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 theSchlossitself. 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, youarehere," 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, notverykind 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, "Iknowyou 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,dotry 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.
"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 youwillkeep 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 youmakethem 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 heisa 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 shouldyouhelp 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; "areyouhappy?"
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 aboutWeiber. "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. "Pleaselet 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, howcanI 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, whatisthe 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 marrygnädiger Herr."
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 wasschrecklich, 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:—