A Noble Name Part 6

Nevertheless, she postponed answering her letter from day to day. She had but little time of her own. Since Helena was occupied from morning till night with friends of both s.e.xes, Lisbeth was left to the care of her sister, whose busy hands were, moreover, occupied all day long in completing her step-mother's mourning wardrobe. In the evening, when the child had gone to bed and Helena's visitors had left her, it was Johanna's hard task to listen to the wailing and woe of this undisciplined, unregulated nature. After hours of such labour, she would go to her room thoroughly exhausted, and long after Helena was sleeping quietly the poor girl would toss to and fro in her bed, unable, from over-fatigue, to find any repose.

But one evening Helena made her appearance in her dressing-room with dry eyes and an air of important business. Johanna had just put Lisbeth to bed, and was again sitting at her sewing. Her step-mother went hither and thither, restlessly picked up this and that only to lay them down again, and said at last, with averted face, "Johanna, my friends say it is my duty--that is, that I owe it to you to speak seriously with you."

The young girl looked at her inquiringly.

"We--that is, I must arrange some plan for the future; and you--you told mo that your grandfather and Dr. Werner have both asked you to come to them. To which of them have you decided to go?"

Johanna's heart seemed to stand still. "Must I go away from here?" she gasped at last.

Helena turned sharply round towards her. "Dear Johanna, I had not supposed you could be so unreasonable," she said harshly. "Roderich left nothing but debts; and as for my supporting a step-daughter----"

"Not another word, please, mamma," Johanna interposed. "In my grief I have forgotten all else. The instant that I know that I am a burden to you my resolution is taken."

"How haughtily you speak!" Helena complained. "You must know how terribly hard it is for me to have to calculate thus. I had even deliberated whether, in view of your diligence and your care of Lisbeth, I might not as well keep you with me instead of paying Lina and a waiting-maid. But Hofrath Leuchtenberg said--and that decided me--that it would be of the greatest disadvantage to me in my career as an actress to be accompanied by a grown-up daughter."

She paused. Johanna replied by a mute inclination of her head.

"There might be a way found out of the difficulty," Helena continued.

"If you would call me 'Helena,' Lisbeth could call you aunt, and the world would take you for Roderich's sister. You know I am only going to stay here where we are known until New Year. What do you think?"

"I thank you!" Johanna made answer. "We had all better be spared this farce; besides, you know I have no talent as an actress. The part of my father's sister and your waiting-maid would be too difficult for me to undertake."

With these words she arose and left the room. Helena cast a tearful look towards heaven. "Leuchtenberg is right," she thought; "Johanna is haughty, obstinate, and heartless. I shall be spared a thousand annoyances by her leaving me. I am only sorry for Lisbeth's sake. The dear little creature really loves her sister, and Johanna seemed to care for her. But it is plain now how much her affection was worth!"

Johanna pa.s.sed a sleepless night, but when morning came her mind was made up; she arose and wrote immediately to Donninghausen and to Lindenbad. Her last letter was to Ludwig, and was as follows:

"I have just thanked your father and Mathilde for the help they offered me, and have told them that I cannot accept it. Little as my father seemed to care for me, he always provided for me with a lavish hand; but he has left nothing, and it seems very unjust to burden your father with my maintenance when my grandfather offers me a home beneath his roof.

"This reason, however, excellent as it is, is not my only one.

You offer to leave your father's house if I come to it. That alone would deter me. Finally,--you know I am given to selfishness--I dread living with Mathilde. No one knows better than I how excellent she is, how dutiful, self-sacrificing, and unpretending. But she is strict and literal to a degree that paralyzes and irritates me. Your mother, from whom Mathilde inherits all her good qualities, was, besides, kind and imaginative. Hers was the heart of a child so long as she lived. Your home without her--and, let me add, without you--could never be mine; and, since I resign it, I may as well go among entire strangers.

"If you would lighten my task, my dear Ludwig, remain the connecting link between my past and present. Let me inform you as to my life, and let me hear from you of your work, your plans for the future. However dissatisfied you may be with what I am now, it cannot affect the past,--I mean our childhood. Do you not remember how I always from the first sought and found protection with you from Mathilde's tyranny? It must always be so; a kind of instinct will always lead me to you whenever I need counsel and help, and I know that you will open to me when I knock.

"I have told my grandfather, who wrote to me a few days ago, that I am ready to go to him, and that I only wait for his directions with regard to my journey. To part from what is dear to me here--my father's grave and my little sister--will be hard; and, besides, I liked the atmosphere in which I lived.

Not for the sake of society here; I knew no one intimately but my father and Lisbeth. But all this activity and effort in the interest of art, inartistic as its results sometimes might be, interested me, and gave me the sensation of being in my element.

"But no,--this is self-conceit,--it was not my element. The histrionic attempt to which I so confidently invited you proved that I do not belong to the elect. 'Devoid of talent as her mother' was my father's verdict with regard to me; and when I recall the terrible moment when I stood there, utterly incapable of giving expression to what I felt so vividly in my imagination,--oh, Ludwig, the anguish of that moment cannot be described in words!

"I would that this bitter, mortifying experience had really cured me; that is, had stifled my desire for the Paradise then closed upon me. But this is not so. During the long days and nights pa.s.sed beside my dying father, I constantly struggled with the old longing.

"If I could make you comprehend all that this last year with my father has brought to me, you might, perhaps, understand me. In all his artistic performances I was beside him in spirit. The strongest chord that he struck, the gentlest harmony that he awakened, found an answering echo in my heart. When Desdemona, Ophelia, Klarchen seemed like puppets beside his Oth.e.l.lo, Hamlet, Egmont, I knew just what they ought to be; every look, every motion of theirs as it should be, was as clear to my mind as was his own exquisite conception of his part.

"Was this an inborn gift of mine, inherited from my father? If so, diligent perseverance could have made my clumsy limbs and speech obedient to my will; but my father's expression, 'Devoid of talent as her mother,' paralyzes my courage, and filial affection bids me to try no further where he can no longer criticise my efforts. Perhaps the creative force which I thought I possessed was but the momentary impression of his genius. I might then have had some measure of success at his side, inspired by his spirit,--no great amount, it may be,--but we love the moon with its borrowed light, and my sun might have permitted me to reflect its brilliancy.

"But this career is ended, and there is nothing for me but to submit. Perhaps my new surroundings will lighten my task; perhaps I shall find at my grandfather's something to do which will give healthy occupation to my thoughts. And I shall be in the country again, in quiet seclusion. In a sketch-book of my mother's there is a pencil-drawing of Donninghausen, which I used as a child to contemplate with secret longing. The castle, a huge, plain, two-storied pile, with a lofty roof and low bell-tower, stands half-way up the side of a mountain which is crowned with forests and overlooked by loftier ranges of mountains. Down in the valley is the village, with its little old church; a mountain stream winds through the meadows, and the road beside it ascends the mountain along its course and is lost in the forest. This road always bewitched me; it was the pathway to all kinds of adventures and wonders,--the entrance to a fairy world. So closely is this landscape interwoven with all my childish dreams, that I could go to Donninghausen as to a home, if I could hope to learn to understand or to be understood by its inmates. a.s.suredly the best intentions, the most sincere effort, shall not be wanting on my part. I certainly do possess a certain talent, my only one, for adapting myself to the habits and social life of those with whom I am thrown. May it now stand me in stead!

"Farewell for the present. I hope you will read between the lines of this long letter the earnest desire to be understood by you of

"Yours,

"J."

CHAPTER V.

AT DoNNINGHAUSEN.

In the large three-windowed morning-room of Castle Donninghausen the old Freiherr was walking to and fro, smoking his long pipe, as was his custom always after breakfast, his huge, tawny dog Leo following, as ever, close at his master's heels. The sister of the lord of the castle sat prim and stately in her usual place by the window, knitting, while at a small table near the chimney-place Magelone and Johann Leopold were playing chess. The fire crackled, the old tall clock ticked, the needles in Aunt Thekla's busy hands clicked, and the Freiherr's footsteps fell regularly upon the rug that covered the floor. The morning was precisely like every one of its predecessors.

Suddenly the old man went up to the middle one of the three tall windows and gazed out into the flurry of snow that veiled the distant landscape.

Leo, amazed at this transgression of traditionary custom, stood still and p.r.i.c.ked his ears.

"Ten," said the Freiherr, as the clock began to strike. "In half an hour Johanna may be here; at twelve, when I have returned from my ride, I wish to speak with her in my room. She shall receive all the consideration due to my grandchild, but there shall be no interruption of the rules of the house upon her account, nor"--his deep voice grew louder, and there was something in it like the mutter of a coming tempest--"nor shall her father's name be mentioned in my hearing."

With these words the Freiherr turned about and left the room, accompanied by Leo.

So soon as the door closed behind him, Johann Leopold arose. "Allow me, dear Magelone, to postpone the end of our game. I have a headache," he said, pa.s.sing his hand wearily over his eyes.

"Just as you please, dear Johann Leopold," Magelone replied, with a gentle smile. He kissed her hand and left the room. She lifted her arms towards heaven. "Thank G.o.d, he has gone!" she exclaimed. "Oh, Aunt Thekla, Aunt Thekla, this life is intolerable!"

The old lady shook her head so that the gray curls beneath her lace cap trembled.

"My dear child, you ought not to speak so," she said, in a tone of gentle reproof; "you are going to marry him----"

"Because I choose to, or because I must?" Magelone interposed, going across the room to her great-aunt. "But never mind that; when we are married it will be better,--then I will not stay any longer in Donninghausen."

"You will not leave your old grandfather alone!" said Aunt Thekla.

"I am nothing to grandpapa," Magelone answered, with a shrug of her shoulders; "and as for any entertainment that he gets from Johann Leopold----But don't be troubled about that; who knows what the new cousin may turn out? I am very curious. From all that I hear, she will be far too solemn for me,--all the better adapted, however, for our croaking household and for Donninghausen."

With these words Magelone hurried to the other end of the room, seated herself at the grand piano, and began to play a polka; then suddenly ceasing, she ran back again to her aunt and sat down opposite her. "Can you possibly understand, Aunt Thekla," she asked, "why grandpapa has sent for this Johanna? Do not misunderstand me. I have no objection to her coming. We can yawn together, even if she is good for nothing else.

But why grandpapa, who cannot endure the sound of her family name, did not rather board her somewhere----"

"I asked myself the same question," her aunt replied; "and the only answer I can find to it, knowing him as I do, is that he yearns to see his Agnes's child. Believe me, dear, he is not so hard-hearted as he chooses to appear."

"But he banished his daughter!" Magelone exclaimed.

"He did what he thought was his duty, and no one knew how he suffered in doing so," the old lady rejoined. "Agnes was his darling. How enraptured he was when, after his three boys,--the youngest, your father, was eleven years old,--a daughter was born to him! Although he was thought a strict father, he could deny his Agnes nothing. Everybody in the house did as she pleased, and did it gladly, for she was a gentle, tender-hearted creature. But she grew too dreamy and imaginative in this solitude, and when my sister-in-law at last had her way and sent her for a year to boarding-school, where she had companions of her own age, it was too late. At her very first entrance into society she fell in love with that man, that actor, and there was no help for it."

"How inconceivable it is, this falling so desperately in love!" said Magelone.

Aunt Thekla dropped her knitting and gazed at her niece through her eye-gla.s.ses. "Are you in earnest?" she asked. "Can you really not understand it?"

Magelone's eyes sparkled strangely, reminding one of sunshine upon rippling water.

"Oh, Aunt Thekla, you think I mean it!" she exclaimed, and laughed like a child.