A Noble Name Part 20

"Certainly, grandpapa dear," she said, without hesitation.

The Freiherr clasped her in his arms.

"That's right, that's right, my child; I expected no less of you," he said.

Only when she had left him did she feel a slight doubt whether she had been wise. "It was foolish," she said to herself, as she walked along the corridor. "I ought to have played a sensible part and accepted my freedom." But instantly afterwards she shrugged her shoulders and said, with a smile, "But what matter?--_Cela n'engage a rien._"

CHAPTER XIII.

JOHANNA TO LUDWIG.

"DoNNINGHAUSEN, May 10, 1874.

"I must confess, my dear Ludwig, that I laughed heartily over your last letter,--that is, over the lecture at the end of it.

Nevertheless, you are right, and I will pay it all heed.

"So you do not want me to send you 'philosophic observations,'--'thot we doa wer awnselves,' our peasants say,--but a minute description of my daily life. Listen, then, you dear snappy old friend, to the record of my days.

"Whilst you were writing the letters from Suez and Aden, which only arrived the day before yesterday, in the midst of the tropical verdure and sunshine which they describe, our northern spring was announcing its approach, as usual, with wind and rain. But now it is here in all its beauty, and I enjoy it as much as possible in the open air.

"Before our first breakfast, which is really the only time I have entirely at my own disposal, I walk or ride; after it I always ride with my grandfather; and when, as is frequently the case, Aunt Thekla and Magelone either pay visits or receive them, I sit with the old Herr in the balcony of his study, which projects directly into the tops of the lindens. We follow your wanderings on the map, or I read aloud to him in some book of travels, which brings us near you in spirit. But late in the evening, when we have all said 'good-night' to one another, I slip out once more into the park, to listen to the rustle of the trees and to the 'songstress of the night,' the nightingale, trilling among the shrubbery on the sh.o.r.es of the little lake.

"You see, grandpapa and the spring are almost my only society, and it is very pleasant. After Johann Leopold left us, by grandpapa's desire I made several visits among the neighbours.

They received me courteously, returned my visit, and invited me again, but--perhaps it is my own fault--I do not feel quite comfortable among them. Grandpapa's dictatorial, almost menacing tone in which he introduced me as 'my grand-daughter Johanna' seems to ring in my ears, and I ask myself how I should have been received if I had presented myself without this 'open sesame,'--only bearing my father's name, of which I am so proud. I may possibly be doing some of these people injustice, but not all of them. At any rate, my mistrust of them serves to alienate me from them mentally, and therefore it is best to mingle with them as little as possible. I do not know whether grandpapa is aware of this feeling on my part, but, at all events, he lets me do as I please.

"May 18.

"According to Aunt Thekla, society about here is unusually gay this year. A Herr von Rothkirch is visiting at Klausenburg, who enlivens young and old; and one day there is a picnic, and the next a _bal champetre_, and the next an excursion to some point of interest in the neighbourhood. Magelone is in her element,--she dresses and flirts, and has a 'divine time.' Aunt Thekla shakes her head sometimes, but grandpapa says, 'Let her do as she chooses, we are not all alike. I cannot take it ill of the little thing that she does not mope and sigh like a girl forsaken of her lover; and if she finds Donninghausen dull without Johann Leopold, it is well that she can find amus.e.m.e.nt elsewhere.' How grandpapa can believe that Magelone loves Johann Leopold is more than I can comprehend. She herself tells every one who will listen that she is only contracting a _mariage de raison_. At times I have felt sure that she loves another; or is she right when she maintains that she cannot love?

"And, after all, what is love? Is it a spell to which we accidentally succ.u.mb, or does it result from certain requirements of our being which bestow us helplessly upon another? How, for example, was it possible for Christine to fall in love with Red Jakob? He is almost repulsive to me, but she is in bliss.

"They married in April, and went to live at the Forest Hermitage. Of course grandpapa had to know: I chose my time, and told him the story as pathetically as I could. Johann Leopold was right,--I did not succeed in softening his heart.

'A fine reformation, truly,' he said, 'with the fellow tied fast by the arm. Johann Leopold can, of course, employ whomsoever he pleases, but I'll have nothing to do with the rascal, and so long as my eyes are open he must not show himself on Donninghausen land; on that condition I'll not interfere with him.'

"So on one of our first fine mornings I rode up to the Forest Hermitage alone. The bridle-path winds up the Klettberg through a magnificent hemlock forest, and then along the summit for some distance. The light comes brighter and brighter through the trunks, glimpses are caught here and there of distant views, bathed in a magic blue mist, which vanish the next moment. Then the path turns about a rock, and with a long breath you find yourself on a plateau that emerges from the forest like an island in the ocean. Around you, below you, far as the eye can reach, lie the wooded peaks, gleaming in the golden morning light, while far and near yawn a myriad dark chasms, tempting to the eye and to the imagination.

"Christine's joyful welcome roused me from my rapt delight in gazing. When I turned towards her I saw the Forest Hermitage,--the Observatory, as Johann Leopold called it,--a two-storied pavilion, with a high, pointed roof. Red Jakob was just coming out of his door. Even without his lame arm, I should have recognized him by his thick tawny curls, although his rather low stature and delicate frame were a disappointment to me. After all that I had heard of him, I had expected a giant. As he approached me and uttered a few words of grat.i.tude, I had a disagreeable sensation; there was something in his eyes reminding me of a beast of prey lurking for a victim,--did you notice this?--and when he laughed and showed his dazzlingly white, pointed teeth, I was almost afraid of him.

"This impression was strengthened by the bitterness which fairly saturates his rude humour. Christine, fortunately, takes it all in jest, and only laughs. When, after I had admired every nook and corner of her small domain, she conducted me to her sitting-room, and with fresh exclamations of delight made me sit down upon a hard old leathern sofa, her husband said, with a scornful laugh, 'Don't make so much of your belongings, or the gracious Fraulein will think you took such a miserable cripple as myself only for the sake of what you got with him.'

"She looked at her red-haired monster with a blissful smile.

'There now, Fraulein, he is always joking like that,' she made reply. 'Because he thinks I might grieve for coming to him, poor as I was, he makes believe that he cares nothing for all that we have; but he really likes it as well as I do.'

"With these words she left the room, and I heard her bustling about in the kitchen. Red Jakob took a seat opposite me. 'Yes, yes, it is a great thing to set up as superintendent,' he said, and laughed so that all his pointed teeth showed between his red lips. 'And if I now and then lay hold on a fellow using his shooting-iron where he ought not, I can show myself as honest as an old thief turned detective.'

"'You should not say such bitter things,' I said to him. 'My cousin, Johann Leopold, likes you, and you know it.'

"He shook his head. 'No, gracious Fruleen! they don't like a fellow like me. They keep him, and the Squire always did that,--but why? Because he is the master, and I am like his horse or dog; he will feed it while it can walk,--no longer. Do not contradict me; I know it all from experience. So long as the Squire and I were playmates, the old Herr was well pleased that I knew more about hunting than even the gamekeeper himself, and that nothing that could run or fly escaped my rifle. 'You must get Jakob to teach you. You must do as Jakob does,' was the cry; so that at last I really thought I was a fine fellow and could not go astray. Not exactly that, I thank you! When the Squire cared no longer for trapping game and shooting birds, there was no place for me; and all that I had been praised for I was obliged to do in secret, as though it were a sin. It might be,--but I don't think it! No, I don't think it. Why did I have keen sight and a sure hand----Ah, indeed, I have the last no longer!'

"He arose and looked out of the window, that I might not see his face.

"'You ought to have been gamekeeper,' I said.

"'True, and the Squire meant I should be, and the old Herr wanted it, and I tried it; but I can't write well enough for the head place, and I cannot submit to be ordered about by the gamekeeper, and the gamekeeper's wife and a.s.sistants. I preferred to earn my bread as a woodcutter, and nothing went wrong until the accident.'

"Christine here made her appearance with coffee, and gave another turn to the conversation; but as I was going Red Jakob said, 'Gracious Fruleen, I have observed that you think me an ungrateful man. I am not that. I never in my life forgot a benefit that came from a kind heart without pride or arrogance.

I never shall cease to be grateful for what you did for Christine; and if you ever need me, I'll go through fire and water to serve you.' And his cruel eyes flashed so that I was frightened. G.o.d save me from such a helper!

"I am sorry the man is so antipathetic to me, for Christine's sake. Her devotion to me is really a pleasure, and I take great delight in seeing the fresh young creature busy about her little house. I have been two or three times since to visit her, and Jakob was always 'away in the grounds,' as Christine says proudly. The rough fellow really seems to have a sincere love of nature. He has discovered a charming lookout about a hundred steps from the Hermitage, and has cleared away all branches and bushes that could obstruct the view, and made a gra.s.sy mound there upon which I could lie and dream for hours.

Christine regretted that Jakob was not at home to do the honours of the surrounding landscape; but what do I care to know how the mountain-peaks, piled up in all directions, are named; or whither leads the road that winds over this or that eminence; or the name of the factory smoking in the forest depths? The unknown distance allures and occupies my thoughts.

I never weary of asking, Do you hold concealed aught for me?

while I gaze with indifference across the familiar valley at my feet. Nestling against the rocks on the summit of which I sit lies Klausenburg, with its towers and turrets. 'The same foolish old Johanna!' I hear you say. Dear Ludwig, it is easy for you men, roaming abroad in the world whither you will, to exalt the virtues of content and domesticity. Permit us, who must sit quietly at home, to indulge in what dreams we will.

"And this reminds me of my step-mother, who has not yet found an abiding-place. A little while ago I had a letter from her, the first since I left her. She has been unable to procure an engagement--a failure which she ascribes to the machinations of her rivals, who would, if they could, prevent her from any advantageous employment of her talents; and she a.s.sures me that were it not for the a.s.sistance of a friend, whose name she does not mention, she must long since have succ.u.mbed to their persecutions. She writes that my little sister grows prettier and more like herself every day; that the child has also inherited her talent, and has lately appeared with great success in a juvenile ballet. Strange to say,--although I myself always desired nothing more eagerly than a career upon the stage, and although the majority of great actresses have made their _debut_ very early,--I cannot endure the thought of my little Lisbeth making her appearance now before the public, and I vainly try to answer the question as to what would have been my father's wish in the matter. But why write this to you, who despise and condemn the actor's profession? It comes from my old habit of talking to you of everything that is occupying my mind. Kind and really paternal as my grandfather is, I could not speak of this to him. I did not even venture to tell him that I had received the letter, and Aunt Thekla, with all her sympathy for me, would be helpless here.

"As usual, my letter has grown to a volume. When will it reach you? When will you read it? Answer me soon, and tell me of your grand, great world, as I do you of my circ.u.mscribed existence.

Wherever you go I follow you in heart and thoughts."

Early in June there came surprising news from Waldemar. He had obtained a position in the suite of the amba.s.sador to St. Petersburg, wished to take his bride thither, and had persuaded her parents to consent to a hasty marriage. Now he wrote to invite his family to be present at it on the 15th of the month. An old-fashioned celebration, after his grandfather's taste, was out of the question, since the Walburgs were in deep mourning for the death of an uncle.

The Freiherr, as the head of the family, felt that his presence, even at this quiet marriage, could not be dispensed with. Aunt Thekla, on the contrary, shrank from taking so long a journey. "It is seventeen years since I have been more than a few miles away from the Donninghausen domain," she said. "The thought of meeting all those strangers frightens me. I think I could scarcely make a respectable curtsey to them. Please, dear Johann, let me stay at home." And the Freiherr, after he had laughed at her and tried to persuade her, acceded to her wishes.

He was all the more inexorable towards Magelone. She longed to accompany him to Vienna. In imagination she revelled in delicious toilettes, saw herself with crowds of admirers, completing conquest after conquest, and returning laden with who could tell what spoils of victory, when her grandfather's 'no' cut short all her dreams and aspirations.

"If you were free as you appear to be, or bound outwardly as you are in spirit, I should not object," he said; "but, as you are, misunderstandings might arise that had better be avoided. And I think, too, that you ought to remain here, out of regard for Johann Leopold."

Magelone knew that when her grandfather spoke thus he was not to be contradicted; but she was vexed enough at having placed herself in an ambiguous position, and when she went to bed she cried herself to sleep, like a child who has lost its Christmas-gift by its own fault.

On the same evening Aunt Thekla, when she was alone with her brother, ventured timidly to propose that he should take Johanna to Vienna with him.

"I have already thought of it," he replied. "I should like to give the child a pleasure, and, moreover, she is the truest Donninghausen of them all,--she would have done me credit. But to introduce her by that name which she clings to so nonsensically--I cannot bring myself to do it."

Thus it was that the Freiherr started on his journey accompanied only by old Christian. Aunt Thekla's preparations for it were sufficient for a voyage around the world. Now and then she reproached herself for saving herself all the inconveniences and fatigue of travel while thus sending her old brother into the world alone; but he would not listen to her.

"Don't behave as if I were too infirm to bear a railway journey," he said at last, rather impatiently. "Our Emperor is just my age, and he travels from one end of his kingdom to the other."

This example silenced the old lady's anxiety and helped her to undergo her brother's departure with dignity. But when, having accompanied him as far as Thalrode, she returned without him, and reflected that each flying minute bore him farther and farther from her, and that days and perhaps even weeks must pa.s.s before she should hear his step or see his dear handsome face again, it was all over with her, and she atoned by floods of tears for her previous fort.i.tude.

"Dear aunt, do not cry any more," Magelone said to her in the course of the afternoon. "You behave as if grandpapa were going to his own funeral. Come, let us drive out, to Klausenburg, to Remmingen,--wherever you will,--it will divert your mind."

"I don't wish to have it diverted," sighed Aunt Thekla. "To think of my dear good Johann, or to do something for him, is the only consolation I can have. Come, Johanna, let us dust the archive-room thoroughly. You know grandpapa cannot endure to have a servant enter it."

Johanna declared her willingness for the task. Magelone took up her embroidery with a yawn; really this eternal st.i.tching in all the heat was insufferable!

She seated herself at the piano and began a nocturne of Chopin's; but the idea of playing when there was no admiring audience! Her hands dropped wearily upon the keys, which sent forth an echoing chord, and the elfish eyes were veiled.