A Sister's Love Part 3

"Indeed, Fraulein, for what else but because of the stupid affair with Gottlieb? You know what his mother is. Marieken did not dare go home all at once--there are mouths enough to feed: so her sweetheart took her home to his mother, and she told him he should not come to her with a girl whom the gracious Fraulein had dismissed, that he must not think of marrying the girl as long as she lived; you know, Fraulein, the old woman swears by the family here. And so the stupid thing took it into her head to go into the water."

Anna Maria looked silently before her, and her whole body shook as if she had a chill.

"Heavens, you are ill!" cried the old woman.

"No, no," the girl denied, "I am not ill; go, only go; I am tired and want to sleep."

Brockelmann went to her room, shaking her head. "Well, well," she murmured, "I did think she would be sorry for the poor girl, but no!"

She sighed, and closed the door behind her. But toward morning she was suddenly startled from her slumber by the violent ringing of a bell in her room.

"Good heavens, Anna Maria!" she cried. "She is ill!" In her heart the old woman still called her young mistress by her child's name. Hastily throwing on one or two garments she hurried through the cold pa.s.sage, just lighted by the gray dawn. Anna Maria was sitting upright in her bed, a candle was burning on the table by her side, and lit up a face worn with weeping. The old woman saw plainly that the girl had been weeping, though she extinguished the candle at once.

"Brockelmann!" she called to her, but not as usual in the old imperious manner, and she now hesitated; "as soon as it is light, send for Gottlieb's mother; I want to talk with her about the girl. And now go,"

she added, as the old woman was about to say something, "I am so tired to-day!"

CHAPTER III.

"The time pa.s.ses away, one scarcely knows what has become of it; even in my solitude, it does not seem long to me. Really, the starlings are here already. Where has the winter gone? Strange!"

Aunt Rosamond held this soliloquy at her chamber-window, as her gaze followed the little messengers of spring, who vanished so briskly into the wooden boxes, a large number of which had been placed for them on the trees and buildings. It was no sunny spring day there without; the clouds hung low and gray over the earth, and a warm, sultry wind tossed about the budding branches unmercifully, as if to shake them into complete awakening.

The old lady did not like the overcast sky at all, it put her out of humor. She could not wander about far out of doors, to be sure, but she would fain have seen the little spot of earth that lay stretched out before her window looking cheerful, and blue sky and sunshine lighting up the fresh green of the meadows, and the oaks in foliage.

"It ought to be always May or September here in the Mark," she used to say; "then it would be the loveliest country in the world. In winter one does best to draw the curtains, so as not to cast a single look out of doors, it looks so melancholy outside, brown upon brown, with a shade of dirty gray."

And so she turned from the window and its dull outlook, and limped quickly through the room, here and there arranging or straightening something. That was such a habit of hers. Now the candelabra on the spinet were moved a little, and now the delicate, withered hands picked a yellow leaf from a plant on the flower-stand, or gave an improving touch to the canopied bed which so pretentiously occupied an entire side of the room. Aunt Rosamond called that her throne; one had to climb up a pair of carpeted steps to reach it, and with its crimson silk hangings, somewhat faded indeed, and gilded k.n.o.bs, it really gave you the impression of one. Then here and there she pushed back a coverlet or straightened a picture which tipped a little to one side. The latter she did most frequently, for the high walls were almost covered with pictures, a collection of portraits, mostly in oil or pastel. Aunt Rosamond knew a history about each one of the faces that looked so quietly from the frames in her room; she had known them all, these men and women there above, and strangely enough it sounded to hear her, as she stood before some picture, tell its story in a few words.

She had just limped to a card-table, over which was hung an oval pastel portrait of a man with curled and powdered hair and a blue silk coat.

She gave the portrait a gentle push toward the right, but whether it was the cord or the nail that had become loose, matters not, down fell the picture, and lay face downward before Aunt Rosamond.

"Let it lie, aunt, I beg you!" called Anna Maria's voice at this moment; and before the old lady could collect herself, the girl had bent her slender form, and handed her the picture.

"_Merci, ma pet.i.te!_" she cried kindly, and looked into her niece's face; and, indeed, if Aunt Rosamond missed the spring without, now it had come, bodily, into her room.

Anna Maria still had on a dark-blue riding-habit which closely fitted her fine, strong figure, and the young face looked out from behind the blue veil with such a spring-like freshness, that it quite warmed Aunt Rosamond's heart.

"Have you been riding, Anna Maria?" asked the old lady, as the girl endeavored to find the fallen nail.

"Yes, aunt, I rode with Klaus for an hour on the Dambitz cross-road; afterward we met Sturmer by chance, and took a cup of coffee at Dambitz Manor."

"Indeed!" Aunt Rosamond seemed quite indifferent to this, although she looked searchingly at the reddening face of her niece, who, apparently, was very attentively regarding the rescued nail in her hand.

"Are the snow-drops in bloom already at Dambitz?" inquired the old lady.

"Well, the garden lies well protected. But what do you say, Anna Maria, will you stay and rest with me? I think we will sit down a little while--_n'est-ce pas, mon coeur_?"

Anna Maria stood irresolute; she looked over at her aunt, who had already seated herself on the straight-backed, gayly flowered sofa, and pointed invitingly to an easy-chair. It was so comfortable in this cosey old room; the rococo clock with the Cupid bending his bow told its low tick-tack, and a sudden shower beat against the window panes; it was a little hour just made for chatting of all sorts of possible things, of the past and of the future.

Anna Maria slowly seated herself in the chair; she neither leaned back gracefully and comfortably nor rested her fair head on the cushions.

Always straight as a candle, she carried herself perfectly, and so she remained now. But sudden blushes and deep pallor interchanged on her face, which turned with an expression of perfect, modest maidenliness toward the old lady's face. One could see that she wished to say something, and that her severe, unsympathetic nature was struggling with an overflowing heart.

Her aunt did not seem to notice it at all; she had taken up a book whose once green velvet binding was worn and faded with age. The delicate fingers turned leaf after leaf; then she glanced over a page, and after a pause said:

"Actually, Anna Maria, Felix Leonhard has fallen from the wall on his birthday; how singular! Now people call that chance, but how strange it is! I have always remembered the day hitherto, until to-day, and have been going about all the time with a feeling as if I had forgotten something, I could not exactly think what And then he announced himself.

_Mon pauvre_ Felix! You shall have your flowers to-day, as every year."

And she caressingly touched the picture before her on the table. Then she looked over to Anna Maria almost shyly, for she knew that her niece sometimes smiled scornfully at signs and forebodings.

But to-day the deep line about Anna Maria's mouth was not to be seen; she looked thoughtfully at the picture, and asked: "Who was Felix Leonhard, aunt?"

"An early friend of my brother's," replied the old lady.

"Is he the one, aunt--I think you told me a strange story once about some one shooting himself for the sake of a girl?"

"Yes, yes, quite right, my child. This gay, handsome man once took a pistol and shot himself for the sake of a girl; quite right, Anna Maria. And he was no youth then, he was well on in the thirties, and yet did this horrible deed, unworthy of a peaceable man. Oh, it was a misery not to be described, Anna Maria!" She shook her head and pa.s.sed her hands over her eyes, as if to frighten away a horrible picture.

"Why did he do it, aunt?" asked Anna Maria, in an unusually warm tone; "was she faithless to him, or----"

"She did not love him, _ma pet.i.te_; she had been persuaded by her parents and brothers and sisters to become engaged to him. He was in most excellent circ.u.mstances, and one of the best men I ever knew. He became acquainted with her at a ball in Berlin, and fell violently in love with her, although before that no one had ever considered his a pa.s.sionate nature. She was not young at the time, not even particularly pretty, and with the exception of a pair of melancholy great eyes did not possess a charm. _Eh bien_, after endless doubts and struggles, she accepted his suit. The engagement lasted a whole year, and she was as shy and discreet a _fiancee_ as could be found; he, on the other hand, was full of touching attentions to her; indeed, to use a worn-out figure, he carried her about in his hands. The nearer the wedding-day approached, the more dreadful grew the poor girl's state of mind. She had repeatedly asked various people if they believed she could make her lover happy, and she was always turned off with a jest, yet quite seriously as well, on the part of her brothers and sisters. Then on the wedding-day, half an hour before the ceremony was to take place, pale and trembling, she announced that she must take back her word, she could not speak perjury--she did not love him, and she did not wish his unhappiness! Ah, I shall never forget that day--the anxious faces of the guests as the report of this refusal began to spread, and the terrible anger of her brother. What followed in her room was never made public; I only know that she persisted in her refusal, and that same evening he shot himself in the garden. _Voila tout!_"

Anna Maria was silent; she had turned pale. "And _she_, aunt?" asked the girl after a pause.

"She! Well, she lived on, and even married not very long afterward; she did not love him at all, Anna Maria. Who knows his own heart?"

For an instant it seemed as if Anna Maria was about to answer, but she closed her lips again. The room was still. She was leaning back now; she was almost trembling, and her eyes turned thoughtfully to the picture before her. Without, the rain was beating with increased force against the windows, and the wind drove great snowflakes about in a whirling dance, between whiles; April weather, fighting and struggling, storming and raging, so spring will come.

The old lady on the sofa looked out on this raging of the elements, and thought how such a powerful spring storm rages in every human heart, and how scarcely a person in the world is spared such a fight and struggle; she knew it from her own experience, though she was only a poor cripple, and a hundred times had she seen the storm rage in the breast of another. To many, indeed, out of the struggle and longing, out of snow and sunshine, had arisen a spring as beautiful as a dream; but for many was the stormy April weather followed by a frosty May, killing all blossoms; as for herself, as for Kla--She left the thought unfinished, and quickly turned her head toward her niece, as if fearing she might have guessed her thoughts. And then--she was almost confounded--then the young girl's rosy face bent down to her, and Aunt Rosamond saw a shining drop in the eyes always so cold and clear. Anna Maria sat down beside her on the figured sofa, and threw her soft arms about her neck.

The heart of the old lady beat faster; it was the first time in her life that Anna Maria had showed any tenderness toward her. She sat quite still, as in a dream, as if the slightest movement might frighten the girl away, like a timid bird. And "Aunt Rosamond!" came the half-sobbing sound in her ear. "Oh, aunt, help me--advise me--for Klaus----"

Just then the door was quickly thrown open. "The master sends word for the Fraulein to come down-stairs at once," called Brockelmann, quite out of breath. "He can't find Isaac Aron's receipts for the last delivery of grain, and----"

"I am coming! I am coming!" called the girl. She had sprung up, and quickly thrown the skirt of her riding-habit over her arm. The spell was broken; there stood Anna Maria von Hegewitz again, the mistress of Butze, as firm, as full of business as ever.

She crossed the room with quick steps, but turning again at the door, she said softly, and embarra.s.sed, "I will come up again this evening, aunt." Then she closed the door behind her.

Aunt Rosamond remained as still as a mouse in her sofa-corner; she had to reflect whether this blushing, caressing girl who had just been sitting beside her were really Anna Maria von Hegewitz, her niece. She pa.s.sed her hand over her forehead, and confused thoughts pa.s.sed through her mind. "_Quelle metamorphose!_" she whispered to herself, and at length said aloud, "Anna Maria is certainly in love; love only makes one so gentle, so--_je ne sais quoi_! Anna Maria loves Sturmer! How disagreeable that Brockelmann happened to come in with her grain bills!

_Mon Dieu!_ the child, the child! I wonder if Klaus suspects it? What is to become of you, my splendid old boy, if Anna Maria goes away? But what if he should marry, too?"

She rose from the sofa and stepped to the window again. It had stopped raining, and a last lingering ray of sunshine broke from the clouds and was spread, like a golden veil, over the wet, budding trees and shrubs.

"Spring is coming," she said half aloud. And now she began to walk up and down the room, but this time the pictures were undisturbed. Her hands were clasped, and now and then she shook her gray head gently, as if incredulously.

CHAPTER IV.