A Noble Name Part 36

They rode the rest of the way in silence. As soon as they reached Donninghausen, the Freiherr seated himself at his writing-table, and wrote thus:

"DEAR JOHANNA,--When my sister told me of your departure this morning, I thought you wanting in respect to leave us as you did, without asking my permission, especially as you were going to people with whom I do not wish to have the slightest degree of intercourse. By way of excuse for you, I reflected that anxiety for your little sister had probably caused you to disregard for the moment the duty you owe to me and to the rules of my household. I take a different view of the matter now that I learn that your intercourse with the family of this circus-rider has been for some time the cause of serious disagreement between Otto and yourself. At first he was reluctant to explain, but upon my urgent desire to know the truth he has told me all. You know, my child, how much I love you, and how willing I am to have you act as you see fit; but here you are wrong and must submit. The honour of our family requires that you should sever all former ties. Come back, then, as soon as you can. Otto, whom I wished to send for you, declares that he cannot take you from the house of a circus-rider, which proves to me that he is more of a Donninghausen than I thought him. In your veins also flows the blood of our race, and I expect you to show yourself worthy of it. In spite of your mother's errors we have received you into the family as one of us, and we must now require you to have no further connection with your father's former wife and her child. Only explain to Otto that you are ready to agree to this, and all will be smooth again between you. Should your step-sister be seriously ill, I do not require you to leave her immediately; but you must do so as soon as you are relieved concerning her, and in the mean time you will carefully avoid appearing in public with any member of the circus-rider's family. Answer particularly at what time you intend to return, and accept the cordial good wishes of your affectionate grandfather,

"JOHANN FREIHERR V. DoNNINGHAUSEN."

The Freiherr gave this letter to Otto to read and to supplement, saying, "I have told the silly child what I require without circ.u.mlocution; now you can sweeten the pill of obedience to her as you please. You need not tone down what you want to say. I will not read what you write.

Love-letters are interesting only to those for whom they are composed."

Would he have considered the following a love-letter?--

"Your hasty departure, dear Johanna, has unfortunately still further complicated matters. If you only would have granted me an interview, you would have forgiven me, I feel sure, and the delightful relations existing between our grandfather and yourself need not have been disturbed by any discord. But I have no idea of reproaching you. I only entreat you, as earnestly as I can, to deliver me from the false position you have forced me to take to our grandfather. One word of forgiveness and a promise to return, and all will be well.

Think of the happy hours we have pa.s.sed together, of the fair future that lies before us, and believe in the repentance and love of your

"OTTO."

Aunt Thekla also wrote a long letter, in which some pa.s.sages were almost obliterated by her tears, repeating everything that she had said on the previous day, and then the epistles were all despatched, and the Freiherr awaited with certainty the answer he desired.

A letter from Johanna to her grandfather arrived after a week's delay, with an enclosure for Aunt Thekla, but not a line for Otto.

The Freiherr's letter ran thus:

"DEAR GRANDFATHER,--Since receiving your letter I have pa.s.sed the days and nights in terrible anxiety beside my little sister's bed. Her disease is nervous fever, and she was at first dangerously ill, but the fever is gradually, I trust, subsiding, and I am apparently able to take more repose. But only apparently, for since I have been somewhat easier in mind with regard to Lisbeth I have been all the more miserable with regard to myself; and if I have at last arrived at a conclusion, it is with no sense of victory, and my heart trembles as well as my hand while I write that I cannot return to Donninghausen. If Otto means to propose to me the alternative of severing myself either from you or from my father, whose memory I cherish in those he has left behind him, we have never understood each other, never loved each other, and I give him back his troth. That a separation from him deprives me also of you, of Aunt Thekla, and of a home which I love, is the severest trial that could befall me; but I must bear it. Farewell, dear, dear grandfather! Forgive me. Do not think me ungrateful; and, in spite of appearances, believe in the unalterable love and veneration of your grand-daughter

"JOHANNA."

The Freiherr had long finished reading the letter, when he still sat gazing at the uncertain characters in which Johanna's usual firm, clear handwriting was hardly to be recognized. _This_ he had not expected,--had not thought possible. But if she could thus resign Donninghausen, without even asking if some compromise were not possible, he, too, would hold unalterably to the justice of his course.

"Read that!" he said at last, in a harsh, hoa.r.s.e tone, as he handed the sheet to his sister. "Tell Otto how the matter stands. I do not want to speak of the foolish girl again."

CHAPTER XXIV.

DR. URBAN WOLF.

Johanna had thought that the worst was over when she took her departure from Donninghausen; and, indeed, the first days and nights that she spent by her sister's bedside were occupied wholly with care and anxiety for the little one. The child lay in the delirium of fever,--raved in terror of a little black pony,--declared, screaming, that she never would dance again, never would appear in the circus; while Helena, with tears, confessed that Lisbeth's illness was the result of a fall she had while at a rehearsal.

Johanna's presence seemed to soothe the child, and, forgetting herself, she was always beside her bed; but then came the letters from the home she had left, and they recalled all the old pain and conflict.

Involuntarily she looked first for Otto's letter. Her heart had not yet forgotten to beat faster at the sight of his handwriting. But the more she read of it, the more it dulled her, and at its conclusion she laid it aside with a sensation of disgust. Did he think to lure her back thus? Did he know her so little? Had he so entirely lost all feeling of self-respect? One honest word from him, and all might have been well.

Without implicating Magelone, he might have said to the Freiherr, 'I have wronged Johanna; forgive me if she forgives.' Had she hoped for this? Had she for an instant thought this solution possible? No, oh, no!

Had she not written both to him and to Aunt Thekla--had she not repeated--did she not feel with every throb of her heart--that all was over between Otto and herself?

And this must be written to her grandfather. Otto had with great skill used her hint as to making her relations with these people the reason for their separation. Half the work was done; why should she delay to do the rest?

At first she found an explanation for this in her exertions as a nurse, which were unremitting. But when, at her earnest entreaty, Lisbeth was removed from the first story of the noisy hotel, where Batti had established himself, to a quiet back room in the third story, she daily grew better, and Johanna could no longer make her care the pretext for delay.

And, like all who earnestly strive after it, she, too, found 'the bitter word of liberating truth.' She pitilessly insisted to herself upon the fact that in his cool attempt at a reconciliation Otto's aim had been the preservation of friendly relations between himself and his grandfather, and that she should contribute more to his happiness by vanishing from Donninghausen for his sake than by paving the way for her justification, and she determined to sacrifice herself. She would not--she could not love him any longer. She persuaded herself that she did not. But she might, without loss of self-respect, take upon herself the consequences of his fault. In this conviction she wrote to her grandfather.

When her letter was despatched she sank into a dull apathy. Slowly, monotonously, hour after hour, day after day pa.s.sed by. Her solitude was but rarely invaded. There was little to be done at present for the child. Helena, who had talked at first about taking her share of the nursing, was soon weary, and Batti was satisfied with asking every morning what kind of a night Lisbeth had pa.s.sed, and how she was at present. After receiving the usual answer, 'About the same!' and then standing for a while beside the bed looking down at the poor little figure lying motionless with half-closed eyes, he became, Helena declared, so depressed that it needed half a day's distraction to wear off the impression produced upon him by his visit to the sick-room.

"We have two patients, dear Johanna," said Helena; "and I really believe that my task as Carlo's nurse is harder than yours. Fancy the self-control it costs me to conceal from poor Carlo the anguish of my heart; to dress, to receive visits, to walk and drive, and to preside at the little suppers to which Carlo has accustomed himself as well as his friends. It is not enough to give artistic performances; the artist must maintain his position in society; and, since Batti needs my aid in this, I must not refuse it."

After talk of this kind she would kiss her 'poor little sick angel,'

embrace Johanna, call her her comfort and support, and then return to her usual mode of life without a thought as to the amount of Johanna's self-denial.

Johanna had no sense of exercising any, but the confinement and the bald desolation of her surroundings added to her weight of misery. The room to which Lisbeth had been removed was low-ceiled and scarcely ten paces square, the walls were covered with a gaudy paper, the child's bed stood at one end, with an old sofa, upon which Johanna slept; against one wall stood a couple of common tables and chairs, and curtains of doubtful cleanliness were hanging before the little window, which looked out upon a narrow side-street. Helena declared that she herself could not exist four-and-twenty hours in such a 'hole;' but it never occurred to her to try to make it more comfortable. Why should she trouble herself? By foolishly breaking off her engagement Johanna had relinquished all claim to especial respect, and must be glad to find an asylum with her quasi-step-father. Unfortunately, she was quite as haughty as formerly.

In vain did Helena try to discover the cause of her break with her lover. "I cannot speak of it," Johanna always repeated; and then Batti in his violent way would order his wife not to 'torment the poor thing.' "I am glad," he would say, "that it has happened as it has; now she will no longer refuse to accede to my plans. In a year she will be the queen of my circus."

Johanna never suspected this. Batti begged her kindly to accept for the present the shelter of his 'nomad-tent,' and she accepted gratefully what was cordially offered. She scarcely thought of the future,--the present, with its dull, paralyzing pain, so weighed upon her soul.

At last she was roused by a letter from Donninghausen. Aunt Thekla had addressed the envelope. It contained a communication from her grandfather. Johanna kissed the handwriting, as she had so often kissed the withered hand that had traced it, and then read the letter, feeling as she did so the angry glance of his large eyes, and hearing the muttered thunder of his voice. He wrote,--

"So much time elapsed between my letter and your answer, that there can have been no inconsiderate haste on your part. You have reflected upon all that required reflection, and therefore there is scarcely any need of my express declaration that with the breaking of your troth to Otto every tie between yourself and myself and every member of my family, is severed forever.

How you justify yourself in casting a doubt upon Otto's affection for you I cannot tell; at all events, you cannot doubt his honour. _A Donninghausen keeps his word._ And Otto still feels himself bound, as he has repeatedly told me. I thought you, too, a genuine child of my house; but you are only the child of your mother, the first, the only Donninghausen who ever deviated from the paths of duty and honour. Otto will write to you. If he succeeds in convincing and persuading you, you shall still find me inclined to forgive; but decide quickly, or this is the last word you will receive from your grandfather,

"JOHANN FREIHERR VON DoNNINGHAUSEN."

This was too much! Johanna folded the letter again with trembling hands.

Her mother, the patient sufferer, and she herself, who surely had never 'sought her own,' were disgraced and exiled, while Otto was looked upon as the genuine Donninghausen who keeps his word, and Magelone as one of the blameless ones who have never strayed from the true path. Anger and pride for a moment thrust pain into the background. She would be final also, as her grandfather had been,--would prove to herself thus that she was of his blood.

She went to the open window and looked out. On the other side of the wall that bounded the little street lay a garden with fruit-trees and beds of vegetables. It was late in the afternoon, and raining. From the low clouds came the 'sound of vernal showers' filling the air and rustling low among the tree-tops; a mingled fragrance of herbs, flowers, and wet earth ascended to the window, and under the influence of the murmuring sound and the scent-laden air her tormenting reflections faded into dreamy revery. From the misty veil of the rain came trooping, at first vaguely, but in ever-increasing distinctness, forms and pictures,--the past and the present, the real and the unreal, blending together. When the light was brought, Johanna awoke as from a deep sleep.

And as she awoke she found herself back again in the midst of the old life. Each throb of her heart brought with it a dull pain, a constant grief. She saw with pitiless distinctness what she had lost. Anxiety for Lisbeth oppressed her. And yet everything was changed! The spell that had fettered her since that unhappy morning in the forest was broken, and she looked beyond herself out into the eternal beauty of life, which is independent of all individual happiness or misery.

As formerly in Donninghausen, she now tried to fix and confirm in writing the shadowy images that rose before her; but she did not do it as then, only from a desire to liberate her soul. An impulse towards artistic creation had awakened within her,--an inheritance from her father, as she joyfully reflected,--and she began to group and arrange as a whole that which her fancy showed her phantom-like and confused.

Hour after hour she sat at the improvised desk which she had placed at the window of the sick-room. A new home was here given her in place of the beautiful, beloved one she had lost. Or was it not rather a home-coming, a recovery of the dear old haunts of memory? Banished from Donninghausen, she fled to Lindenbad. Amid the green valleys and hills of the Thuringian forest she laid the scene of her story, and a profusion of melodious echoes from the days of her early girlhood lent it a brightness that refreshed Johanna herself.

Weeks pa.s.sed; Johanna buried herself in her task with pa.s.sionate intensity. The hours of daylight often did not suffice her; and even when her lamp was extinguished, darkness brought no repose. The phantoms of her fancy crowded about her and kept her awake. And many were her struggles with an imperfect, undeveloped power of expression, with an uncertain hand, and an untrained eye.

That she should suffer physically under this constant nervous strain was but natural. Several times the physician called Helena's attention to the fact that her step-daughter needed exercise in the open air. At last, when he found his warnings unheeded, he went to Batti and informed him that unless some attention were paid to Fraulein Johanna's health they should soon have two nervous-fever patients in the house.

Batti rushed into his wife's room. "Helena, why have you so neglected Johanna?" he shouted. "She will have nervous fever, and will die, all through our fault. Curse me if I ever shall forgive myself! Come, come, we must beg her to forgive us!"

With these words he rushed away again. Helena followed him, and found him in the room up-stairs, confronting the astounded girl, clasping her hand in his, while he overwhelmed her with entreaties, proposals, and self-accusations. Helena must in future do her share of nursing. Johanna must refresh herself, distract her mind; go to the circus, make acquaintances. The end of it all was that he prevailed upon her to put on her riding-habit. He would accompany her on her ride, and she should try his Miss Jane, a mare positively made for her.

At first she felt embarra.s.sed. Batti was not only a well-known character in the sporting world,--there was no end of bows and nods from riders and gay occupants of carriages,--he was also a great favourite with the general populace. "There goes Batti! Batti!" the street-boys shouted after him; and he threw trifling coins among the rabble, and laughed at the scramble thus caused. But at last streets and promenades lay behind them, and away they galloped through the open country. Miss Jane, a delicate, high-bred creature, ran races with Batti's gray. After long days of rain, field and forest lay basking in the sunshine. The breeze was at once fresh and warm; to inhale the delicious air of which she had so long been deprived was like a revivifying draught for Johanna. She returned to the house refreshed and rejuvenated.

"By Jove, how well you look!" cried Batti, as he helped her to dismount.

"Pray glance at your mirror and then deny that you are a born horsewoman."

This declaration, with a hundred variations of the same, was the theme of all Carlo Batti's conversation with Johanna, and she saw him now more frequently than formerly. Lisbeth's condition had suddenly improved: she regained her consciousness; the fever left her; she slept, and her appet.i.te returned. She soon began to sit up for hours at a time. Batti required, with a determination that admitted of no opposition, that Johanna should indemnify herself for her long seclusion. And when Helena declared that it would be very improper for her step-daughter to appear without her at the circus, at the _table-d'hote_, and at Batti's little suppers, he insisted that the maid should watch beside Lisbeth while her mother and sister were absent. Johanna must learn to love the life for which Batti destined her.

And she really enjoyed seeing the circus. The fine horses, the splendour of the costumes, Batti's performances in riding and training his animals, two beautiful blonde sisters, who were really fine performers in their way, the numerous well-disciplined troupe, the brilliant lights, the loud music, the enthusiastic applause of a large audience, all contributed to produce upon Johanna an agreeably exciting impression.

But she felt exceedingly uncomfortable in the circle in which she found herself soon afterwards, at one of Batti's suppers. Men only were invited,--partly members of the aristocracy, partly belonging to the literary cla.s.s. The tone which they adopted towards Batti hovered between condescension and rude familiarity. When excited by wine he began to brag. They drew him on without his perceiving it. Helena was loaded by them with coa.r.s.e flattery, which her insatiate vanity led her to accept, well pleased.