Walda: A Novel

by Mary Holland Kinkaid

“Yea, Stephen, already thou seemest scarcely a stranger.”

He felt a sudden quickening of the pulses when the girl spoke to him by his given name, so seldom used, for he was little burdened by kinsmen and the intimacies of ordinary companionship. Stephen Everett had always been a man who forbade those with whom he came in contact to take liberties with him, yet he had the quiet friendliness that kept for him the constancy and devotion of all who knew him. His name, spoken by the prophetess of Zanah, had, however, a sound that suddenly glorified it. As he stood there he could think of nothing to say, and she passed on, leaving him to look after her, and to feel in a new and peculiar manner that the world had changed for him. He saw that she walked with a firm step and a light freedom of movement that gave her a rare grace. She moved slowly, so that the little child could keep pace with her, and he was grateful for the chance duty that gave him a longer glimpse of her. She passed through the wooden gate which cut off the vineyard. Presently he saw her disappear among the trees at the end of the village street, and a sense of loneliness swept over him. He who had always been glad of the opportunity to enjoy his own society felt something of the homesickness of the soul.

VII

Gerson Brandt sat alone in his school-room. His elbows were propped on the worn lid of his black, oaken desk, and his chin was supported in the palms of his hands. His face had a worried look. The lines about his mouth had deepened within the last few days, and his heavy brows were drawn together. He was wondering what could have happened to the precious Bible. Now that he had become accustomed to the changes brought about in the routine of his daily life by the illness of Wilhelm Kellar, he sorely missed the pleasant task of each day making a letter or two upon the pages of the Sacred Word. It had been his joy and his recreation, after the long school sessions, to turn to his pens and his colored inks. Line by line he had wrought the delicate traceries with many a thought of Walda and many a prayer for her well-being. He had dwelt so long in the faith that inspired Zanah that he had felt in the hope of her inspiration a peculiar satisfaction and contentment. He was a poet and a dreamer, so he found it not hard to believe that this girl of Zanah would be given a special power not vouchsafed to many souls that come into the great domain of sin.

It was a week since the loss of the Bible had been discovered. It was apparent to him, whose nature was sensitive to every suggestion, that the people of Zanah for some reason distrusted him, and imputed blame to him because of the mysterious disappearance of the volume that might have brought the colony the price of many rolls of flannel and many bottles of wine. The Herr Doktor that very day had been to see him about devising some means by which more effective search could be made for the Bible. Notwithstanding Wilhelm Kellar’s illness, the room up-stairs had been thoroughly searched. With Schneider standing by, he had been obliged to submit to the humiliation of unlocking each drawer and turning out upon the floor all his few personal possessions. From his bed in the alcove Wilhelm Kellar had anxiously watched every movement, and had shown keen disappointment when the big volume could not be found. Mother Werther had been present, and had scrutinized each article as it was put back in its accustomed place in the old-fashioned chest of drawers. One thing alone she failed to examine, and that was his old leather portfolio, much worn with long years of constant use. In this portfolio was concealed his one forbidden possession—the sketch of Walda made years before, when she was scarcely more than a child. Zanah permitted not the image of anything on earth to be kept by a faithful colonist; but he had treasured this, made in a moment of weakness and loneliness. He had eased his conscience with the thought that he had drawn not the woman of the future, but the prophetess who would some day guide his people.

Adolph Schneider had gone on his way but a few moments before. The school-master still felt the sting of his last words—an injunction to find the Bible within the next fortnight. Gerson Brandt had spent all his unemployed waking moments in trying to account for the disappearance of the big book. He felt sure that there was no boy in the village mischievous enough to steal it, and no outsider except Everett had been within the boundaries of Zanah for many a week. Instinctively he knew that the colonists were judging him unkindly, for even in Zanah jealousies and rivalries were not unknown. In all his years of colony life he had escaped criticism, because he had been the one elder untouched by personal ambition. His gentleness and sweetness of nature had made even the most selfish and disagreeable person his friend, for no one in all Zanah had performed the friendly services that belonged to the record made by the school-master of the colony.

Presently he turned his face towards the window and looked out upon the summer landscape. The day seemed strangely silent. The late summer already presaged the coming autumn. The birds had long ceased their singing. There was not even the hum of a lazy insect. A sense of loneliness crept over this man, accustomed to the peculiar isolation of life in Zanah. He half realized that the loss of the Bible meant to him, in a certain sense, a cutting off of a daily association of thought that bound him to Walda. His mind had hardly turned towards the girl before he heard her light footstep as she crossed the threshold. When he saw her framed in the doorway that opened out on the little porch, he felt foolishly glad, but although he rose to his feet he did not advance to meet her.

“Ah, Gerson Brandt, something is troubling thee,” said Walda. “For fully two minutes I have been watching thee from the porch. What is in thy mind to rob thee thus of peace?”

“Nay, Walda, my peace is not gone, I trust,” said the school-master; but he paused, as if the assertion made him cognizant that he might not be speaking the whole truth. “I have been thinking much about the loss of my Bible.”

“Yea, that is very strange,” said Walda, standing before his desk, and looking up into his eyes with an inquiring glance. “I cannot understand what could befall it.”