Erlach Court Part 6

Yet at intervals there were still moments when she would seize the helm of her neglected household, would set things straight, and would preside in tasteful attire at a well-ordered table. Her inborn elegance upon such occasions could not but excite admiration, and for a few hours, sometimes for a couple of days, she would expend her talent upon what alone employed it worthily, in promoting the comfort of those about her.

Upon such occasions Meineck would torment himself with self-reproach, would take upon himself the entire fault of her shortcomings, and would, so far as she would permit him, show her the most devoted attention. Scarcely, however, did he begin to have faith in the sunshine when it vanished.

Moreover, these seasons of wondrous amiability on Karoline's part grew rarer and briefer,--particularly when she could not but acknowledge that her literary career by no means developed so brilliantly as she had hoped from the success of her Don John of Austria. She sought the cause of this, as has been said, not in the insufficiency of her own talent, but in the cramping nature of her domestic circ.u.mstances.

One evening--Stella was about eleven years--old Meineck came home intoxicated. Chance willed that both his wife and his daughters saw him in this condition.

The next day at the mid-day meal he was rather uncomfortable in their presence, and consequently talked more and faster than usual, a.s.suming that air of bravado which some men are sure to adopt when they are particularly embarra.s.sed. His affected self-possession vanished very soon, however. His wife merely bestowed upon him a cold greeting, and then entered into an absorbing conversation with Franziska, the elder daughter, upon some abstruse point of English law. She and the girl both avoided looking at him, and sat bolt upright, with virtuous indignation expressed in every feature.

He turned from them to his loving little Stella. She was sitting, pale and with downcast eyes, before an empty plate. Poor little Stella! she too had been affected by the scene of the evening before. What business was it of hers? Was he the only man in the world who had ever been so overcome? Was that chit to school him? For the first time in her life he spoke harshly to her: "What is the matter with you? Why do you not eat? Are you ill?" And, beckoning to the servant, he put something upon her plate.

She took up her knife and fork obediently, but she could not swallow a morsel, and the big tears fell upon her plate. He saw them perfectly well, although he pretended not to look at her.

When the others had retired and he sat alone at the comfortless board, his head leaning on his right hand, his left drumming a tattoo on the table, as he reflected upon his squandered life, suddenly a little arm stole around his neck and two tender childish lips were pressed to his temple. He started: it was Stella! He took her on his knee and covered her head, her neck, even her little hands, with kisses, and his tears fell upon her brow. Neither of them ever forgot that moment.

Soon after this the husband and wife agreed so far as to find their life together intolerable, and they parted by mutual consent. Of course the mother took the children; what could Meineck have done with them?

The legal divorce, with which she threatened him if he did not accede to a voluntary separation, would undoubtedly have a.s.signed them to her.

He was to be allowed to spend two weeks of every year beneath her roof to see the children. These arrangements concluded, she set out for Florence to collect materials for a history of the Medici,--which she never wrote.

In the spring he went to her at Meran. His position in her household was so painful, however, that he did not stay all the allowed time: he felt disgraced even in his little Stella's eyes; she seemed estranged from him.

He never came to be with them again. He often sent his daughters beautiful presents, and wrote them long, affectionate letters, but he made no further attempt to see them.

Years pa.s.sed. Meineck had risen to the rank of colonel; his wife meanwhile had tramped all over the map with her daughters, from Madrid to Constantinople, to collect historical material for all sorts of projected essays. She was now at her mill in Zalow, partly because her finances were at a low ebb, and partly because she intended at last to begin her great work. This work upon which she had settled definitively was 'The Part a.s.signed to Woman in the Development of Universal History.'

Franziska, who, oddly enough, could no longer agree with her mother, was lodging in Prague with the widow of a government official who rented a few rooms to teachers and bachelors, and preparing herself in a bleak little apartment to pa.s.s her final examinations. Poor Stella, who had meanwhile shot up into a tall miss of eighteen, went to Prague by railway three times a week in summer and winter, always alone, to take lessons, read everything she could lay hold of, from Milton's 'Paradise Lost' to Hauff's 'Man in the Moon,'--and tramped about the country escorted by a very savage white wolf-hound.

It was in November, and the ground was covered with snow, when a letter arrived from the colonel in Venice to his wife and daughters. He had been ordered to a southern climate on account of an affection of the lungs which had not yielded to a course of treatment at Gleichenberg, and he had now been in Venice for a month. If his daughters would consent, the letter went on to say, to come to cheer his loneliness for a while, he would do his best to make their stay in Venice agreeable to them.

Franziska declared that she could not possibly interrupt her studies at this time; Stella announced that she was ready to set off on the instant. Her mother hesitated to allow her to travel alone, and looked about for a suitable escort for her, but Stella declared that she needed none. Had she not been to Prague continually alone by the railway? and where was the difference in going to Venice, except that it was farther off? Moreover, there were carriages for ladies only. It never occurred to this valiant young person, trained to economy as she had been by her learned mother, that she could travel otherwise than second-cla.s.s.

Her mother enjoined it upon her not to waste her time in Venice, and instead of a luncheon stuffed a 'Histoire de Venise' into her travelling-bag. The girl bought her ticket, attended to her luggage herself, and then mounted cheerily into a much overheated railway-carriage and was borne away.

CHAPTER VI.

A RUINED LIFE.

How she rejoiced in the prospect of seeing him again, looking forward to the joy of nestling tenderly in his arms and telling him how she had longed for him during the many, many years, and how she had lain awake many a night telling herself stories of him,--that is, recalling every little incident in her memory with which he was connected!

She did not recall him as she had last seen him, old before his time, with dark rings around his bloodshot eyes and deep wrinkles at the corners of his mouth, gray and worn; no, she saw him with fair curls and a merry, kindly look, sometimes in his dazzling hussar-uniform, but oftener in his blue undress-coat with breast-pockets. She could not possibly call him up in her memory without an accompaniment of the rattle of spurs and sabre. She saw his shapely, carefully-tended hands; she distinctly remembered the fragrance of Turkish tobacco, mingled with the odour of jasmine, with which all his belongings were saturated.

For her he was always the brilliant young officer who had m.u.f.fled her in his cloak when she ran to meet him.

How long the journey seemed to her at first! Then she was suddenly a.s.sailed by a strange timidity: when the conductor took her ticket and announced that the next station was Venice she began to tremble.

The train stopped; the conductor opened the door. With her heart throbbing up in her throat, she looked out, but saw no one whom she knew. No, her father had evidently not come to meet her! Could he have failed to receive her telegram? She noticed a gray-haired man in civilian's dress, with a crush-hat, and delicately chiselled features wasted by illness, and large hollow eyes, peering about as if he were looking for some one. A cold, paralyzing pang shot through her: his look met her own. While he had lived in her memory as a brilliant young officer, she had always been for him the undeveloped child of twelve, with tightly-stretched red stockings, and a short shapeless gown,--something that could be taken on his lap and caressed. But this daughter advancing towards him was a young lady, who could pa.s.s judgment upon, him, a judgment that could not be bribed, like that of a child, by caresses. He asked himself, with a shudder, how much she knew of his life, and whether she were capable of forgiving it, forgetting, in his dread, that a woman will forgive everything in the man whom she loves, be he husband, brother, or father, save cowardice and dishonour,--and as far as regarded the _point d'honneur_ the colonel's worst enemy could find nothing of which to accuse him.

"Papa!"

"Stella!" Instead of clasping her in his arms, he kissed her hand. "How are they all at home?" he asked, embarra.s.sed. "Is your mother well? and Franzi?"

"Oh, yes! They both gave me all sorts of kind messages for you.

Franziska, unfortunately, could not come with me, for she could not interrupt her studies at this time."

What frightfully correct German she spoke! Had they robbed him of his little Stella? His annoyance increased.

"Where is your maid?" he asked.

"Maid? I have none. Oh, we have not had a maid for a long time."

"You came all the way alone?" the colonel exclaimed, in dismay,--"all alone?"

"Yes. You have no idea how independent and practical I am."

The colonel frowned; he would rather have found his daughter spoiled and helpless; but he said nothing, only asked about her luggage to hand it over to the porter of the Hotel Britannia, and then offered her his arm to conduct her to the gondola which was waiting for them. Arrived at the hotel, they got into the elevator to be taken to the third story, and they had as yet scarcely exchanged three words with each other.

The pretty little _salon_ into which he conducted her looked out upon the Grand Ca.n.a.l and past the church of Santa Maria della Salute upon the Lido. The room was pleasantly warm, and in the centre a table was invitingly spread, the teakettle singing merrily, flanked by a flask of golden Marsala and a bottle of Bordeaux. A prismatic ray of sunshine fell across the neat creases of the snowy table-cloth.

"Oh, how delightful!" cried Stella, and her eyes sparkled, while in her delicate and softly-rounded cheek appeared the dimple for which her father had hitherto looked in vain.

"I had a little breakfast made ready for you, thinking that you might perhaps have had nothing very good to eat upon your journey," said he.

"I have eaten nothing since I left home but biscuit, because I disliked going to the railway restaurants," she declared.

And the colonel rejoined, "_Tiens!_ not entirely a strong-minded female yet, I see," and as he spoke he helped her take off her long brown paletot. "If I am not mistaken," he said, examining the clumsy article of dress, "this is an old army-cloak."

"Indeed it is, papa," she replied, proudly, "one of your old cloaks: I had it altered by our tailor in Zalow, because it reminds me of old times." And this was all she could bring herself to say of the myriad charming and loving phrases she had prepared. "It is a great success, my coat. Do you not like it?" she asked.

"Candidly, no;" he made reply. "Nevertheless I am greatly obliged to it for proving to me that, even in the clumsiest and ugliest garment ever devised by human hands to disfigure one of G.o.d's creatures, my daughter is still charming."

She cast down her eyes with a little blush and was suddenly ashamed of her threadbare adaptation of which she had been so proud. Kindly, but still with some hesitation, he put his hand upon her shoulder and said, "You will let me look a little more closely at my daughter."

A warm wave of affection suddenly surged up in her heart.

"Do not look at me, papa; only love me," she exclaimed, and, throwing her arm around his neck, she nestled close to him. "You cannot imagine how rejoiced I was to come to you."

And the poor wretch reverently bent his sad, weary head above his child's golden curls, and repentantly acknowledged to himself that he had not deserved so great mercy.

When daylight had faded and the lanterns at the base of the old palaces flared up, casting reddish reflections to break and glimmer upon the surface of the lagunes, the colonel lit the lamp and put paper and writing-materials upon the table before Stella.