CHAPTER XIX.
The summer had come; the yellowing grain waved in the soft breezes, and the cherry-trees in the orchards and along the high roads had all been robbed of their fruit. The sky was cloudless and the first grain had been harvested in Niendorf.
From the cities every one had fled to the watering-places or into the mountains. The corner-house in the market-place was shut up from top to bottom. Mrs. Baumhagen was in Switzerland, Mr. and Mrs. Fredericks in Baden-Baden. Uncle Henry had gone to Heligoland, because nowhere can one get such good breakfasts as on the dunes of that rocky island.
Only the two sat still in their nests; separated by a small extent of wood and meadow, they could not have been further apart if the ocean had rolled between. There was no crossing the gulf between them.
In Niendorf everything was irregular and in disorder. How should the little Adelaide know anything about the management of a farm? She was on her feet all day, she took a hundred unnecessary steps, and in the evening she complained that the two dainty little feet in the pointed high-heeled shoes hurt her so, and that the servants had no respect for her. Aunt Rosa was in a bad temper, for she found herself in her old age condemned to the life of a lady-in-waiting. Adelaide could not possibly dine alone with Linden, and she must always be there. So at twelve o'clock every day, the old lady put on her best cap, and sat, the picture of misery, opposite Linden, in Gertrude's vacant place. The meals were desperately melancholy. After awhile Adelaide also became silent, since she very rarely got any reply to her remarks. So they ate their dinner in silence and separated as soon as possible afterwards.
Frank, however, had work to do at least, he could not always think and brood and look at the locked door which led into Gertrude's room. That happened in the evening in his quiet room when little Adelaide was singing all manner of melancholy songs about love and longing down-stairs. And at midnight when it was quite quiet, when every one was asleep in the house and only some faint barking of a dog sounded from the tillage, he wandered up and down the room till the lamp grew dim and went out, and even then he did not stop.
He no longer expected her to come, though he had done so for days and weeks. At first he had gone to the very walls of her garden with a gnawing desire to see her; he would be there when she came out of the gate, and he would go to meet her at the very first step. In vain, she did not come.
Once the servants had seen him when his eyes were strangely red. "The master is crying for the mistress," was the report in the kitchen.
"Why doesn't he go and get her?" said the coachman, "I wouldn't cry a drop; I should know very well how to get back an obstinate wife," making an unmistakable gesture. "Brute!" cried the maids, and thereupon all the women turned their backs on him.
It was long since there had been such a harvest; the barns could scarcely contain all the grain. The fragrance of the hay came over from the meadows and mingled with that of the thousand roses in the garden; the great linden bloomed in the court-yard and a happy hen-mother led out to walk a legion of yellow little chickens.
In the stork's nest on the barn the young ones were growing apace; the homely old house lay almost buried in luxuriant greenery; the clematis climbed up to the windows and peeped in at the empty rooms, and the swallows which were building under the roof, went crying through the country and the city, "She has gone away from him! She has gone away from him!"
Yes, everybody knew the sad story by this time. Gertrude Baumhagen was separated from her husband. In the coffee parties one whispered to the other, people spoke of it at the cafés and at dinner-parties, and at the table d'hôte in the hotel it was the standing topic of conversation. No one knew exactly why this had happened. There were a thousand reports of a most wonderful nature.
"He did something disagreeable about his wife's dowry--"
"She went away because he lifted his hand to strike her--"
"The mother-in-law made mischief between them--"
"Nonsense! She was jealous--there is a little brown cousin in the house--"
"No, it was not that--she heard that before they were engaged he consulted an agent about her fortune. It is not so very unusual now-a-days."
"Ah, bah, no woman would run away for that!"
"That shows that you don't know Gertrude Baumhagen very well. It is a fact that she has gone away."
Yes, it was a fact, and Gertrude sat in her lonely house like one buried alive in that ever gloomy room. She could no longer read; it seemed as if she slept with open eyes. Sometimes Johanna brought her her child, and the young wife's eyes mechanically followed the little creature as it crept awkwardly over the floor or tried to raise itself by a chair, but she would not touch it even when it fell and cried.--Towards evening, however, the same unaccountable restlessness always came over her; then she walked hurriedly up and down the garden for a long time till she reached the top of the little hill; there she would remain for hours, gazing at the Thurmberg till her hair and dress were wet with dew.
"Believe me," she said to Johanna, "I shall be ill--here," and she pointed to her head.
"I do believe it," assented the other, "it is easy to make one's self ill--"
It was a day at the end of July; a frightful sultry heat brooded over the earth, and the young wife suffered greatly from it even in her cool room. After dinner she lay motionless in her chair by the window; a severe headache tortured her as was so often the case lately.
Johanna placed her cupful of strong black coffee on the table and put the book beside it which had been opened at the same page for the last three days.
"Here is a letter too," she added.
Gertrude had acquired a great dread of letters lately. She overcame her aversion however and opened it. It was in Jenny's pointed handwriting, and Jenny only wrote surface gossip; one glance at the letter would suffice. Two sheets fell out.
"It is a long time since we heard anything from you," she read, "so that we are very anxious about you--are you still in 'Waldruhe?'"
"I met Judge K. yesterday at a reception, the same who, in the celebrated divorce case of the Duke of P. with Countess Y., was the counsel of the latter. I asked him playfully if a woman could separate from her lord and master if she found that he had had more thought of her worldly goods than of herself, described the situation pretty plainly and spoke of a friend of mine who was in such a position. He replied, 'Tell your friend she had better go quietly back to her husband, for she is sure to get the worst of it.' His real expression was a much rougher one, for he is well known as a brute.
"Well, there you have the opinion of an authority in such matters. Make an end of the matter, for you may have so bitterly to repent a longer delay as you are quite unable to realize in your present magnificent scorn. If I am not much mistaken you really love him. Well, there are things--but it is hard to write about such things. Read the enclosed letter, which mamma sent me a few days ago. Perhaps you will guess what I wanted to say.
"I wish you had been with me in Paris or were here now in Baden-Baden. You would see how we German women, with our thick-skinned housewifely virtues and our cobwebby romance, make our lives unnecessarily hard. I am convinced a French woman would hold her sides for laughing if she should hear the cause of your conjugal strife.
"Arthur is very amiable, and obeys at a word. He surprised me with a Paris dress for the reception yesterday. As soon as he gets out of our little nest he is like another man. Good-bye, don't take this affair too tragically.
"Your Sister."
Slowly the young wife took up the other letter; it was in Aunt Pauline's pointed handwriting and was addressed to Mrs. Baumhagen.
"DEAREST OTTILIE:
"Everything here goes on as usual. I was at your house yesterday; Sophie is there and had a great moth-hunt yesterday. Your parrot had a bad eye but it is all right again now. I have heard nothing of Gertrude; she will let nobody in. I suppose you have heard from her. There are all sorts of reports about Niendorf going about. Last evening my husband came home from the club--they say there is a cousin there who manages the house. Mr. Hanke has seen her in Linden's carriage--very dark, rather original, and very much dressed. Well, of course, you know how people will talk, but I will not pour oil on the fire. I saw Linden too, once, and I hardly knew him; he was coming from the bank. The man's hair is growing gray about the temples; he looked like another person, so--how shall I describe it--so run down."
Gertrude dropped the letter and then she sprang up--she shook and trembled in every limb.
With a powerful effort she forced herself to be calm and to be reasonable. What did she wish? She had separated from him forever. But her heart! her heart hurt her so all at once, and it beat so loudly in the deathly stillness which surrounded her that she thought she could hear it.
"Johanna!" she shrieked, but no one replied; she was probably out in the garden or in the kitchen at work.
And what good could she do her? "No, not that, only not that!"
She sat down again in her chair by the window and looked out among the trees. What would she not give if the woods and the hills would disappear so that she could look across into that house--into that room! "A gay little thing is that brown little girl," Johanna had said the other day. And Gertrude saw her in her mind's eye tripping about the house, now in the garden-hall, now up the steps, those dear old worn-out steps. Tap, tap, now in the corridor, the high-heeled shoes tapped so firmly and daintily on the hard floor; and now at a brown door--his door.
Might she enter? Ah, his room, that dear old room! And Gertrude wrung her hands in bitter envy. "Go!" she cried, half-aloud, "go! That threshold is sacred--I--I crossed it on the happiest day of my life--on his arm!"
And she could see him sitting at his writing-table in his gray jacket and his high boots just as he had come in from the fields; his white forehead stood out in sharp contrast to his brown face. She had always liked that.
And gray hair on his temples? Ah, he had none a few weeks ago! And again a dainty little figure fluttered before her eyes going towards him. Ah, she would like to know that one thing--if he could ever forget her for another--for this girl perhaps? But of what use was all this?
She got up and went out of the room across the corridor to her father's room. What her father had done thousands had done before him, and thousands would do it--a man need not live!
On the table by the bed stood the glass with his monogram, out of which he had drunk that dreadful potion. The servants had washed it and put it back there. She walked a few steps toward the window and started suddenly. Ah yes, it was only her image in the glass. She walked quickly up to the shining glass and looked in--there was a wonderful bluish shimmer in it and her face, pale as death, looked out at her from it. The deep shadows under the eyes spread far down on her cheeks. Shuddering, she turned away; there was something ghostly about her own face.
And again she stood still and thought. What was left for her in life? Everything was gone with him, everything!
"Mrs. Linden," said a voice behind her, "Judge Schmidt."
She nodded.
"In my room."
Ah, yes, she had forgotten that she had sent for him. He came to-day, and she had only written yesterday. But it was just as well, she must make a beginning.
She turned back again; let him wait, she could not go just yet. She went to the window and saw how the heavy leaden clouds were spreading over the sky; a storm was brewing in the west. Courage, now, courage! When it was past the sun would shine again; sometimes a broken branch could not lift itself again. So much the better! There would be no more of this quiet, this deadly calm.
Only something to do--even if--
"Ma'am!" called the voice once more, and then she composed herself and went.
She knew him very well, the old gentleman who came towards her with a kind smile, but she could not speak a word to him. She could only wave her hand silently towards the nearest chair. He knew what the matter was, let him begin the dreadful conversation.
"You wish for my advice, Mrs. Linden, in this difficult matter?"
"Yes, I wish you to act for me," she said, looking past him into the corner of the room, "and I wish above all that Mr. Linden should be informed of the decision I have come to. I will leave him in possession of my whole fortune with the exception of this house, and the capital that is invested in my brother-in-law's factory."
She said the words hurriedly, as if she had learned them by heart.
"Are you quite in earnest about it then?" asked the old man.
Her eyes blazed out at him.
"Do you think I would jest on such a sorrowful subject?"
"And you think your husband will agree?"
"It is your affair, Mr. Schmidt, to arrange this."
He bowed without speaking. She too was silent. An oppressive stillness reigned in the room, in the whole house. It seemed to Gertrude as if she had just heard her sentence of death.
"There will be a bad storm to-day," said the judge after awhile. "I must leave you now, madam, and as I am half-way to Niendorf now, I will just drive over, to arrange the matter with your husband in person."
"To-day?" She was startled into saying it.
He hesitated and looked at her.
"You are right, to-morrow will suit me better too--let us say the day after to-morrow."
"No," she replied, hastily, "go at once, it will be better, much better."
She got up in some confusion; her headache, the consciousness that she had now set the ball rolling nearly overwhelmed her. She accompanied the lawyer mechanically to the head of the stairs; then she remained standing in the corridor, her hand pressing her throbbing temples, half unconscious.
She could hear Johanna in the kitchen, and as if she could bear the loneliness no longer she went in and sat down on a chair beside the white scoured table. Johanna was standing before it, choosing between ivy-leaves and cypress-twigs. Her eyes were red with crying, and large drops fell now and then on the hands which were making a wreath. The whole kitchen smelled of death and funerals.
"What are you doing there?" asked Gertrude.
Johanna looked away and suppressed a sob.
"It will be a year to-morrow," she replied in a choked voice, "since they brought him home to me dead."
"Ah, true."
The two women looked deep into each other's sorrowful eyes, each with the thought that she was the most unhappy. Ah, but there stood the little carriage with the sleeping child, and that belonged to Johanna, and Johanna could think of him without other sorrow and heartache than that for his loss. To lose a loved one by death, is not half so hard as to lose him in life. Gertrude could find no word of sympathy.
"Oh, how could I live through it!" sobbed the young widow. "So fresh and strong as he went across the threshold, I think I can see him now striding up the street. And the very night before, we had a little quarrel for the first time and I thought, 'Just you wait, you will have to beg for a pleasant word from me.' And I went to bed without saying good night, and the next morning I wouldn't make his coffee.
"I heard him moving about in the room and I was glad to think that he would have to go without his breakfast. He came to my bed once and looked in my face and I pretended to be asleep. But as soon as he had shut the outside door behind him, I jumped up and ran to the window and looked after him--I was so proud of him. It was the last time; it wasn't two hours later when they brought him home, and day and night I was on my knees before him, shrieking, and asking if he was angry with me still. And I prayed to God that He would let him open his eyes just once, only once, so I could say, 'Good-bye, Fritz, come home safe, Fritz.' But it was all of no use; he never heard me any more."
Gertrude sprang up suddenly and left the kitchen. O God! She felt sick unto death. Everything seemed to whirl round and round in her brain, as if her mind were unsettled. She could no longer follow out a train of thought to its end, and an idea which had seized upon her five minutes ago in the most horrible clearness, she was now unable to recall; try as hard as she might, nothing remained to her but a dull dread of something dreadful hanging over her.
It was no doubt the heavy air, the oppressive stillness of nature before a storm that had so excited her nerves.
She rang for ice-water. When Johanna set the glass before her she turned her head away.
"Johanna, do you happen to know how long the--young lady is going to stay at Niendorf?"
"I think the whole summer, ma'am," was the reply. "A good thing, too. What could they do without her over there?"
Gertrude bit her lip; she felt ashamed. What right had she to ask about it?
"Did you want anything more, ma'am?"
"Nothing, thanks."
And she remained alone in her room as she had been so many days before. She could hear the gnawing of the moths in the old wood-work, and now and then the steps of the servant in the corridor. With burning eyes she gazed at the ever-darkening sky; her hands grasped the slender arm of her chair as if they must have an outward support at least.
Gradually it began to grow dark; the approaching evening and the black storm-clouds together soon made it quite dusk, while now and then sharp flashes of lightning brought the dark trees into full relief. Close by Johanna was closing the windows of the sleeping-room.
"Shall I bring a lamp?" she asked, looking through the half-opened door.
"No, thanks."
"But you oughtn't to sit so near the window, ma'am, it looks so dreadful out there."
Gertrude did not move and the tear-stained face disappeared. A sudden gust of wind swept through the trees, the branches were tossed wildly about as if in a fierce struggle with brute force; the slender branches were bent down to the ground only to rise again as quickly, and a fierce blast whirling about gravel, leaves and small stones dashed them against the rattling panes. Then followed a dazzling flash of lightning, thunder that made the house shake, and at the same time a sudden deluge of rain mingled with the peculiar pattering of large hail-stones.
Johanna, with her child in her arms, came anxiously into her mistress' room.
"Oh, mercy!" she shrieked, falling on her knees before the nearest chair. Another flash filled the room for a moment with a dazzling red light, and the thunder crashed after it like a thousand cannon.
"That struck, Mrs. Linden, that struck!" cried she in terror.
Gertrude had stepped back from the window; she was standing in the middle of the room. By the light of the constant flashes the servant could see her pale, rigid face with perfect distinctness. She rested her hands on the table and looked towards the window as if it did not concern her in the least. And still the storm raged more fiercely, while the world seemed to be standing in a perfect sea of fire. It seemed to have endured for hours. But gradually the flashes grew less frequent, the crashes of thunder grew more distant, and at last only a light rain dripped on the trees and the storm died away in a distant low grumbling.
Gertrude opened the window and bent far out; a wonderfully sweet air blew upon her face, soft and aromatic, refreshing and invigorating, and above in the sky the clouds had parted and a brilliant star sparkled down upon her. Then she started back. From the high-road there came a sound of hurried movements; a sound of wheels, the cracking of whips, the cries of men--what did it mean? It was usually as quiet as the grave here at this hour.
"Fire!" Had she heard aright? She could not see the street but she leaned far out and listened to the uproar. Her heart beat loud and fast. The gardener's wife ran hastily up in her clattering wooden shoes, and her shrill voice came up to Gertrude's ears.
"David, hurry, hurry, hurry, it has been burning in Niendorf for the last half-hour--the engine has just gone by--hurry!"
"Clang, clang, clang!" clashed out the church bell now. In Gertrude's ears it sounded like a death-knell. Clang, clang, clang! Why did she stand still there, her hands clasping the window-sill as if they were nailed there? She heard doors banging, and voices and shouts, she heard the gardener rushing out of his house--and still she stood there as if there was a spell upon her.
Again clashed out the warning notes of the bell! And at length she roused herself as if from a heavy dream, and now she was quite alive once more. She flew like an arrow out of the room, snatched a shawl from the wall of the corridor and rushed past Johanna, who was standing at the gate with the gardener's wife and children,--away out over the half-flooded high-road.
"Mrs. Linden! For the love of Heaven!" screamed Johanna behind her. But she paid no heed to the cry. Like a murmured prayer came from her lips--"On! on!"
The road before her was dark and lonely; the men who had hastened to the rescue, were out of sight long ago.
She actually flew; she felt no fear in the gloomy wood; she saw nothing but the dear old burning house, and a pair of manly eyes--once, ah, once so inexpressibly dear. Something came pattering behind her. Ah, yes--the dog.
"Come," she murmured, and hurried on, the sagacious animal close behind her.