CHAPTER III.
The storms of late autumn came on among the mountains, heavy showers of rain came down from the gray flying clouds and beat upon the dead leaves of the forest and against the windows of the dwelling-houses. Frank Linden sat at his writing-table in the room he had fitted up for himself in the second story, and his eyes wandered from the denuded branches in the garden to the mountains opposite. His surroundings were as comfortable as it is possible for a bachelor's room to be--books and weapons, a bright fire in the stove, good pictures on the walls, the delicate perfume of a fine cigar, and yet in spite of all this the expression on his handsome face was by no means a contented one.
He thrust aside a great sheet full of figures and took up instead a sheet of writing-paper, on which he began rapidly to write:--
"My Dear Old Judge:
"How you would scoff at me if you could see me in my present downcast mood. It is raining outside, and inside a flood of vexatious thoughts is streaming over me. I have found out that playing at farming is a pleasure only when one has a large purse that he can call his own. The expenses are getting too much for me; everything has to be repaired or renewed. Well, all this is true, but I do not complain, for in other ways I have the greatest pleasure out of it. I cannot describe to you how really poetic a walk through these autumn woods is, which I manage to take almost daily with old Juno, thanks to the permission of the royal forester, with whom I have made friends.
"And how delightful is the home coming beneath my own roof!
"But you, most prosaic of all mortals, are probably thinking only about venison steaks or broiled field-fares, and you only know the mood of the wild huntsman from hearsay.
"But I wanted to tell you how right you were when you declared of Wolff: 'Hic niger est! Be on your guard against this man--he is a scoundrel!' Perhaps that would be saying too much, but at any rate he is troublesome. He sent me yesterday a ticket to a concert and wrote on a bit of paper: 'Seats 38 to 40 taken by the Baumhagen family--I got No. 37.' Then he added that the Baumhagens were the most distinguished and the wealthiest of the patricians in the city--evidently those who play first fiddle there.
"You know what my opinion is concerning millionaires--anything to escape their neighborhood.
"Well, in short, I was vexed and sent him back the ticket with the remark that I was the most unmusical person in the world. He has already made several attacks of that nature on me, so I suppose there must be a daughter.
"And now to come at length to the aim of this letter--you know that Wolff has a heavy mortgage on Niendorf, at a very high rate of interest. I simply cannot pay it, and wish to take up the mortgage; would your sister be willing to take it at a moderate rate? I am ready to give you any information.
"And what more shall I tell you? By the way, the old aunt--you did her great injustice; I never saw a more inoffensive, more contented creature than this old woman. A niece who comes to Niendorf every year on a visit, and whom she seems very fond of, her tame goldfinch, and her artificial flowers make up her whole world. She asked quite anxiously if I would let her have her room here till she died. I promised it faithfully. She has been telling me a good many things about my uncle's last years. He must have been very eccentric. Wolff was with him every day, playing euchre with him and the schoolmaster. He died at the card-table, so to speak. The old lady told me in a sepulchral voice that he actually died with clubs and diamonds in his hands. He had just played out the ace and said, 'There is a bomb for you!' and it was all over. I believe she felt a little horror of this endings herself. I am going now into the city in spite of wind and rain to make a few calls. I have got to do it sooner or later. I shall take the steward with me; he will bring home a pair of farm-horses that he bought the other day. Perhaps I may happen to stumble on my unknown little godmother that I wrote you about the other day; so far luck has not favored me."
He added greetings and his signature, and half an hour later he was on his way to the city in faultless visiting costume.
Arrived in the hotel he inquired for a number of addresses, then began with a sigh to do his duty according to that extraordinary custom which Mrs. Grundy prescribes as necessary in "good society," that is, to call upon perfect strangers at mid-day and exchange a few shallow phrases and then to escape as quickly as possible. Thank Heaven! No one was at home to-day although it was raining in torrents. From a sort of natural opposition he left the Baumhagens to the last; he belonged to that class to whom it is only necessary to praise a thing greatly in order to create a strong dislike to it.
Just as he was on the point of making this visit, he met Mr. Wolff. "You are going to the Baumhagens?" he asked, evidently agreeably surprised. "There--there, that house with the bow-window. I wish you good luck, Mr. Linden!"
Frank had a sharp answer on his lips but the little man had disappeared. But a woman's figure stepped back hastily from the bow-window above him.
"Very sorry," said the old servant-maid. "Mrs. Baumhagen is not at home." He received the same answer in the lower story although he heard the sounds of a Chopin waltz.
He heard an explanation of this in the hotel at dinner. A great ball was to take place that evening, and such a festival naturally required the most extensive preparations on the part of the feminine portion of society; on such a day neither matron nor maiden was visible. Nothing else was spoken of but this ball, and some of the gentlemen kindly invited him to be present; he would find some pretty girls there.
"I am curious to know if the little Baumhagen will be there," said an officer of Hussars.
"She may stay away for all I care," responded a very blond Referendary. "She has a way of condescending to one that I can't endure. She is perfectly eaten up with pride."
"She has just refused another offer, as I heard from Arthur Fredericks," cried another.
"She is probably waiting for a prince," snarled a fourth.
"I don't care," said Colonel von Brelow, "you may say what you like, she is a magnificent creature without a particle of provincialism about her. There is race in the girl."
Frank Linden had listened with an interest which had almost awakened a desire in him to take part in the ball. He half promised to appear, took the address of a glove-shop and sat for a couple of hours in lively conversation. After the lonely weeks he had been spending it interested him more than he was willing to confess.
"I am really stooping to gossip," he said, amused at himself. When he went out into the street, darkness had already come down on the short November day, the gas-lamps were reflected back from the pools in the street, the shop-windows were brilliantly lighted, and five long strokes sounded from the tower of St. Benedict's.
He went round the corner of the hotel into the next street, and walked slowly along on the narrow sidewalk, looking at the shops which were all adorned with everything gay and brilliant for the approaching Christmas holidays.
"Good-evening!" said suddenly a timid voice behind him. He turned round. For a moment he could not remember the woman who stood timidly before him, with a yoke on her shoulder from which hung two shining pails. Then he recognized her--it was Johanna.
"I only wanted to thank you so very much," she began, "the sexton brought me the present for the baby."
"And is my little godchild well?" he asked, walking beside the woman and suddenly resolving to learn something about "her" at any price.
"Oh, thank you, Mr. Linden; it is but a weakly thing--trouble hasn't been good for him. But if the gentleman would like to see him--it isn't so very far and I'm going straight home now."
"Of course I should," he said, and learned as he went along, that she carried milk twice a day for a farmer's wife.
"Does the young lady come to see her godson sometimes?"
"Ay, to be sure!" replied the woman. "She comes and the baby hasn't a frock or a petticoat that she hasn't given him. She is so good, Miss Gertrude. We were confirmed together," she added, with pride.
So her name was Gertrude.
They had still some distance to go, through narrow streets and alleys, before the woman announced that they had reached her house. "There is a light inside--perhaps it is mother, the child waked up I suppose. My mother lives up stairs," she explained, "my father is a shoemaker."
The window was so low that a child might have looked in easily, so he could overlook the whole room without difficulty.
"Stay," he whispered, holding Johanna's arm.
"O goodness! it is the young lady," she cried, "I hope she won't be angry."
But Frank Linden did not reply. He saw only the slender girlish figure, as she walked up and down with the crying child in her arms, talking to him, dancing him till at last he stopped crying, looked solemnly in her face for awhile and then began to crow.
"Now you see, you silly little goosie," sounded the clear girl's voice in his ears, "you see who comes to take care of you when, you were lying here all alone and all crumpled up, while your mother has to go out from house to house through all the wind and rain;--you naughty baby, you little rogue, do you know your name yet? Let's see. Frank,--Frankie? O such a big boy! Now come here and don't cry a bit more and you shall have on your warm little frock when your mother comes." And she sat down before the stove and began to take off the little red flannel frock.
"She sat down before the stove and began to take off the
little red flannel frock."
"Ask if I may come in, Johanna," said Linden. And the next moment he had entered behind the woman.
A flush of embarrassment came over the young girl's face, but she frankly extended her hand. "I am glad to see you, Mr. Linden--mamma was very sorry that she could not receive you this afternoon. You--"
He bowed. Then she belonged to one of the houses where he had called to-day. But to which one?
"Do you know, I never knew till to-day that you were living in the neighborhood," she continued brightly. "I was standing in our bow-window when you came across the square, and saw you inquiring for our house."
"Then I have the honor to see Miss Baumhagen?" he asked, somewhat disturbed by this information.
"Gertrude Baumhagen," she replied. "Why do you look so surprised?"
With these words she took her cloak from the nearest chair, put a small fur cap on her brown hair and took up her muff.
"I must go now, Johanna, but I will send the doctor to-morrow for the baby. You must not let things go so,--you must take better care or else he may have weak eyes all his life."
"Will you allow me to accompany you?" asked Linden, unable to take his eyes off the graceful form. And that was Gertrude Baumhagen!
She assented. "I am not afraid for myself, but I am sure you would never find your way out of this maze of streets into which my good Johanna has enticed you. This part about here is quite the oldest part of the town. You cannot see it this evening, but by daylight a walk through this quarter would well repay you. I like this neighborhood, though only people of the lower class live here," she continued, walking with a firm step on the slippery pavement.
"Do you see down there on the corner that house with the great stone steps in front and the bench under the tree? My grandmother was born in that house, and the tree is a Spanish lilac. Grandfather fell in love with her as she sat one evening under the tree rocking her youngest brother. She has often told me about it. The lilac was in blossom and she was just eighteen. Isn't it a perfect little poem?"
Then she laughed softly. "But I am telling you all this and I don't know in the least what you think of such things."
They were just opposite the small house with the lilac tree. He stopped and looked up. She perceived it and said: "I can never go by without having happy thoughts and pleasant memories. Never was there a dearer grandmother, she was so simple and so good." And as he was silent she added, as if in explanation, "She was a granddaughter of the foreman in grandpapa's factory."
Still nothing occurred to him to say and he could not utter a merely conventional phrase.
She too remained silent for a while. "May I ask you," she then began, "not to give too many presents to the baby--they are simple people who might be easily spoiled."
He assented. "A man like me is so unpractical," he said, by way of excuse. "I did not exactly know what was expected of me after I had offered myself as godfather in such an intrusive manner."
"That was no intrusion, that was a feeling of humanity, Mr. Linden."
"I was afraid I might have seemed to you, too impulsive--too--" he stopped.
"O no, no," she interrupted earnestly. "What can you think of me? I can easily tell the true from the false--I was really very glad," she added, with some hesitation.
"I thank you," he said.
And then they walked on in silence through the streets;--Gertrude Baumhagen stopped before a flower-store behind whose great glass panes a wealth of roses, violets and camellias glowed.
"Our ways separate here," she said, as she gave him her hand. "I have something to do in here. Good-bye, Mr.--Godfather."
He had lifted his hat and taken her hand. "Good-bye, Miss Baumhagen." And hesitatingly he asked--"Shall you be at the ball to-night?"
"Yes," she nodded, "at the request of the higher powers," and her blue eyes rested quietly on his face. There was nothing of youthful pleasure and joyful expectation to be read in them. "Mamma would have been in despair if I had declined. Good-night, Mr. Linden."
The young man stood outside as she disappeared into the shop. He stood still for a moment, then he went on his way.
So that was Gertrude Baumhagen! He really regretted that that was her name, for he had taken a prejudice against the name, which he had associated with vulgar purse-pride. The conversation at the hotel table recurred to him. He had figured to himself a supercilious blonde who used her privileges as a Baumhagen and the richest girl in the city, to subject her admirers to all manner of caprices. And he had found the Gertrude of the church, a lovely, slender girl, with a simple unspoiled nature, possessing no other pride than that of a noble woman.
Involuntarily he walked faster. He would accept the kind invitation to the ball. But when he reached the hotel he had changed his mind again. He did not care to see her as a modern society woman, he would not efface that lovely picture he had seen through the window of that poor little house. He could not have borne it if she had met him in the brilliant ball-room, with that air of condescension with which he had heard her reproached to-day. He decided to dine at home.
With this thought he had walked down the street again till he reached the flower-shop. On a sudden impulse he entered and asked for a simple bouquet.
The woman had an immense bouquet in her hand at the moment, resembling a cart-wheel surrounded by rich lace, which she was just giving to the errand-boy.
"For Miss Baumhagen," she said, "here is the card."
Frank Linden saw a coat-of-arms over the name. He stepped back a moment, undecided what to do. Then the shopwoman turned towards him.
"A simple bouquet," he repeated. There was none ready, but they could make up one immediately. The young man himself chose the flowers from the wet sand and gave them to her. It must have been a pleasant occupation for he was constantly putting back a rose and substituting a finer one for it. At last it was finished, a graceful bouquet of white roses just tinted with pink, like a maiden's blush, interspersed with maiden-hair and delicate ferns. He looked at the dainty blossoms once more, then paid for it and went back to the hotel. Then he laid the bouquet on the table, called for ink and paper, took a visiting-card and wrote. Suddenly he stopped and smiled, "What nonsense!" he said, half aloud, "she is sure to carry the big bouquet." Then he began again and read it over. It was a little verse asking if the godfather might at this late hour send to the godmother the flowers which according to ancient custom he ought to have offered at the christening, and modestly hoping she would honor them by carrying them to the ball that night. He smiled again, put it into the envelope and gave the bouquet and letter to a messenger with instructions to carry both to Miss Baumhagen. And then a thought struck him--the ball began at eight o'clock--that would be in ten minutes--he would see Gertrude Baumhagen, see--if his bouquet--nonsense! Very likely! But then he would wait. "It is well the judge does not see me now!" he whispered to himself. He felt like a child at Christmas time, so happy was he and so full of expectation as he wandered up and down the square in front of the hotel.