The Benefactress

by Elizabeth Von Arnim

Gustav must have missed the second train as well, for when the sky grew rosy, and Axel knew that the sun was setting, he was still alone.

The few hours he had thought to stay in that place were lengthening out into days, he reflected. If Gustav did not come soon, what should he do? Someone he must have to look after his affairs, to arrange with the lawyer, to be a link connecting him with outside. And who but his brother and heir? Still, he would certainly come soon, and Trudi too. Poor little Trudi—he was afraid she would be terribly upset.

But the hours passed, and no one came.

That evening he was given a lamp. It burnt badly and smelt atrociously. He asked if the window might be opened a little wider. The request had to be made in writing, said the warder, and submitted through the usual channels to the Public Prosecutor, without whose permission no window might be touched. Axel wrote the request, and the warder took it away. It came back two days later with an intimation scrawled across it that if the prisoner von Lohm were not satisfied with his cell he would be given a worse one.

The night came, and had to be gone through somehow. Axel sat for hours on the side of his bed, his head supported in his hands, struggling with despair. A profound gloom was settling down on him. The knowledge that he had done nothing had ceased to reassure him. The lawyer was right when he said that it was easier to get into such a place than to get out again. Klutz had denounced him, to save himself; of that he had not a doubt. And Dellwig, well known and greatly respected, had supported Klutz. This explained Dellwig's conduct lately completely. Axel's courage was perilously near giving way as he recognised the difficulty he would have in proving that he was innocent. If no one helped him from outside, his case was indeed desperate. He did not remember ever to have turned his back on a friend in distress; how was it, then, that not a friend was to be found to come to him in his extremity? Where were they all, those jovial companions who shot over his estate with him so often, driving any distance for the pleasure of killing his game? What was keeping Gustav back? Why did he not even send a message? How was it that Manske, who professed so much attachment to his house, besides such stores of Christian charity, did not make an effort to reach him? He had never asked or wanted anything of anyone in his life; but this was so terrible, his need was so extreme. What a failure his whole life was. He had been alone, always. During all the years when other men have wives and children he had been working hard, alone. He had had no happy days, as the old Romans would have said. And now total ruin was upon him. Sitting there through the night, he began to understand the despair that impels unhappy beings in a like situation, forsaken of God and men, to make wild efforts to get out of such places, conscious that they avail nothing, but at least bruising and crushing themselves into the blessed indifference of exhaustion.

The hours dragged by, each one a lifetime, each one so packed with opportunities for going mad, he thought, as he counted how many of them separated him already from his free, honourable past life. By the time morning came, added to his other torturing anxieties, was the fear lest he should fall ill in there before any steps had been taken for his release. He sat leaning his head against the wall, indifferent to what went on around him, hardly listening any more for Gustav's footsteps. He had ceased to expect him. He had ceased to expect anyone. He sat motionless, suffering bodily now, a strange feeling in his head, his thoughts dwelling dully on his physical discomforts, on the closeness of the cell, on the horrible nights. He made a great effort to eat some dinner, but could not. What would become of him if he could neither eat nor sleep? On what stores of energy would he be able to draw when the time came for defending himself? He was sitting by the table, leaning his head against the wall, his eyes closed, when the prisoner-attendant came to take away his dinner. "Ill?" inquired the young man cheerfully. Axel did not move or answer. It was too much trouble to speak.

The warder, upon the attendant's remarking that No. 32 seemed unwell, examined him through the peep-hole in the door, but decided that he was not ill yet; not ill enough, that is. In another week he would be ready for the prison doctor, but not yet. These things must take their course. It was always the same course; he had been a warder twenty years, and knew almost to an hour the date on which, after the arrest, the doctor would be required.

Axel was sitting in the same position when, about three o'clock, the door was unlocked again. He did not move or open his eyes.

"Ihr Fräulein Braut ist hier," said the warder.

The word Braut, betrothed, sent Axel's thoughts back across the years to Hildegard. His betrothed? Had he heard the mocking words, or had he been dreaming? He turned his head and looked vaguely towards the door. All the sunlight was out there in the wide corridor, and in it, on the threshold, stood Anna.