did not like his looks, and wished +that she could follow Susie's example and avoid the necessity of seeing +him by the simple expedient of shutting her eyes. But somehow, she did +not quite know how, responsibilities and obligations were suddenly +pressing heavily upon her. These people had all made up their minds that +she was going to be and do certain things; and though she assured +herself that it did not in the least matter how they had made up their +minds, yet she felt obliged to behave in the way that was expected of +her. She did not want to talk to this unpleasant-looking man, and what +he told her about the crops and their marvellousness was half +unintelligible to her and wholly a bore. Yet she did talk to him, and +looked friendly, and affected to understand and be deeply interested in +all he said. + +They passed through a plantation of young beeches, planted, Dellwig +explained, by Uncle Joachim on his last visit; and after a few more +yards of lurching in the sand came to some woods and got on to a fair +road. + +"The park," said Dellwig superbly, with a wave of the hand. + +Susie opened her eyes at the word park, and looked about. "It isn't a +park," she said peevishly, "it's a forest--a horrid, gloomy, damp +wilderness." + +"Oh, it's lovely!" cried Letty, giving a jump of delight as she peered +down the serried ranks of pine trees. + +It was a thick wood of pines and beeches, railed off from the road on +either side by wooden rails painted in black and white stripes. Uncle +Joachim had been the loyalest of Prussians, and his loyalty overflowed +even into his fences. AEsthetic instincts he had none, and if he had been +brought to see it, would not have cared at all that the railings made +the otherwise beautiful avenue look like the entrance to a restaurant or +a railway station. The stripes, renewed every year, and of startling +distinctness, were an outward and visible sign of his staunch devotion +to the King of Prussia, the very lining of the carriage with its white +and black squares was symbolic; and when they came to the gate within +which the house itself stood, two Prussian eagles frowned down at them +from the gate-posts. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +A low, white, two-storied house, separated from the forest only by a +circular grass plot and a ditch with half-melted snow in it and muddy +water, a house apparently quite by itself among the creaking pines, +neither very old nor very new, with a great many windows, and a +brown-tiled roof, was the home bestowed by Uncle Joachim on his dear and +only niece Anna. + +"So _this_ is where I was to lead the better life?" she thought, as the +carriage drew up at the door, and the moaning of the uneasy trees, and +all the lonely sounds of a storm-beaten forest replaced the rattling of +the wheels in her ears. "The better life, then, is a life of utter +solitude, Uncle Joachim thought? I wish I knew--I wish I knew----" But +what it was she wished she knew was hardly clear in her mind; and her +thoughts were interrupted by a very untidy, surprised-looking +maid-servant, capless, and in felt slippers, who had darted down the +steps and was unfastening the leather apron and pulling out the rugs +with hasty, agitated hands, and trying to pull Susie out as well. + +The doorway was garlanded with evergreen wreaths, over which a green and +white flag flapped; and curtseying and smiling beneath the wreaths stood +Dellwig's wife, a short lady with smooth hair, weather-beaten face, and +brown silk gloves, who would have been the stoutest person Anna had ever +seen if she had not just come from the presence of the parson's wife. + +"I never saw so many bows in my life," grumbled Susie, pushing the +servant aside, and getting out cautiously, feeling very stiff and cold +and miserable. "Letty, you are on my dress--oh, how d'you do--how d'you +do," she murmured frostily, as the Frau Inspector seized her hand and +began to talk German to her. "Anna, are you coming? This--er--person +thinks I'm you, and is making me a speech." + +Dellwig, who had sent his horse away in charge of a small boy, rapidly +explained to his wife that the young lady now getting out of the +carriage was their late master's niece, and that the other one must be +the sister-in-law mentioned in the lawyer's letter; upon which Frau +Dellwig let Susie go, and transferred her smiles and welcome to Anna. +Susie went into the house to get out of the cold, only to find herself +in a square hall whose iciness was the intolerable iciness of a place in +which no sun had been allowed to shine and no windows had been opened +for summers without number. When Uncle Joachim came down he lived in two +rooms at the back of the house, with a door leading into the garden +through which he went to the farm, and the hall had never been used, and +the closed shutters never opened. There was no fireplace, or stove, or +heating arrangement of any sort. Glass doors divided it from an inner +and still more spacious hall, with a wide wooden staircase, and doors +all round it. The walls in both halls were painted grass green; and from +little chains in the ceiling stuffed hawks and eagles, shot by Uncle +Joachim, and grown with years very dusty and moth-eaten, hung swinging +in the draught. The floor was boarded, and was still damp from a recent +scrubbing. There was no carpet. A wooden bracket on the wall, with brass +hooks, held a large assortment of whips and hunting crops; and in one +corner stood an arrangement for coats, with Uncle Joachim's various +waterproofs and head-coverings hanging monumentally on its pegs. + +"Oh, how dreadful!" thought Susie, shivering more violently than ever. +"And what a musty smell--it's damp, of course, and I shall be laid up. +Poor Hilton! What will she think of this? Oh, how d'you do," she added +aloud, as a female figure in a white apron suddenly emerged from the +gloom and took her hand and kissed it; "Anna, who's this? Anna! Aren't +you coming? Here's somebody kissing my hand." + +"It's the cook," said Anna, coming into the inner hall with the others, +Dellwig and his wife keeping one on either side of her, and both talking +at once in their anxiety to make a good impression. + +"The cook? Then tell her to give us some food. I shall die if I don't +have something soon. Do you know what time it is? Past four. Can't you +get rid of these people? And where's Hilton?" + +Susie hardly seemed to see the Dellwigs, and talked to Anna while they +were talking to her as though they did not exist. If Anna felt an +obligation to be polite to these different persons she felt none at all. +They did not understand English, but if they had it would not have +mattered to her, and she would have gone on talking about them as though +they had not been there. + +Both the Dellwigs had very loud voices, so Susie had to raise hers in +order to be heard, and there was consequently such a noise in the empty, +echoing house, that after looking round bewildered, and trying to answer +everybody at once, Anna gave it up, and stood and laughed. + +"I don't see anything to laugh at," said Susie crossly, "we are all +starving, and these people won't go." + +"But how can I make them go?" + +"They're your servants, I suppose. I should just say that I'd send for +them when I wanted them." + +"They'd be very much astonished. The man is so far from being my servant +that I believe he means to be my master." + +The two Dellwigs, perplexed by Anna's laughter when nobody had said +anything amusing, and uneasy lest she should be laughing at something +about themselves, looked from her to Susie suspiciously, and for that +brief moment were quiet. + +"_Wir sind hungrig_," said Anna to the wife. + +"The food comes immediately," she replied; and hastened away with the +cook and the other servant through a door evidently leading to the +kitchen. + +"_Und kalt_," continued Anna plaintively to the husband, who at once +flung open another door, through which they saw a table spread for +dinner. "_Bitte, bitte_," he said, ushering them in as though the place +belonged to him. + +"Does this person live in the house?" inquired Susie, eying him with +little goodwill. + +"He told me he lives at the farm. But of course he has always looked +after everything here." + +When they were all in the dining-room, driven in by Dellwig, as Susie +remarked, like a flock of sheep by a shepherd determined to stand no +nonsense, he helped them with officious politeness to take off their +wraps, and then, bowing almost to the ground, asked permission to +withdraw while the _Herrschaften_ ate, a permission that was given with +alacrity, Anna's face falling, however, upon his informing her that he +would come round later on in order to lay his plans for the summer +before her. + +"What does he say?" asked Susie, as the door shut behind him. + +"He's coming round again later on." + +"That man's going to be a nuisance--you see if he isn't," said Susie +with conviction. + +"I believe he is," agreed Anna, going over to the white porcelain stove +to warm her hands. + +"He's the limpet, and you're going to be the rock. Don't let him fleece +you too much." + +"But limpets don't fleece rocks," said Anna. + +"He wouldn't be able to fleece me, _I_ know, if I could talk German as +well as you do. But you'll be soft and weak and amiable, and he'll do as +he likes with you." + +"Soft, and weak, and amiable!" repeated Anna, smiling at Susie's +adjectives, "why, I thought I was obstinate--you always said I was." + +"So you are. But you won't be to that man. He'll get round you." + +"Uncle Joachim said he was excellent." + +"Oh, I daresay he wasn't bad with a man over him who knew all about +farming, but mark my words, _you_ won't get two thousand a year out of +the place." + +Anna was silent. Susie was invariably shrewd and sensible, if inclined, +Anna thought, to be over suspicious, in matters where money was +concerned. Dellwig's face was not one to inspire confidence: and his way +of shouting when he talked, and of talking incessantly, was already +intolerable to her. She was not sure, either, that his wife was any more +satisfactory. She too shouted, and Anna detested noise. The wife did not +appear again, and had evidently gone home with her husband, for a great +silence had fallen upon the house, broken only by the monotonous sighing +of the forest, and the pattering of rain against the window. + +The dining-room was a long narrow room, with one big window forming its +west end looking out on to the grass plot, the ditch, and the gate-posts +with the eagles on them. It was a study in chocolate--brown paper, brown +carpet, brown rep curtains, brown cane chairs. There were two wooden +sideboards painted brown facing each other down at the dark end, with a +collection of miscellaneous articles on them: a vinegar cruet that had +stood there for years, with remains of vinegar dried up at the bottom; +mustard pots containing a dark and wicked mixture that had once been +mustard; a broken hand-bell used at long-past dinners, to summon +servants long since dead; an old wine register with entries in it of a +quarter of a century back; a mouldy bottle of Worcester sauce, still +boasting on its label that it would impart a relish to viands otherwise +dull; and some charming Dresden china fruit-dishes, adorned with +cheerful shepherds and shepherdesses, incurable optimists, persistently +pleased with themselves and their surroundings through all the days and +nights of all the cold silent years that they had been smiling at each +other in the dark. On the round dinner-table was a pot of lilies of the +valley, enveloped in crinkly pink tissue paper tied round with pink +satin ribbon, with ears of the paper drawn up between the flower-stalks +to produce a pleasing contrast of pink and white. + +"Well, it's warm enough here, isn't it?" said Susie, going round the +room and examining these things with an interest far exceeding that +called forth by the art treasures of Berlin. + +"Rather," said Letty, answering for everybody, and rubbing her hands. +She frolicked about the room, peeping into all the corners, opening the +cupboards, trying the sofa, and behaving in so frisky a fashion that her +mother, who seldom saw her at home, and knew her only as a naughty +gloomy girl, turned once or twice from the interesting sideboards to +stare at her inquiringly through her lorgnette. + +The servant with the surprised eyebrows, who presently brought in the +soup, had put on a pair of white cotton gloves for the ceremony of +waiting, but still wore her felt slippers. She put the plates in a pile +on the edge of the table, murmured something in German, and ran out +again; nor did she come back till she brought the next course, when she +behaved in a precisely similar manner, and continued to do so throughout +the meal; the diners, having no bell, being obliged to sit patiently +during the intervals, until she thought that they might perhaps be ready +for some more. + +It was an odd meal, and began with cold chocolate soup with frothy white +things that tasted of vanilla floating about in it. Susie was so much +interested in this soup that she forgot all about Hilton, who had been +driven ignominiously to the back door and was left sitting in the +kitchen till the two servants should have time to take her upstairs, and +was employing the time composing a speech of a spirited nature in which +she intended giving her mistress notice the moment she saw her again. + +Her mistress meanwhile was meditatively turning over the vanilla balls +in her soup. "Well, I don't like it," she said at last, laying down her +spoon. + +"Oh, it's ripping!" cried her daughter ecstatically. "It's like having +one's pudding at the other end." + +"How can you look at chocolate after Berlin, greedy girl?" asked her +mother, disgusted by her child's obvious tendency towards a too free +indulgence in the pleasures of the table. But Letty was feeling so +jovial that in the face of this question she boldly asked for more--a +request that was refused indignantly and at once. + +There was such a long pause after the soup that in their hunger they +began to eat the stewed apples and bottled cherries that were on the +table. The brown bread, arranged in thin slices on a white crochet mat +in a japanned dish, felt so damp and was so full of caraway seeds that +it was uneatable. After a while some roach, caught on the estate, and +with a strong muddy flavour and bewildering multitudes of bones, was +brought in; and after that came cutlets from Anna's pigs; and after that +a queer red gelatinous pudding that tasted of physic; and after that, +the meal being evidently at an end, Susie, who was very hungry, remarked +that if all the food were going to be like those specimens they had +better return at once to England, or they would certainly be starved. +"It's a good thing you are not going to stay here, Anna," she said, "for +you'd have to make a tremendous fuss before you'd get them to leave off +treating you like a pig. Look here--teaspoons to eat the pudding with, +and the same fork all the way through. It's a beastly hole"--Letty's +eyebrows telegraphed triumphantly across to Miss Leech, "Well, did you +hear that?"--"and we ought to have stayed in Berlin. There was nothing +to be gained at all by coming here." + +"Perhaps the dinner to-night will be better," said Anna, trying to +comfort her, and little knowing that they had just eaten the dinner; but +people who are hungry are surprisingly impervious to the influence of +fair words. "It couldn't be worse, anyhow, so it really will probably be +better. I'm very glad though that we did come, for I like it." + +"Oh, yes, so do I, Aunt Anna!" cried Letty. "It's frightfully nice. It's +like a picnic that doesn't leave off. When are we going over the house, +and out into the garden? I do so want to go--oh, I do so want to go!" +And she jumped up and down impatiently on her chair, till her ardour was +partially quenched by her mother's forbidding her to go out of doors in +the rain. "Well, let's go over the house, then," said Letty, dying to +explore. + +"Oh, yes, you may go over the house," said her mother with a shrug of +displeasure; though why she should be displeased it would have puzzled +anyone who had dined satisfactorily to explain. Then she suddenly +remembered Hilton, and with an exclamation started off in search of her. + +The others put on their furs before going into the Arctic atmosphere of +the hall, and began to explore, spending the next hour very pleasantly +rambling all over the house, while Susie, who had found Hilton, remained +shut up in the bedroom allotted her till supper time. + +The cook showed Anna her bedroom, and when she had gone, Anna gave one +look round at the evergreen wreaths with which it was decorated and +which filled it with a pungent, baked smell, and then ran out to see +what her house was like. Her heart was full of pride and happiness as +she wandered about the rooms and passages. The magic word _mine_ rang in +her ears, and gave each piece of furniture a charm so ridiculously great +that she would not have told any one of it for the world. She took up +the different irrelevant ornaments that were scattered through the +rooms, collected as such things do collect, nobody knew when or why, and +she put them down again somewhere else, only because she had the right +to alter things and she loved to remind herself of it. She patted the +walls and the tables as she passed; she smoothed down the folds of the +curtains with tender touches; she went up to every separate +looking-glass and stood in front of it a moment, so that there should be +none that had not reflected the image of its mistress. She was so +childishly delighted with her scanty possessions that she was thankful +Susie remained invisible and did not come out and scoff. + +What if it seemed an odd, bare place to eyes used to the superfluity of +hangings and stuffings that prevailed at Estcourt? These bare boards, +these shabby little mats by the side of the beds, the worn foxes' skins +before the writing-tables, the cane or wooden chairs, the white calico +curtains with meek cotton fringes, the queer little prints on the walls, +the painted wooden bedsteads, seemed to her in their very poorness and +unpretentiousness to be emblematical of all the virtues. As she lingered +in the quiet rooms, while Letty raced along the passages, Anna said to +herself that this Spartan simplicity, this absence of every luxury that +could still further soften an already languid and effeminate soul, was +beautiful. Here, as in the whitewashed praying-places of the Puritans, +if there were any beauty and any glory it must all come from within, be +all of the spirit, be only the beauty of a clean life and the glory of +kind thoughts. She pictured herself waking up in one of those unadorned +beds with the morning sun shining on her face, and rising to go her +daily round of usefulness in her quiet house, where there would be no +quarrels, and no pitiful ambitions, and none of those many bitter +heartaches that need never be. Would they not be happy days, those days +of simple duties? "The better life--the better life," she repeated +musingly, standing in the middle of the big room through whose tall +windows she could see the garden, and a strip of marshy land, and then +the grey sea and the white of the gulls and the dark line of the Ruegen +coast over which the dusk was gathering; and she counted on her fingers +mechanically, "Simplicity, frugality, hard work. Uncle Joachim said +_that_ was the better life, and he was wise--oh, he was very wise--but +still----And he loved me, and understood me, but still----" + +Looking up she caught sight of herself in a long glass opposite, a slim +figure in a fur cloak, with bare head and pensive eyes, lost in +reflection. It reminded her of the day the letter came, when she stood +before the glass in her London bedroom dressed for dinner, with that +same sentence of his persistently in her ears, and how she had not been +able to imagine herself leading the life it described. Now, in her +travelling dress, pale and tired and subdued after the long journey, +shorn of every grace of clothes and curls, she criticised her own +fatuity in having held herself to be of too fine a clay, too delicate, +too fragile, for a life that might be rough. "Oh, vain and foolish one!" +she said aloud, apostrophising the figure in the glass with the familiar +_Du_ of the days before her mother died, "Art thou then so much better +than others, that thou must for ever be only ornamental and an expense? +Canst thou not live, except in luxury? Or walk, except on carpets? Or +eat, except thy soup be not of chocolate? Go to the ants, thou sluggard; +consider their ways, and be wise." And she wrapped herself in her cloak, +and frowned defiance at that other girl. + +She was standing scowling at herself with great disapproval when the +housemaid, who had been searching for her everywhere, came to tell her +that the Herr Oberinspector was downstairs, and had sent up to know if +his visit were convenient. + +It was not at all convenient; and Anna thought that he might have spared +her this first evening at least. But she supposed that she must go down +to him, feeling somehow unequal to sending so authoritative a person +away. + +She found him standing in the inner hall with a portfolio under his arm. +He was blowing his nose, making a sound like the blast of a trumpet, and +waking the echoes. Not even that could he do quietly, she thought, her +new sense of proprietorship oddly irritated by a nose being blown so +aggressively in her house. Besides, they were her echoes that he was +disturbing. She smiled at her own childishness. + +She greeted him kindly, however, in response to his elaborate +obeisances, and shook hands on seeing that he expected to be shaken +hands with, though she had done so twice already that afternoon; and +then she let herself be ushered by him into the drawing-room, a room on +the garden side of the house, with French windows, and bookshelves, and +a huge round polished table in the middle. + +It had been one of the two rooms used by Uncle Joachim, and was full of +traces of his visits. She sat down at a big writing-table with a green +cloth top, her feet plunged in the long matted hairs of a grey rug, and +requested Dellwig to sit down near her, which he did, saying +apologetically, "I will be so free." + +The servant, Marie, brought in a lamp with a green shade, shut the +shutters, and went out again on tiptoe; and Anna settled herself to +listen with what patience she could to the loud voice that jarred so on +her nerves, fortifying herself with reminders that it was her duty, and +really taking pains to understand him. Nor did she say a word, as she +had done to the lawyer, that might lead him to suppose she did not +intend living there. + +But Dellwig's ceaseless flow of talk soon wearied her to such an extent +that she found steady attention impossible. To understand the mere words +was in itself an effort, and she had not yet learned the German for rye +and oats and the rest, and it was of these that he chiefly talked. What +was the use of explaining to her in what way he had ploughed and manured +and sown certain fields, how they lay, how big they were, and what their +soil was, when she had not seen them? Did he imagine that she could keep +all these figures and details in her head? "I know nothing of farming," +she said at last, "and shall understand your plans better when I have +seen the estate." + +"_Natuerlich, natuerlich_," shouted Dellwig, his voice in strangest +contrast to hers, which was particularly sweet and gentle. "Here I have +a map--does the gracious Miss permit that I show it?" + +The gracious Miss inclined her tired head, and he unrolled it and spread +it out on the table, pointing with his fat forefinger as he explained +the boundaries, and the divisions into forest, pasture, and arable. + +"It seems to be nearly all forest," said Anna. + +"Forest! The forest covers two-thirds of the estate. It is the only +forest on the entire promontory. Such care as I have bestowed on the +forest has seldom been seen. It is _grossartig--colossal_!" And he +lifted his hands the better to express his admiration, and was about to +go into lengthy raptures when the map rolled itself up again with loud +cracklings, and cut him short. He spread it out once more, and securing +its corners began to describe the effects of the various sorts of +artificial manure on the different crops, his cleverness in combining +them, and his latest triumphant discovery of the superlative mixture +that was to strike all Pomerania with awe. + +"_Ja_," said Anna, balancing a paper-knife on one finger, and profoundly +bored. "Whose land is that next to mine?" she asked, pointing. + +"The land on the north and west belongs to peasants," said Dellwig. "On +the east is the sea. On the south it is all Lohm. The gracious one +passed through the village of Lohm this afternoon." + +"The village where the school is?" + +"Quite correct. The pastor, Herr Manske, a worthy man, but, like all +pastors, taking ells when he is offered inches, serves both that church +and the little one in Kleinwalde village, of which the gracious Miss is +patroness. Herr von Lohm, who lives in the house standing back from the +road, and perhaps noticed by the gracious Miss, is Amtsvorsteher in both +villages." + +"What is Amtsvorsteher?" asked Anna, languidly. She was leaning back in +her chair, idly balancing the paper-knife, and listening with half an +ear only to Dellwig, throwing in questions every now and then when she +thought she ought to say something. She did not look at him, preferring +much to look at the paper-knife, and he could examine her face at his +ease in the shadow of the lamp-shade, her dark eyelashes lowered, her +profile only turned to him, with its delicate line of brow and nose, and +the soft and gracious curves of the mouth and chin and throat. One hand +lay on the table in the circle of light, a slender, beautiful hand, full +of character and energy, and the other hung listlessly over the arm of +the chair. Anna was very tired, and showed it in every line of her +attitude; but Dellwig was not tired at all, was used to talking, enjoyed +at all times the sound of his voice, and on this occasion felt it to be +his duty to make things clear. So he went into the lengthiest details as +to the nature and office of Amtsvorstehers, details that were perfectly +incomprehensible and wholly indifferent to Anna, and spared neither +himself nor her. While he talked, however, he was criticising her, +comparing the laziness of her attitude with the brisk and respectful +alertness of other women when he talked. He knew that these other women +belonged to a different class; his wife, the parson's wife, the wives of +the inspectors on other estates, these were not, of course, in the same +sphere as the new mistress of Kleinwalde; but she was only a woman, and +dress up a woman as you will, call her by what name you will, she is +nothing but a woman, born to help and serve, never by any possibility +even equal to a clever man like himself. Old Joachim might have lounged +as he chose, and put his feet on the table if it had seemed good to him, +and Dellwig would have accepted it with unquestioning respect as an +eccentricity of _Herrschaften_; but a woman had no sort of right, he +said to himself, while he so fluently discoursed, to let herself go in +the presence of her natural superior. Unfortunately, old Joachim, so +level-headed an old gentleman in all other respects, had placed the +power over his fortunes in the hands of this weak female leaning back so +unbecomingly in her chair, playing with the objects on the table, never +raising her eyes to his, and showing indeed, incredible as it seemed, +every symptom of thinking of something else. The women of his +acquaintance were, he was certain, worth individually fifty such +affected, indifferent young ladies. They worked early and late to make +their husbands comfortable; they were well practised in every art +required of women living in the country; they were models of thrift and +diligence; yet, with all their virtues and all their accomplishments, +they never dreamed of lounging or not listening when a man was speaking, +but sat attentively on the edge of their chairs, straight in the back +and seemly, and when he had finished said _Jawohl_. + +Anna certainly did sit very much at her ease, and instead of attending, +as she ought to have done, to his description of Amtsvorstehers, was +thinking of other things. Dellwig had thick lips that could not be +hidden entirely by his grizzled moustache and beard, and he had the sort +of eyes known to the inelegant but truthful as fishy, and a big +obstinate nose, and a narrow obstinate forehead, and a long body and +short legs; and though all this, Anna told herself, was not in the least +his fault and should not in any way prejudice her against him, she felt +that she was justified in wishing that his manners were less offensive, +less boastful and boisterous, and that he did not bite his nails. "I +wonder," she thought, her eyes carefully fixed on the paper-knife, but +conscious of his every look and movement, "I wonder if he is as artful +as he looks. Surely Uncle Joachim must have known what he was like, and +would never have told me to keep him if he had not been honest. Perhaps +he is perfectly honest, and when I meet him in heaven how ashamed I +shall be of myself for having had doubts!" And then she fell to musing +on what sort of an appearance a chastened and angelic Dellwig would +probably present, and looked up suddenly at him with new interest. + +"I trust I have made myself comprehensible?" he was asking, having just +come to the end of what he felt was a masterly _resume_ of Herr von +Lohm's duties. + +"I beg your pardon?" said Anna, bringing her thoughts back with +difficulty from the consideration of nimbuses, "Oh, about +Amtsvorstehers--no," she said, shaking her head, "you have not. But that +is my fault. I can't understand everything at once. I shall do better +later on." + +"_Natuerlich, natuerlich_," Dellwig vehemently assured her, while he made +inward comments on the innate incapacity of all _Weiber_, as he called +them, to grasp the simplest fact connected with law and justice. + +"Tell me about the livestock," said Anna, remembering Uncle Joachim's +frequent and affectionate allusions to his swine. "Are there many pigs?" + +"Pigs?" repeated Dellwig, lifting up his hands as though mere words were +insufficient to express his feelings, "such pigs as the gracious Miss +now possesses are nowhere else to be found in Pomerania. They are the +pride, and at the same time the envy, of the whole province. 'Let my +sausages,' said the Herr Landrath last winter, when the time for killing +drew near, 'let my sausages consist solely of the pigs reared at +Kleinwalde by my friend the Oberinspector Dellwig.' The Frau Landraethin +was deeply injured, for she too breeds and fattens pigs, but not like +ours--not like ours." + +"Who is the Herr Landrath?" asked Anna absently; but immediately +remembering the description of the Amtsvorsteher she added quickly, +"Never mind--don't explain. I suppose he is some sort of an official, +and I shall not be quite clear about these different officials till I +have lived here some time." + +"_Natuerlich, natuerlich_," agreed Dellwig; and leaving the Landrath +unexplained he launched forth into a dissertation on Anna's pigs, whose +excellencies, it appeared, were wholly due to the unrivalled skill he +had for years displayed in their treatment. "I have no children," he +said, with a resigned and pious upward glance, "and my wife's maternal +instincts find their satisfaction in tending and fattening these fine +animals. She cannot listen to their cries the day they are killed, and +withdraws into the cellar, where she prepares the stuffing. The gracious +Miss ate the cutlets of one this very day. It was killed on purpose." + +"Was it? I wish it hadn't been," said Anna, frowning at the remembrance +of that meal. "I--I don't want things killed on my account. I--don't +like pig." + +"Not like pig?" echoed Dellwig, dropping his lower jaw in his amazement. +"Did I understand aright that the gracious one does not eat pig's flesh +gladly? And my wife and I who thought to prepare a joy for her!" He +clasped his hands together and stared at her in dismay. Indeed, he was +so much overcome by this extraordinary and wilful spurning of nature's +best gifts that for a moment he was silent, and knew not how he should +proceed. Were there not concentrated in the body of a single pig a +greater diversity of joys than in any other form of pleasure that he +could call to mind? Did it not include, besides the profounder delights +of its roasted ribs, such solid satisfactions as hams, sausages, and +bacon? Did not its liver, discreetly manipulated, rival the livers of +Strasburg geese in delicacy? Were not its brains a source of mutual +congratulation to an entire family at supper? Did not its very snout, +boiled with peas, make an otherwise inferior soup delicious? The ribs of +this particular pig were reposing at that moment in a cool place, +carefully shielded from harm by his wife, reserved for the Easter Sunday +dinner of their new mistress, who, having begun at her first meal with +the lesser joys of cutlets, was to be fed with different parts in the +order of their excellence till the climax of rejoicing was reached on +Easter Day in the dish of _Schweinebraten_, and who was now declaring, +in a die-away, affected sort of voice, that she did not want to eat pig +at all. Where, then, was her vulnerable point? How would he ever be able +to touch her, to influence her, if she was indifferent to the chief +means of happiness known to the dwellers in those parts? That was the +real aim and end of his labours, of the labours, as far as he could see, +of everyone else--to make as much money as possible in order to live as +well as possible; and what did living well mean if it did not mean the +best food? And what was the best food if not pig? Not to be killed on +her account! On whose account, then, could they be killed? With an owner +always about the place, and refusing to have pigs killed, how would he +and his wife be able to indulge, with satisfactory frequency, in their +favourite food, or offer it to their expectant friends on Sundays? He +mourned old Joachim, who so seldom came down, and when he did ate his +share of pork like a man, more sincerely at that moment than he would +have thought possible. "_Mein seliger Herr_," he burst out brokenly, +completely upset by the difference between uncle and niece, "_mein +seliger Herr_----" And then, unable to go on, fell to blowing his nose +with violence, for there were real tears in his eyes. + +Anna looked up, surprised. She thought he had been speaking of pigs, and +here he was on a sudden bewailing his late master. When she saw the +tears she was deeply touched. "Poor man," she said to herself, "how +unjust I have been. Of course he loved dear Uncle Joachim; and my coming +here, an utter stranger, taking possession of everything, must be very +dreadful for him." She got up, at once anxious, as she always was, to +comfort and soothe anyone who was sad, and put her hand gently on his +arm. "I loved him too," she said softly, "and you who knew him so long +must feel his death dreadfully. We will try and keep everything just as +he would have liked it, won't we? You know what his wishes were, and +must help me to carry them out. You cannot have loved him more than I +did--dear Uncle Joachim!" + +She felt very near tears herself, and condoned the sonorous nose-blowing +as the expression of an honourable emotion. + +And Dellwig, when he presently reached his home and was met at the door +by his wife's eager "Well, how was she?" laconically replied "Mad." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +When Anna woke next morning she had a confused idea that something +annoying had happened the evening before, but she had slept so heavily +that she could not at once recollect what it was. Then, the sun on her +face waking her up more thoroughly, she remembered that Susie had stayed +upstairs with Hilton till supper time, had then come down, glanced with +unutterable disgust at the raw ham, cold sausage, eggs, and tepid coffee +of which the evening meal was composed, refused to eat, refused to +speak, refused utterly to smile, and afterwards in the drawing-room had +announced her fixed intention of returning to England the next day. + +Anna had protested and argued in vain; nothing could shake this sudden +determination. To all her expostulations and entreaties Susie replied +that she had never yet dwelt among savages and she was not going to +begin now; so Anna was forced to conclude that Hilton had been making a +scene, and knowing the effect of Hilton's scenes she gave up attempting +to persuade, but told her with outward firmness and inward quakings that +she herself could not possibly go too. + +Susie had been very angry at this, and still more angry at the reason +Anna gave, which was that, having invited the parson and his wife to +dinner on Saturday, she could not break her engagement. Susie told her +that as she would never see either of them again--for surely she would +never again want to come to this place?--it was absurd to care twopence +what they thought of her. What on earth did it matter if two inhabitants +of the desert were offended or not offended once she was on the other +side of the sea? And what did it matter at all how she treated them? She +heaped such epithets as absurd, stupid, and idiotic on Anna's head, but +Anna was not to be moved. She threatened to take Miss Leech and Letty +away with her, and leave Anna a prey to the criticisms of Mrs. Grundy, +and Anna said she could not prevent her doing so if she chose. Susie +became more and more excited, more and more Dobbs, goaded by the +recollection of what she had gone through with Hilton, and Anna, as +usual under such circumstances, grew very silent. Letty sat listening in +an agony of fright lest this cup of new experiences were about to be +dashed prematurely from her eager lips; and Miss Leech discreetly left +the room, though not in the least knowing where to go, finally seeking +to drive away the nervous fears that assailed her in her lonely, +creaking bedroom, where rats were gnawing at the woodwork, by thinking +hard of Mr. Jessup, who on this occasion proved to be but a broken reed, +pitted against the stern reality of rats. + +The end of it, after Susie had poured out the customary reproaches of +gross ingratitude and forgetfulness of all she had done for Anna for +fifteen long years, was that Miss Leech and Letty were to stay on as +originally intended, and come home with Anna towards the end of the +holidays, and Susie would leave with Hilton the very next day. + +Anna's attempt to make it up when she said good-night was repulsed with +energy. Anna was for ever doing aggravating things, and then wanting to +make it up; but makings up without having given in an inch seemed to +Susie singularly unsatisfactory ceremonies. Oh, these Estcourts and +their obstinacy! She marched off to bed in high indignation, an +indignation not by any means allowed to cool by Hilton during the +process of undressing; and Anna, worn out, fell asleep the moment she +lay down, and woke up, as she had pictured herself doing in that odd +wooden bed, with the morning sun shining full on her face. + +It was a bright and lovely day, and on the side of the house where she +slept she could not hear the wind, which was still blowing from the +north-west. She opened one of her three big windows and let the cold air +rush into her room, where the curious perfume of the baked evergreen +wreaths festooned round the walls and looking-glass and dressing-table, +joined to the heat from the stove, produced a heavy atmosphere that made +her gasp. Somebody must already have been in her room, for the stove had +been lit again, and she could see the peat blazing inside its open door. +But outside, what a divine coldness and purity! She leaned out, drinking +it in in long breaths, the warm March sun shining on her head. The +garden, a mere uncared-for piece of rough grass with big trees, was +radiant with rain-drops; the strip of sea was a deep blue now, with +crests of foam; the island coast opposite was a shadowy streak stretched +across the feet of the sun. Oh, it was beautiful to stand at that open +window in the freshness, listening to the robin on the bare lilac bush a +few yards away, to the quarrelling of the impudent sparrows on the path +below, to the wind in the branches of the trees, to all the happy +morning sounds of nature. A joyous feeling took possession of her heart, +a sudden overpowering delight in what are called common things--mere +earth, sky, sun, and wind. How lovely life was on such a morning, in +such a clean, rain-washed, wind-scoured world. The wet smell of the +garden came up to her, a whiff of marshy smell from the water, a long +breath from the pines in the forest on the other side of the house. How +had she ever breathed at Estcourt? How had she escaped suffocation +without this life-giving smell of sea and forest? She looked down with +delight at the wildness of the garden; after the trim Estcourt lawns, +what a relief this was. This was all liberty, freedom from +conventionality, absolute privacy; that was an everlasting clipping, and +trimming, and raking, a perpetual stumbling upon gardeners at every +step, for Susie would not be outdone by her greater neighbours in these +matters. What was Hill Street looking like this fine March morning? All +the blinds down, all the people in bed--how far away, how shadowy it +was; a street inhabited by sleepy ghosts, with phantom milkmen rattling +spectral cans beneath their windows. What a dream that life lived up to +three days ago seemed in this morning light of reality. White clouds, +like the clouds in Raphael's backgrounds, were floating so high overhead +that they could not be hurried by the wind; a black cat sat in a patch +of sunshine on the path washing itself; somebody opened a lower window, +and there was a noise of sweeping, presently made indistinguishable by +the chorale sung by the sweeper, no doubt Marie, in a pious, Good Friday +mood. "_Lob Gott ihr Christen allzugleich_," chanted Marie, keeping time +with her broom. Her voice was loud and monotonous, but Anna listened +with a smile, and would have liked to join in, and so let some of her +happiness find its way out. + +She dressed quickly. There was no hot water, and no bell to ring for +some, and she did not choose to call down from the window and interrupt +the hymn, so she used cold water, assuring herself that it was bracing. +Then she put on her hat and coat and stole out, afraid of disturbing +Susie, who was lying a few yards away filled with smouldering wrath, +anxious to have at least one quiet hour before beginning a day that she +felt sure was going to be a day of worries. "There will be great peace +to-night when she is gone," she thought, and immediately felt ashamed +that she should look forward to being without her. "But I have never +been without her since I was ten," she explained apologetically to her +offended conscience, "and I want to see how I feel." + +"_Guten Morgen_," said Marie, as Anna came into the drawing-room on her +way out through its French windows. + +"_Guten Morgen_," said Anna cheerfully. + +Marie leaned on her broom and watched her go down the garden, greedily +taking in every detail of her clothes, profoundly interested in a being +who went out into the mud where nobody could see her with such a dress +on, and whose shoes would not have been too big for Marie's small sister +aged nine. + +The evening before, indeed, Marie had beheld such a vision as she had +never yet in her life seen, or so much as imagined; her new mistress had +appeared at supper in what was evidently a _herrschaftliche Ballkleid_, +with naked arms and shoulders, and the other ladies were attired in much +the same way. The young Fraeulein, it is true, showed no bare flesh, but +even she was arrayed in white, and her hair magnificently tied up with +ribbons. Marie had rushed out to tell the cook, and the cook, refusing +to believe it, had carried in a supererogatory dish of compot as an +excuse for securing the assurance of her own eyes; and Bertha from the +farm, coming round with a message from the Frau Oberinspector, had seen +it too through the crack of the kitchen door as the ladies left the +dining-room, and had gone off breathlessly to spread the news; and the +post cart just leaving with the letters had carried it to Lohm, and +every inhabitant of every house between Kleinwalde and Stralsund knew +all about it before bedtime. "What did I tell thee, wife?" said Dellwig, +who, in spite of his superiority to the sex that served, listened as +eagerly as any member of it to gossip; and his wife was only too ready +to label Anna mad or eccentric as a slight private consolation for +having passed out of the service of a comprehensible German gentleman +into that of a woman and a foreigner. + +Unconscious of the interest and curiosity she was exciting for miles +round, pleased by Marie's artless piety, and filled with kindly feelings +towards all her neighbours, Anna stood at the end of the garden looking +over the low hedge that divided it from the marsh and the sea, and +thought that she had never seen a place where it would be so easy to be +good. Complete freedom from the wearisome obligations of society, an +ideal privacy surrounded by her woods and the water, a scanty population +of simple and devoted people--did not Dellwig shed tears at the +remembrance of his master?--every day spent here would be a day that +made her better, that would bring her nearer to that heaven in which all +good and simple souls dwelt while still on earth, the heaven of a serene +and quiet mind. Always she had longed to be good, and to help and +befriend those who had the same longing but in whom it had been +partially crushed by want of opportunity and want of peace. The healthy +goodness that goes hand in hand with happiness was what she meant; not +that tragic and futile goodness that grows out of grief, that lifts its +head miserably in stony places, that flourishes in sick rooms and among +desperate sorrows, and goes to God only because all else is lost. She +went round the house and crossed the road into the forest. The fresh +wind blew in her face, and shook down the drops from the branches on her +as she passed. The pine needles of other years made a thick carpet for +her feet. The sun gleamed through the straight trunks and warmed her. +The restless sighing overheard in the tree tops filled her ears with +sweetest music. "I do believe the place is pleased that I have come!" +she thought, with a happy laugh. She came to a clearing in the trees, +opening out towards the north, and she could see the flat fields and the +wide sky and the sunshine chasing the shadows across the vivid green +patches that she had learned were winter rye. A hole at her feet, where +a tree had been uprooted, still had snow in it; but the larks were +singing above in the blue, as though from those high places they could +see Spring far away in the south, coming up slowly with the first +anemones in her hands, her face turned at last towards the patient +north. + +The strangest feeling of being for the first time in her life at home +came over Anna. This poor country, how sweet and touching it was. After +the English country, with its thickly scattered villages, and gardens, +and fields that looked like parks, it did seem very poor and very empty, +but intensely lovable. Like the furniture of her house, it struck her as +symbolic in its bareness of the sturdier virtues. The people who lived +in it must of necessity be frugal and hard-working if they would live at +all, wresting by sheer labour their life from the soil, braced by the +long winters to endurance and self-denial, their vices and their +languors frozen out of them whether they would or no. At least so +thought Anna, as she stood gazing out across the clearing at the fields +and sky. "Could one not be good here? Could one not be so, so good?" she +kept on murmuring. Then she remembered that she had been asking herself +vague questions like this ever since her arrival; and with a sudden +determination to face what was in her mind and think it out honestly, +she sat down on a tree stump, buttoned her coat up tight, for the wind +was blowing full on her, and fell to considering what she meant to do. + + * * * * * + +Susie did not go down to breakfast, but stayed in her bedroom on the +sofa drinking a glass of milk into which an egg had been beaten, and +listening to Hilton's criticisms of the German nation, delivered with +much venom while she packed. But Hilton, though her contempt for German +ways was so great as to be almost unutterable, was reconciled to a +mistress who had so quickly given in to her wish to be taken back to +Hill Street, and the venom was of an abstract nature, containing no +personal sting of unfavourable comparisons with duchesses; so that Susie +was sipping her milk in a fairly placid frame of mind when there was a +knock at the door, and Anna asked if she might come in. + +"Oh, yes, come in. Have you looked out the trains?" + +"Yes. There's only one decent one, and you'll have to leave directly +after luncheon. Won't you stay, Susie? You'll be so tired, going home +without resting." + +"Can't we leave before luncheon?" + +"Yes, of course, if you prefer to lunch at Stralsund." + +"Much. Have you ordered the shandrydan?" + +"Yes, for half-past one." + +"Then order it for half-past twelve. Hilton can drive with me." + +"So I thought." + +"Has that wretch been rubbing fish oil on it again?" + +"I don't think so, after what I said yesterday." + +"I shouldn't think what you said yesterday could have frightened him +much. You beamed at him as though he were your best friend." + +"Did I?" + +Anna was looking odd, Susie thought, and answering her remarks with a +nervous, abstracted air. She had apparently been out, for her dress was +muddy, and she was quite rosy, and her hair was not so neat as usual. +She stood about in an undecided sort of way, and glanced several times +at Hilton on her knees before a trunk. + +"Is that all the breakfast you are going to have?" she asked, becoming +aware of the glass of milk. + +"What other breakfast is there to have?" snapped Susie, who was hungry, +and would have liked a great deal more. + +"Well, the eggs and butter are very nice, anyway," said Anna, quite +evidently thinking of other things. + +"Now what has she got into her head?" Susie asked herself, watching her +sister-in-law with misgiving. Anna's new moods were never by any chance +of a sort to give Susie pleasure. Aloud she said tartly, "I can't eat +eggs and butter by themselves. I shouldn't have had anything at all if +it hadn't been for Hilton, who went into the kitchen and made me this +herself." + +"Excellent Hilton," said Anna absently. "Haven't you done packing yet, +Hilton?" + +"No, m'm." + +Anna sat down on the end of the sofa and began to twist the frills of +Susie's dressing-gown round her fingers. + +"I haven't closed my eyes all night," said Susie, putting on her martyr +look, "nor has Hilton." + +"Haven't you? Why not? I slept the sleep of the just--better, indeed, +than any just that I ever heard of." + +"What, didn't that man go into your room?" + +"What man? Oh, yes, Miss Leech was telling me about it. He lit the +stoves, didn't he? I never heard a sound." + +"You must have slept like a log then. Any one in the least sensitive +would have been frightened out of their senses. I was, and so was +Hilton. I wouldn't spend another night in this house for anything you +could give me." + +It appeared that Susie really had just cause for complaint. She had been +nervous the night before after Hilton had left her, unable to sleep, and +scared by the thought of their defencelessness--six women alone in that +wild place. She wished then with all her heart that Dellwig did live in +the house. Rats scampering about in the attic above added to her +terrors. The wind shook the windows of her room and howled +disconsolately up and down. She bore it as long as she could, which was +longer than most women would have borne it, and then knocked on the wall +dividing her room from Hilton's. But Hilton, with the bedclothes over +her head and all the candles she had been able to collect alight, would +not have stirred out of her room to save her mistress from dying; and +Susie, desperate at the prospect of the awful hours round midnight, made +one great effort of courage and sallied out to fetch her. Poor Susie, +standing shivering before her maid's bolted door, scantily clothed, +anxiously watching the flame of her candle that threatened each second +to be blown out, alone on the wide, draughty landing, frightened at the +sound of her own calls mingling weirdly with the creakings and hangings +of the tempest-shaken house, was an object deserving of pity. It took +some minutes to induce Hilton to open the door, and such minutes Susie +had not, in the course of an ordered and normal existence, yet passed. +They both went into Susie's room, locked themselves in, and Hilton lay +down on the sofa; and after a long time they fell into an uneasy sleep. +At half-past three Susie started up in bed; some one was trying to open +the door and knocking. The candles had burnt themselves out, and she +could not tell what time it was, but thought it must be early morning +and that the servant wanted to bring her hot water; and she woke Hilton +and bade her open the door. Hilton did so, gave a faint scream, and +flung herself back on the sofa, where she lay as one dead, her face +buried in the pillow. A man with a lantern and no shoes on was at the +door, and came in noiselessly. Susie was never nearer fainting in her +life. She sat in her bed, her cold hands clasped tightly round her +knees, her eyes fixed on this dreadful apparition, unable to speak or +move, paralysed by terror. This was the end, then, of all her hopes and +ambitions--to come to Pomerania and die like a dog. Then the sickening +feeling of fear gave way to one of overwhelming wrath when she found +that all the man wanted was to light her stove. On the same principle +that a child is shaken who has not after all been lost or run over, she +was speechless with rage now that she found that she was not, after all, +to be murdered. He was a very old man, and the light from the lantern +cast strange reflections on his face and figure as he crouched before +the stove. He mumbled as he worked, talking to the fire he was making as +though it were a person. "_Du willst nicht, brennen, Lump? Was? Na, +warte mal!_" And when he had finished, crept out again without glancing +at the occupants of the room, still mumbling. + +"It's the custom of the country, I suppose," said Anna. + +"Is it? Well the sooner we get out of such a country the better. You are +determined to stay in spite of everything? I can tell you I don't at all +like my child being here, but you force me to leave her because you know +very well that I can't let you stay here alone." + +Anna glanced at Hilton, folding a dress with immense deliberation. + +"Oh, Hilton knows what I think," said Susie, with a shrug. + +"But she doesn't know what _I_ think," said Anna. "I must talk to you +before you leave, so please let her finish packing afterwards. Go and +have your breakfast, Hilton." + +"Did you say breakfast, m'm?" inquired Hilton with an innocent look. + +"Breakfast?" repeated Susie; "poor thing, I'd like to know how and where +she is to get any." + +"Well, then, go and don't have your breakfast," said Anna impatiently. +She had something to tell Susie that must be told soon, and was not in a +mood to bear with Hilton's ways. + +"How hospitable," remarked Susie as the door closed. "Really you are a +delightful hostess." + +Anna laughed. "I don't mean to be brutal," she said, "but if we can +exist on the food without looking tragic I suppose she can too, +especially as it is only for one day." + +"My one consolation in leaving Letty here is that she will be dieted in +spite of herself. I expect you to bring her back quite thin." + +Anna got up restlessly and went to the window. + +"And whatever you do, don't forget that the return tickets only last +till the 24th. But you'll be sick of it long before then." + +Anna turned round and leaned her back against the window. The strong +morning light was on her hair, and her face was in shadow, yet Susie had +a feeling that she was looking guilty. + +"Susie, I've been thinking," she said with an effort. + +"Really? How nice." + +"Yes, it was, for I found out what it is that I must do if I mean to be +happy. But I'm afraid that _you_ won't think it nice, and will scold me. +Now don't scold me." + +"Well, tell me what it is." Susie lay staring at Anna's form against the +light, bracing herself to hear something disagreeable. She knew very +well from past experience that Anna's new plan, whatever it was, was +certain to be wild and foolish. + +"I am going to stay here." + +"I know you are, and I know that nothing I can say will make you change +your mind. Peter is just like you--the more I show him what a fool he's +going to make of himself the more he insists on doing it. He calls it +determination. Average people like myself, with smaller and more easily +managed brains than you two wonders have got, call it pigheadedness." + +"I don't mean only for Letty's holidays; I mean for good." + +"For good?" Susie opened her mouth and stared in much the same blank +consternation that Dellwig had shown on hearing that she did not like +eating pig. + +"Don't be angry with me," said Anna, coming over to the sofa and sitting +on the floor by Susie's side; and she caught hold of her hand and began +to talk fast and eagerly. "I always intended spending this money in +helping poor people, but didn't quite know in what way--now I see my way +clearly, and I must, _must_ go it. Don't you remember in the catechism +there's the duty towards God and the duty towards one's neighbour----" + +"Oh, if you're going to talk religion----" said Susie, pulling away her +hand in great disgust. + +"No, no, do listen," said Anna, catching it again and stroking it while +she talked, to Susie's intense irritation, who hated being stroked. + +"If you are going into the catechism," she said, "Hilton had better come +in again. It might do her good." + +"No, no--I only wanted to say that there's another duty not in the +catechism, greater than the duty towards one's neighbour----" + +"My dear Anna, it isn't likely that you can improve on the catechism. +And fancy wanting to, at breakfast time. Don't stroke my hand--it gives +me the fidgets." + +"But I want to explain things--do listen. The duty the catechism leaves +out is the duty towards oneself. You can't get away from your duties, +you know, Susie----" And she knit her brows in her effort to follow out +her thought. + +"My goodness, as though I ever tried! If ever a poor woman did her duty, +I'm that woman." + +"--and I believe that if I do those two duties, towards my neighbour and +myself, I shall be doing my duty towards God." + +Susie gave her body an impatient twist. She thought it positively +indecent to speak of sacred things so early in the morning in cold +blood. "What has this drivel to do with your stopping here?" she asked +angrily. + +"It has everything to do with it--my duty towards myself is to be as +happy and as good as possible, and my duty towards my neighbour----" + +"Oh, bother your neighbour and your duty!" cried Susie in exasperation. + +"--is to help him to be good and happy too." + +"Him? Her, I hope. Don't forget decency, my dear. A girl has no duties +whatever towards male neighbours." + +"Well, I do mean her," said Anna, looking up and laughing. + +"So you think that by living here you'll make yourself happy?" + +"Yes, I do--I do think so. Perhaps I am wrong, and shall find out I'm +wrong, but I must try." + +"You'll leave all your friends and relations and stay in this +God-forsaken place where you can't even live like a lady?" + +"Uncle Joachim said it was my one chance of leading the better life." + +"Unutterable old fool," said Susie with bitterest contempt. "That money, +then, is going to be thrown away on Germans? As though there weren't +poor people enough in England, if your ambition is to pose as a +benefactress!" + +"Oh, I don't want to pose as anything--I only want to help unhappy +wretches," cried Anna, laying her cheek caressingly on Susie's unwilling +hand. "Now don't scold me--forgive me if I'm silly, and be patient with +me till I find out that I've made a goose of myself and come creeping +back to you and Peter. But I _must_ do it--I _must_ try--I _will_ do +what I think is right." + +"And who are the wretches, pray, who are to be made happy?" + +"Oh, those I am sorriest for--that no one else helps--the genteel ones, +if I can only get at them." + +"I never heard of genteel wretches," said Susie. + +Anna laughed again. "I was thinking it all out in the forest this +morning," she said, "and it suddenly flashed across me that this big +roomy house was never meant not to be used, and that instead of going to +see poor people and giving them money in the ordinary way, it would be +so much better to let women of the better classes, who have no money, +and who are dependent and miserable, come and live with me and share +mine, and have everything that I have--exactly the same, with no +difference of any sort. There is room for twelve at least, and wouldn't +it be beautiful to make twelve people, who had lost all hope and all +courage, happy for the rest of their days?" + +"Oh, the girl's mad!" cried Susie, springing up from the sofa, no longer +able to bear herself. She began to walk about the room, not knowing what +to say or do, absolutely without sympathy for beneficent impulses, at +all times possessed of a fine scorn for ideals, feeling that no argument +would be of any avail with an Estcourt whose mind was made up, shocked +that good money, so hard to get, and so very precious when got, should +be thrown away in such a manner, bewildered by the difficulties of the +situation, for how could a girl of Anna's age live alone, and direct a +house full of objects of charity? Would the objects themselves be a +sufficient chaperonage? Would her friends at home think so? Would they +not blame her, Susie, for having allowed all this? As though she could +prevent it! Or would they expect her to stay with Anna in this place +till she should marry? As though anybody would ever marry such a +lunatic! "Mad, mad, mad!" cried Susie, wringing her hands. + +"I was afraid that you wouldn't like it," said the culprit on the floor, +watching her with a distressed face. + +"Like it? Oh--mad, mad!" And she continued to walk and wring her hands. + +"Well, you'll stay, then," she said, suddenly stopping in front of Anna, +"I know you well enough, and shall waste no breath arguing. That +infatuated old man's money has turned your head--I didn't know it was so +weak. But look into your heart when I am gone--you'll have time enough +and quiet enough--and ask yourself honestly whether what you are going +to do is a proper way of paying back all I have done for you, and all +the expense you have been. You know what my wishes are about you, and +you don't care one jot. Gratitude! There isn't a spark of it in your +whole body. Never was there a more selfish creature, and I can't believe +that ingratitude and selfishness are the stuff that makes saints. Don't +dare to talk any more rot about duty to your neighbour to me. An +Englishwoman to come and spend her money on German charities----" + +"It's German money," murmured Anna. + +"And to _live_ here--to live _here_--oh, mad, mad!" And Susie's +indignation threatening to choke her, she resumed her walk and her +gesticulations, her high heels tapping furiously on the bare boards. + +She longed to take Letty and Miss Leech away with her that very morning, +and punish Anna by leaving her entirely alone; but she did not dare +because of Peter. Peter was always on Anna's side when there were +differences, and would be sure to do something dreadful when he heard of +it--perhaps come and live here too, and never go back to his wife any +more. Oh, these half Germans! Why had she married into a family with +such a taint in its blood? "You will have to have some one here," she +said, turning on Anna, who still sat on the floor by the sofa, a look on +her face of apology and penitence mixed with firmness that Susie well +knew. "How can you stay here alone? I shall leave Miss Leech with you +till the end of the holidays, though I hate to seem to encourage you; +but then you see I do my duty and always have, though I don't talk about +it. When I get home I shall look for some elderly woman who won't mind +coming here and seeing that you don't make yourself too much of a +by-word, and the day she comes you are to send me back my child." + +"It is good of you to let me keep Letty, dear Susie----" + +"Dear Susie!" + +"But I don't mean to be a by-word, as you call it," continued Anna, the +ghost of a smile lurking in her eyes, "and I don't want an Englishwoman. +What use would she be here? She wouldn't understand if it was a German +by-word that I turned into. I thought about asking the parson how I had +better set about getting a German lady--a grave and sober female, +advanced in years, as Uncle Joachim wrote." + +"Oh, Uncle Joachim----" Susie could hardly endure to hear the name. It +was that odious old man who had filled Anna's head with these ideas. To +leave her money was admirable, but to influence a weak girl's mind with +his wishy-washy German philosophy about the better life and such +rubbish, as he evidently had done during those excursions with her, was +conduct so shameful that she found no words strong enough to express her +opinion of it. Everyone would blame her for what had happened, everyone +would jeer at her, and say that the moment an opportunity of escape had +presented itself Anna had seized it, preferring an existence of +loneliness and hardship--any sort of existence--to all the pleasures of +civilised life in Susie's company. Peter would certainly be very angry +with her, and reproach her with not having made Anna happy enough. Happy +enough! The girl had cost her at least three hundred a year, what with +her expensive education and all her clothes since she came out; and if +three hundred good pounds spent on a girl could not make her happy, +she'd like to know what could. And no one--not one of those odious +people in London whom she secretly hated--would have a single word of +censure for Anna. No one ever had. All her vagaries and absurdities +during the last few years when she had been so provoking had been smiled +at, had been, Susie knew, put down to her treatment of her. Treatment of +her, indeed! The thought of these things made Susie writhe. She had been +looking forward to the next season, to having her pretty sister-in-law +with her in the happy mood she had been in since she heard of her good +fortune, and had foreseen nothing but advantages to herself from Anna's +presence in her house--an Anna spending and not being spent upon, and no +doubt to be persuaded to share the expenses of housekeeping. And now she +must go home by herself to blame, scoldings, and derision. The prospect +was almost more than she could bear. She went to the door, opened it, +and turning to Anna fired a parting shot. "Let no one," she said, her +voice shaken by deepest disgust, "who wants to be happy, ever spend a +penny on her husband's relations." + +And then she called Hilton; nor did she leave off calling till Hilton +appeared, and so prevented Anna from saying another word. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +But if Susie's rage was such that she refused to say good-bye, and +terrified Miss Leech while she was waiting in the hall for the carriage +by dark allusions to strait-waistcoats, when the parson was taken into +Anna's confidence after dinner on the following night his raptures knew +no bounds. "_Liebes, edeldenkendes Fraeulein!_" he burst out, clasping +his hands and gazing with a moist, ecstatic eye at this young sprig of +piety. He was a good man, not very learned, not very refined, +sentimental exceedingly, and much inclined to become tearfully eloquent +on such subjects as _die liebe kleine Kinder, die herrliche Natur, die +Frau als Schutzengel_, and the sacredness of _das Familienleben_. + +Anna felt that he was the only person at hand who could perhaps help her +to find twelve dejected ladies willing to be made happy, and had +unfolded her plan to him as tersely as possible in her stumbling German, +with none of those accompanying digressions into the question of +feelings that Susie stigmatised as drivel; and she sat uncomfortable +enough while he burst forth into praises that would not end of her +goodness and nobleness. It is hard to look anything but fatuous when +somebody is extolling your virtues to your face, and she could not help +both looking and feeling foolish during his extravagant glorification. +She did not doubt his sincerity, and indeed he was absolutely sincere, +but she wished that he would be less flowery and less long, and would +skip the raptures and get on to the main subject, which was practical +advice. + +She wore the simple white dress that had caused such a sensation in the +neighbourhood, a garment that hung in long, soft folds, accentuating her +slender length of limb. Her bright hair was parted and tucked behind her +ears. Everything about her breathed an absolute want of +self-consciousness and vanity, a perfect freedom from the least thought +of the impression she might be making; yet she was beautiful, and the +good man observing her beauty, and supposing from what she had just told +him an equal beauty of character, for ever afterwards when he thought of +angels on quiet Sunday evenings in his garden, clothed them as Anna was +clothed that night, not even shrinking from the pretty, bare shoulders +and scantily sleeved arms, but facing them with a courage worthy of a +man, however doubtfully it might become a pastor. + +His wife, in her best dress, which was also her tightest, sat on the +edge of a chair some way off, marvelling greatly at many things. She +could not hear what it was Anna had said to set her husband off +exclaiming, because the governess persisted in trying to talk German to +her, and would not be satisfied with vague replies. She was disappointed +by the sudden disappearance of the sister-in-law, gone before she had +shown herself to a single soul; astonished that she had not been +requested to sit on the sofa, in which place of honour the young +Fraeulein sprawled in a way that would certainly ruin her clothes; +disgusted that she had not been pressed at table, nay, not even asked, +to partake of every dish a second time; indeed, no one had seemed to +notice or care whether she ate anything at all. These were strange ways. +And where were the Dellwigs, those great people accustomed to patronise +her because she was the parson's wife? Was it possible that they had not +been invited? Were there then quarrels already? She could not of course +dream that Anna would never have thought of asking her inspector and his +wife to dinner, and that in her ignorance she regarded the parson as a +person on an altogether higher social level than the inspector. These +things, joined to conjectures as to the probable price by the yard of +Anna's, Letty's, and Miss Leech's clothes, gave Frau Manske more food +for reflection than she had had for years; and she sat turning them over +slowly in her mind in the intervals between Miss Leech's sentences, +while her dress, which was of silk, creaked ominously with every painful +breath she drew. + +"The best way to act," said the parson, when he had exhausted the +greater part of his raptures, "will be to advertise in a newspaper of a +Christian character." + +"But not in my name," said Anna. + +"No, no, we must be discreet--we must be very discreet. The +advertisement must be drawn up with skill. I will make, simultaneously, +inquiries among my colleagues in the holy office, but there must also be +an advertisement. What would the gracious Miss's opinion be of the +desirability of referring all applicants, in the first instance, to me?" + +"Why, I think it would be an excellent plan, if you do not mind the +trouble." + +"Trouble! Joy fills me at the thought of taking part in this good work. +Little did I think that our poor corner of the fatherland was to become +a holy place, a blessed refuge for the world-worn, a nook fragrant with +charity----" + +"No, not charity," interposed Anna. + +"Whose perfume," continued the parson, determined to finish his +sentence, "whose perfume will ascend day and night to the attentive +heavens. But such are the celestial surprises Providence keeps in +reserve and springs upon us when we least expect it." + +"Yes," said Anna. "But what shall we put in the advertisement?" + +"_Ach ja_, the advertisement. In the contemplation of this beautiful +scheme I forget the advertisement." And again the moisture of ecstasy +suffused his eyes, and again he clasped his hands and gazed at her with +his head on one side, almost as though the young lady herself were the +beautiful scheme. + +Anna got up and went to the writing-table to fetch a pencil and a sheet +of paper, anxious to keep him to the point; and the parson watching the +graceful white figure was more than ever struck by her resemblance to +his idea of angels. He did not consider how easy it was to look like a +being from another world, a creature purified of every earthly +grossness, to eyes accustomed to behold the redundant exuberance of his +own excellent wife. + +She brought the paper, and sat down again at the table on which the lamp +stood. "How does one write any sort of advertisement in German?" she +said. "I could not write one for a housemaid. And this one must be done +so carefully." + +"Very true; for, alas, even ladies are sometimes not all that they +profess to be. Sad that in a Christian country there should be +impostors. Doubly sad that there should be any of the female sex." + +"Very sad," said Anna, smiling. "You must tell me which are the +impostors among those that answer." + +"_Ach_, it will not be easy," said the parson, whose experience of +ladies was limited, and who began to see that he was taking upon himself +responsibilities that threatened to become grave. Suppose he recommended +an applicant who afterwards departed with the gracious Miss's spoons in +her bag? "_Ach_, it will not be easy," he said, shaking his head. + +"Oh, well," said Anna, "we must risk the impostors. There may not be any +at all. How would you begin?" + +The parson threw himself back in his chair, folded his hands, cast up +his eyes to the ceiling, and meditated. Anna waited, pencil in hand, +ready to write at his dictation. Frau Manske at the other end of the +room was straining her ears to hear what was going on, but Miss Leech, +desirous both of entertaining her and of practising her German, would +not cease from her spasmodic talk, even expecting her mistakes to be +corrected. And there were no refreshments, no glasses of cooling beer +being handed round, no liquid consolation of any sort, not even seltzer +water. She regarded her evening as a failure. + +"A Christian lady of noble sentiments," dictated the parson, apparently +reading the words off the ceiling, "offers a home in her house----" + +"Is this the advertisement?" asked Anna. + +"--offers a home in her house----" + +"I don't quite like the beginning," hesitated Anna. "I would rather +leave out about the noble sentiments." + +"As the gracious one pleases. Modesty can never be anything but an +ornament. 'A Christian lady----'" + +"But why a _Christian_ lady? Why not simply a lady? Are there, then, +heathen ladies about, that you insist on the Christian?" + +"Worse, worse than heathen," replied the parson, sitting up straight, +and fixing eyeballs suddenly grown fiery on her; and his voice fell to a +hissing whisper, in strange contrast to his previous honeyed tones. "The +heathen live in far-off lands, where they keep quiet till our +missionaries gather them into the Church's fold--but here, here in our +midst, here everywhere, taking the money from our pockets, nay, the very +bread from our mouths, are the _Jews_." + +Impossible to describe the tone of fear and hatred with which this word +was pronounced. + +Anna gazed at him, mystified. "The Jews?" she echoed. One of her +greatest friends at home was a Jew, a delightful person, the mere +recollection of whom made her smile, so witty and charming and kind was +he. And of Jews in general she could not remember to have heard anything +at all. + +"But not only money from our pockets and bread from our mouths," +continued the parson, leaning forward, his light grey eyes opened to +their widest extent, and speaking in a whisper that made her flesh begin +the process known as creeping, "but blood--blood from our veins." + +"Blood from your veins?" she repeated faintly. It sounded horrid. It +offended her ears. It had nothing to do with the advertisement. The +strange light in his eyes made her think of fanaticism, cruelty, and the +Middle Ages. The mildest of men in general, as she found later on, +rabidness seized him at the mere mention of Jews. + +"Blood," he hissed, "from the veins of Christians, for the performance +of their unholy rites. Did the gracious one never hear of ritual +murders?" + +"No," said Anna, shrinking back, the nearer he leaned towards her, +"never in my life. Don't tell me now, for it--it sounds interesting. I +should like to hear about it all another time. 'A Christian lady offers +her home,'" she went on quickly, scribbling that much down, and then +looking at him inquiringly. + +"_Ach ja_," he said in his natural voice, leaning back in his chair and +reducing his eyes to their normal size, "I forgot again the +advertisement. 'A Christian lady offers her home to others of her sex +and station who are without means----'" + +"And without friends, and without hope," added Anna, writing. + +"_Gut, gut, sehr gut._" + +"She has room in her house in the country," Anna went on, writing as she +spoke, "for twelve such ladies, and will be glad to share with them all +that she possesses of fortune and happiness." + +"_Gut, gut, sehr gut._" + +"Is the German correct?" + +"Quite correct. I would add, 'Strictest inquiries will be made before +acceptance of any application by Herr Pastor Manske of Lohm, to whom all +letters are to be addressed. Applicants must be ladies of good family, +who have fallen on evil days by the will of God.'" + +Anna wrote this down as far as "days," after which she put a full stop. + +"It pleases me not entirely," said Manske, musing; "the language is not +sufficiently noble. Noble schemes should be alluded to in noble words." + +"But not in an advertisement." + +"Why not? We ought not to hide our good thoughts from our fellows, but +rather open our hearts, pour out our feelings, spend freely all that we +have in us of virtue and piety, for the edification and exhilaration of +others." + +"But not in an advertisement. I don't want to exhilarate the public." + +"And why not exhilarate the public, dear Miss? Is it not composed of +units of like passions to ourselves? Units on the way to heaven, units +bowed down by the same sorrows, cheered by the same hopes, torn asunder +by the same temptations as the gracious one and myself?" And immediately +he launched forth into a flood of eloquence about units; for in Germany +sermons are all extempore, and the clergy, from constant practice, +acquire a fatal fluency of speech, bursting out in the week on the least +provocation into preaching, and not by any known means to be stopped. + +"Oh--words, words, words!" thought Anna, waiting till he should have +finished. His wife, hearing the well-known rapid speech of his inspired +moments, glowed with pride. "My Adolf surpasses himself," she thought; +"the Miss must wonder." + +The Miss did wonder. She sat and wondered, her elbows on the arms of the +chair, her finger tips joined together, and her eyes fixed on her finger +tips. She did not like to look at him, because, knowing how different +was the effect produced on her to that which he of course imagined, she +was sorry for him. + +"It is so good of you to help me," she said with gentle irrelevance when +the longed-for pause at length came. "There was something else that I +wanted to consult you about. I must look for a companion--an elderly +German lady, who will help me in the housekeeping." + +"Yes, yes, I comprehend. But would not the twelve be sufficient +companions, and helps in the housekeeping?" + +"No, because I would not like them to think that I want anything done +for me in return for their home. I want them to do exactly what makes +them happiest. They will all have had sad lives, and must waste no more +time in doing things they don't quite like." + +"Ah--noble, noble," murmured the parson, quite as unpractical as Anna, +and fascinated by the very vagueness of her plan of benevolence. + +"The companion I wish to find would be another sort of person, and would +help me in return for a salary." + +"Certainly, I comprehend." + +"I thought perhaps you would tell me how to advertise for such a +person?" + +"Surely, surely. My wife has a sister----" + +He paused. Anna looked up quickly. She had not reckoned with the +possibility of his wife's having sisters. + +"_Lieber Schatz_," he called to his wife, "what does thy sister Helena +do now?" + +Frau Manske got up and came over to them with the alacrity of relief. +"What dost thou say, dear Adolf?" she asked, laying her hand on his +shoulder. He took it in his, stroked it, kissed it, and finally put his +arm round her waist and held it there while he talked; all to the +exceeding joy of Letty, to whom such proceedings had the charm of +absolute freshness. + +"Thy sister Helena--is she at present in the parental house?" he asked, +looking up at her fondly, warmed into an affection even greater than +ordinary by the circumstance of having spectators. + +Frau Manske was not sure. She would write and inquire. Anna proposed +that she should sit down, but the parson playfully held her closer. +"This is my guardian angel," he explained, smiling beatifically at her, +"the faithful mother of my children, now grown up and gone their several +ways. Does the gracious Miss remember the immortal lines of Schiller, +'_Ehret die Frauen, sie flechten und weben himmlische Rosen in's +irdische Leben_'? Such has been the occupation of this dear wife, only +interrupted by her occasional visits to bathing resorts, since the day, +more than twenty-five years ago, when she consented to tread with me the +path leading heavenwards. Not a day has there been, except when she was +at the seaside, without its roses." + +"Oh," said Anna. She felt that the remark was not at the height of the +situation, and added, "How--how interesting." This also struck her as +inadequate; but all further inspiration failing her, she was reduced to +the silent sympathy of smiles. + +"Ten children did the Lord bless us with," continued the parson, +expanding into confidences, "and six it was His will again to remove." + +"The drains--" murmured Frau Manske. + +"Yes, truly the drains in the town where we lived then were bad, very +bad. But one must not question the wisdom of Providence." + +"No, but one might mend----" Anna stopped, feeling that under some +circumstances even the mending of drains might be impious. She had heard +so much about piety and Providence within the last two hours that she +was confused, and was no longer clear as to the exact limit of conduct +beyond which a flying in the face of Providence might be said to begin. + +But the parson, clasping his wife to his side, paid no heed to anything +she might be saying, for he was already well on in a detailed account of +the personal appearance, habits, and career of his four remaining +children, and dwelt so fondly on each in turn that he forgot sister +Helena and the second advertisement; and when he had explained all their +numerous excellencies and harmless idiosyncrasies, including their +preferences in matters of food and drink, he abruptly quitted this +topic, and proceeded to expound Anna's scheme to his wife, who had +listened with ill-concealed impatience to the first part of his +discourse, consumed as she was with curiosity to hear what it was that +Anna had confided to him. + +So Anna had to listen to the raptures all over again. The eager interest +of the wife disturbed her. She doubted whether Frau Manske had any real +sympathy with her plan. Her inquisitiveness was unquestionable; but Anna +felt that opening her heart to the parson and opening it to his wife +were two different things. Though he was wordy, he was certainly +enthusiastic; his wife, on the other hand, appeared to be chiefly +interested in the question of cost. "The cost will be colossal," she +said, surveying Anna from head to foot. "But the gracious Miss is rich," +she added. + +Anna began to examine her finger tips again. + +On the way home through the dark fields, after having criticised each +dish of the dinner and expressed the opinion that the entertainment was +not worthy of such a wealthy lady, Frau Manske observed to her husband +that it was true, then, what she had always heard of the English, that +they were peculiarly liable to prolonged attacks of craziness. + +"Craziness! Thou callest this craziness? It is my wife, the wife of a +pastor, that I hear applying such a word to so beautiful, so Christian, +a scheme?" + +"But the good money--to give it all away. Yes, it is very Christian, but +it is also crazy." + +"Woman, shut thy mouth!" cried the parson, beside himself with +indignation at hearing such sentiments from such lips. + +Clearly Frau Manske was not at that moment engaged with her roses. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +The next morning early, Anna went over to the farm to ask Dellwig to +lend her any newspapers he might have. She was anxious to advertise as +soon as possible for a companion, and now that she knew of the existence +of sister Helena, thought it better to write this advertisement without +the parson's aid, copying any other one of the sort that she might see +in the papers. Until she had secured the services of a German lady who +would tell her how to set about the reforms she intended making in her +house, she was perfectly helpless. She wanted to put her home in order +quickly, so that the twelve unhappy ones should not be kept waiting; and +there were many things to be done. Servants, furniture, everything, was +necessary, and she did not know where such things were to be had. She +did not even know where washerwomen were obtainable, and Frau Dellwig +never seemed to be at home when she sent for her, or went to her seeking +information. On Good Friday, after Susie's departure, she had sent a +message to the farm desiring the attendance of the inspector's wife, +whom she wished to consult about the dinner to be prepared for the +Manskes, all provisions apparently passing through Frau Dellwig's hands; +and she had been told that the lady was at church. On Saturday morning, +disturbed by the emptiness of her larder and the imminence of her +guests, she had gone herself to the farm, but was told that the lady was +in the cow-sheds--in which cow-shed nobody exactly knew. Anna had been +forced to ask Dellwig about the food. On Sunday she took Letty with her, +abashed by the whisperings and starings she had had to endure when she +went alone. Nor on this occasion did she see the inspector's wife, and +she began to wonder what had become of her. + +The Dellwigs' wrath and amazement when they found that the parson and +his wife had been invited to dinner and they themselves left out was +indescribable. Never had such an insult been offered them. They had +always been the first people of their class in the place, always held +their heads up and condescended to the clergy, always been helped first +at table, gone first through doors, sat in the right-hand corners of +sofas. If he was furious, she was still more so, filled with venom and +hatred unutterable for the innocent, but it must be added overjoyed, +Frau Manske; and though her own interest demanded it, she was altogether +unable to bring herself to meet Anna for the purpose, as she knew, of +being consulted about the menu to be offered to the wretched upstart. +Indeed, Frau Dellwig's position was similar to that painful one in which +Susie found herself when her influential London acquaintance left her +out of the invitations to the wedding; on which occasion, as we know, +Susie had been constrained to flee to Germany in order to escape the +comments of her friends. Frau Dellwig could not flee anywhere. She was +obliged to stay where she was and bear it as best she might, humiliated +in the eyes of the whole neighbourhood, an object of derision to her +very milkmaids. Philosophers smile at such trials; but to persons who +are not philosophers, and at Kleinwalde these were in the majority, they +are more difficult to endure than any family bereavement. There is no +dignity about them, and friends, instead of sympathising, rejoice more +or less openly according to the degree of their civilisation. The degree +of civilisation among Frau Dellwig's friends was not great, and the +rejoicings on the next Sunday when they all met would be but +ill-concealed; there was no escape from them, they had to be faced, and +the malicious condolences accepted with what countenance she could. +Instead of making sausages, therefore, she shut herself in her bedroom +and wept. + +And so it came about that the unconscious Anna, whose one desire was to +live at peace with her neighbours, made two enemies within two days. +"All women," said Dellwig to his wife, "high and low, are alike. Unless +they have a husband to keep them in their right places, they become +religious and run after pastors. Manske has wormed himself in very +cleverly, truly very cleverly. But we will worm him out again with equal +cleverness. As for his wife, what canst thou expect from so great a +fool?" + +"No, indeed, from her I expect nothing," replied his wife, tossing her +head, "but from the niece of our late master I expected the behaviour of +a lady." And at that moment, the niece of her late master being +announced, she fled into her bedroom. + +Anna, friendly as ever, specially kind to Dellwig since his tears on the +night of her arrival, came with Letty into the gloomy little office +where he was working, with all the morning sunshine in her face. Though +she was perplexed by many things, she was intensely happy. The perfect +freedom, after her years of servitude, was like heaven. Here she was in +her own home, from which nobody could take her, free to arrange her life +as she chose. Oh, it was a beautiful world, and this the most beautiful +corner of it! She was sure the sky was bluer at Kleinwalde than in other +places, and that the larks sang louder. And then was she not on the very +verge of realising her dreams of bringing the light of happiness into +dark and hopeless lives? Oh, the beautiful, beautiful world! She came +into Dellwig's room with the love of it shining in her eyes. + +He was as obsequious as ever, for unfortunately his bread and butter +depended on this perverse young woman; but he was also graver and less +talkative, considering within himself that he could not be expected to +pass over such a slight without some alteration in his manner. He ought, +he felt, to show that he was pained, and he ought to show it so +unmistakably that she would perhaps be led to offer some explanation of +her conduct. Accordingly he assumed the subdued behaviour of one whose +feelings have been hurt, and Anna thought how greatly he improved on +acquaintance. + +He would have given much to know why she wanted the papers, for surely +it was unusual for women to read newspapers? When there was a murder, or +anything of that sort, his wife liked to see them, but not at other +times. "Is the gracious Miss interested in politics?" he inquired, as he +put several together. + +"No, not particularly," said Anna; "at least, not yet in German +politics. I must live here a little while first." + +"In--in literature, perhaps?" + +"No, not particularly. I know so little about German books." + +"There are some well-written articles occasionally on the modes in +ladies' dresses." + +"Really?" + +"My wife tells me she often gets hints from them as to what is being +worn. Ladies, we know," he added with a superior smile, checked, +however, on his remembering that he was pained, "are interested in these +matters." + +"Yes, they are," agreed Anna, smiling, and holding out her hand for the +papers. + +"Ah, then, it is that that the gracious Miss wishes to read?" he said +quickly. + +"No, not particularly," said Anna, who began to see that he too suffered +from the prevailing inquisitiveness. Besides, she was too much afraid of +his having sisters, or of his wife's having sisters, eager to come and +be a blessing to her, to tell him about her advertisement. + +On the steps of his house, to which Dellwig accompanied the two girls, +stood a man who had just got off his horse. He was pulling off his +gloves as he watched it being led away by a boy. He had his back to +Anna, and she looked at it interested, for it was unlike any back she +had yet seen in Kleinwalde, in that it was the back of a gentleman. + +"It is Herr von Lohm," said Dellwig, "who has business here this +morning. Some of our people unfortunately drink too much on holidays +like Good Friday, and there are quarrels. I explained to the gracious +one that he is our Amtsvorsteher." + +Herr von Lohm turned at the sound of Dellwig's voice, and took off his +hat. "Pray present me to these ladies," he said to Dellwig, and bowed as +gravely to Letty as to Anna, to her great satisfaction. + +"So this is my neighbour?" thought Anna, looking down at him from the +higher step on which she stood with her papers under her arm. + +"So this is old Joachim's niece, of whom he was always talking?" thought +Lohm, looking up at her. "Wise old man to leave the place to her instead +of to those unpleasant sons." And he proceeded to make a few +conventional remarks, hoping that she liked her new home and would soon +be quite used to the country life. "It is very quiet and lonely for a +lady not used to our kind of country, with its big estates and few +neighbours," he said in English. "May I talk English to you? It gives me +pleasure to do so." + +"Please do," said Anna. Here was a person who might be very helpful to +her if ever she reached her wits' end; and how nice he looked, how +clean, and what a pleasant voice he had, falling so gratefully on ears +already aching with Dellwig's shouts and the parson's emphatic oratory. + +He was somewhere between thirty and forty, not young at all, she +thought, having herself never got out of the habit of feeling very +young; and beyond being long and wiry, with not even a tendency to fat, +as she noticed with pleasure, there was nothing striking about him. His +top boots and his green Norfolk jacket and green felt hat with a little +feather stuck in it gave him an air of being a sportsman. It was +refreshing to come across him, if only because he did not bow. Also, +considering him from the top of the steps, she became suddenly conscious +that Dellwig and the parson neglected their persons more than was +seemly. They were both no doubt very excellent; but she did like nicely +washed men. + +Herr von Lohm began to talk about Uncle Joachim, with whom he had been +very intimate. Anna came down the steps and he went a few yards with +her, leaving Dellwig standing at the door, and followed by the eyes of +Dellwig's wife, concealed behind her bedroom curtain. + +"I shall be with you in one moment," called Lohm over his shoulder. + +"_Gut_," said Dellwig; and he went in to tell his wife that these +English ladies were very free with gentlemen, and to bid her mark his +words that Lohm and Kleinwalde would before long be one estate. + +"And us? What will become of us?" she asked, eying him anxiously. + +"I too would like to know that," replied her husband. "This all comes of +leaving land away from the natural heirs." And with great energy he +proceeded to curse the memory of his late master. + +Lohm's English was so good that it astonished Anna. It was stiff and +slow, but he made no mistakes at all. His manner was grave, and looking +at him more attentively she saw traces on his face of much hard work and +anxiety. He told her that his mother had been a cousin of Uncle +Joachim's wife. "So that there is a slight relationship by marriage +existing between us," he said. + +"Very slight," said Anna, smiling, "faint almost beyond recognition." + +"Does your niece stay with you for an indefinite period?" he asked. "I +cannot avoid knowing that this young lady is your niece," he added with +a smile, "and that she is here with her governess, and that Lady +Estcourt left suddenly on Good Friday, because all that concerns you is +of the greatest interest to the inhabitants of this quiet place, and +they talk of little else." + +"How long will it take them to get used to me? I don't like being an +object of interest. No, Letty is going home as soon as I have found a +companion. That is why I am taking the inspector's newspapers home with +me. I can't construct an advertisement out of my stores of German, and +am going to see if I can find something that will serve as model." + +"Oh, may I help you? What difficulties you must meet with every hour of +the day!" + +"I do," agreed Anna, thinking of all there was to be done before she +could open her doors and her arms to the twelve. + +"Any service that I can render to my oldest friend's niece will give me +the greatest pleasure. Will you allow me to send the advertisement for +you? You can hardly know how or where to send it." + +"I don't," said Anna. "It would be very kind--I really would be +grateful. It is so important that I should find somebody soon." + +"It is of the first importance," said Lohm. + +"Has the parson told him of my plans already?" thought Anna. But Lohm +had not seen Manske that morning, and was only picturing this little +thing to himself, this dainty little lady, used to such a different +life, alone in the empty house, struggling with her small supply of +German to make the two raw servants understand her ways. Anna was not a +little thing at all, and she would have been half-amused and +half-indignant if she had known that that was the impression she had +made on him. + +"My sister, Graefin Hasdorf," he began--"Heavens," she thought, "has _he_ +got an unattached sister?"--"sometimes stays with me with her children, +and when she is here will be able to help you in many ways if you will +allow her to. She too knew your uncle from her childhood. She will be +greatly interested to know that you have had the courage to settle +here." + +"Courage?" echoed Anna. "Why, I love it. It's the most beautiful place +in the world." + +Lohm looked doubtfully at her for a moment; but there was no mistaking +the sincerity of those eyes. "It is pleasant to hear you say so," he +said. "My sister Trudi would scarcely credit her ears if she were +present. To her it is a terrible place, and she pities me with all her +heart because my lot is cast in it." + +Anna laughed. She thought she knew very well what sister Trudis were +like. "I do not pity you," she said; "I couldn't pity any being who +lived in this air, and under this sky. Look how blue it is--and the +geese--did you ever see such white geese?" + +A flock of geese were being driven across the sunny yard, dazzling in +their whiteness. Anna lifted up her face to the sun and drew in a long +breath of the sharp air. She forgot Lohm for a moment--it was such a +glorious Easter Sunday, and the world was so full of the abundant gifts +of God. + +Dellwig, who had been watching them from his wife's window, thought that +the brawlers who were going to be fined had been kept waiting long +enough, and came out again on to the steps. + +Lohm saw him, and felt that he must go. "I must do my business," he +said, "but as you have given me permission I will send an advertisement +to the papers to-night. Of course you desire to have an elderly lady of +good family?" + +"Yes, but not too elderly--not so elderly that she won't be able to +work. There will be so much to do, so very much to do." + +Lohm went away wondering what work there could possibly be, except the +agreeable and easy work of seeing that this young lady was properly fed, +and properly petted, and in every way taken care of. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +He sent the advertisement by the evening post to two or three of the +best newspapers. He had seen the pastor after morning church, who had at +once poured into his ears all about Anna's twelve ladies, garnishing the +story with interjections warmly appreciative of the action of Providence +in the matter. Lohm had been considerably astonished, but had said +little; it was not his way to say much at any time to the parson, and +the ecstasies about the new neighbour jarred on him. Miss Estcourt's +need of advice must have been desperate for her to have confided in +Manske. He appreciated his good qualities, but his family had never been +intimate with the parson; perhaps because from time immemorial the Lohms +had been chiefly males, and the attitude of male Germans towards parsons +is, at its best, one of indulgence. This Lohm restricted his dealings +with him, as his father had done before him, to the necessary +deliberations on the treatment of the sick and poor, and to official +meetings in the schoolhouse. He was invariably kind to him, and lent as +willing an ear as his slender purse allowed to applications for +assistance; but the idea of discussing spiritual experiences with him, +or, in times of personal sorrow, of dwelling conversationally on his +griefs, would never have occurred to him. The easy familiarity with +which Manske spoke of the Deity offended his taste. These things, these +sacred and awful mysteries, were the secrets between the soul and its +God. No man, thought Lohm, should dare to touch with profane questioning +the veil shrouding his neighbour's inner life. Manske, however, knew no +fear and no compunction. He would ask the most tremendous questions +between two mouthfuls of pudding, backing himself up with the whole +authority of the Lutheran Church, besides the Scriptures; and if the +poor people and the partly educated liked it, and were edified, and +enjoyed stirring up and talking over their religious emotions almost as +much as they did the latest village scandal, Lohm, who had no taste +either for scandal or emotions, kept the parson at arm's length. + +He thought a good deal about what Manske had told him during the +afternoon. She had gone to the parson, then, for help, because there was +no one else to go to. Poor little thing. He could imagine the sort of +speeches Manske had made her, and the sort of advertisement he would +have told her to write. Poor little thing. Well, what he could do was to +put her in the way of getting a companion as quickly as possible, and a +very sensible, capable woman it ought to be. No wonder she was not to be +past hard work. Work there would certainly be, with twelve women in the +house undergoing the process of being made happy. Lohm could not help +smiling at the plan. He thought of Miss Estcourt courageously trying to +demolish the crust of dejection that had formed in the course of years +over the hearts of her patients, and he trusted that she would not +exhaust her own youth and joyousness in the effort. Perhaps she would +succeed. He did not remember having heard of any scheme quite analogous, +and possibly she would override all obstacles in triumph, and the +patients who entered her home with the burden of their past misery heavy +upon them, would develop in the sunshine of her presence into twelve +riotously jovial ladies. But would not she herself suffer? Would not her +own strength and hopefulness be sapped up by those she benefited? He +could not think that it would be to the advantage of the world at large +to substitute twelve, nay fifty, nay any number of jolly old ladies, for +one girl with such sweet and joyous eyes. + +This, of course, was the purely masculine point of view. The women to be +benefited--why he thought of them as old is not clear, for you need not +be old to be unhappy--would have protested, probably, with indignant +cries that individually they were well worth Miss Estcourt, in any case +were every bit as good as she was, and collectively--oh, absurd. + +He thought of his sister Trudi. Perhaps she knew of some one who would +be both kind and clever, and protect Miss Estcourt in some measure from +the twelve. Trudi's friends, it is true, were not the sort among whom +staid companions are found. Their husbands were chiefly lieutenants, and +they spent their time at races. They lived in flats in Hanover, where +the regiment was quartered, and flats are easy to manage, and none of +these young women would endure, he supposed, to have an elderly +companion always hanging round. Still, there was a remote possibility +that some one of them might be able to recommend a suitable person. If +Trudi were staying with him now she would be a great help; not so much +because of what she would do, but because he could go with her to +Kleinwalde, and Miss Estcourt could come to his house when she wanted +anything, and need not depend solely on the parson. It was his duty, +considering old Joachim's unchanging kindness towards him, and the pains +the old man had taken to help him in the management of his estate, and +to encourage him at a time when he greatly needed help and +encouragement, to do all that lay in his power for old Joachim's niece. +When he heard that she was coming he had decided that this was his plain +duty: that she was so pretty, so adorably pretty and simple and friendly +only made it an unusually pleasant one. "I will write to Trudi," he +thought, "and ask her to come over for a week or two." + +He sat down at his writing-table in the big window overlooking the +farmyard, and began the letter. But he felt that it would be absurd to +ask her to come on Miss Estcourt's account. Why should she do anything +for Miss Estcourt, and why should he want his sister to do anything for +her? That would be the first thing that would strike the astute Trudi. +So he merely wrote reminding her that she had not stayed with him since +the previous summer, and suggested that she should come for a few days +with her children, now that the spring was coming and the snow had gone. +"The woods will soon be blue with anemones," he wrote, though he well +knew that Trudi's attitude towards anemones was cold. Perhaps her little +boys would like to pick them; anyhow, some sort of an inducement had to +be held out. + +Outside his window was a duck-pond, thin sheets of ice still floating in +broken pieces on its surface; behind the duck-pond was the dairy; and on +either side of the yard were cow-sheds and pig-styes. The farm carts +stood in a peaceful Sunday row down one side, and at the other end of +the yard, shutting out the same view of the sea and island that Anna saw +from her bedroom window, was a mountainous range of manure. When Trudi +came, she never entered the rooms on this side of the house, because, as +she explained, it was one of her peculiarities not to like manure; and +she slept and ate and aired her opinions on the west side, where the +garden lay between the house and the road. She never would have come to +Lohm at all, not being burdened with any undue sentiment in regard to +ties of blood, if it had not been necessary to go somewhere in the +summer, and if the other places had not been beyond the resources of the +family purse, always at its emptiest when the racing season was over and +the card-playing at an end. As it was, this was a cheap and convenient +haven, and her brother Axel was kind to the little boys, and not too +angry when they plundered his apple-trees, damaged the knees of his +ponies, and did their best to twist off the tails of his disconcerted +sucking-pigs. + +He was the eldest of three brothers, and she came last. She was +twenty-six, and he was ten years older. When the father died, the land +ought properly to have been divided between the four children, but such +a proceeding would have been extremely inconvenient, and the two younger +brothers, and the sister just married, agreed to accept their share in +money, and to leave the estate entirely to Axel. It was the best course +to take, but it threw Axel into difficulties that continued for years. +His father, with four times the money, had lived very comfortably at +Lohm, and the children had been brought up in prosperity. For eight +years his eldest son had farmed the estate with a quarter the means, and +had found it so far from simple that his hair had turned grey in the +process. It needed considerable skill and vigilance to enable a man to +extract a decent living from the soil of Lohm. Part of it was too boggy, +and part of it too sandy, and the trees had all been cut down thirty +years before by a bland grandfather, serenely indifferent to the opinion +of posterity. Axel's first work had been to make plantations of young +firs and pines wherever the soil was poorest, and when he rode through +the beautiful Kleinwalde forest he endeavoured to extract what pleasure +he could from the thought that in a hundred years Lohm too would have a +forest. But the pleasure to be extracted from this thought was of a +surprisingly subdued quality. All his pleasures were of a subdued +quality. His days were made up of hard work, of that effort to induce +both ends to meet which knocks the savour out of life with such a +singular completeness. He was born with an uncomfortably exact +conception of duty; and now at the end of the best half of his life, +after years of struggling on that poor soil against the odds of that +stern climate, this conception had shaped itself into a fixed belief +that the one thing entirely beautiful, the one thing wholly worthy of a +man's ambition, is the right doing of his duty. So, he thought, shall a +man have peace at the last. + +It is a way of thinking common to the educated dwellers in solitary +places, who have not been very successful. Trudi scorned it. "Peace," +she said, "at the last, is no good at all. What one wants is peace at +the beginning and in the middle. But you only think stuff like that +because you haven't got enough money. Poor people always talk about the +beauty of duty and peace at the last. If somebody left you a fortune +you'd never mention either of them again. Or if you married a girl with +money, now. I wish, I do wish, that _that_ duty would strike you as the +one thing wholly worth doing." + +But a man who is all day and every day in his fields, who farms not for +pleasure but for his bare existence, has no time to set out in search of +girls with money, and none came up his way. Besides, he had been engaged +a few years before, and the girl had died, and he had not since had the +least inclination towards matrimony. After that he had worked harder +than ever; and the years flew by, filled with monotonous labour. +Sometimes they were good years, and the ends not only met but lapped +over a little; but generally the bare meeting of the ends was all that +he achieved. His wish was that his brother Gustav who came after him +should find the place in good order; if possible in better order than +before. But the working up of an estate for a brother Gustav, with +whatever determination it may be carried on, is not a labour that evokes +an unflagging enthusiasm in the labourer; and Axel, however beautiful a +life of duty might be to him in theory, found it, in practice, of an +altogether remarkable greyness. Two-thirds of his house were shut up. In +the evenings his servants stole out to court and be courted, and left +the place to himself and echoes and memories. It was a house built for a +large family, for troops of children, and frequent friends. Axel sat in +it alone when the dusk drove him indoors, defending himself against his +remembrances by prolonged interviews with his head inspector, or a +zealous study of the latest work on potato diseases. + +"I see that Bibi Bornstedt is staying with your Regierungspraesident," +Trudi had written a little while before. "Now, then, is your chance. She +is a true gold-fish. You cannot continue to howl over Hildegard's memory +for ever. Bibi will have two hundred thousand marks a year when the old +ones die, and is quite a decent girl. Her nose is a fiasco, but when you +have been married a week you will not so much as see that she has a +nose. And the two hundred thousand marks will still be there. _Ach_, +Axel, what comfort, what consolation, in two hundred thousand marks! You +could put the most glorious wreaths on Hildegard's tomb, besides keeping +racehorses." + +Lohm suddenly remembered this letter as he sat, having finished his own, +looking out of the window at two girls in Sunday splendour kissing one +of the stable boys behind a farm cart. They were all three apparently +enjoying themselves very much, the girls laughing, the boy with an +expression at once imbecile and beatific. They thought the master's eye +could not see them there, but the master's eye saw most things. He took +up his pen again and added a postscript. "If you come soon you will be +able to enjoy the society of your friend Bibi. She came on Wednesday, I +believe." Then, feeling slightly ashamed of using the innocent Miss Bibi +as a bait to catch his sister, he wrote the advertisement for Anna, and +put both letters in the post-bag. + +The effect of his postscript was precisely the one he had expected. +Trudi was drinking her morning coffee in her bedroom at twelve o'clock, +when the letter came. Her hair was being done by a _Friseur_, an artist +in hairdressing, who rode about Hanover every day on a bicycle, his +pockets bulging out with curling-tongs, and for three marks decorated +the heads of Trudi and her friends with innumerable waves. Trudi was +devoted to him, with the devotion naturally felt for the person on whom +one's beauty depends, for he was a true artist, and really did work +amazing transformations. "What! You have never had Herr Jungbluth?" +Trudi cried, on the last occasion on which she met Bibi, the daughter of +a Hanover banker, and quite outside her set but for the riches that +ensured her an enthusiastic welcome wherever she went, "_aber_ Bibi!" +There was so much genuine surprise and compassion in this "_aber_ Bibi" +that the young person addressed felt as though she had been for years +missing a possibility of happiness. Trudi added, as a special +recommendation, that Jungbluth smelt of soap. He had carefully studied +the nature of women, and if he had to do with a pretty one would find an +early opportunity of going into respectful raptures over what he +described as her _klassisches Profil_; and if it was a woman whose face +was not all she could have wished, he would tell her, in a tone of +subdued enthusiasm, that her profile, as to which she had long been in +doubt, was _hoechst interessant_. The popularity of this young man in +Trudi's set was enormous; and as all the less aristocratic Hanoverian +ladies hastened to imitate, Jungbluth lived in great contentment and +prosperity with a young wife whose hair was reposefully straight, and a +baby whose godmother was Trudi. + +"Blue woods! Anemones!" read Trudi with immense contempt. "Is the boy in +his senses? The idea of expecting me to go to that dreary place now. Ah, +now I understand," she added, turning the page, "it is Bibi--he is +really after her, and of course can get along quicker if I am there to +help. Excellent Axel! And why did he go to the pains of trotting out the +anemones? What is the use of not being frank with me? I can see through +him, whatever he does. He is so good-natured that I am sure he will lend +us heaps of Bibi's money once he has got it. _So, lieber Jungbluth_," +she said aloud, "that will do to-day. Beautiful--beautiful--better than +ever. I am in a hurry. I travel to Berlin this very afternoon." + +And the next day she arrived at Stralsund, and was met by her brother at +the station. + +She greeted him with enthusiasm. "As we are here," she said, when they +were driving through the town, "let us pay our respects to the +Regierungspraesidentin. It will save our coming in again to-morrow." + +"No, I cannot to-day. I must get back as quickly as possible. The hands +had their Easter ball yesterday, and when I left Lohm this morning half +of them were still in bed." + +"Well, then, the horses will have to do the journey again to-morrow, for +no time should be lost." + +"Yes, you can come in to-morrow, if you long so much to see your +friend." + +"And you?" asked Trudi, in a tone of astonishment. + +"And I? I am up to my ears now in work. Last week was the first week for +four months that we could plough. Now we have lost these three days at +Easter. I cannot spare a single hour." + +"But, my dear Axel, Bibi is of far greater importance for the future of +Lohm than any amount of ploughing." + +"I confess I do not see how." + +"I don't understand you." + +"Why didn't you bring the little boys?" + +"What have you asked me to come here for?" + +"Come, Trudi, you've not been near me for eight months. Isn't it natural +that you should pay me a little visit?" + +"No, it isn't natural at all to come to such a place in winter, and +leave all the fun at home. I came because of Bibi." + +"What! You'll come for Bibi, but not for your own brother?" + +"Now, Axel, you know very well that I have come for you both." + +"For us both? What would Miss Bibi say if she heard you talking of +herself and of me as 'you both'?" + +"I wish you would not bother to go on like this. It's a great waste of +time." + +"So it is, my dear. Any talk about Bibi Bornstedt, as far as I am +concerned, is a hopeless waste of time." + +"Axel!" + +"Trudi?" + +"You don't mean to say that you are not thinking of her?" + +"Thinking of her? I never let my thoughts linger round strange young +ladies." + +"Then what in heaven's name have you got me here for?" + +"The anemones are coming out----" + +"_Ach_----" + +"They really are." + +"Suppose instead of teasing me as though I were still ten and you a +great bully, you talked sensibly. The Hohensteins give a _bal masque_ +to-night, and I gave it up to come to you." + +"Oh, my dear, that was really kind," said Lohm, touched by the +tremendousness of this sacrifice. + +"Then be a good boy," said Trudi caressingly, edging herself closer to +him, "and tell me you are going to be wise about Bibi. Don't throw such +a chance away--it's positively wicked." + +"My dear Trudi, you'll have us in the ditch. It is very nice when you +lean against me, but I can't drive. By the way, you remember my old +Kleinwalde neighbour? The old man who spoilt you so atrociously?" + +"Bibi will make a most excellent wife," said Trudi, ungratefully +indifferent to the memory of old Joachim. "Oh, what a cold wind there is +to-day. Do drive faster, Axel. What a taste, to live here and to like it +into the bargain!" + +"You know that I must live here." + +"But you needn't like it." + +"You've heard that old Joachim left Kleinwalde to his English niece?" + +"You have only seen Bibi once, and she grows on one tremendously." + +"I want to talk about old Joachim." + +"And I want to talk about Bibi." + +"Well, Bibi can wait. She is the younger. You know about the old man's +will?" + +"I should think I did. One of his unfortunate sons has just joined our +regiment. You should hear him on the subject." + +"A most disagreeable, grasping lot," said Lohm decidedly. "They received +every bit of their dues, and are all well off. Surely the old man could +do as he liked with the one place that was not entailed?" + +"It isn't the usual thing to leave one's land to a foreigner. Is she +coming to live in it?" + +"She came last week." + +"Oh?" This in a tone of sudden interest. + +There was a pause. Then Trudi said, "Is she young?" + +"Quite young." + +"Pretty?" + +"Exceedingly pretty." + +Trudi looked up at him and smiled. + +"Well?" said Axel, smiling back at her. + +"Well?" said Trudi, continuing to smile. + +Axel laughed outright. "My dear Trudi, your astuteness terrifies me. You +not only know already why I wrote to you, but you know more reasons for +the letter than I myself dream of. I want to be able to help this +extremely helpless young lady, and I can hardly be of any use to her +because I have no woman in the house. If I had a wife I could be of the +greatest assistance." + +"Only then you wouldn't want to be." + +"Certainly I should." + +"Pray, why?" + +"Because I have a greater debt of obligations to her uncle than I can +ever repay to his niece." + +"Oh, nonsense--nobody pays their debts of obligations. The natural thing +to do is to hate the person who has forced you to be grateful, and to +get out of his way." + +"My dear Trudi, this shrewdness----" murmured her brother. Then he +added, "I know perfectly well that your thoughts have already flown to a +wedding. Mine don't reach farther than an elderly companion." + +"Who for? For you?" + +"Miss Estcourt is looking for an elderly companion, and I would be +grateful to you if you would help her." + +"But the elderly companion does not exclude the wedding." + +"When you see Miss Estcourt you will understand how completely such a +possibility is outside her calculations. You won't of course believe +that it is outside mine. Why should you want to marry me to every girl +within reach? Five minutes ago it was Bibi, and now it is Miss Estcourt. +You do not in the least consider what views the girls themselves might +have. Miss Estcourt is absorbed at this moment in a search for twelve +old ladies." + +"Twelve----?" + +"Her ambition is to spend herself and her money on twelve old ladies. +She thinks happiness and money are as good for them as for herself, and +wants to share her own with persons who have neither." + +"My dear Axel--is she mad?" + +"She did not give me that impression." + +"And you say she is young?" + +"Yes." + +"And really pretty?" + +"Yes." + +"And could be so well off in that flourishing place!" + +"Of course she could." + +"I'll go and call on her to-morrow," said Trudi decidedly. + +"It will be kind of you," said Lohm. + +"Kind! It isn't kindness, it's curiosity," said Trudi with a laugh. "Let +us be frank, and call things by their right names." + +Anna was in the garden, admiring the first crocus, when Trudi appeared. +She drove Axel's cobs up to the door in what she felt was excellent +style, and hoped Miss Estcourt was watching her from a window and would +see that Englishwomen were not the only sportswomen in the world. But +Anna saw nothing but the crocus. + +The wilderness down to the marsh that did duty as a garden was so +sheltered and sunny that spring stopped there first each year before +going on into the forest; and Anna loved to walk straight out of the +drawing-room window into it, bare-headed and coatless, whenever she had +time. Trudi saw her coming towards the house upon the servant's telling +her that a lady had called. "Nothing on, on a cold day like this!" she +thought. She herself wore a particularly sporting driving-coat, with an +immense collar turned up over her ears. "I wonder," mused Trudi, +watching the approaching figure, "how it is that English girls, so tidy +in the clothes, so trim in the shoes, so neat in the tie and collar, +never apparently brush their hair. A German Miss Estcourt vegetating in +this quiet place would probably wear grotesque and disconnected +garments, doubtful boots and striking stockings, her figure would +rapidly give way before the insidiousness of _Schweinebraten_, but her +hair would always be beautifully done, each plait smooth and in its +proper place, each little curl exactly where it ought to be, the parting +a model of straightness, and the whole well deserving to be dignified by +the name _Frisur_. English girls have hair, but they do not have +_Frisurs_." + +Anna came in through the open window, and Trudi's face expanded into the +most genial smiles. "How glad I am to make your acquaintance!" she cried +enthusiastically. She spoke English quite as correctly as her brother, +and much more glibly. "I hope you will let me help you if I can be of +any use. My brother says your uncle was so good to him. When I lived +here he was very kind to me too. How brave of you to stay here! And what +wonderful plans you have made! My brother has told me about your twelve +ladies. What courage to undertake to make twelve women happy. I find it +hard enough work making one person happy." + +"One person? Oh, Graf Hasdorf." + +"Oh no, myself. You see, if each person devoted his energies to making +himself happy, everybody would be happy." + +"No, they wouldn't," said Anna, "because they do, but they're not." + +They looked at each other and laughed. "She only needs Jungbluth to be +perfect," thought Trudi; and with her usual impulsiveness began +immediately to love her. + +Anna was delighted to meet someone of her own class and age after the +severe though short course she had had of Dellwigs and Manskes; and +Trudi was so much interested in her plans, and so pressing in her offers +of help, that she very soon found herself telling her all her +difficulties about servants, sheets, wall-papers, and whitewash. "Look +at this paper," she said, "could you live in the same room with it? No +one will ever be able to feel cheerful as long as it is here. And the +one in the dining-room is worse." + +"It isn't beautiful," said Trudi, examining it, "but it is what we call +_praktisch_." + +"Then I don't like what you call _praktisch_." + +"Neither do I. All the hideous things are _praktisch_--oil-cloth, black +wall-papers, handkerchiefs a yard square, thick boots, ugly women--if +ever you hear a woman praised as a _praktische Frau_, be sure she's +frightful in every way--ugly and dull. The uglier she is the +_praktischer_ she is. Oh," said Trudi, casting up her eyes, "how +terrible, how tragic, to be an ugly woman!" Then, bringing her gaze down +again to Anna's face, she added, "My flat in Hanover is all pinks and +blues--the most becoming rooms you can imagine. I look so nice in them." + +"Pinks and blues? That is just what I want here. Can't I get any in +Stralsund?" + +Trudi was doubtful. She could not think it possible that anybody should +ever get anything in Stralsund. + +"But I must do my shopping there. I am in such a hurry. It would be +dreadful to have to keep anyone waiting only because my house isn't +ready." + +"Well, we can try," said Trudi. "You will let me go with you, won't +you?" + +"I shall be more than grateful if you will come." + +"What do you think if we went now?" suggested Trudi, always for prompt +action, and quickly tired of sitting still. "My brother said I might +drive into Stralsund to-day if I liked, and I have the cobs here now. +Don't you think it would be a good thing, as you are in such a hurry?" + +"Oh, a very good thing," exclaimed Anna. "How kind you are! You are sure +it won't bore you frightfully?" + +"Oh, not a bit. It will be rather amusing to go into those shops for +once, and I shall like to feel that I have helped the good work on a +little." + +Anna thought Trudi delightful. Trudi's new friends always did think her +delightful; and she never had any old ones. + +She drove recklessly, and they lurched and heaved through the sand +between Kleinwalde and Lohm at an alarming rate. They passed Letty and +Miss Leech, going for their afternoon walk, who stood on one side and +stared. + +"Who's that?" asked Trudi. + +"My brother's little girl and her governess." + +"Oh yes, I heard about them. They are to stay and take care of you till +you have a companion. Your sister-in-law didn't like Kleinwalde?" + +"No." + +Trudi laughed. + +They passed Dellwig, riding, who swept off his hat with his customary +deference, and stared. + +"Do you like him?" asked Trudi. + +"Who?" + +"Dellwig. I know him from the days before I married." + +"I don't know him very well yet," said Anna, "but he seems to be +very--very polite." + +Trudi laughed again, and cracked her whip. + +"My uncle had great faith in him," said Anna, slightly aggrieved by the +laugh. + +"Your uncle was one of the best farmers in Germany, I have always heard. +He was so experienced, and so clever, that he could have led a hundred +Dellwigs round by the nose. Dellwig was naturally quite small, as we +say, in the presence of your uncle. He knew very well it would be +useless to be anything but immaculate under such a master. Perhaps your +uncle thought he would go on being immaculate from sheer habit, with +nobody to look after him." + +"I suppose he did," said Anna doubtfully. "He told me to keep him. It's +quite certain that _I_ can't look after him." + +They passed Axel Lohm, also riding. He was on Trudi's side of the road. +He looked pleased when he saw Anna with his sister. Trudi whipped up the +cobs, regardless of his feelings, and tore past him, scattering the sand +right and left. When she was abreast of him, she winked her eye at him +with perfect solemnity. + +Axel looked stony. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Neither Trudi nor Anna had ever worked so hard as they did during the +few days that ended March and began April. Everything seemed to happen +at once. The house was in a sudden uproar. There were people +whitewashing, people painting, people putting up papers, people bringing +things in carts from Stralsund, people trimming up the garden, people +coming out to offer themselves as servants, Dellwig coming in and +shouting, Manske coming round and glorifying--Anna would have been +completely bewildered if it had not been for Trudi, who was with her all +day long, going about with a square of lace and muslin tucked under her +waist-ribbon which she felt was becoming and said was an apron. + +Trudi was enjoying herself hugely. She saw Jungbluth's waves slowly +straightening themselves out of her hair, and for the first time in her +life remained calm as she watched them go. She even began to have +aspirations towards Uncle Joachim's better life herself, and more than +once entered into a serious consideration of the advantages that might +result from getting rid at one stroke of Bill her husband, and Billy and +Tommy her two sons, and from making a fresh start as one of Anna's +twelve. + +Frau Manske and Frau Dellwig could not face her infinite +superciliousness more than once, and kept out of the way in spite of +their burning curiosity. When Dellwig's shouts became intolerable, she +did not hesitate to wince conspicuously and to put up her hand to her +head. When Manske forgot that it was not Sunday, and began to preach, +she would interrupt him with a brisk "_Ja, ja, sehr schoen, sehr schoen, +aber lieber Herr Pastor_, you must tell us all this next Sunday in +church when we have time to listen--my friend has not a minute now in +which to appreciate the opinions of the _Apostel Paulus_." + +"I believe you are being unkind to my parson," said Anna, who could not +always understand Trudi's rapid German, but saw that Manske went away +dejected. + +"My dear, he must be kept in his place if he tries to come out of it. +You don't know what a set these pastors are. They are not like your +clergymen. If you are too kind to that man you'll have no peace. I +remember in my father's time he came to dinner every Sunday, sat at the +bottom of the table, and when the pudding appeared made a bow and went +away." + +"He didn't like pudding?" + +"I don't know if he liked it or not, but he never got any. It was a good +old custom that the pastor should withdraw before the pudding, and Axel +has not kept it up. My father never had any bother with him." + +"But what has the pudding that he didn't get ten years ago to do with +your being unkind to him now?" + +"I wanted to explain the proper footing for him to be on." + +"And the proper footing is a puddingless one? Well, in my house neither +pudding nor kindness in suitable quantities shall be withheld from him, +so don't ill-use him more than you feel is absolutely necessary for his +good." + +"Oh, you are a dear little thing!" said Trudi, putting her hands on +Anna's shoulders and looking into her eyes--they were both tall young +women, and their eyes were on a level--"I wonder what the end of you +will be. When you know all these people better you'll see that my way of +treating them, which you think unkind, is the only way. You must turn up +your nose as high as it will go at them, and they will burst with +respect. Don't be too friendly and confiding--they won't understand it, +and will be sure to think that something must be wrong about you, and +will begin to backbite you, and invent all sorts of horrid stories about +you. And as for the pastor, why should he be allowed to treat your rooms +as though they were so many pulpits, and you as though you had never +heard of the _Apostel Paulus_?" + +Anna admitted that she was not always in the proper frame of mind for +these unprovoked sermons, but refused to believe in the necessity for +turning up her nose. She ostentatiously pressed Manske, the very next +time he came, to stay to the evening meal, which was rather of the +nature of a picnic in those unsettled days, but at which, for Letty's +sake, there was always a pudding; and she invited him to eat pudding +three times running, and each time he accepted the offer; and each time, +when she had helped him, she fixed her eyes with a defiant gravity on +Trudi's face. + +Axel came in sometimes when he had business at the farm, and was shown +what progress had been made. Trudi was as interested as though it had +been her own house, and took him about, demanding his approval and +admiration with an enthusiasm that spread to Anna, and she and Axel soon +became good friends. The Stralsund wall-papers were so dreadful that +Anna had declared she would have most of the rooms whitewashed; the hall +had been done, exchanging its pea-green coat for one of virgin purity, +and she had thought it so fresh and clean, and so appropriate to the +simplicity of the better life, that to the amazement of the workmen she +insisted on the substitution of whitewash in both dining and +drawing-room for the handsome chocolate-coloured papers already in those +rooms. + +"The twelve will think it frightful," said Trudi. + +"But why?" asked Anna, who had fallen in love with whitewash. "It is +purity itself. It will be symbolical of the innocence and cleanliness +that will be in our hearts when we have got used to each other, and are +happy." + +Trudi looked again at the hall, into which the afternoon sun was +streaming. It did look very clean, certainly, and exceedingly cheerful; +she was sure, however, that it would never be symbolical of any heart +that came into it. But then Trudi was sceptical about hearts. + +At the end of Easter week, when Trudi was beginning to feel slightly +tired of whitewash and scrambled meals, and to have doubts as to the +permanent becomingness of aprons, and misgivings as to the effect on her +complexion of running about a cold house all day long, answers to the +advertisements began to arrive, and soon arrived in shoals. These +letters acted as bellows on the flickering flame of her zeal. She found +them extraordinarily entertaining, and would meet Manske in the hall +when he brought them round, and take them out of his hands, and run with +them to Anna, leaving him standing there uncertain whether he ought to +stay and be consulted, or whether it was expected of him that he should +go home again without having unburdened himself of all the advice he +felt that he contained. He deplored what he called _das impulsive +Temperament_ of the Graefin. Always had she been so, since the days she +climbed his cherry-trees and helped the birds to strip them; and when, +with every imaginable precaution, he had approached her father on the +subject, and carefully excluding the word cherry hinted that the +climbing of trees was a perilous pastime for young ladies, old Lohm had +burst into a loud laugh, and had sworn that neither he nor anyone else +could do anything with Trudi. He actually had seemed proud that she +should steal cherries, for he knew very well why she climbed the trees, +and predicted a brilliant future for his only daughter; to which Manske +had listened respectfully as in duty bound, and had gone home +unconvinced. + +But Anna did not let him stand long in the hall, and came to fetch him +and beg him to help her read the letters and tell her what he thought of +them. In spite of Trudi's advice and example she continued to treat the +pastor with the deference due to a good and simple man. What did it +matter if he talked twice as much as he need have done, and wearied her +with his habit of puffing Christianity as though it were a quack +medicine of which he was the special patron? He was sincere, he really +believed something, and really felt something, and after five days with +Trudi Anna turned to Manske's elementary convictions with relief. In +five days she had come to be very glad that Trudi stood in no need of a +place among the twelve. + +Most of the women who wrote in answer to the advertisement sent +photographs, and their letters were pitiful enough, either because of +what they said or because of what they tried to hide; and Anna's +appreciation of Trudi received a great shock when she found that the +letters amused her, and that the photographs, especially those of the +old ones or the ugly ones, moved her to a mirth little short of +unseemly. After all, Trudi was taking a great deal upon herself, Anna +thought, reading the letters unasked, helping her to open them unasked, +hurrying down to fetch them unasked, and deluging her with advice about +them unasked. She saw she had made a mistake in allowing her to see them +at all. She had no right to expose the petitions of these unhappy +creatures to Trudi's inquisitive and diverted eyes. This fact was made +very patent to her when one of the letters that Trudi opened turned out +to be from a person she had known. "Why," cried Trudi, her face +twinkling with excitement, "here's one from a girl who was at school +with me. And her photo, too--what a shocking scarecrow she has grown +into! She is only two years older than I am, but might be forty. Just +look at her--and she used to think none of us were good enough for her. +Don't have her, whatever you do--she married one of the officers in +Bill's first regiment, and treated him so shamefully that he shot +himself. Imagine her boldness in writing like this!" And she began +eagerly to read the letter. + +Anna got up and took it out of her hands. It was an unexpected action, +or Trudi would have held on tighter. "She never dreamed you would see +what she wrote," said Anna, "and it would be dishonourable of me to let +you. And the other letters too--I have been thinking it over--they are +only meant for me; and no one else, except perhaps the parson, ought to +see them." + +"Except perhaps the parson!" cried Trudi, greatly offended. "And why +except perhaps the parson?" + +"I can't always read the German writing," explained Anna. + +"But surely a woman of your own age, who isn't such a simpleton as the +parson, is the best adviser you can have." + +"But you laugh at the letters, and they are all so unhappy." + +Trudi went back to Lohm early that day. "She has taken it into her head +that I am not to read the letters," she said to her brother with no +little indignation. + +"It would be a great breach of confidence if she allowed you to," he +replied; which was so unsatisfactory that she drove into Stralsund that +very afternoon, and consoled herself with the pliable Bibi. + +Bibi's nose seemed more unsuccessful than ever after having had Anna's +before her for nearly a week; but then the richness of the girl! And +such a good-natured, generous girl, who would adore her sister-in-law +and make her presents. Contemplating the good Bibi in her afternoon +splendour from Paris, Trudi's heart stirred within her at the thought of +all that was within Axel's reach if only he could be induced to put out +his hand and take it. Anna would never marry him, Trudi was +certain--would never marry anyone, being completely engrossed by her +philanthropic follies; but if she did, what was her probable income +compared to Bibi's? And Axel would never look at Bibi so long as that +other girl lived next door to him; nobody could expect him to. Anna was +too pretty; it was not fair. And Bibi was so very plain; which was not +fair either. + +The Regierungspraesidentin, a cousin by marriage of Bibi's, but a member +of an ancient family of the Mark, was delighted to see Trudi and to +question her about the new and eccentric arrival. Trudi had offered to +take Anna to call on this lady, and had explained that it was her duty +to call; but Anna had said there was no hurry, and had talked of some +day, and had been manifestly bored by the prospect of making new +acquaintances. + +"Is she quite--quite in her right senses?" asked the +Regierungspraesidentin, when Trudi had described all they had been doing +in Anna's house, and all Anna meant to do with her money, and had made +her description so smart and diverting that the Regierungspraesidentin, +an alert little lady, with ears perpetually pricked up in the hope of +catching gossip, felt that she had not enjoyed an afternoon so much for +years. + +Bibi sat listening with her mouth wide open. It was an artless way of +hers when she was much interested in a conversation, and was deplored by +those who wished her well. + +"Oh, yes, she is quite in her senses. Rather too sure she knows best, +always, but quite in her senses." + +"Then she is very religious?" + +"Not in the ordinary way, I should think. She goes in for nature. _Gott +in der Natur_, and that sort of thing. If the sun shines more than usual +she goes and stands in it, and turns up her eyes and gushes. There's a +crocus in the garden, and when we came to it yesterday she stopped in +front of it and rhapsodised for ten minutes about things that have +nothing to do with crocuses--chiefly about the _lieben Gott_. And all in +English, of course, and it sounds worse in English." + +"But then, my dear, she _is_ religious?" + +"Oh, well, the pastor would not call it religion. It's a sort of +huddle-muddle pantheism as far as it is anything at all." From which it +will be seen that Trudi was even more frank about her friends behind +their backs than she was to their faces. + +She drove back to Lohm in a discontented frame of mind. "What's the good +of anything?" was the mood she was in. She had over-tired herself +helping Anna, and she was afraid that being so much in cold rooms and +passages, and washing in hard water, had made her skin coarse. She had +caught sight of herself in a glass as she was leaving the +Regierungspraesidentin, and had been disconcerted by finding that she did +not look as pretty as she felt. Nor was she consoled for this by the +consciousness that she had been unusually amusing at Anna's expense; for +she was only too certain that the Regierungspraesidentin, when repeating +all she had told her to her friends, would add that Trudi Hasdorf had +terribly _eingepackt_--dreadful word, descriptive of the faded state +immediately preceding wrinkles, and held in just abhorrence by every +self-respecting woman. Of what earthly use was it to be cleverer and +more amusing than other people if at the same time you had _eingepackt_? + +"What a stupid world it is," thought Trudi, driving along the _chaussee_ +in the early April twilight. A mist lay over the sea, and the pale +sickle of the young moon rose ghost-like above the white shroud. Inland +the stars were faintly shining, and all the earth beneath was damp and +fragrant. It was Saturday evening, and the two bells of Lohm church were +plaintively ringing their reminder to the countryside that the week's +work was ended and God's day came next. "Oh, the stupid world," thought +Trudi. "If I stay here I shall be bored to death--that Estcourt child +and her governess have got on to my nerves--horrid fat child with +turned-in toes, and flabby, boneless woman, only held together by her +hairpins. I am sick of governesses and children--wherever one goes, +there they are. If I go home, there are those noisy little boys and +Fraeulein Schultz worrying all day, and then there's that tiresome Bill +coming in to meals. Anna and Bibi are just in the position I would like +to be in--no husbands and children, and lots of money." And staring +straight before her, with eyes dark with envy, she fell into gloomy +musings on the beauty of Bibi's dress, and the blindness of fate, +throwing away a dress like that on a Bibi, when it was so eminently +suited to tall, slim women like herself; and it was fortunate for Axel's +peace that when she reached Lohm the first thing she saw was a letter +from the objectionable Bill telling her to come home, because the +foreign prince who was honorary colonel of the regiment was expected +immediately in Hanover, and there were to be great doings in his honour. + +She left, all smiles, the next morning by the first train. + +"Miss Estcourt will miss you," said Axel, "and will wonder why you did +not say good-bye. I am afraid your journey will be unpleasant, too, +to-day. I wish you had stayed till to-morrow." + +"Oh, I don't mind the Sunday people once in a way," said Trudi gaily. +"And please tell Anna how it was I had to go so suddenly. I have started +her, at least, with the workmen and people she wants. I shall see her in +a few weeks again, you know, when Bill is at the man[oe]uvres." + +"A few weeks! Six months." + +"Well, six months. You must both try to exist without me for that time." + +"You seem very pleased to be off," he said, smiling, as she climbed +briskly into the dog-cart and took the reins, while her maid, with her +arms full of bags, was hoisted up behind. + +"Oh, so pleased!" said Trudi, looking down at him with sparkling eyes. +"Princes and parties are jollier any day than whitewash and the better +life." + +"And brothers." + +"Oh--brothers. By the way, I never saw Bibi look better than she did +yesterday. She has improved so much nobody would know----" + +"You will miss your train," said Axel, pulling out his watch. + +"Well, good-bye then, _alter Junge_. Work hard, do your duty, and don't +let your thoughts linger too much round strange young ladies. They never +do, I think you said? Well, so much the better, for it's no good, no +good, no good!" And Trudi, who was in tremendous spirits, put her whip +to the brim of her hat by way of a parting salute, touched up the cobs, +and rattled off down the drive on the road to Jungbluth and glory. She +turned her head before she finally disappeared, to call back her +oracular "No good!" once again to Axel, who stood watching her from the +steps of his solitary house. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +So Anna was left to herself again. She was astonished at the rapidity of +Trudi's movements. Within one week she had heard of her, met her, liked +her, begun to like her less, and lost her. She had flashed across the +Kleinwalde horizon, and left a trail of workmen and new servants behind, +with whom Anna was now occupied, unaided, from morning till night. Miss +Leech and Letty did all they could, but their German being restricted to +quotations from the _Erl-Koenig_ and the _Lied von der Glocke_, it could +not be brought to bear with any profitable results on the workmen. The +servants, too, were a perplexity to Anna. Their cheapness was +extraordinary, but their quality curious. Her new parlourmaid--for she +felt unequal to coping with German men-servants--wore her arms naked all +day long. Anna thought she had tucked up her sleeves in her zeal for +thoroughness, but when she appeared with the afternoon coffee--the local +tea was undrinkable--she still had bare arms; and, examining her more +closely, Anna saw that it was her usual state, for her dress was +sleeveless. Nor was her want of sleeves her only peculiarity. Anna began +to wonder whether her house would ever be ready for the twelve. + +The answers to the philanthropic advertisement were in a proportion of +fifty to one answer to the advertisement for a companion. There were +fifty ladies without means willing to be idle, to one lady without means +willing to work. It worried Anna terribly, being obliged by want of room +and money to limit the number to twelve. She could hardly bear to read +the letters, knowing that nearly all had to be rejected. "See how many +sad lives are being dragged through while we are so comfortable," she +said to Manske, when he brought round fresh piles of letters to add to +those already heaped on her table. + +He shook his head in perplexity. He was bewildered by the masses of +answers, by the apparent universality of impoverishment and hopelessness +among Christian ladies of good family. + +He could not come himself more than once a day, and the letters arrived +by every post; so in the afternoon he sent Herr Klutz, the young cleric +of poetic promptings, who had celebrated Anna on her arrival in a poem +which for freshness and spontaneousness equalled, he considered, the +best sonnets that had ever been written. What a joy it was to a youth of +imagination, to a poet who thought his features not unlike Goethe's, and +who regarded it as by no means an improbability that his brain should +turn out to be stamped with the same resemblance, to walk daily through +the gleaming, whispering forest, swinging his stick and composing +snatches not unworthy of her of whom they treated, his face towards the +magic _Schloss_ and its enchanted princess, and his pockets full of her +letters! Herr Klutz's coat was clerical, but his brown felt hat and the +flower in his buttonhole were typical of the worldliness within. "A +poet," he assured himself often, "is a citizen of the world, and is not +to be narrowed down to any one circle or creed." But he did not expound +this view to the good man who was helping him to prepare for the +examination that would make him a full-fledged pastor, and received his +frequent blessings, and assisted at prayers and intercessions of which +he was the subject, with outward decorum. + +The first time he brought the letters, Anna received him with her usual +kindness; but there was something in his manner that displeased her, +whether it was self-assurance, or conceit, or a way he had of looking at +her, she could not tell, nor did she waste many seconds trying to +decide; but the next day when he came he was not admitted to her +presence, nor the next after that, nor for some time to come. This +surprised Herr Klutz, who was of Dellwig's opinion that the most +superior woman was not equal to the average man; and take away any +advantage of birth or position or wealth that she might possess, why, +there she was, only a woman, a creature made to be conquered and brought +into obedience to man. Being young and poetic he differed from Dellwig +on one point: to Dellwig, woman was a servant; to Klutz, an admirable +toy. Clearly such a creature could only be gratified by opportunities of +seeing and conversing with members of the opposite sex. The Miss's +conduct, therefore, in allowing her servant to take the letters from him +at the door, puzzled him. + +He often met Miss Leech and Letty on his way to or from Kleinwalde, and +always stopped to speak to them and to teach them a few German sentences +and practise his own small stock of English; and from them he easily +discovered all that the young woman he favoured with his admiration was +doing. Lohm, riding over to Kleinwalde to settle differences between +Dellwig and the labourers, or to try offenders, met these three several +times, and supposed that Klutz must be courting the governess. + +The day Trudi left, Lohm had gone round to Anna and delivered his +sister's message in a slightly embellished form. "You will have +everything to do now unassisted," he said. "I do trust that in any +difficulty you will let me help you. If the workmen are insolent, for +instance, or if your new servants are dishonest or in any way give you +trouble. You know it is my duty as Amtsvorsteher to interfere when such +things happen." + +"You are very kind," said Anna gratefully, looking up at the grave, good +face, "but no one is insolent. And look--here is some one who wants to +come as companion. It is the first of the answers to that advertisement +that pleases me." + +Lohm took the letter and photograph and examined them. "She is a +Penheim, I see," he said. "It is a very good family, but some of its +branches have been reduced to poverty, as so many of our old families +have been." + +"Don't you think she would do very well?" + +"Yes, if she is and does all she says in her letter. You might propose +that she should come at first for a few weeks on trial. You may not like +her, and she may not appreciate philanthropic housekeeping." + +Anna laughed. "I am doubly anxious to get someone soon," she said, +"because my sister-in-law wants Letty and Miss Leech." + +Letty and Miss Leech heaved tragic sighs at this; they had no desire +whatever to go home. + +"Will you not feel rather forlorn when they are gone, and you are quite +alone among strangers?" + +"I shall miss them, but I don't mean to be forlorn," said Anna, smiling. + +"The courage of the little thing!" thought Lohm. "Ready to brave +anything in pursuit of her ideals. It makes one ashamed of one's own +grumblings and discouragements." + +Anna arranged with Frau von Penheim that she should come at once on a +three months' trial; and immediately this was settled she wrote to Susie +to ask what day Letty was to be sent home. She had had no communication +with Susie since that angry lady's departure. To Peter she had written, +explaining her plans and her reasons, and her hopes and yearnings, and +had received a hasty scrawl in reply dated from Estcourt, conveying his +blessing on herself and her scheme. "Susie came straight down here," he +wrote, "because of the Alderton wedding to which she was not asked, and +went to bed. You know, my dear little sister, anything that makes you +happy contents me. I wish you could have seen your way to benefiting +reduced English ladies, for you are a long way off; but of course you +have the house free over there. Don't let Miss Leech leave you till you +are perfectly satisfied with your companion. Yesterday I landed the +biggest----" etc. In a word, Peter, in accordance with his invariable +custom, was on her side. + +The day before Frau von Penheim was to arrive, Susie's answer to Anna's +letter came. Here it is:-- + + "DEAR ANNA,--Your letter surprised me, though I might have known by + now what to expect of you.--Still, I was surprised that you should + not even offer to make the one return in your power for all I have + done for you. As I feel I have a right to some return I don't + hesitate to tell you that I think you ought to keep Letty for a + year or two, or even longer. Even if you kept her till she is + eighteen, and dressed her and fed her (don't feed her too much), it + would only be four years; and what are four years I should like to + know, compared to the fifteen I had you on my hands? I was talking + to Herr Schumpf about her the other day--his bills were so absurd + that I made him take something off--and he said by all means let + her stay in Germany. Everybody speaks German nowadays, and Letty + will pick it up at once in that awful place of yours. I was so ill + when I got back that I went to Estcourt, and had to stay in bed for + days, the doctor coming every day, and sometimes twice. He said he + didn't wonder, when I told him all I had gone through. Peter was + quite sorry for me. Send Miss Leech back. Give her a month's notice + for me the day you get this, and see if you can't find some German + who will go to your place--I can't remember its wretched name + without looking in my address book--and give Letty lessons every + day. The rest of the time she can talk German to your twelve + victims. I believe masters in Germany only charge about 6d. an + hour, so it won't ruin you. Make her take lots of exercise, and let + her ride. She has outgrown her old habit, but German tailors are so + cheap that a new one will cost next to nothing, and any horse that + shakes her up well will do. I shall be quite happy about her diet, + because I know you don't have anything to eat. I was at the + Ennistons' last night. They seemed very sorry for me being so + nearly related to somebody cracked; but after all, as I tell + people, I'm not responsible for my husband's relations.--Your + affectionate, SUSIE ESTCOURT. + + "I have never seen Hilton so upset as she was after that German + trip. She cried if anyone looked at her. Poor thing, no wonder. The + doctor says she is all nerves." + +The evening meal was in progress at Kleinwalde when this letter came. +The dining-room was finished, and it was the first meal served there +since its transformation. No one who had seen it on that dark day of +Anna's arrival would have recognised it, so cheerful did it look with +its whitewashed walls. There were no dark corners now where china +shepherds smiled in vain; the western light filled it, and to a person +lately come from Susie's Hill Street house, it was a refreshment to sit +in any place so simple and so clean. Reforms, too, had been made in the +food, and the bread was no longer disfigured by caraway seeds. A great +bowl of blue hepaticas, fresh from the forest, stood on the table; and +the hepaticas were the exact colour of Anna's eyes. When Letty saw her +mother's handwriting she turned cold. It was the warrant that was to +banish her from Eden, casting her back into the outer darkness of the +Popular Concerts and the literature lectures. She was in the act of +raising a spoonful of pudding to her already opened mouth, when she +caught sight of the well-known writing. She hesitated, her hand shook, +and finally she laid her spoon down again and pushed her plate back. At +the great crises of life who can go on eating pudding? What then was her +relief and joy to see her aunt get up, come round to where she was +sitting braced to hear the worst, put her arms round her neck, and to +feel herself being kissed. "You are going to stay with me after all!" +cried Anna delightedly. "Dear little Letty--I should have missed you +horribly. Aren't you glad? Your mother says I'm to keep you for ever so +long." + +"Oh, I say--how ripping!" exclaimed Letty; and being a practical person +at once resumed and finished her pudding. + +Miss Leech, too, looked exceedingly pleased. How could she be anything +but pleased at the prospect of staying with a person who was always so +kind and thoughtful as Anna? Her feelings, somehow, were never hurt by +Anna; Lady Estcourt seemed to have a special knack of jumping on them +every time she spoke to her. She knew she ought not to have such +sensitive feelings, and felt that it was more her fault than anyone +else's if they were hurt; yet there they were, and being hurt was +painful, and living with someone so even tempered as Anna was very +peaceful and pleasant. Mr. Jessup would have liked Anna. She wished he +could have known her. A higher compliment it was not in Miss Leech's +power to pay. + +And when Anna saw the pleasure on Miss Leech's face, and saw that she +thought she was to stay too, she felt that for no sister-in-law in the +world would she wipe it out with that month's notice. She decided to say +nothing, but simply to keep her as well as Letty. Her two thousand a +year was in her eyes of infinite elasticity. Never having had any money, +she had no notion of how far it would go; and she did not hesitate to +come to a decision which would probably ultimately oblige her to reduce +the number of those persons Susie described as victims. + +The next day the companion arrived. Anna went out into the hall to meet +her when she heard the approaching wheels of the shepherd-plaid chariot. +She felt rather nervous as she watched her emerging from beneath the +hood, for she knew how much of the comfort and peace of the twelve would +depend on this lady. She felt exceedingly nervous when the lady, +immediately upon shaking hands, asked if she could speak to her alone. + +"_Natuerlich,_" said Anna, a vague fear lest Fritz, the coachman, +should have insulted her on the way coming over her, though she only +knew Fritz as the mildest of men. + +She led the way into the drawing-room. "Now what is she going to tell me +dreadful?" she thought, as she invited her to sit on the sofa, having +been instructed by Trudi that that was the place where strangers +expected to sit. "Suppose she isn't going to stay, and I shall have to +look for someone all over again? Perhaps the lining of the carriage has +been too much for her. _Bitte_" she said aloud, with an uneasy smile, +motioning Frau von Penheim towards the sofa. + +The new companion was a big, elderly lady with a sensible face. Her +boots were thick, and she wore a mackintosh. She sat down, and looking +more attentively at Anna, smiled. Most people who saw her for the first +time did that. It was such a change and a pleasure after seeing plain +faces, and dull faces, and vain, pretty faces for an indefinite period, +to rest one's eyes on a person so charming yet manifestly preoccupied by +other matters than her charms. + +"I feel it my duty," said the lady in German, "before we go any further +to tell you the truth." + +This was alarming. The lady's manner was solemn. Anna inclined her head, +and felt scared. She wished that Axel Lohm were somewhere near. + +"I see you are young," continued the lady, "and I presume that you are +inexperienced." + +"Not so young," murmured Anna, who felt particularly young and +uncomfortable at that moment, and very unlike the mistress of a house +interviewing a companion. "Not so young--twenty-five." + +"Twenty-five? You do not look it. But what is twenty-five?" + +Anna did not know, so said nothing. + +"My position here would be a responsible one," continued the lady, +scrutinising Anna's face, and smiling again at what she saw there. +"Taking charge of a motherless girl always is. And the circumstances in +this case are peculiar." + +"Yes," said Anna, "they are even more peculiar than you imagine----" And +she was about to explain the approaching advent of the victims, when the +lady held up her hand in a masterful way, as though enjoining silence, +and said, "First hear me. Through a series of misfortunes I have been +reduced to poverty since my husband's death. But I do not choose to live +on the charity of relatives, which is the most unbearable form of +charity calling itself by that holy name, and I am determined to work +for my bread." + +She paused. Anna could find nothing better to say than "Oh." + +"Out of consideration for my relatives, who are enraged at my +resolution, and think I ought to starve quietly on what they choose to +give me sooner than make myself conspicuous by working, I have called +myself Frau von Penheim. I will not come here under false pretences, and +to you, privately, I will confess that my proper title is the Princess +Ludwig, of that house." + +She stopped to observe the effect of this announcement. Anna was +confounded. A princess was not at all what she wanted. She felt that she +had no use whatever for princesses. How could she ever expect one to get +up early and see that the twelve received their meat in due season? +"Oh," she said again, and then was silent. + +The princess watched her closely. She was very poor, and very anxious to +have the place. "'Oh' is so English," she said, smiling to hide her +anxiety. "We say '_ach_!" + +Anna laughed. + +"And do not think that all German princesses are like your English +ones," she went on eagerly. "My father-in-law was raised to the rank of +Fuerst for services rendered to the state. He had a large family, and my +husband was a younger son." + +Still Anna was silent. Then she said "I--I wish----" and then stopped. + +"What do you wish, my dear child?" + +"I wish--that I--that you----" + +"That you had known it beforehand? Then you would never have taken me, +even on trial," was the prompt reply. + +Anna's eyes said plainly, "No, I would not." + +"And it is so important that I should find something to do. At first I +answered advertisements in my real name, and received my photograph back +by the next post. This, and the anger of my family, decided me to drop +the title altogether. But I had always resolved that if I did find a +place I would confess to my employer. It is a terrible thing to be very +poor," she added, staring straight before her with eyes growing dim at +her remembrances. + +"Yes," said Anna, under her breath. + +"To have nothing, nothing at all, and to be burdened at the same time by +one's birth." + +"Oh," murmured Anna, with a little catch in her voice. + +"And to be dependent on people who only wish that you were safely out of +the way--dead." + +"Married," whispered Anna. + +"Why, what do you know about it?" said the princess, turning quickly to +her; for she had been thinking aloud rather than addressing anyone. + +"I know everything about it," said Anna; and in a rush of bad but eager +German she told her of those old days when even the sweeping of +crossings had seemed better than living on relations, and how since then +all her heart had been filled with pity for the type of poverty called +genteel, and how now that she was well off she was going to help women +who were in the same sad situation in which she had been. Her eyes were +wet when she finished. She had spoken with extraordinary enthusiasm, a +fresh wave of passionate sympathy with such lives passing over her; and +not until she had done did she remember that she had never before seen +this lady, and that she was saying things to her that she had not as yet +said to the most intimate of her friends. + +She felt suddenly uncomfortable; her eyelashes quivered and drooped, and +she blushed. + +The princess contemplated her curiously. "I congratulate you," she said, +laying her hand lightly for a moment on Anna's. "The idea and the good +intentions will have been yours, whatever the result may be." + +This was not very encouraging as a response to an outburst. "I have told +you more than I tell most people," Anna said, looking up shamefacedly, +"because you have had much the same experiences that I have." + +"Except the uncle at the end. He makes such a difference. May I ask if +many of the ladies answered _both_ advertisements?" + +"No, they did not." + +"Not one?" + +"Not one." + +The princess thought that working for one's bread was distinctly +preferable to taking Anna's charity; but then she was of an unusually +sturdy and independent nature. "I can assure you," she said after a +short silence, "that I would do my best to look after your house and +your--your friends and yourself." + +"But I want someone who will do _everything_--order the meals, train the +servants--everything. And get up early besides," said Anna, her voice +full of doubt. The princess really belonged, she felt, to the category +of sad, sick, and sorry; and if she had asked for a place among the +twelve there would have been little difficulty in giving her one. But +the companion she had imagined was to be a real help, someone she could +order about as she chose, certainly not a person unused to being ordered +about. Even the parson's sister-in-law Helena would have been better +than this. + +"I would do all that, naturally. Do you think if I am not too proud to +take wages that I shall be too proud to do the work for which they are +paid?" + +"Would you not prefer----" began Anna, and hesitated. + +"Would I not prefer what, my child?" + +"Prefer to--would it not be more agreeable for you to come and live here +without working? I could find another companion, and I would be happy if +you will stay here as--as one of the others." + +The princess laughed; a hearty, big laugh in keeping with her big +person. + +"No," she said. "I would not like that at all. But thank you, dear +child, for making the offer. Let me stay here and do what work you want +done, and then you pay me for it, and we are quits. I assure you there +is a solid satisfaction in being quits. I shall certainly not expect any +more consideration than you would give to a Frau Schultz. And I will be +able to take care of you; and I think, if you will not be angry with me +for saying so, that you greatly need taking care of." + +"Well, then," said Anna, with an effort, "let us try it for three +months." + +An immense load was lifted off the princess's heart by these words. "You +will not regret it," she said emphatically. + +But Anna was not so sure. Though she did her best to put a cheerful face +on her new bargain, she could not help fearing that her enterprise had +begun badly. She was unusually pensive throughout the evening. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +What the Princess Ludwig thought of her new place it would be difficult +to say. She accepted her position as minister to the comforts of the +hitherto comfortless without remark and entirely as a matter of course. +She got up at hours exemplary in their earliness, and was about the +house rattling a bunch of keys all day long. She was wholly practical, +and as destitute of illusions as she was of education in the ordinary +sense. Her knowledge of German literature was hardly more extensive than +Letty's, and of other tongues and other literatures she knew and cared +nothing. As for illusions, she saw things as they are, and had never at +any period of her life possessed enthusiasms. Nor had she the least +taste for hidden meanings and symbols. Maeterlinck, if she had heard of +him, would have been dismissed by her with an easy smile. Anna's +whitewash to her was whitewash; a disagreeable but economical +wall-covering. She knew and approved of it as cheap; how could she dream +that it was also symbolic? She never dreamed at all, either sleeping or +waking. If by some chance she had fallen into musings, she would have +mused blood and iron, the superiority of the German nation, cookery in +its three forms _feine_, _buergerliche_, and _Hausmannskost_, in all +which forms she was preeminent in skill--she would have mused, that is, +on facts, plain and undisputed. If she had had children she would have +made an excellent mother; as it was she made excellent cakes--also a +form of activity to be commended. She was a Dettingen before her +marriage, and the Dettingens are one of the oldest Prussian families, +and have produced more first-rate soldiers and statesmen and a larger +number of mothers of great men than any other family in that part. The +Penheims and Dettingens had intermarried continually, and it was to his +mother's Dettingen blood that the first [German: Fuerst] Penheim owed the +energy that procured him his elevation. Princess Ludwig was a good +example of the best type of female Dettingen. Like many other +illiterates, she prided herself particularly on her sturdy common sense. +Regarding this quality, which she possessed, as more precious than +others which she did not possess, she was not likely to sympathise much +either with Anna's plan for making people happy, or with those who were +willing to be made happy in such a way. A sensible woman, she thought, +will always find work, and need not look far for a home. She herself had +been handicapped in the search by her unfortunate title, yet with +patience even she had found a haven. Only the lazy and lackadaisical, +the morally worthless, that is, would, she was convinced, accept such an +offer as Anna's. It was not, however, her business. Her business was to +look after Anna's house; and she did it with a zeal and thoroughness +that struck terror into the hearts of the maid-servants. Trudi's fitful +energy was nothing to it. Trudi had introduced workmen and chaos; the +princess, with a rapidity and skill little short of amazing to anyone +unacquainted with the capabilities of the well-trained German +_Hausfrau_, cleared out the workmen and reduced the chaos to order. +Within three weeks the house was ready, and Anna, palpitating, saw the +moment approaching when the first batch of unhappy ones might be +received. + +Manske's time was entirely taken up writing letters of inquiry +concerning the applicants, and it was surprising in what huge batches +they had to be weeded out. Of fifty applications received in one day, +three or four, after due inquiry, would alone remain for further +consideration; and of these three or four, after yet closer inquiry, +sometimes not one would be left. + +At first Anna asked the princess's advice as well as Manske's, and it +was when she was present at the consultations that the heap into which +the letters of the unworthy were gathered was biggest. All those ladies +belonging to the _buergerliche_ or middle classes were in her eyes wholly +unworthy. If Anna had proposed to take washerwomen into her home, and +required the princess's help in brightening their lives, it would have +been given in the full measure, pressed down and running over, that +befits a Christian gentlewoman; but for the _Buergerlichen_, those +belonging to the class more immediately below her own, the princess's +feeling was only Christian so long as they kept a great way off. There +was so much good sense in the objections she made that Anna, who did her +best to keep an open mind and listen attentively to advice, was forced +to agree with her, and added letters to the ever-increasing heap of the +rejected which she might otherwise have reserved for riper +consideration. After two or three days, however, it became clear to her +that if she continued to consult the princess, no one would be accepted +at all, for Manske's respect for that lady was so profound that he was +invariably of her opinion. She did not, therefore, invite her again to +assist at the interviews. Still, all she had said, and the knowledge +that she must know her own countrywomen fairly thoroughly, made Anna +prudent; and so it came about that the first arrivals were to be only +three in number, chosen without reference to the princess, and one of +them was _buergerlich_. + +"We can meanwhile proceed with our inquiries about the remaining nine," +said Manske, "and the gracious Miss will be always gaining experience." + +She trod on air during the days preceding the arrival of the chosen. To +say that she was blissful would be but an inadequate description of her +state of mind. The weather was beautiful, and it increased her happiness +tenfold to know that their new life was to begin in sunshine. She had +never a doubt as to their delight in the sun-chequered forest, in the +freshness of the glittering sea, in the peacefulness of the quiet +country life, so quiet that the week seemed to be all Sundays. Were not +these things sufficient for herself? Did she ever tire of those long +pine vistas, with the narrow strip of clearest blue between the gently +waving tree-tops? The dreamy murmur of the forest gave her an exquisite +pleasure. To see the bloom on the pink and grey trunks of the pines, and +the sun on the moss and lichen beneath, was so deep a satisfaction to +her soul that the thought that others who had been knocked about by life +would not feel it too, would not enter with profoundest thankfulness +into this other world of peace, never struck her at all. When these poor +tired women, freed at last from every care and every anxiety, had +refreshed themselves with the music and fragrance of the forest, there +was the garden across the road to enjoy, with the marsh already strewn +with kingcups on the other side of the hedge already turning green; and +the sea with the fishing-smacks passing up and down, and the silver +gleam of gulls' wings circling round the orange sails, and eagles +floating high up aloft, specks in the infinite blue; and then there were +drives along the coast towards the north, where the wholesome wind blew +fresher than in the woods; and quiet evenings in the roomy house, where +all that was asked of them was that they should be happy. + +"It's a lovely plan, isn't it, Letty?" she said joyously, the evening +before they were to arrive, as she stood with her arm round Letty's +shoulder at the bottom of the garden, where they had both been watching +the sails of the fishing-smacks during those short sunset moments when +they looked like the bright wings of spirits moving over the face of the +placid waters. + +"I should rather think it was," replied Letty, who was profoundly +interested. + +They got up at sunrise the next morning, and went out into the forest in +search of hepaticas and windflowers with which to decorate the three +bedrooms. These bedrooms were the largest and pleasantest in the house. +Anna had given up her own because she thought the windows particularly +pleasing, and had gone into a little one in the fervour of her desire to +lavish all that was best on her new friends. The rooms were furnished +with special care, an immense amount of thought having been bestowed on +the colour of the curtains, the pattern of the porcelain, and the books +filling the shelves above each writing-table. The colours and patterns +were the nearest approach Berlin could produce to Anna's own favourite +colours and patterns. She wasted half her time, when the rooms were +ready, sitting in them and picturing what her own delight would have +been if she, like the poor ladies for whom they were intended, had come +straight out of a cold, unkind world into such pretty havens. + +The choice of books had been a great difficulty, and there had been much +correspondence on the subject with Berlin before a selection had been +made. Books there must be, for no room, she thought, was habitable +without them; and she had tried to imagine what manner of literature +would most appeal to her unhappy ones. It was to be presumed that their +ages were such as to exclude frivolity; therefore she bought very few +novels. She thought Dickens translated into German would be a safe +choice; also Schlegel's Shakespeare for loftier moments. The German +classics were represented by Goethe in one room, Schiller in another, +and Heine in the third. In each room also there was a German-English +dictionary, for the facilitation of intercourse. Finally, she asked the +princess to recommend something they would be sure to like, and she +recommended cookery books. + +"But they are not going to cook," said Anna, surprised. + +"_Es ist egal_--it is always interesting to read good recipes. No other +reading affords me the same pleasure." + +"But only when you want something new cooked." + +"No, no, at all times," insisted the princess. + +Anna could not quite believe that such a taste was general; but in case +one of the three should share it, she put a cookery book in one +bookcase. In the other two severally to balance it, she slipt at the +last moment a volume of Maeterlinck, to which at that period she was +greatly attached; and Matthew Arnold's poems, to which also at that +period she was greatly attached. + +The princess went about with pursed lips while these preparations were +in progress; and when, at sunrise on the last morning, she was awakened +by stealthy footsteps and smothered laughter on the landing outside her +room, and, opening her door an inch and peering out as in duty bound in +case the sounds should be emanating from some unaccountably mirthful +maid-servant, she saw Anna and Letty creeping downstairs with their hats +on and baskets in their hands, she guessed what they were going to do, +and got back into bed with lips more pursed than ever. Did she not know +who had been chosen, and that one of the three was a _Buergerliche_? + +About eight o'clock, when the two girls were coming out of the forest +with their baskets full and their faces happy, Axel Lohm was riding +thoughtfully past, having just settled an unpleasant business at +Kleinwalde. Dellwig had sent him an urgent message in the small hours; +there had been a brawl among the labourers about a woman, and a man had +been stabbed. Axel had ordered the aggressor to be locked up in the +little room that served as a temporary prison till he could be handed +over to the Stralsund authorities. His wife, a girl of twenty, was ill, +and she and her three small children depended entirely on the man's +earnings. The victim appeared to be dying, and the man would certainly +be punished. What, then, thought Axel, was to become of the wife and the +children? Frau Dellwig had told him that she sent soup every day at +dinner-time, but soup once a day would neither comfort them nor make +them fat. Besides, he had a notion that the soup of Frau Dellwig's +charity was very thin. He was riding dejectedly enough down the road on +his way home, looking straight before him, his mouth a mere grim line, +thinking how grievous it was that the consequences of sin should fall +with their most terrific weight nearly always on the innocent, on the +helpless women-folk and the weak little children, when Anna and Letty +appeared, talking and laughing, on the edge of the forest. + +Letty, we know, had not been kindly treated by nature, but even she was +a pleasing object in her harmless morning cheerfulness after the faces +he had just seen; and Anna's beauty, made radiant by happiness and +contentment, startled him. He had a momentary twinge, gone almost before +he had realised it, a sudden clear conception of his great loneliness. +The satisfaction he strove to extract from improving his estate for the +benefit of his brother Gustav appeared to him at that moment to bear a +singular resemblance, in its thinness, to Frau Dellwig's charitable +soup. He got off his horse to speak to her, and rested his eyes, tired +by looking at the hideous passions on the brawler's face, on hers. +"To-day is the important day, is it not?" he asked, glancing from her +flower-like face to the flowers. + +"The first three come this afternoon." + +"So Manske told me. You are very happy, I can see," he said, smiling. + +"I never was so happy before." + +"Your uncle was a wise man. He told me he was going to leave you +Kleinwalde because he felt sure you would be happy leading the simple +life here." + +"Did he talk about me to you?" + +"After his last visit to England he talked about you all the time." + +"Oh?" said Anna, looking at him thoughtfully. Uncle Joachim, she +remembered perfectly, had urged two things--the leading of the better +life, and the marrying of a good German gentleman. A faint flush came +into her face and faded again. She had suddenly become aware that Axel +was the good German gentleman he had meant. Well, the wisest uncle was +subject to errors of judgment. + +"I trust those women will not worry you too much," he said, thinking how +immense would be the pity if those happy eyes ever lost their +joyousness. + +"Worry me? Poor things, they won't have any energy of any sort left +after all they have gone through. I never read such pitiful letters." + +"Well, I don't know," said Axel doubtfully. "Manske says one of them is +a Treumann. It is a family distinguished by its size and its +disagreeableness." + +"Oh, but she only married a Treumann, and isn't one herself." + +"But a woman generally adopts the peculiarities of the family she +marries into, especially if they are unpleasant." + +"But she has been a widow for years. And is so poor. And is so crushed." + +"I never yet heard of a permanently crushed Treumann," said Axel, +shaking his head. + +"You are trying to make me uneasy," said Anna, a slight touch of +impatience in her voice. She was singularly sensitive about her chosen +ones; sensitive in the way mothers are about a child that is deformed. + +"No, no," he said quickly, "I only wish to warn you. You maybe +disappointed--it is just possible." He could not bear to think of her as +disappointed. + +"Pray, do you know anything against the other two?" she asked with some +defiance. "One of them is a Baroness Elmreich, and the other is a +Fraeulein Kuhraeuber." + +Axel looked amused. "I never heard of Fraeulein Kuhraeuber," he said. +"What does Princess Ludwig say to her coming?" + +"Nothing at all. What should she say?" + +It was Fraeulein Kuhraeuber's coming that had more particularly occasioned +the pursing of the princess's lips. + +"I know some Elmreichs," said Axel. "A few of them are respectable; but +one branch at least of the family is completely demoralised. A Baron +Elmreich shot himself last year because he had been caught cheating at +cards. And one of his sisters--oh, well, some of them are harmless, I +believe." + +"Thank you." + +"You are angry with me?" + +"Very." + +"And why?" + +"You want to prejudice me against these poor things. They can't help +what distant relations do. They will get away from them in my house, at +least, and have peace." + +"Miss Letty, is your aunt often--what is the word--so fractious?" + +"Oh, I don't know," said Letty, who found it dull waiting in silence +while other people talked. "It's breakfast time, you know, and people +can't stand much just about then." + +"Oh, youthful philosopher!" exclaimed Axel. "So young, and of the female +sex, and yet to have pierced to the very root of human weakness!" + +"Stuff," said Letty, offended. + +"What, are you going to be angry too? Then let me get on my horse and +go." + +"It's the best thing you can do," said Letty, always frank, but doubly +so when she was hungry. + +"Shall you come and see us soon?" Anna asked, gathering up her skirts in +her one free hand, preparatory to crossing the muddy road. + +"But you are angry with me." + +She looked up and laughed. "Not now," she said; "I've finished. Do you +think I'm going to be angry long this pleasant April morning?" + +"I smell the coffee," observed Letty, sniffing. + +"Then I will come to-morrow if I may," said Axel, "and make the +acquaintance of Frau von Treumann and Baroness Elmreich." + +"And Fraeulein Kuhraeuber," said Anna, with emphasis. She thought she saw +the same tendency in him that was so manifest in the princess, a +tendency to ignore the very existence of any one called Kuhraeuber. + +"And Fraeulein Kuhraeuber," repeated Axel gravely. + +"They've burnt the toast again," said Letty; "I can hear them scraping +off the black." + +"I wish you good luck, then," said Axel, taking off his hat; "with all +my heart I wish you good luck, and that these ladies may very soon be as +happy as you are yourself." + +"That's nice," said Anna, approvingly; "so much, much nicer than the +other things you have been saying." And she nodded to him, all smiles, +as she crossed over to the house and he rode away. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +Long before the carriage bringing the three chosen ones from the station +could possibly arrive, Anna and Letty began to wait in the hall, +standing at the windows, going out on to the steps, looking into the +different rooms every few minutes to make sure that everything was +ready. The bedrooms were full of the hepaticas of the morning; the +coffee had been set out with infinite care and an eye to effect by Anna +herself on a little table in the drawing-room by the open window, +through which the mild April air came in and gently fanned the curtains +to and fro; and the princess had baked her best cakes for the occasion, +inwardly deploring, as she did so, that such cakes should be offered to +such people. When she had seen that all was as it should be, she +withdrew into her own room, where she remained darning sheets, for she +had asked Anna to excuse her from being present at the arrival. "It is +better that you should make their acquaintance by yourself," she said. +"The presence of too many strangers at first might disconcert them under +the circumstances." + +Miss Leech profited by this remark, made in her hearing, and did not +appear either; so that when the carriage drove in at the gate only Anna +and Letty were standing at the door in the sunshine. + +Anna's heart bumped so as the three slowly disentangled themselves and +got out, that she could hardly speak. Her face flushed and grew pale by +turns, and her eyes were shining with something suspiciously like tears. +What she wanted to do was to put her arms right round the three poor +ladies, and kiss them, and comfort them, and make up for all their +griefs. What she did was to put out a very cold, shaking hand, and say +in a voice that trembled, "_Guten Tag_." + +"_Guten Tag_," said the first lady to descend; evidently, from her +mourning, the widowed Frau von Treumann. + +Anna took her extended hand in both hers, and clasping it tight looked +at its owner with all her heart in her eyes. "_Es freut mich so--es +freut mich so_," she murmured incoherently. + +"_Ach_--you are Miss Estcourt?" asked the lady in German. + +"Yes, yes," said Anna, still clinging to her hand, "and so happy, so +very happy to see you." + +Frau von Treumann hereupon made some remarks which Anna supposed were of +a grateful nature, but she spoke so rapidly and in such subdued tones, +glancing round uneasily as she did so at the coachman and at the others, +and Anna herself was so much agitated, that what she said was quite +incomprehensible. Again Anna longed to throw her arms round the poor +woman's neck, and interrupt her with kisses, and tell her that gratitude +was not required of her, but only that she should be happy; but she felt +that if she did so she would begin to cry, and tears were surely out of +place on such a joyful occasion, especially as nobody else looked in the +least like crying. + +"You are Frau von Treumann, I know," she said, holding her hand, and +turning to the next one and beaming on her, "and this is Baroness +Elmreich?" + +"No, no," said the third lady quickly, "_I_ am Baroness Elmreich." + +Fraeulein Kuhraeuber, an ample person whose body, swathed in travelling +cloaks, had blotted out the other little woman, looked frightened and +apologetic, and made deep curtseys. + +Anna shook their hands one after the other with all the warmth that was +glowing in her heart. Her defective German forsook her almost +completely. She did nothing but repeat disconnected ejaculations, "_so +reizend--so gluecklich--so erfreut_----" and fill in the gaps with happy, +quivering smiles at each in turn, and timid little pats on any hand +within her reach. + +Letty meanwhile stood in the shadow of the doorway, wishing that she +were young enough to suck her thumb. It kept on going up to her mouth of +its own accord, and she kept on pulling it down again. This was one of +the occasions, she felt, when the sucking of thumbs is a relief and a +blessing. It gives one's superfluous hands occupation, and oneself a +countenance. She shifted from one foot to the other uneasily, and held +on tight to the rebellious thumb, for the tall lady who had got out +first was fixing her with a stare that chilled her blood. The tall lady, +who was very tall and thin, and had round unblinking dark eyes set close +together like an owl's, and strongly marked black eyebrows, said +nothing, but examined her slowly from the tip of the bow of ribbon +trembling on her head to the buckles of the shoes creaking on her feet. +Ought she to offer to shake hands with her, or ought she to wait to be +shaken hands with, Letty asked herself distractedly. Anyhow it was +rather rude to stare like that. She had always been taught that it was +rude to stare like that. + +Anna had forgotten all about her, and only remembered her when they were +in the drawing-room and she had begun to pour out the coffee. "Oh, +Letty, where are you? This is my niece," she said; and Letty was at last +shaken hands with. + +"Ah--she keeps you company," said the baroness. "You found it lonely +here, naturally." + +"Oh no, I am never lonely," said Anna cheerfully, filling the cups and +giving them to Letty to carry round. + +"How pleasant the air is to-day," observed Frau von Treumann, edging her +chair away from the window. "Damp, but pleasant. You like fresh air, I +see." + +"Oh, I love it," said Anna; "and it is so beautiful here--so pure, and +full of the sea." + +"You are not afraid of catching cold, sitting so near an open window?" + +"Oh, is it too much for you? Letty, shut the window. It is getting +chilly. The days are so fine that one forgets it is only April." + +Anna talked German and poured out the coffee with a nervous haste +unusual to her. The three women sitting round the little table staring +at her made her feel terribly nervous. She was happy beyond words to +have got them safely under her own roof at last, but she was nervous. +She was determined that there should be no barriers of conventionality +from the first between themselves and her; not a minute more of their +lives was to be wasted; this was their home, and she was all ready to +love them; she had made up her mind that however shy she felt she was +going to behave as though they were her dear friends--which indeed, she +assured herself, was exactly what they were. Therefore she struggled +bravely against her nervousness, addressing them collectively and +singly, saying whatever came first into her head in her anxiety to say +something, smiling at them, pressing the princess's cakes on them, +hardly letting them drink their coffee before she wanted to give them +more. But it was no good; she was and remained nervous, and her hand +shook so when she lifted it that she was ashamed. + +Fraeulein Kuhraeuber was the one who stared least. If she caught Anna's +eye her own drooped, whereas the eyes of the other two never wavered. +She sat on the edge of her chair in a way made familiar to Anna by +intercourse with Frau Manske, and whatever anybody said she nodded her +head and murmured "_Ja, eben_." She was obviously ill at ease, and +dropped the sugar-tongs when she was offered sugar with a loud clatter +on to the varnished floor, nearly sweeping the cups off the table in her +effort to pick them up again. + +"Oh, do not mind," said Anna, "Letty will pick them up. They are stupid +things--much too big for the sugar-basin." + +"_Ja, eben_," said Fraeulein Kuhraeuber, sitting up and looking perturbed. +The other two removed their eyes from Anna's face for a moment to stare +at the Fraeulein. The baroness, a small, fair person with hair arranged +in those little flat curls called kiss-me-quicks on each cheek, and +wide-open pale blue eyes, and a little mouth with no lips, or lips so +thin that they were hardly visible, sat very still and straight, and had +a way of moving her eyes round from one face to the other without at the +same time moving her head. She was unmarried, and was probably about +thirty-five, Anna thought, but she had always evaded questions in the +correspondence about her age. Fraeulein Kuhraeuber was also thirty-five, +and as large and blooming as the baroness was small and pale. Frau von +Treumann was over fifty, and had had more sorrows, judging from her +letters, than the other two. She sat nearest Anna, who every now and +then laid her hand gently on hers and let it rest there a moment, in her +determination to thaw all frost from the very beginning. "Oh, I quite +forgot," she said cheerfully--the amount of cheerfulness she put into +her voice made her laugh at herself--"I quite forgot to introduce you to +each other." + +"We did it at the station," said Frau von Treumann, "when we found +ourselves all entering your carriage." + +"The Elmreichs are connected with the Treumanns," observed the baroness. + +"We are such a large family," said Frau von Treumann quickly, "that we +are connected with nearly everybody." + +The tone was cold, and there was a silence. Neither of them, apparently, +was connected with Fraeulein Kuhraeuber, who buried her face in her cup, +in which the tea-spoon remained while she drank, and heartily longed for +connections. + +But she had none. She was absolutely without relations except deceased +ones. She had been an orphan since she was two, cared for by her one +aunt till she was ten. The aunt died, and she found a refuge in an +orphanage till she was sixteen, when she was told that she must earn her +bread. She was a lazy girl even in those days, who liked eating her +bread better than earning it. No more, however, being forthcoming in the +orphanage, she went into a pastor's family as _Stuetze der Hausfrau_. +These _Stuetze_, or supports, are common in middle-class German families, +where they support the mistress of the house in all her manifold duties, +cooking, baking, mending, ironing, teaching or amusing the +children--being in short a comfort and blessing to harassed mothers. But +Fraeulein Kuhraeuber had no talent whatever for comforting mothers, and +she was quickly requested to leave the busy and populous parsonage; +whereupon she entered upon the series of driftings lasting twenty years, +which landed her, by a wonderful stroke of fortune, in Anna's arms. + +When she saw the advertisement, her future was looking very black. She +was, as usual, under notice to quit, and had no other place in view, and +had saved nothing. It is true the advertisement only offered a home to +women of good family; but she got over that difficulty by reflecting +that her family was all in heaven, and that there could be no relations +more respectable than angels. She wrote therefore in glowing terms of +the paternal Kuhraeuber, "_gegenwaertig mit Gott_," as she put it, +expatiating on his intellect and gifts (he was a man of letters, she +said), while he yet dwelt upon earth. Manske, with all his inquiries, +could find out nothing about her except that she was, as she said, an +orphan, poor, friendless, and struggling; and Anna, just then impatient +of the objections the princess made to every applicant, quickly decided +to accept this one, against whom not a word had been said. So Fraeulein +Kuhraeuber, who had spent her life in shirking work, who was quite +thriftless and improvident, who had never felt particularly unhappy, and +whose father had been a postman, found herself being welcomed with an +enthusiasm that astonished her to Anna's home, being smiled upon and +patted, having beautiful things said to her, things the very opposite to +those to which she had been used, things to the effect that she was now +to rest herself for ever and to be sure and not do anything except just +that which made her happiest. + +It was very wonderful. It seemed much, much too good to be true. And the +delight that filled her as she sat eating excellent cakes, and the +discomfort she endured because of the stares of the other two women, and +the consciousness that she had never learned how to behave in the +society of persons with _von_ before their names, produced such mingled +feelings of ecstasy and fright in her bosom that it was quite natural +she should drop the sugar-tongs, and upset the cream-jug, and choke over +her coffee--all of which things she did, to Anna's distress, who +suffered with her in her agitation, while the eyes of the other two +watched each successive catastrophe with profoundest attention. + +It was an uncomfortable half hour. "I am shy, and they are shy," Anna +said to herself, apologising as it were for the undoubted flatness that +prevailed. How could it be otherwise, she thought? Did she expect them +to gush? Heaven forbid. Yet it was an important crisis in their lives, +this passing for ever from neglect and loneliness to love, and she +wondered vaguely that the obviously paramount feeling should be interest +in the awkwardness of Fraeulein Kuhraeuber. + +Her German faltered, and threatened to give out entirely. The inevitable +pause came, and they could hear the sparrows quarrelling in the golden +garden, and the creaking of a distant pump. + +"How still it is," observed the baroness with a slight shiver. + +"You have no farmyard near the house to make it more cheerful," said +Frau von Treumann. "My father's house had the garden at the back, and +the farmyard in the front, and one did not feel so cut off from +everything. There was always something going on in the yard--always life +and noises." + +"Really?" said Anna; and again the pump and the sparrows became audible. + +"The stillness is truly remarkable," observed the baroness again. + +"_Ja, eben_," said Fraeulein Kuhraeuber. + +"But it is beautiful, isn't it," said Anna, gazing out at the light on +the water. "It is so restful, so soothing. Look what a lovely sunset +there must be this evening. We can't see it from this side of the house, +but look at the colour of the grass and the water." + +"_Ach_--you are a friend of nature," said Frau von Treumann, turning her +head for a brief moment towards the window, and then examining Anna's +face. "I am also. There is nothing I like more than nature. Do you +paint?" + +"I wish I could." + +"Ah, then you sing--or play?" + +"I can do neither." + +"_So?_ But what have you here, then, in the way of distractions, of +pastimes?" + +"I don't think I have any," said Anna, smiling. "I have been very busy +till now making things ready for you, and after this I shall just enjoy +being alive." + +Frau von Treumann looked puzzled for a moment. Then she said "_Ach so._" + +There was another silence. + +"Have some more coffee," said Anna, laying hold of the pot persuasively. +She was feeling foolish, and had blushed stupidly after that _Ach so_. + +"No, no," said Frau von Treumann, putting up a protesting hand, "you are +very kind. Two cups are a limit beyond which voracity itself could not +go. What do you say? You have had three? Oh, well, you are young, and +young people can play tricks with their digestions with less danger than +old ones." + +At this speech Fraeulein Kuhraeuber's four cups became plainly written on +her guilty face. The thought that she had been voracious at the very +first meal was appalling to her. She hastily pushed away her half-empty +cup--too hastily, for it upset, and in her effort to save it it fell on +to the floor and was broken. "_Ach, Herr Je!_" she cried in her +distress. + +The other two looked at each other; the expression is an unusual one on +the lips of gentle-women. + +"Oh, it does not matter--really it does not," Anna hastened to assure +her. "Don't pick it up--Letty will. The table is too small really. There +is no room on it for anything." + +"_Ja, eben_," said Fraeulein Kuhraeuber, greatly discomfited. + +"You would like to go upstairs, I am sure," said Anna hurriedly, turning +to the others. "You must be very tired," she added, looking at Frau von +Treumann. + +"I am," replied that lady, closing her eyes for a moment with a little +smile expressive of patient endurance. + +"Then we will go up. Come," she said, holding out her hand to Fraeulein +Kuhraeuber. "No, no--let Letty pick up the pieces----" for the Fraeulein, +in her anxiety to repair the disaster, was about to sweep the remaining +cups off the table with the sleeve of her cloak. + +Anna drew her hand through her arm, and gave it a furtive and +encouraging stroke. "I will go first and show you the way," she said +over her shoulder to the others. + +And so it came about that Frau von Treumann and Baroness Elmreich +actually found themselves going through doors and up stairs behind a +person called Kuhraeuber. They exchanged glances again. Whatever might be +their private objections to each other, they had one point already on +which they agreed, for with equal heartiness they both disapproved of +Fraeulein Kuhraeuber. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +As soon as Baroness Elmreich found herself alone in her bedroom, she +proceeded to examine its contents with minute care. Supper, she had been +told, was not till eight o'clock, and she had not much to unpack; so +laying aside her hat and cloak, and glancing at the reflection of her +little curls in the glass to see whether they were as they should be, +she began her inspection of each separate article in her room, taking +each one up and scrutinising it, holding the jars of hepaticas high +above her head in order to see whether the price was marked underneath, +untidying the bed to feel the quality of the sheets, poking the mattress +to discover the nature of the stuffing, and investigating with special +attention the embroidery on the pillow-cases. But everything was as +dainty and as perfect as enthusiasm could make it. Nowhere, with her +best endeavours, could she discover the signs she was looking for of +cheapness and shabbiness in less noticeable things that would have +helped her to understand her hostess. "This embroidery has cost at least +two marks the meter," she said to herself, fingering it. "She must roll +in money. And the wall-paper--how unpractical! It is so light that every +mark will be seen. The flies alone will ruin it in a month." + +She shrugged her shoulders, and smiled; strange to say, the thought of +Anna's paper being spoiled pleased her. + +Never had she been in a room the least like this one. If whitewash +prevailed downstairs, and in Anna's special haunts, it had not been +permitted to invade the bedrooms of the Chosen. Anna's reflections had +led her to the conclusion that the lives of these ladies had till then +probably been spent in bare places, and that they would accordingly feel +as much pleasure in the contemplation of carpets, papered walls, and +stuffed chairs, as she herself did in the severity of her whitewashed +rooms after the lavishly upholstered years of her youth. But the +daintiness and luxury only filled the baroness with doubts. She stood in +the middle of it looking round her when she had finished her tour of +inspection and had made guesses at the price of everything, and asked +herself who this Miss Estcourt could be. Anna would have been +considerably disappointed, and perhaps even moved to tears, if she had +known that the room she thought so pretty struck the baroness, whose +taste in furniture had not advanced beyond an appreciation for the dark +and heavy hangings and walnut-wood tables of her more prosperous years, +merely as odd. Odd, and very expensive. Where did the money come from +for this reckless furnishing with stuffs and colours that were bound to +show each stain? Her eye wandered along the shelves above the +writing-table--hers was the Heine and Maeterlinck room--and she wondered +what all the books were there for. She did not touch them as she had +touched everything else, for except an occasional novel, and, more +regularly, a journal beloved of German woman called the _Gartenlaube_, +she never read. + +On the writing-table lay a blotter, a pretty, embroidered thing that +said as plainly as blotter could say that it had been chosen with +immense care; and opening it she found notepaper and envelopes stamped +with the Kleinwalde address and her own monogram. This was Anna's little +special gift, a childish addition, the making of which had given her an +absurd amount of pleasure. The happy idea, as she called it, had come to +her one night when she lay awake thinking about her new friends and +going through the familiar process of discovering their tastes by +imagining herself in their place. "_Sonderbar_," was the baroness's +comment; and she decided that the best thing she could do would be to +ring the bell and endeavour to obtain private information about Miss +Estcourt by means of a prolonged cross-examination of the housemaid. + +She rang it, and then sat very straight and still on the sofa with her +hands folded in her lap, and waited. Her soul was full of doubts. Who +was this Miss, and where were the proofs that she was, as she had +pretended, of good birth? That she was not so very pious was evident; +for if she had been, some remark of a religious nature would inevitably +have been forthcoming when she first welcomed them to her house. No such +word, not the least approach to any such word, had been audible. There +had not even been an allusion, a sigh, or an upward glance. Yet the +pastor who had opened the correspondence had filled many pages with +expatiations on her zeal after righteousness. And then she was so young. +The baroness had expected to see an elderly person, or at least a person +of the age of everybody else, which was her own age; but this was a mere +girl, and a girl, too, who from the way she dressed, clearly thought +herself pretty. Surely it was strange that so young a woman should be +living here quite unattached, quite independent apparently of all +control, with a great deal of money at her disposal, and only one little +girl to give her a countenance? Suppose she were not a proper person at +all, suppose she were an outcast from society, a being on whom her own +countrypeople turned their backs? This desire to share her fortune with +respectable ladies could only be explained in two ways: either she had +been moved thereto by an enthusiastic piety of which not a trace had as +yet appeared, or she was an improper person anxious to rebuild her +reputation with the aid and countenance of the ladies of good family she +had entrapped into her house. + +The baroness stiffened as she sat. It was her brother who had cheated at +cards and shot himself, and it was her sister of whom Axel Lohm had +heard strange tales; and few people are more savagely proper than the +still respectable relations of the demoralised. "The service in this +house is very bad," she said aloud and irascibly, getting up to ring +again. "No doubt she has trouble with her servants." + +But there was a knock at the door while her hand was on the bell, and on +her calling "Come in," instead of the servant her hostess appeared, +dressed to the baroness's eye in a truly amazing and reprehensible +fashion, and looking as cheerful as an innocent infant for whom no such +thing as evil-doing exists. Also she seemed quite unconscious of her +clothes and bare neck, nor did she offer to explain why she was arrayed +as though she were going to a ball; and she stood a moment in the +doorway trying to say something in German and pretending to laugh at her +own ineffectual efforts, but really laughing, the baroness felt sure, in +order to show that she had dimples; which were not, after all, very +wonderful things to have--before she had grown so thin she almost had +one herself. + +"May I come in?" said Anna at last, giving up the other and more +complicated speech. + +"_Bitte_," said the baroness, with the smile the French call _pince_. + +"Has no one been to unpack your things?" + +"I rang." + +"And no one came? Oh, I shall scold Marie. It is the only thing I can do +well in German. Can you speak English?" + +"No." + +"Nor understand it?" + +"No." + +"French?" + +"No." + +"Oh, well, you must be patient then with my bad German. When I am alone +with anyone it goes better, but if there are many people listening I am +nervous and can hardly speak at all. How glad I am that you are here!" + +Anna's shyness, now that she was by herself with one of her forlorn +ones, had vanished, and she prattled happily for some time, putting as +many mistakes into her sentences as they would hold, before she became +aware that the baroness's replies were monosyllabic, and that she was +examining her from head to foot with so much attention that there was +obviously none left over for the appreciation of her remarks. + +This made her feel shy again. Clothes to her were such secondary +considerations, things of so little importance. Susie had provided them, +and she had put them on, and there it had ended; and when she found that +it was her dress and not herself that was interesting the baroness, she +longed to have the courage to say, "Don't waste time over it now--I'll +send it to your room to-night, if you like, and you can look at it +comfortably--only don't waste time now. I want to talk to you, to _you_ +who have suffered so much; I want to make friends with you quickly, to +make you begin to be happy quickly; so don't let us waste the precious +time thinking of clothes." But she had neither sufficient courage nor +sufficient German. + +She put out her hand rather timidly, and making an effort to bring her +companion's thoughts back to the things that mattered, said, "I hope you +will like living with me. I hope we shall be very happy together. I +can't tell you how happy it makes me to think that you are safely here, +and that you are going to stay with me always." + +The baroness's hands were clasped in front of her, and they did not +unclasp to meet Anna's; but at this speech she left off eyeing the +dress, and began to ask questions. "You are very lonely, I can see," she +said with another of the pinched smiles. "Have you then no relations? No +one of your own family who will live with you? Will not your _Frau Mama_ +come to Germany?" + +"My mother is dead." + +"_Ach_--mine also. And the _Herr Papa_?" + +"He is dead." + +"_Ach_--mine also." + +"I know, I know," said Anna, stroking the unresponsive hands--a trick of +hers when she wanted to comfort that had often irritated Susie. "You +told me how lonely you were in your letters. I lived with my brother and +his wife till I came here. You have no brothers or sisters, I think you +wrote." + +"None," said the baroness with a rigid look. + +"Well, I am going to be your sister, if you will let me." + +"You are very good." + +"Oh, I am not good, only so happy--I have everything in the world that I +have ever wished to have, and now that you have come to share it all +there is nothing more I can think of that I want." + +"_Ach_," said the baroness. Then she added, "Have you no aunts, or +cousins, who would come and stay with you?" + +"Oh, heaps. But they are all well off and quite pleased, and they +wouldn't like staying here with me at all." + +"They would not like staying with you? How strange." + +"Very strange," laughed Anna. "You see they don't know how pleasant I +can be in my own house." + +"And your friends--they too will not come?" + +"I don't know if they would or not. I didn't ask them." + +"You have no one, no one at all who would come and live with you so that +you should not be so lonely?" + +"But I am not lonely," said Anna, looking down at the little woman with +a slightly amused expression, "and I don't in the least want to be lived +with." + +"Then why do you wish to fill your house with strangers?" + +"Why?" repeated Anna, a puzzled look coming into her eyes. Had not the +correspondence with the ultimately chosen been long? And were not all +her reasons duly set forth therein? "Why, because I want you to have +some of my nice things too." + +"But not your own friends and relations?" + +"They have everything they want." + +There was a silence. Anna left off stroking the baroness's hands. She +was thinking that this was a queer little person--outside, that is. +Inside, of course, she was very different, poor little lonely thing; but +her outer crust seemed thick; and she wondered how long it would take +her to get through it to the soul that she was sure was sweet and +lovable. She was also unable to repress a conviction that most people +would call these questions rude. + +But this train of thought was not one to be encouraged. "I am keeping +you here talking," she said, resuming her first cheerfulness, "and your +things are not unpacked yet. I shall go and scold Marie for not coming +when you rang, and I'll send her to you." And she went out quickly, +vexed with herself for feeling chilled, and left the baroness more full +of doubts than ever. + +When she had rebuked Marie, who looked gloomy, she tapped at Frau von +Treumann's door. No one answered. She knocked again. No one answered. +Then she opened the door softly and looked in. + +These were precious moments, she felt, these first moments of being +alone with each of her new friends, precious opportunities for breaking +ice. It is true she had not been able to break much of the ice encasing +the baroness, but she was determined not to be cast down by any of the +little difficulties she was sure to encounter at first, and she looked +into Frau von Treumann's room with fresh hope in her heart. + +What, then, was her dismay to find that lady walking up and down with +the long strides of extreme excitement, her face bathed in tears. + +"Oh--what's the matter?" gasped Anna, shutting the door quickly and +hurrying in. + +Frau von Treumann had not heard the gentle taps, and when she saw her, +started, and tried to hide her face in her handkerchief. + +"Tell me what is the matter," begged Anna, her voice full of tenderness. + +"_Nichts, nichts_," was the hasty reply. "I did not hear you knock----" + +"Tell me what is the matter," begged Anna again, fairly putting her arms +round the poor lady. "Our letters have said so much already--surely +there is nothing you cannot tell me now? And if I can help you----" + +Frau von Treumann freed herself by a hasty movement, and began to walk +up and down again. "No, no, you can do nothing--you can do nothing," she +said, and wept as she walked. + +Anna watched her in consternation. + +"See to what I have come--see to what I have come!" said the agitated +lady under her breath but with passionate intensity, as she passed and +repassed her dismayed hostess; "oh, to have fallen so low! oh, to have +fallen so low!" + +"So low?" echoed Anna, greatly concerned. + +"At my age--I, a Treumann--I, a _geborene_ Graefin Ilmas-Kadenstein--to +live on charity--to be a member of a charitable institution!" + +"Institution? Charity? Oh no, no!" cried Anna. "It is a home here, and +there is no charity in it from the attic to the cellar." And she went +towards her with outstretched hands. + +"A home! Yes, that is it," cried Frau von Treumann, waving her back, "it +is a home, a charitable home!" + +"No, not a home like that--a real home, my home, your home--_ein Heim_," +Anna protested; but vainly, because the German word _Heim_ and the +English word "home" have little meaning in common. + +"_Ein Heim, ein Heim_," repeated Frau von Treumann with extraordinary +bitterness, "_ein Frauenheim_--yes, that is what it is, and everybody +knows it." + +"Everybody knows it?" + +"How could I think," she said, wringing her hands, "how could I think +when I decided to come here that the whole world was to be made +acquainted with your plans? I thought they were to be kept private, that +the world was to think we were your friends----" + +"And so you are." + +"--your guests----" + +"Oh, more than guests--this is home." + +"Home! Home! Always that word----" And she burst into a fresh torrent of +tears. + +Anna stood helpless. What she said appeared only to aggravate Frau von +Treumann's sorrow and rage--for surely there was anger as well as +sorrow? She was at a complete loss for the reason of this outburst. Had +not every detail been discussed in the correspondence? Had not that +correspondence been exhaustive even to boredom? + +"You have told your servants----" + +"My servants?" + +"You have told them that we are objects of charity----" + +"I----" began Anna, and then was silent. + +"It is not true--I have come here from very different motives--but they +think me an object of charity. I rang the bell--I cannot unstrap my +trunks--I never have been expected to unstrap trunks." The sobs here +interfered for a moment with further speech. "After a long while--your +servant came--she was insolent--the trunks are there still +unstrapped--you see them--she knows--everything." + +"She shall go to-morrow." + +"The others think the same thing." + +"They shall go to-morrow--that is, have they been rude to you?" + +"Not yet, but they will be." + +"When they are, they shall go." + +"I went into the corridor to seek other assistance, and I met--I +met----" + +"Who?" + +"Oh, to have fallen so low!" cried Frau von Treumann, clasping her +hands, and raising her streaming eyes to the ceiling. + +"But who did you meet?" + +"I met--I met the Penheim." + +"The Penheim? Do you mean Princess Ludwig?" + +"You never said she was here----" + +"I did not know that it would interest you." + +"--living on charity--she was always shameless--I was at school with +her. Oh, I would not have come for any inducement if I had known she was +here! She holds nothing sacred, she will boast of her own degradation, +she will write to all her friends that I am here too--I told them I was +coming only on a visit to you--they knew I knew your uncle--but the +Penheim--the Penheim----" and Frau von Treumann threw herself into a +chair and covered her face with her hands to shut out the horrid vision. + +The corners of Anna's mouth began to take the upward direction that +would end in a smile; and feeling how ill-placed such a contortion would +be in the presence of this tumultuous grief, she brought them carefully +back to a position of proper solemnity. Besides, why should she smile? +The poor lady was clearly desperately unhappy about something, though +what it was Anna did not quite know. She had looked forward to this +first evening with her new friends as to a thing apart, a thing beyond +the ordinary experience of life, profound in its peace, perfect in its +harmony, the first taste of rest after war, of port after stormy seas; +and here was Frau von Treumann plunged in a very audible grief, and in +the next room was the baroness, a disconcerting combination of +inquisitiveness and ice, and farther down the passage was Fraeulein +Kuhraeuber--in what state, Anna wondered, would she find Fraeulein +Kuhraeuber? Anyhow she had little reason to smile. But the horror with +which Princess Ludwig had been mentioned seemed droll beside her own +knowledge of the sterling qualities of that excellent woman. She went +over to the chair in which Frau von Treumann lay prostrate, and sat down +beside her. She was glad that they had reached the stage of sitting +down, for talking is difficult to a person who will not keep still. + +"How sorry I am," she said, in her pretty, hesitating German, "that you +should have been made unhappy the very first evening. Marie is a little +wretch. Don't let her stupidity make you miserable. You shall not see +her again, I promise you." And she patted Frau von Treumann's arm. "But +about Princess Ludwig, now," she went on cheerfully, "she has been here +some weeks and you soon learn to know a person you are with every day, +and really I have found her nothing but good and kind." + +"_Ach_, she is shameless--she recoils before no degradation!" burst out +Frau von Treumann, suddenly removing her hands from her face. "The +trouble she has given her relations! She delights in dragging her name +in the dirt. She has tried to get places in the most impossible +families, and made no attempt to hide what she was doing. She has broken +the old Fuerst's heart. And she talks about it all, and has no shame, no +decency----" + +"But is it not admirable----" began Anna. + +"She will gloat over me, and tell everyone that I am here in the same +way as she is. If she is not ashamed for herself, do you think she will +spare me?" + +"But why should you think there is anything to be ashamed of in coming +to live with me and be my dear friend?" + +"No, there is nothing, so long as my motives in coming are known. But +people talk so cruelly, and will distort the facts so gladly, and we +have always held our heads so high. And now the Penheim!" She sobbed +afresh. + +"I shall ask the princess not to write to anyone about your being here." + +"_Ach_, I know her--she will do it all the same." + +"No, I don't think so. She does everything I ask. You see, she takes +care of my house for me. She is not here in the same way that--that you +and Baroness Elmreich are, and her interest is to stay here." + +Frau von Treumann's bowed head went up with a jerk. "_Ach?_ She has +found a place at last? She is your paid companion? Your housekeeper?" + +"Yes, and she is goodness itself, and I don't believe she would be +unkind and make mischief for worlds." + +"_Ach so!_" said Frau von Treumann, "_ach so-o-o-o!_"--a long drawn out +_so_ of complete comprehension. Her tears ceased as if by magic. She +dried her eyes. Yes, of course the Penheim would hold her tongue if Miss +Estcourt ordered her to do so. She had heard all about her efforts to +find places, and she would probably be very careful not to lose this +one. The poor Penheim. So she was actually working for wages. What a +come-down for a Dettingen! And the Dettingens had always treated the +Treumanns as though they belonged merely to the _kleine Adel_. Well, +well, each one in turn. She was the dear friend, and the Penheim was the +housekeeper. Well, well. + +She sat up straight, smoothed her hair, and resumed her first manner of +quiet dignity. "I am sorry that you should have witnessed my agitation," +she said, with a faint smile. "I am not easily betrayed into exhibitions +of feeling, but there are limits to one's endurance, there are certain +things the bravest cannot bear." + +"Yes," said Anna. + +"And for a Treumann, social disgrace, any action that in the least soils +our honour and makes us unable to hold up our heads, is worse than +death." + +"But I don't see any disgrace." + +"No, no, there is none so long as facts are not distorted. It is quite +simple--you need friends and I am willing to be your friend. That was +how my son looked at it. He said '_Liebe Mama_, she evidently needs +friends and sympathy--why should you hesitate to make yourself of use? +You must regard it as a good work.' You would like my son; his brother +officers adore him." + +"Really?" said Anna. + +"He is so sensible, so reasonable; he is beloved and respected by the +whole regiment. I will show you his photograph--_ach_, the trunks are +still unstrapped." + +"I'll go and send someone--but not Marie," said Anna, getting up +quickly. She had no desire to see the photograph, and the son's way of +looking at things had considerably astonished her. "It must be nearly +supper time. Would you not rather lie down and let me send you something +here? Your head must ache after crying so much. You have baptised our +new life with tears. I hope it is a good omen." + +"Oh, I will come down. You will do as you promised, will you not, and +forbid the Penheim to gossip?" + +"I shall tell the princess your wishes." + +"Or, if she must gossip, let her tell the truth at least. If my son had +not pressed me to come here I really do not think----" + +Anna went slowly and meditatively down the passage to Fraeulein +Kuhraeuber's room. For a moment she thought of omitting this last visit +altogether; she was afraid lest the Fraeulein should be in some +unlooked-for and perplexing condition of mind. Discouraged? Oh no; she +was surely not discouraged already. How had the word come into her head? +She quickened her steps. When she reached the door she remembered the +cup and the sugar-tongs. Perhaps something in the bedroom was already +broken, and the Fraeulein would be disclosed sitting in the ruins in +tears, for she was unexpectedly large, and the contents of her room were +frail. But then woe of that sort was as easily assuaged as broken +furniture was mended. It was the more complicated grief of Frau von +Treumann that she felt unable to soothe. As to that, she preferred not +to think about it at present, and barricaded her thoughts against its +image with that consoling sentence, _Tout comprendre c'est tout +pardonner._ It was a sentence she was fond of; but she had not expected +that she would need its reassurance so soon. + +She opened the door, and the puckers smoothed themselves out of her +forehead at once, for here, at last, was peace. There had been no +difficulties here with bells, and straps, and Marie. The trunks had been +opened and unpacked without assistance; and when Anna came in the +contents were all put away and Fraeulein Kuhraeuber, washed and combed and +in her Sunday blouse, was sitting in an easy chair by the window +absorbed in a book. Satisfaction was written broadly on her face; +content was expressed by every lazy line of her attitude. When she saw +Anna, she got up and made a curtsey and beamed. The beams were instantly +reflected in Anna's face, and they beamed at each other. + +"Well," said Anna, who felt perfectly at her ease with this member of +her trio, "are you happy?" + +Fraeulein Kuhraeuber blushed, and beamed more than ever. She was far less +shy of Anna than she was of those two terrible _adelige Damen_, her +travelling companions; but at no time had she had much conversation. +Hers had been a ruminative existence, for its uncertainty but rarely +disturbed her. Had she not an excellent digestion, and a fixed belief +that the righteous, of whom she was one, would never be forsaken? And +are not these the primary conditions of happiness? Indeed, if everything +else is wanting, these two ingredients by themselves are sufficient for +the concoction of a very palatable life. + +"You have found an interesting book already?" Anna asked, pleased that +the literature chosen with such care should have met with instant +appreciation. She took it up to see what it was, but put it down again +hastily, for it was the cookery book. + +"I read much," observed Fraeulein Kuhraeuber. + +"Yes?" said Anna, a flicker of hope reviving in her heart. Perhaps the +cookery book was an accident. + +"I know by heart more than a hundred recipes for sweet dishes alone." + +"Really?" said Anna, the flicker expiring. + +"So you can have an idea of the number of books I have read." + +"Here are a great many more for you to read." + +"_Ach ja, ach ja_," said Fraeulein Kuhraeuber, glancing doubtfully at the +shelves; "but one must not waste too much time over it--there are other +things in life. I read only useful books." + +"Well, that is very praiseworthy," said Anna, smiling. "If you like +cookery books, I must get you some more." + +"How good you are--how very, very good!" said the Fraeulein, gazing at +the charming figure before her with heartfelt admiration and gratitude. +"This beautiful room--I cannot look at it enough. I cannot believe it is +really for me--for me to sleep in and be in whenever I choose. What have +I done to deserve all this?" + +What had she done, indeed? She had not even been unhappy, although of +course she had had every opportunity of being so, sent from place to +place, from one indignant _Hausfrau_ to another, ever since she left +school. But Anna, persuaded that she had rescued her from depths of +unspeakable despair, was overjoyed by this speech. "Don't talk about +deserving," she said tenderly. "You have had such a life that if you +were to be happy now without stopping once for the next fifty years it +would only be just and right." + +Fraeulein Kuhraeuber's approval of this sentiment was so entire that she +seized Anna's hand and kissed it fervently. Anna laughed while this was +going on, and her eyes grew brighter. She had not wanted gratitude, but +now that it had come it was very encouraging after all, and very +warming. She put one arm impulsively round the Fraeulein's neck and +kissed her, and this was practically the first kiss that lady had ever +received, for the perfunctory embraces of reluctantly dutiful aunts can +hardly be called by that pretty name. + +"Now," said Anna, with a happy laugh, "we are going to be friends for +ever. Come, let us go down. That was the supper bell." + +And they went downstairs together, appearing in the doorway of the +drawing-room arm in arm, as though they had loved each other for years. + +"As though they were twins," muttered the baroness to Frau von Treumann, +who shrugged one shoulder slightly by way of reply. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +But in spite of this little outburst of gratitude and appreciation from +Fraeulein Kuhraeuber, the first evening of the new life was a +disappointment. The Fraeulein, who entered the room so happily under the +impression of that recent kiss, became awkward and uncomfortable the +moment she caught sight of the others; lapsing, indeed, into a quite +pitiful state of nervous flutter on being brought for the first time +within the range of the princess's critical and unsympathetic eye. Her +experience had not included princesses, and, as she made a series of +agitated curtseys, deeming one altogether insufficient for so great a +lady, she felt as though that cold eye were piercing her through easily, +and had already discovered the inmost recess of her soul, where lay, so +carefully hidden, the memory of the postman. Every time the princess +looked at her, a sudden vivid consciousness of the postman flamed up +within her, utterly refusing to be extinguished by the soothing +recollection that he had been angelic for thirty years. That obviously +experienced eye and those pursed lips upset her so completely that she +made no remark whatever during the meal that followed, but sat next to +Anna and ate _Leberwurst_ in a kind of uneasy dream; and she ate it with +a degree of emphasis so unusual among the polite and so disastrous to +the peace of the ultra-fastidious that Anna felt there really was some +slight excuse for the frequent and lengthy stares that came from the +other end of the table. "Yet she is an immortal soul--what does it +matter how she eats _Leberwurst_?" said Anna to herself. "What do such +trifles, such little mannerisms, really matter? I should indeed be a +miserable creature if I let them annoy me." But she turned her head +away, nevertheless, and talked assiduously to Letty. + +There was no one else for her to talk to. Frau von Treumann and the +baroness had seated themselves at once one on either side of the +princess, and devoted their conversation entirely to her. In the +drawing-room later on, the same thing happened,--the three German ladies +clustering together near the sofa, and the three English being left +somehow to themselves, except for Fraeulein Kuhraeuber, who clung to them. +To avoid this division into what looked like hostile camps Anna pushed +her chair to a place midway between the groups, and tried to join, +though not very successfully, in the talk of each in turn. Outward calm +prevailed in the room, subdued voices, the tranquillity of fancy-work, +and the peace of albums; yet Anna could not avoid a chilled impression, +a feeling as though each person present were distrustful of the others, +and more or less on the defensive. Frau von Treumann, it is true, was +graciousness itself to the princess, conversing with her constantly and +amiably, and showing herself kind; but, on the other hand, the princess +was hardly gracious to Frau von Treumann. An unbiassed observer would +have said that she disapproved of Frau von Treumann, but was +endeavouring to conceal her disapproval. She busied herself with her +embroidery and talked as little as she could, receiving both the +advances of Frau von Treumann and the attentions of the baroness with +equal coldness. + +As for the baroness, her doubts as to Anna's respectability were blown +away completely and forever when, on opening the drawing-room door +before supper, she had beheld no less a person than the _geborene_ +Dettingen seated on the sofa. The baroness had spent her life in a +remote and tiny provincial town, but she knew the great Dettingen and +Penheim families well by name, and a princess in her opinion was a +princess, an altogether precious and admirable creature, whatever she +might choose to do. Her scruples, then, were set at rest, but her ice as +far as Anna was concerned showed no signs of thawing. All her amiability +and her efforts to produce a good impression were lavished on the +princess, who besides being by birth and marriage the grandest person +the baroness had yet met, spoke her own tongue properly, had no dimples, +and did not try to stroke her hand. She looked on with mingled awe and +irritation at the easy manner in which Frau von Treumann treated this +great lady. It almost seemed as though she were patronising her. Really +these Treumanns were a brazen-faced race; audacious East Prussian +Junkers, who thought themselves as good as or better than the best. And +this one was not even a true Treumann, but an Ilmas, and of the inferior +Kadenstein branch; and the baroness's brother--that brother whose end +was so abrupt--had been quartered once during the man[oe]uvres at +Kadenstein, and had told her that it was a wretched place, with a +fowl-run that wanted mending within a few yards of the front door, and +that, the door standing open all day long, he had frequently met fowls +walking about in the hall and passages. Yet remembering the brother's +story, and how there was no shadow of the sort resting at present on +Frau von Treumann, though as she had a son there was no telling how long +her shadowless state would last, she tried to ingratiate herself with +that lady, who met her advances coolly, only warming into something like +responsiveness when Fraeulein Kuhraeuber was in question. + +Fraeulein Kuhraeuber sat behind Letty and Miss Leech, as far away from the +others as she could. She had a stocking in her hand, but she did not +knit. She never knitted if she could avoid it, and was conscious that +from want of practice her needles moved more slowly than is usual--so +slowly, indeed, as to be conspicuous. Letty showed her photographs and +was very kind to her, instinctively perceiving that here was someone who +was as uneasy under the tall lady's stares as she was herself. She +privately thought her by far the best of the new arrivals, and wished +she knew enough German to inquire into her views respecting Schiller; +there was something in the Fraeulein's looks and manner that made her +think they would agree about Schiller. + +Anna, too, ended by talking exclusively to this group. Her attempts to +join in what the others were saying had been unsuccessful; and with a +little twinge of disappointment, and a feeling of being for some +unexplained reason curiously out of it, she turned to Fraeulein +Kuhraeuber, and devoted herself more and more to her. + +"They are inseparables already," remarked the baroness in a low voice to +Frau von Treumann. "The Miss finds her congenial, it seems." She could +not forgive those doors she had gone through last. + +The princess looked up for a moment over the spectacles she wore when +she worked, at Anna. + +"Fraeulein Kuhraeuber makes an excellent foil," said Frau von Treumann. +"Miss Estcourt looks quite ethereal next to her." + +"Do you think her pretty?" asked the baroness. + +"She is very distinguished-looking." + +A servant came in at that moment and announced Dellwig's usual evening +visit, and Anna got up and went out. They watched her as she walked down +the long room, and when she had disappeared began to discuss her more at +their ease, their rapid German being quite incomprehensible to Letty and +Miss Leech. + +"Where has she gone?" asked the baroness. + +"She has gone to talk to her inspector," said the princess. + +"_Ach so_," said the baroness. + +"_Ach so_," said Frau von Treumann. + +"Is the inspector young?" asked the baroness. + +"Oh no, quite old," said the princess. + +"These English are a strange race," said Frau von Treumann. "What German +girl of that age would you find with so much energy and enterprise?" + +"Is she so very young?" inquired the baroness, with a look of mild +surprise. + +"Why, she is plainly little more than a child," said Frau von Treumann. + +"She is twenty-five," said the princess. + +"Rather an old child," observed the baroness. + +"She looks much younger. But twenty-five is surely young enough for this +life, away from her own people," said Frau von Treumann. + +"Yes--why does she lead it?" asked the baroness eagerly. "Can you tell +us, Frau Prinzessin? Has she then quarrelled with all her friends?" + +"Miss Estcourt has not told me so." + +"But she must have quarrelled. Eccentric as the English are, there are +limits to their eccentricity, and no one leaves home and friends and +country without some good reason." And Frau von Treumann shook her head. + +"She has quarrelled, I am sure," said the baroness. + +"I think so too," said Frau von Treumann; "I thought so from the first. +My son also thought so. You remember Karlchen, princess?" + +"Perfectly." + +"I discussed the question thoroughly with him, of course, as to whether +I should come here or not. I confess I did not want to come. It was a +great wrench, giving up everything, and going so far from my son. But +after all one must not be selfish." And Frau von Treumann sighed and +paused. + +No one said anything, so she continued: "One feels, as one grows older, +how great are the claims of others. And a widow with only one son can do +so much, can make herself of so much use. That is what Karlchen said. +When I hesitated--for I fear one does hesitate before inconvenience--he +said, '_Liebste Mama_, it would be a charity to go to the poor young +lady. You who have always been the first to extend a sympathetic hand to +the friendless, how is it that you hesitate now? Depend upon it, she has +had differences at home and needs countenance and help. You have no +encumbrances. You can go more easily than others. You must regard it as +a good work.' And that decided me." + +The princess let her work drop for a moment into her lap, and gazed over +her spectacles at Frau von Treumann. "_Wirklich?_" she said in a voice +of deep interest. "Those were your reasons? _Aber herrlich._" + +"Yes, those were my reasons," replied Frau von Treumann, returning her +gaze with pensive but steady eyes. "Those were my chief reasons. I +regard it as a work of charity." + +"But this is noble," murmured the princess, resuming her work. + +"That is how _I_ have regarded it," put in the baroness. "I agree with +you entirely, dear Frau von Treumann." + +"I do not pretend to disguise," went on Frau von Treumann, "that it is +an economy for me to live here, but poor as I have been since my dear +husband's death--you remember Karl, princess?" + +"Perfectly." + +"Poor as I have been, I always had sufficient for my simple wants, and +should not have dreamed of altering my life if Miss Estcourt's letters +had not been so appealing." + +"_Ach_--they were appealing?" + +"Oh, a heart of stone would have been melted by them. And a widow's +heart is not of stone, as you must know yourself. The orphan appealing +to the widow--it was irresistible." + +"Well, you see she is not by any means alone," said the princess +cheerfully. "Here we are, five of us counting the little Letty, +surrounding her. So you must not sacrifice yourself unnecessarily." + +"Oh, I am not one of those who having put their hand to the plough----" + +"But where is the plough, dear Frau von Treumann? You see there is, +after all, no plough." + +"Dear princess, you always were so literal." + +"Ah, you used to reproach me with that in the old days, when you wrote +poetry and read it to me and I was rude enough to ask if it meant +anything. We did not think then that we should meet here, did we?" + +"No, indeed. And I cannot tell you how much I admire your courage." + +"My courage? What fine qualities you invest me with!" + +"Miss Estcourt has told me how admirably you discharge your duties here. +It is wonderful to me. You are an example to us all, and you make me +feel ashamed of my own uselessness." + +"Oh, you underrate yourself. People who leave everything to go and help +others cannot talk of being useless. Yes, I look after her house for +her, and I hope to look after her as well." + +"After her? Is that one of your duties? Did she stipulate for personal +supervision when she engaged you? How times are changed! When my Karl +was alive, and we lived at Sommershof, I certainly would not have +tolerated that my housekeeper should keep me in order as well as my +house." + +"The case was surely different, dear Frau von Treumann. Here is an +unusually pretty young thing, with money. She will need all the +protection I can give her, and it is a satisfaction to me to feel that I +am here and able to give it." + +"But she may any day turn round and request you to go." + +"That of course may happen, but I hope it will not until she is safe." + +"But do you think her so pretty?" put in the baroness wonderingly. + +"Safe? What special dangers do you then apprehend for her?" asked Frau +von Treumann with a look of amusement. "Dear princess, you always did +take your duties so seriously. What a treasure you would have been to me +in many ways. It is admirable. But do your duties really include +watching over Miss Estcourt's heart? For I suppose you are thinking of +her heart?" + +"I am thinking of adventurers," said the princess. "Any young man with +no money would naturally be delighted to secure this young lady and +Kleinwalde. And those who instead of money have debts, would naturally +be still more delighted." And the princess in her turn gazed pensively +but steadily at Frau von Treumann. "No," she said, taking up her work +again, "I was not thinking of her heart, but of the annoyance she might +be put to. I do not fancy that her heart would easily be touched." + +Anna came in at that moment for a paper she wanted, and heard the last +words. "What," she said, smiling, as she unlocked the drawer of her +writing-table and rummaged among the contents, "you are talking about +hearts? You see it is true that women can't be together half an hour +without getting on to subjects like that. If you were three men, now, +you would talk of pigs." Then, a sudden recollection of Uncle Joachim +coming into her mind, she added with conviction, "And pigs are better." + +Nor was it till she had closed the door behind her that it struck her +that when she came into the room both the princess and Frau von Treumann +were looking preternaturally bland. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +Axel Lohm was in the hall, having his coat taken from him by a servant. + +"You here?" exclaimed Anna, holding out both hands. She was more than +usually pleased to see him. + +"Manske had a pile of letters for you, and could not get them to you +because he has a pastors' conference at his house. I was there and saw +the letters, and thought you might want them." + +"Oh, I don't want them--at least, there is no hurry. But the letters are +only an excuse. Now isn't it so?" + +"An excuse?" he repeated, flushing. + +"You want to see the new arrivals." + +"Not in the very least." + +"Oh, oh! But as you have come one minute too soon, and happened to meet +me outside the door, your plan is spoilt. Are those the letters? What a +pile!" Her face fell. + +"But you are looking for nine more ladies. You want a wide choice. You +have still the greater part of your work before you." + +"I know. Why do you tell me that?" + +"Because you do not seem pleased to get them." + +"Oh yes, I am; but I am tired to-night, and the idea of nine more ladies +makes me feel--feel sleepy." + +She stood under the lamp, holding the packet loosely by its string and +smiling up to him. There were shadows in her eyes, he thought, where he +was used to seeing two cheerful little lights shining, and a faint +ruefulness in the smile. + +"Well, if you are tired you must go to bed," he said, in such a matter +of fact tone that they both laughed. + +"No, I mustn't," said Anna; "I am on my way to Herr Dellwig at this very +moment. He's in there," she said, with a motion of her head towards the +dining-room door. "Tell me," she added, lowering her voice, "have you +got a brick-kiln at Lohm?" + +"A brick-kiln? No. Why do you want to know?" + +"But why haven't you got a brick-kiln?" + +"Because there is nothing to make bricks with. Lohm is almost entirely +sand." + +"He says there is splendid clay here in one part, and wants to build +one." + +"Who? Dellwig?" + +"Sh--sh." + +"Your uncle would have built one long ago if there really had been clay. +I must look at the place he means. I cannot remember any such place. And +it is unlikely that it should be as he says. Pray do not agree to any +propositions of the kind hastily." + +"It would cost heaps to set it going, wouldn't it?" + +"Yes, and probably bring in nothing at all." + +"But he tries to make out that it would be quite cheap. He says the +timber could all be got out of the forest. I can't bear the thought of +cutting down a lot of trees." + +"If you can't bear the thought of anything he proposes, then simply +refuse to consider it." + +"But he talks and talks till it really seems that he is right. He told +me just now that it would double the value of the estate." + +"I don't believe it." + +"If I made bricks, according to him I could take in twice as many poor +ladies." + +"I believe you will be happier with fewer ladies and no bricks," said +Axel with great positiveness. + +Anna stood thinking. Her eyes were fixed on the tip of the finger she +had passed through the loop of string that tied the letters together, +and she watched it as the packet twisted round and round and pinched it +redder and redder. "I suppose you never wanted to be a woman," she said, +considering this phenomenon with apparent interest. + +Axel laughed. + +"The mere question makes you laugh," she said, looking up quickly. "I +never heard of a man who did want to. But lots of women would give +anything to be men." + +"And you are one of them?" + +"Yes." + +He laughed again. + +"You think I would make a queer little man?" she said, laughing too; but +her face became sober immediately, and with a glance at the shut +dining-room door she continued: "It is so horrid to feel weak. My sister +Susie says I am very obstinate. Perhaps I was with her, but different +people have different effects on one." She sank her voice to a whisper, +and looked at him anxiously. "You can't think what an _effort_ it is to +me to say No to that man." + +"What, to Dellwig?" + +"Sh--sh." + +"But if that is how you feel, my dear Miss Estcourt, it is very evident +that the man must go." + +"How easy it is to say that! Pray, who is to tell him to go?" + +"I will, if you wish." + +"If you were a woman, do you suppose you would be able to turn out an +old servant who has worked here so many years?" + +"Yes, I am sure I would, if I felt that he was getting beyond my +control." + +"No, you wouldn't. All sorts of things would stop you. You would +remember that your uncle specially told you to keep him on, that he has +been here ages, that he was faithful and devoted----" + +"I do not believe there was much devotion." + +"Oh yes, there was. The first evening he cried about dear Uncle +Joachim." + +"He cried?" repeated Axel incredulously. + +"He did indeed." + +"It was about something else, then." + +"No, he really cried about Uncle Joachim. He really loved him." + +Axel looked profoundly unconvinced. + +"But after all those are not the real reasons," said Anna; "they ought +to be, but they're not. The simple truth is that I am a coward, and I am +frightened--dreadfully frightened--of possible scenes." And she looked +at him and laughed ruefully. "There--you see what it is to be a woman. +If I were a man, how easy things would be. Please consider the +mortification of knowing that if he persuades long enough I shall give +in, against my better judgment. He has the strongest will I think I ever +came across." + +"But you have not yet given in, I hope, on any point of importance?" + +"Up to now I have managed to say No to everything I don't want to do. +But you would laugh if you knew what those Nos cost me. Why cannot the +place go on as it was? I am perfectly satisfied. But hardly a day passes +without some wonderful new plan being laid before me, and he talks--oh, +how he talks! I believe he would convince even you." + +"The man is quite beyond your control," said Axel in a voice of anger; +and voices of anger commonly being loud voices, this one produced the +effect of three doors being simultaneously opened: the door leading to +the servants' quarters, through which Marie looked and vanished again, +retreating to the kitchen to talk prophetically of weddings; the +dining-room door, behind which Dellwig had grown more and more impatient +at being kept waiting so long; and the drawing-room door, on the other +side of which the baroness had been lingering for some moments, desiring +to go upstairs for her scissors, but hesitating to interrupt Anna's +business with the inspector, whose voice she thought it was that she +heard. + +The baroness shut her door again immediately. "_Aha_--the admirer!" she +said to herself; and went back quickly to her seat. "The Miss is talking +to a _juenge Herr_," she announced, her eyes wider open than ever. + +"A _juenge Herr_?" echoed Frau von Treumann. "I thought the inspector was +old?" + +"It must be Axel Lohm," said the princess, not raising her eyes from her +work. "He often comes in." + +"He comes courting, evidently," said the baroness with a sub-acid smile. + +"It has not been evident to me," said the princess coldly. + +"I thought it looked like it," said the baroness, with more meekness. + +"Is that the Lohm who was engaged to one of the Kiederfels girls some +years ago?" asked Frau von Treumann. + +"Yes, and she died." + +"But did he not marry soon afterwards? I heard he married." + +"That was the second brother. This one is the eldest, and lives next to +us, and is single." + +Frau von Treumann was silent for a moment. Then she said blandly, "Now +confess, princess, that _he_ is the perilous person from whom you think +it necessary to defend Miss Estcourt." + +"Oh no," said the princess with equal blandness; "I have no fears about +him." + +"What, is he too possessed of an invulnerable heart?" + +"I know nothing of his heart. I said, I believe, adventurers. And no one +could call Axel Lohm an adventurer. I was thinking of men who have run +through all their own and all their relations' money in betting and +gambling, and who want a wife who will pay their debts." + +"_Ach so_," said Frau von Treumann with perfect urbanity. And if this +talk about protecting Miss Estcourt from adventurers in a place where +there were apparently no human beings of any kind, but only trees and +marshes, might seem to a bystander to be foolishness, to the speakers it +was luminousness itself, and in no way increased their love for each +other. + +Meanwhile Dellwig, looking through the door and seeing Lohm, brought his +heels together and bowed with his customary exaggeration. "I beg a +thousand times pardon," he said; "I thought the gracious Miss was +engaged and would not return, and I was about to go home." + +"I have found the paper, and am coming," said Anna coldly. "Well, +good-night," she added in English, holding out her hand to Axel. + +"If you will allow me, I should like to pay my respects to Princess +Ludwig before I go," he said, thinking thus to see her later. + +"Ah! wasn't I right?" she said, smiling. "You are determined to look at +the new arrivals. How can a man be so inquisitive? But I will say +good-night all the same. I shall be ages with Herr Dellwig, and shall +not see you again." She shook hands with him, and went into the +dining-room, Dellwig standing aside with deep respect to let her pass. +But she turned to say something to him as he shut the door, and Axel +caught the expression of her face, the intense boredom on it, the +profound distrust of self; and he went in to the princess with an +unusually severe and determined look on his own. + +Dellwig went home that night in a savage mood. "That young man," he said +to his wife, flinging his hat and coat on to a chair and himself on to a +sofa, "is thrusting himself more and more into our affairs." + +"That Lohm?" she asked, rolling up her work preparatory to fetching his +evening drink. + +"I had almost got the Miss to consent to the brick-kiln. She was quite +reasonable, and went out to get the plan I had made. Then she met +him--he is always hanging about." + +"And then?" inquired Frau Dell wig eagerly. + +"Pah--this petticoat government--having to beg and pray for the smallest +concession--it makes an honest man sick." + +"She will not consent?" + +"She came back as obstinate as a mule. It all had to be gone into again +from the beginning." + +"She will not consent?" + +"She said Lohm would look at the place and advise her." + +"_Aber so was!_" cried Frau Dellwig, crimson with wrath. "Advise her? +Did you not tell her that you were her adviser?" + +"You may be sure I did. I told her plainly enough, I fancy, that Lohm +had nothing to say here, and that her uncle had always listened to me. +She sat without speaking, as she generally does, not even looking at +me--I never can be sure that she is even listening." + +"And then?" + +"I asked her at last if she had lost confidence in me." + +"And then?" + +"She said _oh nein_, in her affected foreign way--in the sort of voice +that might just as well mean _oh ja_." And he imitated, with great +bitterness, Anna's way of speaking German. "Mark my words, Frau, she is +as weak as water for all her obstinacy, and the last person who talks to +her can always bring her round." + +"Then you must be the last person." + +"If it were not for that prig Lohm, that interfering ass, that +incomparable rhinoceros----" + +"He wants to marry her, of course." + +"If he marries her----" Dellwig stopped short, and stared gloomily at +his muddy boots. + +"If he marries her----" repeated his wife; but she too stopped short. +They both knew well enough what would happen to them if he married her. + +The building of the brick-kiln had come to be a point of honour with the +Dellwigs. Ever since Anna's arrival, their friends the neighbouring +farmers and inspectors had been congratulating them on their complete +emancipation from all manner of control; for of course a young ignorant +lady would leave the administration of her estate entirely in her +inspector's hands, confining her activities, as became a lady of birth, +to paying the bills. Dellwig had not doubted that this would be so, and +had boasted loudly and continually of the different plans he had made +and was going to carry out. The estate of which he was now practically +master was to become renowned in the province for its enterprise and the +extent, in every direction, of its operations. The brick-kiln was a +long-cherished scheme. His oldest friend and rival, the head inspector +of a place on the other side of Stralsund, had one, and had constantly +urged him to have one too; but old Joachim, without illusions as to the +quality of the clay, and by no manner of means to be talked into +disbelieving the evidence of his own eyes, would not hear of it, and +Dellwig felt there was nothing to be done in the face of that curt +refusal. The friend, triumphing in his own brick-kiln and his own more +pliable master, jeered, dug him in the ribs at the Sunday gatherings, +and talked of dependence, obedience, and restricted powers. Such friends +are difficult to endure with composure; and Dellwig, and still less his +wife, for many months past had hardly been able to bear the word "brick" +mentioned in their presence. When Anna appeared on the scene, so young, +so foreign, and so obviously foolish, Dellwig, certain now of success, +told his friend on the very first Sunday night that the brick-kiln was +now a mere matter of weeks. Always a boaster, he could not resist +boasting a little too soon. Besides, he felt very sure; and the friend, +too, had taken it for granted, when he heard of the impending young +mistress, that the thing was as good as built. + +That was in March. It was now the end of April, and every Sunday the +friend inquired when the building was to be begun, and every Sunday +Dellwig said it would begin when the days grew longer. The days had +grown longer, would have grown in a few weeks to their longest, as the +friend repeatedly pointed out, and still nothing had been done. To the +many people who do not care what their neighbours think of them, the +torments of the two Dellwigs because of the unbuilt brick-kiln will be +incomprehensible. Yet these torments were so acute that in the weaker +moments immediately preceding meals they both felt that it would almost +be better to leave Kleinwalde than to stay and endure them; indeed, +before dinner, or during wakeful nights, Frau Dellwig was convinced that +it would be better to die outright. The good opinion of their +neighbours--more exactly, the envy of their neighbours--was to them the +very breath of their nostrils. In their set they must be the first, the +undisputedly luckiest, cleverest, and best off. Any position less mighty +would be unbearable. And since Anna came there had been nothing but +humiliations. First the dinner to the Manskes, from which they had been +excluded--Frau Dellwig grew hot all over at the recollection of the +Sunday gathering succeeding it; then the renovation of the _Schloss_ +without the least reference to them, without the smallest asking for +advice or help; then the frequent communications with the pastor, +putting him quite out of his proper position, the confidence placed in +him, the ridiculous respect shown him, his connection with the mad +charitable scheme; and now, most dreadful of all, this obstinacy in +regard to the brick-kiln. It was becoming clear that they were fairly on +the way to being pitied by the neighbours. Pitied! Horrid thought. The +great thing in life was to be so situated that you can pity others. But +to be pitied yourself? Oh, thrice-accursed folly of old Joachim, to +leave Kleinwalde to a woman! Frau Dellwig could not sleep that night for +hating Anna. She lay awake staring into the darkness with hot eyes, and +hating her with a heartiness that would have petrified that unconscious +young woman as she sat about a stone's throw off in her bedroom, +motionless in the chair into which she had dropped on first coming +upstairs, too tired even to undress, after her long struggle with Frau +Dellwig's husband. "The _Englaenderin_ will ruin us!" cried Frau Dellwig +suddenly, unable to hate in silence any longer. + +"_Wie? Was?_" exclaimed Dellwig, who had dozed off, and was startled. + +"She will--she will!" cried his wife. + +"Will what? Ruin us? The _Englaenderin_? _Ach was--Unsinn._ _She_ can be +managed. It is Lohm who is the danger. It is Lohm who will ruin us. If +we could get rid of him----" + +"_Ach Gott_, if he would die!" exclaimed Frau Dellwig, with fervent +hands raised heavenwards. "_Ach Gott_, if he would only die!" + +"_Ach Gott, ach Gott!_" mimicked her husband irritably, for he disliked +being suddenly awakened. "People never die when anything depends on it," +he grumbled, turning over on his side. And he cursed Axel several times, +and went to sleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +The philosopher tells us that, after the healing interval of sleep, we +are prepared to meet each other every morning as gods and goddesses; so +fresh, so strong, so lusty, so serene, did he consider the newly-risen +and the some-time separated must of necessity be. It is a pleasing +belief; and Experience, that hopelessly prosaic governess who never +gives us any holidays, very quickly disposes of it. For what is to +become of the god-like mood if only one in a company possess it? The +middle-aged and old, who abound in all companies, are seldom god-like, +and are never so at breakfast. + +The morning after the arrival of the Chosen, Anna woke up in the true +Olympian temper. She had been brought back to the happy world of +realities from the happy world of dreams by the sun of an unusually +lovely April shining on her face. She had only to open her window to be +convinced that all which she beheld was full of blessings. Just beneath +her window on the grass was a double cherry tree in flower, an exquisite +thing to look down on with the sunshine and the bees busy among its +blossoms. The unreasoning joyfulness that invariably took possession of +her heart whenever the weather was fine, filled it now with a rapture of +hope and confidence. This world, this wonderful morning world that she +saw and smelt from her window, was manifestly a place in which to be +happy. Everything she saw was very good. Even the remembrance of Dellwig +was transfigured in that clear light. And while she dressed she took +herself seriously to task for the depression of the night before. +Depressed she had certainly been; and why? Simply because she was +over-excited and over-tired, and her spirit was still so mortifyingly +unable to rise superior to the weakness of her tiresome flesh. And to +let herself be made wretched by Dellwig, merely because he talked loud +and had convictions which she did not share! The god-like morning mood +was strong upon her, and she contemplated her listless self of the +previous evening, the self that had sat so long despondently thinking +instead of going to bed, with contempt. These evening interviews with +Dellwig, she reflected, were a mistake. He came at hours when she was +least able to bear his wordiness and shouting, and it was the knowledge +of his impending visit that made her irritable beforehand and ruffled +the absolute serenity that she felt was alone appropriate in a house +dedicated to love. But it was not only Dellwig and the brick-kiln that +had depressed her; she had actually had doubts about her three new +friends, doubts as to the receptivity of their souls, as to the capacity +of their souls for returning love. At one awful moment she had even +doubted whether they had souls at all, but had hastily blown out the +candle at this point, extinguishing the doubt at the same time, +smothering it beneath the bedclothes, and falling asleep at once, after +the fashion of healthy young people. + +Now, at the beginning of the new day, with all her misgivings healed by +sleep, she thought calmly over the interview she had had with Frau von +Treumann before supper; for it was that interview that had been the +chief cause of her dejection. Frau von Treumann had told her an untruth, +a quite obvious and absurd untruth in the face of the correspondence, as +to the reason of her coming to Kleinwalde. She had said she had only +come at the instigation of her son, who looked upon Anna as a deserving +object of help. And Anna had been hurt, had been made miserable, by the +paltriness of this fib. Her great desire was to reach her friends' souls +quickly, to attain the beautiful intimacy in which the smallest fiction +is unnecessary; and so little did Frau von Treumann understand her, that +she had begun a friendship that was to be for life with an untruth that +would not have misled a child. But see the effect of sleep and a +gracious April morning. The very shabbiness and paltriness of the fib +made Anna's heart yearn over the poor lady. Surely the pride that tried +to hide its wounds with rags of such pitiful flimsiness was profoundly +pathetic? With such pride, all false from Anna's point of view, but real +and painful enough to its possessor, the necessity that drove her to +accept Anna's offer must have been more cruel than necessity, always +cruel, generally is. Her heart yearned over her friend as she dressed, +and she felt that the weakness that must lie was a weakness greatly +requiring love. For nobody, she argued, would ever lie unless driven to +it by fear of some suffering. If, then, it made her happy, and made her +life easier, let her think that Anna believed she had come for her sake. +What did it matter? No one was perfect, and many people were +surprisingly pathetic. + +Meanwhile the day was glorious, and she went downstairs with the springy +step of hope. She was thinking exhilarating thoughts, thinking that +there were to be no ripples of misgivings and misunderstandings on the +clear surface of this first morning. They would all look into each +others' candid eyes at breakfast, and read a mutual consciousness of +interests henceforward to be shared, of happiness to be shared, of life +to be shared,--the life of devoted and tender sisters. + +The hall door stood open, and the house was full of the smell of April; +the smell of new leaves budding, of old leaves rotting, of damp earth, +pine needles, wet moss, and marshes. "Oh, the lovely, lovely morning!" +whispered Anna, running out on to the steps with outstretched arms and +upturned face, as though she would have clasped all the beauty round and +held it close. She drew in a long breath, and turned back into the house +singing in an impassioned but half-suppressed voice the first verse of +the Magnificat. The door leading to the kitchen opened, and to her +surprise Baroness Elmreich emerged from those dark regions. The +Magnificat broke off abruptly. Anna was surprised. Why the kitchen? The +baroness saw her hostess's figure motionless against the light of the +open door; but the light behind was strong and the hall was dark, and +she thought it was Anna's back. Hoping that she had not been noticed she +softly closed the door again and waited behind it till she could come +out unseen. + +Anna supposed that the princess must be showing her the servants' +quarters, and went into the breakfast room; but in it sat the princess, +making coffee. + +"There you are," said the princess heartily. "That is nice. Now we can +drink our coffee comfortably together before the others come down. Have +you been out? You smell of fresh air." + +"Only a moment on the doorstep." + +"Come, sit next to me. You have slept well, I can see. Notice the +advantage of coming straight in to breakfast, and not running about the +forest--you get here first, and so get the best cup of coffee." + +"But it isn't proper for me to have the best," said Anna, smiling as she +took the cup, "when I have guests here." + +"Yes, it is--very proper indeed. Besides, you told me they were +sisters." + +"So they are. Has the baroness not been here?" + +"No, she is still in bed." + +"No, I saw her a moment ago. I thought you were with her." + +"Oh, my dear--so early in the morning!" protested the princess. "When +did I see her last? Less than nine hours ago. She followed me into my +bedroom and talked much. I could not begin again with her the first +thing in the morning, even to please you." And she looked at Anna very +affectionately. "You were tired last night, were you not?" she +continued. "Axel Lohm stayed so late, I think he wanted to speak to you. +But you went straight up to bed." + +"I had seen him before he went in to you. He didn't want to speak to me. +He was consumed by curiosity about our new friends." + +"Was he? He did not show much interest in them. He talked to me nearly +all the time. He thought for a moment that he knew the baroness--at +least, he stared at her at first and seemed surprised. But it turned out +that she was only like someone he knew. She had evidently never seen him +before. It is a great pleasure to me to talk to that young man," the +princess went on, while Anna ate her toast. + +"So it is to me," said Anna. + +"I have met many people in my life, and have often wondered at the +dearth of nice ones--how few there are that one likes to be with and +wishes to see again and again. Axel is one of the few, decidedly." + +"So he is," agreed Anna. + +"There is goodness written on every line of his face." + +"Oh, he has the kindest face. And so strong. I feel that if anything +happened here, anything dreadful, that he would make it right again at +once. He would mend us if we got smashed, and build us up again if we +got burned, and protect us, this houseful of lone women, if ever anybody +tried to run away with us." And Anna nodded reassuringly at the +princess, and took another piece of toast "That is how I feel about +him," she said. "So agreeably certain, not only of his willingness to +help, but of his power to do it." Talking about Axel she quite forgot +the apparition of the baroness that she had just seen. He was so kind, +so good, so strong. How much she admired strength of purpose, +independence, the character that was determined to find its happiness in +doing its best. + +"If I had a daughter," said the princess, filling Anna's cup, "she +should marry Axel Lohm." + +"If _I_ had a daughter," said Anna, "she should marry him, so yours +couldn't. I wouldn't even ask her if she liked it. I'd be so sure that +it was a good thing for her that I'd just say: 'My dear, I have chosen +my son-in-law. Get your hat, and come to church and marry him.' And +there'd be an end of _that_." + +The princess felt that it was an unprofitable employment, trying to help +on Axel's cause. She could not but see what he thought of Anna; and +after the touching manner of widows, was convinced of the superiority of +marriage, as a means of real happiness for a woman, over any and every +other form of occupation. Yet whenever she talked of him she was met by +the same hearty agreement and frank enthusiasm, the very words being +taken out of her mouth and her own praises of him doubled and trebled. +It was a promising friendship, but it was a singularly unpromising +prelude to love. + +"Please make some fresh coffee," begged Anna; "the others will be coming +down soon, and must not have cold stuff." Her voice grew tender at the +mere mention of "the others." For the princess and Axel, both of whom +she liked so much, it never took on those tender tones, as the princess +had already noted. There was nothing in either of them to appeal to that +side of her nature, the tender, mother side, which is in all good women +and most bad ones. They were her friends, staunch friends, she felt, and +of course she liked and respected them; but they were sturdy, capable +people, firmly planted on their own feet, able to battle successfully +with life--as different as possible from these helpless ones who needed +her, whom she had saved, to whom she was everything, between whom and +want and sorrow she was fixed as a shield. + +Two of the helpless ones came in at that moment, with frosty, +early-morning faces. Anna put the vision she had seen at the kitchen +door from her mind, and went to meet them with happy smiles and +greetings. Frau von Treumann did her best to respond warmly, but it was +very early to be enthusiastic, and at that hour of the day she was +accustomed to being a little cross. Besides, she had had no coffee yet, +and her hostess evidently had, and that made a great difference to one's +sentiments. The baroness looked pinched and bloodless; she was as frigid +as ever to Anna, said nothing about having seen her before, and seemed +to want to be left alone. So that the mutual gazing into each other's +eyes did not, after all, take place. + +The princess waited to see that they had all they wanted, and then went +out rattling her keys; and after an interval, during which Anna +chattered cheerful and ungrammatical German, and the window was shut, +and warming food eaten, Frau von Treumann became amiable and began to +talk. + +She drew from her pocket a letter and a photograph. "This is my son," +she said. "I brought it down to show you. And I have had a long letter +from him already. He never neglects his mother. Truly a good son is a +source of joy." + +"I suppose so," said Anna. + +The baroness turned her eyes slowly round and fixed them on the +photograph. "Aha," she thought, "the son again. Last night the son, this +morning the son--always the son. The excellent Treumann loses no time." + +"He is good-looking, my Karlchen, is he not?" + +"Yes," said Anna. "It is a becoming uniform." + +"Oh--becoming! He looks adorable in it. Especially on his horse. I would +not let him be anything but a hussar because of the charming uniform. +And he suits it exactly--such a lightly built, graceful figure. _He_ +never stumbles over people's feet. Herr von Lohm nearly crushed my poor +foot last night. It was difficult not to scream. I never did admire +those long men made by the meter, who seem as though they would go on +for ever if there were no ceilings." + +"He _is_ rather long," agreed Anna, smiling. + +"Heartwhole," thought Frau von Treumann. "Tell me, dear Miss +Estcourt----" she said, laying her hand on Anna's. + +"Oh, don't call me Miss Estcourt." + +"But what, then?" + +"Oh, you must call me Anna. We are to be like sisters here--and you, +too, please, call me Anna," she said, turning to the baroness. + +"You are very good," said the baroness. + +"Well, my little sister," said Frau von Treumann, smiling, "my baby +sister----" + +"Baby sister!" thought the baroness. "Excellent Treumann." + +"--you know an old woman of my age could not really have a sister of +yours." + +"Yes, she could--not a whole sister, perhaps, but a half one." + +"Well, as you please. The idea is sweet to me. I was going to ask +you--but Karlchen's letter is too touching, really--such thoughts in +it--such high ideals----" And she turned over the sheets, of which there +were three, and began to blow her nose. + +"He has written you a very long letter," said Anna pleasantly; the +extent to which the nose blowing was being carried made her uneasy. Was +there to be crying? + +"You have a cold, dear Frau von Treumann?" inquired the baroness with +solicitude. + +"_Ach nein--doch nein_," murmured Frau von Treumann, turning the sheets +over, and blowing her nose harder than ever. + +"It will come off," thought Letty, who had slipped in unnoticed, and was +eating bread and butter alone at the further end of the table. + +"Poor thing," thought Anna, "she adores that Karlchen." + +There was a pause, during which the nose continued to be blown. + +"His letter is beautiful, but sad--very sad," said Frau von Treumann, +shaking her head despondingly. "Poor boy--poor dear boy--he misses his +mother, of course. I knew he would, but I did not dream it would be as +bad as this. Oh, my dear Miss Estcourt--well, Anna then"--smiling +faintly--"I could never describe to you the wrench it was, the terrible, +terrible wrench, leaving him who for five years--I am a widow five +years--has been my all." + +"It must have been dreadful," murmured Anna sympathetically. + +The baroness sat straight and motionless, staring fixedly at Frau von +Treumann. + +"'When shall I see you again, my dearest mamma?' were his last words. +And I could give him no hope--no answer." The handkerchief went up to +her eyes. + +"What _is_ she gassing about?" wondered Letty. + +"I can see him now, fading away on the platform as my train bore me off +to an unknown life. An only son--the only son of a widow--is everything, +everything to his mother." + +"He must be," said Anna. + +There was another silence. Then Frau von Treumann wiped her eyes and +took up the letter again. "Now he writes that though I have only been +away two days from Rislar, the town he is stationed at, it seems already +like years. Poor boy! He is quite desperate--listen to this--poor +boy----" And she smiled a little, and read aloud, "'I must see you, +_liebste, beste Mama_, from time to time. I had no idea the separation +would be like this, or I could never have let you go. Pray beg Miss +Estcourt----'" + +"Aha," thought the baroness. + +"'--to allow me to visit my mother occasionally. There must be an inn in +the village. If not, I could stay at Stralsund, and would in no way +intrude on her. But I must see my dearest mother, the being I have +watched over and cared for ever since my father's death.' Poor, dear, +foolish boy--he is desperate----" And she folded up the letter, shook +her head, smiled, and suddenly buried her face in her handkerchief. + +"Excellent Treumann," thought the unblinking baroness. + +Anna sat in some perplexity. Sons had not entered into her calculations. +In the correspondence, she remembered, the son had been lightly passed +over as an officer living on his pay and without a superfluous penny for +the support of his parent. Not a word had been said of any unusual +affection existing between them. Now it appeared that the mother and son +were all in all to each other. If so, of course the separation was +dreadful. A mother's love was a sentiment that inspired Anna with +profound respect. Before its unknown depths and heights she stood in awe +and silence. How could she, a spinster, even faintly comprehend that +sacred feeling? It was a mysterious and beautiful emotion that she could +only reverence from afar. Clearly she must not come between parent and +child; but yet--yet she wished she had had more time to think it over. + +She looked rather helplessly at Frau von Treumann, and gave her hand a +little squeeze. The hand did not return the squeeze, and the face +remained buried in the handkerchief. Well, it would be absurd to want to +cut off the son entirely from his mother. If he came occasionally to see +her it could not matter much. She gave the hand a firmer squeeze, and +said with an effort that she did her best to conceal, "But he must come +then, when he can. It is rather a long way--didn't you say you had to +stay a night in Berlin?" + +"Oh, my dear Miss Estcourt--my dear Anna!" cried Frau von Treumann, +snatching the handkerchief from her face and seizing Anna's hand in both +hers, "what a weight from my heart--what a heavy, heavy weight! All +night I was thinking how shall I bear this? I may write to him, then, +and tell him what you say? A long journey? You are afraid it will tire +him? Oh, it will be nothing, nothing at all to Karlchen if only he can +see his mother. How can I thank you! You will say my gratitude is +excessive for such a little thing, and truly only a mother could +understand it----" + +In short, Karlchen's appearance at Kleinwalde was now only a matter of +days. + +"_Unverschaemt_," was the baroness's mental comment. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +Anna put on her hat and went out to think it over. Fraeulein Kuhraeuber +was apparently still asleep. Letty, accompanied by Miss Leech, had to go +to Lohm parsonage for her first lesson with Herr Klutz, who had +undertaken to teach her German. Frau von Treumann said she must write at +once to Karlchen, and shut herself up to do it. The baroness was vague +as to her intentions, and disappeared. So Anna started off by herself, +crossed the road, and walked quickly away into the forest. "If it makes +her so happy, then I am glad," she said to herself. "She is here to be +happy; and if she wants Karlchen so badly, why then she must have him +from time to time. I wonder why I don't like Karlchen." + +She walked quickly, with her eyes on the ground. The mood in which she +sang magnificats had left her, nor did she look to see what the April +morning was doing. Frau von Treumann had not been under her roof +twenty-four hours, and already her son had been added--if only +occasionally, still undoubtedly added--to the party. Suppose the +baroness and Fraeulein Kuhraeuber should severally disclose an inability +to live without being visited by some cherished relative? Suppose the +other nine, the still Unchosen, should each turn out to have a relative +waiting tragically in the background for permission to make repeated +calls? And suppose these relatives should all be male? + +These were grave questions; so grave that she was quite at a loss how to +answer them. And then she felt that somebody was looking at her; and +raising her eyes, she saw Axel on the mossy path quite close to her. + +"So deep in thought?" he asked, smiling at her start. + +Anna wondered how it was that he so often went through the forest. Was +it a short cut from Lohm to anywhere? She had met him three or four +times lately, in quite out of the way parts. He seemed to ride through +it and walk through it at all hours of the day. + +"How is your potato-planting getting on?" she asked involuntarily. She +knew what a rush there was just then putting the potatoes in, for she +did not drive every day about her fields in a cart without springs with +Dellwig for nothing. Axel must have potatoes to plant too; why didn't he +stay at home, then, and do it? + +"What a truly proper question for a country lady to ask," he said, +looking amused. "You waste no time in conventional good mornings or +asking how I do, but begin at once with potatoes. Well, I do not believe +that you are really interested in mine, so I shall tell you nothing +about them. You only want to remind me that I ought to be seeing them +planted instead of walking about your woods." + +Anna smiled. "I believe I did mean something like that," she said. + +"Well, I am not so aimless as you suppose," he returned, walking by her +side. "I have been looking at that place." + +"What place?" + +"Where Dellwig wants to build the brick-kiln." + +"Oh! What do you think of it?" + +"What I knew I would think of it. It is a fool's plan. The clay is the +most wretched stuff. It has puzzled me, seeing how very poor it is, that +he should be so eager to have the thing. I should have credited him with +more sense." + +"He is quite absurdly keen on it. Last night I thought he would never +stop persuading." + +"But you did not give in?" + +"Not an inch. I said I would ask you to look at it, and then he was +simply rude. I do believe he will have to go. I don't really think we +shall ever get on together. Certainly, as you say the clay is bad, I +shall refuse to build a brick-kiln." + +Axel smiled at her energy. In the morning she was always determined +about Dellwig. "You are very brave to-day," he said. "Last night you +seemed afraid of him." + +"He comes when I am tired. I am not going to see him in the evening any +more. It is too dreadful as a finish to a happy day." + +"It was a happy day, then, yesterday?" he asked quickly. + +"Yes--that is, it ought to have been, and probably would have been +if--if I hadn't been tired." + +"But the others--the new arrivals--they must have been happy?" + +"Yes--oh yes--" said Anna, hesitating, "I think so. Fraeulein Kuhraeuber +was, I am sure, at intervals. I think the other two would have been if +they hadn't had a journey." + +"By the way, do you remember what I said yesterday about the Elmreichs?" + +"Yes, I do. You said horrid things." Her voice changed. + +"About a Baron Elmreich. But he had a sister who made a hash of her +life. I saw her once or twice in Berlin. She was dancing at the +Wintergarten, and under her own name." + +"Poor thing. But it doesn't interest me." + +"Don't get angry yet." + +"But it doesn't interest me. And why shouldn't she dance? I knew several +people who ended by dancing at London Wintergartens." + +"You admit, then, that it is an end?" + +"It is hardly a beginning," conceded Anna. + +"She was so amazingly like your baroness would be if she painted and +wore a wig----" + +"That you are convinced they must be sisters. Thank you. Now what do you +suppose is the good of telling me that?" And she stood still and faced +him, her eyes flashing. + +Do what he would, Axel could not help smiling at her wrath. It was the +wrath of a mother whose child has been hurt by someone on purpose, "I +wish," he said, "that you would not be so angry when I tell you things +that might be important for you to know. If your baroness is really the +sister of the dancing baroness----" + +"But she is not. She told me last night that she has no brothers and +sisters. And she wrote it in the letters before she came. Do you think +it is a praiseworthy occupation for a man, doing his best to find out +disgraceful things about a very poor and very helpless woman?" + +"No, I do not," said Axel decidedly. "Under any other circumstances I +would leave the poor lady to take her chance. But do consider," he said, +following her, for she had begun to walk on quickly again, "do consider +your unusual position. You are so young to be living away from your +friends, and so young and inexperienced to be at the head of a home for +homeless women--you ought to be quite extraordinarily particular about +the antecedents of the people you take in. It would be most unpleasant +if it got about that they were not respectable." + +"But they are respectable," said Anna, looking straight before her. + +"A sister who dances at the Wintergarten----" + +"Did I not tell you that she has no sister?" + +Axel shrugged his shoulders. "The resemblance is so striking that they +might be twins," he said. + +"Then you think she says what is not true?" + +"How can I tell?" + +Anna stopped again and faced him. "Well, suppose it were true--suppose +it is her sister, and she has tried to hide it--do you know how I should +feel about it?" + +"Properly scandalised, I hope." + +"I should love her all the more. Oh, I should love her twice as much! +Why, think of the misery and the shame--poor, poor little woman--trying +to hide it all, bearing it all by herself--she must have loved her +sister, she must have loved her brother. It isn't true, of course, but +supposing it were, could you tell me _any_ reason why I should turn my +back on her?" + +She stood looking at him, her eyes full of angry tears. + +He did not answer. If that was the way she felt, what could he do? + +"I never understood," she went on passionately, "why the innocent should +be punished. Do you suppose a woman would _like_ her brother to cheat +and then shoot himself? Or _like_ her sister to go and dance? But if +they do do these things, besides her own grief and horror, she is to be +shunned by everybody as though she were infectious. Is that fair? Is +that right? Is it in the least Christian?" + +"No, of course it is not. It is very hard and very ugly, but it is quite +natural. An old woman in a strong position might take such a person up, +perhaps, and comfort her and love her as you propose to do, but a young +girl ought not to do anything of the sort." + +Anna turned away with a quick movement of impatience and walked on. "If +you argue on the young girl basis," she said, "we shall never be able to +talk about a single thing. When will you leave off about my young +girlishness? In five years I shall be thirty--will you go on till I have +reached that blessed age?" + +"I have no right to go on to you about anything," said Axel. + +"Precisely," said Anna. + +"But please remember that I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to your +uncle, and make allowances for me if I am over-zealous in my anxiety to +shield his niece from possible unpleasantness." + +"Then don't keep telling me I am too young to do good. It is ludicrous, +considering my age, besides being dreadful. You will say that, I +believe, till I am thirty or forty, and then when you can't decently say +it any more, and I still want to do things, you'll say I'm old enough to +know better." + +Axel laughed. Anna's dimples appeared for an instant, but vanished +again. + +"Now," she said, "I am not going to talk about poor little Else any +more. Let her distant relations dance till they are tired--it concerns +nobody here at all." + +"Little Else?" + +"The baroness. Of course we shall call each other by our Christian +names. We are sisters." + +"I see." + +"You don't see at all," she said, with a swift sideward glance at him. + +"My dear Miss Estcourt----" + +"If my plan succeeds it will certainly not be because I have been +encouraged." + +"I think," he said with sudden warmth, "that the plan is beautiful, and +could only have been made by a beautiful nature." + +"Oh?" ejaculated Anna, surprised. A flush of gratification came into her +face. The heartiness of the tone surprised her even more than the words. +She stood still to look at him. "It is a pity," she said softly, "that +nearly always when we are together we get angry, for you can be so kind +when you choose. Say nice things to me. Let us be happy. I love being +happy." + +She held out her hand, smiling. He took it and gave it a hearty, matter +of fact shake, and dropped it. It was very awkward, but he was +struggling with an overpowering desire to take her in his arms and kiss +her, and not let her go again till she had said she would marry him. It +was exceedingly awkward, for he knew quite well that if he did so it +would be the end of all things. + +He turned rather white, and thrust his hands deep into his pockets. +"Yes, the plan is beautiful," he said cheerfully, "but very unpractical. +And the nature that made it is, I am sure, beautiful, but of course +quite as unpractical as the plan." And he smiled down at her, a broad, +genial smile. + +"I know I don't set about things the right way," she said. "If only you +wouldn't worry about the pasts of my poor friends and what their +relations may have done in pre-historic times, you could help me so +much." + +To his relief she began to walk on again. "Princess Ludwig is a sensible +and experienced woman," he said, "and can help you in many ways that I +cannot." + +"But she only looks at the _praktische_ side of a question, and that is +really only one side. I am too unpractical, I know, but she isn't +unpractical enough. But I don't want to talk about her. What I wanted to +say was, that once these poor ladies have been chosen and are here, the +time for making inquiries is over, isn't it? As far as I am concerned, +anyhow, it is. I shall never forsake them, never, _never_. So please +don't try to tell me things about them--it doesn't change my feelings +towards them, and only makes me angry with you. Which is a pity. I want +to live at peace with my neighbour." + +"Well?" he said, as she paused. "That, I take it, is a prelude to +something else." + +"Yes, it is. It's a prelude to Karlchen." + +"To Karlchen?" + +She looked at him, and laughed rather nervously. "I am afraid," she +said, "that Karlchen is coming to stay with me." + +"And who, pray, is Karlchen?" + +"The only son of his mother, and she is a widow." + +He came to a standstill again. "What," he said, "Frau von Treumann has +asked you to invite her son to Kleinwalde?" + +"She didn't actually ask, but she got a sad letter from him, and seemed +to feel the separation so much, and cried about it, and so--and so I +did." + +Axel was silent. + +"I don't yearn to see Karlchen," said Anna in rather a small voice. She +could not help feeling that the invitation had been wrung from her. + +Axel bored a hole in the moss with his stick, and did not answer. + +"But naturally his poor mother clings to him, and he to her." + +Axel was intent on his hole and did not answer. + +"They are all the world to each other." + +Axel filled up his hole again, and pressed the moss carefully over it +with his foot. Then he said, "I never yet heard of two Treumanns being +all the world to each other." + +"You appear to have a down on the Treumanns." + +"Not in the least. I do not think they interest me enough. It is an East +Prussian Junker family that has spread beyond its natural limits, and +one meets them everywhere, and knows their characteristics. What is this +young man? I do not remember having heard of him." + +"He is an officer at Rislar." + +"At Rislar? Those are the red hussars. Do you wish me to make inquiries +about him?" + +"Oh, no. It's no use. His mother can't be happy without him, so he must +come." + +"Then may I ask why, if I am not to help you in the matter, we are +talking about him at all?" + +"I wanted to ask you whether--whether you think he will come often." + +"I should think," said Axel positively, "that he will come very often +indeed." + +"Oh!" said Anna. + +They walked on in silence. + +"Have you considered," he said presently, "what you would do if your +other--sisters want their relations asked down to stay with them? +Christmas, for instance, is a time of general rejoicing, when the +coldest hearts grow warm. Relations who have quarrelled all the year, +seek each other out at Christmas and talk tearfully of ties of blood. +And birthdays--will your twelve sisters be content to spend their twelve +birthdays remote from all members of their family? Birthdays here are +important days. There will be one a month now for you to celebrate at +Kleinwalde." + +"I have not got farther than considering Karlchen," said Anna with some +impatience. + +"A male Kuhraeuber," said Axel musingly, swinging his stick and gazing up +at the fleecy clouds floating over the pine tops, "a male Kuhraeuber +would be quite unlike anything you have yet seen." + +"There are no male Kuhraeubers," said Anna. "At least," she added, +correcting herself, "Fraeulein Kuhraeuber said so. She said she had no +relations at all, but perhaps--perhaps she has forgotten some, and will +remember them by and by. Oh, I wish they would tell me exactly how they +stand, and not try to hide anything! I thought we had left nothing +unexplained in the letters, but now Karlchen--it seems----" She stopped +and bit her lip. She was actually on the verge of criticising, to Axel, +the behaviour of her sisters. "Look," she said, catching sight of red +roofs through the thinning trees, "isn't that Lohm? I have seen you home +without knowing it." + +She held out her hand. "It isn't much good talking, is it?" she said, +moved by a sudden impulse, and looking up at him with a slightly wistful +smile. "How we talk and talk and never get any nearer anything or each +other. Such an amount of explaining oneself, and all no use. I don't +mean you and me especially--it is always so, with everyone and +everywhere. It is very weird. Good-bye." + +But he held her hand and would not let her go. "No," he said, in a voice +she did not know, "wait one moment. Why will you not let me really help +you? Do you think you will ever achieve anything by shutting your eyes +to what is true? Is it not better to face it, and then to do one's +best--after that, knowing the truth? Why are you angry whenever I try to +tell you the truth, or what I believe to be the truth about these +ladies? You are certain to find it out for yourself one day. You force +me to look on and see you being disappointed, and grieved, and perhaps +cheated--anyhow your confidence abused--and you reduce our talks +together to a sort of sparring match unworthy, quite unworthy of either +of us----" He broke off abruptly and released her hand. The passion in +his voice was unmistakable, and she was listening with astonished eyes. +"I am lecturing you," he said in his usual even tones, "Forgive me for +thinking that you are setting about your plan in a way that can never be +successful. As you say, we talk and talk, and the more we talk the less +do we understand each other. It is a foolish world, and a pre-eminently +lonely one." + +He lifted his hat and turned away. Anna opened her lips to say +something, but he was gone. + +She went home and meditated on volcanoes. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +The May that year in Northern Germany was the May of a poet's dream. The +days were like a chain of pearls, increasing in beauty and preciousness +as the chain lengthened. The lilacs flowered a fortnight earlier than in +other years. The winds, so restless usually on those flat shores, seemed +all asleep, and hardly stirred. About the middle of the month the moon +was at the full, and the forest became enchanted ground. It was a time +for love and lovers, for vows and kisses, for all pretty, happy, hopeful +things. Only those farmers who were too old to love and vow, looked at +their rye fields and grumbled because there was no rain. + +Karlchen, arriving on the first Saturday of that blessed month, felt all +disposed to love, if the _Englaenderin_ should turn out to be in the +least degree lovable. He did not ask much of a young woman with a +fortune, but he inwardly prayed that she might not be quite so ugly as +wives with money sometimes are. He was a man used to having what he +wanted, and had spent his own and his mother's money in getting it. +There was a little bald patch on the top of his head, and there were +many debts on his mind, and he was nearing the critical point in an +officer's career, the turning of which is reserved exclusively for the +efficient; and so he had three excellent reasons for desiring to marry. +He had desired it, indeed, for some time, had attempted it often, and +had not achieved it. The fathers of wealthy German girls knew the state +of his finances with an exactitude that was unworthy; and they knew, +besides, every one of his little weaknesses. As a result, they gave +their daughters to other suitors. But here was a girl without a father, +who knew nothing about him at all. There was, of course, some story in +the background to account for her living in this way; but that was +precisely what would make her glad of a husband who would relieve her of +the necessity of building up the weaker parts of her reputation on a +foundation of what Karlchen, when he saw the inmates of the house, +rudely stigmatised as _alte Schachteln_. Reputations, he reflected, +staring at Fraeulein Kuhraeuber, may be too dearly bought. Naturally she +would prefer an easy-going husband, who would let her see life with all +its fun, to this dreary and aimless existence. + +The Treumanns, he thought, were in luck. What a burden his mother had +been on him for the last five years! Miss Estcourt had relieved him of +it. Now there were his debts, and she would relieve him of those; and +the little entanglement she must have had at home would not matter in +Germany, where no one knew anything about her, except that she was the +highly respectable Joachim's niece. Anyway, he was perfectly willing to +let bygones be bygones. He left his bag at the inn at Kleinwalde, an +impossible place as he noted with pleasure, sent away his _Droschke_, +and walked round to the house; but he did not see Anna. She kept out of +the way till the evening, and he had ample time to be happy with his +mother. When he did see her, he fell in love with her at once. He had +quite a simple nature, composed wholly of instincts, and fell in love +with an ease acquired by long practice. Anna's face and figure were far +prettier than he had dared to hope. She was a beauty, he told himself +with much satisfaction. Truly the Treumanns were in luck. He entirely +forgot the _role_ he was to play of loving son, and devoted himself, +with his habitual artlessness, to her. Indeed, if he had not forgotten +it, he and his mother were so little accustomed to displays of affection +that they would have been but clumsy actors. There is a great difference +between affectionate letters written quietly in one's room, and +affectionate conversation that has to sound as though it welled up from +one's heart. Nothing of the kind ever welled up from Karlchen's heart; +and Anna noticed at once that there were no signs of unusual attachment +between mother and son. Karlchen was not even commonly polite to his +mother, nor did she seem to expect him to be. When she dropped her +scissors, she had to pick them up for herself. When she lost her +thimble, she hunted for it alone. When she wanted a footstool, she got +up and fetched one from under his very nose. When she came into the room +and looked about for a chair, it was Letty who offered her hers. +Karlchen sat comfortably with his legs crossed, playing with the +paper-knife he had taken out of the book Anna had been reading, and +making himself pleasant. He had his mother's large black eyes, and very +long thick black eyelashes of which he was proud, conscious that they +rested becomingly on his cheeks when he looked down at the paper-knife. +Letty was greatly struck by them, and inquired of Miss Leech in a +whisper whether she had ever seen their like. + +"Mr. Jessup had silken eyelashes too," replied Miss Leech dreamily. + +"These aren't silk--they're cotton eyelashes," said Letty scornfully. + +"My dear Letty," murmured Miss Leech. + +Anna was at a disadvantage because of her imperfect German. She could +not repress Karlchen when he was unduly kind as she would have done in +English, and with his mother presiding, as it were, at their opening +friendship, she did not like to begin by looking lofty. Luckily the +princess was unusually chatty that evening. She sat next to Karlchen, +and continually joined in the talk. She was cheerful amiability itself, +and insisted upon being told all about those sons of her acquaintances +who were in his regiment. When he half turned his back on her and +dropped his voice to a rapid undertone, thereby making himself +completely incomprehensible to Anna, the princess pleasantly advised him +to speak very slowly and distinctly, for unless he did Miss Estcourt +would certainly not understand. In a word, she took him under her wing +whether he would or no, and persisted in her friendliness in spite of +his mother's increasingly desperate efforts to draw her into +conversation. + +"Why do we not go out, dear Anna?" cried Frau von Treumann at last, +unable to endure Princess Ludwig's behaviour any longer. "Look what a +fine evening it is--and quite warm." And she who till then had gone +about shutting windows, and had been unable to bear the least breath of +air, herself opened the glass doors leading into the garden and went +out. + +But although they all followed her, nothing was gained by it. She +could have stamped her foot with rage at the princess's conduct. +Here was everything needful for the beginning of a successful +courtship--starlight, a murmuring sea, warm air, fragrant bushes, a girl +who looked like Love itself in the dusk in her pale beauty, a young man +desiring nothing better than to be allowed to love her, and a mother +only waiting to bless. But here too, unfortunately, was the princess. + +She was quite appallingly sociable--"The spite of the woman!" thought +Frau von Treumann, for what could it matter to her?--and remained fixed +at Anna's side as they paced slowly up and down the grass, monopolising +Karlchen's attention with her absurd questions about his brother +officers. Anna walked between them, thinking of other things, holding up +her trailing white dress with one hand, and with the other the edges of +her blue cloak together at her neck. She was half a head taller than +Karlchen, and so was his mother, who walked on his other side. Karlchen, +becoming more and more enamoured the longer he walked, looked up at her +through his eyelashes and told himself that the Treumanns were certainly +in luck, for he had stumbled on a goddess. + +"The grass is damp," cried Frau von Treumann, interrupting the endless +questions. "My dear princess--your rheumatism--and I who so easily get +colds. Come, we will go off the grass--we are not young enough to risk +wet feet." + +"I do not feel it," said the princess, "I have thick shoes. But you, +dear Frau von Treumann, do not stay if you have fears." + +"It _is_ damp," said Anna, turning up the sole of her shoe. "Shall we go +on to the path?" + +On the path it was obvious that they must walk in couples. Arrived at +its edge, the princess stopped and looked round with an urbane smile. +"My dear child," she said to Anna, taking her arm, "we have been keeping +Herr von Treumann from his mother regardless of his feelings. I beg you +to pardon my thoughtlessness," she added, turning to him, "but my +interest in hearing of my old friends' sons has made me quite forget +that you took this long journey to be with your dear mother. We will not +interrupt you further. Come, my dear, I wanted to ask you----" And she +led Anna away, dropping her voice to a confidential questioning +concerning the engaging of a new cook. + +There was nothing to be done. The only crumb of comfort Karlchen +obtained--but it was a big one--was a reluctantly given invitation, on +his mother's vividly describing at the hour of parting the place where +he was to spend the night, to remove his luggage from the inn to Anna's +house, and to sleep there. + +"You are too good, _meine Gnaedigste_," he said, consoled by this for the +_tete-a-tete_ he had just had with his mother; "but if it in any way +inconveniences you--we soldiers are used to roughing it----" + +"But not like that, not like that, _lieber Junge_," interrupted his +mother anxiously. "It is not fit for a dog, that inn, and I heard this +very evening from the housemaid that one of the children there has the +measles." + +That quite settled it. Anna could not expose Karlchen to measles. Why +did he not stay, as he had written he would, at Stralsund? As he was +here, however, she could not let him fall a prey to measles, and she +asked the princess to order a room to be got ready. + +It is a proof of her solemnity on that first evening with Karlchen that +when his mother, praising her beauty, mentioned her dimples as specially +bewitching, he should have said, surprised, "What dimples?" + +It is a proof, too, of the duplicity of mothers, that the very next day +in church the princess, sitting opposite the innkeeper's rosy family, +and counting its members between the verses of the hymn, should have +found that not one was missing. + +Karlchen left on Sunday evening after a not very successful visit. He +had been to church, believing that it was expected of him, and had found +to his disgust that Anna had gone for a walk. So there he sat, between +his mother and Princess Ludwig, and extracted what consolation he could +from a studied neglect of the outer forms of worship and an elaborate +slumber during the sermon. + +The morning, then, was wasted. At luncheon Anna was unapproachable. +Karlchen was invited to sit next to his mother, and Anna was protected +by Letty on the one hand and Fraeulein Kuhraeuber on the other, and she +talked the whole time to Fraeulein Kuhraeuber. + +"Who _is_ Fraeulein Kuhraeuber?" he inquired irritably of his mother, when +they found themselves alone together again in the afternoon. + +"Well, you can see who she is, I should think," replied his mother +equally irritably. "She is just Fraeulein Kuhraeuber, and nothing more." + +"Anna talks to her more than to anyone," he said; she was already "Anna" +to him, _tout court_. + +"Yes. It is disgusting." + +"It is very disgusting. It is not right that Treumanns should be forced +to associate on equal terms with such a person." + +"It is scandalous. But you will change all that." + +Karlchen twisted up the ends of his moustache and looked down his nose. +He often looked down his nose because of his eyelashes. He began to hum +a tune, and felt happy again. Axel Lohm was right when he doubted +whether there had ever been a permanently crushed Treumann. + +"She has a strange assortment of _alte Schachteln_ here," he said, after +a pause during which his thoughts were rosy. "That Elmreich, now. What +relation does she say she is to Arthur Elmreich?" + +"The man who shot himself? Oh, she is no relation at all. At most a +distant cousin." + +"_Na, na_," was Karlchen's reply; a reply whose English equivalent would +be a profoundly sceptical wink. + +His mother looked at him, waiting for more. + +"What do you really think----?" she began, and then stopped. + +He stood before the glass readjusting his moustache into the regulation +truculent upward twist. "Think?" he said. "You know Arthur's sister +Lolli was engaged at the Wintergarten this winter. She was not much of a +success. Too old. But she was down on the bills as Baroness Elmreich, +and people went to see her because of that, and because of her brother." + +"Oh--terrible," murmured Frau von Treumann. + +"Well, I know her; and I shall ask her next time I see her if she has a +sister." + +"But this one has no relations living at all," said his mother, +horrified at the bare suggestion that Lolli was the sister of a person +with whom she ate her dinner every day. + +"_Na, na_," said Karlchen. + +"But my dear Karlchen, it is so unlikely--the baroness is the veriest +pattern of primness. She has such very strict views about all such +things--quite absurdly strict. She even had doubts, she told me, when +first she came here, as to whether Anna were a fit companion for her." + +Karlchen stopped twisting his moustache, and stared at his mother. Then +he threw back his head and shrieked with laughter. He laughed so much +that for some moments he could not speak. His mother's face, as she +watched him without a smile, made him laugh still more. "_Liebste +Mama_," he said at last, wiping his eyes, "it may of course not be true. +It is just possible that it is not. But I feel sure it _is_ true, for +this Elmreich and the little Lolli are as alike as two peas. Anna not a +fit companion for Lolli's sister! _Ach Gott, ach Gott!_" And he shrieked +again. + +"If it is true," said Frau von Treumann, drawing herself up to her full +height, "it is my duty to tell Anna. I cannot stay under the same roof +with such a woman. She must go." + +"Take care," said her son, illumined by an unaccustomed ray of sapience, +"take care, _Mutti_. It is not certain that Anna would send her away." + +"What! if she knew about this--this Lolli, as you call her?" + +Karlchen shook his head. "It is better not to begin with ultimatums," he +said sagely. "If you say you cannot stay under the same roof with the +Elmreich, and she does not after that go, why then you must. And that," +he added, looking alarmed, "would be disastrous. No, no, leave it alone. +In any case leave it alone till I have seen Lolli. I shall come down +soon again, you may be sure. I wish we could get rid of the Penheim. Now +that really would be a good thing. Think it over." + +But Frau von Treumann felt that by no amount of thinking it over would +they ever get rid of the Penheim. + +"You do not like my Karlchen?" she said plaintively to Anna that +evening, coming out into the dusky garden where she stood looking at the +stars. Karlchen was well on his way to Berlin by that time. + +"I am sure I should like him very much if I knew him," replied Anna, +putting all the heartiness she could muster into her voice. + +Frau von Treumann shook her head sadly. "But now? I see you do not like +him now. You hardly spoke to him. He was hurt. A mother"--"Oh," thought +Anna, "I am tired of mothers,"--"a mother always knows." + +Her handkerchief came out. She had put one hand through Anna's arm, and +with the other began to wipe her eyes. Anna watched her in silence. + +"What? What? Tears? Do I see tears? Are we then missing our son so +much?" exclaimed a cheery voice behind them. And there was the princess +again. + +"Serpent," thought Frau von Treumann; but what is the use of thinking +serpent? She had to submit to being consoled all the same, while Anna +walked away. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +Anna seemed always to be walking away during the days that separated +Karlchen's first visit from his second. Frau von Treumann noticed it +with some uneasiness, and hoped that it was only her fancy. The girl had +shown herself possessed of such an abnormally large and warm heart at +first, had been so eager in her offers of affection, so enthusiastic, so +sympathetic, so--well, absurd; was it possible that there was no warmth +and no affection left over from those vast stores for such a +good-looking, agreeable man as Karlchen? But she set such thoughts aside +as ridiculous. Her son's simple doctrine from his fourteenth year on had +been that all girls like all men. It had often been laid down by him in +their talks together, and her own experience of girls had sufficiently +proved its soundness. "The Penheim must have poisoned her mind against +him," she decided at last, unable otherwise to explain the apathy with +which Anna received any news of Karlchen. Was there ever such sheer +spite? For what could it matter to a woman with no son of her own, who +married Anna? Somebody would marry her, for certain, and the Penheim +would lose her place; then why should it not be Karlchen? + +The princess, however, most innocent of excellent women, had never +spoken privately to Anna of Karlchen except once, when she inquired +whether he were to have the best sheets on his bed, or the second best +sheets; and Anna had replied, "The worst." + +But if Frau von Treumann was uneasy about Anna, Anna was still more +uneasy about Frau von Treumann. Whenever she could, she went away into +the forest and tried to think things out. She objected very much to the +feeling that life seemed somehow to be thickening round her--yet, after +Karlchen's visit there it was. Each day there were fewer and fewer quiet +pauses in the trivial bustle of existence; clear moments, like windows +through which she caught glimpses of the serene tranquillity with which +the real day, nature's day, the day she ought to have had, was passing. +Frau von Treumann followed her about and talked to her of Karlchen. +Fraeulein Kuhraeuber followed her about, with a humble, dog-like +affection, and seemed to want to tell her something, and never got +further than dark utterances that perplexed her. Baroness Elmreich +repulsed all her advances, carefully called her Miss Estcourt, and made +acid comments on everything that was said and done. "I believe she +dislikes me," thought Anna, puzzled. "I wonder why?" The baroness did; +and the reason was simplicity itself. She disliked her because she was +younger, prettier, richer, healthier than herself. For this she disliked +her heartily; but with far greater heartiness did she dislike her +because she knew she ought to be grateful to her. The baroness detested +having to feel grateful--it is a detestation not confined to +baronesses--and in this case the burden of the obligations she was under +was so great that it was almost past endurance. And there was no escape. +She had been starving when Anna took her in, and she would starve again +if Anna turned her out. She owed her everything; and what more natural, +then, than to dislike her? The rarest of loves is the love of a debtor +for his creditor. + +At night, alone in her room, Anna would wonder at the day lived through, +at the unsatisfactoriness of it, and the emptiness. When were they going +to begin the better life, the soul to soul life she was waiting for? How +busy they had all been, and what had they done? Why, nothing. A little +aimless talking, a little aimless sewing, a little aimless walking +about, a few letters to write that need not have been written, a +newspaper to glance into that did not really interest anybody, meals in +rapid succession, night, and oblivion. That was what was on the surface. +What was beneath the surface she could only guess at; for after a whole +fortnight with the Chosen she was still confronted solely by surfaces. +In the hot forest, drowsy and aromatic, where the white butterflies, +like points of light among the shadows of the pine-trunks, fluttered up +and down the unending avenues all day long, she wandered, during the +afternoon hour when the Chosen napped, to the most out-of-the-way nooks +she could find; and sitting on the moss where she could see some special +bit of loveliness, some distant radiant meadow in the sunlight beyond +the trees, some bush with its delicate green shower of budding leaves at +the foot of a giant pine, some exquisite effect of blue and white +between the branches so far above her head, she would ponder and ponder +till she was weary. + +There was no mistaking Karlchen's looks; she had not been a pretty girl +for several seasons at home in vain. Karlchen meant to marry her. She, +of course, did not mean to marry Karlchen, but that did not smooth any +of the ruggedness out of the path she saw opening before her. She would +have to endure the preliminary blandishments of the wooing, and when the +wooing itself had reached the state of ripeness which would enable her +to let him know plainly her own intentions, there would be a grievous +number of scenes to be gone through with his mother. And then his mother +would shake the Kleinwalde dust from her offended feet and go, and +failure number one would be upon her. In the innermost recesses of her +heart, offensive as Karlchen's wooing would certainly be, she thought +that once it was over it would not have been a bad thing; for, since his +visit, it was clear that Frau von Treumann was not the sort of inmate +she had dreamed of for her home for the unhappy. Unhappy she had +undoubtedly been, poor thing, but happy with Anna she would never be. +She had forgiven the first fibs the poor lady had told her, but she +could not go on forgiving fibs for ever. All those elaborate untruths, +written and spoken, about Karlchen's visit, how dreadful they were. +Surely, thought Anna, truthfulness was not only a lovely and a pleasant +thing but it was absolutely indispensable as the basis to a real +friendship. How could any soul approach another soul through a network +of lies? And then more painful still--she confessed with shame that it +was more painful to her even than the lies--Frau von Treumann evidently +took her for a fool. Not merely for a person wanting in intelligence, or +slow-witted, but for a downright fool. She must think so, or she would +have taken more pains, at least some pains, to make her schemes a little +less transparent. Anna hated herself for feeling mortified by this; but +mortified she certainly was. Even a philosopher does not like to be +honestly mistaken during an entire fortnight for a fool. Though he may +smile, he will almost surely wince. Not being a philosopher, Anna winced +and did not smile. + +"I think," she said to Manske, when he came in one morning with a list +of selected applications, "I think we will wait a little before choosing +the other nine." + +"The gracious one is not weary of well-doing?" he asked quickly. + +"Oh no, not at all; I like well-doing," Anna said rather lamely, "but it +is not quite--not quite as simple as it looks." + +"I have found nine most deserving cases," he urged, "and later there may +not be----" + +"No, no," interrupted Anna, "we will wait. In the autumn, perhaps--not +now. First I must make the ones who are here happy. You know," she said, +smiling, "they came here to be made happy." + +"Yes, truly I know it. And happy indeed must they be in this home, +surrounded by all that makes life fair and desirable." + +"One would think so," said Anna, musing. "It is pretty here, isn't +it--it should be easy to be happy here,--yet I am not sure that they +are." + +"Not sure----?" Manske looked at her, startled. + +"What do people--most people, ordinary people, need, to make them +happy?" she asked wistfully. She was speaking to herself more than to +him, and did not expect any very illuminating answer. + +"The fear of the Lord," he replied promptly; which put an end to the +conversation. + +But besides her perplexities about the Chosen, Anna had other worries. +Dellwig had received the refusal to let him build the brick-kiln with +such insolence, and had, in his anger, said such extraordinary things +about Axel Lohm, that Anna had blazed out too, and had told him he must +go. It had been an unpleasant scene, and she had come out from it white +and trembling. She had intended to ask Axel to do the dismissing for her +if she should ever definitely decide to send him away; but she had been +overwhelmed by a sudden passion of wrath at the man's intolerable +insinuations--only half understood, but sounding for that reason worse +than they were--and had done it herself. Since then she had not seen +him. By the agreement her uncle had made with him, he was entitled to +six months' notice, and would not leave until the winter, and she knew +she could not continue to refuse to see him; but how she dreaded the +next interview! And how uneasy she felt at the thought that the +management of her estate was entirely in the hands of a man who must now +be her enemy. Axel was equally anxious, when he heard what she had done. +It had to be done, of course; but he did not like Dellwig's looks when +he met him. He asked Anna to allow him to ride round her place as often +as he could, and she was grateful to him, for she knew that not only her +own existence, but the existence of her poor friends, depended on the +right cultivation of Kleinwalde. And she was so helpless. What creature +on earth could be more helpless than an English girl in her position? +She left off reading Maeterlinck, borrowed books on farming from Axel, +and eagerly studied them, learning by heart before breakfast long pages +concerning the peculiarities of her two chief products, potatoes and +pigs. + +"He cannot do much harm," Axel assured her; "the potatoes, I see, are +all in, and what can he do to the pigs? His own vanity would prevent his +leaving the place in a bad state. I have heard of a good man--shall I +have him down and interview him for you?" + +"How kind you are," said Anna gratefully; indeed, he seemed to her to be +a tower of strength. + +"Anyone would do what they could to help a forlorn young lady in the +straits you are in," he said, smiling at her. + +"I don't feel like a forlorn young lady with you next door to help me +out of the difficulties." + +"People in these lonely country places learn to be neighbourly," he +replied in his most measured tones. + +He had not again spoken of the Chosen since his walk with her through +the forest; and though he knew that Karlchen had been and gone he did +not mention his name. Nor did Anna. The longer she lived with her +sisters the less did she care to talk about them, especially to Axel. As +for Frau von Treumann's plans, how could she ever tell him of those? + +And just then Letty, the only being who was really satisfactory, became +a cause to her of fresh perplexity. Letty had been strangely content +with her German lessons from Herr Klutz. Every day she and Miss Leech +set out without a murmur, and came back looking placid. They brought +back little offerings from the parsonage, a bunch of narcissus, the +first lilac, cakes baked by Frau Manske, always something. Anna took the +flowers, and ate the cakes, and sent pleased messages in return. If she +had been less preoccupied by Dellwig and the eccentricities of her three +new friends, she would certainly have been struck by Letty's silence +about her lessons, and would have questioned her. There was no grumbling +after the first day, and no abuse of Schiller and the muses. Once Anna +met Klutz walking through Kleinwalde, and asked him how the studies were +progressing. "Colossal," was the reply, "the progress made is colossal." +And he crushed her rings into her fingers when she gave him her hand to +shake, and blushed, and looked at her with eyes that he felt must burn +into her soul. But Anna noticed neither his eyes nor his blush; for his +eyes, whatever he might feel them to be doing, were not the kind that +burn into souls, and he was a pale young man who, when he blushed, did +it only in his ears. They certainly turned crimson as he crushed Anna's +fingers, but she was not thinking of his ears. + +"Frau Manske is too kind," she said, as the nosegays, at first +intermittent, became things of daily occurrence. They grew bigger, too, +every day, attaining such a girth at last that Letty could hardly carry +them. "She must not plunder her garden like this." + +"It is very full of flowers," said Miss Leech. "Really a wonderful +display. The bunch is always ready, tied together and lying on the table +when we arrive. I tried to tell her yesterday that you were afraid she +was spoiling her garden, sending so much, but she did not seem to +understand. She is showing me how to make those cakes you said you +liked." + +"I wish I had some of these in my garden," said Anna, laying her cheek +against the posy of wallflowers Letty had just given her. There was +nothing in her garden except grass and trees; Uncle Joachim had not been +a man of flowers. + +She took them up to her room, kissing them on the way, and put them in a +jar on the window-sill; and it was not until two or three days later, +when they began to fade, that she saw the corner of an envelope peeping +out from among them. She pulled it out and opened it. It was addressed +to _Ihr Hochwohlgeboren Fraeulein Anna Estcourt_; and inside was a sheet +of notepaper with a large red heart painted on it, mangled, and pierced +by an arrow; and below it the following poem in a cramped, hardly +readable writing:-- + + The earth am I, and thou the heaven, + The mass am I, and thou the leaven, + No other heaven do I want but thee, + Oh Anna, Anna, Anna, pity me! + + AUGUST KLUTZ, Kandidat. + +In an instant Letty's unnatural cheerfulness about her lessons flashed +across her. _What_ had they been doing, and where was Miss Leech, that +such things could happen? + +It was a very terrible, stern-browed aunt who met Letty that day on the +stairs when she came home. + +"Hullo, Aunt Anna, seen a ghost?" Letty inquired pleasantly; but her +heart sank into her boots all the same as she followed her into her +room. + +"Look," said Anna, showing her the paper, "how could you do it? For of +course you did it. Herr Klutz doesn't speak English." + +"Doesn't he though--he gets on like anything. He sits up all night----" + +"How is it that _this_ was possible?" interrupted Anna, striking the +paper with her hand. + +"It's pretty, isn't it," said Letty, faintly grinning. "The last line +had to be changed a little. It isn't original, you know, except the +Annas. I put in those. That footman mother got cheap because he had one +finger too few sent it to Hilton on her birthday last year--she liked it +awfully. The last line was 'Oh Hilton, Hilton, Hilton----'" + +"_How_ came you to talk such hideous nonsense with Herr Klutz, and about +me?" + +"I didn't. He began. He talked about you the whole time, and started +doing it the very first day Leechy cooked." + +"Cooked?" + +"She is always in the kitchen with Frau Manske. We brought you some of +the cakes one day, and you seemed as pleased as anything." + +"And instead of learning German you and he have been making up this sort +of thing?" + +Anna's voice and eyes frightened Letty. She shifted from one foot to the +other and looked down sullenly. "What's the good of being angry?" she +said, addressing the carpet; "it's only Mr. Jessup over again. Leechy +wasn't angry with Mr. Jessup. She was frightfully pleased. She says it's +the greatest compliment a person can pay anybody, going on about them +like Herr Klutz does, and talking rot." + +Anna stared at her, bewildered. "Mr. Jessup?" she repeated. "And do you +mean to tell me that Miss Leech knows of this--this disgusting +nonsense?" She held the mangled heart at arm's length, crushing it in +her hand. + +"I say, you'll spoil it. He worked at it for days. There weren't any +paints red enough for the wound, and he had to go to Stralsund on +purpose. He thought no end of it." And Letty, scared though she was, +could not resist giggling a little. + +"Do you mean to tell me that Miss Leech knows about this?" insisted +Anna. + +"Rather not. It's a secret. He made me promise faithfully never to tell +a soul. Of course it doesn't matter talking to you, because you're one +of the persons concerned. You can't be married, you know, without +knowing about it, so I'm not breaking my promise talking to you----" + +"Married? What unutterable rubbish have you got into your head?" + +"That's what I said--or something like it. I said it was jolly rot. He +said, 'What's rot?' I said 'That.'" + +"But what?" asked Anna angrily. She longed to shake her. + +"Why, that about marrying you. I told him it was rot, and I was sure you +wouldn't, but as he didn't know what rot was, it wasn't much good. He +hunted it out in the dictionary, and still he didn't know." + +Anna stood looking at her with indignant eyes. "You don't know what you +have done," she said, "evidently you don't. It is a dreadful thing that +the moment Miss Leech leaves you you should begin to talk of such +things--such horrid things--with a stranger. A little girl of your +age----" + +"I didn't begin," whimpered Letty, overcome by the wrath in Anna's +voice. + +"But all this time you have been going on with it, instead of at once +telling Miss Leech or me." + +"I never met a--a lover before--I thought it--great fun." + +"Then all those flowers were from him?" + +"Ye--es." Letty was in tears. + +"He thought I knew they were from him?" + +No answer. + +"Did he?" insisted Anna. + +"Ye--es." + +"You are a very wicked little girl," said Anna, with awful sternness. +"You have been acting untruths every day for ages, which is just as bad +as telling them. I don't believe you have an idea of the horridness of +what you have done--I hope you have not. Of course your lessons at Lohm +have come to an end. You will not go there again. Probably I shall send +you home to your mother. I am nearly sure that I shall. Go away." And +she pointed to the door. + +That night neither Letty nor Miss Leech appeared at supper; both were +shut up in their rooms in tears. Miss Leech was quite unable to forgive +herself. It was all her fault, she felt. She had been appalled when Anna +showed her the heart and told her what had been going on while she was +learning to cook in Frau Manske's kitchen. "Such a quiet, +respectable-looking young man!" she exclaimed, horror-stricken. "And +about to take holy orders!" + +"Well, you see he isn't quiet and respectable at all," said Anna. "He is +unusually enterprising, and quite without morals. Only a demoralised +person would take advantage of a poor little pupil in that way." + +She lit a candle, and burnt the heart. "There," she said, when it was in +ashes, "that's the end of that. Heaven knows what Letty has been led +into saying, or what ideas he has put into her head. I can't bear to +think of it. I hadn't the courage to cross-question her much--I was +afraid I should hear something that would make me too angry, and I'd +have to tell the parson. Anyhow, dear Miss Leech, we will not leave her +alone again, ever, will we? I don't suppose a thing like this will +happen twice, but we won't let it have a chance, will we? Now don't be +too unhappy. Tell me about Mr. Jessup." + +It was Miss Leech's fault, Anna knew; but she so evidently knew it +herself, and was so deeply distressed, that rebukes were out of the +question. She spent the evening and most of the night in useless +laments, while, in the room adjoining, Letty lay face downwards on her +bed, bathed in tears. For Letty's conscience was in a grievous state of +tumult. She had meant well, and she had done badly. She had not thought +her aunt would be angry--was she not in full possession of the facts +concerning Mr. Jessup's courtship? And had not Miss Leech said that no +higher honour could be paid to a woman than to fall in love with her and +make her an offer of marriage? Herr Klutz, it is true, was not the sort +of person her aunt could marry, for her aunt was stricken in years, and +he looked about the same age as her brother Peter; besides, he was +clearly, thought Letty, of the guttersnipe class, a class that bit its +nails and never married people's aunts. But, after all, her aunt could +always say No when the supreme moment arrived, and nobody ought to be +offended because they had been fallen in love with, and he was +frightfully in love, and talked the most awful rot. Nor had she +encouraged him. On the contrary, she had discouraged him; but it was +precisely this discouragement, so virtuously administered, that lay so +heavily on her conscience as she lay so heavily on her bed. She had been +proud of it till this interview with her aunt; since then it had taken +on a different complexion, and she was sure, dreadfully sure, that if +her aunt knew of it she would be very angry indeed--much, much angrier +than she was before. Letty rolled on her bed in torments; for the +discouragement administered to Klutz had been in the form of poetry, and +poetry written on her aunt's notepaper, and purporting to come from her. +She had meant so well, and what had she done? When no answer came by +return to his poem hidden in the wallflowers, he had refused to believe +that the bouquet had reached its destination. "There has been +treachery," he cried; "you have played me false." And he seemed to fold +up with affliction. + +"I gave it to her all right. She hasn't found the letter yet," said +Letty, trying to comfort, and astonished by the loudness of his grief. +"It's all right--you wait a bit. She liked the flowers awfully, and +kissed them." + +"Poor young lover," she thought romantically, "his heart must not bleed +too much. Aunt Anna, if she ever does find the letter, will only send +him a rude answer. I will answer it for her, and gently discourage him." +For if the words that proceeded from Letty's mouth were inelegant, her +thoughts, whenever they dwelt on either Mr. Jessup or Herr Klutz, were +invariably clothed in the tender language of sentiment. + +And she had sat up till very late, composing a poem whose mission was +both to discourage and console. It cost her infinite pains, but when it +was finished she felt that it had been worth them all. She copied it out +in capital letters on Anna's notepaper, folded it up carefully, and tied +it with one of her own hair-ribbons to a little bunch of +lilies-of-the-valley she had gathered for the purpose in the forest. + +This was the poem:-- + + It is a matter of regret + That circumstances won't + Allow me to call thee my pet, + But as it is they don't. + + For why? My many years forbid, + And likewise thy position. + So take advice, and strive amid + Thy tears for meek submission. + + ANNA. + +And this poem was, at that very moment, as she well knew, in Herr +Klutz's waistcoat pocket. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +The ordinary young man, German or otherwise, hungrily emerging from +boyhood into a toothsome world made to be eaten, cures himself of his +appetite by indulging it till he is ill, and then on a firm foundation +of his own foolish corpse, or, as the poet puts it, of his dead self, +begins to build up the better things of his later years. + +Klutz was an ordinary young man, and arrived at early manhood as hungry +as his fellows; but his father was a parson, his grandfather had been a +parson, his uncles were all parsons, and Fate, coming cruelly to him in +the gloomy robes of the Lutheran Church, his natural follies had had no +opportunity of getting out, developing, and dissolving, but remained +shut up in his heart, where they amused themselves by seething +uninterruptedly, to his great discomfort, while the good parson, in +whose care he was, talked to him of the world to come. + +"The world to come," thought Klutz, hungering and thirsting for a taste +of the world in which he was, "may or may not be very well in its way; +but its way is not my way." And he listened in a silence that might be +taken either for awed or bored to Manske's expatiations. Manske, of +course, interpreted it as awed. "Our young vicar," he said to his wife, +"thinks much. He is serious and contemplative beyond his years. He is +not a man of many and vain words." To which his wife replied only by a +sniff of scepticism. + +She had no direct proofs that Klutz was not serious and contemplative, +but during his first winter in their house he had fallen into her bad +graces because of a certain indelicately appreciative attitude he +displayed towards her apple jelly. Not that she grudged him apple jelly +in just quantities; both she and her husband were fond of it, and the +eating of it was luckily one of those pleasures whose indulgence is +innocent. But there are limits beyond which even jelly becomes vicious, +and these limits Herr Klutz continually overstepped. Every autumn she +made a sufficient number of pots of it to last discreet appetites a +whole year. There had always been vicars in their house, and there had +never been a dearth of jelly. But this year, so early as Easter, there +were only two pots left. She could not conveniently lock it up and +refuse to produce any, for then she and her husband would not have it +themselves; so all through the winter she had watched the pots being +emptied one after the other, and the thinner the rows in her storeroom +grew, the more pronounced became her conviction that Klutz's piety was +but skin deep. A young man who could behave in so unbridled a fashion +could not be really serious; there was something, she thought, that +smacked suspiciously of the flesh and the devil about such conduct. +Great, then, was her astonishment when, the penultimate pot being placed +at Easter on the table, Klutz turned from it with loathing. Nor did he +ever look at apple jelly again; nor did he, of other viands, eat enough +to keep him in health. He who had been so voracious forgot his meals, +and had to be coaxed before he would eat at all. He spent his spare time +writing, sitting up sometimes all night, and consuming candles at the +same head-long rate with which he had previously consumed the jelly; and +when towards May her husband once more commented on his seriousness, +Frau Manske's conscience no longer permitted her to sniff. + +"You must be ill," she said to him at last, on a day when he had sat +through the meals in silence and had refused to eat at all. + +"Ill!" burst out Klutz, whose body and soul seemed both to be in one +fierce blaze of fever, "I am sick--sick even unto death." + +And he did feel sick. Only two days had elapsed since he had received +Anna's poem and had been thrown by it into a tumult of delight and +triumph; for the discouragement it contained had but encouraged him the +more, appearing to be merely the becoming self-depreciation of a woman +before him who has been by nature appointed lord. He was perfectly ready +to overlook the obstacles to their union to which she alluded. She could +not help her years; there were, truly, more of them than he would have +wished, but luckily they were not visible on that still lovely face. As +to position, he supposed she meant that he was not _adelig_; but a man, +he reflected, compared to a woman, is always _adelig_, whatever his name +may be, by virtue of his higher and nobler nature. He had been for +rushing at once to Kleinwalde; but his pupil and confidant had said +"Don't," and had said it with such energy that for that day at least he +had resisted. And now, the very morning of the day on which the Frau +Pastor was asking him whether he were ill, he had received a curt note +from Miss Leech, informing him that Miss Letty Estcourt would for the +present discontinue her German studies. What had happened? Even the +poem, lying warm on his heart, was not able to dispel his fears. He had +flown at once to Kleinwalde, feeling that it was absurd not to follow +the dictates of his heart and cast himself in person at Anna's no doubt +expectant feet, and the door had been shut in his face--rudely shut, by +a coarse servant, whose manner had so much enraged him that he had +almost shown her the precious verses then and there, to convince her of +his importance in that house; indeed, the only consideration that +restrained him was a conviction of her ignorance of the English tongue. + +"Would you like to see the doctor?" inquired Frau Manske, startled by +his looks and words; perhaps he had caught something infectious; an +infectious vicar in the house would be horrible. + +"The doctor!" cried Klutz; and forthwith quoted the German rendering of +the six lines beginning, Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased. + +Frau Manske was seriously alarmed. Not aware that he was quoting, she +was horrified to hear him calling her _Du_, a privilege confined to +lovers, husbands, and near relations, and asking her questions that she +was sure no decent vicar would ever ask the respectable mother of a +family. "I am sure you ought to see the doctor," she said nervously, +getting up hastily and going to the door. + +"No, no," said Klutz; "the doctor does not exist who can help me." + +His hand went to the breast-pocket containing the poem, and he fingered +it feverishly. He longed to show it to Frau Manske, to translate it for +her, to let her see what the young Kleinwalde lady, joint patron with +Herr von Lohm of her husband's living, thought of him. + +"I will ask my husband about the doctor," persisted Frau Manske, +disappearing with unusual haste. If she had stayed one minute longer he +would have shown her the poem. + +Klutz did not wait to hear what the pastor said, but crushed his felt +hat on to his head and started for a violent walk. He would go through +Kleinwalde, past the house; he would haunt the woods; he would wait +about. It was a hot, gusty May afternoon, and the wind that had been +quiet so long was blowing up the dust in clouds; but he hurried along +regardless of heat and wind and dust, with an energy surprising in one +who had eaten nothing all day. Love had come to him very turbulently. He +had been looking for it ever since he left school; but his watchful +parents had kept him in solitary places, empty, uninhabited places like +Lohm, places where the parson's daughters were either married or were +still tied on the cushions of infancy. Sometimes he had been invited, as +a great condescension, to the Dellwigs' Sunday parties; and there too he +had looked around for Love. But the company consisted solely of stout +farmers' wives, ladies of thirty, forty, fifty--of a dizzy antiquity, +that is, and their talk was of butter-making and sausages, and they +cared not at all for Love. "Oh, Love, Love, Love, where shall I find +thee?" he would cry to the stars on his way home through the forest +after these evenings; but the stars twinkled coldly on, obviously +profoundly indifferent as to whether he found it or not. His chest of +drawers was full of the poems into which he had poured the emotions of +twenty, the emotions and longings that well-fed, unoccupied twenty +mistakes for soul. And then the English Miss had burst upon his gaze, +sitting in her carriage on that stormy March day, smiling at him from +the very first, piercing his heart through and through with eyes that +many persons besides Klutz saw were lovely, and so had he found Love, +and for ever lost his interest in apple jelly. + +It was a confident, bold Love, with more hopes than fears, more +assurance than misgivings. The poem seemed to burn his pocket, so +violently did he long to show it round, to tell everyone of his good +fortune. The lilies-of-the-valley to which it had been tied and that he +wore since all day long in his coat, were hardly brown, and yet he was +tired already of having such a secret to himself. What advantage was +there in being told by the lady of Kleinwalde that she regretted not +being able to call him _Laemmchen_ or _Schaetzchen_ (the alternative +renderings his dictionary gave of "pet") if no one knew it? + +When he reached the house he walked past it at a snail's pace, staring +up at the blank, repellent windows. Not a soul was to be seen. He went +on discontentedly. What should he do? The door had been shut in his face +once already that day, why he could not imagine. He hesitated, and +turned back. He would try again. Why not? The Miss would have scolded +the servant roundly when she heard that the person who dwelt in her +thoughts as a _Laemmchen_ had been turned away. He went boldly round the +grass plot in front of the house and knocked. + +The same servant appeared. Instantly on seeing him she slammed the door, +and called out "_Nicht zu Haus!_" + +"_Ekelhaftes Benehmen!_" cried Klutz aloud, flaming into sudden passion. +His mind, never very strong, had grown weaker along with his body during +these exciting days of love and fasting. A wave of fury swept over him +as he stood before the shut door and heard the servant going away; and +hardly knowing what he did, he seized the knocker, and knocked and +knocked till the woods rang. + +There was a sound of hurried footsteps on the path behind him, and +turning his head, his hand still knocking, he saw Dellwig running +towards him. + +"_Nanu!_" cried Dellwig breathlessly, staring in blankest astonishment. +"What in the devil's name are you making this noise for? Is the parson +on fire?" + +Klutz stared back in a dazed sort of way, his fury dying out at once in +the presence of the stronger nature; then, because he was twenty, and +because he was half-starved, and because he felt he was being cruelly +used, there on Anna's doorstep, in the full light of the evening sun, +with Dellwig's eyes upon him, he burst into a torrent of tears. + +"Well of all--what's wrong at Lohm, you great sheep?" asked Dellwig, +seizing his arm and giving him a shake. + +Klutz signified by a movement of his head that nothing was wrong at +Lohm. He was crying like a baby, into a red pocket-handkerchief, and +could not speak. + +Dellwig, still gripping his arm, stared at him a moment in silence; then +he turned him round, pushed him down the steps, and walked him off. +"Come along, young man," he said, "I want some explanation of this. If +you are mad you'll be locked up. We don't fancy madmen about our place. +And if you're not mad you'll be fined by the Amtsvorsteher for +disorderly conduct. Knocking like that at a lady's door! I wonder you +didn't kick it in, while you were about it. It's a good thing the +_Herrschaften_ are out." + +Klutz really felt ill. He leaned on Dellwig's arm and let himself be +helped along, the energy gone out of him with the fury. "You have never +loved," was all he said, wiping his eyes. + +"Oh that's it, is it? It is love that made you want to break the +knocker? Why didn't you go round to the back? Which of them is it? The +cook, of course. You look hungry. A Kandidat crying after a cook!" And +Dellwig laughed loud and long. + +"The cook!" cried Klutz, galvanised by the word into life. "The cook!" +He thrust a shaking hand into his breast-pocket and dragged it out, the +precious paper, unfolding it with trembling fingers, and holding it +before Dellwig's eyes. "So much for your cooks," he said, tremulously +triumphant. They were in the road, out of sight of the house. Dellwig +took the paper and held it close to his eyes. "What's this?" he asked, +scrutinising it. "It is not German." + +"It is English," said Klutz. + +"What, the governess----?" + +Klutz merely pointed to the name at the end. Oh, the sweetness of that +moment! + +"Anna?" read out Dellwig, "Anna? That is Miss Estcourt's name." + +"It is," said Klutz, his tears all dried up. + +"It seems to be poetry," said Dellwig slowly. + +"It is," said Klutz. + +"Why have you got it?" + +"Why indeed! It's mine. She sent it to me. She wrote it for me. These +flowers----" + +"Miss Estcourt? Sent it to you? Poetry? To _you_?" Dellwig looked up +from the paper at Klutz, and examined him slowly from head to foot as if +he had never seen him before. His expression while he did it was not +flattering, but Klutz rarely noticed expressions. "What's it all about?" +he asked, when he had reached Klutz's boots, by which he seemed struck, +for he looked at them twice. + +"Love," said Klutz proudly. + +"Love?" + +"Let me come home with you," said Klutz eagerly, "I'll translate it +there. I can't here where we might be disturbed." + +"Come on, then," said Dellwig, walking off at a great pace with the +paper in his hand. + +Just as they were turning into the farmyard the rattle of a carriage was +heard coming down the road. "Stop," said Dellwig, laying his hand on +Klutz's arm, "the _Herrschaften_ have been drinking coffee in the +woods--here they are, coming home. You can get a greeting if you wait." + +They both stood on the edge of the road, and the carriage with Anna and +a selection from her house-party drove by. Dellwig and Klutz swept off +their hats. When Anna saw Klutz she turned scarlet--undeniably, +unmistakably scarlet--and looked away quickly. Dellwig's lips shaped +themselves into a whistle. "Come in, then," he said, glancing at Klutz, +"come in and translate your poem." + +Seldom had Klutz passed more delicious moments than those in which he +rendered Letty's verses into German, with both the Dellwigs drinking in +his words. The proud and exclusive Dellwigs! A month ago such a thing +would have been too wild a flight of fancy for the most ambitious dream. +In the very room in which he had been thrust aside at parties, forgotten +in corners, left behind when the others went in to supper, he was now +sitting the centre of interest, with his former supercilious hosts +hanging on his words. When he had done, had all too soon come to the end +of his delightful task, he looked round at them triumphantly; and his +triumph was immediately dashed out of him by Dellwig, who said with his +harshest laugh, "Put aside all your hopes, young man--Miss Estcourt is +engaged to Herr von Lohm." + +"Engaged? To Herr von Lohm?" Klutz echoed stupidly, his mouth open and +the hand holding the verses dropping limply to his side. + +"Engaged, engaged, engaged," Dellwig repeated in a loud sing-song, "not +openly, but all the same engaged." + +"It is truly scandalous!" cried his wife, greatly excited, and firmly +believing that the verses were indeed Anna's. Was she not herself of the +race of _Weiber_, and did she not therefore well know what they were +capable of? + +"Silence, Frau!" commanded Dellwig. + +"And she takes my flowers--my daily offerings, floral and poetical, and +she sends me these verses--and all the time she is betrothed to someone +else?" + +"She is," said Dellwig with another burst of laughter, for Klutz's face +amused him intensely. He got up and slapped him on the shoulder. "This +is your first experience of _Weiber_, eh? Don't waste your heartaches +over her. She is a young lady who likes to have her little joke and +means no harm----" + +"She is a person without shame!" cried his wife. + +"Silence, Frau!" snapped Dellwig. "Look here, young man--why, what does +he look like, sitting there with all the wind knocked out of him? Get +him a glass of brandy, Frau, or we shall have him crying again. Sit up, +and be a man. Miss Estcourt is not for you, and never will be. Only a +vicar could ever have dreamed she was, and have been imposed upon by +this poetry stuff. But though you're a vicar you're a man, eh? Here, +drink this, and tell us if you are not a man." + +Klutz feebly tried to push the glass away, but Dellwig insisted. Klutz +was pale to ghastliness, and his eyes were brimming again with tears. + +"Oh, this person! Oh, this Englishwoman! Oh, the shameful treatment of +an estimable young man!" cried Frau Dellwig, staring at the havoc Anna +had wrought. + +"Silence, Frau!" shouted Dellwig, stamping his foot. "You can't be +treated like this," he went on to Klutz, who, used to drinking much milk +at the abstemious parsonage, already felt the brandy running along his +veins like liquid fire, "you can't be made ridiculous and do nothing. A +vicar can't fight, but you must have some revenge." + +Klutz started. "Revenge! Yes, but what revenge?" he asked. + +"Nothing to do with Miss Estcourt, of course. Leave her alone----" + +"Leave her alone?" cried his wife, "what, when she it is----" + +"Silence, Frau!" roared Dellwig. "Leave her alone, I say. You won't gain +anything there, young man. But go to her _Braeutigam_ Lohm and tell him +about it, and show him the stuff. He'll be interested." + +Dellwig laughed boisterously, and took two or three rapid turns up and +down the room. He had not lived with old Joachim and seen much of old +Lohm and the surrounding landowners without having learned something of +their views on questions of honour. Axel Lohm he knew to be specially +strict and strait-laced, to possess in quite an unusual degree the +ideals that Dellwig thought so absurd and so unpractical, the ideals, +that is, of a Christian gentleman. Had he not known him since he was a +child? And he had always been a prig. How would he like Miss Estcourt to +be talked about, as of course she would be talked about? Klutz's mouth +could not be stopped, and the whole district would know what had been +going on. Axel Lohm could not and would not marry a young lady who wrote +verses to vicars; and if all relations between Lohm and Kleinwalde +ceased, why then life would resume its former pleasant course, he, +Dellwig, staying on at his post, becoming, as was natural, his +mistress's sole adviser, and certainly after due persuasion achieving +all he wanted, including the brick-kiln. The plainness and clearness of +the future was beautiful. He walked up and down the room making odd +sounds of satisfaction, and silencing his wife with vigour every time +she opened her lips. Even his wife, so quick as a rule of comprehension, +had not grasped how this poem had changed their situation, and how it +behoved them now not to abuse their mistress before a mischief-making +young man. She was blinded, he knew, by her hatred of Miss Estcourt. +Women were always the slaves, in defiance of their own interests, to +some emotion or other; if it was not love, then it was hatred. Never +could they wait for anything whatever. The passing passion must out and +be indulged, however fatal the consequences might be. What a set they +were! And the best of them, what fools. He glanced angrily at his wife +as he passed her, but his glance, travelling from her to Klutz, who sat +quite still with head sunk on his chest, legs straight out before him, +the hand with the paper loosely held in it hanging down out of the +cuffless sleeve nearly to the floor, and vacant eyes staring into space, +his good humour returned, and he gave another harsh laugh. "Well?" he +said, standing in front of this dejected figure. "How long will you sit +there? If I were you I'd lose no time. You don't want those two to be +making love and enjoying themselves an hour longer than is necessary, do +you? With you out in the cold? With you so cruelly deceived? And made to +look so ridiculous? I'd spoil that if I were you, at once." + +"Yes, you are right. I'll go to Herr von Lohm and see if I can have an +interview." + +Klutz got up with a great show of determination, put the paper in his +pocket, and buttoned his coat over it for greater security. Then he +hesitated. + +"It _is_ a shameful thing, isn't it?" he said, his eyes on Dellwig's +face. + +"Shameful? It's downright cruel." + +"Shameful?" began his wife. + +"Silence, I tell thee! Young ladies' jokes are sometimes cruel, you see. +I believe it was a joke, but a very heartless one, and one that has made +you look more foolish even than half-fledged pastors of your age +generally do look. It is only fair in return to spoil her game for her. +Take another glass of brandy, and go and do it." + +Klutz stared hard for a moment at Dellwig. Then he seized the brandy, +gulped it down, snatched up his hat, and taking no farewell notice of +either husband or wife, hurried out of the room. They saw him pass +beneath the window, his hat over his eyes, his face white, his ears +aflame. + +"There goes a fool," said Dellwig, rubbing his hands, "and as useful a +one as ever I saw. But here's another fool," he added, turning sharply +to his wife, "and I don't want them in my own house." + +And he proceeded to tell her, in the vigorous and convincing language of +a justly irritated husband, what he thought of her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +Klutz sped, as fast as his shaking limbs allowed, to Lohm. When he +passed Anna's house he flung it a look of burning contempt, which he +hoped she saw and felt from behind some curtain; and then, trying to put +her from his mind, he made desperate efforts to arrange his thoughts a +little for the coming interview. He supposed that it must be the brandy +that made it so difficult for him to discern exactly why he was to go to +Herr von Lohm instead of to the person principally concerned, the person +who had treated him so scandalously; but Herr Dellwig knew best, of +course, and judged the matter quite dispassionately. Certainly Herr von +Lohm, as an insolently happy rival, ought in mere justice to be annoyed +a little; and if the annoyance reached such a pitch of effectiveness as +to make him break off the engagement, why then--there was no +knowing--perhaps after all----? The ordinary Christian was bound to +forgive his erring brother; how much more, then, was it incumbent on a +pastor to forgive his erring sister? But Klutz did wish that someone +else could have done the annoying for him, leaving him to deal solely +with Anna, a woman, a member of the sex in whose presence he was always +at his ease. The brandy prevented him from feeling it as acutely as he +would otherwise have done, but the plain truth, the truth undisguised by +brandy, was that he looked up to Axel Lohm with a respect bordering on +fear, had never in his life been alone with him, or so much as spoken to +him beyond ordinary civilities when they met, and he was frightened. + +By the time he reached Axel's stables, which stood by the roadside about +five minutes' walk from Axel's gate, he found himself obliged to go over +his sufferings once again one by one, to count the dinners he had +missed, to remember the feverish nights and the restless days, to +rehearse what Dellwig had just told him of his present ridiculousness, +or he would have turned back and gone home. But these thoughts gave him +the courage necessary to get him through the gate; and by the time he +had rounded the bend in the avenue escape had become impossible, for +Axel was standing on the steps of the house. Axel had a cigar in his +mouth; his hands were in his pockets, and he was watching the paces of a +young mare which was being led up and down. Two pointers were sitting at +his feet, and when Klutz appeared they rushed down at him barking. Klutz +did not as a rule object to being barked at by dogs, but he was in a +highly nervous state, and shrank aside involuntarily. The groom leading +the mare grinned; Axel whistled the dogs off; and Klutz, with hot ears, +walked up and took off his hat. + +"What can I do for you, Herr Klutz?" asked Axel, his hands still in his +pockets and his eyes on the mare's legs. + +"I wish to speak with you privately," said Klutz. + +"_Gut._ Just wait a moment." And Klutz waited, while Axel, with great +deliberation, continued his scrutiny of the mare, and followed it up by +a lengthy technical discussion of her faults and her merits with the +groom. + +This was intolerable. Klutz had come on business of vital importance, +and he was left standing there for what seemed to him at least half an +hour, as though he were rather less than a dog or a beggar. As time +passed, and he still was kept waiting, the fury that had possessed him +as he stood helpless before Anna's shut door in the afternoon, returned. +All his doubts and fears and respect melted away. What a day he had had +of suffering, of every kind of agitation! The ground alone that he had +covered, going backwards and forwards between Lohm and Kleinwalde, was +enough to tire out a man in health; and he was not in health, he was +ill, fasting, shaking in every limb. While he had been suffering +(_leidend und schwitzend_, he said to himself, grinding his teeth), this +comfortable man in the gaiters and the aggressively clean cuffs had no +doubt passed very pleasant and easy hours, had had three meals at least +where he had had none, had smoked cigars and examined horses' legs, had +ridden a little, driven a little, and would presently go round, now that +the cool of the evening had come, to Kleinwalde, and sit in the twilight +while Miss Estcourt called him _Schatz_. Oh, it was not to be borne! +Dellwig was right--he must be annoyed, punished, at all costs shaken out +of his lofty indifference. "Let me remind you," Klutz burst out in a +voice that trembled with passion, "that I am still here, and still +waiting, and that I have only two legs. Your horse, I see, has four, and +is better able to stand and wait than I am." + +Axel turned and stared at him. "Why, what is the matter?" he asked, +astonished. "You _are_ Manske's vicar? Yes, of course you are. I did not +know you had anything very pressing to tell me. I am sorry I have kept +you--come in." + +He sent the mare to the stables, and led the way into his study. "Sit +down," he said, pushing a chair forward, and sitting down himself by his +writing-table. "Have a cigar?" + +"No." + +"No?" Axel stared again. "'No thank you' is the form prejudice prefers," +he said. + +"I care nothing for that." + +"What is the matter, my dear Herr Klutz? You are very angry about +something." + +"I have been shamefully treated by a woman." + +"It is what sometimes happens to young men," said Axel, smiling. + +"I do not want cheap wisdom like that," cried Klutz, his eyes ablaze. + +Axel's brows went up. "You are rude, my good Herr Klutz," he said. "Try +to be polite if you wish me to help you. If you cannot, I shall ask you +to go." + +"I will not go." + +"My dear Herr Klutz." + +"I say I will not go till I have told you what I came to tell you. The +woman is Miss Estcourt." + +"Miss Estcourt?" repeated Axel, amazed. Then he added, "Call her a +lady." + +"She is a woman to all intents and purposes----" + +"Call her a lady. It sounds better from a young man of your station." + +"Of my station! What, a man with the brains of a man, the mind of a man, +the sinews of a man, is not equal, is not superior, whatever his station +may be, to a mere woman?" + +"I will not discuss your internal arrangements. Has there, then, been +some mistake about the salary you are to receive?" + +"What salary?" + +"For teaching Miss Letty Estcourt?" + +"Pah--the salary. Love does not look at salaries." + +"That sounds magnificent. Did you say love?" + +"For weeks past, all the time that I have taught the niece, she has +taken my flowers, my messages, at first verbal and at last written----" + +"One moment. Of whom are we talking? I have met you with Miss Leech----" + +"The governess? _Ich danke._ It is Miss Estcourt who has encouraged me +and led me on, and now, after calling me her _Laemmchen_, takes away her +niece and shuts her door in my face----" + +"You have been drinking?" + +"Certainly not," cried Klutz, the more indignantly because of his +consciousness of the brandy. + +"Then you have no excuse at all for talking in this manner of my +neighbour?" + +"Excuse! To hear you, one would think she must be a queen," said Klutz, +laughing derisively. "If she were, I should still talk as I pleased. A +cat may look at a king, I suppose?" And he laughed again, very bitterly, +disliking even for one moment to imagine himself in the role of the cat. + +"A cat may look as long and as often as it likes," said Axel, "but it +must not get in the king's way. I am sure you can guess why." + +"I have not come here to guess why about anything." + +"Oh, it is not very abstruse--the cat would be kicked by somebody, of +course." + +"Oh, ho! Not if it could bite, and had what I have in its pocket." + +"Cats do not have pockets, my dear Herr Klutz. You must have noticed +that yourself. Pray, what is it that you have in yours?" + +"A little poem she sent me in answer to one of mine. A little, sweet +poem. I thought you might like to see how your future wife writes to +another man." + +"Ah--that is why you have called so kindly on me? Out of pure +thoughtfulness. My future wife, then, is Miss Estcourt?" + +"It is an open secret." + +"It is, most unfortunately, not true." + +"_Ach_--I knew you would deny it," cried Klutz, slapping his leg and +grinning horribly. "I knew you would deny it when you heard she had been +behaving badly. But denials do not alter anything--no one will believe +them----" + +Axel shrugged his shoulders. "Am I to see the poem?" he asked. + +Klutz took it out and handed it to him. The twilight had come into the +room, and Axel put the paper down a moment while he lit the candles on +his table. Then he smoothed out its creases, and holding it close to the +light read it attentively. Klutz leaned forward and watched his face. +Not a muscle moved. It had been calm before, and it remained calm. Klutz +could hardly keep himself from leaping up and striking that impassive +face, striking some sort of feeling into it. He had played his big card, +and Axel was quite unmoved. What could he do, what could he say, to hurt +him? + +"Shall we burn it?" inquired Axel, looking up from the paper. + +"Burn it? Burn my poem?" + +"It is such very great nonsense. It is written by a child. We know what +child. Only one in this part can write English." + +"Miss Estcourt wrote it, I tell you!" cried Klutz, jumping to his feet +and snatching the paper away. + +"Your telling me so does not in the very least convince me. Miss +Estcourt knows nothing about it." + +"She does--she did----" screamed Klutz, beside himself. "Your Miss +Estcourt--your _Braut_--you try to brazen it out because you are ashamed +of such a _Braut_. It is no use--everyone shall see this, and be told +about it--the whole province shall ring with it--_I_ will not be the +laughing-stock, but _you_ will be. Not a labourer, not a peasant, but +shall hear of it----" + +"It strikes me," said Axel, rising, "that you badly want kicking. I do +not like to do it in my house--it hardly seems hospitable. If you will +suggest a convenient place, neutral ground, I shall be pleased to come +and do it." + +He looked at Klutz with an encouraging smile. Then something in the +young man's twitching face arrested his attention. "Do you know what I +think?" he said quickly, in a different voice. "It is less a kicking +that you want than a good meal. You really look as though you had had +nothing to eat for a week. The difference a beefsteak would make to your +views would surprise you. Come, come," he said, patting him on the +shoulder, "I have been taking you too seriously. You are evidently not +in your usual state. When did you have food last? What has Frau Pastor +been about? And your eyelids are so red that I do believe----" Axel +looked closer--"I do believe you have been crying." + +"Sir," began Klutz, struggling hard with a dreadful inclination to cry +again, for self-pity is a very tender and tearful sentiment, "Sir----" + +"Let me order that beefsteak," said Axel kindly. "My cook will have it +ready in ten minutes." + +"Sir," said Klutz, with the tremendous dignity that immediately precedes +tears, "Sir, I am not to be bribed." + +"Well, take a cigar at least," said Axel, opening his case. "That will +not corrupt you as much as the beefsteak, and will soothe you a little +on your way home. For you must go home and get to bed. You are as near +an illness as any man I ever saw." + +The tears were so near, so terribly near, that, hardly knowing what he +did, and sooner than trust himself to speak, Klutz took a cigar and lit +it at the match Axel held for him. His hand shook pitifully. + +"Now go home, my dear Klutz," said Axel very kindly. "Tell Frau Pastor +to give you some food, and then get to bed. I wish you would have taken +the beefsteak--here is your hat. If you like, we will talk about this +nonsense later on. Believe me, it is nonsense. You will be the first to +say so next week." + +And he ushered him out to the steps, and watched him go down them, +uneasy lest he should stumble and fall, so weak did he seem to be. "What +a hot wind!" he exclaimed. "You will have a dusty walk home. Go slowly. +Good-night." + +"Poor devil," he thought, as Klutz without speaking went down the avenue +into the darkness with unsteady steps, "poor young devil--the highest +possible opinion of himself, and the smallest possible quantity of +brains; a weak will and strong instincts; much unwholesome study of the +Old Testament in Hebrew with Manske; a body twenty years old, and the +finest spring I can remember filling it with all sorts of anti-parsonic +longings. I believe I ought to have taken him home. He looked as though +he would faint." + +This last thought disturbed Axel. The image of Klutz fainting into a +ditch and remaining in it prostrate all night, refused to be set aside; +and at last he got his hat and went down the avenue after him. + +But Klutz, who had shuffled along quickly, was nowhere to be seen. Axel +opened the avenue gate and looked down the road that led past the +stables to the village and parsonage, and then across the fields to +Kleinwalde; he even went a little way along it, with an uneasy eye on +the ditches, but he did not see Klutz, either upright or prostrate. +Well, if he were in a ditch, he said to himself, he would not drown; the +ditches were all as empty, dry, and burnt-up as four weeks' incessant +drought and heat could make them. He turned back repeating that +eminently consolatory proverb, _Unkraut vergeht nicht_, and walked +quickly to his own gate; for it was late, and he had work to do, and he +had wasted more time than he could afford with Klutz. A man on a horse +coming from the opposite direction passed him. It was Dellwig, and each +recognised the other; but in these days of mutual and profound distrust +both were glad of the excuse the darkness gave for omitting the usual +greetings. Dellwig rode on towards Kleinwalde in silence, and Axel +turned in at his gate. + +But the poor young devil, as Axel called him, had not fainted. Hurrying +down the dark avenue, beyond Axel's influence, far from fainting, it was +all Klutz could do not to shout with passion at his own insufferable +weakness, his miserable want of self-control in the presence of the man +he now regarded as his enemy. The tears in his eyes had given Lohm an +opportunity for pretending he was sorry for him, and for making +insulting and derisive offers of food. What could equal in humiliation +the treatment to which he had been subjected? First he had been treated +as a dog, and then, far worse, far, far worse and more difficult to bear +with dignity, as a child. A beefsteak? Oh, the shame that seared his +soul as he thought of it! This revolting specimen of the upper class had +declared, with a hateful smile of indulgent superiority, that all his +love, all his sufferings, all his just indignation, depended solely for +their existence on whether he did or did not eat a beefsteak. Could +coarse-mindedness and gross insensibility go further? "Thrice miserable +nation!" he cried aloud, shaking his fist at the unconcerned stars, +"thrice miserable nation, whose ruling class is composed of men so +vile!" And, having removed his cigar in order to make this utterance, he +remembered, with a great start, that it was Axel's. + +He was in the road, just passing Axel's stables. The gate to the +stableyard stood open, and inside it, heaped against one of the +buildings, was a waggon-load of straw. Instantly Klutz became aware of +what he was going to do. A lightning flash of clear purpose illumined +the disorder of his brain. It was supper time, and no one was about. He +ran inside the gate and threw the lighted cigar on to the straw; and +because there was not an instantaneous blaze fumbled for his matchbox, +and lit one match after the other, pushing them in a kind of frenzy +under the loose ends of straw. + +There was a puff of smoke, and then a bright tongue of flame; and +immediately he had achieved his purpose he was terrified, and fled away +from the dreadful light, and hid himself, shuddering, in the darkness of +the country road. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +"It's in Stralsund," cried the princess, hurrying out into the +Kleinwalde garden when first the alarm was given. + +"It's in Lohm," cried someone else. + +Anna watched the light in silence, her face paler than ordinary, her +hair blown about by the hot wind. The trees in the dark garden swayed +and creaked, the air was parching and full of dust, the light glared +brighter each moment. Surely it was very near? Surely it was nearer than +Stralsund? "It's in Lohm," cried someone with conviction; and Anna +turned and began to run. + +"Where are you running to, Aunt Anna?" asked Letty, breathlessly +following her; for since the affair with Klutz she followed her aunt +about like a conscience-stricken dog. + +"The fire-engine--there is one at the farm--it must go----" + +They took each other's hands and ran in silence. Between the gusts of +wind they could hear the Lohm church-bells ringing; and almost +immediately the single Kleinwalde bell began to toll, to toll with a +forlorn, blood-curdling sound altogether different from its unmeaning +Sunday tinkle. + +In front of her house Frau Dellwig stood, watching the sky. "It is +Lohm," she said to Anna as she came up panting. + +"Yes--the fire-engine--is it ordered? Has it gone? No? Then at once--at +once----" + +"_Jawohl, jawohl_," said Frau Dellwig with great calm, the philosophic +calm of him who contemplates calamities other than his own. She said +something to one of the maids, who were standing about in pleased and +excited groups laughing and whispering, and the girl shuffled off in her +clattering wooden shoes. "My husband is not here," she explained, "and +the men are at supper." + +"Then they must leave their supper," cried Anna. "Go, go, you girls, and +tell them so--look how terrible it is getting----" + +"Yes, it is a big fire. The girl I sent will tell them. They say it is +the _Schloss_." + +"Oh, go yourself and tell the men--see, there is no sign of them--every +minute is priceless----" + +"It is always a business with the engine. It has not been required, +thank God, for years. Mietze, go and hurry them." + +The girl called Mietze went off at a trot. The others put their heads +together, looked at their young mistress, and whispered. A stable-boy +came to the pump and filled his pail. Everyone seemed composed, and yet +there was that bloody sky, and there was that insistent cry for help +from the anxious bell. + +Anna could hardly bear it. What was happening down there to her kind +friend? + +"It is the _Schloss_," said the stable-boy in answer to a question from +Frau Dellwig as he passed with his full pail, spilling the water at +every step. + +"_Ach_, I thought so," she said, glancing at Anna. + +Anna made a passionate movement, and ran down the steps after the girl +Mietze. Frau Dellwig could not but follow, which she did slowly, at a +disapproving distance. + +But Dellwig galloped into the yard at that moment, his horse covered +with sweat, and his loud and peremptory orders extracted the ancient +engine from its shed, got the horses harnessed to it, and after what +Anna thought an eternity it rattled away. When it started, the whole sky +to the south was like one dreadful sheet of blood. + +"It is the stables," he said to Anna. + +"Herr von Lohm's?" + +"Yes. They cannot be saved." + +"And the house?" + +He shrugged his shoulders. "It's a windy night," he said, "and the wind +is blowing that way. There are pine-trees between. Everything is as dry +as cinders." + +"The stables--are they insured?" + +But Dellwig was off again, after the engine. + +"What can we do, Letty? What can we _do_?" cried Anna, turning to Letty +when the sound of the wheels had died away and only the hurried bell was +heard above the whistling and banging of the wind. "It's horrible here, +listening to that bell tolling, and looking at the sky. If I could throw +one single bucketful of water on the fire I should not feel so useless, +so utterly, utterly of no use or good for anything." + +Neither of them had ever seen a fire, and horror had seized them both. +The night seemed so dark, the world all round so black, except in that +one dreadful spot. Anna knew Axel could not afford to lose money. From +things Trudi had said, from things the princess had said, she knew it. +There was at Lohm, she felt rather than knew, an abundance of everything +necessary to ordinary comfortable living, as there generally is in the +country on farms; but money was scarce, and a series of bad seasons, +perhaps even one bad season, or anything out of the way happening, might +make it very scarce, might make the further proper farming of the place +impossible. Suppose the stables were not insured, where would the money +come from to rebuild them? And the horses--she had heard that horses +went mad with fright in a fire, and refused to leave their stables. And +the house--suppose this cruel wind made the checking of the fire +impossible, and it licked its way across the trees to Axel's house? "Oh, +what can we _do_?" she cried to the frightened Letty. + +"Let's go there," said Letty. + +"Yes!" cried Anna, striking her hands together. "Yes! The carriage--Frau +Dellwig, order the carriage--order Fritz to bring the carriage out at +once. Tell him to be quick--quick!" + +"The gracious Miss will go to Lohm?" + +"Yes--call him, send for him--Fritz! Fritz!" She herself began to call. + +"But----" + +"Fritz! Fritz! Run, Letty, and see if you can find him." + +"If I may be permitted to advise----" + +"Fritz! Fritz! Fritz!" + +"Call the _herrschaftliche Kutscher_ Fritz," Frau Dellwig then commanded +a passing boy in a loud and stern voice. "Not only mad, but improper," +was her private comment. "She goes by night to her _Braeutigam_--to her +unacknowledged _Braeutigam_." Even a possible burning _Braeutigam_ did +not, in her opinion, excuse such a step. + +The darkness concealed the anger on her face, and Anna neither noticed +nor cared for the anger in her voice, but began herself to run in the +direction of the stables, leaving Frau Dellwig to her reflections. + +"Princess Ludwig is looking for you everywhere, Aunt Anna," said Letty, +coming towards her, having found Fritz and succeeded in making him +understand what she wanted. + +"Where is she? Is the carriage coming?" + +"He said five minutes. She was at the house, asking the servants if they +had seen you." + +"Come along then, we'll go to her." + +"I was afraid I should not find you here," said the princess as Anna +came up the steps of the house into the light of the entry, "and that +you had run off to Lohm to put the fire out. My dear child, what do you +look like? Come and look at yourself in the glass." + +She led her to the glass that hung above the Dellwig hat-stand. + +"I am just going there," said Anna, looking at her reflection without +seeing it. "The carriage is being got ready now." + +"Then I am coming too. What has the wind been doing to your hair? See, I +knew you were running about bare-headed, and have brought you a scarf. +Come, let me tie it over all these excited little curls, and turn you +into a sober and circumspect young woman." + +Anna bent her head and let the princess do as she pleased. "Herr Dellwig +is afraid the fire will spread to the house," she said breathlessly. +"Our engine has only just gone----" + +"I heard it." + +"It is such a lumbering thing, it will be hours getting there----" + +"Oh, not hours. Half a one, perhaps." + +"Are they insured?" + +"The buildings? They are sure to be. But there is always a loss that +cannot be covered--_ach_, Frau Dellwig, good-evening--you see we have +taken possession of your house. To have no stables and probably no +horses just when the busy time is beginning is terrible. Poor Axel. +There--now you are tidy. Wait, let me fasten your cloak and cover up +your pretty dress. Is Letty to come too?" + +"Oh--if she likes. Why doesn't the carriage come?" + +"It will be much better if Letty goes to bed," said the princess. + +"Oh!" said Letty. + +"It is long past her bedtime, and she has no hat, and nothing round her. +Shall we not ask Frau Dellwig to send a servant with her home?" + +"_Aber gewiss_----" began Frau Dellwig. + +But Anna was out again on the steps, was shutting out the flaming sky +with one hand while she strained her eyes into the darkness of the +corner where the coach-house was. She could hear Fritz's voice, and the +horses' hoofs on the cobbles, and she could see the light of a lantern +jogging up and down as the stable-boy who held it hurried to and fro. +"Quick, quick, Fritz," she cried. + +"_Jawohl, gnaediges Fraeulein_," came back the answer in the old man's +cheery, reassuring tones. But it was like a nightmare, standing there +waiting, waiting, the precious minutes slipping by, terrible things +happening to Axel, and she herself unable to stir a step towards him. + +"Take me with you--let me come too," pleaded Letty from behind her, +slipping her hand into Anna's. + +"Then tie a handkerchief or something round your head," said Anna, her +eyes on the lantern moving about before the coach-house. Then the +carriage lamps flashed out, and in another moment the carriage rattled +up. + +It was a ghostly drive. As the tops of the pine-trees swayed aside they +caught glimpses of the red horror of the sky; and when they got out into +the open Anna cried out involuntarily, for it seemed as if the whole +world were on fire. The spire of Lohm church and the roofs of the +cottages stood out clear and sharp in the fierce light. The horses, more +and more frightened the nearer they drew, plunged and reared, and old +Fritz could hardly hold them in. On turning the corner by the parsonage +they were not to be induced to advance another yard, but swerved aside, +kicking and terrified, and threatening every moment to upset the +carriage into the ditch. + +Anna jumped out and ran on. The princess, slower and more bulky, was +helped out by Letty and followed after as quickly as she could. In the +road and in the field opposite the stables the whole population was +gathered, illuminated figures in eager, chattering groups. From the pump +on the green in front of the schoolhouse, a chain of helpers had been +formed, and buckets of water were being passed along from hand to hand +to the engines; and there was no other water. The engines were working +farther down the road, keeping the hose turned on to the trees between +the stables and the house. There were clumps of pine-trees among them, +and these were the trees that would carry the fire across to Axel's +house. Men in the garden were hacking at them, the blows of their axes +indistinguishable in the uproar, but every now and then one of the +victims fell with a crash among its fellows still standing behind it. + +"Oh, poor Axel, poor Axel!" murmured Anna, drawing her scarf across her +face as she passed along to protect it from the intolerable heat. But +she was an unmistakable figure in her blue cloak and white dress, +stumbling on to where the engines were; and the groups of onlookers +nudged each other and turned to stare after her as she passed. + +"How did it happen?" she asked, suddenly stopping before a knot of +women. They were in the act of discussing her, and started and looked +foolish. + +"No one knows," said the eldest, when Anna repeated her question. "They +say it was done on purpose." + +"Done on purpose!" echoed Anna, staring at the speaker. "Why, who would +set fire to a place on purpose?" + +But to this question no reply at all was forthcoming. They fidgeted and +looked at each other, and one of the younger ones tittered and then put +her hand before her mouth. + +In the potato field across the road, two storks, whose nest for many +springs had been on one of the roofs now burning, had placed their young +ones in safety and were watching over them. The young storks were only a +few days old, and had been thrown out of the nest by the parents, and +then dragged away out of danger into the field, the parents mounting +guard over their bruised and dislocated offspring, and the whole group +transformed in the glow into a beautiful, rosy, dazzling white, into a +family of spiritualised, glorified storks, as they huddled ruefully +together in their place of refuge. Anna saw them without knowing that +she saw them; there were three little ones, and one was dead. The +princess and Letty found her standing beside them, watching the roaring +furnace of the stableyard with parted lips and wide-open, +horror-stricken eyes. + +"Most of the horses were got out in time," said the princess, taking +Anna's arm, determined that she should not again slip away, "and they +say the buildings are fully insured, and he will be able to have much +better ones." + +"But the time lost--they can't be built in a day----" + +"The man I spoke to said they were such old buildings and in such a bad +state that Axel can congratulate himself that they have been burned. But +of course there will always be the time lost. Have you seen him? Let us +go on a little--we shall be scorched to cinders here." + +Both Axel and Dellwig were superintending the working of the hose. "I do +not want my trees destroyed," he said to Dellwig, with whom in the +stress of the moment he had resumed his earlier manner; "they are not +insured." He had watched the stables go with an impassiveness that +struck several of the bystanders as odd. Dellwig and many others of the +dwellers in that district were used to making a great noise on all +occasions great and small, and they could by no means believe that it +was natural to Axel to remain so calm at such a moment. "It is a great +nuisance," Axel said more than once; but that also was hardly an +adequate expression of feelings. + +"They are well insured, I believe?" said Dellwig. + +"Oh yes. I shall be able to have nice tight buildings in their place." + +"They were certainly rather--rather dilapidated," said Dellwig, eyeing +him. + +"They were very dilapidated," said Axel. + +Anna and the princess stood a little way from the engines watching the +efforts to check the spread of the fire for some time before Axel +noticed them. Manske, who had been the first to volunteer as a link in +the human chain to the pump, bowed and smiled from his place at them, +and was stared at in return by both women, who wondered who the begrimed +and friendly individual could be. "It is the pastor," then said the +princess, smiling back at him; on which Manske's smiles and bows +redoubled, and he spilt half the contents of the bucket passing through +his hands. + +"So it is," said Anna. + +"Take care there, No. 3!" roared Dellwig, affecting not to know who No. +3 was, and glad of an opportunity of calling the parson to order. +Dellwig was making so much noise flinging orders and reprimands about, +that a stranger would certainly have taken him for the frantic owner of +the burning property. + +"You see the pastor looks anything but alarmed," said the princess. "If +Axel were losing much by this, Manske would be weeping into his bucket +instead of smiling so kindly at us." + +"So he would," said Anna, a little reassured by that cheerful and grimy +countenance. Her eyes wandered to Axel, so cool and so vigilant, giving +the necessary orders so quietly, losing no precious moments in trying to +save what was past saving, and without any noise or any abuse getting +what he wanted done. "It _can't_ be a good thing, a fire like this," she +said to herself. "Whatever they say, it _can't_ be a good thing." + +A huge pine-tree was dragged down at that moment, dragged in a direction +away from its fellows, against a beech, whose branches it tore down in +its fall, ruining the beech for ever, but smothering a few of its own +twigs that had begun to burn among the fresh young leaves. Anna watched +the havoc going on among poor Axel's trees in silence. "He _can't_ not +care," she said to herself. He turned round quickly at that moment, as +though he heard her thinking of him, and looked straight into her eyes. +"You here!" he exclaimed, striding across the road to her at once. + +"Yes, we are here," replied the princess. "We cannot let our neighbour +burn without coming to see if we can do anything. But seriously, I hear +that it is a good thing for you." + +"I prefer the less good thing that I had before, just now. But it is +gone. I shall not waste time fretting over it." + +He ran back again to stop something that was being done wrong, but +returned immediately to tell them to go into his house and not stand +there in the heat. "You look so tired--and anxious," he said, his eyes +searching Anna's face. "Why are you anxious? The fire has frightened +you? It is all insured, I assure you, and there is only the bother of +having to build just now." + +He could not stay, and hurried back to his men. + +"We can go indoors a moment," said the princess, "and see what is going +on in his house. It will be standing empty and open, and it is not +necessary that he should suffer losses from thieves as well as from +fire. His Mamsell is like all bachelors' Mamsells--losing, I am sure, no +opportunity of feathering her nest at his expense." + +Anna thought this a practical way of helping Axel, since the throwing of +water on the flames was not required of her. She turned to call Letty, +and found that no Letty was to be seen. "Why, where is Letty?" she +asked, looking round. + +"I thought she was behind us," said the princess. + +"So did I," said Anna anxiously. + +They went back a few steps, looking for her among the bystanders. They +saw her at last a long way off, her handkerchief still round her head +and her long thick hair blowing round her shoulders, rapt in +contemplation of the fiery furnace. Then a shout went up from the people +in the road, and they all ran back into the potato field. Anna and the +princess stood rooted to the spot, clutching each other's hands. Letty +looked round when she heard the shout, and began to run too. The flaming +outer wall of the yard swayed and tottered and then fell outwards with a +terrific crash and crackling, filling the road with a smoking heap of +rubbish, and sending a shower of sparks on a puff of wind after the +flying spectators. + +The princess had certainly not run so fast since her girlhood as she did +with Anna towards the spot in the field where they had last seen Letty. +A crowd had gathered round it, they could see, an excited, gesticulating +crowd. But they found her apparently unhurt, sitting on the ground, +surrounded by sympathisers, and with someone's coat over her head. She +looked up, very pale, but smiling apologetically at her aunt. "It's all +gone," she said, pointing to her head. + +"What is gone?" cried Anna, dropping on her knees beside her. + +"_Ach Gott, die Haare--die herrlichen Haare!_" lamented a woman in the +crowd. The smell of burnt hair explained what had happened. + +Anna seized her in her arms. "You might have been killed--you might have +been killed," she panted, rocking her to and fro. "Oh, Letty--who saved +you?" + +"Somebody put this beastly thing over my head--it smells of herrings. +Sparks got into my hair, and it all frizzled up. Can't I take this off? +It's out now--and off too." + +The princess felt all over her head through the coat, patting and +pressing it carefully; then she took the coat off, and restored it with +effusive thanks to its sheepish owner. There was a murmur of sympathy +from the women as Letty emerged, shorn of those flowing curls that were +her only glory. "_Oh Weh, die herrlichen Haare!_" sighed the women to +one another, "_Oh Weh, oh Weh!_" But the handkerchief tied so tightly +round her head had saved her from a worse fate; she had been an ugly +little girl before--all that had happened was that she looked now like +an ugly little boy. + +"I say, Aunt Anna, don't mind," said Letty; for her aunt was crying, and +kissing her, and tying and untying the handkerchief, and arranging and +rearranging it, and stroking and smoothing the singed irregular wisps of +hair that were left as though she loved them. "I'm frightfully sorry--I +didn't know you were so fond of my hair." + +"Come, we'll go to the house," was all Anna said, stumbling on to her +feet and putting her arm round Letty. And they clung to each other so +close that they could hardly walk. + +"We are going indoors a moment," called the princess, who was very pale, +to Axel as they passed the engines. + +He smiled across at her, and lifted his hat. + +"I never saw anyone quite so composed," she observed to Anna, trying to +turn her attention to other things. "Your man Dellwig, who has nothing +to do with it all, is displaying the kind of behaviour the people expect +on these occasions. I am sure that Axel has puzzled a great many people +to-night." + +Anna did not answer. She was thinking only of Letty. What a slender +thread of chance had saved her from death, from a dreadful death, the +little Letty who was under her care, for whom she was responsible, and +whom she had quite forgotten in her stupid interest in Axel Lohm's +affairs. Woman-like, she felt very angry with Axel. What did it matter +to her whether his place burnt to ashes or not? But Letty mattered to +her, her own little niece, poor solitary Letty, practically motherless, +so ugly, and so full of good intentions. She had scolded her so much +about Klutz; wretched Klutz, it was entirely his fault that Letty had +been so silly, and yet only Letty had had the scoldings. Anna held her +closer. In the light of that narrow escape how trivial, how indifferent, +all this folly of love-talk and messages and anger seemed. For a short +space she touched the realities, she saw life and death in their true +proportion; and even while she was looking at them with clear and +startled vision they were blurred again into indistinctness, they faded +away and were gone--rubbed out by the inevitable details of the passing +hour. + +"I thought as much," said the princess, as they drew near the house. +"All the doors wide open and the place deserted." And Anna came back +with a start from the reality to the well-known dream of daily life, and +immediately felt as though that other flash had been the dream and only +this were real. + +The hall was in darkness, but there was light shining through the chinks +of a door, and they groped their way towards it. The house was as quiet +as death. They could hear the distant shouts of the men cutting down the +trees in the garden, and the blows of the axes. The princess pushed open +the door behind which the light was, and they found themselves in Axel's +study, where the candles he had lit in order to read Letty's poem were +still guttering and flaring in the draught from the open window. A clock +on the writing-table showed that it was past midnight. The room looked +very untidy and ill-cared for. + +"A man without a wife," said the princess, gazing round at the litter, +composed chiefly of cigar-ashes and old envelopes, "is a truly miserable +being. What condition can be more wretched than to be at the mercy of a +Mamsell? I shall go and inquire into the whereabouts of this one. Axel +will want some food when he comes in." + +She took up one of the candles and went out. Letty had sat down at once +on the nearest chair, and was looking very pale. Anna untied the +handkerchief, and tried to arrange what was left of her hair. "I must +cut off these uneven ends," she said, "but there won't be any scissors +here." + +"I say," began Letty, staring very hard at her. + +"I believe you were terribly scared, you poor little creature," said +Anna, struck by her pale face, and passing her hand tenderly over the +singed head. + +"Oh, not much. A bit, of course. But it was soon over. Don't worry. What +will mamma say to my head?" And Letty's mouth widened into a grin at +this thought. "I say," she began again, relapsing into solemnity. + +"Well, what?" smiled Anna, sitting down on the same chair and putting +her arm round her. + +"You don't know the whole of that poetry business." + +"That silly business with Herr Klutz? Oh, was there more of it? Oh, +Letty, what did you do more? I am so tired of it, and of him, and of +everything. Tell me, and then we'll forget it for ever." + +"I'm afraid you won't forget it. I'm afraid I'm a bigger beast than you +think, Aunt Anna," said Letty, with a conviction that frightened Anna. + +"Oh, Letty," she said faintly, "what did you do?" + +"Why, I--I _will_ get it out--I--he was so miserable, and went on so +when you didn't answer that poetry--that he sent with the heart, you +know----" + +"Oh yes, I know." + +"Well, he was in such a state about it that I--that I made up a poem, +just to comfort him, you know, and keep him quiet, and--and pretended it +came from you." She threw back her head and looked up at her aunt. +"There now, it's out," she said defiantly. + +Anna was silent for a moment. "Was it--was it very affectionate?" she +asked under her breath. Then she slipped down on to the floor, and put +both her arms round Letty. "Don't tell me," she cried, laying her face +on Letty's knees, "I don't want to know. Suppose you had been dreadfully +hurt just now, burnt, or--or dead, what would it have mattered? Oh, we +will forget all that ridiculous nonsense, and only never, never be so +silly again. Let us be happy together, and finish with Herr Klutz for +ever--it was all so stupid, and so little worth while." And she put up +her face, and they both began to cry and kiss each other through their +tears. And so it came about that Letty was in the same hour relieved of +the burden on her conscience, of most of her hair, and was taken once +again, and with redoubled enthusiasm, into Anna's heart. Logic had never +been Anna's strong point. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +When Axel came in two hours later, bringing Dellwig and Manske and two +or three other helpers, farmers, who had driven across the plain to do +what they could, he found his house lit up and food and drink set out +ready in the dining-room. + +Letty and Anna had had time to recover from their tears and vows, sundry +small blisters on the back of Letty's neck had been treated with cotton +wool, and they had emerged from their agitation to a calmer state in +which the helping of the princess in the middle of the night to make +somebody else's house comfortable was not without its joys. The Mamsell, +no more able than the Kleinwalde servants to withstand the authority of +the princess's name and eye, had collected the maids and worked with a +will; and when, all danger of the fire spreading being over, Axel came +in dirty and smoky and scorched, prepared to have to hunt himself in the +dark house for the refreshment he could not but offer his helpers, he +was agreeably surprised to find the lamp in the hall alight, and to be +met by a wide-awake Mamsell in a clean apron who proposed to provide the +gentlemen with hot water. This was very attentive. Axel had never known +her so thoughtful. The gentlemen, however, with one accord refused the +hot water; they would drink a glass of wine, perhaps, as Herr von Lohm +so kindly suggested, and then go to their homes and beds as quickly as +possible. Manske, by far the grimiest, was also the most decided in his +refusal; he was a godly man, but he did not love supererogatory +washings, under which heading surely a washing at two o'clock in the +morning came. Axel left them in the hall a moment, and went into his +study to fetch cigars; and there he found Letty, hiding behind the door. + +"You here, young lady?" he exclaimed surprised, stopping short. + +"Don't let anyone see me," she whispered. "Princess Ludwig and Aunt Anna +are in the dining-room. I ran in here when I heard people with you. My +hair is all burnt off." + +"What, you went too near?" + +"Sparks came after me. Don't let them come in----" + +"You were not hurt?" + +"No. A little--on the back of my neck, but it's hardly anything." + +"I am very glad your hair was burnt off," said Axel with great severity. + +"So am I," was the hearty reply. "The tangles at night were something +awful." + +He stood silent for a moment, the cigar-boxes under his arm, uncertain +whether he ought not to enlighten her as to the reprehensibility of her +late conduct in regard to her aunt and Klutz. Evidently her conscience +was cloudless, and yet she had done more harm than was quite calculable. +Axel was fairly certain that Klutz had set fire to the stables. +Absolutely certain he could not be, but the first blaze had occurred so +nearly at the moment when Klutz must have reached them on his way home, +that he had hardly a doubt about it. It was his duty as Amtsvorsteher to +institute inquiries. If these inquiries ended in the arrest of Klutz, +the whole silly story about Anna would come out, for Klutz would be only +too eager to explain the reasons that had driven him to the act; and +what an unspeakable joy for the province, and what a delicious +excitement for Stralsund! He could only hope that Klutz was not the +culprit, he could only hope it fervently with all his heart; for if he +was, the child peeping out at him so cheerfully from behind the door had +managed to make an amount of mischief and bring an amount of trouble on +Anna that staggered him. Such a little nonsense, and such far-reaching +consequences! He could not speak when he thought of it, and strode past +her indignantly, and left the room without a word. + +"Now what's the row with _him_?" Letty asked herself, her finger in her +mouth; for Axel had looked at her as he passed with very grave and angry +eyes. + +The men waiting in the hall were slightly disconcerted, on being taken +into the dining-room, to find the Kleinwalde ladies there. None of them, +except Manske, liked ladies; and ladies in the small hours of the +morning were a special weariness to the flesh. Dellwig, having made his +two deep bows to them, looked meaningly at his friends the other +farmers; Miss Estcourt's private engagement to Lohm seemed to be placed +beyond a doubt by her presence in his house on this occasion. + +"How delightful of you," said Axel to her in English. + +"I am glad to hear," she replied stiffly in German, for she was still +angry with him because of Letty's hair, "I am glad to hear that you will +have no losses from this." + +"Losses!" cried Manske. "On the contrary, it is the best thing that +could happen--the very best thing. Those stables have long been almost +unfit for use, Herr von Lohm, and I can say from my heart that I was +glad to see them go. They were all to pieces even in your father's +time." + +"Yes, they ought to have been rebuilt long ago, but one has not always +the money in one's pocket. Help yourself, my dear pastor." + +"Who is the enemy?" broke in Dellwig's harsh voice. + +"Ah, who indeed?" said Manske, looking sad. "That is the melancholy side +of the affair--that someone, presumably of my parish, should commit such +a crime." + +"He has done me a great service, anyhow," said Axel, filling the +glasses. + +"He has imperilled his immortal soul," said Manske. + +"Have you such an enemy?" asked Anna, surprised. + +"I did not know it. Most likely it was some poor, half-witted devil, or +perhaps--perhaps a child." + +"But I saw the blaze immediately after I passed you," said Dellwig. "You +were within a stone's throw of the stables, going home. I had hardly +reached them when the fire broke out. Did you then see no one on the +road?" + +"No, I did not," said Axel shortly. There was an aggressive note in +Dellwig's voice that made him fear he was going to be very zealous in +helping to bring the delinquent to justice. + +"It was the supper hour," said Dellwig, musing, "and the men would all +be indoors. Had you been to the stables, _gnaediger Herr_?" + +"No, I had not. Take another glass of wine. A cigar? Whoever it was, he +has done me a good turn." + +"Beyond all doubt he has," said Dellwig, his eyes fixed on Axel with an +odd expression. + +"Some of us would have no objection to the same thing happening at our +places," remarked one of the farmers jocosely. + +"No objection whatever," agreed another with a laugh. + +"If the man could be trusted to display the same discrimination +everywhere," said the third. + +"Joke not about crime," said Manske, rebuking them. + +"The discrimination was certainly remarkable," said Dellwig. + +"That is why I think it must have been done by some person more or less +imbecile," said Axel; "otherwise one of the good buildings, whose +destruction would really have harmed me, would have been chosen." + +"He must be hunted down, imbecile or not," said Dellwig. + +"I shall do my duty," said Axel stiffly. + +"You may rely on my help," said Dellwig. + +"You are very good," said Axel. + +Dellwig's voice had something ominous about it that made Anna shiver. +What a detestable man he was, always and at all times. His whole manner +to-night struck her as specially offensive. "What will be done to the +poor wretch when he is caught?" she asked Axel. + +"He will be imprisoned," Dellwig answered promptly. + +She turned her back on him. "Even though he is half-witted?" she said to +Axel. "Are you obliged to look for him? Can't you leave him alone? He +has done you a service, after all." + +"I must look for him," said Axel; "it is my duty as Amtsvorsteher." + +"And the gracious Miss should consider----" shouted Dellwig from behind. + +"I'll consider nothing," said Anna, turning to him quickly. + +"--should consider the demands of justice----" + +"First the demands of humanity," said Anna, her back to him. + +"Noble," murmured Manske. + +"The gracious Miss's sentiments invariably do credit to her heart," said +Dellwig, bowing profoundly. + +"But not to her head, he thinks," said Anna to Axel in English, faintly +smiling. + +"Don't talk to him," Axel replied in a low voice; "the man so palpably +hates us both. You must go home. Where is your carriage? Princess, take +her home." + +"_Ach, Herr Dellwig, seien Sie so freundlich_----" began the princess +mellifluously; and despatched him in search of Fritz. + +When they reached Kleinwalde, silent, wornout, and only desiring to +creep upstairs and into their beds, they were met by Frau von Treumann +and the baroness, who both wore injured and disapproving faces. Letty +slipped up to her room at once, afraid of criticisms of her +hairlessness. + +"We have waited for you all night, Anna," said Frau von Treumann in an +aggrieved voice. + +"You oughtn't to have," said Anna wearily. + +"We could not suppose that you were really looking at the fire all this +time," said the baroness. + +"And we were anxious," said Frau von Treumann. "My dear, you should not +make us anxious." + +"You might have left word, or taken us with you," said the baroness. + +"We are quite as much interested in Herr von Lohm as Letty or Princess +Ludwig can be," said Frau von Treumann. + +"Nobody could tell us here for certain whether you had really gone there +or not." + +"Nor could anybody give us any information as to the extent of the +disaster." + +"We presumed the princess was with you, but even that was not certain." + +"My dear baroness," murmured the princess, untying her shawl, "only you +would have had a doubt of it." + +"The reflection in the sky faded hours ago," said Frau vein Treumann. + +"And yet you did not return," said the baroness. "Where did you go +afterwards?" + +"Oh, I'll tell you everything to-morrow. Good-night," said Anna, candle +in hand. + +"What! Now that we have waited, and in such anxiety, you will tell us +nothing?" + +"There really is nothing to tell. And I am so tired--good-night." + +"We have kept the servants up and the kettle boiling in case you should +want coffee." + +"That was very kind, but I only want bed. Good-night." + +"We too were weary, but you see we have waited in spite of it." + +"Oh, you shouldn't have. You will be so tired. Good-night." + +She went upstairs, pulling herself up each step by the baluster. +The clock on the landing struck half-past three. Was it not +Napoleon, she thought, who said something to the point about +three-o'clock-in-the-morning courage? Had no one ever said anything to +the point about three-o'clock-in-the-morning love for one's +fellow-creatures? "Good-night," she said once more, turning her head and +nodding wearily to them as they watched her from below with indignant +faces. + +She glanced at the clock, and went into her room dejectedly; for she had +made a startling discovery: at three o'clock in the morning her feeling +towards the Chosen was one of indifference verging on dislike. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + +Looking up from her breakfast the morning after the fire to see who it +was riding down the street, Frau Manske beheld Dellwig coming towards +her garden gate. Her husband was in his dressing-gown and slippers, a +costume he affected early in the day, and they were taking their coffee +this fine weather at a table in their roomy porch. There was, therefore, +no possibility of hiding the dressing-gown, nor yet the fact that her +cap was not as fresh as a cap on which the great Dellwig's eyes were to +rest, should be. She knew that Dellwig was not a star of the first +magnitude like Herr von Lohm, but he was a very magnificent specimen of +those of the second order, and she thought him much more imposing than +Axel, whose quiet ways she had never understood. Dellwig snubbed her so +systematically and so brutally that she could not but respect and admire +him: she was one of those women who enjoy kissing the rod. In a great +flutter she hurried to the gate to open it for him, receiving in return +neither thanks nor greeting. "Good-morning, good-morning," she said, +bowing repeatedly. "A fine morning, Herr Dellwig." + +"Where's Klutz?" he asked curtly, neither getting off his horse nor +taking off his hat. + +"Oh, the poor young man, Herr Dellwig!" she began with uplifted hands. +"He has had a letter from home, and is much upset. His father----" + +"Where is he?" + +"His father? In bed, and not expected to----" + +"Where's Klutz, I say--young Klutz? Herr Manske, just step down here a +minute--good-morning. I want to see your vicar." + +"My vicar has had bad news from home, and is gone." + +"Gone?" + +"This very morning. Poor fellow, his aged father----" + +"I don't care a curse for his aged father. What train?" + +"The half-past nine train. He went in the post-cart at seven." + +Dellwig jerked his horse round, and without a word rode away in the +direction of Stralsund. "I'll catch him yet," he thought, and rode as +hard as he could. + +"What can he want with the vicar?" wondered Frau Manske. + +"A rough manner, but I doubt not a good heart," said her husband, +sighing; and he folded his flapping dressing-gown pensively about his +legs. + +Klutz was on the platform waiting for the Berlin train, due in five +minutes, when Dellwig came up behind and laid a hand on his shoulder. + +"What! Are you going to jump out of your skin?" Dellwig inquired with a +burst of laughter. + +Klutz stared at him speechlessly after that first start, waiting for +what would follow. His face was ghastly. + +"Father so bad, eh?" said Dellwig heartily. "Nerves all gone, what? +Well, it's enough to make a boy look pale to have his father on his +last----" + +"What do you _want_?" whispered Klutz with pale lips. Several persons +who knew Dellwig were on the platform, and were staring. + +"Why," said Dellwig, sinking his voice a little, "you have heard of the +fire--I did not see you helping, by the way? You were with Herr von Lohm +last night--don't look so frightened, man--if I did not know about your +father I'd think there was something on your mind. I only want to ask +you--there is a strange rumour going about----" + +"I am going home--_home_, do you hear?" said Klutz wildly. + +"Certainly you are. No one wants to stop you. Who do you think they say +set fire to the stables?" + +Klutz looked as though he would faint. + +"They say Lohm did it himself," said Dellwig in a low voice, his eyes +fixed on the young man's face. + +Klutz's ears burnt suddenly bright red. He looked down, looked up, +looked over his shoulder in the direction from whence the train would +come. Small cold beads of agitation stood out on his narrow forehead. + +"The point is," said Dellwig, who had not missed a movement of that +twitching face, "that you must have been with Lohm nearly till the time +when--you went straight to him after leaving us?" + +Klutz bowed his head. + +"Then you couldn't have left him long before it broke out. I met him +myself between the stables and his gate five minutes, two minutes, +before the fire. He went past without a word, in a great hurry, as +though he hoped I had not recognised him. Now tell me what you know +about it. Just tell me if you saw anything. It is to both our interests +to cut his claws." + +Klutz pressed his hands together, and looked round again for the train. + +"Do you know what will certainly happen if you try to be generous and +shield him? He'll say _you_ did it, and so get rid of you and hush up +the affair with Miss Estcourt. I can see by your face you know who did +it. Everyone is saying it is Lohm." + +"But why? Why should he? Why should he burn his own----" stammered +Klutz, in dreadful agitation. + +"Why? Because they were in ruins, and well insured. Because he had no +money for new ones; and because now the insurance company will give him +the money. The thing is so plain--I am so convinced that he did it----" + +They heard the train coming. Klutz stooped down quickly and clutched his +bag. "No, no," said Dellwig, catching his arm and gripping it tight, "I +shall not let you go till you say what you know. You or Lohm to be +punished--which do you prefer?" + +Klutz gave Dellwig a despairing, hunted look. "He--he----" he began, +struggling to get the words over his dry lips. + +"He did it? You know it? You saw it?" + +"Yes, yes, I saw it--I saw him----" + +Klutz burst into a wild fit of sobbing. + +"_Armer Junge_," cried Dellwig very loud, patting his back very hard. +"It is indeed terrible--one's father so ill--on his death-bed--and such +a long journey of suspense before you----" + +And sympathising at the top of his voice he looked for an empty +compartment, hustled him into it, pushing him up the high steps and +throwing his bag in after him, and then stood talking loudly of sick +fathers till the last moment. "I trust you will find the _Herr Papa_ +better than you expect," he shouted after the moving train. "Don't give +way--don't give way. That is our vicar," he exclaimed to an acquaintance +who was standing near; "an only son, and he has just heard that his +father is dying. He is overwhelmed, poor devil, with grief." + +To his wife on his arrival home he said, "My dear Theresa,"--a mode of +address only used on the rare occasions of supremest satisfaction--"my +dear Theresa, you may set your mind at rest about our friend Lohm. The +Miss will never marry him, and he himself will not trouble us much +longer." And they had a short conversation in private, and later on at +dinner they opened a bottle of champagne, and explaining to the servant +that it was an aunt's birthday, drank the aunt's health over and over +again, and were merrier than they had been for years. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +It was an odd and a nearly invariable consequence of Anna's cold morning +bath that she made resolutions in great numbers. The morning after the +fire there were more of them than ever. In a glow she assured herself +that she was not going to allow dejection and discouragement to take +possession of her so easily, that she would not, in future, be so much +the slave of her bodily condition, growing selfish, indifferent, unkind, +in proportion as she grew tired. What, she asked, tying her waist-ribbon +with great vigour, was the use of having a soul and its longings after +perfection if it was so absolutely the slave of its encasing body, if it +only received permission from the body to flutter its wings a little in +those rare moments when its master was completely comfortable and +completely satisfied? She was ashamed of herself for being so easily +affected by the heat and stress of the days with the Chosen. How was it +that her ideals were crushed out of sight continually by the mere weight +of the details of everyday existence? She would keep them more carefully +in view, pursue them with a more unfaltering patience--in a word, she +was going to be wise. Life was such a little thing, she reflected, so +very quickly done; how foolish, then, to forget so constantly that +everything that vexed her and made her sorry was flying past and away +even while it grieved her, dwindling in the distance with every hour, +and never coming back. What she had done and suffered last year, how +indifferent, of what infinitely little importance it was, now; and yet +she had been very strenuous about it at the time, inclined to resist and +struggle, taking it over-much to heart, acting as though it were always +going to be there. Oh, she would be wise in future, enjoying all there +was to enjoy, loving all there was to love, and shutting her eyes to the +rest. She would not, for instance, expect more from her Chosen than +they, being as they were, could give. Obviously they could not give her +more than they possessed, either of love, or comprehension, or +charitableness, or anything else that was precious; and it was because +she looked for more that she was for ever feeling disappointed. She +would take them as they were, being happy in what they did give her, and +ignoring what was less excellent. She herself was irritating, she was +sure, and often she saw did produce an irritating effect on the Chosen. +Of sundry minor failings, so minor that she was ashamed of having +noticed them, but which had yet done much towards making the days +difficult, she tried not to think. Indeed, they could hardly be made the +subject of resolutions at all, they were so very trivial. They included +a habit Frau von Treumann had of shutting every window and door that +stood open, whatever the weather was, and however pointedly the others +gasped for air; the exceedingly odd behaviour, forced upon her notice +four times a day, of Fraeulein Kuhraeuber at table; and an insatiable +curiosity displayed by the baroness in regard to other people's +correspondence and servants--every postcard she read, every envelope she +examined, every telegram, for some always plausible reason, she thought +it her duty to open: and her interest in the doings of the maids was +unquenchable. "These are little ways," thought Anna, "that don't +matter." And she thought it impatiently, for the little ways persisted +in obtruding themselves on her remembrance in the middle of her fine +plans of future wisdom. "If we could all get outside our bodies, even +for one day, and simply go about in our souls, how nice it would be!" +she sighed; but meanwhile the souls of the Chosen were still enveloped +in aggressive bodies that continued to shut windows, open telegrams, and +convey food into their mouths on knives. + +The one belonging to Frau von Treumann was at that moment engaged in +writing with feverish haste to Karlchen, bidding him lose no time in +coming, for mischief was afoot, and Anna was showing an alarming +interest in the affairs of that specious hypocrite Lohm. "Come +unexpectedly," she wrote; "it will be better to take her by surprise; +and above all things come at once." + +She gave the letter herself to the postman, and then, having nothing to +do but needlework that need not be done, and feeling out of sorts after +the long night's watch, and uneasy about Axel Lohm's evident attraction +for Anna, she went into the drawing-room and spent the morning +elaborately differing from the baroness. + +They differed often; it could hardly be called quarrelling, but there +was a continual fire kept up between them of remarks that did not make +for peace. Over their needlework they addressed those observations to +each other that were most calculated to annoy. Frau von Treumann would +boast of her ancestral home at Kadenstein, its magnificence, and the +style in which, with a superb disregard for expense, her brother kept it +up, well knowing that the baroness had had no home more ancestral than a +flat in a provincial town; and the baroness would retort by relating, as +an instance of the grievous slanderousness of so-called friends, a +palpably malicious story she had heard of manure heaps before the +ancestral door, and of unprevented poultry in the _Schloss_ itself. +Once, stirred beyond the bounds of prudence enjoined by Karlchen, Frau +von Treumann had begun to sympathise with the Elmreich family's +misfortune in including a member like Lolli; but had been so much +frightened by her victim's immediate and dreadful pallor that she had +turned it off, deciding to leave the revelation of her full knowledge of +Lolli to Karlchen. + +The only occasions on which they agreed were when together they attacked +Fraeulein Kuhraeuber; and more than once already that hapless young woman +had gone away to cry. Anna's thoughts had been filled lately by other +things, and she had not paid much attention to what was being talked +about; but yet it seemed to her that Frau von Treumann and the baroness +had discovered a subject on which Fraeulein Kuhraeuber was abnormally +sensitive and secretive, and that again and again when they were tired +of sparring together they returned to this subject, always in amiable +tones and with pleasant looks, and always reducing the poor Fraeulein to +a pitiable state of confusion; which state being reached, and she gone +out to hide her misery in her bedroom, they would look at each other and +smile. + +In all that concerned Fraeulein Kuhraeuber they were in perfect accord, +and absolutely pitiless. It troubled Anna, for the Fraeulein was the one +member of the trio who was really happy--so long, that is, as the others +left her alone. Invigorated by her cold tub into a belief in the +possibility of peace-making, she made one more resolution: to establish +without delay concord between the three. It was so clearly to their own +advantage to live together in harmony; surely a calm talking-to would +make them see that, and desire it. They were not children, neither were +they, presumably, more unreasonable than other people; nor could they, +she thought, having suffered so much themselves, be intentionally +unkind. That very day she would make things straight. + +She could not of course dream that the periodical putting to confusion +of Fraeulein Kuhraeuber was the one thing that kept the other two alive. +They found life at Kleinwalde terribly dull. There were no neighbours, +and they did not like forests. The princess hardly showed herself; Anna +was English, besides being more or less of a lunatic--the combination, +when you came to think of it, was alarming,--and they soon wearied of +pouring into each other's highly sceptical ears descriptions of the +splendours of their prosperous days. The visits of the parson had at +first been a welcome change, for they were both religious women who +loved to impress a new listener with the amount of their faith and +resignation; but when they knew him a little better, and had said the +same things several times, and found that as soon as they paused he +began to expatiate on the advantages and joys of their present mode of +life with Miss Estcourt, of which no one had been talking, they were +bored, and left off being pleased to see him, and fell back for +amusement on their own bickerings, and the probing of Fraeulein +Kuhraeuber's tender places. + +About midday Anna, who had been writing German letters all the morning +helped by the princess, letters of inquiry concerning a new teacher for +Letty, came round by the path outside the drawing-room window looking +for the Chosen, and prepared to talk to them of concord. The window was +shut, and she knocked on the pane, trying to see into the shady room. It +was a broiling day, and she had no hat; therefore she knocked again, and +held her hands above her head, for the sun was intolerable. She wore one +of her last summer's dresses, a lilac muslin that in spite of its age +seemed in Kleinwalde to be quite absurdly pretty. She herself looked +prettier than ever out there in the light, the sun beating down on her +burnished hair. + +"Anna wants to come in," said Frau von Treumann, looking up from her +embroidery at the figure in the sun. + +"I suppose she does," said the baroness tranquilly. + +Neither of them moved. + +Anna knocked again. + +"She will be sunstruck," observed Frau von Treumann. + +"I think she will," agreed the baroness. + +Neither of them moved. + +Anna stooped down, and tried to look into the room, but could see +nothing. She knocked again; waited a moment; and then went away. + +The two ladies embroidered in silence. + +"Absurd old maid," Frau von Treumann thought, glancing at the baroness. +"As though a married woman of my age and standing could get up and open +windows when she is in the room." + +"Ridiculous old Treumann," thought the baroness, outwardly engrossed by +her work. "What does she think, I wonder? I shall teach her that I am as +good as herself, and am not here to open windows any more than she is." + +"Why, you _are_ here," said Anna, surprised, coming in at the door. + +"Where have you been all the morning?" inquired Frau von Treumann +amiably. "We hardly ever see you, dear Anna. I hope you have come now to +sit with us a little while. Come, sit next to me, and let us have a nice +chat." + +She made room for her on the sofa. + +"Where is Emilie?" Anna asked; Emilie was Fraeulein Kuhraeuber, and Anna +was the only person in the house who called her so. + +"She came in some time ago, but went away at once. She does not, I fear, +feel at ease with us." + +"That is exactly what I want to talk about," said Anna. + +"Is it? Why, how strange. Last night, while we were waiting for you, the +baroness and I had a serious conversation about Fraeulein Kuhraeuber, and +we decided to tell you what conclusions we came to on the first +opportunity." + +"Certainly," said the baroness. + +"It is surprising that Princess Ludwig should not have opened your +eyes." + +"It is truly surprising," said the baroness. + +"But they are open. And they have seen that you are not very--not +quite--well, not _very_ kind to poor Emilie. Don't you like her?" + +"My dear Anna, we have found it quite impossible to like Fraeulein +Kuhraeuber." + +"Or even endure her," amended the baroness. + +"And yet I never saw a kinder, more absolutely amiable creature," said +Anna. + +"You are deceived in her," said Frau von Treumann. + +"We have found out that she is here under false pretences," said the +baroness. + +"Which," said Frau von Treumann, unable to forbear glancing at the +baroness, "is a very dreadful thing." + +"Certainly," agreed the baroness. + +Anna looked from one to the other. "Well?" she said, as they did not go +on. Then the thought of her peace-making errand came into her mind, and +her certainty that she only needed to talk quietly to these two in order +to convince. "What do you think I came in to say to you?" she said, with +a low laugh in which there was no mirth. "I was going to propose that +you should both begin now to love Emilie. You have made her cry so +often--I have seen her coming out of this room so often with red +eyes--that I was sure you must be tired of that now, and would like to +begin to live happily with her, loving her for all that is so good in +her, and not minding the rest." + +"My dear Anna," said Frau von Treumann testily, "it is out of the +question that ladies of birth and breeding should tolerate her." + +"Certainly it is," emphatically agreed the baroness. + +"And why? Isn't she a woman like ourselves? Wasn't she poor and +miserable too? And won't she go to heaven by and by, just as we, I hope, +shall?" + +They thought this profane. + +"We shall all, I trust, meet in heaven," said Frau von Treumann gently. +Then she went on, clearing her throat, "But meanwhile we think it our +duty to ask you if you know what her father was." + +"He was a man of letters," said Anna, remembering the very words of +Fraeulein Kuhraeuber's reply to her inquiries. + +"Exactly. But of what letters?" + +"She tried to give us that same answer," said the baroness. + +"Of what letters?" repeated Anna, looking puzzled. + +"He carried all the letters he ever had in a bag," said Frau von +Treumann. + +"In a bag?" + +"In a word, dear child, he was a postman, and she has told you +untruths." + +There was a silence. Anna pushed at a neighbouring footstool with the +toe of her shoe. "It is not pretty," she said after a while, her eyes on +the footstool, "to tell untruths." + +"Certainly it is not," agreed the baroness. + +"Especially in this case," said Frau von Treumann. + +"Yes, especially in this case," said Anna, looking up. + +"We thought you could not know the truth, and felt certain you would be +shocked. Now you will understand how impossible it is for ladies of +family to associate with such a person, and we are sure that you will +not ask us to do so, but will send her away." + +"No," said Anna, in a low voice. + +"No what, dear child?" inquired Frau von Treumann sweetly. + +"I cannot send her away." + +"You cannot send her away?" they cried together. Both let their work +drop into their laps, and both stared blankly at Anna, who looked at the +footstool. + +"Have you made a lifelong contract with her?" asked Frau von Treumann, +with great heat, no such contract having been made in her own case. + +"I did not quite say what I mean," said Anna, looking up again. "I do +not mean that I cannot really send her away, for of course I can if I +choose. Exactly what I mean is that I will not." + +There was a pause. Neither of the ladies had expected such an attitude. + +"This is very serious," then observed Frau von Treumann helplessly. She +took up her work again and pulled at the stitches, making knots in the +thread. Both she and the baroness had felt so certain that Anna would be +properly incensed when she heard the truth. Her manner without doubt +suggested displeasure, but the displeasure, strangely enough, seemed to +be directed against themselves instead of Fraeulein Kuhraeuber. What could +they, with dignity, do next? Frau von Treumann felt angry and perplexed. +She remembered Karlchen's advice in regard to ultimatums, and wished she +had remembered it sooner; but who could have imagined the extent of +Anna's folly? Never, she reflected, had she met anyone quite so foolish. + +"It is a case for the police," burst out the baroness passionately, all +the pride of all the Elmreichs surging up in revolt against a fate +threatening to condemn her to spend the rest of her days with the +progeny of a postman. "Your advertisement specially mentioned good birth +as essential, and she is here under false pretences. You have the proofs +in her letters. She is within reach of the arm of the law." + +Anna could not help smiling. "Don't denounce her," she said. "I should +be appalled if anything approaching the arm of the law got into my +house. I'll burn the proofs after dinner." Then she turned to Frau von +Treumann. "If you think it over," she said, "I _know_ you will not wish +me to be so merciless, so pitiless, as to send Emilie back to misery +only because her father, who has been dead thirty years, was a postman." + +"But, Anna, you must be reasonable--you must look at the other side. No +Treumann has ever yet been required to associate----" + +"But if he was a good man? If he did his work honestly, and said his +prayers, and behaved himself? We have no reason for doubting that he was +a most excellent postman," she went on, a twinkle in her eye; "punctual, +diligent, and altogether praiseworthy." + +"Then you object to nothing?" cried the baroness with extraordinary +bitterness. "You draw the line nowhere? All the traditions and +prejudices of gentlefolk are supremely indifferent to you?" + +"Oh, I object to a great many things. I would have liked it better if +the postman had really been the literary luminary poor Emilie said he +was--for her sake, and my sake, and your sakes. And I don't like +untruths, and never shall. But I do like Emilie, and I forgive it all." + +"Then she is to remain here?" + +"Yes, as long as she wants to. And do, _do_ try to see how good she is, +and how much there is to love in her. You have done her a real service," +Anna added, smiling, "for now she won't have it on her mind any more, +and will be able to be really happy." + +The baroness gathered up her work and rose. Frau von Treumann looked at +her nervously, and rose too. + +"Then----" began the baroness, pale with outraged pride and propriety. + +"Then really----" began Frau von Treumann more faintly, but feeling +bound in this matter to follow her example. After all, they could always +allow themselves to be persuaded to change their minds again. + +Anna got up too, and they stood facing each other. Something awful was +going to happen, she felt, but what? Were they, she wondered, both going +to give her notice? + +The baroness, drawn up to her full height, looked at her, opened her +lips to complete her sentence, and shut them again. She was exceedingly +agitated, and held her little thin, claw-like hands tightly together to +hide how they were shaking. All she had left in the world was the pride +of being an Elmreich and a baroness; and as, with the relentless years, +she had grown poorer, plainer, more insignificant, so had this pride +increased and strengthened, until, together with her passionate +propriety and horror of everything in the least doubtful in the way of +reputations, it had come to be the very mainspring of her being. +"Then----" she began again, with a great effort; for she remembered how +there had actually been no food sometimes when she was hungry, and no +fire when she was cold, and no doctor when she was sick, and how severe +weather had seemed to set in invariably at those times when she had +least money, making her first so much hungrier than usual, and +afterwards so much more sick, as though nature itself owed her a grudge. + +"Oh, these ultimatums!" inwardly deplored Frau von Treumann; the +baroness was very absurd, she thought, to take the thing so tragically. + +And at that instant the door was thrown open, and without waiting to be +announced, Karlchen, resplendent in his hussar uniform, and beaming from +ear to ear, hastened, clanking, into the room. + +"Karlchen! _Du engelsgute Junge!_" shrieked his mother, in accents of +supremest relief and joy. + +"I could not stay away longer," cried Karlchen, returning her embrace +with vigour, "I felt impelled to come. I obtained leave after many +prayers. It is for a few hours only. I return to-night. You forgive me?" +he added, turning to Anna and bowing over her hand. + +"Yes," she said, smiling; Karlchen had come this time, she felt, exactly +at the right moment. + +"I wrote this very morning----" began his mother in her excitement; but +she stopped in time, and covered her confusion by once again folding him +in her arms. + +Karlchen was so much delighted by this unexpectedly cordial reception +that he lost his head a little. Anna stood smiling at him as she had not +done once last time. Yes, there were the dimples--oh, sweet +vision!--they were, indeed, glorious dimples. He seized her hand a +second time and kissed it. The pretty hand--so delicate and slender. And +the dress--Karlchen had an eye for dress--how dainty it was! "Your kind +welcome quite overcomes me," he said enthusiastically; and he looked so +gay, and so intensely satisfied with himself and the whole world, that +Anna laughed again. Besides, the uniform was really surprisingly +becoming; his civilian clothes on his first visit had been melancholy +examples of what a military tailor cannot do. + +"Ah, baroness," said Karlchen, catching sight of the small, silent +figure. He brought his heels together, bowed, and crossing over to her +shook hands. "I have come laden with greetings for you," he said. + +"Greetings?" repeated the baroness, surprised. Then an odd look of fear +came into her eyes. + +He had not meant to do it then; he had not been certain whether he would +do it this time at all; but he was feeling so exhilarated, so buoyant, +that he could not resist. "I was at the Wintergarten last night," he +said, "and had a talk with your sister, Baroness Lolli. She dances +better than ever. She sends you her love, and says she is coming down to +see you." + +The baroness made a queer little sound, shut her eyes, spread out her +hands, and dropped on to the carpet as though she had been shot. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + + +"Is Herr von Treumann gone?" + +It was late the same afternoon, and Princess Ludwig had come into the +bedroom where the Stralsund doctor was still vainly endeavouring to +bring the baroness back to life, to ask Anna whether she would see Axel +Lohm, who was waiting downstairs and hoped to be allowed to speak to +her. "But is Herr von Treumann gone?" inquired Anna; and would not move +till she was sure of that. + +"Yes, and his mother has gone with him to the station." + +Anna had not left the baroness's side since the catastrophe. She could +not see the unconscious face on the pillow for tears. Was there ever +such barbarous, such gratuitous cruelty as young Treumann's? His mother +had been in once or twice on tiptoe, the last time to tell Anna that he +was leaving, and would she not come down so that he might explain how +sorry he was for having unwittingly done so much mischief? But Anna had +merely shaken her head and turned again to the piteous little figure on +the bed. Never again, she told herself, would she see or speak to +Karlchen. + +The movement with which she turned away was expressive; and Frau von +Treumann went out and heaped bitter reproaches on Karlchen, driving with +him to Stralsund in order to have ample time to heap all that were in +her mind, and doing it the more thoroughly that he was in a crushed +condition and altogether incapable of defending himself. For what had he +really cared about the baroness's relationship to Lolli? He had thought +it a huge joke, and had looked forward with enjoyment to seeing Anna +promptly order her out of the house. How could he, thick of skin and +slow of brain, have foreseen such a crisis? He was very much in love +with Anna, and shivered when he thought of the look she had given him as +she followed the people who were carrying the baroness out of the room. +Certainly he was exceedingly wretched, and his mother could not reproach +him more bitterly than he reproached himself. While she was vehemently +pointing out the obvious, he meditated sadly on the length of the +journey he had taken for worse than nothing. All the morning he had been +roasted in trains, and he was about to be roasted again for a dreary +succession of hours. His hot uniform, put on solely for Anna's +bedazzlement, added enormously to his torments; and the distance between +Rislar and Stralsund was great, and the journey proportionately +expensive--much too expensive, if all you got for it was one +intoxicating glimpse of dimples, followed by a flashing look of wrath +that made you feel cold with the thermometer at ninety. He had not felt +so dejected since the eighties, he reflected, in which dark ages he had +been forced to fight a duel. Karlchen had a prejudice against duelling; +he thought it foolish. But, being an officer--he was at that time a +conspicuously gay lieutenant--whatever he might think about it, if +anyone wanted to fight him fight he must, or drop into the awful ranks +of Unknowables. He had made a joke of a personal nature, and the other +man turned out to have no sense of humour, and took it seriously, and +expressed a desire for Karlchen's blood. Driving with his justly +incensed mother through the dust and heat to the station, he remembered +the dismal night he had passed before the duel, and thought how much his +dejection then had resembled in its profundity his dejection now; for he +had been afraid he was going to be hurt, and whatever people may say +about courage nobody really likes being hurt. Well, perhaps after all, +this business with Anna would turn out all right, just as that business +had turned out all right; for he had killed his man, and, instead of +wounds, had been covered with glory. Thus Karlchen endeavoured to snatch +comfort as he drove, but yet his heart was very heavy. + +"I hope," said his mother bitingly when he was in the train, patiently +waiting to be taken beyond the sound of her voice, "I do hope that you +are ashamed of yourself. It is a bitter feeling, I can tell you, the +feeling that one is the mother of a fool." + +To which Karlchen, still dazed, replied by unhooking his collar, wiping +his face, and appealing with a heart-rending plaintiveness to a passing +beer-boy to give him, _um Gottes Willen_, beer. + +Axel was in the drawing-room, where the remains of Karlchen's +valedictory coffee and cakes were littered on a table, when Anna came +down. "I am so sorry for you," he said. "Princess Ludwig has been +telling me what has happened." + +"Don't be sorry for me. Nothing is the matter with me. Be sorry for that +most unfortunate little soul upstairs." + +Axel kissed Anna's right hand, which was, she knew, the custom; and +immediately proceeded to kiss her other hand, which was not the custom +at all. She was looking woebegone, with red eyelids and white cheeks; +but a faint colour came into her face at this, for he did it with such +unmistakable devotion that for the first time she wondered uneasily +whether their pleasant friendship were not about to come to an end. + +"Don't be too kind," she said, drawing her hands away and trying to +smile. "I--I feel so stupid to-day, and want to cry dreadfully." + +"Well then, I should do it, and get it over." + +"I did do it, but I haven't got it over." + +"Well, don't think of it. How is the baroness?" + +"Just the same. The doctor thinks it serious. And she has no +constitution. She has not had enough of anything for years--not enough +food, or clothes, or--or anything." + +She went quickly across to the coffee table to hide how much she wanted +to cry. "Have some coffee," she said with her back to him, moving the +cups aimlessly about. + +"Don't forget," said Axel, "that the poor lady's past misery is over now +and done with. Think what luck has come in her way at last. When she +gets over this, here she is, safe with you, surrounded by love and care +and tenderness--blessings not given to all of us." + +"But she doesn't like love and care and tenderness. At least, if it +comes from me. She dislikes me." + +Axel could not exclaim in surprise, for he was not surprised. The +baroness had appeared to him to be so hopelessly sour; and how, he +thought, shall the hopelessly sour love the preternaturally sweet? He +looked therefore at Anna arranging the cups with restless, nervous +fingers, and waited for more. + +"Why do you say that?" she asked, still with her back to him. + +"Say what?" + +"That when she gets over this she will have all those nice things +surrounding her. You told me when first she came, that if she really +were the poor dancing woman's sister I ought on no account to keep her +here. Don't you remember?" + +"Quite well. But am I not right in supposing that you _will_ keep her? +You see, I know you better now than I did then." + +"If she liked being here--if it made her happy--I would keep her in +defiance of the whole world." + +"But as it is----?" + +She came to him with a cup of cold coffee in her hands. He took it, and +stirred it mechanically. + +"As it is," she said, "she is very ill, and has to get well again before +we begin to decide things. Perhaps," she added, looking up at him +wistfully, "this illness will change her?" + +He shook his head. "I am afraid it won't," he said. "For a little while, +perhaps--for a few weeks at first while she still remembers your +nursing, and then--why, the old self over again." + +He put the untasted coffee down on the nearest table. "There is no +getting away," he said, coming back to her, "from one's old self. That +is why this work you have undertaken is so hopeless." + +"Hopeless?" she exclaimed in a startled voice. He was saying aloud what +she had more than once almost--never quite--whispered in her heart of +hearts. + +"You ought to have begun with the baroness thirty years ago, to have had +a chance of success." + +"Why, she was five years old then, and I am sure quite cheerful. And I +wasn't there at all." + +"Five ought really to be the average age of the Chosen. What is the use +of picking out unhappy persons well on in life, and thinking you are +going to make them happy? How can you _make_ them be happy? If it had +been possible to their natures they would have been so long ago, however +poor they were. And they would not have been so poor or so unhappy if +they had been willing to work. Work is such an admirable tonic. The +princess works, and finds life very tolerable. You will never succeed +with people like Frau von Treumann and the baroness. They belong to a +class of persons that will grumble even in heaven. You could easily make +those who are happy already still happier, for it is in them--the +gratitude and appreciation for life and its blessings; but those of +course are not the people you want to get at. You think I am preaching?" +he asked abruptly. + +"But are you not?" + +"It is because I cannot stand by and watch you bruising yourself." + +"Oh," said Anna, "you are a man, and can fight your way well enough +through life. You are quite comfortable and prosperous. How can you +sympathise with women like Else? Because she is not young you haven't a +feeling for her--only indifference. You talk of my bruising myself--you +don't mind her bruises. And if I were forty, how sure I am that you +wouldn't mind mine." + +"Yes, I would," said Axel, with such conviction that she added quickly, +"Well--I don't want to talk about bruises." + +"I hope the baroness will soon get over the cruel ones that singularly +brutal young man has inflicted. You agree with me that he _is_ a +singularly brutal young man?" + +"Absolutely." + +"And I hope that when she is well again you will make her as happy as +she is capable of being." + +"If I knew how!" + +"Why, by letting her go away, and giving her enough to live on decently +by herself. It would be quite the best course to take, both for you and +for her." + +Anna looked down. "I have been thinking the same thing," she said in a +low voice; she felt as though she were hauling down her flag. + +"Perhaps you will let me help." + +"Help?" + +"Let me contribute. Why may I not be charitable too? If we join together +it will be to her advantage. She need not know. And you are not a +millionaire." + +"Nor are you," said Anna, smiling up at him. + +"We unfortunates who live by our potatoes are never millionaires. But +still we can be charitable." + +"But why should _you_ help the baroness? I found her out, and brought +her here, and I am the only person responsible for her." + +"It will be much more costly than just having her here." + +"I don't mind, if only she is happy. And I will not have you pay the +cost of my experiments in philanthropy." + +"Is Frau von Treumann happy?" he asked abruptly. + +"No," said Anna, with a faint smile. + +"Is Fraeulein Kuhraeuber happy?" + +"No." + +"Tell me one thing more," he said; "are _you_ happy?" + +Anna blushed. "That is a queer question," she said. "Why should I not be +happy?" + +"But are you?" + +She looked at him, hesitating. Then she said, in a very small voice, +"No." + +Axel took two or three turns up and down the room. "I knew it," he said; +and added something in German under his breath about _Weiber_. "After +this, you will not, I suppose, receive young Treumann again?" he asked, +coming to a halt in front of her. + +"Never again." + +"You have a difficult time before you, then, with his mother." + +Anna blushed. "I am afraid I have," she admitted. + +"You have a very difficult few weeks before you," he said. "The baroness +probably dangerously ill, and Frau von Treumann very angry with you. I +know Princess Ludwig does all she can, but still you are alone--against +odds." + +The odds, too, were greater than she knew. All day he had been +officially engaged in making inquiries into the origin of the fire the +night before, and every circumstance pointed to Klutz as the culprit. He +had sent for Klutz, and Klutz, they said, had gone home. Then he sent a +telegram after him, and his father replied that he was neither expecting +his son nor was he ill. Klutz, then, had disappeared in order to avoid +the consequences of what he had done; but it was only a question of days +before the police brought him back again, and then he would tell the +whole absurd story, and Pomerania would chuckle at Anna's expense. The +thought of this chuckling made Axel cold with rage. + +He stood looking out of the window at the parched garden, the drooping +lilac-bushes, the hazy island across the water. The wind had dropped, +and a gray film had drawn across the sky. At the bottom of the garden, +under a chestnut-tree, Miss Leech was sewing, while Letty read aloud to +her. The monotonous drone of Letty's reading, interrupted by her loud +complaints each time a mosquito stung her, reached Axel's ears as he +stood there in silence. A grim struggle was going on within him. He +loved Anna with a passion that would no longer be hidden; and he knew +that he must somehow hide it. He was so certain that she did not care +about him. He was so certain that she would never dream of marrying him. +And yet if ever a woman needed the protection of an all-enfolding love +it was Anna at that moment "That child down there has made a pretty fair +amount of mischief for a person of her age," he burst out with a +vehemence that startled Anna. + +"What child?" she said, coming up behind him and looking over his +shoulder. + +He turned round quickly. The feeling that she was so close to him tore +away the last shred of his self-control. "You know that I love you," he +said, his voice shaking with passion. + +Her face in an instant was colourless. She stood quite still, almost +touching him, as though she did not dare move. Her eyes were fixed on +his with a frightened, fascinated look. + +"You know it. You have known it a long time. Now what are you going to +say to me?" + +She looked at him without speaking or moving. + +"Anna, what are you going to say to me?" he cried; and he caught up her +hands and kissed them one after the other, hardly knowing what he did, +beside himself with love of her. + +She watched him helplessly. She felt faint and sick. She had had a +miserable day, and was completely overwhelmed by this last misfortune. +Her good friend Axel was gone, gone for ever. The pleasant friendship +was done. In place of the friend she so much needed, of the friendship +she had found so comforting, there was--this. + +"Won't you--won't you let my hands go?" she said faintly. She did not +know him again. Was it possible that this agony of love was for her? She +knew herself so well, she knew so well what it was for which he was +evidently going to break his heart. How wonderful, how pitiful beyond +expression, that a good man like Axel should suffer anything because of +her. And even in the midst of her fright and misery the thought would +not be put from her that if she had happened to look like the baroness +or Fraeulein Kuhraeuber, while inwardly remaining exactly as she was, he +would not have broken his heart for her. "Oh, let me go----" she +whispered; and turned her head aside, and shut her eyes, unable to look +any longer at the love and despair in his. + +"But what are you going to say to me?" + +"Oh, you know--you know----" + +"But you are so sorry always for people who suffer----" + +"Oh, stop--oh, stop!" + +"No, I won't stop; here have I been condemned to look on at you +lavishing love on people who don't want it, don't like it, are wearied +by it--who don't know how precious it is, how priceless it is, and how I +am hungering and thirsting--oh, starving, starving, for one drop of +it----" His voice shook, and he fell once more to covering her hands +with kisses that seemed to scorch her soul. + +This was very dreadful. Her soul had never been scorched before. +Something must be done to stop him. She could not stand there with her +eyes shut and her hands being kissed for ever. "_Please_ let me go," she +entreated faintly; and in her helplessness began to cry. + +He instantly released her, and she stood before him crying. What a +horrible thing it was to lose her friend, to be forced to hurt him. "I +never dreamt that you--that you----" she wept. + +"What, that I loved you?" he asked incredulously; but more gently, +subdued by her deep distress. His face grew very hopeless. She was +crying because she was sorry for him. + +"I don't know--I think I did dream that--lately--once or twice--but I +never dreamt that it was so bad--that you were such a--such a--such a +volcano. Oh, Axel, why are you a volcano?" she cried, looking up at him, +the tears rolling down her cheeks. "Why have you spoilt everything? It +was so nice before. We were such friends. And now--how can I be friends +with a volcano?" + +"Anna, if you make fun of me----" + +"Oh no, no--as though I would--as though I could do anything so +unutterable. But don't let us be tragic. Oh, don't let us be tragic. You +know my plans--you know my plans inside out, from beginning to end--how +can I, how _can_ I marry anybody?" + +"Good God, those women--those women who are not happy, who have spoilt +your happiness, they are to spoil mine now--ours, Anna?" He seized her +arm as though he would wake her at all costs from a fatal sleep. "Do you +mean to say that if it were not for those women you would be my wife?" + +"Oh, if only you wouldn't be tragic----" + +"Do you mean to say that is the reason?" + +"Oh, isn't it sufficient----" + +"No. If you cared for me it would be no reason at all." + +She cried bitterly. "But I don't," she sobbed. "Not like that--not in +that way. It is atrocious of me not to--I know how good you are, how +kind, how--how everything. And still I don't. I don't know why I don't, +but I don't. Oh, Axel, I am so sorry--don't look so wretched--I can't +bear it." + +"But what can it matter to you how I look if you don't care about me?" + +"Oh, oh," sobbed Anna, wringing her hands. + +He caught hold of her wrist. "See here, Anna. Look at me." + +But she would not look at him. + +"Look at me. I don't believe you know your own mind. I want to see into +your eyes. They were always honest--look at me." + +But she would not look at him. + +"Surely you will do that--only that--for me." + +"There isn't anything to see," she wept, "there really isn't. It is +dreadful of me, but I can't help it." + +"Well, but look at me." + +"Oh, Axel, what _is_ the use of looking at you?" she cried in despair; +and pulled her handkerchief away and did it. + +He searched her face for a moment in silence, as though he thought that +if only he could read her soul he might understand it better than she +did herself. Those dear eyes--they were full of pity, full of distress; +but search as he might he could find nothing else. + +He turned away without a word. + +"Don't, don't be tragic," she begged, anxiously following him a few +steps. "If only you are not tragic we shall still be able to be +friends----" + +But he did not look round. + +A servant with a tray was outside coming in to take the coffee away. +"Oh," exclaimed Anna, seeing that it was impossible to hide her +tear-stained face from the girl's calm scrutiny, "oh, Johanna, the poor +baroness--she is so ill--it is so dreadful----" And she dropped into a +chair and hid herself in the cushions, weeping hysterically with an +abandonment of woe that betokened a quite extraordinary affection for +the baroness. + +"_Gott, die arme Baronesse_," sympathised Johanna perfunctorily. To +herself she remarked, "This very moment has the Miss refused to marry +_gnaediger Herr_." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + + +What Anna most longed for in the days that followed was a mother. "If I +had a mother," she thought, not once, but again and again, and her eyes +had a wistful, starved look when she thought it, "if I only had a +mother, a sweet mother all to myself, of my very own, I'd put my head on +her dear shoulder and cry myself happy again. First I'd tell her +everything, and she wouldn't mind however silly it was, and she wouldn't +be tired however long it was, and she'd say 'Little darling child, you +are only a baby after all,' and would scold me a little, and kiss me a +great deal, and then I'd listen so comfortably, all the time with my +face against her nice soft dress, and I would feel so safe and sure and +wrapped round while she told me what to do next. It is lonely and cold +and difficult without a mother." + +The house was in confusion. The baroness had come out of her +unconsciousness to delirium, and the doctors, knowing that she was not +related to anyone there, talked openly of death. There were two doctors, +now, and two nurses; and Anna insisted on nursing too, wearing herself +out with all the more passion because she felt that it was of so little +importance really to anyone whether the baroness lived or died. + +They were all strangers, the people watching this frail fighter for +life, and they watched with the indifference natural to strangers. Here +was a middle-aged person who would probably die; if she died no one lost +anything, and if she lived it did not matter either. The doctors and +nurses, accustomed to these things, could not be expected to be +interested in so profoundly uninteresting a case; Frau von Treumann +observed once at least every day that it was _schrecklich_, and went on +with her embroidery; Fraeulein Kuhraeuber cried a little when, on her way +to her bedroom, she heard the baroness raving, but she cried easily, and +the raving frightened her; the princess felt that death in this case +would be a blessing; and Letty and Miss Leech avoided the house, and +spent the burning days rambling in woods that teemed with prodigal, +joyous life. + +As for Anna, to see her in the sick-room was to suppose her the nearest +and tenderest relative of the baroness; and yet the passion that +possessed her was not love, but only an endless, unfathomable pity. "If +she gets well, she shall never be unhappy again," vowed Anna in those +days when she thought she could hear Death's footsteps on the stairs. +"Here or somewhere else--anywhere she likes--she shall live and be +happy. She will see that her poor sister has made no difference, except +that there will be no shadow between us now." + +But what is the use of vowing? When June was in its second week the +baroness slowly and hesitatingly turned the corner of her illness; and +immediately the corner was turned and the exhaustion of turning it got +over, she became fractious. "You will have a difficult time," Axel had +said on the day he spoilt their friendship; and it was true. The +difficult time began after that corner was turned, and the farther the +baroness drew away from it, the nearer she got to complete +convalescence, the more difficult did life for Anna become. For it +resumed the old course, and they all resumed their old selves, the same +old selves, even to the shadow of an unmentioned Lolli between them, +that Axel had said they would by no means get away from; but with this +difference, that the peculiarities of both Frau von Treumann and the +baroness were more pronounced than before, and that not one of the trio +would speak to either of the other two. + +Frau von Treumann was still firmly fixed in the house, without the least +intention apparently of leaving it, and she spent her time lying in wait +for Anna, watching for an opportunity of beginning again about Karlchen. +Anna had avoided the inevitable day when she would be caught, but it +came at last, and she was caught in the garden, whither she had retired +to consider how best to approach the baroness, hitherto quite +unapproachable, on the burning question of Lolli. + +Frau von Treumann appeared suddenly, coming softly across the grass, so +that there was no time to run away. "Anna," she called out +reproachfully, seeing Anna make a movement as though she wanted to run, +which was exactly what she did want to do, "Anna, have I the plague?" + +"I hope not," said Anna. + +"You treat me as if I had it." + +Anna said nothing. "Why does she stay here? How can she stay here, after +what has happened?" she had wondered often. Perhaps she had come now to +announce her departure. She prepared herself therefore to listen with a +willing ear. + +She was sitting in the shade of a copper beech facing the oily sea and +the coast of Ruegen quivering opposite in the heat-haze. She was not +doing anything; she never did seem to do anything, as these ladies of +the busy fingers often noticed. + +"Blue and white," said Anna, looking up at the gulls and the sky to give +Frau von Treumann time, "the Pomeranian colours. I see now where they +come from." + +But Frau von Treumann had not come out to talk about the Pomeranian +colours. "My Karlchen has been ill," she said, her eyes on Anna's face. + +Anna watched the gulls overhead in the deep blue. "So has Else," she +remarked. + +"Dear me," thought Frau von Treumann, "what rancour." + +She laid her hand on Anna's knee, and it was taken no notice of. "You +cannot forgive him?" she said gently. "You cannot pardon a momentary +indiscretion?" + +"I have nothing to forgive," said Anna, watching the gulls; one dropped +down suddenly, and rose again with a fish in its beak, the sun for an +instant catching the silver of the scales. "It is no affair of mine. It +is for Else to forgive him." + +Frau von Treumann began to weep; this way of looking at it was so +hopelessly unreasonable. She pulled out her handkerchief. "What a heap +she must use," thought Anna; never had she met people who cried so much +and so easily as the Chosen; she was quite used now to red eyes; one or +other of her sisters had them almost daily, for the farther their old +bodily discomforts and real anxieties lay behind them the more tender +and easily lacerated did their feelings become. + +"He could not bear to see you being imposed upon," said Frau von +Treumann. "As soon as he knew about this terrible sister he felt he must +hasten down to save you. 'Mother,' he said to me when first he suspected +it, 'if it is true, she must not be contaminated.'" + +"Who mustn't?" + +"Oh, Anna, you know he thinks only of you!" + +"Well, you see," said Anna, "I don't mind being contaminated." + +"Oh, dear child, a young pretty girl ought to mind very much." + +"Well, I don't. But what about yourself? Are you not afraid of--of +contamination?" She was frightened by her own daring when she had said +it, and would not have looked at Frau von Treumann for worlds. + +"No, dear child," replied that lady in tones of tearful sweetness, "I am +too old to suffer in any way from associating with queer people." + +"But I thought a Treumann----" murmured Anna, more and more frightened +at herself, but impelled to go on. + +"Dear Anna, a Treumann has never yet flinched before duty." + +Anna was silenced. After that she could only continue to watch the +gulls. + +"You are going to keep the baroness?" + +"If she cares to stay, yes." + +"I thought you would. It is for you to decide who you will have in your +house. But what would you do if this--this Lolli came down to see her +sister?" + +"I really cannot tell." + +"Well, be sure of one thing," burst out Frau von Treumann +enthusiastically, "I will not forsake you, dear Anna. Your position now +is exceedingly delicate, and I will not forsake you." + +So she was not going. Anna got up with a faint sigh. "It is frightfully +hot here," she said; "I think I will go to Else." + +"Ah--and I wanted to tell you about my poor Karlchen--and you avoid +me--you do not want to hear. If I am in the house, the house is too hot. +If I come into the garden, the garden is too hot. You no longer like +being with me." + +Anna did not contradict her. She was wondering painfully what she ought +to do. Ought she meekly to allow Frau von Treumann to stay on at +Kleinwalde, to the exclusion, perhaps, of someone really deserving? Or +ought she to brace herself to the terrible task of asking her to go? She +thought, "I will ask Axel"--and then remembered that there was no Axel +to ask. He never came near her. He had dropped out of her life as +completely as though he had left Lohm. Since that unhappy day, she had +neither seen him nor heard of him. Many times did she say to herself, "I +will ask Axel," and always the remembrance that she could not came with +a shock of loneliness; and then she would drop into the train of thought +that ended with "if I had a mother," and her eyes growing wistful. + +"Perhaps it is the hot weather," she said suddenly, an evening or two +later, after a long silence, to the princess. They had been speaking of +servants before that. + +"You think it is the hot weather that makes Johanna break the cups?" + +"That makes me think so much of mothers." + +The princess turned her head quickly, and examined Anna's face. It was +Sunday evening, and the others were at church. The baroness, whose +recovery was slow, was up in her room. + +"What mothers?" naturally inquired the princess. + +"I think this everlasting heat is dreadful," said Anna plaintively. "I +have no backbone left. I am all limp, and soft, and silly. In cold +weather I believe I wouldn't want a mother half so badly." + +"So you want a mother?" said the princess, taking Anna's hand in hers +and patting it kindly. She thought she knew why. Everyone in the house +saw that something must have been said to Axel Lohm to make him keep +away so long. Perhaps Anna was repenting, and wanted a mother's help to +set things right again. + +"I always thought it would be so glorious to be independent," said Anna, +"and now somehow it isn't. It is tiring. I want someone to tell me what +I ought to do, and to see that I do it. Besides petting me. I long and +long sometimes to be petted." + +The princess looked wise. "My dear," she said, shaking her head, "it is +not a mother that you want. Do you know the couplet:-- + + _Man bedarf der Leitung + Und der maennlichen Begleitung?_ + +A truly excellent couplet." + +Anna smiled. "That is the German idea of female bliss--always to be led +round by the nose by some husband." + +"Not _some_ husband, my dear--one's own husband. You may call it leading +by the nose if you like. I can only say that I enjoyed being led by +mine, and have missed it grievously ever since." + +"But you had found the right man." + +"It is not very difficult to find the right man." + +"Yes it is--very difficult indeed." + +"I think not," said the princess. "He is never far off. Sometimes, even, +he is next door." And she gazed over Anna's head at the ceiling with +elaborate unconsciousness. + +"And besides," said Anna, "why does a woman everlastingly want to be led +and propped? Why can't she go about the business of life on her own +feet? Why must she always lean on someone?" + +"You said just now it is because it is hot." + +"The fact is," said Anna, "that I am not clever enough to see my way +through puzzles. And that depresses me." + +"I well know that you must be puzzled." + +"Yes, it is puzzling, isn't it? I can talk to you about it, for of +course you see it all. It seems so absurd that the only result of my +trying to make people happy is to make everyone, including myself, +wretched. That is waste, isn't it. Waste, I mean, of happiness. For I, +at least, was happy before." + +"And, my dear, you will be happy again." + +Anna knit her brows in painful thought. "If by being wretched I had +managed to make the others happy it wouldn't have been so bad. At least +it wouldn't have been so completely silly. The only thing I can think of +is that I must have hit upon the wrong people." + +"_I Gott bewahre!_" cried the princess with energy. "They are all alike. +Send these away, you get them back in a different shape. Faces and names +would be different, never the women. They would all be Treumanns and +Elmreichs, and not a single one worth anything in the whole heap." + +"Well, I shall not desert them--Else and Emilie, I mean. They need help, +both of them. And after all, it is simple selfishness for ever wanting +to be happy oneself. I have begun to see that the chief thing in life is +not to be as happy as one can, but to be very brave." + +The princess sighed. "Poor Axel," she said. + +Anna started, and blushed violently. "Pray what has my being brave to do +with Herr von Lohm?" she inquired severely. + +"Why, you are going to be brave at his expense, poor man. You must not +expect anything from me, my dear, but common sense. You give up all hope +of being happy because you think it your duty to go on sacrificing him +and yourself to a set of thankless, worthless women, and you call it +being brave. I call it being unnatural and silly." + +"It has never been a question of Herr von Lohm," said Anna coldly, +indeed freezingly. "What claims has he on me? My plans were all made +before I knew that he existed." + +"Oh, my dear, your plans are very irritating things. The only plan a +sensible young woman ought to make is to get as good a husband as +possible as quickly as she can." + +"Why," said Anna, rising in her indignation, and preparing to leave a +princess suddenly become objectionable, "why, you are as bad as Susie!" + +"Susie?" said the princess, who had not heard of her by that name. "Was +Susie also one who told you the truth?" + +But Anna walked out of the room without answering, in a very dignified +manner; went into the loneliest part of the garden; sat down behind some +bushes; and cried. + +She looked back on those childish tears afterwards, and on all that had +gone before, as the last part of a long sleep; a sleep disturbed by +troubling and foolish dreams, but still only a sleep and only dreams. +She woke up the very next day, and remained wide awake after that for +the rest of her life. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + + +Anna drove into Stralsund the next morning to her banker, accompanied by +Miss Leech. When they passed Axel's house she saw that his gate-posts +were festooned with wreaths, and that garlands of flowers were strung +across the gateway, swaying to and fro softly in the light breeze. "Why, +how festive it looks," she exclaimed, wondering. + +"Yesterday was Herr von Lohm's birthday," said Miss Leech. "I heard +Princess Ludwig say so." + +"Oh," said Anna. Her tone was piqued. She turned her head away, and +looked at the hay-fields on the opposite side of the road. Axel must +have birthdays, of course, and why should he not put things round his +gate-posts if he wanted to? Yet she would not look again, and was silent +the rest of the way; nor was it of any use for Miss Leech to attempt to +while away the long drive with pleasant conversation. Anna would not +talk; she said it was too hot to talk. What she was thinking was that +men were exceedingly horrid, all of them, and that life was a snare. + +Far from being festive, however, Axel's latest birthday was quite the +most solitary he had yet spent. The cheerful garlands had been put up by +an officious gardener on his own initiative. No one, except Axel's own +dependents, had passed beneath them to wish him luck. Trudi had +telegraphed her blessings, administering them thus in their easiest +form. His Stralsund friends had apparently forgotten him; in other years +they had been glad of the excuse the birthday gave for driving out into +the country in June, but this year the astonished Mamsell saw her +birthday cake remain untouched and her baked meats waiting vainly for +somebody to come and eat them. + +Axel neither noticed nor cared. The haymaking season had just begun, and +besides his own affairs he was preoccupied by Anna's. If she had not +been shut up so long in the baroness's sick-room she would have met him +often enough. She thought he never intended to come near her again, and +all the time, whenever he could spare a moment and often when he could +not, he was on her property, watching Dellwig's farming operations. She +should not suffer, he told himself, because he loved her; she should not +be punished because she was not able to love him. He would go on doing +what he could for her, and was certainly, at his age, not going to sulk +and leave her to face her difficulties alone. + +The first time he met Dellwig on these incursions into Anna's domain, he +expected to be received with a scowl; but Dellwig did not scowl at all; +was on the contrary quite affable, even volunteering information about +the work he had in hand. Nor had he been after all offensively zealous +in searching for the person who had set the stables on fire; and luckily +the Stralsund police had not been very zealous either. Klutz was looked +for for a little while after Axel had denounced him as the probable +culprit, but the matter had been dropped, apparently, and for the last +ten days nothing more had been said or done. Axel was beginning to hope +that the whole thing had blown over, that there was to be no +unpleasantness after all for Anna. Hearing that the baroness was nearly +well, he decided to go and call at Kleinwalde as though nothing had +happened. Some time or other he must meet Anna. They could not live on +adjoining estates and never see each other. The day after his birthday +he arranged to go round in the afternoon and take up the threads of +ordinary intercourse again, however much it made him suffer. + +Meanwhile Anna did her business in Stralsund, discovered on interviewing +her banker that she had already spent more than two-thirds of a whole +year's income, lunched pensively after that on ices with Miss Leech, +walked down to the quay and watched the unloading of the fishing-smacks +while Fritz and the horses had their dinner, was very much stared at by +the inhabitants, who seldom saw anything so pretty, and finally, about +two o'clock, started again for home. + +As they drew near Axel's gate, and she was preparing to turn her face +away from its ostentatious gaiety, a closed _Droschke_ came through it +towards them, followed at a short distance by a second. + +Miss Leech said nothing, strange though this spectacle was on that quiet +road, for she felt that these were the departing guests, and, like Anna, +she wondered how a man who loved in vain could have the heart to give +parties. Anna said nothing either, but watched the approaching +_Droschkes_ curiously. Axel was sitting in the first one, on the side +near her. He wore his ordinary farming clothes, the Norfolk jacket, and +the soft green hat. There were three men with him, seedy-looking +individuals in black coats. She bowed instinctively, for he was looking +out of the window full at her, but he took no notice. She turned very +white. + +The second _Droschke_ contained four more queer-looking persons in black +clothes. When they had passed, Fritz pulled up his horses of his own +accord, and twisting himself round stared after the receding cloud of +dust. + +Anna had been cut by Axel; but it was not that that made her turn so +white--it was something in his face. He had looked straight at her, and +he had not seen her. + +"Who are those people?" she asked Fritz in a voice that faltered, she +did not know why. + +Fritz did not answer. He stared down the road after the _Droschkes_, +shook his head, began to scratch it, jerked himself round again to his +horses, drove on a few yards, pulled them up a second time, looked back, +shook his head, and was silent. + +"Fritz, do you know them?" Anna asked more authoritatively. + +But Fritz only mumbled something soothing and drove on. + +Anna had not failed to notice the old man's face as he watched the +departing _Droschkes_; it wore an oddly amazed and scared expression. +Her heart seemed to sink within her like a stone, yet she could give +herself no reason for it. She tried to order him to turn up the avenue +to Axel's house, but her lips were dry, and the words would not come; +and while she was struggling to speak the gate was passed. Then she was +relieved that it was passed, for how could she, only because she had a +presentiment of trouble, go to Axel's house? What did she think of doing +there? Miss Leech glanced at her, and asked if anything was the matter. + +"No," said Anna in a whisper, looking straight before her. Nor was there +anything the matter; only that blind look on Axel's face, and the +strange feeling in her heart. + +A knot of people stood outside the post office talking eagerly. They all +stopped talking to stare at Anna when the carriage came round the +corner. Fritz whipped up his horses and drove past them at a gallop. + +"Wait--I want to get out," cried Anna as they came to the parsonage. "Do +you mind waiting?" she asked Miss Leech. "I want to speak to Herr +Pastor. I will not be a moment." + +She went up the little trim path to the porch. The maid-of-all-work was +clearing away the coffee from the table. Frau Manske came bustling out +when she heard Anna's voice asking for her husband. She looked +extraordinarily excited. "He has not come back yet," she cried before +Anna could speak, "he is still at the _Schloss_. _Gott Du Allmaechtiger_, +did one ever hear of anything so terrible?" + +Anna looked at her, her face as white as her dress. "Tell me," she tried +to say; but no sound passed her lips. She made a great effort, and the +words came in a whisper: "Tell me," she said. + +"What, the gracious Miss has not heard? Herr von Lohm has been +arrested." + +It was impossible not to enjoy imparting so tremendous a piece of news, +however genuinely shocked one might be. Frau Manske brought it out with +a ring of pride. It would not be easy to beat, she felt, in the way of +news. Then she remembered the gossip about Anna and Axel, and observed +her with increased interest. Was she going to faint? It would be the +only becoming course for her to take if it were true that there had been +courting. + +But Anna, whose voice had failed her before, when once she had heard +what it was that had happened, seemed curiously cold and composed. + +"What was he accused of?" was all she asked; so calmly, Frau Manske +afterwards told her friends, that it was not even womanly in the face of +so great a misfortune. + +"He set fire to the stables," said Frau Manske. + +"It is a lie," said Anna; also, as Frau Manske afterwards pointed out to +her friends, an unwomanly remark. + +"He did it himself to get the insurance money." + +"It is a lie," repeated Anna, in that cold voice. + +"Eye-witnesses will swear to it." + +"They will lie," said Anna again; and turned and walked away. "Go on," +she said to Fritz, taking her place beside Miss Leech. + +She sat quite silent till they were near the house. Then she called to +the coachman to stop. "I am going into the forest for a little while," +she said, jumping out "You drive on home." And she crossed the road +quickly, her white dress fluttering for a moment between the +pine-trunks, and then disappearing in the soft green shadow. + +Miss Leech drove on alone, sighing gently. Something was troubling her +dear Miss Estcourt. Something out of the ordinary had happened. She +wished she could help her. She drove on, sighing. + +Directly the road was out of sight, Anna struck back again to the left, +across the moss and lichen, towards the place where she knew there was a +path that led to Lohm. She walked very straight and very quickly. She +did not miss her way, but found the path and hastened her steps to a +run. What were they doing to Axel? She was going to his house, alone. +People would talk. Who cared? And when she had heard all that could be +told her there, she was going to Axel himself. People would talk. Who +cared? The laughable indifference of slander, when big issues of life +and death were at stake! All the tongues of all the world should not +frighten her away from Axel. Her eyes had a new look in them. For the +first time she was wide awake, was facing life as it is without dreams, +facing its absolute cruelty and pitilessness. This was life, these were +the realities--suffering, injustice, and shame; not to be avoided +apparently by the most honourable and innocent of men; but at least to +be fought with all the weapons in one's power, with unflinching courage +to the end, whatever that end might be. That was what one needed most, +of all the gifts of the gods--not happiness--oh, foolish, childish +dream! how could there be happiness so long as men were wicked?--but +courage. That blind look on Axel's face--no, she would not think of +that; it tore her heart. She stumbled a little as she ran--no, she would +not think of that. + +Out in the open, between the forest and Lohm, she met Manske. "I was +coming to you," he said. + +"I am going to him," said Anna. + +"Oh, my dear young lady!" cried Manske; and two big tears rolled down +his face. + +"Don't cry," she said, "it does not help him." + +"How can I not do so after seeing what I have this day seen?" + +She hurried on. "Come," she said, "we must not waste time. He needs +help. I am going to his house to see what I can do. Where did they take +him?" + +"They took him to prison." + +"Where?" + +"Stralsund." + +"Will he be there long?" + +"Till after the trial." + +"And that will be?" + +"God knows." + +"I am going to him. Come with me. We will take his horses." + +"Oh, dear Miss, dear Miss," cried Manske, wringing his hands, "they will +not let us see him--you they will not let in under any circumstances, +and me only across mountains of obstacles. The official who conducted +the arrest, when I prayed for permission to visit my dear patron, was +brutality itself. 'Why should you visit him?' he asked, sneering. 'The +prison chaplain will do all that is needful for his soul.' 'Let it be, +Manske,' said my dear patron, but still I prayed. 'I cannot give you +permission,' said the man at last, weary of my importunity, 'it rests +with my chief. You must go to him.'" + +"Who is the chief?" + +"I know not. I know nothing. My head is in a whirl." + +"He must be somewhere in Stralsund. We will find him, if we have to ask +from door to door. And I'll get permission for myself." + +"Oh, dearest Miss, none will be given you. The man said only his nearest +relatives, and those only very seldom--for I asked all I could, I felt +the moments were priceless--my dear patron spoke not a word. 'His wife, +if he has one,' said the man, making hideous pleasantries--he well knew +there is no wife--or his _Braut_, if there is one, or a brother or a +sister, but no one else." + +"Do his brothers and Trudi know?" + +"I at once telegraphed to them." + +"Then they will be here to-night." + +The women and children in the village ran out to look at Anna as she +passed. She did not see them. Axel's house stood open. The Mamsell, +overcome by the shame of having been in such a service, was in hysterics +in the kitchen, and the inspector, a devoted servant who loved his +master, was upbraiding her with bitterest indignation for daring to say +such things of such a master. The Mamsell's laments and the inspector's +furious reproaches echoed through the empty house. The door, like the +gate, was garlanded with flowers. Little more than an hour had gone by +since Axel passed out beneath them to ruin. + +Anna went straight to the study. His papers were lying about in +disorder; the drawer of the writing-table was unlocked, and his keys +hung in it He had been writing letters, evidently, for an unfinished one +lay on the table. She stood a moment quite still in the silent room. +Manske had gone to find the coachman, and she could hear his steps on +the stones beneath the open windows. The desolation of the deserted +room, the terrible sense of misfortune worse than death that brooded +over it, struck her like a blow that for ever destroyed her cheerful +youth. She never forgot the look and the feeling of that room. She went +to the writing-table, dropped on her knees, and laid her cheek, with an +abandonment of tenderness, on the open, unfinished letter. "How are such +things possible--how are they possible----" she murmured passionately, +shutting her eyes to press back the useless tears. "So useless to cry, +so useless," she repeated piteously, as she felt the scalding tears, in +spite of all her efforts to keep them back, stealing through her +eyelashes. And everything else that she did or could do--how useless. +What could she do for him, who had no claim on him at all? How could she +reach him across this gulf of misery? Yes, it was good to be brave in +this world, it was good to have courage, but courage without weapons, of +what use was it? She was a woman, a stranger in a strange land, she had +no friends, no influence--she was useless. Manske found her kneeling +there, holding the writing-table tightly in her outstretched arms, +pressing her bosom against it as though it were something that could +feel, her eyes shut, her face a desolation. "Do not cry," he begged in +his turn, "dearest Miss, do not cry--it cannot help him." + +They locked up his papers and everything that they thought might be of +value before they left. Manske took the keys. Anna half put out her hand +for them, then dropped it at her side. She had less claim than Manske: +he was Axel's pastor; she was nothing to him at all. + +They left the dog-cart at the entrance to the town and went in search of +a _Droschke_. Manske's weather-beaten face flushed a dull red when he +gave the order to drive to the prison. The prison was in a by-street of +shabby houses. Heads appeared at the windows of the houses as the +_Droschke_ rattled up over the rough stones, and the children playing +about the doors and gutters stopped their games and crowded round to +stare. + +They went up the dirty steps and rang the bell. The door was immediately +opened a few inches by an official who shouted "The visiting hour is +past," and shut it again. + +Manske rang a second time. + +"Well, what do you want?" asked the man angrily, thrusting out his head. + +Manske stated, in the mildest, most conciliatory tones, that he would be +infinitely obliged if he would tell him what steps he ought to take to +obtain permission to visit one of the inmates. + +"You must have a written order," snapped the man, preparing to shut the +door again. The street children were clustering at the bottom of the +steps, listening eagerly. + +"To whom should I apply?" asked Manske. + +"To the judge who has conducted the preliminary inquiries." + +The door was slammed, and locked from within with a great noise of +rattling keys. The sound of the keys made Anna feel faint; Axel was on +the other side of that ostentation of brute force. She leaned against +the wall shivering. The children tittered; she was a very fine lady, +they thought, to have friends in there. + +"The judge who conducted the preliminary inquiries," repeated Manske, +looking dazed. "Who may he be? Where shall we find him? I fear I am +sadly inexperienced in these matters." + +There was nothing to be done but to face the official's wrath once more. +He timidly rang the bell again. This time he was kept waiting. There was +a little round window in the door, and he could see the man on the other +side leaning against a table trimming his nails. The man also could see +him. Manske began to knock on the glass in his desperation. The man +remained absorbed by his nails. + +Anna was suffering a martyrdom. Her head drooped lower and lower. The +children laughed loud. Just then heavy steps were heard approaching on +the pavement, and the children fled with one accord. Immediately +afterwards an official, apparently of a higher grade than the man +within, came up. He glanced curiously at the two suppliants as he thrust +his hand into his pocket and pulled out a key. Before he could fit it in +the lock the man on the other side had seen him, had sprung to the door, +flung it open, and stood at attention. + +Manske saw that here was his opportunity. He snatched off his hat. +"Sir," he cried, "one moment, for God's sake." + +"Well?" inquired the official sharply. + +"Where can I obtain an order of admission?" + +"To see----?" + +"My dear patron, Herr von Lohm, who by some incomprehensible and +appalling mistake----" + +"You must go to the judge who conducted the preliminary inquiries." + +"But who is he, and where is he to be found?" + +The official looked at his watch. "If you hurry you may still find him +at the Law Courts. In the next street. Examining Judge Schultz." + +And the door was shut. + +So they went to the Law Courts, and hurried up and down staircases and +along endless corridors, vainly looking for someone to direct them to +Examining Judge Schultz. The building was empty; they did not meet a +soul, and they went down one passage after the other, anguish in Anna's +heart, and misery hardly less acute in Manske's. At last they heard +distant voices echoing through the emptiness. They followed the sound, +and found two women cleaning. + +"Can you direct me to the room of the Examining Judge Schultz?" asked +Manske, bowing politely. + +"The gentlemen have all gone home. Business hours are over," was the +answer. Could they perhaps give his private address? No, they could not; +perhaps the porter knew. Where was the porter? Somewhere about. + +They hurried downstairs again in search of the porter. Another ten +minutes was wasted looking for him. They saw him at last through the +glass of the entrance door, airing himself on the steps. + +The porter gave them the address, and they lost some more minutes trying +to find their _Droschke_, for they had come out at a different entrance +to the one they had gone in by. By this time Manske was speechless, and +Anna was half dead. + +They climbed three flights of stairs to the Examining Judge's flat, and +after being kept waiting a long while--"_Der Herr Untersuchungsrichter +ist bei Tisch_," the slovenly girl had announced--were told by him very +curtly that they must go to the Public Prosecutor for the order. Anna +went out without a word. Manske bowed and apologised profusely for +having disturbed the _Herr Untersuchungsrichter_ at his repast; he felt +the necessity of grovelling before these persons whose power was so +almighty. The Examining Judge made no reply whatever to these piteous +amiabilities, but turned on his heel, leaving them to find the door as +best they could. + +The Public Prosecutor lived at the other end of the town. They neither +of them spoke a word on the way there. In answer to their anxious +inquiry whether they could speak to him, the woman who opened the door +said that her master was asleep; it was his hour for repose, having just +supped, and he could not possibly be disturbed. + +Anna began to cry. Manske gripped hold of her hand and held it fast, +patting it while he continued to question the servant. "He will see no +one so late," she said. "He will sleep now till nine, and then go out. +You must come to-morrow." + +"At what time?" + +"At ten he goes to the Law Courts. You must come before then." + +"Thank you," said Manske, and drew Anna away. "Do not cry, _liebes +Kind_," he implored, his own eyes brimming with miserable tears. "Do not +let the coachman see you like this. We must go home now. There is +nothing to be done. We will come early to-morrow, and have more +success." + +They stopped a moment in the dark entrance below, trying to compose +their faces before going out. They did not dare look at each other. Then +they went out and drove away. + +The stars were shining as they passed along the quiet country road, and +all the way was drenched with the fragrance of clover and freshly-cut +hay. The sky above the rye fields on the left was still rosy. Not a leaf +stirred. Once, when the coachman stopped to take a stone out of a +horse's shoe, they could hear the crickets, and the cheerful humming of +a column of gnats high above their heads. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + + +Gustav von Lohm found Manske's telegram on his table when he came in +with his wife from his afternoon ride in the Thiergarten. + +"What is it?" she inquired, seeing him turn pale; and she took it out of +his hand and read it. "Disgraceful," she murmured. + +"I must go at once," he said, looking round helplessly. + +"Go?" + +When a wife says "Go?" in that voice, if she is a person of +determination and her husband is a person of peace, he does not go; he +stays. Gustav stayed. It is true that at first he decided to leave +Berlin by the early train next morning; but his wife employed the hours +of darkness addressing him, as he lay sleepless, in the language of +wisdom; and the wisdom being of that robust type known as worldly, it +inevitably produced its effect on a mind naturally receptive. + +"Relations," she said, "are at all times bad enough. They do less for +you and expect more from you than anyone else. They are the last to +congratulate if you succeed, and the first to abandon if you fail. They +are at one and the same time abnormally truthful, and abnormally +sensitive. They regard it as infinitely more blessed to administer +home-truths than to receive them back again. But, so long as they do not +actually break the laws, prejudice demands that they shall be borne +with. In my family, no one ever broke the laws. It has been reserved for +my married life, this connection with criminals." + +She was a woman of ready and frequent speech, and she continued in this +strain for some time. Towards morning, nature refusing to endure more, +Gustav fell asleep; and when he woke the early train was gone. + +In the same manner did his wife prevent his writing to his unhappy +brother. "It is sad that such things should be," she said, "sad that a +man of birth should commit so vulgar a crime; but he has done it, he has +disgraced us, he has struck a blow at our social position which may +easily, if we are not careful, prove fatal. Take my advice--have nothing +to do with him. Leave him to be dealt with as the law shall demand. We +who abide by the laws are surely justified in shunning, in abhorring, +those who deliberately break them. Leave him alone." + +And Gustav left him alone. + +Trudi was at a picnic when the telegram reached her flat. With several +of her female friends and a great many lieutenants she was playing at +being frisky among the haycocks beyond the town. Her two little boys, +Billy and Tommy, who would really have enjoyed haycocks, were left +sternly at home. She invited the whole party to supper at her flat, and +drove home in the dog-cart of the richest of the young men, making +immense efforts to please him, and feeling that she must be looking very +picturesque and sweet in her flower-trimmed straw hat and muslin dress, +silhouetted against the pale gold of the evening sky. + +Her eye fell on the telegram as the picnic party came crowding in. + +"Bill coming home?" inquired somebody. + +"I'm afraid he is," she said, opening it. + +She read it, and could not prevent a change of expression. There was a +burst of laughter. The young men declared they would never marry. The +young women, prone at all times to pity other women's husbands, +criticised Trudi's pale face, and secretly pitied Bill. She lit a +cigarette, flung herself into a chair, and became very cheerful. She had +never been so amusing. She kept them in a state of uproarious mirth till +the small hours. The richest lieutenant, who had found her distinctly a +bore during the drive home, went away feeling quite affectionate. When +they had all gone, she dropped on to her bed, and cried, and cried. + +It was in the papers next morning, and at breakfast Trudi and her family +were in every mouth. Bibi came running round, genuinely distressed. She +had not been invited to the picnic, but she forgot that in her sympathy. +"I wanted to catch you before you start," she said, vigorously embracing +her poor friend. + +"Where should I start for?" asked Trudi, offering a cold cheek to Bibi's +kisses. + +"Are you not going to Herr von Lohm?" exclaimed Bibi, open-mouthed. + +"What, when he tries to cheat insurance companies?" + +"But he never, never set fire to those buildings himself." + +"Didn't he, though?" Trudi turned her head, and looked straight into +Bibi's eyes. "I know him better than you do," she said slowly. + +She had decided that that was the only way--to cast him off altogether; +and it must be done at once and thoroughly. Indeed, how was it possible +not to hate him? It was the most dreadful thing to happen to her. She +would suffer by it in every way. If he were guilty or not guilty, he was +anyhow a fool to let himself get into such a position, and how she hated +such fools! She registered a solemn vow that she had done with Axel for +ever. + +At Kleinwalde the effect of the news was to make Frau Dellwig slay a pig +and send out invitations for an unusually large Sunday party. She and +her husband could hardly veil their beaming satisfaction with a decent +appearance of dismay. "What would his poor father, our gracious master's +oldest friend, have said!" ejaculated Dellwig at dinner, when the +servant was in the room. + +"It is truly merciful that he did not live to see it," said his wife, +with pious head-shakings. + +What Anna was doing at Stralsund, no one knew. She said she was having +some bother with her bank. Miss Leech related how they had been to the +bank on the Monday. "I must go again," Anna said on the evening of the +fruitless Tuesday, when she had been the whole day again with Manske, +vainly trying to obtain permission to visit Axel; and she added, her +head drooping, her voice faint, that it was a great bore. Certainly she +looked profoundly unhappy. + +"One cannot be too careful in money matters," remarked Frau von +Treumann, alarmed by Anna's white looks, and afraid lest by some foolish +neglect on her part supplies should cease. She enthusiastically +encouraged these visits to the bank. "Take care of your bank," she said, +"and your bank will take care of you. That is what we say in Germany." + +But Anna did not hear. There was but one thought in her mind, one cry in +her heart--how could she reach, how could she help, Axel? + +He was in a cell about five yards long by three wide. There was just +room to pass between the camp bedstead and the small deal table standing +against the opposite wall. Besides this furniture, there was one chair, +an empty wooden box turned up on end, with a tin basin on it--that was +his washstand--a little shelf fixed on the wall, and on the little shelf +a tin mug, a tin plate, a pot of salt, a small loaf of black bread, and +a Bible. The walls were painted brown, and the window, fitted with +ground glass, was high up near the ceiling; it was barred on the +outside, and could only be opened a few inches at the top. On the door a +neat printed card was fastened, giving, besides information for the +guidance of the habitually dirty as to the cleansing properties of +water, the quantity of oakum the occupant of the cell would be expected +to pick every day. The cell was used sometimes for condemned criminals, +hence the mention of the oakum; but the card caught Axel's eye whenever +he reached that end of the room in his pacings up and down, and without +knowing it he learnt its rules by heart. + +At first he had been completely dazed, absolutely unable to understand +the meaning and extent of the misfortune that had overtaken him; but +there was a grim, uncompromising reality about the prison, about the +heavy doors he passed through, each one barred and locked behind him, +each one cutting him off more utterly from the common free life outside, +about the look of the miserable beings he met being taken to or from +their work by armed warders, about the warders themselves with their +great keys, polished by frequent use--there was about these things an +inexorable reality that shook him out of the blind apathy into which he +had fallen after his arrest. Some extraordinary mistake had been made; +and, knowing that he had done nothing, when first he began to think +connectedly he was certain that it could only be a matter of hours +before he was released. But the horror of his position was there. +Released or not released, who would make good to him what he was +suffering and what he would have lost? He had been searched on his +arrival--his money, watch, and a ring he wore of his mother's taken from +him. The young official who arrested him--he was the Junior Public +Prosecutor--presided at these operations with immense zeal. Being young +and obscure, he thirsted to make a name for himself, and opportunities +were few in that little town. To be put in charge, therefore, of this +sensational case, was to behold opening out before him the rosiest +prospects for the future. His name, which was Meyer, would flare up in +flames of glory from the ashes of Axel's honour. Stralsund, ringing with +the ancient name of Lohm, would be forced to ring simultaneously with +the less ancient and not in itself interesting name of Meyer. He had +arrested Lohm, he had special charge of the case, he could not but be +talked about at last. His zeal and satisfaction accordingly were great, +carrying him far beyond the limits usual on such occasions. Axel stood +amazed at the trick of fortune that had so suddenly flung him into the +power of a young man called Meyer. + +Soon after he was locked in his cell, a warder came in with a great pot +of liquid food, a sort of thick soup made chiefly of beans, with other +bodies, unknown to Axel, floating about among them. + +"Your plate," said the warder, jerking his head in the direction of the +little shelf on which stood Axel's dining facilities; and he raised the +pot preparatory to pouring out some of its contents. + +"Thank you," said Axel, "I don't want any." + +"You'll be hungry then," said the man, going away. "There is no more +food to-day." + +Axel said nothing, and he went out. The smell of the soup, which was +apparently of great potency, filled the little room. Axel tried to open +the window wider, but though he was tall and he stood on his table, he +could not reach it. + +It began to get dark. The lamps in the street below were lit, and the +shouts of the children at play came up to him. He guessed that it must +be past nine, and wondered how long he was to be left there without a +light. As it grew darker, his thoughts grew very dark. He paced up and +down more and more restlessly, trying to force them into clearness. In +the hurry and dismay he had left his keys at Lohm, he remembered, and +all his money and papers were at the mercy of the first-comer. And he +was poor; he could not afford to lose any money, or any time. Supposing +he were to be kept here more than a few hours, what would become of his +farming, just now at its busiest season, his people used to his constant +direction and control, his inspector accustomed to do nothing without +the master's orders? And what would be the moral effect on them of his +arrest? If he had a pencil and paper he would write some hasty messages +to keep them all at their posts till his return; but he had no writing +materials, he was quite helpless. He had sent urgent word to his lawyer +in Stralsund, telegraphing to him through Manske before leaving home, +and he had expected to find him waiting for him at the prison. But he +had not come. Why did he not come? Why did he leave him helpless at such +a moment? Axel was determined to face his misfortune quietly; yet the +feeling of absolute impotence, of being as it were bound hand and foot +when there was such dire necessity for immediate action, almost broke +down his resolution. + +But it was only for a few hours, he assured himself, walking faster, +thrusting his hands deeper into his pockets, and he could bear anything +for a few hours. His brothers would come to him--to-morrow the first +thing his lawyer would certainly come. It was all so extremely absurd; +yet it was amazing the amount of suffering one such absurd mistake could +inflict. "Thank God," he exclaimed aloud, stopping in his walk, struck +by a new thought, "thank God that I have neither wife nor children." And +he paced up and down again more slowly, his shoulders bent, his head +sunk, a dull flush on his face; he was thinking of Anna. + +The door was unlocked, and a warder with a bull's-eye lantern came in +quickly. "The Public Prosecutor is coming up," he said breathlessly. +"When he comes in, you stand at attention and recite your name and the +crime of which you are accused." + +He had hardly finished when the Public Prosecutor appeared. The warder +sprang to attention. Axel slowly and unwillingly did the same. + +"Well?" snarled the great man, as Axel did not speak. He was an old man, +with a face grown sly and hard during years of association with +criminals, of experiences confined solely to the ugly sides of life. + +"My name is Lohm," said Axel, feeling the folly of attempting to defy +anyone so absolutely powerful in the place where he was; and he +proceeded to explain the crime of which he was suspected. + +The Public Prosecutor, who knew perfectly well everything about him, +having himself arranged every detail of the arrest, said something +incomprehensible and was going away. + +"May I have a light of some sort?" asked Axel, "and writing materials? I +absolutely must be able to----" + +"You cannot expect the luxuries of a _Schloss_ here," said the Public +Prosecutor with a scowl, turning on his heel and signing to the warder +to lock the door again. And he continued his rounds, congratulating +himself on having demonstrated that in his independent eye the bearer of +the most ancient name and the offscourings of the street, tried or +untried, were equal--sinners, that is, all of them--and would receive +exactly the same treatment at his hands. Indeed, he was so anxious to +impress this laudable impartiality on the members of the little +prison-world, which was the only world he knew, that he overshot the +mark, refusing Axel small conveniences that he would have unhesitatingly +granted a suppliant called Schmidt, Schultz, or Meyer. + +It was now quite dark, except for the faint light from the lamps in the +street below. Weary to death, Axel flung himself down on the little bed. +He had brought a few necessaries, hastily thrown into a bag by his +servant, necessaries that had first been carefully handled and inspected +with every symptom of distrust by the Junior Public Prosecutor Meyer; +but he did not unpack them. Judging from the shortness of the bed, he +concluded that criminals must be a stunted race. Sleeping was not made +easy by this bed, and he lay awake staring at the shadows cast by the +iron bars outside his window on to the ceiling. These shadows affected +him oddly. He shut his eyes, but still he saw them; he turned his head +to the wall and tried not to think of them, but still he saw them. They +expressed the whole misery of his situation. + +He had dozed off, worn out, when a bright light on his face woke him. He +started up in bed, confused, hardly remembering where he was. A feeling +very nearly resembling horror came over him. A bull's-eye lantern was +being held close to his face. He could see nothing but the bright light. +The man holding it did not speak, and presently backed out again, +bolting the door behind him. Axel lay down, reflecting that such +surprises, added to anxiety and bad food, must wear out a suspected +culprit's nerves with extraordinary rapidity and thoroughness. There +could not, he thought, be much left of a man in the way of brains and +calmness by the time he was taken before the judge to clear himself. The +incident completely banished all tendency to sleep. He remained wide +awake after that, tormented by anxious thoughts. + +Towards dawn, for which he thanked God when it came, the silence of the +prison was broken by screams. He started up again and listened, his +blood frozen by the sound of them. They were terrible to hear, echoing +through that place. Again a feeling of sheer horror came over him. How +long would he be able to endure these things? The screams grew more and +more appalling. He sprang up and went to the door, and listened there. +He thought he heard steps outside, and knocked. "What is that +screaming?" he cried out. But no one answered. The shrieks reached a +climax of anguish, and suddenly stopped. Death-like stillness fell again +upon the prison. Axel spent what was left of the night pacing up and +down. + +The prison day did not begin till six. Axel, used to his busy country +life that got him out of his bed and on to his horse at four these fine +summer mornings, heard sounds of life below in the street--early carts +and voices--long before life stirred within the walls. He understood +afterwards why the inmates were allowed to lie in bed so long: it was +convenient for the warders. The prisoners rose at six, and went to bed +again at six, in the full sunshine of those June afternoons. Thus +disposed of, the warders could relax their vigilance and enjoy some +hours of rest. The effect, moralising or the reverse, on the prisoners, +who could by no means get themselves off to sleep at six o'clock, was of +the supremest indifference to everyone concerned. Axel, not yet having +been tried, and not yet therefore having been placed in the common +dormitory, was not forced into bed at any particular time. He might +enjoy evenings as long as those of the warders if he chose, and he might +get up as early as though his horse were waiting below to take him to +his hay-fields if he liked; but this privilege, without the means of +employing the extra hours, was valueless. He watched anxiously for the +broad daylight that would bring his lawyer and put an end to this first +martyrdom of helpless waiting. Towards seven, one of the prisoners, +whose good conduct had procured him promotion to cleaning the passages +and doing other work of the kind, brought him another loaf of bread and +a pot of coffee. From this young man, a white-faced, artful-looking +youth, with closely-cropped hair and wearing the coarse, brown prison +dress, Axel heard that the ghastly screams in the night came from a +prisoner who had _delirium tremens_; he had been put in the cellar to +get over the attack; he could scream as loud as he liked there, and no +one would hear him; they always put him in the cellar when the attacks +came on. The young man grinned. Evidently he thought the arrangement +both good and funny. + +"Poor wretch," said Axel, profoundly pitying those other wretched human +beings, his fellow-prisoners. + +"Oh, he is very happy there. He plays all day long at catching the +rats." + +"The rats?" + +"They say there are no rats--that he only thinks he sees them. But +whether the rats are real or not it amuses him trying to catch them. +When he is quiet again, he is brought back to us." + +A warder appeared and said there was too much talking. The young man +slid away swiftly and silently. He was a thief by profession, of +superior skill and intelligence. + +Axel ate part of the bread, and succeeded in swallowing some of the +coffee, and then began his walk again, up and down, up and down, +listening intently at the door each time he came to it for sounds of his +lawyer's approach. The morning must be halfway through, he thought; why +did he not come? How could he let him wait at such a crisis? How could +any of them--Gustav, Trudi, Manske--let him wait at such a crisis? He +grew terribly anxious. He had expected Gustav by the first train from +Berlin; he might have been with him by nine o'clock. The other brother, +he knew, would be less easily reached by the telegram--he was attached +to the person of a prince whose movements were uncertain; but Gustav? +Well, he must be patient; he may not have been at home; the next train +arrived in the afternoon; he would come by that. + +The door opened, and he turned eagerly; but it was the Public Prosecutor +again. + +"Name, name, and crime!" frantically whispered the accompanying warder, +as Axel stood silent. Axel repeated the formula of the night before. +Every time these visits were made he had to go through this performance, +his heels together, his body rigid. + +"Bed not made," said the Public Prosecutor. + +"Bed not made," repeated the warder, glaring at Axel. + +"Make it," ordered the chief; and went out. + +"Make it," hissed the warder; and followed him. + +His lawyer came in simultaneously with his dinner. + +"Plate," said the warder with the pot. + +"This is a sad sight, Herr von Lohm," said the lawyer. + +"It is," agreed Axel, reaching down his plate. He allowed some of the +mess to be poured into it; he was not going to starve only because the +soup was potent. + +"I expected you yesterday," he said to the lawyer. + +"Ah--I was engaged yesterday." + +The lawyer's manner was so peculiar that Axel stared at him, doubtful if +he really were the right man. He was a native of Stralsund, and Axel had +employed him ever since he came into his estate, and had found his work +satisfactory, and his manners exceedingly polite--so polite, indeed, as +to verge on cringing; but then, as Manske would have pointed out, he was +a Jew. Now the whole man was changed. The ingratiating smiles, the bows, +the rubbed hands, where were they? The lawyer sat at his ease on the one +chair, his hands in his pockets, a toothpick in his mouth, and +scrutinised Axel while he told him his case, with an insolent look of +incredulity. + +"He actually believes I set the place on fire," thought Axel, struck by +the look. + +He did actually believe it. He always believed the worst, for his +experience had been that the worst is what comes most often nearest the +truth; but then, as Manske would have explained, he was a Jew. + +The interview was extremely unsatisfactory. "I have an appointment," +said the lawyer, pulling out his watch before they had half discussed +the situation. + +"You appear to forget that this is a matter of enormous importance to +me," said Axel, wrath in his eyes and voice. + +"That is what each of my clients invariably says," replied the lawyer, +stretching across the table for his gloves. + +"How can we arrange anything in a ten minutes' conversation?" inquired +Axel indignantly. + +The lawyer shrugged his shoulders. "I cannot neglect all my other +business." + +"I do not remember your having been so pressed for time formerly. I +shall expect you again this afternoon." + +"An impossibility." + +"Then to-morrow the first thing. That is, if I am still here." + +The lawyer grinned. "It is not so easy to get out of these places as it +is to get in," he said, drawing on his gloves. "By the way, my fees in +such cases are payable beforehand." + +Axel flushed. He could hardly believe the evidence of his senses that +this was the obsequious person who had for so long managed his affairs. +"My brother Gustav will arrange all that," he said stiffly. "You know I +can do nothing here. He is coming this afternoon." + +"Oh, is he?" said the lawyer sceptically. "Is he indeed, now? That will +be a remarkable instance of brotherly devotion. I am truly glad to hear +that. Good-afternoon," he nodded; and went out, leaving Axel in a fury. + +The one good result of his visit was that some time later Axel was +provided with writing materials. He immediately fell to writing letters +and telegrams; urgent letters and telegrams, of a desperate importance +to himself. When his coffee was brought he gave them to the warder, and +begged him to see that they were despatched at once; then he paced up +and down again, relieved at least by feeling that he could now +communicate with the outer world. + +"They have gone?" he asked anxiously, next time he saw the warder. +"_Jawohl_," was the reply. And gone they had, but only by slow stages to +the office of the Examining Judge Schultz, where they lay in a heap +waiting till he should have leisure and inclination to read them, and, +if he approved of their contents, order them to be posted. There they +lay for three days, and most of them were not passed after all, because +the Examining Judge disliked the tone of the assurances in them that the +writer was innocent. He knew that trick; every prisoner invariably +protested the same thing. But these protestations were unusually strong. +They were of such strength that they actually produced in his own +hardened and experienced mind a passing doubt, absurd of course, and not +for one moment to be considered, whether the Stralsund authorities might +not have blundered. It was a dangerous notion to put into people's +heads, that the Stralsund authorities, of whom he was one, could +blunder. Blunders meant a reproof from headquarters and a retarded +career; their possibility, therefore, was not to be entertained for a +moment. Even should they have been made, it must not get about that they +had been made. He accordingly suppressed nearly all the letters. + +Gustav must have missed the second train as well, for when the sky grew +rosy, and Axel knew that the sun was setting, he was still alone. + +The few hours he had thought to stay in that place were lengthening out +into days, he reflected. If Gustav did not come soon, what should he do? +Someone he must have to look after his affairs, to arrange with the +lawyer, to be a link connecting him with outside. And who but his +brother and heir? Still, he would certainly come soon, and Trudi too. +Poor little Trudi--he was afraid she would be terribly upset. + +But the hours passed, and no one came. + +That evening he was given a lamp. It burnt badly and smelt atrociously. +He asked if the window might be opened a little wider. The request had +to be made in writing, said the warder, and submitted through the usual +channels to the Public Prosecutor, without whose permission no window +might be touched. Axel wrote the request, and the warder took it away. +It came back two days later with an intimation scrawled across it that +if the prisoner von Lohm were not satisfied with his cell he would be +given a worse one. + +The night came, and had to be gone through somehow. Axel sat for hours +on the side of his bed, his head supported in his hands, struggling with +despair. A profound gloom was settling down on him. The knowledge that +he had done nothing had ceased to reassure him. The lawyer was right +when he said that it was easier to get into such a place than to get out +again. Klutz had denounced him, to save himself; of that he had not a +doubt. And Dellwig, well known and greatly respected, had supported +Klutz. This explained Dellwig's conduct lately completely. Axel's +courage was perilously near giving way as he recognised the difficulty +he would have in proving that he was innocent. If no one helped him from +outside, his case was indeed desperate. He did not remember ever to have +turned his back on a friend in distress; how was it, then, that not a +friend was to be found to come to him in his extremity? Where were they +all, those jovial companions who shot over his estate with him so often, +driving any distance for the pleasure of killing his game? What was +keeping Gustav back? Why did he not even send a message? How was it that +Manske, who professed so much attachment to his house, besides such +stores of Christian charity, did not make an effort to reach him? He had +never asked or wanted anything of anyone in his life; but this was so +terrible, his need was so extreme. What a failure his whole life was. He +had been alone, always. During all the years when other men have wives +and children he had been working hard, alone. He had had no happy days, +as the old Romans would have said. And now total ruin was upon him. +Sitting there through the night, he began to understand the despair that +impels unhappy beings in a like situation, forsaken of God and men, to +make wild efforts to get out of such places, conscious that they avail +nothing, but at least bruising and crushing themselves into the blessed +indifference of exhaustion. + +The hours dragged by, each one a lifetime, each one so packed with +opportunities for going mad, he thought, as he counted how many of them +separated him already from his free, honourable past life. By the time +morning came, added to his other torturing anxieties, was the fear lest +he should fall ill in there before any steps had been taken for his +release. He sat leaning his head against the wall, indifferent to what +went on around him, hardly listening any more for Gustav's footsteps. He +had ceased to expect him. He had ceased to expect anyone. He sat +motionless, suffering bodily now, a strange feeling in his head, his +thoughts dwelling dully on his physical discomforts, on the closeness of +the cell, on the horrible nights. He made a great effort to eat some +dinner, but could not. What would become of him if he could neither eat +nor sleep? On what stores of energy would he be able to draw when the +time came for defending himself? He was sitting by the table, leaning +his head against the wall, his eyes closed, when the prisoner-attendant +came to take away his dinner. "Ill?" inquired the young man cheerfully. +Axel did not move or answer. It was too much trouble to speak. + +The warder, upon the attendant's remarking that No. 32 seemed unwell, +examined him through the peep-hole in the door, but decided that he was +not ill yet; not ill enough, that is. In another week he would be ready +for the prison doctor, but not yet. These things must take their course. +It was always the same course; he had been a warder twenty years, and +knew almost to an hour the date on which, after the arrest, the doctor +would be required. + +Axel was sitting in the same position when, about three o'clock, the +door was unlocked again. He did not move or open his eyes. + +"_Ihr Fraeulein Braut ist hier_," said the warder. + +The word _Braut_, betrothed, sent Axel's thoughts back across the years +to Hildegard. His betrothed? Had he heard the mocking words, or had he +been dreaming? He turned his head and looked vaguely towards the door. +All the sunlight was out there in the wide corridor, and in it, on the +threshold, stood Anna. + +What had she meant to say? She never could remember. It had been +something deeply apologetic, ashamed. But her fears and her shame fell +from her like a garment when she saw him. "Oh, poor Axel--oh, poor +Axel----" she murmured with a quick sob. + +He tried to get up to come to her. In an instant she was at his side, +and, stumbling, he fell on his knees, holding her by the dress, clinging +to her as to his salvation. "It is not pity, Anna?" he asked in a voice +sharp with an intolerable fear. + +And Anna, half blinded by her tears, deliberately put her arms round his +neck, relinquishing by that one action herself and her future entirely +to him, hauling down for ever her flag of independent womanhood, and +bending down her face to that upturned face of agonised questioning laid +her lips on his. "No," she whispered, and she kissed him with a +passionate tenderness between the words, "it is only love--only +love----" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + + +There was a grave beauty, an austerity almost, about this betrothal in +the prison. Here was no room for the archnesses and coynesses of +ordinary lovemaking. All that was not simple truth fell away from them +both like tawdry ornaments, for which there was no use in that sad +place. Soul to soul, unseparated by even the flimsiest veil of +conventionality, of custom; soul to soul, clear-visioned, steadfast, as +those may be who are quietly watching the approach of death, they looked +into each other's eyes and knew that they were alone, he and she, +against the world. To cleave to one another, to stand together, he and +she, against the whole world,--that was what their betrothal meant. +Axel, cut off for ever from his kind if he should not be able to clear +himself, Anna, cutting herself off for ever to follow him. Her feet had +found the right path at last. Her eyes were open. As two friends on the +eve of a battle in which both must fight and whose end may be death, or +as two friends starting on a long journey, whose end too, after tortuous +ways of suffering, may well be death, they quietly made their plans, +talked over what was best to be done, gravely encouraging each other, +always with the light of perfect trustfulness in their eyes. How strong +they felt together! How able to go fearlessly towards the future to meet +any pain, any sorrow, together! The warder standing by, the miserable +little room, the wretched details of the situation, no longer existed +for either of them. Nothing could harm them, nothing could hurt them any +more, if only they might be together. They were safe within a circle +drawn round them by love--safe, and warm, and blest. So long as he had +her and she him, though they saw how great their misery would be if they +came to be less brave, they could not but believe in the benevolence of +the future, they could not but have hope. If he were sentenced, she +said, what, at the worst, would it mean? Two years', three years', +waiting, and then together for the rest of their life. Was not that +worth looking forward to? Would not that take away every sting? she +asked, her hands on his shoulders, her face beautiful with confidence +and courage. When he told her that she ought not now to cast in her lot +with his, she only smiled, and laid her cheek against his sleeve. All +her childish follies, and incertitudes, and false starts were done with +now. Life had grown suddenly simple. It was to be a cleaving to him till +death. Yet they both knew that when that golden hour was over, and she +must go, the suffering would begin again. She was only to come twice a +week; and the days between would be days of torture. And when the moment +had come, and they had said good-bye with brave eyes, each telling the +other that so short a separation was nothing, that they did not mind it, +that it would be over before they had had time to feel it, and the door +was shut, and he was left behind, she went out to find misery again, +waiting for her there where she had left it, taking entire possession of +her, brooding heavily, immovably over her, a desolation of misery that +threatened by its dreadful weight to break her heart. + +A sense of physical cold crept over her as she drove home with +Letty--the bodily expression of the unutterable forlornness within. Away +from him, how weak she was, how unable to be brave. Would Letty +understand? Would she say some kind word, some little word, something, +anything, that might make her feel less terribly alone? With many pauses +and falterings she told her the story, looking at her with eyes tortured +by the thought of him waiting so patiently there till she should come +again. Letty was awestruck, as much by the profound grief of Anna's face +as by the revelation. She knew of course that Axel had been +arrested--did anyone at Kleinwalde talk of anything else all day +long?--but she had not dreamt of this. She could find nothing to say, +and put out her hand timidly and laid it on Anna's. "I am so cold," was +all Anna said, her head drooping; and she did not speak again. + +As they passed between his fields, by his open gate, through the village +that belonged, all of it, to him, she shut her eyes. She could not look +at the happy summer fields, at the placid faces, knowing him where he +was. Not the poorest of his servants, not a ragged child rolling in the +dust, not a wretched, half-starved dog sunning itself in a doorway, +whose lot was not blessed compared to his. The haymakers were piling up +his hay on the waggons. Girls in white sun-bonnets, with bare arms and +legs, stood on the top of the loads catching the fragrant stuff as the +men tossed it up. Their figures were sharply outlined against the serene +sky; their shouts and laughter floated across the fields. Freedom to +come and go at will in God's liberal sunlight--just that--how precious +it was, how unspeakably precious it was. Of all God's gifts, surely the +most precious. And how ordinary, how universal. Only for Axel there was +none. + +When they reached the house, the hall seemed to be full of people. The +supper bell had lately rung, and the inmates, talking and laughing, were +going into the dining-room. Dellwig, his hands full of papers, not +having found Anna at home, was in the act of making elaborate farewell +bows to the assembled ladies. After the two silent hours of suffering +that lay between herself and Axel, how strange it was, this noisy bustle +of daily life. She caught fragments of what they were saying, fragments +of the usual prattle, the same nothings that they said every day, +accompanied by the same vague laughs. How strange it was, and how awful, +the tremendousness of life, the nearness of death, the absolute +relentlessness of suffering, and all the prattle. + +"_Um Gottes Willen!_" shrieked Frau von Treumann, when she caught sight +of this white image of grief set suddenly in their midst. "It has +smashed up, then, your bank?" And she made a hasty movement towards the +hall table, on which lay a letter for Anna from Karlchen, containing, as +she knew, an offer of marriage. + +Anna turned with a blind sort of movement, and stretched out her hand +for Letty, drawing her to her side, instinctively seeking any comfort, +any support; and she stood a moment clinging to her, gazing at the +little crowd with sombre, unseeing eyes. + +"What has happened, Anna?" asked the princess uneasily. + +"You must congratulate me," said Anna slowly in German, her head held +very high, her face of a deathly whiteness. + +A lightening look of comprehension flashed into Dellwig's eyes; he +scarcely needed to hear the words that came next. + +"Herr von Lohm and I were to-day," she said. Then she looked round at +them with a vague, piteous look, and put her hand up to her throat. "We +shall be married--we shall be married--when--when it pleases God." + + + + +CONCLUSION + + +The moral of this story, as Manske, wise after the event, pointed out +when relating those parts of it that he knew on winter evenings to a +dear friend, plainly is that all females--_alle Weiber_--are best +married. "Their aspirations," he said, "may be high enough to do credit +to the noblest male spirit; indeed, our gracious lady's aspirations were +nobility itself. But the flesh of females is very weak. It cannot stand +alone. It cannot realise the aspirations formed by its own spirit. It +requires constant guidance. It is an excellent material, but it is only +material in the raw." + +"What?" cried his wife. + +"Peace, woman. I say it is only material in the raw. And it is never of +any practical use till the hand of the master has moulded it into +shape." + +"_Sehr richtig_," agreed the friend; with the more heartiness that he +was conscious of a wife at home who had successfully withstood moulding +during a married life of twenty years. + +"That," said Manske, "is the most obvious moral. But there is yet +another." + +"The story is full of them," said the friend, who had had them all +pointed out to him, different ones each time, during those evenings of +howling tempests and indoor peace--the perfect peace of pipes, hot +stoves, and _Gluehwein_. + +"The other," said Manske, "is, that it is very sinful for little girls +to write love-poetry in the name of their aunts." + +"To write love-poetry is at no time the function of little girls," said +the friend. + +"Such conduct cannot be too strongly censured," said Manske. "But to do +it in the name of someone else is not only not _maedchenhaft_, it is +sinful." + +"These English little girls appear to know no shame," said his wife. + +"Truly they might learn much from our own female youth," said the +friend. + +Letty's poems had undoubtedly been the indirect cause of the fire, of +Axel's arrest, and of his marriage with Anna. But if they had brought +about Anna's happiness, a happiness more complete and perfect than any +of which she had dreamed, they had also brought about Klutz's ruin. For +Klutz, shattered in nerves, weak of will, overcome by the state of his +conscience and the possible terrors of the next world, with the blood of +three generations of pastors in his veins, every drop of which cried out +to him day and night to save his soul at least, whatever became of his +body, Klutz had confessed. He was only twenty, he knew himself to be +really harmless, he had never had any intentions worse than foolish, and +here he was, ruined. The act had been an act of temporary madness; and +influenced by Dellwig, he had saved his skin afterwards as best he +could. Now there was the price to pay, the heavy price, so tremendous +when compared to the smallness of the follies that had led him on step +by step. His bad genius, Dellwig, went free; and later on lived +sufficiently far away from Kleinwalde to be greatly respected to the end +of his days. Manske's eyes filled with tears when he came to the action +of Providence in this matter--the mysteriousness of it, the utter +inscrutableness of it, letting the morally responsible go unpunished, +and allowing the poor young vicar, handicapped from his very entrance +into the world by his weakness of character, to be overtaken on the +threshold of life by so terrific a fate. "Truly the ways of Providence +are past finding out," said Manske, sorrowfully shaking his head. + +"I never did believe in Klutz," said his wife, thinking of her apple +jelly. + +"Woman, kick not him who is down," said her husband, turning on her with +reproachful sternness. + +"Kick!" echoed his wife, tossing her head at this rebuke, administered +in the presence of the friend; "I am not, I hope, so unwomanly as to +kick." + +"It is a figure of speech," mildly explained the friend. + +"I like it not," said Frau Manske gloomily. + +"Peace," said her husband. + + + + +BY THE SAME AUTHOR + + +Elizabeth and Her German Garden + + "What a captivating book it is--how merry and gentle and sunny, how + whimsically wise and tender! There is real humor in these pages, + and for that reason, if for no other, it deserves to live. The new + chapter, describing the author's pious pilgrimage to the garden of + her childhood, is inimitable in its way, and should not be missed + by any admirer of this most winning Elizabeth."--_New York + Tribune._ + + "Elizabeth is pure sunshine and without a shadow, the reflection, + as it were, of a quiet existence, and never a commonplace one; for, + without knowing it or suspecting it, she is an idealist. Elizabeth + never tires, for has she not her husband, her little ones, and her + books to talk about? These passages, as found in 'Elizabeth' in the + quiet history of a woman's life, act as useful tonics or are the + necessary sedatives in our somewhat fevered existence."--_New York + Times._ + + +The Solitary Summer + + "'The Solitary Summer' affords a generous harvest of beautiful and + poetic thoughts, together with some keen observations of life, all + of which are expressed in a graceful and supple prose.... It is a + privilege to have stood for a time upon the veranda steps and to + have caught a glimpse of that sane refuge."--_Chicago Tribune._ + + "Full of sunshine and fresh breezes, riotous with the bloom and + fragrance of flowers, spicy with the damp cool breath of pines.... + The quaint, whimsical fancies of a cultivated, lovable woman create + a golden atmosphere through which we see her life, and we dream + with her on her bench in her garden, in the fields where the yellow + lupins grow, and in the mossy deeps of the pine forest. We feel we + have made another friend, one who sees life with gentle, smiling + eyes and from a deliciously humorous point of view."--_Recreation._ + + "A garden of absorbing interest to its owner, a library full of + books to comfort rainy days, a hamlet of German peasants, three + delightful babies, and a 'man of wrath' who by no means merits the + title,--these are the simple elements from which a bright woman, + too cosmopolitan to be thought wholly German, as she calls herself, + has evolved a charming little book."--_The Nation._ + + "She has a depth of feeling, a sense of humor, and an impetuous and + ardent manner that make her chronicles thoroughly alive. Beside + this lovable book other feminine essays on nature, literature, and + life seem only tame and artificial performances."--_New York + Tribune._ + + +The April Baby's Book of Tunes + +WITH THE STORY OF HOW THEY CAME TO BE WRITTEN + +Illustrated by KATE GREENAWAY + +A running commentary in the quaintly humorous style characteristic of +the writer, describes the teaching of a dozen or more popular nursery +songs to the author's three little maids, the April, May, and June Baby +respectively. The music for each is given, and charming illustrations in +color complete an unusually attractive holiday book. + +Full of the sayings of three of the most delightfully amusing and +original children in the book world--the June Baby who loudly sings "The +King of Love My Shepherd is," swinging her kitten around by its tail to +emphasize the rhythm,--the loving little May Baby who says, "Directly +you comes home, the fun begins," sitting very close to her mother,--and +the quaint April Baby, concerning whom there are fears that she may turn +out a genius and thus disgrace her parents, Elizabeth and "The Man of +Wrath." + +Readers of the charming companion volumes whose authorship has been the +subject of so much recent discussion will delight in this little sequel, +which will make a most appropriate gift during the coming season to many +a mother of little ones who has had at some time to meet the problem of +how the babies can be saved from corners when there are no lessons, and +storms have forbidden exercise for them and their nurses, too. Its +pictures of a German nursery and the delicious discussions of these +toddlers over the various songs are extremely bright and entertaining, +and most aptly supplemented by Kate Greenaway's quaint and daintily +colored illustrations, of which there are sixteen, besides decorative +designs, chapter headings, etc. + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Benefactress, by Elizabeth Beauchamp + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BENEFACTRESS *** + +***** This file should be named 30302.txt or 30302.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/3/0/30302/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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