CHAPTER XIV.
PRESSES AND EYES ARE OPENED.
"Good day, Franzl! So you let us have a look at you at last! That is right; I am glad to see you." Thus was Franzl greeted by the landlady, as she entered the public room.
"I beg your pardon," stammered Franzl; "did you not send for me? My brother was said to be here."
The landlady knew nothing of any message having been sent. The brother had been there, indeed, but had left a long while ago. She had given the servant orders to notify Franzl when occasion offered, but knew nothing about today.
Franzl begged pardon for intruding, and was anxious to go back at once, feeling herself quite out of place. This mood suited the landlady exactly. The stupid servant-woman must suspect nothing, but esteem herself highly favored by having a few moments devoted to her. It was better to put her a thousand thanks in debt than owe her one. Franzl must stay, since she had come, and must wait a few minutes in the family sitting-room until the busy mistress was at leisure. The poor woman did not venture to sit down, but remained standing at the door, staring at the great clothes-presses that reached up to the ceiling.
"At last I have despatched everything," said the landlady, entering, and smoothing her gown; "and now I will have a good hour with an old friend,--the best possession in the world, after all."
Franzl felt highly flattered. She was made to sit down by the landlady, close to her on the sofa, while a servant-maid handed coffee and cakes. She put on all the airs of modesty that the occasion required, perhaps a few more; such as insisting upon turning into the landlady's cup the cream the latter had already poured into hers, until the hostess was obliged to tell her she should be angry if she stood so much upon ceremony.
At the second cup, Franzl began to tell how things looked on the Morgenhalde. Lenz worked as hard, she said, as if there was not a crumb of bread in the house, and yet there were abundant stores of all kinds. He scarcely ever went from home, except to see Faller, whose house he was helping to fit up. He had signed a security for the purchase of the house in the first place, and now he had contributed a bed, besides giving the old woman his mother's Sunday clothes. If some one did not come soon, and take his keys, he would give away everything he owned. But for himself he was as economical as could be. He neither smoked nor took snuff, nor drank, nor played; he spent nothing at all on himself, concluded Franzl, approvingly.
After the landlady had again bestowed fitting commendations on the Knuslingers, who knew everything, she added incidentally: "Only think, Franzl, of this report that your young master is to marry the doctor's botanical daughter! Is there any truth in it?"
"Yes, indeed."
"So?"
"That is, I mean, there is no truth at all in it. Pilgrim tried to persuade him to, but he would not; and I believe there has been a quarrel in consequence."
"So? That is a different matter. I always said that Lenz knew his own mind. He would do far better to follow your advice and marry the bailiff's Katharine."
"Do you hear that?" said Franzl, triumphantly, smiling and nodding her head as if Lenz were standing before her. "Do you hear that? The wise landlady of the Lion agrees with me. And here you thought she would be too rough for you; that nothing could be made of her. I will tell him you advise him to marry Katharine. That will be a help to me. I have been wishing to find some one on my side."
"No, Franzl; God forbid! You must not speak a word of me at home. Besides, he is quite right; Katharine would not be suitable for a man so refined as he. He should have a superior woman, one above the common run."
"Yes; but where is such a one to be found?"
"Good day, Franzl," said Annele, suddenly entering. "I am glad to see you once more in our house. Don't get up. You look, as you sit there, like the well-to-do mistress of some great farm, and you know as much as if you were. But finish your coffee; it is growing cold. Is it sweet enough?"
"Oh, too sweet!"
Annele's words acted like whole sugar-loaves upon it.
"I wish I could stay and hear you talk, but I must go back to the public room. One of us is needed there. Come again soon, won't you? and let me have something of you."
"Oh, what a dear, dear girl!" exclaimed Franzl in praise of the departing Annele. "She must make you a perfect heaven upon earth."
"We have our cares too. She is our last child; if she were only well provided for!"
Franzl opened her eyes wide, and gave a vacant smile, but did not venture to say a word. The landlady tapped her finger on her nose with her magpie laugh, at which Franzl considered it her duty to laugh too. She knew what were proper manners at a coffee lunch. Put a Knuslinger where you will, he will always do the right thing. The landlady now, with all her cleverness, did not seem to know what the right thing was.
"Do you like to see nice linen, Franzl?"
"O my heart! it is the one thing I delight in. If I were rich, I would have seven chests of the finest linen. The weight-maker's wife in Knuslingen has--"
"See there," said the landlady, opening the folding-doors of a great clothes-press and showing packages of linen in dozens, piled up to the ceiling, each tied with a bright-colored ribbon.
"Is that for the hotel?" asked Franzl, when her first exclamations of admiration were over.
"Heaven forbid! that is my Annele's dowry. As soon as my daughters were seven years old I began to put by their wedding outfit, for you never can tell how suddenly it may be needed. Then it is finished, and there is no further need of weaver or seamstress. I only wish the dowry of one of my daughters might remain in the town. It would be pleasant, too, to keep one child near us. Thank Heaven, all my children are well married,--more than well; but seeing their prosperity is better than hearing of it."
A sudden revelation broke upon Franzl's mind. The press with its wealth of linen danced before her eyes, and the blue, red, green, and yellow ribbons melted together into a rainbow. "O dear landlady, may I speak? I beg a thousand pardons if I am presuming, but--O dear Heaven, where such linen is how much else there must be! How would it do--might I say it?--if my Lenz--?"
"I have nothing to say. I am the mother, and my child is well known; you can easily inquire about her. You understand? I think--I don't know--"
"Oh, that is enough, quite enough! I fly home; I have borne him in my arms, I will bear him again hither. But there will be no need, he will leap over the house-tops. I am but a poor silly thing, dear landlady; don't be angry with me."
"You silly? You can draw one's inmost thoughts out of one. You are wiser than the seven wise men. But look you, Franzl, this is all between ourselves; between two trusty friends. I have said nothing; you have made your own discoveries. My husband naturally looks higher; but I should like to keep one child near me, God willing. I tell you honestly--for I know not how to speak falsely or to take back my word--that I do not reject your proposal."
"That is enough. I will show that we Knuslingers do not bear the name for nothing."
"What do you mean?"
"Ho, ho!" cried Franzl in a decided tone, and putting on a knowing look. "You will soon see. I shall take his tools away from him and drive him out of the house. He must be here this very day. You will help him out,--won't you? for he is shy with strangers."
The landlady soothed the excited Franzl, who in her enthusiasm alternately got up and sat down, raised her hands to heaven and folded them upon her breast. She advised her to show her wisdom by betraying to Lenz in no possible way that Annele's mother favored his cause; and further enjoined upon her, as the best means of success, to throw out warnings against every one else, while Annele's name should be scarcely mentioned. "Such matters should be delicately handled," concluded she. "'You must not point your finger at the lightning,' as the old proverb runs."
Franzl was always going, and never went. When at last she had the handle of the door in her hand, her lingering glance at the great linen-press said as plainly as words: We shall soon have you at our house. To every piece of household goods she nodded: You are ours now, and it is I who make you so. Then home she went in the keen autumn wind, as if every sheet and tablecloth had become a sail to waft her up the mountain.
"Mother," said Annele from behind the sideboard, "why do you tow that stupid old cow into the house? If anything comes of it, we shall have to pay court to her or else she will be crying out against our ingratitude. What is your great hurry?"
"Don't make believe you are ignorant of how matters stand. It is necessary and right that you should be soon provided for."
"I am not making believe, for I really know nothing. A little while ago you would not hear of Lenz; why have you changed your mind?"
The mother looked at her in amazement. Could the girl be really ignorant of their household affairs?
"Circumstances have changed," she answered, simply; "Lenz is alone now, and has a well-furnished house. I would never give you to a mother-in-law." Be false with me, she thought, as she left the room, and I will be false to you.
At the Morgenhalde Franzl went about with a smile on her face. Smilingly she abused all the girls of the village; the doctor's daughters, the bailiff's Katharine, every one but Annele. Her she did not mention, but threw out misterious hints about mountains of linen and persons who were of the right sort. Lenz thought the old woman's loneliness was beginning to affect her mind. She went quietly about her duties, however, and was merrier than ever. Lenz, too, grew daily more contented over his work, and a long time passed without his going into the town.