The real trouble lay in deciding what she should say. It was clear that she could not help looking pleased when he arrived, though it would be her duty to look somewhat sad and sorrowful. Of course she felt for him and he knew it, but he would perhaps expect her to show it very clearly in the first minute and would be hurt if she even smiled. It was not easy not to smile when she saw Greif after a long separation. Perhaps the best way to look very mournful would be to think that he could not marry her for a long time, now, on account of the mourning. But then, Greif had finished his studies and would henceforth be always at home, which in Hilda’s opinion would be almost the same thing as being married, provided she could see him all the time.
Then she thought of that strange warning she had given him when they last parted. She had not understood why she spoke, and yet, she had not been able to keep silence. Surely this could not be what was meant. Besides, it was superstitious to believe in such things, and she had been thoughtless in yielding to the impulse. Greif was safe, at all events, and she supposed that everybody’s parents must die some day, though not necessarily in such a strange way. Her own father had been killed, too, before she could know him—if she had known him, she would have loved him, as Greif had loved the old gentleman who was now dead.
Hilda became aware that her reflexions were growing more and more heartless and that they did not help her at all, especially as she could not communicate them to Berbel. She resolved not to reflect any more for the present, and applied herself diligently to her household occupations until the morning on which she expected her mother to return. And now she was not to be alone any longer, for the carriage was advancing up the hill and she could plainly see Greif sitting beside the baroness in the big carriage. She knew his fur cap, for it was the same he had worn last year. She gazed a few moments longer at the pair, regretting that she must be thought heartless if she waved her handkerchief as a signal of welcome, and then she swiftly descended the broken steps that led down into the house, closing as well as she could the crazy door of the turret, to keep out at least a little of the strong north wind.
‘Berbel! Berbel! Mamma is coming with Herr Greif!’ she cried, before she was really within hearing of the room where Berbel was at work.
Her clear voice rang through the stone passages before her as she ran on, repeating the news until Berbel answered her at last.
‘Is there anything for dinner?’ asked Hilda breathlessly, as she stood in the doorway.
The grey-haired woman looked up from her sewing, over her horn-rimmed glasses. She had a hard, good face, with rough brows, sharp eyes and a large mole upon her chin. She was spotlessly clean, and everything about her was supernaturally neat.
She was broad-shouldered, rather bony than otherwise, and she moved as though nothing were any trouble which merely required exertion.
‘There are potatoes,’ she answered laconically, but a strangely genial, half comical little smile was twitching at the corners of her solid mouth.
‘Nothing else? Oh, Berbel, there must be something else!’ Hilda’s voice was full of a sudden distress, and her face exhibited considerable dismay.