From this time forth, Carmen's peace of mind was gone. Her aversion to Jonathan was outweighed by her fear of him. His hot, ardent nature had broken bounds so violently and ungovernably that she could not feel at all sure it was so quickly subdued. A deep sense of desolation, came over her. Her mother, lying in the grave, far away on a sea-girt island, under a tropical sun; her father, in all likelihood murdered, and buried in some foreign land; and she living among strangers, with whom she found it utterly impossible to feel any congeniality! She avoided Brother Jonathan, and he seemed to shun her no less assiduously. He had absented himself from one Communion; explaining his conduct by expressing an unusual sense of his own unworthiness. His calculations were well made: Carmen pitied him sincerely on account of the deep remorse he seemed to feel. How could her pure mind imagine it was all hypocrisy! In the house where he lived with the other unmarried Brothers, he maintained the same pious, serious demeanor as heretofore. His patients received the same care and attention as formerly, but he looked haggard and care-worn, and Thomas, his faithful attendant, whom he had brought with him from the New World, would often hear him groan heavily in the night, as if some secret grief preyed on his mind.
Carmen could not witness his misery unmoved. Since the unfortunate incident connected with him, her life among the Sisters had become doubly oppressive to her. Like a welcome release from her unpleasant surroundings came a request from Frau von Trautenau that Sister Agatha would permit Adele and her dear Carmen to spend Whitsuntide with her at Wollmershain; an invitation which Agatha gladly accepted for her pupils.
Wollmershain was a large, beautiful estate, which, upon the death of its owner, had become the joint property of Adele and her brothers; and Frau von Trautenau had resided there since her widowhood, and proposed to continue doing so until one of her sons should buy his sister's and brother's portion and assume the management of it. The relations between Frau von Trautenau and her step-son had always been of the most happy and agreeable kind; he honored and loved his step-mother, who had brought him up with the greatest possible care and affection; and she, in return placed implicit confidence in his opinions and advice, making him her chief counsellor since her husband's death.
Into this beautiful home-life Carmen now entered, as if into a new world. Whereas, the affection between the Brothers and Sisters in the "community" had always appeared to her in the austere light of a duty, here it seemed like a natural impulse, springing spontaneously from the depths of warm and loving hearts.
In all the arrangements of the house and grounds, the idea of the beautiful, in connection with the comfortable and useful, was everywhere prominent.
The lofty, well-lighted rooms, adorned and furnished with elegant simplicity; the smooth green lawns, bordered with lovely flowers of every hue; the magnificent avenues of grand old trees, and the innumerable, lovely little nooks to be found here and there in the park, all breathed a charm which reminded Carmen of what she dimly remembered about her father's plantation and hacienda in Jamaica.
Alexander and Hans were also at home for the holidays; and while Adele rambled with the latter through park and garden, Carmen, who shyly avoided Alexander, was entertained by her hostess, to whose warm motherly nature the girl was attracted with genuine, childlike heartiness. It was indeed her society, more than anything else, which contributed to Carmen's happiness at Wollmershain, for she felt embarrassed in this new kind of life; and the remarks which her peculiar dress occasioned were especially annoying. To avoid being conspicuous, she had already laid aside the white cap; but her beauty, enhanced by the coils of glossy hair which crowned her queenly little head, was so remarkable, so foreign-looking and striking, that she seemed like some rare exotic which, in all the luxuriance of its loveliness, had been transplanted from the land of palms to our colder soil. There was in her manner an odd mixture of pride and humility, dignity and modesty, which gave her all the reserve of a woman and the winsomeness of a child. Perhaps it was the knowledge of the fact that the peculiarities of the Sisters elicited so much ridicule from the world that caused her to use her pride as a defence and a weapon, when in company with any one save Frau von Trautenau. She always seemed ready to do battle with Alexander, and yet he had never by word or deed given cause for such a feeling.
"She is full of pluck and mettle like a thoroughbred horse!" said old General von Bergen, who, with his daughter and his adjutant, had come up from the barracks on a visit. "It is a pleasure to provoke her; her eyes light up so. Pohlen," he said, turning to the adjutant, "you seemed to be unfortunate in your remarks to her during dinner; those lovely lips curled as scornfully as if you had seriously offended her, and her great eyes glowed like fire, as she looked away off, over your head."
The gentleman addressed laughed as if amused. "And yet I only ventured on some complimentary speeches. I asked if all the Creoles were as beautiful as herself. That was surely flattering enough, and I think this little Moravian ought, by this time, to possess some of the humility they pride themselves so much on, and not toss her head so haughtily and look at me so contemptuously."
The gentlemen were comfortably smoking in the veranda, after dinner; and Alexander, who sat on the steps, half hidden by a large syringa-bush in full bloom, flushed deeply at Pohlen's words. In a sharp tone of reprimand, he said: