CHAPTER XIV.
In the late twilight the iron-gray horses stopped before the door and Jenny got out of the carriage.
She ran lightly as a cat up the veranda steps and suddenly stood in the garden-hall before Frank Linden, who sat at the table alone. Gertrude's plate was untouched.
"So late, Jenny?" he asked.
"I want to speak to Gertrude."
"You will find my--wife in her room."
Jenny cast a quick glance at him from her bright eyes. Had the blow fallen? She had nearly died of anxiety at home.
"Is not Gertrude well?" she inquired, innocently.
He hesitated a moment.
"She seems rather excited and tired. I think something has happened to disturb her in the course of the day."
"Ah, indeed!" said Mrs. Fredericks. "Well, I will go and see her myself."
She passed through the hall. The lamp was not yet lighted and in the darkness she stumbled over something and nearly fell. As she uttered a slight cry, Johanna hastened in with a light.
"Oh, I beg your pardon, ma'am, it is the young lady's trunk, who arrived about a quarter of an hour ago. Dora forgot to carry it to her room."
Jenny cast an angry glance at the modest box, ran up the stairs and knocked at her sister's door.
"It is I, Gertrude," she called out in her clear ringing voice. She heard light footsteps and the bolt was gently drawn back and the door opened.
"You, Jenny?" inquired Gertrude, just as Frank had said a few minutes before, "you, Jenny?"
It was almost dark in the room; Jenny could not see her sister's face.
"Why do you sit here in the dark, Gertrude? I beg of you tell me quick all that has happened. Mamma and I are dying of anxiety."
"You need have no anxiety," replied Gertrude. "It is all right."
"All right?" asked Jenny in surprise. "You cannot make me believe that, He alone at the table and you up here with your door locked--come confess, child, that you have not made it up."
"Please take a seat, Jenny," said the young wife, wearily.
Jenny sat down on the lounge, and Gertrude took up her position at the window again. It was still as death in the room and in the whole house.
"It would have been wiser if you had not married at all, Gertrude," began her sister, with a sigh.
"But, it can't be helped--you are tied fast--oh, yes! You must put up with everything, you must not even have an opinion of your own, I am quite ill too from the vexation I had last evening. At last I ran up to mamma. She was dreadfully frightened when she saw me standing before her bed in my night-dress. I cried all night long. This morning I waited. I thought he would come up for me, he was usually so remorseful--but he didn't come and as I was taking breakfast with mamma Sophie brought me a card from him in which he very coolly informed me that he had gone to Manchester for a fortnight. Well--I wish him a happy journey!"
Gertrude made no reply.
"You must not take it so dreadfully to heart, child," continued the young matron. "Good gracious, it is well it is no worse. All women have something to put up with and sometimes it is far worse than this."
"Have they?" asked Gertrude, in a low voice.
"Yes, of course!" cried Jenny, in surprise.
"Do you think a woman can take up her bundle and march off? Bah! Then no woman would stay with her husband a moment. No, no,--people get reconciled to one another and they just take the first opportunity to pay each other off. That is always great fun for me. Just you see, pet, how good Arthur will be when he comes back; for a whole month he will be the nicest husband in the world."
"That would be an impossibility for me," cried Gertrude, clearly and firmly. "To-day bitter as death, to-morrow fondly loving; it is simply shameful."
Jenny was silent.
"Good gracious," she said at length, yawning, "one is as good as the other! If I were to separate from Arthur,--who knows but I might get a worse one! For of course I should marry again, what else can a woman do? By the way, mamma spoke to the lawyer--he urgently advised her to hush up the matter as well as possible. Mamma thought differently, but Mr. Sneider declared--you see now, one can't get away even if one wants to--that there were no grounds for a divorce, and I said to mamma too, 'Gertrude,' said I, 'leave him? Incredible! She is dead in love with the man. He might have murdered somebody, I really believe, and she would still find excuses for him.' Was I right?"
Gertrude suffered tortures. She wrung her hands in silence and her eyes were fixed on the dark sky above her in which the evening star was now sparkling with a greenish light. Jenny yawned again.
"Ah, just think," she continued, "you don't know what we quarrelled about, Arthur and I. He reproached me with spending too much on my dress; of course that was only a pretext to give vent to his ill temper--there were business letters very likely containing bad news. I replied that did not concern him, I did not inquire into his expenses. Then he was cross and declared that I had tried in Nice to copy the dresses of the elegant French women. But it is not true, for I only bought two dresses there. Gracious, yes, they were rather dearer than if my dressmaker in Berlin had made them. Of course I said again, 'That is not your affair, for I pay for them.' Then he talked in a very moral strain about honorable women and German women who helped to increase the prosperity of a house. Other fortunes besides ours had been thrown away and when the truth was known it was always the fault of 'Madame.' He found fault with mamma for making herself so ridiculous with her youthful costumes, and at last he declared we owed some duty to our future children--Heaven preserve me! I have had to give up my poor sweet little Walter, and I will have no more. The pain of losing him was too great; I should die of anxiety. In short, he played the part of a real provincial Philistine, and finally even that of Othello, for he declared Col. von Brelow always had such a confidential air with me. That was too much for my patience. I proposed that we should separate then. You understand I only said so--for he is pretty obedient generally, when I hold the reins tight. And as I said before one can't get free for nothing. 'I will go at once!' I cried, and then I ran up to mamma."
"Stop, I beg of you," cried Gertrude, hastily rising. She rang for a light and when Johanna brought the lamp it lighted up a feverish face, and eyes swollen as if with burning tears, and yet Gertrude had not wept.
"How you look, child," remarked Jenny. "Well, and what is to be done now? I must tell mamma something, it was for that I came."
She cast a glance at the dainty time-piece above the writing-table.
"Five minutes to nine--I must be going home. Do tell me how you mean to arrange matters?"
"You shall hear to-morrow--the day after to-morrow--I don't know yet," stammered the young wife, pressing her hand on her aching head.
"Only don't make a scandal, Gertrude," and Jenny took up her gray cloak with its red silk lining and tied the lace strings of her hat.
"If the affair is settled as Mr. Sneider advises, it is the best you can do. By the way, how does Frank take it? Has he confessed it? To be sure, what else could he do? Well, let me hear to-morrow then, at latest. By the way, child, it has just occurred to me--that day that Linden called on us the first time, that fellow, that Wolff, came with him across the square to our house. I was sitting in the bay-window and I was surprised to see how confidentially Wolff clapped him on the shoulder."
Gertrude stood motionless. Ah, she had seen the same thing; she recalled it so clearly at this moment.
"Yes, yes," she stammered.
"The lawyer says he does a great deal of that sort of business. But now good-night, my pet--will you send in word or shall we send some one out in the morning?"
"I will send word," replied Gertrude.
She did not go out with her sister, she stood still in her place, her head gunk on her breast, her arms hanging nerveless by her side. This conversation with Jenny had opened an abyss before her eyes; she no longer knew what she should do, only one thing was clear, she could not stay with him; she could not endure a life of indifference by his side, and--any other life would never again be possible to them. "Never!" she said aloud with decision, "Never!"
She heard his steps now in the next room; then the steps went away again and presently she heard them on the gravel-walk in the garden till they finally died away. She was so tired and it was so cold, and she could not realize that there had ever been a time when it had been different,--when she had been happy--she seemed to herself so degraded.
She had that fatal letter still in her hand, where it burnt like glowing coals. She knew an old maid, the daughter of a poor official, who was soured and embittered. For thirteen years she had been engaged to a poor referendary, and finally they had recognized the fact that they never would be rich enough to marry. She had remained lonely and pitied by all who knew her history.
Ah, if she could only have exchanged with her, who had been loved for her own sake! And even if she could forgive him for not having loved her, the lie, the hypocrisy she could never forgive--never, never. Her faith in him was gone.
Half unconsciously she had wandered out into the corridor, and felt a little refreshed by the cooler air. She ran quickly down the steps into the garden. From the kitchen came the sounds of talking and laughing; the gardener was talking nonsense to the maids--the mistress' eye was wanting.
There was no light in the garden-hall, but Aunt Rosa's windows were unusually brilliant and a youthful shadow was marked out on the white curtain. That must be the expected niece.
Gertrude walked on in the gravel-walks; the nightingales were singing and there were sounds of singing in the steward's room, a deep sympathetic tenor and a sorrowful melody.
On and on she went in the fragrant garden. Then she cried out suddenly,
"Frank!"
She had come upon him suddenly at a turning of the path.
"Gertrude!" returned he, trying to take her hand.
"Don't touch me!" she cried. "I was not looking for you, but as we have met, I will ask you for something."
In order to support herself she clutched the branches of a lilac-bush with her little hand.
"With all my heart, Gertrude," he replied gently. "Forgive my violence, anger catches me unawares sometimes. I promise you it shall not happen again."
He stopped, waiting to hear her request. For a while they stood there in silence, then she spoke slowly, almost unintelligibly in her great agitation. "Give me my freedom again--it is impossible any longer to--"
"I do not understand you," he replied, coldly, "what do you mean?"
"I will leave you everything, everything--only give me my freedom! We cannot live together any longer, don't you see that?" she cried quite beside herself.
"Speak lower!" he commanded, stamping angrily with his foot.
"Say yes!" entreated the young wife with a voice nearly choked with emotion.
"I say no!" was the answer. "Take my arm and come."
"I will not! I will not!" she cried, snatching away her hand which he had taken.
"You are greatly excited this evening, you will come now into the house with me; tomorrow we will talk further on the subject and in the clear daylight you can tell me what reasons you have for thinking our living together impossible."
"Now, at once, if you wish it!" she gasped out. "Because two things are wanting, two little trifling things only,--trust and esteem! I will not speak of love--you have not been true to me, Frank, you have deceived me and lost my confidence. Let me go, I entreat you, for the love of Heaven--let me go!"
As he made no reply, she went on rapidly, her words almost stumbling over each other so fast they came. "I know that I have no right in law; people would laugh at a woman who demanded her freedom on no better grounds than that she had been lied to once. So I come as a suppliant; be so very good as to let me go, I cannot bear to live with you in mistrust and--and--"
"Come, Gertrude," he said, gently, "you are ill. Come into the house now and let us talk it over in our room--come!"
"Ill--yes! I wish I might die," she murmured.
Then she suddenly grew calm and went back into the house with him. He opened the door of his room and she went in, but she passed quickly through into her own, threw herself on her lounge, drew the soft coverlid over her and closed her eyes. Frank stood helpless before her.
"I will have a cup of tea made for you," said the young man, kindly.
She looked unspeakably wretched, as she lay there, the long black lashes resting like dark shadows on her white cheeks. She must have suffered frightfully.
"Go to bed, Gertrude," he begged anxiously, "it will be better for you and tomorrow we will talk about this."
"I shall stay here," she replied decisively, turning her head away.
Then he lost patience.
"Confound your silly obstinacy!" he cried angrily. "Do you think I am a foolish boy? I will show you how naughty children ought to be treated!"
Then he turned and banging the door after him he went away.