Countess Erika's Apprenticeship Part 2

The lad was busied with packing up his small belongings: all the gaiety had vanished from his face, he looked pale and sad again. With her heart swelling with pity, she ran back to him.

"You come for your basket," he said, good-naturedly, holding it out to her.

"No, it isn't that," she replied, shaking her head, as she put down the basket on a willow stump and came close up to him.

In some surprise he smiled down at her. "Something else to ask, my little princess?"

"No,--that is----" She plucked him by the sleeve. "See here," she began, confused and yet coaxingly, "do not be vexed,--only--I thought just now how bad it would be if before you get home you should be treated by somebody else as that man treated you,"--she pointed to the castle,--"and then--and then--oh, I know so well how dreadful it is to have no money. I--please take the guilders: when you are a great artist you can give them back to me." And before he knew what she was doing she had slipped the porte-monnaie into his coat-pocket.

The tears stood in his eyes; he put his arm around her, and looked at her as if to learn her face by heart.

"It might be," he muttered; "perhaps you will bring me luck; I may still come to be something; and if you then should be as dear and pretty as you are now----" He kissed her upon both eyes.

"Rika!" a shrill voice called from a distance.

"Is that your name?" he asked.

"Yes."

"And what is your last name?"

"My step-father's is Strachinsky. I do not know mine."

"Rika!" the shrill tones sounded nearer.

"And what is your name?" she asked him.

Before he could reply, the fluttering skirts of the English governess came in sight: suddenly aroused to a consciousness of her neglected duties, she was looking along the road for her charge.

The little girl clasped her picture close and fled.

When she reached the house she ran up-stairs to put her precious portrait safely away, and then she allowed a clean ap.r.o.n to be put on over her faded frock by the agitated Englishwoman,--whose name was in fact Sophy Lange, and who had been born in Hamburg of honest German parents,--after which she presented herself in the dining-room with an a.s.sured air as if unconscious of the slightest wrong-doing.

Her step-father received her with a stern reproof, and instantly inquired where she had been. She replied, curtly, "To the village;"

upon which he read her a tremendous lecture upon the enormity of idly wandering about the country, addressing at the same time a few annihilating remarks to the Englishwoman from Hamburg. He had exchanged his bright-blue morning coat for a light summer suit, in which he presented a much better appearance. But he was no more pleasing to his step-daughter in his light-brown costume than in the blue coat with red facings. She paid very little attention to his discourse, but quietly went on eating. Miss Sophy, however, shed tears. The Baron von Strachinsky impressed her greatly; nay, more, she honoured him as a being from a higher sphere. He was popular with women of all ranks, from the lowest to the highest,--why, it would be difficult to tell. He possessed a certain amount of personal magnetism, but it had no effect upon his step-daughter.

They were extraordinarily antipathetic, Strachinsky and his clear-eyed little step-daughter. What she took exception to in him was of so complex and delicate a nature as to defy explanation in words. What annoyed him in her was princ.i.p.ally the fact that, in spite of her tender age, she saw through him, was quite free of all illusions with regard to him.

It always increases our regard for our neighbour if he will but view us with flattering eyes. Some few illusions in our behalf we require from those around us; they are absolutely necessary to the pleasure of daily intercourse. But the demands of Herr von Strachinsky in this respect were beyond all reason, while his step-daughter's capacity to comply with them was unusually limited.

Dinner progressed as usual: the gentleman continued to admonish, Miss Sophy to weep, and little Rika to maintain strict silence, until dessert, when Herr von Strachinsky, for whom eating was one of the most important occupations in life, inquired after an almond-cake of which, as he a.s.sured the servant, five pieces had been left from breakfast,--yes, five pieces and a little broken one: he had counted them.

The servant repaired to the kitchen for information: the cook could give none, save that she herself had put the cake away in the pantry, whence it had vanished, without a trace, since the morning. Herr von Strachinsky was indignant; he accused every servant in the establishment of the theft, from the foremost of those employed in the house to the lowest stable-boy, and talked of having bars put up at the windows. Little Rika let him give full sweep to his anger; she fairly gloated over his irritation; at last she remarked, indifferently, "What would be the use of bars on the windows, when any one can walk in at the door? It is never locked."

"Silence! what do you know about it?" thundered her step-father.

"Oh, I know all about it," the child quietly replied, "and I know what became of the cake."

"What?"

"I took it. I carried it out to the painter whom you turned out of the house."

Herr von Strachinsky's eyebrows were lifted to a startling extent at this confession. "You--ran--after--that house-painter fellow down the road?" he asked, with a gasp at each word.

"Yes," the child replied, composedly; "and he was not a house-painter fellow, but a young artist, although I should have run after him all the same if he had been a house-painter fellow."

"Indeed! And why?" he asked, with a sneer.

She looked him full in the face. "Why? Because you treated him so badly, and I was sorry for him."

For a moment he was speechless; then he arose, seized the child by the arm, and thrust her out of the door. Without making the least resistance, carelessly humming to herself, she ran up the staircase,--a staircase that turned an abrupt corner and the worn steps of which exhaled an odour of damp decay,--whilst Strachinsky turned to the Englishwoman from Hamburg and groaned, "My step-daughter is a positive torment. I am firmly persuaded that she will end at the galleys."

The galleys were tolerably far removed from the sphere of the Austrian penal code, but Herr von Strachinsky had a predilection for what was foreign, and had recently read a novel in which the galleys played a prominent part.

Meanwhile, little Erika had betaken herself to the drawing-room, a s.p.a.cious but by no means gorgeous apartment, the furniture of which consisted princ.i.p.ally of bookcases and a piano. She seated herself at this piano, and instantly became absorbed in the study of one of Mozart's sonatas, with which she intended to celebrate her mother's return. She had a decided talent for music; her slender little fingers moved with incredible ease over the keys, and her cheeks, usually rather pale, flushed with enthusiasm. It was going very well; she stretched out her foot to touch the pedal,--an act which in her opinion lent the crowning glory to her musical performance,--when suddenly she became aware of a kind of uproar that seemed to fill the house. Dogs barked, servants hurried to and fro, a carriage drove up and stopped before the castle door. Frau von Strachinsky had returned unexpectedly.

The child hurried down-stairs, just in time to see Strachinsky take his wife from the carriage. They kissed each other like lovers,--which seemed to produce a disagreeable impression upon the little girl; moreover, it occurred to her that she did not know whether she might venture forward under existing circ.u.mstances. Then she heard her mother say, "And where is Rika?"

Without awaiting her step-father's reply, she rushed into her mother's arms.

"You look finely, darling," the mother exclaimed, patting her little daughter's cheeks. "Have you been a good girl?"

Rika made no reply. Frau von Strachinsky's face took on a sad, troubled expression. Strachinsky frowned, and shrugged his shoulders. His wife looked from him to the child, who had taken her hand and was about to kiss it. "What has she been doing now?" she asked, turning to her husband.

"Not to speak of her behaviour towards myself,--behaviour that is perfectly unwarrantable,--I repeat, unwarrantable," said Strachinsky,--"not to speak of that, the girl has again so far forgotten herself as----well, I will tell you about it by and by."

"Tell now!" the child exclaimed. "I'd rather you would tell now!"

"Hush, Miss Impertinence!" Strachinsky ordered her; then, turning to his wife, he asked, "Do you bring good news? Is your uncle willing?"

Fran von Strachinsky shook her head sadly. "Unfortunately, no,--not quite," she murmured; "but he was very kind; he was enchanted with Bobby." Bobby was Rika's step-brother, whom the poor mother had carried with her upon her distressing journey, perhaps as some consolation for herself, perhaps to soften the hearts of her relatives. He did, indeed, seem admirably adapted to this latter purpose, for he was a charming little fellow, with a lovely pink-and-white face crowned by brown curls, and plump bare arms. His hands at present were filled with toys, which he carried to his sister to console her, since he instantly perceived that she was in disgrace.

"I cannot understand that," Strachinsky murmured. "I should have credited Uncle Nick with a more generous spirit." And he looked sternly at his wife, as if she were responsible for the ill success of her mission.

She laid her hand gently on his arm and said, "You are an incorrigible idealist, my poor Nello: you judge all men by yourself."

And Strachinsky pa.s.sed his hand over his eyes, and sighed forth sentimentally, "Yes, I am an idealist, an incorrigible idealist, a perfect Don Quixote."

The rest of the afternoon was pa.s.sed by the pair in the large drawing-room, trying to obtain some clear understanding of the state of Strachinsky's financial affairs,--a very difficult task.

She, pencil in hand, did the reckoning. He paced the room to and fro with a tragic air, and smoked cigarettes. From time to time he uttered some effective sentence, such as, "I am unfit for this world!" or, "Of course a Marquis Posa like myself!"

She sat quietly contemplating the figures with which the sheet before her was filled. Her face grow sad, while her husband's, on the contrary, brightened. Since he was succeeding in casting all his cares upon her shoulders, he felt quite cheerful.

"I never had the least idea of this ten thousand guilders which you tell me you owe," the tortured woman exclaimed, in a sudden access of anger.