CHAPTER XXVIII
SEVERAL summers had passed since that dramatic meeting on theSchiller, and these swiftly flying, monotonous years, had left their mark upon Les Plans and its belongings. One fine spring morning Mordi, the queen of cows, had been driven from the orchard by a strange man,—a butcher from Lucerne. In his company, Mordi took her first and last trip upon the familiar lake, and her comrades knew her no more. Karo, the farm’s brown and white guardian, had recently died, suddenly and mysteriously. He was found at his post, the entrance door, stiff and stark. Jan Jost was more bent and rheumatic than formerly; his wife more wrinkled and shrewish; but naturally the most remarkable change was to be seen in the two young people, Fritz and Mitli. Fritz at twenty-three was well educated, and well thought of,—especially by farmers with daughters, on account of his prospects; by the daughters, because of his celebrated prowess in sports, his handsome face, and lithe activity.
Since his course at Zurich was finished, Fritz had lived at home, helping somewhat fitfully to work Les Plans. His mother seemed a little grimmer and more taciturn,—indeed, her manner was occasionally forbidding,—always working—or always knitting, withunceasing fury, and always keeping her thoughts to herself;—these, were chiefly occupied by her son, and Mitli.
Mitli, in her seventeenth year, was tall and fully developed; she looked older than her age, and beyond a flawless complexion, ropes of yellow hair, and a pair of gay blue eyes, was not endowed with the usual attributes of ‘sweet seventeen.’ She took after the Blagdons in figure and character, and was of a determined, masterful, and restless disposition. Her intellectual faculties were dull; she evinced no taste for literature or reading, beyond the daily paper,Le Monde Amusant, and sundry and various French novels. As for her mother’s pursuits, needlework, music, and gardening, she hated them impartially; sewing tried her eyes, gardening gave her a backache, music was a bore. Tennis, dancing, skating were more to her taste. She rowed on the lake, and climbed the hills with Fritz, and accepted his love, his homage, and his gifts, with radiant complacency. Such was Cara!
Of late, she had spent most of the year in Lucerne, not merely in winter with her mother in the Weggisgasse, but in summer too. There was such difficulty about coming and going from Les Plans; the hours of the steamers, did not suit; the child’s education must not be neglected, and after considerable demur, and pressure, it had been arranged for Cara to board with the family of one of her friends, and attend the convent as anexterne, returning home for week-ends, and all holidays. Her godmother had insisted onpaying for her education, and her mother reluctantly submitted; for in spite of good prices for lace, the work was tedious, and Cara’s expenses for dress and amusement had become surprisingly heavy. She displayed an extravagant fancy for expensive hats and frocks and shoes,—and when she wanted money—an overpowering seductiveness, that her mother was totally unable to resist. Cara’s sweet kisses, caresses, and endearing epithets, were as balm to a heart that was starving for love, and she plied her needle bravely in order that the child should look nice, and—as a natural sequence—be happy.
The ‘child’ ran accounts in her mother’s name at Schweizer’s and other shops, and when the bills presented themselves in the shape of so many shocks, Cara would excuse herself by saying, in an airy way:
“Well, darling Mum, it’s all your own fault! Ever since I was a baby you have made a fuss about dressing me, and don’t I do you credit?”
She did; there was no denying the fact. In a beautifully cut embroidered linen, and a simple French hat, Cara might be remarked at Hurlingham or Ranelagh, but she was a little out of keeping with her background in a farm kitchen—where, being in a hurry to catch the boat, she gobbled her hastydéjeunerof rice and stewed veal.
Cara’s independence and air of breezy emancipation, had come by degrees, ever since she had gone to live with her friend Berthe Baer on the slopes of the Drei Linden. This change of abode and surroundingshad given her an air of freedom and self-sufficiency, and she now ruled her mother with an absolute sway. Grown up, her own mistress, and on the threshold of life, she was resolved to make the best of her youth and have a really good time; since hers was a hard, shrewd, and absolutely pleasure-loving character. Cara was fond in a way of her pretty girlish Mum,—who was so often and so annoyingly mistaken for her sister—but the Mum was so tame, unenterprising, and easily contented; her books and work and walks, were allsheasked for; but Cara, notwithstanding her sharp sight, was mistaken. Her mother was far from being contented. As she rambled alone, or sat at her lace cushion, her thoughts, though inarticulate, were many and rebellious; they spoke a plain language, and put many crucial questions to her heart, and brain. In her life of thirty-five years, she humbly confessed to many fatal errors. Her first mistake, was in marrying Hugo Blagdon—that was an act of sheer cowardice. The second, her muddled runaway; the third, in refusing Lancelot Lumley’s appeal made six years previously.
Cara, she now realised, was capable of standing alone, and successfully fighting her own battles. Her determination to live in Lucerne, had proved this most decisively; and now she and her girl were no longer so much to one another. Cara demanded a separate bedroom. “Two in a room was so stuffy,” and there were no nightly talks and confidences, and any hold she ever had on her child, was imperceptibly slippingaway; the girl had her own friends, Luisa Maas, Hilda Vorgen, and the Baers, with whom she boarded.
She and Berthe were inseparable, and Berthe, a simple-minded, giggling, good-tempered girl of eighteen, could do her darling no harm. One question repeatedly thrust itself forward with irrepressible pertinacity:
“Had she brought Cara up wisely? Had she not beentooindulgent?”
In the most serious contentions between them, she had frequently given way. Now Cara was full grown and talked as a woman—a woman with weighty authority. Where had she acquired her experience?—from books? Since Mrs. Hesketh’s visit, witnessing the nakedness of the land, she had kept Letty well supplied with literature, English papers, and various small matters, that made life more easy and refined. Each year she most solemnly pledged herself to pay a visit to Lucerne, and each year, the promised visit was postponed; but now an event had occurred that made her presence absolutely essential. The two young people at Les Plans had grown up under the same roof, and their mothers were secretly anxious respecting their future; Frau Hurter was particularly perturbed; gloomier, and more silent than ever; since she did not fail to note how slyly the beautiful Mitli played with, and fascinated her distracted boy. Oh, it was a cat-and-mouse affair! Fritz was crazy, he was under a witch’s spell, he could settle to nothing. If Mitli was in Lucerne, so was he; if she was at home, he hung about aimlessly, or took thegirl on the lake. He had become unmanageable, idle, unfilial, ill-tempered. What would the end be,—and when?
Of late Mitli’s popularity had cooled. Jost’s wife openly hated her, and even Freda admitted that the ‘kindli’ never cared how much work she gave anyone.
One afternoon, as Frau Hurter stood in the doorway watching the young couple descending the well-beaten track, she suddenly made up her mind to speak; and walking over to where Frau Glyn sat in the shade absorbed in her lace pillow, she began:
“You see those two,meine Frau?” indicating the rapidly disappearing pair. “Your girl and my boy.”
Letty looked up, followed the direction of the speaker’s hand, and nodded and smiled—yet the air and expression of Frau Hurter was portentous.
“They have grown up together in thirteen years under the same roof—and now”—she paused, and added with a dramatic gesture—“one of them must go—and it cannot be my son.”
“Of course not,” agreed Letty, raising a bewildered face to the stern and iron-willed Frau. “But I don’t think I understand.”
“Have you then no eyes?” demanded the other in a voice vibrating with passion, “not even the mother’s eyes! My Fritz is madly—wickedly—in love with your Mitli!”
Letty gave a stifled exclamation, hastily put aside her work, and rose to her feet.
“Yes, he is; and more and more, and worse andworse every time he comes home,” continued his mother hoarsely; “and no wonder. Is there another such face in the Four Cantons? But they are not for one another—no,never!” and she stamped her heavy foot upon the gravel. “She does not care for him,” stooping to pick up an apple, “no, not this!” flinging it away with a vicious jerk. “She does not care for anyone. My tongue is quiet—but I use my eyes. As for Fritz, he shall marry one of his own country, a girl of his own class, strong, hard-working, with a fortune—such there are. His cousin Gertrud, in the Oberland, will suit me—and it has been arranged. Meanwhile Mitli, whom he sees daily, goes to his head like new beer, and the boy is as one drunken, and mad! and so,mein liebe Frau, after many years together, and I may say friendship, I must give you notice to leave.”
For a moment or two Letty made no answer. Her little world had been suddenly dissolved and was whirling about her. She looked across the garden, and its tall, white lilies and standard roses, to the familiar brown house, with green shutters, then up at her own open window—with its accustomed sponge,—her haven for so long.
At last she said:
“Very well, I see your point of view, and I am afraid Cara is inclined to be a flirt. The child likes to make herself pleasant to everyone.”
“No, not to everyone,” corrected the other bitterly.
“I am really very, very sorry if Fritz is attracted.I honestly believed it was just the old boy-and-girl liking.”
“Boy-and-girl liking,Jesu Maria! I’ve seen Fritz kiss her empty shoes, I’ve known him watch her window till dawn; these are the follies of his Italian blood. I hoped Zurich would end them, but he is worse.Ach ye!he is ten times worse! So now I send him to a relative near Adelboden for some time; there he will learn farming and good sense. When he returns——” She paused expressively.
“We shall have left, and to tell you the truth, Frau Hurter, this move has been in my mind; but I love Les Plans, and hate the idea of a change. I have lately come into a legacy which brings me in one hundred and fifty pounds a year, and as Cara believes herself grown up, it is time that we go to where she can mix with her own country-people. I am undecided where to live, or what to do. I have been rooted here for so long, that Les Plans seems like my home.”
“Dear lady, it would, and gladly, be your home for always—but for our two children. Young people, will be young!”
“Well, to-day I shall write to Mrs. Hesketh and ask her advice,” said Letty, collecting her work. “How soon must we move—in a week?”
“Oh, no; this is July—the end of September would suit. Fritz will be away helping with the harvest.” After a moment’s silence she added, “In my mind I’ve long had this to say to you,liebe Frau,and now, thanks be to God, it’s said,” and she turned about, and went slowly indoors.
Letty followed her and ascended to her room,—there to collect her ideas and make plans. She would be glad to go, and yet here was the old weakness—sorry. At Les Plans she had outward peace, occupation, her walks, her books, and her letters from Lancelot. These were mere pleasant epistles, such as a man would send to a woman-friend, aunt, or sister-in-law, yet how she treasured them. Accounts of balls and race meetings, she read them over and over again, jealously searching for a clue to some girl, the happy, happy, fortunate girl, who would one day, take her place.—Then she loved Switzerland and its beautiful scenery—with the affection of a native. Cara, on the contrary, hated the country and expressed herself to her mother with scornful vehemence.
“I loathe these blue skies, blue mountains, blue lake,” she announced. “They give me the blues! As for the wonderful view, you rave about, I’d sooner look at a picture postcard—muchless fag!”
Letty presently sat down at her deal table, and wrote to Mrs. Hesketh.
“Do try and come at once, best of friends, for I want you urgently; and you know you promised to be here this month,sans faute. Frau Hurter has just given me notice to leave in September. Cara is now a young lady, and full of ideas and ambitions. I implore you to advise me, as to what will be bestfor her? where we are to live? and what we are to do?”
“Do try and come at once, best of friends, for I want you urgently; and you know you promised to be here this month,sans faute. Frau Hurter has just given me notice to leave in September. Cara is now a young lady, and full of ideas and ambitions. I implore you to advise me, as to what will be bestfor her? where we are to live? and what we are to do?”
Meanwhile Cara and Fritz had gone upon the lake in a superior new boat—a recent purchase. As he rowed towards the Nasen, and she reclined luxuriously in the stern, he told her of his mother’s plans respecting himself and Gertrud, to which news Cara listened with loud, derisive laughter, and a beaming face. He also related how he was to lead a pastoral life on the farm of a patriarchal relative—in order to learn all the new methods.
“But when I come back in September you will be here, Mitli, won’t you?”
“Why, of course,” she answered impatiently. “Am I not always here?”
“And you will write often—often—as before? Swear it!”
“Yes—often.”
“If I thought you would ever care for anyone else,”—and here the passion of jealousy flamed in his Italian eyes—“I’d kill myself—if I had the least doubt ofyou—I’d”—and he paused and leant on his oars, and stared at Cara fiercely—“I’d upset the boat, and drown us both, yes, in five minutes!”
“Don’t talk nonsense, Fritz! You know I am fond of you. As to the drowning—you forget that I can swim!”
“Not if you are out here in the middle,—and inyour clothes—the water is too cold, and as to the depth, the lake is bottomless.”
“Don’t talk like this, it bores me!” said Cara,—secretly uneasy for all her sang-froid. She was aware that Fritz was capable of mad, rash actions, carried out on the impulse of the moment. To-day he looked strange, very strange! The veins on his forehead stood out like cord, and there was an odd light in his eyes.
“Come,” she continued authoritatively, “it is time we are getting back; the sun is slipping behind Pilatus. Keep out of this steamer’s wash, and row to the landing,” and without another word he obeyed.
As the two slowly mounted the hill hand in hand, half-way in the ascent, they halted on a little plateau where, under some ancient pine trees, there was a rough wooden bench,—a thoughtful provision not uncommon in a land of views. Here Fritz said:
“My mother is all eyes, like the dog in the fairy tale. She sees everything; but she will see me, my own master before long. In a week I go,—and the sooner I depart, the sooner I return to you, my Mitli, and for always,” and he snatched her into his arms, and kissed her passionately.
“Well, it pleased him, poor boy,” said Cara to herself; “he was certainly extraordinarily handsome, and what, after all, were a few kisses?”