Dame Care Part 12

CHAPTER VIII.

Paul now began to help with the farming. He faithfully kept the vow which he had made on the morning of his confirmation. He worked like the meanest of his servants, and when his mother begged him to spare himself, he kissed her hand and replied, "You know we have a great deal to make good."

In the evening, when the servants had retired to rest and the twins had frollicked till they fell asleep, mother and son often sat together for hours and planned and calculated; but when some resolution had ripened within them and a gleam of hope shone from their eyes, it often happened that they would suddenly start and let their heads droop with a sigh; but neither of them gave utterance to that which weighed on their minds.

About this time Frau Elsbeth began to age rapidly. Long, deep furrows lined her face, her chin became very prominent, and silver streaks appeared in her hair. Only from the depths of her sorrowful eyes one could still see how beautiful she had once been.

"Yes, you see, I am quite an old woman now," she said to her son one morning, as she combed her hair before the looking-gla.s.s, "and luck has never yet come."

"Hush, mother, what else am I here for?" he answered, though he did not feel hopeful at all.

Then she smiled sadly, stroked his cheeks and his brow, and said, "Yes, you certainly look as if you had caught luck in its flight! but I won't speak like this," she continued; "what should I do without you?"

Such moments of overflowing love had to satisfy them for a long time, for often months pa.s.sed by without mother or son daring to say any loving words to each other; their hearts were too sorrowful.

The twins meanwhile grew up--two frolicksome, apple-cheeked tomboys, for whom no tree was too high, no ditch too deep. Their curly brown hair fell over their foreheads in a thousand little ringlets, and beneath them two pairs of eyes peeped out, as full of mischief and as sparkling, both with shyness and impudence, as if a stray sunbeam were laughing out of black forest depths.

The laughter of these two resounded from morning to night through the lonely Howdahs, and the quietness when they were at school or running about in the open fields was the more oppressive.

It was all the same to the twins whether there was sunshine or storm in the house; their heads were always full of tricks, and when at times their father's storming grew too insupportable and they deemed it more prudent to, hide behind the stove, they made up for it there by pinching one another's legs.

They were devoted to Paul, which, however, did not prevent them from quietly claiming as their property the best morsels from his plate, the whitest sheets of paper from his writing-case, and the finest b.u.t.tons off his trousers, for they used to steal like magpies.

He was very anxious about them, for he feared they would become wilder and wilder, especially as his mother grew more tired and despondent, and left matters to take their own course. But he began his educational experiments at the wrong end. His warnings were of no avail, and once as he was in the middle of a beautiful sermon one of them suddenly jumped on his knee, pulled his nose, and called out to his sister, "f.a.n.n.y, he is getting a beard."

Then the other one climbed after her, and both of them tried who could pinch him the most. But when he got seriously angry with them, they began to sulk, and said, "Fie, we won't speak to you any more."

He had not seen Elsbeth again since the day of their confirmation, though a whole year had elapsed meanwhile.

It was said she had been sent to town to learn there how to move in society. This word had given his heart a pang; he scarcely knew what it meant, but he vaguely felt that she was farther and farther removed from him.

But it happened one day about Easter-tide that he had to work on a piece of ground which lay removed from the other fields and far away at the edge of the wood. He was sowing the seed himself, and a servant with two horses went harrowing after him.

He wore a big seed-cloth round his shoulders, and watched with quiet pleasure how the grains sparkled like a golden fountain as they sank into the earth. Then it seemed to him that he saw something bright between the dark trunks of the trees, rocking up and down like a cradle suspended in the air. But he scarcely allowed himself time to notice it, for sowing is the kind of work which requires all one's attention.

At length the pause for breakfast came. The servant sat down on a sack of corn, but he himself, feeling hot, went towards the wood to be in the shade.

He threw a pa.s.sing glance at the suspended cradle, and thought, "That must be a hammock;" but he little cared who was lying in it.

Then suddenly it seemed to him as if he heard his name called.

"Paul, Paul!" It sounded sweet and familiar, and in a soft, clear voice, which he seem to know.

He started and looked up.

"Paul, do come here," the voice called again.

He turned hot and cold, for now he well knew who it was.

He cast a shy look at his working-suit, and began to untie the knots of his seed-cloth; but it slipped round to the back of his neck, so that he could not reach it.

"Do come as you are," called out the voice; and now he could see how the upper part of her body raised itself from the hammock, while a book, bound in red and gold, glided from her hands and fell to the ground.

Hesitatingly he approached, trying secretly to wipe his boots in the moss, for the soil of the fields was sticking to them.

She on her part had only this moment perceived that her feet and white stockings showed beneath her dress, and hastily tried to cover them with the shawl which had been put round her shoulders. But she could not pull it from under her arms, and she could think of nothing better than to crouch down quickly so that she looked like a hen, while the hammock swayed to and fro.

Perhaps she might have had the intention to impress him a little with her elegance and freshly-acquired social education, but now, as fate would have it, she did not look at him less blushingly or shyly than he at her.

On his side he observed nothing of her state of mind; he only saw that she had grown very beautiful, that her hair was twisted up into a very aristocratic knot, and that the bow at her bosom trembled slightly on her rounded form. It was quite clear to him that she had now grown into a lady.

A long while elapsed before either of them spoke a word.

"Good-day," she said, at last, with a little laugh, and stretched out her right hand to him, for she soon saw that she had the best of it.

He was silent and smiled at her.

"Help me to pull out my shawl," she continued.

He did so.

"That's it; now turn round."

He did that, too.

"Now it's all right." She had made herself comfortable, thrown the shawl quickly over her feet again, and was looking up at him roguishly through the meshes of the hammock. "It's really delightful to be with you again," she said; "you are the best of them all. Have you also been longing for me?"

"No," he answered, truthfully.

"Oh, get away with you!" she replied, and, pouting, tried to turn over to the other side; but the hammock began to sway too much again, so she laughed and remained lying as she was.

He wondered inwardly at her being so merry. He never heard any one laugh like that, except the twins, and they were children. But this laugh gave him back his self-possession, for he felt instinctively how much older than she he had grown during the interval.

"I suppose you have been very happy all this time?" he asked.

"Thank G.o.d, yes!" she replied. "Mamma is always rather delicate, but that is all." A shadow pa.s.sed over her face, but disappeared again the next moment, and then she chatted on: "I have been in town--oh dear, what I have gone through there! I must tell you about it at the first opportunity. I have had dancing lessons. I have also had admirers--you can fancy that! They serenaded me under my windows, sent me anonymous bouquets, and verses, too--original verses! There was a student, among others, with a white-braided coat, and a green, white, and red cap; oh, he understood it! The things he would say to you! Afterwards he engaged himself to Betty Schirrmacher, one of my friends, but quite in secret--n.o.body knows it but myself."

Paul breathed freely again, for the student had already begun to make him uncomfortable.

"And were you not vexed?" he asked.

"Why?"

"At his being fickle to you."

"No; we are above such things," she replied, shugging her shoulders.

"Oh, you know--they are all stupid boys in comparison with you!"