Decorated HeadingCHAPTER III.A LANDPARTEI.Decorated First LetterOnthe following morning, Sara came into the room where Falkenberg was standing alone, waiting for the rest of the company who were going to Lahnburg. In her hand she carried a small canvas.‘Here, Herr Falkenberg, is the sketch you wished to see. I remembered it, and brought it downstairs with me.’Falkenberg thanked her, took the sketch, and looked at it in silence, until Sara said:‘It is as I expected. You are racking your brains to find out how to say “Atrocious” so that it shall sound like something else.’‘If I had to say “Atrocious,” I’m afraid I should say it, much though I might dislike having to do so,’ he answered, smiling. ‘As it is, I wish to say nothing of the kind.’‘Oh, what a relief!’‘There are the carriages coming round,’ he added composedly, ‘to take us to the Ems railway station. May I take the sketch to my own room? There is no time to look at it now.’‘Certainly, if you care to do so.’‘Thank you,’ said he, taking it up, and leaving the room with it.Sara sat down at the piano, and played tunes, until at last Frau von Trockenau came whirling into the room with a pair of long gloves in her hand.‘Are you ready, Sara? Yes—of course. How horrid of you! You never keep the company waiting. What a rush it is, this life! Oh, how I long to be alone sometimes!’‘Complimentary to us and to poor Count Trockenau!’The countess laughed heartily.‘My poor Fritz!—of course I spoke exceptionally.’‘You know you would hate to be alone,’ added Sara. ‘You cannot live out of a rush. I wonder what you would do if you had to lead my life at Elberthal.’‘Ah, but you have a great soul. Mine is such a very little one. Little in every way. It is so small that it has led me to—what do you think?’‘I am sure I cannot say. To tell Hans Lemde that I am dying to paint his portrait, I dare say.’‘No! But oh, what a lovely idea! I will tell him so, and I will say that you said it. Poor Hans! I imagine him sitting to you. Oh, I think I see his face!’They both laughed in a manner which Baron Lemde would probably think malignant, and Frau von Trockenau went on.‘No, but I was so annoyed at the way in which Helene and Maria Lehnberg behaved last evening—giving themselves such airs,that I have done something spiteful to them to-day.’‘Shameful! But what is it?’‘I have doomed them to drive with me and Lemde in the barouche; Fritz rides, and I am sending you first in the pony-phaeton with Herr Falkenberg.’‘I see nothing so very spiteful in that. Why should your cousins object?’‘My dear Sara! I believe you live in a dream. Don’t you know that Helene Lehnberg would give her right hand if Falk——Oh, here he is. Good-morning, Herr Falkenberg. I shall not be a moment. How beautifully you are dressed, Sara! Beside you, I feel like a collection of tags of coloured ribbon. You are both ready. Well, shall we go? Herr Falkenberg, I am going to ask you to drive Miss Ford to the station in the pony-phaeton. Herr von Lemde will go with my cousins and me.’‘I shall be delighted,’ observed Herr Falkenberg; and Sara followed the countess out of the room, lost in wonder as to what shemeant by saying that she had done something spiteful to her cousins, and what it was Helene Lehnberg would give her right hand for.Very soon she was seated beside Falkenberg, and they were driving down the hill, along the Nassau Road to Ems, which was reached before long; past the hotel of theVier Jahreszeiten, to the station.There is a wayside railway station on a German line, which station, twenty years ago, was a thing of the future, and which I will here call Lahnburg. It is the scene of theLeiden des jungen Werther—it is the place where Goethe adored, and where the object of his adoration placidly ‘went on cutting bread and butter.’ It was then Goethe’s, Lotte’s, Jerusalem’s home; now it is an out-of-the-way country town which is completely out of the beaten route of the tourist, and which few persons have heard of, and fewer still care to visit.Leave the train—it is a slow one—all the trains are slow which deign to stop at Lahnburg.At Lahnburg they hurry no one—themselves least of all. Now we are on the asphalted platform of the little station, in the presence of a Prussian, with a blue coat and a fierce moustache, who sternly demands ourGepäckschein. If we have luggage, we meekly give it him, thankful to be so well, if so severely taken care of. If we have none, we mention the fact, and leave him to wonder what sinister motives could have brought us to that spot, and to look at us as if he would place us under arrest, were not his powers so shamefully limited. We leave the station, and take the road leading towards the town.Along an uninteresting country-road, till we begin to drive up the hill around and upon which the town is built. Up the steep, rugged streets, between the high antique houses, slowly and joltingly lumbering over the stones, in and out, and round about up the hill, till we arrive at the Marktplatz, and behold, surrounding the great cobble-stoned square, all the principal buildings of the town! Pause, Jehu! thou reckless charioteer—pause,that we may fully take into our minds the scene about us. Here we are, in the middle of the square. There, opposite to us, stands the solemn oldDom, built of a warmly-hued, reddish stone. From its midst rises the nucleus of it all—that which is older than Christianity, the seamed, cracked, scarred, black, oldHeidenthurm—the ‘heathen-tower,’ remnant of long-past Roman rule. Blasted, black and ruined, but grim and defiant, majestic and undegraded still, in the midst of its wreck, it fronts us, and towers over the town and landscape beneath; for theDomis built on the very summit of the hill; and before it was, was theHeidenthurm. It watches over the fertile hill-slopes and over the level, poplar-fringed meads at the foot of them, between which the gliding Lahn holds its course. Since that grim old sentinel first took his stand there, what changes have not taken place! The very face of the landscape has altered, while dynasties changed and kings and people rose and fell, and kingdoms and empires flourished and passedaway. Varied have been the signs of the heavens above him—more varied far the life-stories, the joys, the sorrows, the raptures, and the agonies of the races which have grown up, have lived and died, married and brought children into the world—while he stood there defiant and unchangeably grim.There on the right hand of the square is a more modern safety-guard, and one more in consonance with the advanced civilisation which has arisen since theHeidenthurmwas built. This latter guardian is theWachtstube,Wache,Hauptwache, as it is indiscriminately called—the guardhouse, peopled with half a dozen scrubby-looking soldiers, and a couple of lieutenants, with a white mongrel cur, alternately their plaything and their victim during the weary hours of ennui. TheHeidenthurmturns its back upon this outcome of a high civilisation and the Christian religion—what has it in common with theWachtstube, or theWachtstubewith it? To the left, more houses: that big clumsy building with the Prussian eagle over the doorway is theRathhaus;therein the Herr Bürgermeister and his belongings live and move and have their being. Filling in the gaps more and more houses, each one a picture, each roof a distracting medley of hills and dales, ups and downs, dormer windows, turrets, chimney-stacks whose irregularity would break the heart of a high-minded architect of modern suburban villas. And here too, last but not least, for those who want accommodation, with mine host bowing and smiling before the door, is that lumbering old structure, the inn of the place—theGasthof zum Herzoglichen Hause, a building bearing some inexplicable, indefinable, but most indubitable resemblance to Noah’s ark, as pictured to the popular imagination in the toyshop windows.Our party had proceeded thus far—that is, to the market square—on their way from the station. The countess and one of her cousins only had taken seats in the carriage which had met them. The men, Sara Ford, and the other Fräulein von Lehnberg had walked. The German ladies went into raptures overthe place; it wasreizend,entzückend, and many other superlative expressions of admiration. Sara asked Falkenberg aside:‘Is it impossible to go into the oldDomand explore Lotte Buff’s house, and these other quaint old places?’‘It is, on the contrary, very possible,mein Fräulein. But,’ he added in a lower tone, ‘would you care to go with all these people?’Sara shrugged her shoulders, smiling a little.‘I see you would not. I will arrange that you have a good view of whatever you wish to see. Meantime, suppose we go on to my house, where lunch will be ready for us, I expect.’‘I wonder,’ thought Sara within herself, ‘whether his wife and family are away from home, or whether his wife is just a slave and aHausfrau, as so many of them appear to be.’The carriage was now driven past theHauptwache, up a street leading out of a corner of the square, on to a breezy uplandroad, from which there was a fine view over the level fields far below to the left, while on the right there were pleasant-looking fir-clad hills, over which a bracing breeze blew.Herr Falkenberg’s ‘summer-house’ was situated not very far up the said road; it was an old grey grange, standing on a slope at the right hand, surrounded on three sides by what had been a moat, and it was over the remains of a drawbridge that the carriage drove into the grounds. Sara lingered a moment before the grey moss-grown stone archway, trying to make out a half-defaced inscription above it. Herr Falkenberg lingered too, and said:‘You cannot read that, Miss Ford. I own that it was one of the great attractions of the place to me when I bought it.’‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘I cannot see.’‘First there are the initials of the builder, R. K., which stand, I believe, for Rodolf Kammermann; and then, beneath the date, 1560; and on either side, still easily to be read,Mein Genügen. I thought it was a good omen for happiness.’‘Yes, indeed. And is that the name of the place?’‘Yes. It is called to this dayMein Genügen.’[A]‘I like it,’ said Sara, musingly. ‘That old baron, or whatever he was, must have had poetry in his soul.’‘Yes; poetry which he succeeded in expressing simply and beautifully, in this old house with the lovely view,’ said Falkenberg, as they followed the others, overtaking them at the door.From the door-steps there certainly was a very fair prospect—an uninterrupted view to the river in the vale below, and to the hills on the opposite side of it. To the left could just be seen some of the roofs of the town, showing thatMein Genügenwas not utterly alone in the world, and the higher red turrets of theDom, and the ragged top of theHeidenthurm.‘Not theWachtstube, fortunately,’ remarked Sara.‘Luckily not,’ rejoined Falkenberg.More bursts of delight from the ladies—rushes into the house, into the garden, everywhere. A courteous invitation from the host to enter, and lay aside their outdoor things and rest, until lunch should be ready. Which invitation was complied with. An entrance into the house, and more admiration, for the salon was a quaint and charming room, full of quaint, charming, and costly things.‘He must be alone, I suppose,’ Sara decided within herself, as no lady came forward, and Herr Falkenberg continued himself to do the honours with an ease of manner and an apparent simplicity which exquisitely concealed the perfect tact he employed.He contrived—for he had that special gift so rarely found—to make each separate person there to feel him or herself to be ‘the honoured guest’par excellence; and he succeeded at least in delighting two of his visitors, Frau von Trockenau and Sara Ford. The two Fräulein von Lehnberg were rather more difficult. They were annoyed thatthere was only Hans von Lemde to be monopolised.They stood in the window, talking with him and Graf von Trockenau, who was trying to recall the particulars of some place in the neighbourhood ‘which everyone ought to see,’ and in this endeavour he was feebly and ineffectually seconded by Hans von Lemde, whose profound studies in such literature as theAlmanach de Gothahad apparently disqualified him for more commonplace topics. Sara had seated herself beside a curious old painted spinet which stood at one side of the room. Frau von Trockenau was beside her, and Falkenberg was leaning on the aforesaid spinet talking to them, or rather listening while the countess talked to him.‘It is a paradise of a place, Herr Falkenberg. There is nothing I should like better than to have such a place—only a week of it would be enough for me, because it is too small to have a large party in. It would be dull beyond expression after seven days, and you see my husband is not a financier—thevery reverse, poor fellow!—so he could not afford to indulge me with such a toy for one week in the year.’‘I spend a good deal more than one week in the year here,gnädige Frau——’‘Ah, yes; but you have a great soul, like Miss Ford. I was telling her so this morning. You can exist without company and distractions.’‘Perhaps Herr Falkenberg does not care for visitors,’ suggested Sara, utterly unconscious of committing any solecism. ‘Perhaps the society of his wife and family is sufficient for him.’‘Sara!’ ejaculated the countess; and then, as if much entertained, the pretty little lady tried to stifle a laugh which would not be altogether repressed. Into Falkenberg’s eyes leaped a strange, disappointed expression; and at that moment they met those of Sara, who was looking up at him, surprised at his manner and at that of her friend. The man’s colour rose, and he laughed too, a little unsteadily, as he replied:‘I am not so fortunate as Miss Ford imagines. I have neither wife nor child.’‘No wife!’ echoed Sara, in astonishment; and then, laughing too, but with a heightened colour, she said:‘I am sure I beg your pardon. I don’t know what made me take it for granted that you were married. No one ever told me so. It was stupid of me.’‘I do not see why you should think so,’ he answered, trying to laugh in his turn; but there was a tinge of constraint in the laugh, and by some means his eyes met those of the Countess of Trockenau. She appeared to be laughing still, a little; her handkerchief before her mouth, but it was not all a laugh in the glance that met his. Countess Carla had indeed a most active brain, if one somewhat lacking in consequence, and failing in the matter of logic. The thought which then darted through her mind was, ‘Falkenberg is much struck with Sara Ford. He does not like to find that she has all along thought he was married and done for; andthat, therefore, she can never have bestowed one tender thought upon him. And it is a shame, too. I believe they are made for one another, and I do like him so much. Why should it not be? I like the idea.’She ceased to laugh entirely. She rose, placed her arm within his, and asked him to tell her about a picture at the opposite side of the room.They walked away. Sara was left, with her elbow resting on the top of the painted spinet, thinking:‘Not married? how odd! But why should I have supposed he was? I suppose that was what Carla meant, when she said she had been spiteful to the Lehnbergs—she said Helene Lehnberg would give her right hand—oh, that was too bad! He is immensely rich, if not noble. Yes, I see it all now ... and certainly he is far too good for that vain, boastful coquette.’When lunch was announced they went into the dining-room, and the repast was in no way calculated to throw discredit on the managementof the occasional summer residence of a rich Frankfort banker, or upon the presence of mind and mental powers of his housekeeper. Sara found herself seated at one side of her host, while Countess Carla was opposite; while Fräulein von Lehnberg, drawing her black brows together, wondered on what known or unknown principle of etiquette that Englishwoman was given a higher place than herself. But Herr Falkenberg was most distinctly not only host but master in his own house, and when he had placed a chair for Helene and asked her to take a certain place, she had perforce consented. Sara did not bestow much attention upon the order of precedence; but her interest had been roused in her host, and she saw from a certain beaming look on Countess Carla’s face that she was thoroughly well-pleased with everything, and with herself in particular. In consequence of this, she seconded all Falkenberg’s efforts at conversation, and the meal was passing off brightly enough. Sara observed her host more closely, and the moreshe observed him the better she liked him. By the time that lunch was half over, she had forgotten that he was a great critic, who had got a sketch of hers upon which he was going to pass judgment: this point disappeared in her growing appreciation of his qualities as a man and a companion. His perfect modesty in the midst of his wealth and great surroundings struck her more than anything else. Sara loved to see power in man or woman; but assumption she hated with a hatred that was almost ludicrous.Just at this time the door opened, and a fresh-looking young gentleman entered, started on seeing so many guests, and was about to back out again; but Falkenberg sprang up, saying:‘Willkommen!you thought I was alone, I expect. Come in and join us.’With which he introduced him as Baron Arthur Eckberg, to the two Berlin ladies in particular. He was awarded a seat between them. Helene’s black brows relaxed in their frown. Presently her voice was heard indulcet tones. She was appeased; and the countess became more radiant than ever.When the party again repaired to the salon, a rather confused conversation ensued. It was found that three hours remained to be disposed of, before it would be time to return to the railway station. Herr Falkenberg, with a courteous patience which was beautiful to behold, tried to find out what his lady-guests, to use an ancient phrase, ‘would be at.’ This was rather a difficult task, as the Lehnberg sisters displayed emphatically ‘a diversity of gifts, but the same spirit,’—the gifts, namely, of caprice, contrariety, and perverseness, and the same spirit of cool self-seeking and resolution that all should give way to them. Some one appealed to Sara.‘Thank you,’ said she, holding up a little sketching-board, ‘the present professional opportunity is too good to be missed. I am going to sketch theDom, if my going out alone will not be thought rude. I can find my way to the Market Square, and I will come back here in plenty of time, so I begthat no one will be in any trouble about me.’‘Don’t go far away from here, as I may join you later,whenthe others have made up their minds,’ said the countess, in the blandest of voices.‘Very well,’ said Sara, smiling, and, with a slight salute to the rest of the company, she took her way out of the house. Falkenberg had not said a word either for or against her resolution to go out alone.She left the garden, pausing once again to contemplate with a peculiar pleasure the old grey gateway, and to read over the inscription, which seemed now to have a new meaning for her.‘Mein Genügen,’ she thought. ‘Yes, I should fancy that that man would make a “contentment” wherever he goes. There is the harmony of a strong soul at peace with itself and the world, in all he says and does. But I wonder he is not married. I could imagine some woman being very much in love with him; and if he loved her, he wouldmost assuredly make her happy. Well, Carla says that with the exception of her husband and herself, the nicest people are not married.’She smiled as she remembered that saying, and, looking up, found herself again in the centre of the Marktplatz, which was empty of all human life.The afternoon was hot, and the sun shone bakingly upon the round stones which paved the square. A drowsy calm hung over everything. Sara, pausing, looked around her, trying to choose some vantage-ground from which to sketch theDom. She perceived that to the left of it, immediately under its wall, there were steps leading into a kind of small retired square, which looked shady and cool. Not a good position from which to make her sketch, but it was inviting. The ardour for work had left her. Ever since last night she had been longing intensely to be alone. She bent her steps towards the spot, ascended the low, broad flight of stone stairs, and found herself in a square, shady,gravelled space, in the midst of which rose a heavy, tasteless-looking stone monument, something between an ambitious tombstone and a grovelling obelisk. She walked up to it and looked at it. It bore a long list of names, and an inscription to the effect that the town of Lahnburg raised this humbleDenkmalto the memory of those of her sons who had died fighting forKaiser und Vaterland, in 1870-71. There were the regiments to which the deceased had belonged, their ages, and the names of the engagements in which they had fallen—Sedan, Metz, Saarbrück, etc. And below all,Auf Wiedersehen!Sara read it all, strangely moved by its homely simplicity, the confident expression of belief in a meeting again, and touched by the profound peace of this quietRuheplatz—so fitting for those brave hearts. At one side of the square there was a low wall, and some seats before it, on one of which she seated herself, and found that it commanded a glorious view of the low-lying country through which there the Lahn flows. The great, coolshadow of the cathedral was cast over her, while beneath her eyes the fertile land lay spread under a quivering veil of golden sun-pierced mist.It was a feast for eye and heart. The artist soul of the woman drank in all the broad, calm, peaceful beauty of it, and her eyes dwelt lovingly upon every exquisite curve of distant hill, on every silver link in the windings of the placid river. She put her hand upon her sketch-book—opened it; even took her pencil in her hand; then laid it down again, with a restless sigh breaking from her lips. She felt the need of being alone, and yet, now that she was alone, she dreaded to acknowledge her own state of mind to herself. Her thoughts were vague and disconnected. There was a prevailing sensation that the old life no longer satisfied her. She knew that between her and her rejoicing fulness of contentment in her art, a barrier had arisen. A third thought now always intruded between herself and her purpose. She could handle no pencil, take upno book, behold no beautiful thing, form no plans for the future, without the influence of Jerome Wellfield making itself overpoweringly felt. At times—at this moment, even—she almost resented this new feeling; longed for freedom, and revolted at finding her soul enslaved. She felt a tremor sometimes—the unspoken question tormented her, ‘What if this passion be all wrong, instead of all right? What if it paralyse, instead of expanding, my nature? If it so absorb me that I can forget others—forget, for one moment, my highest aims—then it is surely wrong. A love that is pure and true ought to make one more unselfish, ought to make one love better and more largely and liberally everything and every person about one. Is it so with me?’Some such thought as this was agitating her mind this afternoon. She was striving to be reasonable, to keep her head steady in the midst of her heart’s wild storm—piteously striving, while the tyrant sentiment shook her with ruthless hand; while between her andthe wholesome outside nature, came the beautiful face which now haunted her thoughts so doggedly, and beyond the twitter of the hopping birds about and above her, sounded that voice to which every fibre had thrilled, every sense had responded, last night. A lark suddenly rose, fluttering aloft, pouring out a full-hearted song—such a flood of trilling ecstasy as must have nearly burst his little throat. She heard it, and it troubled her; it interrupted the memory of that other song, in such weird contrast to this one, which Jerome had sung:‘In dreams I saw thy face,And saw the nightFilling thy heart’s drear space,And saw the snakeThat gnaws that heart apace.I saw, my love,Thy great and sore distress;I murmur not.’‘What am I thinking of?’ she almost uttered, starting quickly. ‘I am nervous. I must be. Why didn’t I go to those Lehnberg girls and be amiable to them, instead of standingaloof and helping Carla to be ill-natured, for I know she dislikes them. I should have felt better now, had I done so. I am degraded by indulging in this folly, and I——’‘Surely, Miss Ford, you did not think this the best place from which to sketch theDom?’ said Falkenberg’s voice, just beside her.Sara turned slowly, too thoroughly absorbed in her own thoughts to be startled. Her eyes dwelt at first almost unrecognisingly upon his face. There was trouble in them—a kind of pained, hunted look. Gradually they cleared, as she came down again into the world of reality, and saw him stooping towards her. He was alone. Her troubled heart grew calmer, as she saw his good face, and grave, critical brown eyes, full of wisdom and full of kindness, fixed upon her.‘Whatever this man told me, I should believe implicitly,’ she thought within herself, and she smiled welcome to him. Indeed, she did welcome him in her heart. He came as a deliverer. Her thraldom had begun to gall her, when he appeared.‘Where have you left the countess?’ she asked.‘At my house. She discovered that she could not walk so far as the others were going, and that she wished to inspect my house and farm and gardens; for she was certain that she could find a great deal to improve in all of them.’He smiled, and so did Sara, the latter of course being unconscious of the additional remarks made by the candid countess when alone with her favourite guest—remarks which it had required all his tact to receive with an appearance of amused indifference.‘Ah, she is not fond of walking. You may well ask if I thought this a good place from which to sketch theDom. I came down here, and then found that I was not inclined to draw. I hope you do not feel that you have been beguiled here on false pretences.’‘By no means. I am glad you don’t wish to draw; perhaps you will be all the more disposed to converse.’‘If you will “introduce a subject,” as they did in the old game, I shall be delighted.’‘I have a subject quite ready. I hope you will not think me very impertinent for introducing it; and if you consider my questions unwarrantable, tell me so, and I will apologise and be silent.’‘Now I know you are going to ask me questions about myself, which I give you free leave to do. I know of absolutely nothing in my life which I care to conceal.’‘Then, do you live entirely at Elberthal?’‘I have lived there now for two years, entirely, except when friends have invited me to visit them.’‘And alone?’‘Alone, except for my old servant, Ellen, my second mother, who lives with me.’‘And you have neither father nor mother?’ he asked.‘No! My mother died when I was a baby, almost. My father worshipped her. He never married a second time. Nearly three years ago he also died. I have veryfew relations, and those not congenial. I may therefore say, I am alone in the world.’‘And—and—excuse the question,’ he said, flushing violently, so that she looked at him in surprise. ‘Are you—but really, I have no right to ask.’‘What do you mean, Herr Falkenberg?’‘I wondered whether you were entirely dependent on your art, for——’‘Oh, I thought you were going to ask, like my aunt in England, what I did when I was asked out, and had no chaperon to take me,’ said Sara, laughing. ‘Am I dependent on my art for the means of subsistence? No! I have just one hundred pounds a year of my own, Herr Falkenberg, safe and secure.’‘I am glad of that,’ said he, with a sympathetic smile of relief. ‘It makes all the difference. With that income certain, you may live to your art as art.’‘Yes, I find it a very good thing. My hundred a year is worth a thousand to me, I assure you. But what a paltry little sum it must appear to you,’ she added, with a lookof humour in her grey eyes. ‘What was it I once read about “spinsters and widows of one or two hundred a year, and other minute capitalists of the same kind?” I remember being very much amused with it. Do you not almost feel to require a magnifying-glass—mental, I mean—to enable you to see my hundred a year at all—you with your immense transactions, and your great income?’‘My dear Miss Ford,’ he expostulated, blushing as if to apologise for having such a large income when she had such a very small one, ‘pardon me; I ought never to have alluded——’Sara laughed with hearty enjoyment.‘Do not look so distressed,’ she said. ‘When I think how frightened I was at the countess’s account of you, and how I quaked when I saw her bringing you up to me yesterday, and then realise your goodness—why should you not ask how much money I have, and why should I not tell you that I have a hundred a year? I think there is such animmense amount of false delicacy wasted upon such matters.’‘Yet I know that you would not think of asking me what my income is,’ said Falkenberg, composedly.‘There is a difference between a great financier and a “minute capitalist” like myself. Have you some plan for turning my hundred a year into two?’ she added, laughing.‘No; I was innocent of wishing to speculate with your money. I was only anxious to know that you were not obliged to speculate with your brains.’‘No; I have been most fortunate, I consider, in that respect. When I first went to Elberthal I was certainly seriously puzzled to arrange my affairs, from a poverty of means, not anembarras de richesses. You see—I daresay you can bend your comprehension to the fact—itwasa little difficult to make a hundred a year pay for board and lodging for two, and for my lessons as well.’‘It must have been impossible,’ exclaimedFalkenberg, looking so shocked that Sara laughed again gleefully.‘I am sure I could “harrow you up,” as the Americans say, if I were to relate some of Ellen’s and my contrivances at that time. We both were inspired with a Spartan resolution not to get into debt if we had to starve for it.’‘I cannot conceive how you lived,’ he said, in a voice which had actual pain in it. ‘How can you laugh at it? It is shocking. What were your friends doing to allow——’‘Oh! my friends were few, and they were all so angry at the course I had taken, that they would have rejoiced in the idea that I was being humbled—that perhaps I should be obliged to return home. But I was going to tell you how we went on—if you want to hear, that is.’‘Oh, if you will be so good as to tell me!’‘I had lessons from Wilhelmi; I daresay you know him?’‘Yes.’‘He is a splendid fellow, do you know?At first I had great difficulty in getting him to teach me at all. Then he suddenly became quite kind. I believe it was as soon as he saw that I meant work, and not nonsense. He was good enough to say that I had talent, and since then he will accept absolutely nothing from me for my lessons. He says I can give him a service of plate, with inscriptions, when I am a popular painter. Is not that noble generosity?’‘Very kind,’ assented Falkenberg, almost coldly.‘And his wife and daughter have been almost as kind as himself. I feel that they are friends indeed.’‘But your people at home?’ he began.‘All my “people at home” consist in an uncle, a brother of my mother’s, and his family. My father was professor of modern history at —— College, in London. His opinions, both religious and social, were advanced. When he was living, his house was a favourite place with clever, cultivated men and women, of all shades of opinion; mostof them, like himself, not particularly well off. Then he died, suddenly, and left me, as I said, with one hundred pounds a year. I was just one-and-twenty, and my small possessions were fortunately absolutely at my own disposal. I tried living with “my people at home.” My uncle is a clergyman; rector of a very small village in the south of England. They exist there; they don’t live. It soon grew intolerable to me. I had been accustomed to the society of men and women of mind; and the gossip about the curate, and my cousins’ frantic efforts to imitate the dress of the county ladies who occasionally came to church, and who most likely spent as many hundreds on their clothes as Charlotte and Louisa had sovereigns, drove me almost wild. Then the curate tried to convert me——’‘Heavens!’‘And I spoke disrespectfully of the Church. My aunt and cousins were speechless, and sent me to Coventry for a long time. I remembered how well my pictures had sold atsome fancy fairs and bazaars in London, to which I had sometimes contributed, and I resolved that I would use the powers God had given me. I laid all my plans in silence, only taking my old Ellen into my confidence. She vowed she would follow me to the world’s end.’‘Of course!’‘Of course? Not at all. She had an excellent situation offered her, as housekeeper, in an English country house, where she could have done as she pleased, and where she also would have received a hundred a year. When incomes dwindle down to hundreds, Herr Falkenberg, one finds one’s-self on a pecuniary level with strange companions sometimes.’‘How you harp upon that stupid hundred pounds!’ exclaimed Falkenberg. ‘I believe you wish to defy me with it. Well?’‘She gave it up, and accompanied me. There was a storm at the rectory when I unfolded my plans. My uncle forbade me to go, and said it would have broken mymother’s heart.’ Her lip curled scornfully. ‘My mother, who always taught me that no kind of work was shameful, and that every kind of idleness was! Naturally I took no notice of that. My cousins said I was a Bohemian, and liked adventures, and that it all came of my having been brought up amongst unbelievers. My aunt was speechless for a time, and then said, “Go abroad, child, alone! What will you do for a chaperon, when you are invited anywhere?”’‘And you?’ he asked, laughing.‘I said, “I suppose I shall go without one.” And then I came to Elberthal. I have been there now for two years. One of my cousins occasionally writes to me, and I to her. The rest ignore me. And I—have learnt to live alone. With plenty of work it is not so very difficult, and the depraved nature of the German customs has even allowed me to go out without a chaperon now and then, without visiting the sin too severely upon me.’‘Then how did you meet with the Trockenaus?’‘Ah!’ said Sara, a smile of pleasure flashing over her face, ‘that was another pleasant thing. Count Trockenau was once a student in the very college in which my father was professor of history, and had attended some of his lectures; and, it seems, had been at his house, and seen me when I was a mere child. I don’t remember it, but he does. They saw a picture with my name, at an exhibition in Berlin; and he actually took the trouble to ascertain whether I had anything to do with the Professor Ford he had known. That is a year ago; since then, they have been unvaryingly kind to me. But people are kind, it seems to me. As for Countess Carla—she is goodness itself.’‘Yes; there is a wonderful charm about her,’ he said, and then they were both silent for a time.Her clear grey eyes were fixed upon the fields below them—eyes so perfectly true, pure, and candid, he thought he had never seen. Now also, he saw the slight line about the mouth—a line which was sometimes alittle hard, as if struggle and disillusionism had called it there. Her open gaze, her fearless smile, her unembarrassed manner of holding her way through the world—what was it all? Innocence, most assuredly; but ignorance—no. She knew the world, and knew that it was evil. He thought that in addition to innocence there was perfect comprehension of her position, great ambition, a great deal of pride, and, mixed with that, a touch of indifference that was almost cynical. She did not sneer; there was no sneer on the beautiful frank mouth, but there was disdain. He had never seen anything quite like her before. As he sat, looking earnestly at her, he began to reflect that very soon she would pass from his life. This conversation in the afternoon sunshine, under the shadow of theDom, was pleasant—as sweet as it was unexpected, and different from all other conversations he had ever had. But soon it would be over. After a few days at Trockenau, she would return to her atelier; he to his business and his—pleasures. His pleasures,as he looked back upon them now, seen in the light ofthissun, looked grey and dim and poor. Of course he need not lose sight of her, and the most natural way of keeping her in view, considering their relative positions, would be to give her a commission to paint him a picture. He felt himself revolted at the idea—felt the blood rise to his cheeks at the thought. Surely there must be some other way of keeping her in sight.At this moment she turned, and found his eyes so intently fixed on her face, that her colour too rose a little, as she asked:‘Have I said something that shocks you too, Herr Falkenberg? I should be sorry for that.’‘Miss Ford!’ he exclaimed earnestly, ‘what you have told me makes me honour and respect you from my very soul. Do not for a moment think that your confidence has been misplaced, as it must have been if I were “shocked” at anything you have said. We only met yesterday, and yet I am bold enough to say that if you would consent toplace me on the list of your friends and servants, I should indeed feel honoured.’Sara looked at him with eloquent eyes and parted lips.‘You are very kind,’ she said earnestly, ‘and I accept your kindness. I—my friends are not many, but they are prized. I should think it a privilege to count you amongst them, for I believe you have the same feelings about friendship that I have myself, and my ideas on the subject are by no means low ones.’‘Nor mine. And for that reason I am like yourself. My friends are few,’ he said, taking the hand she extended, and raising it to his lips, his eyes still fixed on her face. Suddenly her own eyes filled with tears. She turned aside her face, and covered it with her other hand.‘What have I done to deserve such kindness?’ she said tremulously, and profoundly moved. And indeed, what is there that should move a human soul more than such a discovery as this—the discovery of a friend?Schiller felt it when he sang in that great ode, which never has been and never can be translated without being ruined:‘Wem der grosse Wurf gelungen,Eines Freundes Freund zu sein,Wer ein holdes Weib errungen,Mische seinen Jubel ein!Ja, wer auch nureineSeeleSeinnennt, auf dem Erdenrund.Und wer’s nie gekonnt, der stehleWeinend sich aus diesem Bund.’‘It is not kindness so much as selfishness,’ said he, gently. ‘Do we not all try to grasp that which seems very desirable to us?’‘It is a kind of selfishness I like,’ said Sara, recovering, and flashing a bright glance upon him through the mist which still veiled her eyes.‘I should like to take you to one or two places here—Lotte Buff’s house, and Goethe’s Well, and some others, if you would care to go,’ he said, as if to put aside her still unspoken thanks.‘I should, immensely. Shall we have time before the others come back? Where are they gone, by-the-way?’‘They are gone to a celebrated restauration on the top of that hill, the Kalsmund, which you see opposite, with the ruined tower upon it. At this restauration they are famed for theirBowle—pineappleBowle; and I heard young Lemde, and the count, and Arthur Eckberg arranging to take the ladies there and have a large bowl of the saidBowle, in the garden of the restauration,’ said Falkenberg, with an imperturbable gravity which the light in his eyes belied.Sara laughed.‘Should we not rather go and find the countess, and ask her to come with us? I am sure she will be dull.’Accordingly they went to the house, and found the countess nothing loath to accept their invitation that she would accompany them. They had a very delightful tour of discovery; and Sara noticed that wherever they went, their companion appeared to beknown, and that he was greeted with smiles and a pleasant word.When it was time they returned to the house, and found the rest of the party there, all in the highest good-humour, and all pitying them for having missed the treat they had had—the walk, the view, the ruins, and theBowle.It was time to go to the railway station, and after a railway journey of one hour and a drive of another, they found that theirLandparteiwas over, and they were again at Schloss Trockenau.
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Onthe following morning, Sara came into the room where Falkenberg was standing alone, waiting for the rest of the company who were going to Lahnburg. In her hand she carried a small canvas.
‘Here, Herr Falkenberg, is the sketch you wished to see. I remembered it, and brought it downstairs with me.’
Falkenberg thanked her, took the sketch, and looked at it in silence, until Sara said:
‘It is as I expected. You are racking your brains to find out how to say “Atrocious” so that it shall sound like something else.’
‘If I had to say “Atrocious,” I’m afraid I should say it, much though I might dislike having to do so,’ he answered, smiling. ‘As it is, I wish to say nothing of the kind.’
‘Oh, what a relief!’
‘There are the carriages coming round,’ he added composedly, ‘to take us to the Ems railway station. May I take the sketch to my own room? There is no time to look at it now.’
‘Certainly, if you care to do so.’
‘Thank you,’ said he, taking it up, and leaving the room with it.
Sara sat down at the piano, and played tunes, until at last Frau von Trockenau came whirling into the room with a pair of long gloves in her hand.
‘Are you ready, Sara? Yes—of course. How horrid of you! You never keep the company waiting. What a rush it is, this life! Oh, how I long to be alone sometimes!’
‘Complimentary to us and to poor Count Trockenau!’
The countess laughed heartily.
‘My poor Fritz!—of course I spoke exceptionally.’
‘You know you would hate to be alone,’ added Sara. ‘You cannot live out of a rush. I wonder what you would do if you had to lead my life at Elberthal.’
‘Ah, but you have a great soul. Mine is such a very little one. Little in every way. It is so small that it has led me to—what do you think?’
‘I am sure I cannot say. To tell Hans Lemde that I am dying to paint his portrait, I dare say.’
‘No! But oh, what a lovely idea! I will tell him so, and I will say that you said it. Poor Hans! I imagine him sitting to you. Oh, I think I see his face!’
They both laughed in a manner which Baron Lemde would probably think malignant, and Frau von Trockenau went on.
‘No, but I was so annoyed at the way in which Helene and Maria Lehnberg behaved last evening—giving themselves such airs,that I have done something spiteful to them to-day.’
‘Shameful! But what is it?’
‘I have doomed them to drive with me and Lemde in the barouche; Fritz rides, and I am sending you first in the pony-phaeton with Herr Falkenberg.’
‘I see nothing so very spiteful in that. Why should your cousins object?’
‘My dear Sara! I believe you live in a dream. Don’t you know that Helene Lehnberg would give her right hand if Falk——Oh, here he is. Good-morning, Herr Falkenberg. I shall not be a moment. How beautifully you are dressed, Sara! Beside you, I feel like a collection of tags of coloured ribbon. You are both ready. Well, shall we go? Herr Falkenberg, I am going to ask you to drive Miss Ford to the station in the pony-phaeton. Herr von Lemde will go with my cousins and me.’
‘I shall be delighted,’ observed Herr Falkenberg; and Sara followed the countess out of the room, lost in wonder as to what shemeant by saying that she had done something spiteful to her cousins, and what it was Helene Lehnberg would give her right hand for.
Very soon she was seated beside Falkenberg, and they were driving down the hill, along the Nassau Road to Ems, which was reached before long; past the hotel of theVier Jahreszeiten, to the station.
There is a wayside railway station on a German line, which station, twenty years ago, was a thing of the future, and which I will here call Lahnburg. It is the scene of theLeiden des jungen Werther—it is the place where Goethe adored, and where the object of his adoration placidly ‘went on cutting bread and butter.’ It was then Goethe’s, Lotte’s, Jerusalem’s home; now it is an out-of-the-way country town which is completely out of the beaten route of the tourist, and which few persons have heard of, and fewer still care to visit.
Leave the train—it is a slow one—all the trains are slow which deign to stop at Lahnburg.At Lahnburg they hurry no one—themselves least of all. Now we are on the asphalted platform of the little station, in the presence of a Prussian, with a blue coat and a fierce moustache, who sternly demands ourGepäckschein. If we have luggage, we meekly give it him, thankful to be so well, if so severely taken care of. If we have none, we mention the fact, and leave him to wonder what sinister motives could have brought us to that spot, and to look at us as if he would place us under arrest, were not his powers so shamefully limited. We leave the station, and take the road leading towards the town.
Along an uninteresting country-road, till we begin to drive up the hill around and upon which the town is built. Up the steep, rugged streets, between the high antique houses, slowly and joltingly lumbering over the stones, in and out, and round about up the hill, till we arrive at the Marktplatz, and behold, surrounding the great cobble-stoned square, all the principal buildings of the town! Pause, Jehu! thou reckless charioteer—pause,that we may fully take into our minds the scene about us. Here we are, in the middle of the square. There, opposite to us, stands the solemn oldDom, built of a warmly-hued, reddish stone. From its midst rises the nucleus of it all—that which is older than Christianity, the seamed, cracked, scarred, black, oldHeidenthurm—the ‘heathen-tower,’ remnant of long-past Roman rule. Blasted, black and ruined, but grim and defiant, majestic and undegraded still, in the midst of its wreck, it fronts us, and towers over the town and landscape beneath; for theDomis built on the very summit of the hill; and before it was, was theHeidenthurm. It watches over the fertile hill-slopes and over the level, poplar-fringed meads at the foot of them, between which the gliding Lahn holds its course. Since that grim old sentinel first took his stand there, what changes have not taken place! The very face of the landscape has altered, while dynasties changed and kings and people rose and fell, and kingdoms and empires flourished and passedaway. Varied have been the signs of the heavens above him—more varied far the life-stories, the joys, the sorrows, the raptures, and the agonies of the races which have grown up, have lived and died, married and brought children into the world—while he stood there defiant and unchangeably grim.
There on the right hand of the square is a more modern safety-guard, and one more in consonance with the advanced civilisation which has arisen since theHeidenthurmwas built. This latter guardian is theWachtstube,Wache,Hauptwache, as it is indiscriminately called—the guardhouse, peopled with half a dozen scrubby-looking soldiers, and a couple of lieutenants, with a white mongrel cur, alternately their plaything and their victim during the weary hours of ennui. TheHeidenthurmturns its back upon this outcome of a high civilisation and the Christian religion—what has it in common with theWachtstube, or theWachtstubewith it? To the left, more houses: that big clumsy building with the Prussian eagle over the doorway is theRathhaus;therein the Herr Bürgermeister and his belongings live and move and have their being. Filling in the gaps more and more houses, each one a picture, each roof a distracting medley of hills and dales, ups and downs, dormer windows, turrets, chimney-stacks whose irregularity would break the heart of a high-minded architect of modern suburban villas. And here too, last but not least, for those who want accommodation, with mine host bowing and smiling before the door, is that lumbering old structure, the inn of the place—theGasthof zum Herzoglichen Hause, a building bearing some inexplicable, indefinable, but most indubitable resemblance to Noah’s ark, as pictured to the popular imagination in the toyshop windows.
Our party had proceeded thus far—that is, to the market square—on their way from the station. The countess and one of her cousins only had taken seats in the carriage which had met them. The men, Sara Ford, and the other Fräulein von Lehnberg had walked. The German ladies went into raptures overthe place; it wasreizend,entzückend, and many other superlative expressions of admiration. Sara asked Falkenberg aside:
‘Is it impossible to go into the oldDomand explore Lotte Buff’s house, and these other quaint old places?’
‘It is, on the contrary, very possible,mein Fräulein. But,’ he added in a lower tone, ‘would you care to go with all these people?’
Sara shrugged her shoulders, smiling a little.
‘I see you would not. I will arrange that you have a good view of whatever you wish to see. Meantime, suppose we go on to my house, where lunch will be ready for us, I expect.’
‘I wonder,’ thought Sara within herself, ‘whether his wife and family are away from home, or whether his wife is just a slave and aHausfrau, as so many of them appear to be.’
The carriage was now driven past theHauptwache, up a street leading out of a corner of the square, on to a breezy uplandroad, from which there was a fine view over the level fields far below to the left, while on the right there were pleasant-looking fir-clad hills, over which a bracing breeze blew.
Herr Falkenberg’s ‘summer-house’ was situated not very far up the said road; it was an old grey grange, standing on a slope at the right hand, surrounded on three sides by what had been a moat, and it was over the remains of a drawbridge that the carriage drove into the grounds. Sara lingered a moment before the grey moss-grown stone archway, trying to make out a half-defaced inscription above it. Herr Falkenberg lingered too, and said:
‘You cannot read that, Miss Ford. I own that it was one of the great attractions of the place to me when I bought it.’
‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘I cannot see.’
‘First there are the initials of the builder, R. K., which stand, I believe, for Rodolf Kammermann; and then, beneath the date, 1560; and on either side, still easily to be read,Mein Genügen. I thought it was a good omen for happiness.’
‘Yes, indeed. And is that the name of the place?’
‘Yes. It is called to this dayMein Genügen.’[A]
‘I like it,’ said Sara, musingly. ‘That old baron, or whatever he was, must have had poetry in his soul.’
‘Yes; poetry which he succeeded in expressing simply and beautifully, in this old house with the lovely view,’ said Falkenberg, as they followed the others, overtaking them at the door.
From the door-steps there certainly was a very fair prospect—an uninterrupted view to the river in the vale below, and to the hills on the opposite side of it. To the left could just be seen some of the roofs of the town, showing thatMein Genügenwas not utterly alone in the world, and the higher red turrets of theDom, and the ragged top of theHeidenthurm.
‘Not theWachtstube, fortunately,’ remarked Sara.
‘Luckily not,’ rejoined Falkenberg.
More bursts of delight from the ladies—rushes into the house, into the garden, everywhere. A courteous invitation from the host to enter, and lay aside their outdoor things and rest, until lunch should be ready. Which invitation was complied with. An entrance into the house, and more admiration, for the salon was a quaint and charming room, full of quaint, charming, and costly things.
‘He must be alone, I suppose,’ Sara decided within herself, as no lady came forward, and Herr Falkenberg continued himself to do the honours with an ease of manner and an apparent simplicity which exquisitely concealed the perfect tact he employed.
He contrived—for he had that special gift so rarely found—to make each separate person there to feel him or herself to be ‘the honoured guest’par excellence; and he succeeded at least in delighting two of his visitors, Frau von Trockenau and Sara Ford. The two Fräulein von Lehnberg were rather more difficult. They were annoyed thatthere was only Hans von Lemde to be monopolised.
They stood in the window, talking with him and Graf von Trockenau, who was trying to recall the particulars of some place in the neighbourhood ‘which everyone ought to see,’ and in this endeavour he was feebly and ineffectually seconded by Hans von Lemde, whose profound studies in such literature as theAlmanach de Gothahad apparently disqualified him for more commonplace topics. Sara had seated herself beside a curious old painted spinet which stood at one side of the room. Frau von Trockenau was beside her, and Falkenberg was leaning on the aforesaid spinet talking to them, or rather listening while the countess talked to him.
‘It is a paradise of a place, Herr Falkenberg. There is nothing I should like better than to have such a place—only a week of it would be enough for me, because it is too small to have a large party in. It would be dull beyond expression after seven days, and you see my husband is not a financier—thevery reverse, poor fellow!—so he could not afford to indulge me with such a toy for one week in the year.’
‘I spend a good deal more than one week in the year here,gnädige Frau——’
‘Ah, yes; but you have a great soul, like Miss Ford. I was telling her so this morning. You can exist without company and distractions.’
‘Perhaps Herr Falkenberg does not care for visitors,’ suggested Sara, utterly unconscious of committing any solecism. ‘Perhaps the society of his wife and family is sufficient for him.’
‘Sara!’ ejaculated the countess; and then, as if much entertained, the pretty little lady tried to stifle a laugh which would not be altogether repressed. Into Falkenberg’s eyes leaped a strange, disappointed expression; and at that moment they met those of Sara, who was looking up at him, surprised at his manner and at that of her friend. The man’s colour rose, and he laughed too, a little unsteadily, as he replied:
‘I am not so fortunate as Miss Ford imagines. I have neither wife nor child.’
‘No wife!’ echoed Sara, in astonishment; and then, laughing too, but with a heightened colour, she said:
‘I am sure I beg your pardon. I don’t know what made me take it for granted that you were married. No one ever told me so. It was stupid of me.’
‘I do not see why you should think so,’ he answered, trying to laugh in his turn; but there was a tinge of constraint in the laugh, and by some means his eyes met those of the Countess of Trockenau. She appeared to be laughing still, a little; her handkerchief before her mouth, but it was not all a laugh in the glance that met his. Countess Carla had indeed a most active brain, if one somewhat lacking in consequence, and failing in the matter of logic. The thought which then darted through her mind was, ‘Falkenberg is much struck with Sara Ford. He does not like to find that she has all along thought he was married and done for; andthat, therefore, she can never have bestowed one tender thought upon him. And it is a shame, too. I believe they are made for one another, and I do like him so much. Why should it not be? I like the idea.’
She ceased to laugh entirely. She rose, placed her arm within his, and asked him to tell her about a picture at the opposite side of the room.
They walked away. Sara was left, with her elbow resting on the top of the painted spinet, thinking:
‘Not married? how odd! But why should I have supposed he was? I suppose that was what Carla meant, when she said she had been spiteful to the Lehnbergs—she said Helene Lehnberg would give her right hand—oh, that was too bad! He is immensely rich, if not noble. Yes, I see it all now ... and certainly he is far too good for that vain, boastful coquette.’
When lunch was announced they went into the dining-room, and the repast was in no way calculated to throw discredit on the managementof the occasional summer residence of a rich Frankfort banker, or upon the presence of mind and mental powers of his housekeeper. Sara found herself seated at one side of her host, while Countess Carla was opposite; while Fräulein von Lehnberg, drawing her black brows together, wondered on what known or unknown principle of etiquette that Englishwoman was given a higher place than herself. But Herr Falkenberg was most distinctly not only host but master in his own house, and when he had placed a chair for Helene and asked her to take a certain place, she had perforce consented. Sara did not bestow much attention upon the order of precedence; but her interest had been roused in her host, and she saw from a certain beaming look on Countess Carla’s face that she was thoroughly well-pleased with everything, and with herself in particular. In consequence of this, she seconded all Falkenberg’s efforts at conversation, and the meal was passing off brightly enough. Sara observed her host more closely, and the moreshe observed him the better she liked him. By the time that lunch was half over, she had forgotten that he was a great critic, who had got a sketch of hers upon which he was going to pass judgment: this point disappeared in her growing appreciation of his qualities as a man and a companion. His perfect modesty in the midst of his wealth and great surroundings struck her more than anything else. Sara loved to see power in man or woman; but assumption she hated with a hatred that was almost ludicrous.
Just at this time the door opened, and a fresh-looking young gentleman entered, started on seeing so many guests, and was about to back out again; but Falkenberg sprang up, saying:
‘Willkommen!you thought I was alone, I expect. Come in and join us.’
With which he introduced him as Baron Arthur Eckberg, to the two Berlin ladies in particular. He was awarded a seat between them. Helene’s black brows relaxed in their frown. Presently her voice was heard indulcet tones. She was appeased; and the countess became more radiant than ever.
When the party again repaired to the salon, a rather confused conversation ensued. It was found that three hours remained to be disposed of, before it would be time to return to the railway station. Herr Falkenberg, with a courteous patience which was beautiful to behold, tried to find out what his lady-guests, to use an ancient phrase, ‘would be at.’ This was rather a difficult task, as the Lehnberg sisters displayed emphatically ‘a diversity of gifts, but the same spirit,’—the gifts, namely, of caprice, contrariety, and perverseness, and the same spirit of cool self-seeking and resolution that all should give way to them. Some one appealed to Sara.
‘Thank you,’ said she, holding up a little sketching-board, ‘the present professional opportunity is too good to be missed. I am going to sketch theDom, if my going out alone will not be thought rude. I can find my way to the Market Square, and I will come back here in plenty of time, so I begthat no one will be in any trouble about me.’
‘Don’t go far away from here, as I may join you later,whenthe others have made up their minds,’ said the countess, in the blandest of voices.
‘Very well,’ said Sara, smiling, and, with a slight salute to the rest of the company, she took her way out of the house. Falkenberg had not said a word either for or against her resolution to go out alone.
She left the garden, pausing once again to contemplate with a peculiar pleasure the old grey gateway, and to read over the inscription, which seemed now to have a new meaning for her.
‘Mein Genügen,’ she thought. ‘Yes, I should fancy that that man would make a “contentment” wherever he goes. There is the harmony of a strong soul at peace with itself and the world, in all he says and does. But I wonder he is not married. I could imagine some woman being very much in love with him; and if he loved her, he wouldmost assuredly make her happy. Well, Carla says that with the exception of her husband and herself, the nicest people are not married.’
She smiled as she remembered that saying, and, looking up, found herself again in the centre of the Marktplatz, which was empty of all human life.
The afternoon was hot, and the sun shone bakingly upon the round stones which paved the square. A drowsy calm hung over everything. Sara, pausing, looked around her, trying to choose some vantage-ground from which to sketch theDom. She perceived that to the left of it, immediately under its wall, there were steps leading into a kind of small retired square, which looked shady and cool. Not a good position from which to make her sketch, but it was inviting. The ardour for work had left her. Ever since last night she had been longing intensely to be alone. She bent her steps towards the spot, ascended the low, broad flight of stone stairs, and found herself in a square, shady,gravelled space, in the midst of which rose a heavy, tasteless-looking stone monument, something between an ambitious tombstone and a grovelling obelisk. She walked up to it and looked at it. It bore a long list of names, and an inscription to the effect that the town of Lahnburg raised this humbleDenkmalto the memory of those of her sons who had died fighting forKaiser und Vaterland, in 1870-71. There were the regiments to which the deceased had belonged, their ages, and the names of the engagements in which they had fallen—Sedan, Metz, Saarbrück, etc. And below all,Auf Wiedersehen!Sara read it all, strangely moved by its homely simplicity, the confident expression of belief in a meeting again, and touched by the profound peace of this quietRuheplatz—so fitting for those brave hearts. At one side of the square there was a low wall, and some seats before it, on one of which she seated herself, and found that it commanded a glorious view of the low-lying country through which there the Lahn flows. The great, coolshadow of the cathedral was cast over her, while beneath her eyes the fertile land lay spread under a quivering veil of golden sun-pierced mist.
It was a feast for eye and heart. The artist soul of the woman drank in all the broad, calm, peaceful beauty of it, and her eyes dwelt lovingly upon every exquisite curve of distant hill, on every silver link in the windings of the placid river. She put her hand upon her sketch-book—opened it; even took her pencil in her hand; then laid it down again, with a restless sigh breaking from her lips. She felt the need of being alone, and yet, now that she was alone, she dreaded to acknowledge her own state of mind to herself. Her thoughts were vague and disconnected. There was a prevailing sensation that the old life no longer satisfied her. She knew that between her and her rejoicing fulness of contentment in her art, a barrier had arisen. A third thought now always intruded between herself and her purpose. She could handle no pencil, take upno book, behold no beautiful thing, form no plans for the future, without the influence of Jerome Wellfield making itself overpoweringly felt. At times—at this moment, even—she almost resented this new feeling; longed for freedom, and revolted at finding her soul enslaved. She felt a tremor sometimes—the unspoken question tormented her, ‘What if this passion be all wrong, instead of all right? What if it paralyse, instead of expanding, my nature? If it so absorb me that I can forget others—forget, for one moment, my highest aims—then it is surely wrong. A love that is pure and true ought to make one more unselfish, ought to make one love better and more largely and liberally everything and every person about one. Is it so with me?’
Some such thought as this was agitating her mind this afternoon. She was striving to be reasonable, to keep her head steady in the midst of her heart’s wild storm—piteously striving, while the tyrant sentiment shook her with ruthless hand; while between her andthe wholesome outside nature, came the beautiful face which now haunted her thoughts so doggedly, and beyond the twitter of the hopping birds about and above her, sounded that voice to which every fibre had thrilled, every sense had responded, last night. A lark suddenly rose, fluttering aloft, pouring out a full-hearted song—such a flood of trilling ecstasy as must have nearly burst his little throat. She heard it, and it troubled her; it interrupted the memory of that other song, in such weird contrast to this one, which Jerome had sung:
‘In dreams I saw thy face,And saw the nightFilling thy heart’s drear space,And saw the snakeThat gnaws that heart apace.I saw, my love,Thy great and sore distress;I murmur not.’
‘In dreams I saw thy face,And saw the nightFilling thy heart’s drear space,And saw the snakeThat gnaws that heart apace.I saw, my love,Thy great and sore distress;I murmur not.’
‘In dreams I saw thy face,And saw the nightFilling thy heart’s drear space,And saw the snakeThat gnaws that heart apace.I saw, my love,Thy great and sore distress;I murmur not.’
‘In dreams I saw thy face,
And saw the night
Filling thy heart’s drear space,
And saw the snake
That gnaws that heart apace.
I saw, my love,
Thy great and sore distress;
I murmur not.’
‘What am I thinking of?’ she almost uttered, starting quickly. ‘I am nervous. I must be. Why didn’t I go to those Lehnberg girls and be amiable to them, instead of standingaloof and helping Carla to be ill-natured, for I know she dislikes them. I should have felt better now, had I done so. I am degraded by indulging in this folly, and I——’
‘Surely, Miss Ford, you did not think this the best place from which to sketch theDom?’ said Falkenberg’s voice, just beside her.
Sara turned slowly, too thoroughly absorbed in her own thoughts to be startled. Her eyes dwelt at first almost unrecognisingly upon his face. There was trouble in them—a kind of pained, hunted look. Gradually they cleared, as she came down again into the world of reality, and saw him stooping towards her. He was alone. Her troubled heart grew calmer, as she saw his good face, and grave, critical brown eyes, full of wisdom and full of kindness, fixed upon her.
‘Whatever this man told me, I should believe implicitly,’ she thought within herself, and she smiled welcome to him. Indeed, she did welcome him in her heart. He came as a deliverer. Her thraldom had begun to gall her, when he appeared.
‘Where have you left the countess?’ she asked.
‘At my house. She discovered that she could not walk so far as the others were going, and that she wished to inspect my house and farm and gardens; for she was certain that she could find a great deal to improve in all of them.’
He smiled, and so did Sara, the latter of course being unconscious of the additional remarks made by the candid countess when alone with her favourite guest—remarks which it had required all his tact to receive with an appearance of amused indifference.
‘Ah, she is not fond of walking. You may well ask if I thought this a good place from which to sketch theDom. I came down here, and then found that I was not inclined to draw. I hope you do not feel that you have been beguiled here on false pretences.’
‘By no means. I am glad you don’t wish to draw; perhaps you will be all the more disposed to converse.’
‘If you will “introduce a subject,” as they did in the old game, I shall be delighted.’
‘I have a subject quite ready. I hope you will not think me very impertinent for introducing it; and if you consider my questions unwarrantable, tell me so, and I will apologise and be silent.’
‘Now I know you are going to ask me questions about myself, which I give you free leave to do. I know of absolutely nothing in my life which I care to conceal.’
‘Then, do you live entirely at Elberthal?’
‘I have lived there now for two years, entirely, except when friends have invited me to visit them.’
‘And alone?’
‘Alone, except for my old servant, Ellen, my second mother, who lives with me.’
‘And you have neither father nor mother?’ he asked.
‘No! My mother died when I was a baby, almost. My father worshipped her. He never married a second time. Nearly three years ago he also died. I have veryfew relations, and those not congenial. I may therefore say, I am alone in the world.’
‘And—and—excuse the question,’ he said, flushing violently, so that she looked at him in surprise. ‘Are you—but really, I have no right to ask.’
‘What do you mean, Herr Falkenberg?’
‘I wondered whether you were entirely dependent on your art, for——’
‘Oh, I thought you were going to ask, like my aunt in England, what I did when I was asked out, and had no chaperon to take me,’ said Sara, laughing. ‘Am I dependent on my art for the means of subsistence? No! I have just one hundred pounds a year of my own, Herr Falkenberg, safe and secure.’
‘I am glad of that,’ said he, with a sympathetic smile of relief. ‘It makes all the difference. With that income certain, you may live to your art as art.’
‘Yes, I find it a very good thing. My hundred a year is worth a thousand to me, I assure you. But what a paltry little sum it must appear to you,’ she added, with a lookof humour in her grey eyes. ‘What was it I once read about “spinsters and widows of one or two hundred a year, and other minute capitalists of the same kind?” I remember being very much amused with it. Do you not almost feel to require a magnifying-glass—mental, I mean—to enable you to see my hundred a year at all—you with your immense transactions, and your great income?’
‘My dear Miss Ford,’ he expostulated, blushing as if to apologise for having such a large income when she had such a very small one, ‘pardon me; I ought never to have alluded——’
Sara laughed with hearty enjoyment.
‘Do not look so distressed,’ she said. ‘When I think how frightened I was at the countess’s account of you, and how I quaked when I saw her bringing you up to me yesterday, and then realise your goodness—why should you not ask how much money I have, and why should I not tell you that I have a hundred a year? I think there is such animmense amount of false delicacy wasted upon such matters.’
‘Yet I know that you would not think of asking me what my income is,’ said Falkenberg, composedly.
‘There is a difference between a great financier and a “minute capitalist” like myself. Have you some plan for turning my hundred a year into two?’ she added, laughing.
‘No; I was innocent of wishing to speculate with your money. I was only anxious to know that you were not obliged to speculate with your brains.’
‘No; I have been most fortunate, I consider, in that respect. When I first went to Elberthal I was certainly seriously puzzled to arrange my affairs, from a poverty of means, not anembarras de richesses. You see—I daresay you can bend your comprehension to the fact—itwasa little difficult to make a hundred a year pay for board and lodging for two, and for my lessons as well.’
‘It must have been impossible,’ exclaimedFalkenberg, looking so shocked that Sara laughed again gleefully.
‘I am sure I could “harrow you up,” as the Americans say, if I were to relate some of Ellen’s and my contrivances at that time. We both were inspired with a Spartan resolution not to get into debt if we had to starve for it.’
‘I cannot conceive how you lived,’ he said, in a voice which had actual pain in it. ‘How can you laugh at it? It is shocking. What were your friends doing to allow——’
‘Oh! my friends were few, and they were all so angry at the course I had taken, that they would have rejoiced in the idea that I was being humbled—that perhaps I should be obliged to return home. But I was going to tell you how we went on—if you want to hear, that is.’
‘Oh, if you will be so good as to tell me!’
‘I had lessons from Wilhelmi; I daresay you know him?’
‘Yes.’
‘He is a splendid fellow, do you know?At first I had great difficulty in getting him to teach me at all. Then he suddenly became quite kind. I believe it was as soon as he saw that I meant work, and not nonsense. He was good enough to say that I had talent, and since then he will accept absolutely nothing from me for my lessons. He says I can give him a service of plate, with inscriptions, when I am a popular painter. Is not that noble generosity?’
‘Very kind,’ assented Falkenberg, almost coldly.
‘And his wife and daughter have been almost as kind as himself. I feel that they are friends indeed.’
‘But your people at home?’ he began.
‘All my “people at home” consist in an uncle, a brother of my mother’s, and his family. My father was professor of modern history at —— College, in London. His opinions, both religious and social, were advanced. When he was living, his house was a favourite place with clever, cultivated men and women, of all shades of opinion; mostof them, like himself, not particularly well off. Then he died, suddenly, and left me, as I said, with one hundred pounds a year. I was just one-and-twenty, and my small possessions were fortunately absolutely at my own disposal. I tried living with “my people at home.” My uncle is a clergyman; rector of a very small village in the south of England. They exist there; they don’t live. It soon grew intolerable to me. I had been accustomed to the society of men and women of mind; and the gossip about the curate, and my cousins’ frantic efforts to imitate the dress of the county ladies who occasionally came to church, and who most likely spent as many hundreds on their clothes as Charlotte and Louisa had sovereigns, drove me almost wild. Then the curate tried to convert me——’
‘Heavens!’
‘And I spoke disrespectfully of the Church. My aunt and cousins were speechless, and sent me to Coventry for a long time. I remembered how well my pictures had sold atsome fancy fairs and bazaars in London, to which I had sometimes contributed, and I resolved that I would use the powers God had given me. I laid all my plans in silence, only taking my old Ellen into my confidence. She vowed she would follow me to the world’s end.’
‘Of course!’
‘Of course? Not at all. She had an excellent situation offered her, as housekeeper, in an English country house, where she could have done as she pleased, and where she also would have received a hundred a year. When incomes dwindle down to hundreds, Herr Falkenberg, one finds one’s-self on a pecuniary level with strange companions sometimes.’
‘How you harp upon that stupid hundred pounds!’ exclaimed Falkenberg. ‘I believe you wish to defy me with it. Well?’
‘She gave it up, and accompanied me. There was a storm at the rectory when I unfolded my plans. My uncle forbade me to go, and said it would have broken mymother’s heart.’ Her lip curled scornfully. ‘My mother, who always taught me that no kind of work was shameful, and that every kind of idleness was! Naturally I took no notice of that. My cousins said I was a Bohemian, and liked adventures, and that it all came of my having been brought up amongst unbelievers. My aunt was speechless for a time, and then said, “Go abroad, child, alone! What will you do for a chaperon, when you are invited anywhere?”’
‘And you?’ he asked, laughing.
‘I said, “I suppose I shall go without one.” And then I came to Elberthal. I have been there now for two years. One of my cousins occasionally writes to me, and I to her. The rest ignore me. And I—have learnt to live alone. With plenty of work it is not so very difficult, and the depraved nature of the German customs has even allowed me to go out without a chaperon now and then, without visiting the sin too severely upon me.’
‘Then how did you meet with the Trockenaus?’
‘Ah!’ said Sara, a smile of pleasure flashing over her face, ‘that was another pleasant thing. Count Trockenau was once a student in the very college in which my father was professor of history, and had attended some of his lectures; and, it seems, had been at his house, and seen me when I was a mere child. I don’t remember it, but he does. They saw a picture with my name, at an exhibition in Berlin; and he actually took the trouble to ascertain whether I had anything to do with the Professor Ford he had known. That is a year ago; since then, they have been unvaryingly kind to me. But people are kind, it seems to me. As for Countess Carla—she is goodness itself.’
‘Yes; there is a wonderful charm about her,’ he said, and then they were both silent for a time.
Her clear grey eyes were fixed upon the fields below them—eyes so perfectly true, pure, and candid, he thought he had never seen. Now also, he saw the slight line about the mouth—a line which was sometimes alittle hard, as if struggle and disillusionism had called it there. Her open gaze, her fearless smile, her unembarrassed manner of holding her way through the world—what was it all? Innocence, most assuredly; but ignorance—no. She knew the world, and knew that it was evil. He thought that in addition to innocence there was perfect comprehension of her position, great ambition, a great deal of pride, and, mixed with that, a touch of indifference that was almost cynical. She did not sneer; there was no sneer on the beautiful frank mouth, but there was disdain. He had never seen anything quite like her before. As he sat, looking earnestly at her, he began to reflect that very soon she would pass from his life. This conversation in the afternoon sunshine, under the shadow of theDom, was pleasant—as sweet as it was unexpected, and different from all other conversations he had ever had. But soon it would be over. After a few days at Trockenau, she would return to her atelier; he to his business and his—pleasures. His pleasures,as he looked back upon them now, seen in the light ofthissun, looked grey and dim and poor. Of course he need not lose sight of her, and the most natural way of keeping her in view, considering their relative positions, would be to give her a commission to paint him a picture. He felt himself revolted at the idea—felt the blood rise to his cheeks at the thought. Surely there must be some other way of keeping her in sight.
At this moment she turned, and found his eyes so intently fixed on her face, that her colour too rose a little, as she asked:
‘Have I said something that shocks you too, Herr Falkenberg? I should be sorry for that.’
‘Miss Ford!’ he exclaimed earnestly, ‘what you have told me makes me honour and respect you from my very soul. Do not for a moment think that your confidence has been misplaced, as it must have been if I were “shocked” at anything you have said. We only met yesterday, and yet I am bold enough to say that if you would consent toplace me on the list of your friends and servants, I should indeed feel honoured.’
Sara looked at him with eloquent eyes and parted lips.
‘You are very kind,’ she said earnestly, ‘and I accept your kindness. I—my friends are not many, but they are prized. I should think it a privilege to count you amongst them, for I believe you have the same feelings about friendship that I have myself, and my ideas on the subject are by no means low ones.’
‘Nor mine. And for that reason I am like yourself. My friends are few,’ he said, taking the hand she extended, and raising it to his lips, his eyes still fixed on her face. Suddenly her own eyes filled with tears. She turned aside her face, and covered it with her other hand.
‘What have I done to deserve such kindness?’ she said tremulously, and profoundly moved. And indeed, what is there that should move a human soul more than such a discovery as this—the discovery of a friend?Schiller felt it when he sang in that great ode, which never has been and never can be translated without being ruined:
‘Wem der grosse Wurf gelungen,Eines Freundes Freund zu sein,Wer ein holdes Weib errungen,Mische seinen Jubel ein!Ja, wer auch nureineSeeleSeinnennt, auf dem Erdenrund.Und wer’s nie gekonnt, der stehleWeinend sich aus diesem Bund.’
‘Wem der grosse Wurf gelungen,Eines Freundes Freund zu sein,Wer ein holdes Weib errungen,Mische seinen Jubel ein!Ja, wer auch nureineSeeleSeinnennt, auf dem Erdenrund.Und wer’s nie gekonnt, der stehleWeinend sich aus diesem Bund.’
‘Wem der grosse Wurf gelungen,Eines Freundes Freund zu sein,Wer ein holdes Weib errungen,Mische seinen Jubel ein!Ja, wer auch nureineSeeleSeinnennt, auf dem Erdenrund.Und wer’s nie gekonnt, der stehleWeinend sich aus diesem Bund.’
‘Wem der grosse Wurf gelungen,
Eines Freundes Freund zu sein,
Wer ein holdes Weib errungen,
Mische seinen Jubel ein!
Ja, wer auch nureineSeele
Seinnennt, auf dem Erdenrund.
Und wer’s nie gekonnt, der stehle
Weinend sich aus diesem Bund.’
‘It is not kindness so much as selfishness,’ said he, gently. ‘Do we not all try to grasp that which seems very desirable to us?’
‘It is a kind of selfishness I like,’ said Sara, recovering, and flashing a bright glance upon him through the mist which still veiled her eyes.
‘I should like to take you to one or two places here—Lotte Buff’s house, and Goethe’s Well, and some others, if you would care to go,’ he said, as if to put aside her still unspoken thanks.
‘I should, immensely. Shall we have time before the others come back? Where are they gone, by-the-way?’
‘They are gone to a celebrated restauration on the top of that hill, the Kalsmund, which you see opposite, with the ruined tower upon it. At this restauration they are famed for theirBowle—pineappleBowle; and I heard young Lemde, and the count, and Arthur Eckberg arranging to take the ladies there and have a large bowl of the saidBowle, in the garden of the restauration,’ said Falkenberg, with an imperturbable gravity which the light in his eyes belied.
Sara laughed.
‘Should we not rather go and find the countess, and ask her to come with us? I am sure she will be dull.’
Accordingly they went to the house, and found the countess nothing loath to accept their invitation that she would accompany them. They had a very delightful tour of discovery; and Sara noticed that wherever they went, their companion appeared to beknown, and that he was greeted with smiles and a pleasant word.
When it was time they returned to the house, and found the rest of the party there, all in the highest good-humour, and all pitying them for having missed the treat they had had—the walk, the view, the ruins, and theBowle.
It was time to go to the railway station, and after a railway journey of one hour and a drive of another, they found that theirLandparteiwas over, and they were again at Schloss Trockenau.