A Noble Name Part 31

He shrugged his shoulders, and his mobile features betrayed mingled derision and impatience. "I had no objection to your remaining on the stage,--but the grapes were sour!" he said. And, rising, he went to the window, where he stood drumming on the pane, while Helena, who had flushed crimson, said, with a forced smile, "Men are all alike, dear Johanna, as you will learn. Carlo is one of the best of them."

Johanna made no reply. What a contrast there was between her father's n.o.ble, intellectual personality and this good-humoured boor! But Helena deferred to him, excused his lack of consideration, endured his rude conduct, hung upon his words, and followed his every motion with loving looks. The girl's heart was filled with bitterness and disgust, and involuntarily she clasped Lisbeth closer in her arms, as if she could shield the little one from such contact.

Helena stroked the child's curls caressingly. "You cannot think how good Carlo is to Lisbeth!" she went on, in an undertone. "Because she was continually begging for her Johanna, he did what I have never known him to do before--sent on the baggage-train, and we do not follow it before night by the express----"

Lisbeth sprang up. "Kind Uncle Carlo!" she cried, running to the window.

He turned round. "Come!" he said, kindly; and stooping, he stiffly held out to her his open right hand. With a jump Lisbeth stood erect upon it, and, holding by his raised left hand, was carried back thus to the sofa.

The sight gave pain to Johanna. She arose and took the child from its step-father.

"An ungrateful public,--not even one round of applause!" He said, laughing. "But never mind, you shall have a better some day." And, turning to Johanna, he added, "She has made her appearance once, with great applause and self-satisfaction. Hey, little mouse?"

"Oh, it was beautiful!" Lisbeth cried, with sparkling eyes. "Everything I had on was pink and silver,--even my stockings; and I had silver wings on my shoulders----"

Johanna closed her lips with a kiss. Her father's child in a circus!

Carlo Batti misunderstood her. "Yes, yes," he went on, with a conceited smile, "you may well be proud of your little sister, and of her advantages. Race--artist blood--and Carlo Batti to the fore,--the devil must be in it if something does not come of all that."

"If it is not too much for her," Helena interposed. "Only see, Johanna, how pale the little face is, now that the excitement of seeing you again is over! That is Carlo's fault. He never knows when to stop!"

"Stuff!" he said, laughing. "The little lady grows too fast,--that's why she is pale and tired sometimes. Say yourself, little mouse, which tires you the most, I or your leather school-books?"

"Oh, the books, the horrid books!" cried the child, taking his outstretched hand, and dancing about him like a little ballet-girl, while he slowly turned round and round.

"So it goes all day long," Helena complained. "No need to hope for the quiet ordered by the doctor when those two are together. Moreover, she ought to have country air----" She broke off and looked inquiringly at her step-daughter.

Johanna's face flushed; she felt that it was best to be frank. "How gladly I would ask you to leave the child with me!" she replied. "But, kind and generous as my grandfather is, he has not yet forgiven my mother's marriage, and detests anything that can remind him of my father."

"You see, Helena, it is just as I told you," Batti interrupted her; adding, with a burst of rude laughter, "I know it--this aristocratic rubbish, stupid, haughty, narrow-minded----"

"Carlo!" Helena whispered, with a glance towards Johanna.

He was not to be deterred, however. "What the deuce are you grimacing about?" he asked. "She"--and he indicated Johanna--"is her father's daughter, and proud of her name, is she not?"

"Indeed I am; but I prize my grandfather too, and love him dearly, dearly!" she replied, and her eyes flashed.

He made a face, then held out to her his brown hairy hand. "You're the girl for me!" he exclaimed, seizing and almost crushing her fingers in his grasp. "Out with whatever is in your heart! A great pity that you're going to marry. A G.o.d-gifted creature like yourself belongs on horseback. And--down with the world!" He swung his arm as if it held a riding-whip, by way of completing his sentence.

"Dear Johanna, you must not take amiss what he says," Helena began, with a furtive smile.

"Let us alone, we understand each other!" he interrupted her. And turning to Johanna, he continued: "Let us talk together like friends. If your father, the actor, is unpopular up there,"--pointing with his thumb over his shoulder towards the castle,--"I, the equestrian artist, must be still more so. You need not reply: I know the talk. 'Players, strollers, vagabonds,' that is the verdict pa.s.sed upon us by the aristocracy and the respectable public, the devil fly away with them!"

"Carlo!" cried Helena.

His eyes flashed. "Am I to take it all quietly when such a stuck-up set turn me out of doors? Me, Carlo Batti, renowned in Paris, in Berlin, in St. Petersburg, as well as in Vienna!" he shouted, angrily. "Come, we can stay here no longer. I must go to Remmingen to look for some horses.

You will drive there with me."

"You said we might stay here, Uncle Carlo!" cried the child. "I want to see the castle where my Johanna lives. Mamma promised me I should."

Carlo laughed scornfully. "The castle,--yes, you shall see it, if only the outside," he said. Taking the child to the window, he continued: "Do you see that ugly old barn up there? They call that the castle, and it is full of ugly old cats who would eat you up, poor little mouse!"

His joke seemed to restore his good humour. He turned to Johanna and said, "Drive with us to Remmingen. I am sorry I have not my Mustapha here; we might have a ride together. But we must content ourselves with the hack. 'Need drives the devil to eat flies.'"

Johanna hesitated to accept the invitation; but Lisbeth hung upon her arm and begged so hard, "Come with us, do!" that her sister could not resist her.

There was no opportunity, however, for any quiet, uninterrupted talk.

While they were driving to Remmingen, Carlo Batti held forth himself; and when he left them in the inn there while he went to inspect some horses, Helena fell upon Johanna's neck, exclaiming that she had been pining for months for this moment,--for the opportunity of unburdening her heart. And then she wept for her Roderich, and adjured Johanna not to consider her speedy second marriage as disloyalty to him whom she 'had adored, and never could forget.'

"I was so helpless," she said; "I felt lost in the wide, wide world. You cannot imagine, dear Johanna, the trials and hostilities to which an unprotected woman is exposed, particularly when, like myself, she is young, beautiful, and talented.

"You can have no idea of the intrigues and cabals with which I was surrounded. The more gracious,--yes, I might as well confess,--the more enthusiastic my reception was by the public, the more virulent my rivals became. They took refuge behind the critics, and slandered me to the public and to the management. Four times I obtained an engagement, and each time they contrived to have it fail. If we had time, I could tell you stories that would make your hair stand on end----"

Thus she went on for a long while, and then began upon Carlo Batti. "He is a wonderful man, and as kind as he is clever. And how he loves me! It is a perpetual surprise to me, although I ought to be used to adoration.

Nothing seems to him good enough for me; he loads me with gifts. And how devoted he is to Lisbeth! That was what first decided me to marry him.

It was my duty to insure to the child a home and a father's protection.

Was I not right?"

To avoid a reply, Johanna bent over the little girl who stood beside her, and her heart ached as she looked into the pale little face.

"Do you think her changed?" asked Helena.

"Very much; she has grown pale and thin. How could you allow such a frail little creature to appear in public?"

"It did her no harm," Helena declared. "It was a simple little juvenile ballet, the prettiest thing you can imagine. Ten boys and ten girls in pink and silver----"

"But I was the prettiest of all," Lisbeth interposed, and her eyes sparkled; "and I danced the best, too. Everybody clapped their hands, and Uncle Carlo said that if I would take pains I could be a great artist, and then I should always have the loveliest clothes, and the others, who were not so pretty as I, would be half dead with vexation."

Helena laughed. "You see how he turns the child's head," she said; but it was evident that she was pleased. Johanna reflected with positive horror that if the child were left with these people, her inborn vanity would destroy the germs of good in her heart. She must save the little one from such a fate. Otto would let her have the child at Tannhagen.

Batti returned in an ill humour, because nothing had come of the purchase of horses, and the bad beer and black bread of the Remmingen inn were not calculated to soothe his irritation. Helena ought to have remembered to bring with them a couple of bottles of wine and some cold meat; but unless he himself attended to everything, great and small, nothing was ever done. Helena, who could not possibly submit to reproof, replied crossly that she had not expected to breakfast at a village inn, whereupon Batti angrily observed that another time she would please to rely upon his knowledge of the world and of human nature. He had from the first been averse to the d--d drive, and it was the last time he should accede to Helena's silly schemes.

"Why the deuce do you want to force yourself upon people who will have nothing to do with you?" he shouted, striking his clinched fist upon the table so that the gla.s.ses rang again.

Helena exclaimed, in a voice trembling with anger, that she had no idea of anything of the kind; she had been admired and sought for everywhere.

But Batti did not allow her to proceed; he asked her with a sneer whether any one of the aristocratic old dandies who had paid court to her had ever asked her inside his doors or presented her to the women of his family. Helena, as she always did when she had nothing to reply, burst into tears, and Lisbeth looked terrified from one to the other.

"You say something, dear Johanna," she whispered to her sister; and Batti, who overheard her, seemed suddenly to recollect his guest.

"Pardon me," he said, extending his hand to her. "I am a rough fellow, but I mean no harm. It has been a great pleasure to me to know you, and I am heartily grateful to my wife for it."

Then he kissed Helena, who dried her tears. The little girl sprang with a joyous shout into Uncle Carlo's outstretched arms, and the party drove back to Donninghausen in peace and harmony.

Here there was a trying leave-taking. When Johanna had the vehicle stopped upon the bridge, Lisbeth clung about her neck, and would not release her. Her sister's a.s.surance that she should soon come to Tannhagen, and her step-father's promise that she should dance in a white dress with golden stars, were both needed to pacify her. And then Helena pressed her handkerchief to her tearless eyes, embraced her step-daughter, and over her shoulder breathed in plaintive accents the a.s.surance that it was long, long since she had enjoyed anything so much as seeing her dear, dear Johanna again. Finally Batti, who had sprung out of the coach to a.s.sist her to alight, took her hand in both his.

"Farewell!" he cried, with the expression of child-like good humour which well became his eager face. "You must not think that I speak words of mere formality when I say that I am really yours to command. If I can ever serve you, or a.s.sist you in any way, curse me if it will not give me the greatest pleasure. I pray you to believe me."

"I do believe you, and thank you cordially," she replied, strangely touched by his words. Had she a presentiment that she might some day stand in need of his proffered aid? No such thought occurred to her, she gave one more kiss to the child, who stretched out her arms to her, and then Batti re-entered the coach, the driver cracked his whip, the crazy vehicle rattled off, and Johanna gazed after it so long as she could distinguish the fair, curly head stretched out of the window.