Элизабет фон Арним
The Benefactress
"Wie? Was?" exclaimed Dellwig, who had dozed off, and was startled.
"She will—she will!" cried his wife.
"Will what? Ruin us? The Engländerin? Ach was—Unsinn. She can be managed. It is Lohm who is the danger. It is Lohm who will ruin us. If we could get rid of him–"
"Ach Gott, if he would die!" exclaimed Frau Dellwig, with fervent hands raised heavenwards. "Ach Gott, if he would only die!"
"Ach Gott, ach Gott!" mimicked her husband irritably, for he disliked being suddenly awakened. "People never die when anything depends on it," he grumbled, turning over on his side. And he cursed Axel several times, and went to sleep.
CHAPTER XVIII
The philosopher tells us that, after the healing interval of sleep, we are prepared to meet each other every morning as gods and goddesses; so fresh, so strong, so lusty, so serene, did he consider the newly-risen and the some-time separated must of necessity be. It is a pleasing belief; and Experience, that hopelessly prosaic governess who never gives us any holidays, very quickly disposes of it. For what is to become of the god-like mood if only one in a company possess it? The middle-aged and old, who abound in all companies, are seldom god-like, and are never so at breakfast.
The morning after the arrival of the Chosen, Anna woke up in the true Olympian temper. She had been brought back to the happy world of realities from the happy world of dreams by the sun of an unusually lovely April shining on her face. She had only to open her window to be convinced that all which she beheld was full of blessings. Just beneath her window on the grass was a double cherry tree in flower, an exquisite thing to look down on with the sunshine and the bees busy among its blossoms. The unreasoning joyfulness that invariably took possession of her heart whenever the weather was fine, filled it now with a rapture of hope and confidence. This world, this wonderful morning world that she saw and smelt from her window, was manifestly a place in which to be happy. Everything she saw was very good. Even the remembrance of Dellwig was transfigured in that clear light. And while she dressed she took herself seriously to task for the depression of the night before. Depressed she had certainly been; and why? Simply because she was over-excited and over-tired, and her spirit was still so mortifyingly unable to rise superior to the weakness of her tiresome flesh. And to let herself be made wretched by Dellwig, merely because he talked loud and had convictions which she did not share! The god-like morning mood was strong upon her, and she contemplated her listless self of the previous evening, the self that had sat so long despondently thinking instead of going to bed, with contempt. These evening interviews with Dellwig, she reflected, were a mistake. He came at hours when she was least able to bear his wordiness and shouting, and it was the knowledge of his impending visit that made her irritable beforehand and ruffled the absolute serenity that she felt was alone appropriate in a house dedicated to love. But it was not only Dellwig and the brick-kiln that had depressed her; she had actually had doubts about her three new friends, doubts as to the receptivity of their souls, as to the capacity of their souls for returning love. At one awful moment she had even doubted whether they had souls at all, but had hastily blown out the candle at this point, extinguishing the doubt at the same time, smothering it beneath the bedclothes, and falling asleep at once, after the fashion of healthy young people.
Now, at the beginning of the new day, with all her misgivings healed by sleep, she thought calmly over the interview she had had with Frau von Treumann before supper; for it was that interview that had been the chief cause of her dejection. Frau von Treumann had told her an untruth, a quite obvious and absurd untruth in the face of the correspondence, as to the reason of her coming to Kleinwalde. She had said she had only come at the instigation of her son, who looked upon Anna as a deserving object of help. And Anna had been hurt, had been made miserable, by the paltriness of this fib. Her great desire was to reach her friends' souls quickly, to attain the beautiful intimacy in which the smallest fiction is unnecessary; and so little did Frau von Treumann understand her, that she had begun a friendship that was to be for life with an untruth that would not have misled a child. But see the effect of sleep and a gracious April morning. The very shabbiness and paltriness of the fib made Anna's heart yearn over the poor lady. Surely the pride that tried to hide its wounds with rags of such pitiful flimsiness was profoundly pathetic? With such pride, all false from Anna's point of view, but real and painful enough to its possessor, the necessity that drove her to accept Anna's offer must have been more cruel than necessity, always cruel, generally is. Her heart yearned over her friend as she dressed, and she felt that the weakness that must lie was a weakness greatly requiring love. For nobody, she argued, would ever lie unless driven to it by fear of some suffering. If, then, it made her happy, and made her life easier, let her think that Anna believed she had come for her sake. What did it matter? No one was perfect, and many people were surprisingly pathetic.
Meanwhile the day was glorious, and she went downstairs with the springy step of hope. She was thinking exhilarating thoughts, thinking that there were to be no ripples of misgivings and misunderstandings on the clear surface of this first morning. They would all look into each others' candid eyes at breakfast, and read a mutual consciousness of interests henceforward to be shared, of happiness to be shared, of life to be shared,—the life of devoted and tender sisters.
The hall door stood open, and the house was full of the smell of April; the smell of new leaves budding, of old leaves rotting, of damp earth, pine needles, wet moss, and marshes. "Oh, the lovely, lovely morning!" whispered Anna, running out on to the steps with outstretched arms and upturned face, as though she would have clasped all the beauty round and held it close. She drew in a long breath, and turned back into the house singing in an impassioned but half-suppressed voice the first verse of the Magnificat. The door leading to the kitchen opened, and to her surprise Baroness Elmreich emerged from those dark regions. The Magnificat broke off abruptly. Anna was surprised. Why the kitchen? The baroness saw her hostess's figure motionless against the light of the open door; but the light behind was strong and the hall was dark, and she thought it was Anna's back. Hoping that she had not been noticed she softly closed the door again and waited behind it till she could come out unseen.
Anna supposed that the princess must be showing her the servants' quarters, and went into the breakfast room; but in it sat the princess, making coffee.
"There you are," said the princess heartily. "That is nice. Now we can drink our coffee comfortably together before the others come down. Have you been out? You smell of fresh air."
"Only a moment on the doorstep."
"Come, sit next to me. You have slept well, I can see. Notice the advantage of coming straight in to breakfast, and not running about the forest—you get here first, and so get the best cup of coffee."
"But it isn't proper for me to have the best," said Anna, smiling as she took the cup, "when I have guests here."
"Yes, it is—very proper indeed. Besides, you told me they were sisters."
"So they are. Has the baroness not been here?"
"No, she is still in bed."
"No, I saw her a moment ago. I thought you were with her."
"Oh, my dear—so early in the morning!" protested the princess. "When did I see her last? Less than nine hours ago. She followed me into my bedroom and talked much. I could not begin again with her the first thing in the morning, even to please you." And she looked at Anna very affectionately. "You were tired last night, were you not?" she continued. "Axel Lohm stayed so late, I think he wanted to speak to you. But you went straight up to bed."
"I had seen him before he went in to you. He didn't want to speak to me. He was consumed by curiosity about our new friends."
"Was he? He did not show much interest in them. He talked to me nearly all the time. He thought for a moment that he knew the baroness—at least, he stared at her at first and seemed surprised. But it turned out that she was only like someone he knew. She had evidently never seen him before. It is a great pleasure to me to talk to that young man," the princess went on, while Anna ate her toast.
"So it is to me," said Anna.
"I have met many people in my life, and have often wondered at the dearth of nice ones—how few there are that one likes to be with and wishes to see again and again. Axel is one of the few, decidedly."
"So he is," agreed Anna.
"There is goodness written on every line of his face."
"Oh, he has the kindest face. And so strong. I feel that if anything happened here, anything dreadful, that he would make it right again at once. He would mend us if we got smashed, and build us up again if we got burned, and protect us, this houseful of lone women, if ever anybody tried to run away with us." And Anna nodded reassuringly at the princess, and took another piece of toast "That is how I feel about him," she said. "So agreeably certain, not only of his willingness to help, but of his power to do it." Talking about Axel she quite forgot the apparition of the baroness that she had just seen. He was so kind, so good, so strong. How much she admired strength of purpose, independence, the character that was determined to find its happiness in doing its best.
"If I had a daughter," said the princess, filling Anna's cup, "she should marry Axel Lohm."
"If I had a daughter," said Anna, "she should marry him, so yours couldn't. I wouldn't even ask her if she liked it. I'd be so sure that it was a good thing for her that I'd just say: 'My dear, I have chosen my son-in-law. Get your hat, and come to church and marry him.' And there'd be an end of that."
The princess felt that it was an unprofitable employment, trying to help on Axel's cause. She could not but see what he thought of Anna; and after the touching manner of widows, was convinced of the superiority of marriage, as a means of real happiness for a woman, over any and every other form of occupation. Yet whenever she talked of him she was met by the same hearty agreement and frank enthusiasm, the very words being taken out of her mouth and her own praises of him doubled and trebled. It was a promising friendship, but it was a singularly unpromising prelude to love.
"Please make some fresh coffee," begged Anna; "the others will be coming down soon, and must not have cold stuff." Her voice grew tender at the mere mention of "the others." For the princess and Axel, both of whom she liked so much, it never took on those tender tones, as the princess had already noted. There was nothing in either of them to appeal to that side of her nature, the tender, mother side, which is in all good women and most bad ones. They were her friends, staunch friends, she felt, and of course she liked and respected them; but they were sturdy, capable people, firmly planted on their own feet, able to battle successfully with life—as different as possible from these helpless ones who needed her, whom she had saved, to whom she was everything, between whom and want and sorrow she was fixed as a shield.
Two of the helpless ones came in at that moment, with frosty, early-morning faces. Anna put the vision she had seen at the kitchen door from her mind, and went to meet them with happy smiles and greetings. Frau von Treumann did her best to respond warmly, but it was very early to be enthusiastic, and at that hour of the day she was accustomed to being a little cross. Besides, she had had no coffee yet, and her hostess evidently had, and that made a great difference to one's sentiments. The baroness looked pinched and bloodless; she was as frigid as ever to Anna, said nothing about having seen her before, and seemed to want to be left alone. So that the mutual gazing into each other's eyes did not, after all, take place.
The princess waited to see that they had all they wanted, and then went out rattling her keys; and after an interval, during which Anna chattered cheerful and ungrammatical German, and the window was shut, and warming food eaten, Frau von Treumann became amiable and began to talk.
She drew from her pocket a letter and a photograph. "This is my son," she said. "I brought it down to show you. And I have had a long letter from him already. He never neglects his mother. Truly a good son is a source of joy."
"I suppose so," said Anna.
The baroness turned her eyes slowly round and fixed them on the photograph. "Aha," she thought, "the son again. Last night the son, this morning the son—always the son. The excellent Treumann loses no time."
"He is good-looking, my Karlchen, is he not?"
"Yes," said Anna. "It is a becoming uniform."
"Oh—becoming! He looks adorable in it. Especially on his horse. I would not let him be anything but a hussar because of the charming uniform. And he suits it exactly—such a lightly built, graceful figure. He never stumbles over people's feet. Herr von Lohm nearly crushed my poor foot last night. It was difficult not to scream. I never did admire those long men made by the meter, who seem as though they would go on for ever if there were no ceilings."
"He is rather long," agreed Anna, smiling.
"Heartwhole," thought Frau von Treumann. "Tell me, dear Miss Estcourt–" she said, laying her hand on Anna's.
"Oh, don't call me Miss Estcourt."
"But what, then?"
"Oh, you must call me Anna. We are to be like sisters here—and you, too, please, call me Anna," she said, turning to the baroness.
"You are very good," said the baroness.
"Well, my little sister," said Frau von Treumann, smiling, "my baby sister–"
"Baby sister!" thought the baroness. "Excellent Treumann."
"—you know an old woman of my age could not really have a sister of yours."
"Yes, she could—not a whole sister, perhaps, but a half one."
"Well, as you please. The idea is sweet to me. I was going to ask you—but Karlchen's letter is too touching, really—such thoughts in it—such high ideals–" And she turned over the sheets, of which there were three, and began to blow her nose.
"He has written you a very long letter," said Anna pleasantly; the extent to which the nose blowing was being carried made her uneasy. Was there to be crying?
"You have a cold, dear Frau von Treumann?" inquired the baroness with solicitude.
"Ach nein—doch nein," murmured Frau von Treumann, turning the sheets over, and blowing her nose harder than ever.
"It will come off," thought Letty, who had slipped in unnoticed, and was eating bread and butter alone at the further end of the table.
"Poor thing," thought Anna, "she adores that Karlchen."
There was a pause, during which the nose continued to be blown.
"His letter is beautiful, but sad—very sad," said Frau von Treumann, shaking her head despondingly. "Poor boy—poor dear boy—he misses his mother, of course. I knew he would, but I did not dream it would be as bad as this. Oh, my dear Miss Estcourt—well, Anna then"—smiling faintly—"I could never describe to you the wrench it was, the terrible, terrible wrench, leaving him who for five years—I am a widow five years—has been my all."
"It must have been dreadful," murmured Anna sympathetically.
The baroness sat straight and motionless, staring fixedly at Frau von Treumann.
"'When shall I see you again, my dearest mamma?' were his last words. And I could give him no hope—no answer." The handkerchief went up to her eyes.
"What is she gassing about?" wondered Letty.
"I can see him now, fading away on the platform as my train bore me off to an unknown life. An only son—the only son of a widow—is everything, everything to his mother."
"He must be," said Anna.
There was another silence. Then Frau von Treumann wiped her eyes and took up the letter again. "Now he writes that though I have only been away two days from Rislar, the town he is stationed at, it seems already like years. Poor boy! He is quite desperate—listen to this—poor boy–" And she smiled a little, and read aloud, "'I must see you, liebste, beste Mama, from time to time. I had no idea the separation would be like this, or I could never have let you go. Pray beg Miss Estcourt–'"
"Aha," thought the baroness.
"'—to allow me to visit my mother occasionally. There must be an inn in the village. If not, I could stay at Stralsund, and would in no way intrude on her. But I must see my dearest mother, the being I have watched over and cared for ever since my father's death.' Poor, dear, foolish boy—he is desperate–" And she folded up the letter, shook her head, smiled, and suddenly buried her face in her handkerchief.
"Excellent Treumann," thought the unblinking baroness.
Anna sat in some perplexity. Sons had not entered into her calculations. In the correspondence, she remembered, the son had been lightly passed over as an officer living on his pay and without a superfluous penny for the support of his parent. Not a word had been said of any unusual affection existing between them. Now it appeared that the mother and son were all in all to each other. If so, of course the separation was dreadful. A mother's love was a sentiment that inspired Anna with profound respect. Before its unknown depths and heights she stood in awe and silence. How could she, a spinster, even faintly comprehend that sacred feeling? It was a mysterious and beautiful emotion that she could only reverence from afar. Clearly she must not come between parent and child; but yet—yet she wished she had had more time to think it over.
She looked rather helplessly at Frau von Treumann, and gave her hand a little squeeze. The hand did not return the squeeze, and the face remained buried in the handkerchief. Well, it would be absurd to want to cut off the son entirely from his mother. If he came occasionally to see her it could not matter much. She gave the hand a firmer squeeze, and said with an effort that she did her best to conceal, "But he must come then, when he can. It is rather a long way—didn't you say you had to stay a night in Berlin?"
"Oh, my dear Miss Estcourt—my dear Anna!" cried Frau von Treumann, snatching the handkerchief from her face and seizing Anna's hand in both hers, "what a weight from my heart—what a heavy, heavy weight! All night I was thinking how shall I bear this? I may write to him, then, and tell him what you say? A long journey? You are afraid it will tire him? Oh, it will be nothing, nothing at all to Karlchen if only he can see his mother. How can I thank you! You will say my gratitude is excessive for such a little thing, and truly only a mother could understand it–"
In short, Karlchen's appearance at Kleinwalde was now only a matter of days.
"Unverschämt," was the baroness's mental comment.
CHAPTER XIX
Anna put on her hat and went out to think it over. Fräulein Kuhräuber was apparently still asleep. Letty, accompanied by Miss Leech, had to go to Lohm parsonage for her first lesson with Herr Klutz, who had undertaken to teach her German. Frau von Treumann said she must write at once to Karlchen, and shut herself up to do it. The baroness was vague as to her intentions, and disappeared. So Anna started off by herself, crossed the road, and walked quickly away into the forest. "If it makes her so happy, then I am glad," she said to herself. "She is here to be happy; and if she wants Karlchen so badly, why then she must have him from time to time. I wonder why I don't like Karlchen."
She walked quickly, with her eyes on the ground. The mood in which she sang magnificats had left her, nor did she look to see what the April morning was doing. Frau von Treumann had not been under her roof twenty-four hours, and already her son had been added—if only occasionally, still undoubtedly added—to the party. Suppose the baroness and Fräulein Kuhräuber should severally disclose an inability to live without being visited by some cherished relative? Suppose the other nine, the still Unchosen, should each turn out to have a relative waiting tragically in the background for permission to make repeated calls? And suppose these relatives should all be male?
These were grave questions; so grave that she was quite at a loss how to answer them. And then she felt that somebody was looking at her; and raising her eyes, she saw Axel on the mossy path quite close to her.
"So deep in thought?" he asked, smiling at her start.
Anna wondered how it was that he so often went through the forest. Was it a short cut from Lohm to anywhere? She had met him three or four times lately, in quite out of the way parts. He seemed to ride through it and walk through it at all hours of the day.
"How is your potato-planting getting on?" she asked involuntarily. She knew what a rush there was just then putting the potatoes in, for she did not drive every day about her fields in a cart without springs with Dellwig for nothing. Axel must have potatoes to plant too; why didn't he stay at home, then, and do it?
"What a truly proper question for a country lady to ask," he said, looking amused. "You waste no time in conventional good mornings or asking how I do, but begin at once with potatoes. Well, I do not believe that you are really interested in mine, so I shall tell you nothing about them. You only want to remind me that I ought to be seeing them planted instead of walking about your woods."
Anna smiled. "I believe I did mean something like that," she said.
"Well, I am not so aimless as you suppose," he returned, walking by her side. "I have been looking at that place."
"What place?"
"Where Dellwig wants to build the brick-kiln."
"Oh! What do you think of it?"
"What I knew I would think of it. It is a fool's plan. The clay is the most wretched stuff. It has puzzled me, seeing how very poor it is, that he should be so eager to have the thing. I should have credited him with more sense."
"He is quite absurdly keen on it. Last night I thought he would never stop persuading."
"But you did not give in?"
"Not an inch. I said I would ask you to look at it, and then he was simply rude. I do believe he will have to go. I don't really think we shall ever get on together. Certainly, as you say the clay is bad, I shall refuse to build a brick-kiln."
Axel smiled at her energy. In the morning she was always determined about Dellwig. "You are very brave to-day," he said. "Last night you seemed afraid of him."
"He comes when I am tired. I am not going to see him in the evening any more. It is too dreadful as a finish to a happy day."
"It was a happy day, then, yesterday?" he asked quickly.
"Yes—that is, it ought to have been, and probably would have been if—if I hadn't been tired."
"But the others—the new arrivals—they must have been happy?"
"Yes—oh yes—" said Anna, hesitating, "I think so. Fräulein Kuhräuber was, I am sure, at intervals. I think the other two would have been if they hadn't had a journey."
"By the way, do you remember what I said yesterday about the Elmreichs?"
"Yes, I do. You said horrid things." Her voice changed.
"About a Baron Elmreich. But he had a sister who made a hash of her life. I saw her once or twice in Berlin. She was dancing at the Wintergarten, and under her own name."
"Poor thing. But it doesn't interest me."
"Don't get angry yet."
"But it doesn't interest me. And why shouldn't she dance? I knew several people who ended by dancing at London Wintergartens."
"You admit, then, that it is an end?"
"It is hardly a beginning," conceded Anna.
"She was so amazingly like your baroness would be if she painted and wore a wig–"
"That you are convinced they must be sisters. Thank you. Now what do you suppose is the good of telling me that?" And she stood still and faced him, her eyes flashing.
Do what he would, Axel could not help smiling at her wrath. It was the wrath of a mother whose child has been hurt by someone on purpose, "I wish," he said, "that you would not be so angry when I tell you things that might be important for you to know. If your baroness is really the sister of the dancing baroness–"
"But she is not. She told me last night that she has no brothers and sisters. And she wrote it in the letters before she came. Do you think it is a praiseworthy occupation for a man, doing his best to find out disgraceful things about a very poor and very helpless woman?"
"No, I do not," said Axel decidedly. "Under any other circumstances I would leave the poor lady to take her chance. But do consider," he said, following her, for she had begun to walk on quickly again, "do consider your unusual position. You are so young to be living away from your friends, and so young and inexperienced to be at the head of a home for homeless women—you ought to be quite extraordinarily particular about the antecedents of the people you take in. It would be most unpleasant if it got about that they were not respectable."
"But they are respectable," said Anna, looking straight before her.
"A sister who dances at the Wintergarten–"
"Did I not tell you that she has no sister?"
Axel shrugged his shoulders. "The resemblance is so striking that they might be twins," he said.
"Then you think she says what is not true?"
"How can I tell?"
Anna stopped again and faced him. "Well, suppose it were true—suppose it is her sister, and she has tried to hide it—do you know how I should feel about it?"
"Properly scandalised, I hope."
"I should love her all the more. Oh, I should love her twice as much! Why, think of the misery and the shame—poor, poor little woman—trying to hide it all, bearing it all by herself—she must have loved her sister, she must have loved her brother. It isn't true, of course, but supposing it were, could you tell me any reason why I should turn my back on her?"
She stood looking at him, her eyes full of angry tears.
He did not answer. If that was the way she felt, what could he do?
"I never understood," she went on passionately, "why the innocent should be punished. Do you suppose a woman would like her brother to cheat and then shoot himself? Or like her sister to go and dance? But if they do do these things, besides her own grief and horror, she is to be shunned by everybody as though she were infectious. Is that fair? Is that right? Is it in the least Christian?"
"No, of course it is not. It is very hard and very ugly, but it is quite natural. An old woman in a strong position might take such a person up, perhaps, and comfort her and love her as you propose to do, but a young girl ought not to do anything of the sort."
Anna turned away with a quick movement of impatience and walked on. "If you argue on the young girl basis," she said, "we shall never be able to talk about a single thing. When will you leave off about my young girlishness? In five years I shall be thirty—will you go on till I have reached that blessed age?"
"I have no right to go on to you about anything," said Axel.
"Precisely," said Anna.
"But please remember that I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to your uncle, and make allowances for me if I am over-zealous in my anxiety to shield his niece from possible unpleasantness."
"Then don't keep telling me I am too young to do good. It is ludicrous, considering my age, besides being dreadful. You will say that, I believe, till I am thirty or forty, and then when you can't decently say it any more, and I still want to do things, you'll say I'm old enough to know better."
Axel laughed. Anna's dimples appeared for an instant, but vanished again.
"Now," she said, "I am not going to talk about poor little Else any more. Let her distant relations dance till they are tired—it concerns nobody here at all."
"Little Else?"
"The baroness. Of course we shall call each other by our Christian names. We are sisters."
"I see."
"You don't see at all," she said, with a swift sideward glance at him.
"My dear Miss Estcourt–"
"If my plan succeeds it will certainly not be because I have been encouraged."
"I think," he said with sudden warmth, "that the plan is beautiful, and could only have been made by a beautiful nature."
"Oh?" ejaculated Anna, surprised. A flush of gratification came into her face. The heartiness of the tone surprised her even more than the words. She stood still to look at him. "It is a pity," she said softly, "that nearly always when we are together we get angry, for you can be so kind when you choose. Say nice things to me. Let us be happy. I love being happy."
She held out her hand, smiling. He took it and gave it a hearty, matter of fact shake, and dropped it. It was very awkward, but he was struggling with an overpowering desire to take her in his arms and kiss her, and not let her go again till she had said she would marry him. It was exceedingly awkward, for he knew quite well that if he did so it would be the end of all things.
He turned rather white, and thrust his hands deep into his pockets. "Yes, the plan is beautiful," he said cheerfully, "but very unpractical. And the nature that made it is, I am sure, beautiful, but of course quite as unpractical as the plan." And he smiled down at her, a broad, genial smile.
"I know I don't set about things the right way," she said. "If only you wouldn't worry about the pasts of my poor friends and what their relations may have done in pre-historic times, you could help me so much."
To his relief she began to walk on again. "Princess Ludwig is a sensible and experienced woman," he said, "and can help you in many ways that I cannot."
"But she only looks at the praktische side of a question, and that is really only one side. I am too unpractical, I know, but she isn't unpractical enough. But I don't want to talk about her. What I wanted to say was, that once these poor ladies have been chosen and are here, the time for making inquiries is over, isn't it? As far as I am concerned, anyhow, it is. I shall never forsake them, never, never. So please don't try to tell me things about them—it doesn't change my feelings towards them, and only makes me angry with you. Which is a pity. I want to live at peace with my neighbour."