Элизабет фон Арним
The Benefactress
And the next day she arrived at Stralsund, and was met by her brother at the station.
She greeted him with enthusiasm. "As we are here," she said, when they were driving through the town, "let us pay our respects to the Regierungspräsidentin. It will save our coming in again to-morrow."
"No, I cannot to-day. I must get back as quickly as possible. The hands had their Easter ball yesterday, and when I left Lohm this morning half of them were still in bed."
"Well, then, the horses will have to do the journey again to-morrow, for no time should be lost."
"Yes, you can come in to-morrow, if you long so much to see your friend."
"And you?" asked Trudi, in a tone of astonishment.
"And I? I am up to my ears now in work. Last week was the first week for four months that we could plough. Now we have lost these three days at Easter. I cannot spare a single hour."
"But, my dear Axel, Bibi is of far greater importance for the future of Lohm than any amount of ploughing."
"I confess I do not see how."
"I don't understand you."
"Why didn't you bring the little boys?"
"What have you asked me to come here for?"
"Come, Trudi, you've not been near me for eight months. Isn't it natural that you should pay me a little visit?"
"No, it isn't natural at all to come to such a place in winter, and leave all the fun at home. I came because of Bibi."
"What! You'll come for Bibi, but not for your own brother?"
"Now, Axel, you know very well that I have come for you both."
"For us both? What would Miss Bibi say if she heard you talking of herself and of me as 'you both'?"
"I wish you would not bother to go on like this. It's a great waste of time."
"So it is, my dear. Any talk about Bibi Bornstedt, as far as I am concerned, is a hopeless waste of time."
"Axel!"
"Trudi?"
"You don't mean to say that you are not thinking of her?"
"Thinking of her? I never let my thoughts linger round strange young ladies."
"Then what in heaven's name have you got me here for?"
"The anemones are coming out–"
"Ach——"
"They really are."
"Suppose instead of teasing me as though I were still ten and you a great bully, you talked sensibly. The Hohensteins give a bal masqué to-night, and I gave it up to come to you."
"Oh, my dear, that was really kind," said Lohm, touched by the tremendousness of this sacrifice.
"Then be a good boy," said Trudi caressingly, edging herself closer to him, "and tell me you are going to be wise about Bibi. Don't throw such a chance away—it's positively wicked."
"My dear Trudi, you'll have us in the ditch. It is very nice when you lean against me, but I can't drive. By the way, you remember my old Kleinwalde neighbour? The old man who spoilt you so atrociously?"
"Bibi will make a most excellent wife," said Trudi, ungratefully indifferent to the memory of old Joachim. "Oh, what a cold wind there is to-day. Do drive faster, Axel. What a taste, to live here and to like it into the bargain!"
"You know that I must live here."
"But you needn't like it."
"You've heard that old Joachim left Kleinwalde to his English niece?"
"You have only seen Bibi once, and she grows on one tremendously."
"I want to talk about old Joachim."
"And I want to talk about Bibi."
"Well, Bibi can wait. She is the younger. You know about the old man's will?"
"I should think I did. One of his unfortunate sons has just joined our regiment. You should hear him on the subject."
"A most disagreeable, grasping lot," said Lohm decidedly. "They received every bit of their dues, and are all well off. Surely the old man could do as he liked with the one place that was not entailed?"
"It isn't the usual thing to leave one's land to a foreigner. Is she coming to live in it?"
"She came last week."
"Oh?" This in a tone of sudden interest.
There was a pause. Then Trudi said, "Is she young?"
"Quite young."
"Pretty?"
"Exceedingly pretty."
Trudi looked up at him and smiled.
"Well?" said Axel, smiling back at her.
"Well?" said Trudi, continuing to smile.
Axel laughed outright. "My dear Trudi, your astuteness terrifies me. You not only know already why I wrote to you, but you know more reasons for the letter than I myself dream of. I want to be able to help this extremely helpless young lady, and I can hardly be of any use to her because I have no woman in the house. If I had a wife I could be of the greatest assistance."
"Only then you wouldn't want to be."
"Certainly I should."
"Pray, why?"
"Because I have a greater debt of obligations to her uncle than I can ever repay to his niece."
"Oh, nonsense—nobody pays their debts of obligations. The natural thing to do is to hate the person who has forced you to be grateful, and to get out of his way."
"My dear Trudi, this shrewdness–" murmured her brother. Then he added, "I know perfectly well that your thoughts have already flown to a wedding. Mine don't reach farther than an elderly companion."
"Who for? For you?"
"Miss Estcourt is looking for an elderly companion, and I would be grateful to you if you would help her."
"But the elderly companion does not exclude the wedding."
"When you see Miss Estcourt you will understand how completely such a possibility is outside her calculations. You won't of course believe that it is outside mine. Why should you want to marry me to every girl within reach? Five minutes ago it was Bibi, and now it is Miss Estcourt. You do not in the least consider what views the girls themselves might have. Miss Estcourt is absorbed at this moment in a search for twelve old ladies."
"Twelve–?"
"Her ambition is to spend herself and her money on twelve old ladies. She thinks happiness and money are as good for them as for herself, and wants to share her own with persons who have neither."
"My dear Axel—is she mad?"
"She did not give me that impression."
"And you say she is young?"
"Yes."
"And really pretty?"
"Yes."
"And could be so well off in that flourishing place!"
"Of course she could."
"I'll go and call on her to-morrow," said Trudi decidedly.
"It will be kind of you," said Lohm.
"Kind! It isn't kindness, it's curiosity," said Trudi with a laugh. "Let us be frank, and call things by their right names."
Anna was in the garden, admiring the first crocus, when Trudi appeared. She drove Axel's cobs up to the door in what she felt was excellent style, and hoped Miss Estcourt was watching her from a window and would see that Englishwomen were not the only sportswomen in the world. But Anna saw nothing but the crocus.
The wilderness down to the marsh that did duty as a garden was so sheltered and sunny that spring stopped there first each year before going on into the forest; and Anna loved to walk straight out of the drawing-room window into it, bare-headed and coatless, whenever she had time. Trudi saw her coming towards the house upon the servant's telling her that a lady had called. "Nothing on, on a cold day like this!" she thought. She herself wore a particularly sporting driving-coat, with an immense collar turned up over her ears. "I wonder," mused Trudi, watching the approaching figure, "how it is that English girls, so tidy in the clothes, so trim in the shoes, so neat in the tie and collar, never apparently brush their hair. A German Miss Estcourt vegetating in this quiet place would probably wear grotesque and disconnected garments, doubtful boots and striking stockings, her figure would rapidly give way before the insidiousness of Schweinebraten, but her hair would always be beautifully done, each plait smooth and in its proper place, each little curl exactly where it ought to be, the parting a model of straightness, and the whole well deserving to be dignified by the name Frisur. English girls have hair, but they do not have Frisurs."
Anna came in through the open window, and Trudi's face expanded into the most genial smiles. "How glad I am to make your acquaintance!" she cried enthusiastically. She spoke English quite as correctly as her brother, and much more glibly. "I hope you will let me help you if I can be of any use. My brother says your uncle was so good to him. When I lived here he was very kind to me too. How brave of you to stay here! And what wonderful plans you have made! My brother has told me about your twelve ladies. What courage to undertake to make twelve women happy. I find it hard enough work making one person happy."
"One person? Oh, Graf Hasdorf."
"Oh no, myself. You see, if each person devoted his energies to making himself happy, everybody would be happy."
"No, they wouldn't," said Anna, "because they do, but they're not."
They looked at each other and laughed. "She only needs Jungbluth to be perfect," thought Trudi; and with her usual impulsiveness began immediately to love her.
Anna was delighted to meet someone of her own class and age after the severe though short course she had had of Dellwigs and Manskes; and Trudi was so much interested in her plans, and so pressing in her offers of help, that she very soon found herself telling her all her difficulties about servants, sheets, wall-papers, and whitewash. "Look at this paper," she said, "could you live in the same room with it? No one will ever be able to feel cheerful as long as it is here. And the one in the dining-room is worse."
"It isn't beautiful," said Trudi, examining it, "but it is what we call praktisch."
"Then I don't like what you call praktisch."
"Neither do I. All the hideous things are praktisch—oil-cloth, black wall-papers, handkerchiefs a yard square, thick boots, ugly women—if ever you hear a woman praised as a praktische Frau, be sure she's frightful in every way—ugly and dull. The uglier she is the praktischer she is. Oh," said Trudi, casting up her eyes, "how terrible, how tragic, to be an ugly woman!" Then, bringing her gaze down again to Anna's face, she added, "My flat in Hanover is all pinks and blues—the most becoming rooms you can imagine. I look so nice in them."
"Pinks and blues? That is just what I want here. Can't I get any in Stralsund?"
Trudi was doubtful. She could not think it possible that anybody should ever get anything in Stralsund.
"But I must do my shopping there. I am in such a hurry. It would be dreadful to have to keep anyone waiting only because my house isn't ready."
"Well, we can try," said Trudi. "You will let me go with you, won't you?"
"I shall be more than grateful if you will come."
"What do you think if we went now?" suggested Trudi, always for prompt action, and quickly tired of sitting still. "My brother said I might drive into Stralsund to-day if I liked, and I have the cobs here now. Don't you think it would be a good thing, as you are in such a hurry?"
"Oh, a very good thing," exclaimed Anna. "How kind you are! You are sure it won't bore you frightfully?"
"Oh, not a bit. It will be rather amusing to go into those shops for once, and I shall like to feel that I have helped the good work on a little."
Anna thought Trudi delightful. Trudi's new friends always did think her delightful; and she never had any old ones.
She drove recklessly, and they lurched and heaved through the sand between Kleinwalde and Lohm at an alarming rate. They passed Letty and Miss Leech, going for their afternoon walk, who stood on one side and stared.
"Who's that?" asked Trudi.
"My brother's little girl and her governess."
"Oh yes, I heard about them. They are to stay and take care of you till you have a companion. Your sister-in-law didn't like Kleinwalde?"
"No."
Trudi laughed.
They passed Dellwig, riding, who swept off his hat with his customary deference, and stared.
"Do you like him?" asked Trudi.
"Who?"
"Dellwig. I know him from the days before I married."
"I don't know him very well yet," said Anna, "but he seems to be very—very polite."
Trudi laughed again, and cracked her whip.
"My uncle had great faith in him," said Anna, slightly aggrieved by the laugh.
"Your uncle was one of the best farmers in Germany, I have always heard. He was so experienced, and so clever, that he could have led a hundred Dellwigs round by the nose. Dellwig was naturally quite small, as we say, in the presence of your uncle. He knew very well it would be useless to be anything but immaculate under such a master. Perhaps your uncle thought he would go on being immaculate from sheer habit, with nobody to look after him."
"I suppose he did," said Anna doubtfully. "He told me to keep him. It's quite certain that I can't look after him."
They passed Axel Lohm, also riding. He was on Trudi's side of the road. He looked pleased when he saw Anna with his sister. Trudi whipped up the cobs, regardless of his feelings, and tore past him, scattering the sand right and left. When she was abreast of him, she winked her eye at him with perfect solemnity.
Axel looked stony.
CHAPTER XI
Neither Trudi nor Anna had ever worked so hard as they did during the few days that ended March and began April. Everything seemed to happen at once. The house was in a sudden uproar. There were people whitewashing, people painting, people putting up papers, people bringing things in carts from Stralsund, people trimming up the garden, people coming out to offer themselves as servants, Dellwig coming in and shouting, Manske coming round and glorifying—Anna would have been completely bewildered if it had not been for Trudi, who was with her all day long, going about with a square of lace and muslin tucked under her waist-ribbon which she felt was becoming and said was an apron.
Trudi was enjoying herself hugely. She saw Jungbluth's waves slowly straightening themselves out of her hair, and for the first time in her life remained calm as she watched them go. She even began to have aspirations towards Uncle Joachim's better life herself, and more than once entered into a serious consideration of the advantages that might result from getting rid at one stroke of Bill her husband, and Billy and Tommy her two sons, and from making a fresh start as one of Anna's twelve.
Frau Manske and Frau Dellwig could not face her infinite superciliousness more than once, and kept out of the way in spite of their burning curiosity. When Dellwig's shouts became intolerable, she did not hesitate to wince conspicuously and to put up her hand to her head. When Manske forgot that it was not Sunday, and began to preach, she would interrupt him with a brisk "Ja, ja, sehr schön, sehr schön, aber lieber Herr Pastor, you must tell us all this next Sunday in church when we have time to listen—my friend has not a minute now in which to appreciate the opinions of the Apostel Paulus."
"I believe you are being unkind to my parson," said Anna, who could not always understand Trudi's rapid German, but saw that Manske went away dejected.
"My dear, he must be kept in his place if he tries to come out of it. You don't know what a set these pastors are. They are not like your clergymen. If you are too kind to that man you'll have no peace. I remember in my father's time he came to dinner every Sunday, sat at the bottom of the table, and when the pudding appeared made a bow and went away."
"He didn't like pudding?"
"I don't know if he liked it or not, but he never got any. It was a good old custom that the pastor should withdraw before the pudding, and Axel has not kept it up. My father never had any bother with him."
"But what has the pudding that he didn't get ten years ago to do with your being unkind to him now?"
"I wanted to explain the proper footing for him to be on."
"And the proper footing is a puddingless one? Well, in my house neither pudding nor kindness in suitable quantities shall be withheld from him, so don't ill-use him more than you feel is absolutely necessary for his good."
"Oh, you are a dear little thing!" said Trudi, putting her hands on Anna's shoulders and looking into her eyes—they were both tall young women, and their eyes were on a level—"I wonder what the end of you will be. When you know all these people better you'll see that my way of treating them, which you think unkind, is the only way. You must turn up your nose as high as it will go at them, and they will burst with respect. Don't be too friendly and confiding—they won't understand it, and will be sure to think that something must be wrong about you, and will begin to backbite you, and invent all sorts of horrid stories about you. And as for the pastor, why should he be allowed to treat your rooms as though they were so many pulpits, and you as though you had never heard of the Apostel Paulus?"
Anna admitted that she was not always in the proper frame of mind for these unprovoked sermons, but refused to believe in the necessity for turning up her nose. She ostentatiously pressed Manske, the very next time he came, to stay to the evening meal, which was rather of the nature of a picnic in those unsettled days, but at which, for Letty's sake, there was always a pudding; and she invited him to eat pudding three times running, and each time he accepted the offer; and each time, when she had helped him, she fixed her eyes with a defiant gravity on Trudi's face.
Axel came in sometimes when he had business at the farm, and was shown what progress had been made. Trudi was as interested as though it had been her own house, and took him about, demanding his approval and admiration with an enthusiasm that spread to Anna, and she and Axel soon became good friends. The Stralsund wall-papers were so dreadful that Anna had declared she would have most of the rooms whitewashed; the hall had been done, exchanging its pea-green coat for one of virgin purity, and she had thought it so fresh and clean, and so appropriate to the simplicity of the better life, that to the amazement of the workmen she insisted on the substitution of whitewash in both dining and drawing-room for the handsome chocolate-coloured papers already in those rooms.
"The twelve will think it frightful," said Trudi.
"But why?" asked Anna, who had fallen in love with whitewash. "It is purity itself. It will be symbolical of the innocence and cleanliness that will be in our hearts when we have got used to each other, and are happy."
Trudi looked again at the hall, into which the afternoon sun was streaming. It did look very clean, certainly, and exceedingly cheerful; she was sure, however, that it would never be symbolical of any heart that came into it. But then Trudi was sceptical about hearts.
At the end of Easter week, when Trudi was beginning to feel slightly tired of whitewash and scrambled meals, and to have doubts as to the permanent becomingness of aprons, and misgivings as to the effect on her complexion of running about a cold house all day long, answers to the advertisements began to arrive, and soon arrived in shoals. These letters acted as bellows on the flickering flame of her zeal. She found them extraordinarily entertaining, and would meet Manske in the hall when he brought them round, and take them out of his hands, and run with them to Anna, leaving him standing there uncertain whether he ought to stay and be consulted, or whether it was expected of him that he should go home again without having unburdened himself of all the advice he felt that he contained. He deplored what he called das impulsive Temperament of the Gräfin. Always had she been so, since the days she climbed his cherry-trees and helped the birds to strip them; and when, with every imaginable precaution, he had approached her father on the subject, and carefully excluding the word cherry hinted that the climbing of trees was a perilous pastime for young ladies, old Lohm had burst into a loud laugh, and had sworn that neither he nor anyone else could do anything with Trudi. He actually had seemed proud that she should steal cherries, for he knew very well why she climbed the trees, and predicted a brilliant future for his only daughter; to which Manske had listened respectfully as in duty bound, and had gone home unconvinced.
But Anna did not let him stand long in the hall, and came to fetch him and beg him to help her read the letters and tell her what he thought of them. In spite of Trudi's advice and example she continued to treat the pastor with the deference due to a good and simple man. What did it matter if he talked twice as much as he need have done, and wearied her with his habit of puffing Christianity as though it were a quack medicine of which he was the special patron? He was sincere, he really believed something, and really felt something, and after five days with Trudi Anna turned to Manske's elementary convictions with relief. In five days she had come to be very glad that Trudi stood in no need of a place among the twelve.
Most of the women who wrote in answer to the advertisement sent photographs, and their letters were pitiful enough, either because of what they said or because of what they tried to hide; and Anna's appreciation of Trudi received a great shock when she found that the letters amused her, and that the photographs, especially those of the old ones or the ugly ones, moved her to a mirth little short of unseemly. After all, Trudi was taking a great deal upon herself, Anna thought, reading the letters unasked, helping her to open them unasked, hurrying down to fetch them unasked, and deluging her with advice about them unasked. She saw she had made a mistake in allowing her to see them at all. She had no right to expose the petitions of these unhappy creatures to Trudi's inquisitive and diverted eyes. This fact was made very patent to her when one of the letters that Trudi opened turned out to be from a person she had known. "Why," cried Trudi, her face twinkling with excitement, "here's one from a girl who was at school with me. And her photo, too—what a shocking scarecrow she has grown into! She is only two years older than I am, but might be forty. Just look at her—and she used to think none of us were good enough for her. Don't have her, whatever you do—she married one of the officers in Bill's first regiment, and treated him so shamefully that he shot himself. Imagine her boldness in writing like this!" And she began eagerly to read the letter.
Anna got up and took it out of her hands. It was an unexpected action, or Trudi would have held on tighter. "She never dreamed you would see what she wrote," said Anna, "and it would be dishonourable of me to let you. And the other letters too—I have been thinking it over—they are only meant for me; and no one else, except perhaps the parson, ought to see them."
"Except perhaps the parson!" cried Trudi, greatly offended. "And why except perhaps the parson?"
"I can't always read the German writing," explained Anna.
"But surely a woman of your own age, who isn't such a simpleton as the parson, is the best adviser you can have."
"But you laugh at the letters, and they are all so unhappy."
Trudi went back to Lohm early that day. "She has taken it into her head that I am not to read the letters," she said to her brother with no little indignation.
"It would be a great breach of confidence if she allowed you to," he replied; which was so unsatisfactory that she drove into Stralsund that very afternoon, and consoled herself with the pliable Bibi.
Bibi's nose seemed more unsuccessful than ever after having had Anna's before her for nearly a week; but then the richness of the girl! And such a good-natured, generous girl, who would adore her sister-in-law and make her presents. Contemplating the good Bibi in her afternoon splendour from Paris, Trudi's heart stirred within her at the thought of all that was within Axel's reach if only he could be induced to put out his hand and take it. Anna would never marry him, Trudi was certain—would never marry anyone, being completely engrossed by her philanthropic follies; but if she did, what was her probable income compared to Bibi's? And Axel would never look at Bibi so long as that other girl lived next door to him; nobody could expect him to. Anna was too pretty; it was not fair. And Bibi was so very plain; which was not fair either.
The Regierungspräsidentin, a cousin by marriage of Bibi's, but a member of an ancient family of the Mark, was delighted to see Trudi and to question her about the new and eccentric arrival. Trudi had offered to take Anna to call on this lady, and had explained that it was her duty to call; but Anna had said there was no hurry, and had talked of some day, and had been manifestly bored by the prospect of making new acquaintances.
"Is she quite—quite in her right senses?" asked the Regierungspräsidentin, when Trudi had described all they had been doing in Anna's house, and all Anna meant to do with her money, and had made her description so smart and diverting that the Regierungspräsidentin, an alert little lady, with ears perpetually pricked up in the hope of catching gossip, felt that she had not enjoyed an afternoon so much for years.
Bibi sat listening with her mouth wide open. It was an artless way of hers when she was much interested in a conversation, and was deplored by those who wished her well.
"Oh, yes, she is quite in her senses. Rather too sure she knows best, always, but quite in her senses."
"Then she is very religious?"
"Not in the ordinary way, I should think. She goes in for nature. Gott in der Natur, and that sort of thing. If the sun shines more than usual she goes and stands in it, and turns up her eyes and gushes. There's a crocus in the garden, and when we came to it yesterday she stopped in front of it and rhapsodised for ten minutes about things that have nothing to do with crocuses—chiefly about the lieben Gott. And all in English, of course, and it sounds worse in English."
"But then, my dear, she is religious?"
"Oh, well, the pastor would not call it religion. It's a sort of huddle-muddle pantheism as far as it is anything at all." From which it will be seen that Trudi was even more frank about her friends behind their backs than she was to their faces.
She drove back to Lohm in a discontented frame of mind. "What's the good of anything?" was the mood she was in. She had over-tired herself helping Anna, and she was afraid that being so much in cold rooms and passages, and washing in hard water, had made her skin coarse. She had caught sight of herself in a glass as she was leaving the Regierungspräsidentin, and had been disconcerted by finding that she did not look as pretty as she felt. Nor was she consoled for this by the consciousness that she had been unusually amusing at Anna's expense; for she was only too certain that the Regierungspräsidentin, when repeating all she had told her to her friends, would add that Trudi Hasdorf had terribly eingepackt—dreadful word, descriptive of the faded state immediately preceding wrinkles, and held in just abhorrence by every self-respecting woman. Of what earthly use was it to be cleverer and more amusing than other people if at the same time you had eingepackt?
"What a stupid world it is," thought Trudi, driving along the chaussée in the early April twilight. A mist lay over the sea, and the pale sickle of the young moon rose ghost-like above the white shroud. Inland the stars were faintly shining, and all the earth beneath was damp and fragrant. It was Saturday evening, and the two bells of Lohm church were plaintively ringing their reminder to the countryside that the week's work was ended and God's day came next. "Oh, the stupid world," thought Trudi. "If I stay here I shall be bored to death—that Estcourt child and her governess have got on to my nerves—horrid fat child with turned-in toes, and flabby, boneless woman, only held together by her hairpins. I am sick of governesses and children—wherever one goes, there they are. If I go home, there are those noisy little boys and Fräulein Schultz worrying all day, and then there's that tiresome Bill coming in to meals. Anna and Bibi are just in the position I would like to be in—no husbands and children, and lots of money." And staring straight before her, with eyes dark with envy, she fell into gloomy musings on the beauty of Bibi's dress, and the blindness of fate, throwing away a dress like that on a Bibi, when it was so eminently suited to tall, slim women like herself; and it was fortunate for Axel's peace that when she reached Lohm the first thing she saw was a letter from the objectionable Bill telling her to come home, because the foreign prince who was honorary colonel of the regiment was expected immediately in Hanover, and there were to be great doings in his honour.
She left, all smiles, the next morning by the first train.
"Miss Estcourt will miss you," said Axel, "and will wonder why you did not say good-bye. I am afraid your journey will be unpleasant, too, to-day. I wish you had stayed till to-morrow."
"Oh, I don't mind the Sunday people once in a way," said Trudi gaily. "And please tell Anna how it was I had to go so suddenly. I have started her, at least, with the workmen and people she wants. I shall see her in a few weeks again, you know, when Bill is at the man[oe]uvres."
"A few weeks! Six months."
"Well, six months. You must both try to exist without me for that time."
"You seem very pleased to be off," he said, smiling, as she climbed briskly into the dog-cart and took the reins, while her maid, with her arms full of bags, was hoisted up behind.
"Oh, so pleased!" said Trudi, looking down at him with sparkling eyes. "Princes and parties are jollier any day than whitewash and the better life."
"And brothers."
"Oh—brothers. By the way, I never saw Bibi look better than she did yesterday. She has improved so much nobody would know–"
"You will miss your train," said Axel, pulling out his watch.
"Well, good-bye then, alter Junge. Work hard, do your duty, and don't let your thoughts linger too much round strange young ladies. They never do, I think you said? Well, so much the better, for it's no good, no good, no good!" And Trudi, who was in tremendous spirits, put her whip to the brim of her hat by way of a parting salute, touched up the cobs, and rattled off down the drive on the road to Jungbluth and glory. She turned her head before she finally disappeared, to call back her oracular "No good!" once again to Axel, who stood watching her from the steps of his solitary house.