Gertrude's Marriage Part 15

The door between the two rooms stood open, and bright striped Turkish curtains drawn back, permitted Gertrude from her place by the window, to see the writing-table at which he was working. And from the window might be seen the wooded mountains beyond the green garden, and farther away still the distant Brocken, half-hidden in the clouds.

The young wife had cleared out all the cupboards; in the kitchen the last new tin had been hung up on the hooks, and shone and sparkled in the bright sunshine as if it were pure silver. In the store-room jars and pots were all full and in order, as she turned the key with a happy smile, and put it into the spick-and-span new key-basket on her arm.

"Come, Frank," she said, after he had been admiring all this splendor, "now we will go through all the rooms again."

"There are not many of them, Gertrude," he laughed.

"Enough for us, Frank; we do not need any more."

And they went through the garden hall, and admired the stately buffet and the hanging-lamp of polished bra.s.s, which swung over the great dining-table. They went into the drawing-room, and admired the pictures again which the sun lighted up so beautifully, and then they stopped, looked in each other's eyes and kissed each other.

"It is all just as I like it, Frank," said she, "plain and suitable, but nothing sham, no imitations. I hate pretence--everything ought to be genuine, as real and true as my love and your heart, you dear, good fellow.--Now everything is perfect in the house," she continued, picking up a thread from the carpet. "No one would recognize it; it is the most charming little house for miles around. And it did not cost nearly as much as Jenny's trousseau and wedding-journey."

They were standing in the open hall door, and the young man looked with brightening eyes across the garden to the outbuildings which had exchanged their leaky roofs for new shining blue slates.

"You are right, Gertrude, it is a pretty sight; we will sit here often.

And to-morrow they will begin to build the new barns. They must be ready when we harvest the first rye."

"Frank," she asked, mischievously, "do you still think as you did a week after our wedding when we spoke about this for the first time, and you were really childish and absolutely _would_ not take anything of that which is yours by every right human and divine? And you would have let the cows be rained on in their stalls and the farm-servants in their beds."

"No, Gertrude, not now," he replied.

"And why, you Iron-will?"

"Because we love each other, love each other unspeakably."

"The adjective is not necessary," corrected she.

"Don't you believe that one may love unspeakably?" asked he with a smile.

"It sounds like a figure of speech."

He laughed aloud, and drew her out on the veranda.

"Our home," he said; "come, let us go through the garden and a little way into the wood."

The next day Gertrude opened the windows of the guest-chamber, and made everything there bright and fresh. The table in the dining-room was gayly decked, and Frank drove to the city in the new carriage to bring the judge from the station.

Gertrude was glad of the opportunity of seeing him, Frank had told her so much about his old friend. She had laughed heartily over his droll descriptions of his friend's peculiarities, how in company when he tried to pay a compliment he invariably managed to make it a back-handed one, to his own infinite astonishment.

She would take especial pains with her dress for this "jewel" of a man, as Frank called him. She put a rosette of lace in her hair, Frank liked that so much, it looked so matronly, almost like a little cap. When she went up to the toilet-table with this graceful emblem of her youthful dignity, to look at herself in the gla.s.s, she saw there a bouquet of lilies of the valley with a paper wound round their stems.

"From him, from Frank," she whispered, growing crimson with delight.

He had said good-bye to her with such a merry smile. She hastily unwound the paper from the flowers and read it.

They were verses turning on the expression he had made use of the day before,--"loving unspeakably," and justifying himself for using it by pointing out that for long after he had seen and loved her he knew not how to call her, where she dwelt, nor who she was, and so he might literally be said to have loved her "unspeakably."

"That is how he proves himself in the right," she murmured with blissful looks, pressing the paper to her lips. "And he is right, indeed, he does love me 'unspeakably.' Ah, I am a very happy woman!"

And she put the lilies of the valley in her dress, the verses in her pocket, took the key-basket and went to the dining-room once more on a tour of inspection round the table, and then as she had nothing to do for the moment, she knocked at Aunt Rosa's door, which was only separated from the dining-room by a small entry.

The old lady was sitting at the window making roses. There was to be a wedding in the village at Whitsuntide. A small man was sitting opposite her, who greeted the entrance of the young wife with a low bow.

"Beg a thousand pardons, madam,--I wanted to speak to your husband--I heard he had gone out and the lady here permitted me to wait for him."

"What does he say, Mrs. Linden?" inquired the old lady, shaking hands, "I did not permit him to do any such thing. He came in himself--and here he is."

"My name is Wolff, madam," said the agent by way of introduction.

"Must you speak to my husband to-day? It will not be convenient, for we have company to dinner. Can't I arrange it?" inquired Gertrude.

"O, no--no--" said he, very decidedly, bowing as he spoke. "I must speak to Mr. Linden himself, but I can come again, there is no hurry, I used to come here every day. Good morning, ladies."

"What could he want, auntie?" inquired the young wife after he had gone.

"Well, I can tell you what he wanted of _me_--he wanted to _question_ me. He would have liked to look through the key-hole to find out how it looked in your house. But sit down, my dear."

These two understood each other perfectly. Sometimes the old lady drank coffee with Gertrude and then she had many questions to answer. In this way it had come out quite by chance that she had been a schoolmate of Gertrude's grandmother.

Sometimes they went to walk together and Gertrude learned to know the village people, found out who the poor ones were and a little of the history of the place. Aunt Rosa's pictures were rather roughly drawn, she did not like every one, but Linden was her idol next to a young niece of hers.

"He is so nice," she used to say, "he is so courteous to the old as well as the young."

And Gertrude returned the compliment by declaring she could not imagine the house without Aunt Rosa.

To-day, the young mistress of the house could not stay long quietly in the rose-room. It was strange, but she felt anxious about her husband.

If only he had had no accident with the new horses, she thought, as she went out on the veranda.

The blooming garden lay quiet and still before her in the mid-day sunshine. Suddenly a shadow came over her face--there, under the chestnut-trees, where the sunbeams broke through the leaves in golden flecks. There was no doubt of it--it was he, the man in Aunt Rosa's room. How happened he to penetrate into the garden? Where had she heard his name before? She started as if she had touched something unpleasant. "Wolff,"--it was the name on the card that came with the flowers on her wedding eve. Yes, to be sure. But she had _seen_ the man, too, somewhere before--where was it? Perhaps in the factory with Arthur, very likely.

She raised her head and her eyes began to sparkle. There was the carriage just turning in at the gate. _He_ was driving and on the front seat beside the expected guest sat Uncle Henry, waving his red handkerchief.

The gentlemen were all in the best of humor--it was a lively meeting.

"It looks something like here now, Frank," said the little judge, clapping Linden on the shoulder and shaking hands with his wife. He was so pleased that he even inquired for Aunt Rosa.

"Do you know, child," said Uncle Henry by way of excuse for his presence, "I should not be here so soon again, but the landlord of the hotel died this morning--and I couldn't eat there, it was out of the question. You have some asparagus?"

"I shall not tell any tales out of school, uncle."

She put her arm in that of the old gentleman and went up the steps with her guests. At the top she turned her head and then walked quickly to the bal.u.s.trade of the veranda.

There stood Wolff bowing before her husband, his hat in his hand, his face covered with smiles.

"O, ta, ta!" said Uncle Henry.

"How comes he here, Gertrude?"