The summer had come; the yellowing grain waved in the soft breezes, and the cherry-trees in the orchards and along the high roads had all been robbed of their fruit. The sky was cloudless and the first grain had been harvested in Niendorf.
From the cities every one had fled to the watering-places or into the mountains. The corner-house in the market-place was shut up from top to bottom. Mrs. Baumhagen was in Switzerland, Mr. and Mrs. Fredericks in Baden-Baden. Uncle Henry had gone to Heligoland, because nowhere can one get such good breakfasts as on the dunes of that rocky island.
Only the two sat still in their nests; separated by a small extent of wood and meadow, they could not have been further apart if the ocean had rolled between. There was no crossing the gulf between them.
In Niendorf everything was irregular and in disorder. How should the little Adelaide know anything about the management of a farm? She was on her feet all day, she took a hundred unnecessary steps, and in the evening she complained that the two dainty little feet in the pointed high-heeled shoes hurt her so, and that the servants had no respect for her. Aunt Rosa was in a bad temper, for she found herself in her old age condemned to the life of a lady-in-waiting. Adelaide could not possibly dine alone with Linden, and she must always be there. So at twelve o'clock every day, the old lady put on her best cap, and sat, the picture of misery, opposite Linden, in Gertrude's vacant place. The meals were desperately melancholy. After awhile Adelaide also became silent, since she very rarely got any reply to her remarks. So they ate their dinner in silence and separated as soon as possible afterwards.
Frank, however, had work to do at least, he could notalwaysthink and brood and look at the locked door which led into Gertrude's room. That happened in the evening in his quiet room when little Adelaide was singing all manner of melancholy songs about love and longing down-stairs. And at midnight when it was quite quiet, when every one was asleep in the house and only some faint barking of a dog sounded from the tillage, he wandered up and down the room till the lamp grew dim and went out, and even then he did not stop.
He no longer expected her to come, though he had done so for days and weeks. At first he had gone to the very walls of her garden with a gnawing desire to see her; he would be there when she came out of the gate, and he would go to meet her at the very first step. In vain, she did not come.
Once the servants had seen him when his eyes were strangely red. "The master is crying for the mistress," was the report in the kitchen.
"Why doesn't he go and get her?" said the coachman, "I wouldn't cry a drop; I should know very well how to get back an obstinate wife," making an unmistakable gesture. "Brute!" cried the maids, and thereupon all the women turned their backs on him.
It was long since there had been such a harvest; the barns could scarcely contain all the grain. The fragrance of the hay came over from the meadows and mingled with that of the thousand roses in the garden; the great linden bloomed in the court-yard and a happy hen-mother led out to walk a legion of yellow little chickens.
In the stork's nest on the barn the young ones were growing apace; the homely old house lay almost buried in luxuriant greenery; the clematis climbed up to the windows and peeped in at the empty rooms, and the swallows which were building under the roof, went crying through the country and the city, "She has gone away from him! She has gone away from him!"
Yes, everybody knew the sad story by this time. Gertrude Baumhagen was separated from her husband. In the coffee parties one whispered to the other, people spoke of it at the cafés and at dinner-parties, and at the table d'hôte in the hotel it was the standing topic of conversation. No one knew exactly why this had happened. There were a thousand reports of a most wonderful nature.
"He did something disagreeable about his wife's dowry--"
"She went away because he lifted his hand to strike her--"
"The mother-in-law made mischief between them--"
"Nonsense! She was jealous--there is a little brown cousin in the house--"
"No, it was not that--she heard that before they were engaged he consulted an agent about her fortune. It is not so very unusual now-a-days."
"Ah, bah, no woman would run away for that!"
"That shows that you don't know Gertrude Baumhagen very well. It is a fact that she has gone away."
Yes, it was a fact, and Gertrude sat in her lonely house like one buried alive in that ever gloomy room. She could no longer read; it seemed as if she slept with open eyes. Sometimes Johanna brought her her child, and the young wife's eyes mechanically followed the little creature as it crept awkwardly over the floor or tried to raise itself by a chair, but she would not touch it even when it fell and cried.--Towards evening, however, the same unaccountable restlessness always came over her; then she walked hurriedly up and down the garden for a long time till she reached the top of the little hill; there she would remain for hours, gazing at the Thurmberg till her hair and dress were wet with dew.
"Believe me," she said to Johanna, "I shall be ill--here," and she pointed to her head.
"I do believe it," assented the other, "it is easy to make one's self ill--"
It was a day at the end of July; a frightful sultry heat brooded over the earth, and the young wife suffered greatly from it even in her cool room. After dinner she lay motionless in her chair by the window; a severe headache tortured her as was so often the case lately.
Johanna placed her cupful of strong black coffee on the table and put the book beside it which had been opened at the same page for the last three days.
"Here is a letter too," she added.
Gertrude had acquired a great dread of letters lately. She overcame her aversion however and opened it. It was in Jenny's pointed handwriting, and Jenny only wrote surface gossip; one glance at the letter would suffice. Two sheets fell out.
"It is a long time since we heard anything from you," she read, "so that we are very anxious about you--are you still in 'Waldruhe?'"
"I met Judge K. yesterday at a reception, the same who, in the celebrated divorce case of the Duke of P. with Countess Y., was the counsel of the latter. I asked him playfully if a woman could separate from her lord and master if she found that he had had more thought of her worldly goods than of herself, described the situation pretty plainly and spoke of a friend of mine who was in such a position. He replied, 'Tell your friend she had better go quietly back to her husband, for she is sure to get the worst of it.' His real expression was a much rougher one, for he is well known as a brute.
"Well, there you have the opinion of an authority in such matters. Make an end of the matter, for you may have so bitterly to repent a longer delay as you are quite unable to realize in your present magnificent scorn. If I am not much mistaken you really love him. Well, there are things--but it is hard to write about such things. Read the enclosed letter, which mamma sent me a few days ago. Perhaps you will guess what I wanted to say.
"I wish you had been with me in Paris or were here now in Baden-Baden. You would see how we German women, with our thick-skinned housewifely virtues and our cobwebby romance, make our lives unnecessarily hard. I am convinced a French woman would hold her sides for laughing if she should hear the cause of your conjugal strife.
"Arthur is very amiable, and obeys at a word. He surprised me with a Paris dress for the reception yesterday. As soon as he gets out of our little nest he is like another man. Good-bye, don't take this affair too tragically.
"Your Sister."
Slowly the young wife took up the other letter; it was in Aunt Pauline's pointed handwriting and was addressed to Mrs. Baumhagen.
"DEAREST OTTILIE:"Everything here goes on as usual. I was at your house yesterday; Sophie is there and had a great moth-hunt yesterday. Your parrot had a bad eye but it is all right again now. I have heard nothing of Gertrude; she will let nobody in. I suppose you have heard from her. There are all sorts of reports about Niendorf going about. Last evening my husband came home from the club--they say there is a cousin there who manages the house. Mr. Hanke has seen her in Linden's carriage--very dark, rather original, and very much dressed. Well, of course, you know how people will talk, but I will not pour oil on the fire. I saw Linden too, once, and I hardly knew him; he was coming from the bank. The man's hair is growing gray about the temples; he looked like another person, so--how shall I describe it--so run down."
"DEAREST OTTILIE:
"Everything here goes on as usual. I was at your house yesterday; Sophie is there and had a great moth-hunt yesterday. Your parrot had a bad eye but it is all right again now. I have heard nothing of Gertrude; she will let nobody in. I suppose you have heard from her. There are all sorts of reports about Niendorf going about. Last evening my husband came home from the club--they say there is a cousin there who manages the house. Mr. Hanke has seen her in Linden's carriage--very dark, rather original, and very much dressed. Well, of course, you know how people will talk, but I will not pour oil on the fire. I saw Linden too, once, and I hardly knew him; he was coming from the bank. The man's hair is growing gray about the temples; he looked like another person, so--how shall I describe it--so run down."
Gertrude dropped the letter and then she sprang up--she shook and trembled in every limb.
With a powerful effort she forced herself to be calm and to be reasonable. What did she wish? She had separated from him forever. But her heart! her heart hurt her so all at once, and it beat so loudly in the deathly stillness which surrounded her that she thought she could hear it.
"Johanna!" she shrieked, but no one replied; she was probably out in the garden or in the kitchen at work.
And what good could she do her? "No, not that, only not that!"
She sat down again in her chair by the window and looked out among the trees. What would she not give if the woods and the hills would disappear so that she could look across into that house--into that room! "A gay little thing is that brown little girl," Johanna had said the other day. And Gertrude saw her in her mind's eye tripping about the house, now in the garden-hall, now up the steps, those dear old worn-out steps. Tap, tap, now in the corridor, the high-heeled shoes tapped so firmly and daintily on the hard floor; and now at a brown door--his door.
Might she enter? Ah, his room, that dear old room! And Gertrude wrung her hands in bitter envy. "Go!" she cried, half-aloud, "go! That threshold is sacred--I--I crossed it on the happiest day of my life--on his arm!"
And she could see him sitting at his writing-table in his gray jacket and his high boots just as he had come in from the fields; his white forehead stood out in sharp contrast to his brown face. She had always liked that.
And gray hair on his temples? Ah, he had none a few weeks ago! And again a dainty little figure fluttered before her eyes going towards him. Ah, she would like to know that one thing--if he could ever forget her for another--for this girl perhaps? But of what use was all this?
She got up and went out of the room across the corridor to her father's room. What her father had done thousands had done before him, and thousands would do it--a man need not live!
On the table by the bed stood the glass with his monogram, out of which he had drunk that dreadful potion. The servants had washed it and put it back there. She walked a few steps toward the window and started suddenly. Ah yes, it was only her image in the glass. She walked quickly up to the shining glass and looked in--there was a wonderful bluish shimmer in it and her face, pale as death, looked out at her from it. The deep shadows under the eyes spread far down on her cheeks. Shuddering, she turned away; there was something ghostly about her own face.
And again she stood still and thought. What was left for her in life? Everything was gone with him, everything!
"Mrs. Linden," said a voice behind her, "Judge Schmidt."
She nodded.
"In my room."
Ah, yes, she had forgotten that she had sent for him. He came to-day, and she had only written yesterday. But it was just as well, she must make a beginning.
She turned back again; let him wait, she could not go just yet. She went to the window and saw how the heavy leaden clouds were spreading over the sky; a storm was brewing in the west. Courage, now, courage! When it was past the sun would shine again; sometimes a broken branch could not lift itself again. So much the better! There would be no more of this quiet, this deadly calm.
Only something to do--even if--
"Ma'am!" called the voice once more, and then she composed herself and went.
She knew him very well, the old gentleman who came towards her with a kind smile, but she could not speak a word to him. She could only wave her hand silently towards the nearest chair. He knew what the matter was, let him begin the dreadful conversation.
"You wish for my advice, Mrs. Linden, in this difficult matter?"
"Yes, I wish you to act for me," she said, looking past him into the corner of the room, "and I wish above all that Mr. Linden should be informed of the decision I have come to. I will leave him in possession of my whole fortune with the exception of this house, and the capital that is invested in my brother-in-law's factory."
She said the words hurriedly, as if she had learned them by heart.
"Are you quite in earnest about it then?" asked the old man.
Her eyes blazed out at him.
"Do you think I would jest on such a sorrowful subject?"
"And you think your husband will agree?"
"It isyouraffair, Mr. Schmidt, to arrange this."
He bowed without speaking. She too was silent. An oppressive stillness reigned in the room, in the whole house. It seemed to Gertrude as if she had just heard her sentence of death.
"There will be a bad storm to-day," said the judge after awhile. "I must leave you now, madam, and as I am half-way to Niendorf now, I will just drive over, to arrange the matter with your husband in person."
"To-day?" She was startled into saying it.
He hesitated and looked at her.
"You are right, to-morrow will suit me better too--let us say the day after to-morrow."
"No," she replied, hastily, "go at once, it will be better, much better."
She got up in some confusion; her headache, the consciousness that she had now set the ball rolling nearly overwhelmed her. She accompanied the lawyer mechanically to the head of the stairs; then she remained standing in the corridor, her hand pressing her throbbing temples, half unconscious.
She could hear Johanna in the kitchen, and as if she could bear the loneliness no longer she went in and sat down on a chair beside the white scoured table. Johanna was standing before it, choosing between ivy-leaves and cypress-twigs. Her eyes were red with crying, and large drops fell now and then on the hands which were making a wreath. The whole kitchen smelled of death and funerals.
"What are you doing there?" asked Gertrude.
Johanna looked away and suppressed a sob.
"It will be a year to-morrow," she replied in a choked voice, "since they brought him home to me dead."
"Ah, true."
The two women looked deep into each other's sorrowful eyes, each with the thought that she was the most unhappy. Ah, but there stood the little carriage with the sleeping child, and that belonged to Johanna, and Johanna could think ofhimwithout other sorrow and heartache than that for his loss. To lose a loved one by death, is not half so hard as to lose him in life. Gertrude could find no word of sympathy.
"Oh, how could I live through it!" sobbed the young widow. "So fresh and strong as he went across the threshold, I think I can see him now striding up the street. And the very night before, we had a little quarrel for the first time and I thought, 'Just you wait, you will have to beg for a pleasant word from me.' And I went to bed without saying good night, and the next morning I wouldn't make his coffee.
"I heard him moving about in the room and I was glad to think that he would have to go without his breakfast. He came to my bed once and looked in my face and I pretended to be asleep. But as soon as he had shut the outside door behind him, I jumped up and ran to the window and looked after him--I was so proud of him. It was the last time; it wasn't two hours later when they brought him home, and day and night I was on my knees before him, shrieking, and asking if he was angry with me still. And I prayed to God that He would let him open his eyes just once, only once, so I could say, 'Good-bye, Fritz, come home safe, Fritz.' But it was all of no use; he never heard me any more."
Gertrude sprang up suddenly and left the kitchen. O God! She felt sick unto death. Everything seemed to whirl round and round in her brain, as if her mind were unsettled. She could no longer follow out a train of thought to its end, and an idea which had seized upon her five minutes ago in the most horrible clearness, she was now unable to recall; try as hard as she might, nothing remained to her but a dull dread of something dreadful hanging over her.
It was no doubt the heavy air, the oppressive stillness of nature before a storm that had so excited her nerves.
She rang for ice-water. When Johanna set the glass before her she turned her head away.
"Johanna, do you happen to know how long the--young lady is going to stay at Niendorf?"
"I think the whole summer, ma'am," was the reply. "A good thing, too. What could they do without her over there?"
Gertrude bit her lip; she felt ashamed. What right hadsheto ask about it?
"Did you want anything more, ma'am?"
"Nothing, thanks."
And she remained alone in her room as she had been so many days before. She could hear the gnawing of the moths in the old wood-work, and now and then the steps of the servant in the corridor. With burning eyes she gazed at the ever-darkening sky; her hands grasped the slender arm of her chair as if they must have an outward support at least.
Gradually it began to grow dark; the approaching evening and the black storm-clouds together soon made it quite dusk, while now and then sharp flashes of lightning brought the dark trees into full relief. Close by Johanna was closing the windows of the sleeping-room.
"Shall I bring a lamp?" she asked, looking through the half-opened door.
"No, thanks."
"But you oughtn't to sit so near the window, ma'am, it looks so dreadful out there."
Gertrude did not move and the tear-stained face disappeared. A sudden gust of wind swept through the trees, the branches were tossed wildly about as if in a fierce struggle with brute force; the slender branches were bent down to the ground only to rise again as quickly, and a fierce blast whirling about gravel, leaves and small stones dashed them against the rattling panes. Then followed a dazzling flash of lightning, thunder that made the house shake, and at the same time a sudden deluge of rain mingled with the peculiar pattering of large hail-stones.
Johanna, with her child in her arms, came anxiously into her mistress' room.
"Oh, mercy!" she shrieked, falling on her knees before the nearest chair. Another flash filled the room for a moment with a dazzling red light, and the thunder crashed after it like a thousand cannon.
"That struck, Mrs. Linden, that struck!" cried she in terror.
Gertrude had stepped back from the window; she was standing in the middle of the room. By the light of the constant flashes the servant could see her pale, rigid face with perfect distinctness. She rested her hands on the table and looked towards the window as if it did not concern her in the least. And still the storm raged more fiercely, while the world seemed to be standing in a perfect sea of fire. It seemed to have endured for hours. But gradually the flashes grew less frequent, the crashes of thunder grew more distant, and at last only a light rain dripped on the trees and the storm died away in a distant low grumbling.
Gertrude opened the window and bent far out; a wonderfully sweet air blew upon her face, soft and aromatic, refreshing and invigorating, and above in the sky the clouds had parted and a brilliant star sparkled down upon her. Then she started back. From the high-road there came a sound of hurried movements; a sound of wheels, the cracking of whips, the cries of men--what did it mean? It was usually as quiet as the grave here at this hour.
"Fire!" Had she heard aright? She could not see the street but she leaned far out and listened to the uproar. Her heart beat loud and fast. The gardener's wife ran hastily up in her clattering wooden shoes, and her shrill voice came up to Gertrude's ears.
"David, hurry, hurry, hurry, it has been burning in Niendorf for the last half-hour--the engine has just gone by--hurry!"
"Clang, clang, clang!" clashed out the church bell now. In Gertrude's ears it sounded like a death-knell. Clang, clang, clang! Why did she stand still there, her hands clasping the window-sill as if they were nailed there? She heard doors banging, and voices and shouts, she heard the gardener rushing out of his house--and still she stood there as if there was a spell upon her.
Again clashed out the warning notes of the bell! And at length she roused herself as if from a heavy dream, and now she was quite alive once more. She flew like an arrow out of the room, snatched a shawl from the wall of the corridor and rushed past Johanna, who was standing at the gate with the gardener's wife and children,--away out over the half-flooded high-road.
"Mrs. Linden! For the love of Heaven!" screamed Johanna behind her. But she paid no heed to the cry. Like a murmured prayer came from her lips--"On! on!"
The road before her was dark and lonely; the men who had hastened to the rescue, were out of sight long ago.
She actually flew; she felt no fear in the gloomy wood; she saw nothing but the dear old burning house, and a pair of manly eyes--once, ah, once so inexpressibly dear. Something came pattering behind her. Ah, yes--the dog.
"Come," she murmured, and hurried on, the sagacious animal close behind her.
It was a long way to Niendorf, but Gertrude flew as if she had wings.
"Good Heavens!" she groaned as she reached the top of the hill and saw the red glow in the sky. Faster and faster she rushed down the hill; at the next turn she must see Niendorf--and at last she stood there, breathing quick and loud, her eyes gazing with terror into the valley. Thank God! The red smoke was still rising into the sky, the flames still shot up here and there, but the force of the fire was broken. It is true, shouts and cries still sounded in her ears, but already she met men who were going home.
She moved aside into the deepest shadow and gazed down into the valley; the old house stood there safe and sound, the red light of the dying flames played about its green ivy-wreathed gables and lighted up the shrubs in the garden. The barns were in ruins to be sure, but what mattered that? As she stood there gazing at the house with insatiable eyes, a light suddenly shone out behind two of the windows, gazing at her like a pair of friendly eyes. The windows were his. But the young wife found nothing reassuring in them. The terrible anxiety which had left her at the sight of the uninjured house, suddenly leaped up with renewed force. How happened it that there should be lights in his room when the fire was still smouldering down there? He in the house when his presence below was so necessary?
No, never--or he must--
On--on--only to see--only to see from a distance, whether he lived and was well!
"Life hangs on the merest thread," Johanna's words sounded in her ears. "God in Heaven, have mercy, do not punish meso!"
At the garden-gate she stopped. What should she do here? Her ambassador had come here only to-day and had offered him money for her freedom. Ah, freedom!
Of what use is it when the heart is still held fast in chains and bands? And she ran in under the dark trees of the garden, round the little pond, on the surface of which a faint rosy shimmer of the dying fire still played, and she sank exhausted on a garden-chair under the chestnuts; just in front of her, only across the gravel walk was the house and a dim light shone out of the garden-hall.
Upstairs, the bright light was gone from his windows; shouts and voices of men still came up from the court, carriages were being pulled about, horses taken out, all mingled with the sharp hissing sound of the hose. Gertrude shivered; a great weakness had come over her, her temples throbbed, the smell of the fire nearly took her breath away.
Here she sat motionless, gazing at the steps which led to the garden-hall. Her eyes sought out step after step and at last lingered in the door. "Up there! In there!" she thought, her heart beating wildly, but pride and shame held her fast as with iron chains.
It gradually grew quieter in the court, then steps approached, firm, elastic steps. Gertrude quickly seized the dog by the collar. "Down, Diana!" she cried, hoarse with terror, and then a figure passed the bright light of the window, and brushing close by her went into the house.
Frank! He was alive--thank God! But he was hurt, he kept his arm pressed so closely to his side. Ah, but he was alive! and now, now she could go again quietly and unperceived as she had come. There were plenty of hands in there to bind up his wounds, to--
She shivered again as if in fever.
"Come," she said to the whining dog, and she got up and turned away towards the darker paths, but the dog pressed eagerly toward the house, and almost as if she knew not what she was doing she suffered herself to be dragged forward by him.
At length she reached the steps and in another moment she was mounting them. Only one look inside, only to see if he really was suffering, if he really was alive! And holding the impatient animal still more firmly she passed noiselessly across the stone terrace; then she leaned against the door-post and peeped through the glass, trembling with emotion, timorous as a thief, full of longing as a child on Christmas Eve.
The room looked just as usual, the carpets, the pictures, all just as she had left it; within were people hurrying busily to and fro, and by the table near the lamp he was sitting, his face, pale and drawn with pain, turned full towards the door. And beside him, bending over him, and binding up his arm with all the charming grace of an anxious and tender wife, was the agile little creature in a black dress and white apron, her bunch of keys stuck in her girdle. How skilfully she laid on the bandage! With what supple, tapering fingers she fastened it! How nearly her dark hair touched his face!
And this must be done by other hands than these that she was wringing so here outside!
A joyful bark sounded beside her, and the dog broke away from her trembling fingers with a sudden spring and bounded against the door so that it shook. She started to flee in terror, but her strength failed her; the ground seemed to sway under her feet, half-unconscious she could still hear the door hastily torn open, and then she lost consciousness altogether.
Gertrude awoke, just as the day began to dawn, from a deep dreamless sleep. She was not ill, and she knew perfectly well what had happened to her the evening before. She was lying on the sofa in Aunt Rosa's room; above her smiled down the ancestress with the powdered hair, and the whole wonderful rose-wreathed room was in the full glow of the morning sunshine.
At the foot of the bed on a low footstool sat a young girl in a black dress and a white apron; the dark head had fallen against the arm of the sofa--Adelaide was sound asleep.
The young wife got up softly. Her drenched clothing had been taken off the night before and her own dressing-gown put on; there was still a large part of her wardrobe in Niendorf; she even found, her dainty slippers standing before the sofa, which she was accustomed to put on when she got up. She was very quick and very careful not to wake the young girl. But as she softly opened the door, the sleeper sprang up, and a pair of wondering dark eyes gazed up at Gertrude.
"Where are you going?" asked the clear voice.
Gertrude stopped, undecided.
"Mr. Linden went to bed so very late," continued Adelaide Strom; "he sat here beside you till about an hour ago. You will not wake him? It is not four o'clock yet."
A pair of firm little hands drew the young wife away from the door towards the sofa, and in contradiction to the childish words a pair of grave eyes looked at her, saying plainly, "Do what you will--I shall not let you go."
Gertrude sat down again on the improvised bed and bit her lips till they bled, but the young girl busied herself at a side-table, and presently a fragrant odor of coffee filled the room.
"Here," she said, offering the young wife a cup of the hot beverage, "take it, it will do you good. I made some coffee for Mr. Linden too, in the night: only drink it quietly, it ishiscup and no one else has ever touched it."
And as Gertrude made no reply and only held the cup in her trembling hand without drinking, Adelaide continued without taking any notice--"Ah, yesterday was a dreadful day. The frightful storm and that dreadful thunderbolt, and the great barn was in flames in a moment, and before any help came the other was burning, and it was with the greatest difficulty the animals were saved. If Mr. Linden had not been so calm and had so much presence of mind, it would have been frightful. But he went into the horses' stable just as if the flames were not darting in after him, and he put the harness on the horses and they followed him out through the flames like lambs, though no one could get them out before. And only think, when the uproar was the greatest, and the fire was sending showers of sparks into the air, as if they were rockets, something began to howl and cry so loud from the very top of the barn, and we found it was Lora, the great St. Bernard dog, who had puppies up there.
"And how that poor dumb creature did cry out for help! I could hear from my window that no one would go up after her,--'Being a dog,' they all said. And all at once I saw a ladder, and one--two--three--a figure disappeared up there in the flames. What do you think, Mr. Linden brought them all down, the old dog and her young ones--all of them."
The little girl's eyes sparkled with tears.
"But he has a mark of it on his arm to be sure," she added, "and it was only a dog after all. What was it in comparison with a man's life?--Aunt Rosa was so angry with him and said, when he came down here pale and suffering with the pain, he might have lost his life. Then he said that such a stupid thing as his life wasn't worth a straw! And just as he had said it, Diana began to scratch so furiously at the door, and he rushed out at such a rate that I thought the lightning must have struck again, and as I ran out behind him, he had you already in his well arm, and declared that he knew you would come."
Gertrude got up at this point, and walked to the door. But here she met another obstacle. This was Aunt Rosa, who was just coming out of her bedroom in the most astonishing morning array and the most enormous white nightcap that a lady ever wore. She nodded to Gertrude, and laid her small withered hand on her shoulder.
"The dear God always opens a way for the hard heart to soften," said the ancient dame, "Yes, in hour of need, the heart has wings on which it is lifted above all the petty foolishness of pride and perversity. It was just before the closing of the door, too, my dear child, for yesterday afternoon, after a certain man had had an interview with him, I folded my hands and prayed to God to give him strength to bear the blow--I was afraid he would never get over it."
Adelaide Strom now went softly out of the door and the old woman remained standing before the young wife, and the tall form seemed almost to shrink beneath her thin transparent hand. But neither spoke. The eastern sky grew redder, and then the first rays of the sun played on Gertrude's brown hair.
Suddenly she covered her face with her hands. "My happiness is over, I can never be anything more to him!" she gasped.
"Say rather 'Iwillnever be anything more to him!'"
"Ah, and even if I would!" she cried, "I am so wretched!"
"He who will not do a thing willingly and gladly would do better to leave it undone, and he who cares not to pray, should not fold his hands." And Aunt Rosa turned away to the window, sat down in her easy chair and took up her prayer-book. She left Gertrude to herself and read her morning chapter half aloud.
The words struck the ear of the struggling girl with a wonderful force.
"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity--" sounded through the room.
"Charity suffereth long and is kind; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things."
Had she no charity then, no true love? Ah, faith--love--how should they remain when one has been so cruelly deceived! And her house came back to her mind, that sad, lonely house on the edge of the wood, and her life in the last few weeks, so frightfully bare and desolate.
And--"charity beareth all things--" it said.
"Amen!" said Aunt Rosa, aloud. And Adelaide came in, and the young wife suddenly felt her hands drawn down and through her tears she saw Adelaide, smilingly unlocking the bunch of keys from her own belt and holding it out to her.
"I kept things in order as well as I knew how," she said, "it is not in the most perfect order I know, but you must not scold me."
She felt the keys put into her nerveless hand--had she not been bowed down into the dust?
"Charity suffereth long and is kind; charity vaunteth not itself," said something in her heart.
"I will forgive him," said the young wife aloud. But her face was pale and rigid.
"Forgive, withthoseeyes?" asked Aunt Rosa. "And for what? For believing him less than an acknowledged--well, he is dead, God forgive him--than a man who was a perfect stranger to you? No, my little woman, take heart and go up to your Frank and--"
"Igo tohim?" she cried in cutting tones,--"I?" The bunch of keys fell clanging on the floor; with trembling hands she snatched up the dress she had worn the day before, and took the purse out of the pocket,--the purse which contained that fatal scrap of paper. For awhile she held the piece of paper in her hand, then she gave it to the old lady.
"I will not seem to you so childishly perverse," she said.
Aunt Rosa put on her glasses and read it. She started, and then a smile spread over her face. In great confusion she looked into Gertrude's face.
"Addie," she said, "you can bear witness that I have always been a most orderly person my whole life long."
"Yes, auntie, the most envious person must allow you that virtue."
"And yet last Christmas it happened to me to mislay a letter. It was to Linden from Wolff; for four whole days we searched for it. Let me see, that was the twenty-second of December--the letter was lost, and on the twenty-sixth, I happened to lift up my window-cushion and there was the thing. No one could have been gladder than I. I stayed up till late at night--Linden had gone to a party at the Baumhagens--and when at last he came home I gave him the letter and he put it carelessly in his pocket and said, 'Aunt Rosa, you shall hear it first, I have just been getting engaged.' And in the joy of his heart he took me in his arms as if I were still only eighteen. You see, and that"--she struck the bit of paper with her right hand--"that is a scrap of the letter, my little woman, and the date coincides exactly."
Gertrude was already by her side. "Is that true?" escaped from her trembling lips.
The old lady nodded. "Perfectly true," she declared. "Ask Dora. She searched for the letter with me, and thereby got a great knock on the head when she was trying to move the wardrobe."
But Gertrude declined this. She stood for awhile in silence, her head bent down, her color changing rapidly from red to white, then she moved towards the door and in another moment she had disappeared.
Lightly she mounted the stairs, and the old worn boards seemed to understand why the little feet stepped so carefully and did not as usual, crack and snap.
It was still as death in the whole house; the corridor was still dusky and the old pictures on the wall looked sleepily down on the young wife. The tall clock kept on its solemn tick-tack, tick-tack. It sounded so strangely in Gertrude's ears, as she stood hesitating before the brown door and grasped the knob.
Tick-tack, tick-tack! How the time flies! One should not hesitate a moment when one has a fault to repair--every minute is so much taken from him--quick, quick!
Softly she opened the door and slipped in. She had drawn her dress close about her, so the train should not rustle. Two large eyes gazed anxiously out of the pale face round the room, which was glowing in the morning sunshine. Now her heart seemed to stop beating for a moment, now it throbbed wildly: there in the large chair--he had not gone to bed, but sleep had overtaken him. There he sat, his wounded arm rested on the arm of the chair, the other supported his head. He wore still the soiled, singed coat he had on the day before, and ah, he looked so pale, so changed!
The dog, which lay at his feet, lifted up his head and wagged his tail. Then she went towards him. "Make way for me," she murmured, "Imust take that place!"
And she knelt down before her husband, and taking the shrinking injured hand put it to her lips.
"Gertrude, what are you doing?"
"Forgive me, Frank, forgive me?" she whispered, weeping, resisting his endeavors to raise her.
"No, Frank, no, let me stay here, it should be so--"
"Forgive you? There is no question of that. Thank God you are here again!"
But before she got up she tore a bit of paper into shreds, then she ran to the window and opened her hand and they danced away in the air like snowflakes. And when she turned back again she looked into his grave eyes.
"What was that?" he asked, drawing her towards him.
She threw her arms round his neck and hid her streaming eyes on his breast. They stood thus together at the open window, in the clear rays of the morning sun. The twittering swallows flew past them over the tops of the trees up into the blue sky.
"Back again! Back again!" was the burden of their song.
Gradually the house woke up. The little brunette laid the table in the garden-hall.
"Two cups, two plates, and a bunch of roses in the middle--for the last time," said she, "then she can do it for herself again."
Then she stood thinking for a moment.
"He doesn't in the least realize how fortunate he is to get such a yielding, lamb-like wife as I am," she murmured. "To be sure, Icouldnot possibly fancy that he married me for my money."
She laughed a clear ringing laugh.
"I shall have a nice little trousseau if Aunt Rosa gets it."
And she opened the garden door and ran out into the green shrubbery.
The world was so beautiful, the sun so golden and Adelaide was so fond of the little judge.
She was engaged, secretly engaged, for the good fellow would not come before his friend in all his bridegroom's bliss, when his happiness was so utterly shattered. So they had plighted their troth secretly--after the bowl ofmai-trankon that last day. Aunt Rosa was no check upon them, for she slept placidly in the corner of the sofa, and Frank--Heaven alone knew when he had gone.
But now--she looked at her pretty little hands; yes, there were ink-stains on them; she had sent off the news at once to Frankfort: "Great fire, great anxiety, great reconciliation."
She found herself suddenly before a stout little man in a gray summer overcoat and a white straw hat.
"Oh, ta, ta! little one, don't run over me!"
He was very cross, this good Uncle Henry.
"Pretty state of affairs! A man comes from Hamburg, travelling all night, and hardly is he out of the train when some one comes: 'Mr. Baumhagen, did you know there had been a great fire in Niendorf?' Tired as a dog as I was, I must needs get into a carriage and drive out here--a man can't sleep after such a piece of news as that. For mercy's sake, you are smiling as if it was Christmas eve!"
"All the crops are burnt," announced Adelaide in as joyful a tone as if she had said, "We have won a great prize."
"The poor fellow has ill-luck," muttered Uncle Henry. "Has some one gone over to--" He would not speak her name--"to--well, to 'Waldruhe?' Or has the announcement of the joyful news been left for me again?"
"No one has been there," replied Adelaide, mischievously.
Uncle Henry looked at her more sharply.
"Well, what's up then, you witch? Something has happened."
"I am engaged," burst out the happy little bride. Thank Heaven, that she could tell it at last.
"You unhappy child!" cried Uncle Henry, by way of congratulation. But she ran laughing away into the house.
"Breakfast is ready!" she cried from the terrace. "Coffee, tea, ham and eggs."
The old gentleman, who was going out to view the wreck, turned sharply round and followed her.
"It is true," he remarked, "I shall be better for having something to eat, I am quite upset by the journey."
And Uncle Henry went puffing up the steps and grasped the door-knob.
Good Heavens!--did his eyes not deceive him? There sat Linden, his arm in a sling, and beside him--surely he knew that thick brown knot of hair and that slender figure which was bending, down to cut up his meat. Now she raises her head and kisses him on the forehead before she quietly resumes her own place.
"Angels and ministers of grace defend us! A man has only to take a journey--!"
Uncle Henry drops the door-knob. He has such a queer sensation--he does not like emotion--and he does not like to disturb other people. He would gladly get out of the way if he could--perhaps he may manage it yet.
But no. Gertrude herself opens the door.
"Uncle Henry," she said, pleadingly.
And he comes in and behaves exactly as if nothing had ever happened. It is the purest selfishness on his part. Scenes don't agree with him.
"I wanted just to see how you were--you seem to have had a nice little fire," he begins.
"Thank God! No lives were lost," said Linden, "and no cattle were burnt; the crops are all destroyed, it is true; but in place of that a new life has risen out of the ashes." And he held out his sound hand to Gertrude.
"Oh, ta, ta!" murmured Uncle Henry, helping himself hurriedly to ham and to butter. "I tell you, children, travelling is a great deal too hard work, and if it were not for the lobsters in Heligoland and the eel-soup in Hamburg, then--but, Gertrude, you are laughing and crying at the same time! Well, well, I am glad to be home again; there is nothing like home, after all, and with your permission, I will drink this glass of good port wine to your health and to the peace and prosperity of your household."