Gertrude's Marriage Part 23

"But, confound it, I ask you--how?" he cried in fierce anger.

She had drawn back a little and looked at him with dignity.

"Pray, order the carriage and go to Uncle Henry," she replied, coldly.

"Yes, by Heaven, you are right," he cried, quite beside himself, "you are more than perverse!"

"I told you so before; it is my character."

"Gertrude," he began, "I am easily aroused, and nothing angers me so much as pa.s.sive opposition. It is our duty to have trust in one another--tell me what troubles you; it _can_ be explained. I am conscious of no wrong done to you."

"That is a matter of opinion," said she.

"Very well. I declare to you that I am not in the least curious--and I give you time to reconsider."

He turned to go.

"That is certainly the most convenient thing to do in this matter," she retorted, bitterly.

He hesitated, but he went nevertheless, closed the broken door behind him as well as he could and began to walk up and down his room.

She pressed her forehead against the window-pane and gazed out into the garden. It had stopped raining; the clouds were lifting in the west and displaying gleams of the setting sun. Then the heavy ma.s.ses of fog broke away and at the same moment the landscape blazed out in brilliant sunshine like a beautiful woman laughing through her tears.

If _she_ could only weep! They who have a capacity for tears are favored. Weeping makes the heart light, the mood softer--but there were no tears for her.

CHAPTER XIV.

In the late twilight the iron-gray horses stopped before the door and Jenny got out of the carriage.

She ran lightly as a cat up the veranda steps and suddenly stood in the garden-hall before Frank Linden, who sat at the table alone. Gertrude's plate was untouched.

"So late, Jenny?" he asked.

"I want to speak to Gertrude."

"You will find my--wife in her room."

Jenny cast a quick glance at him from her bright eyes. Had the blow fallen? She had nearly died of anxiety at home.

"Is not Gertrude well?" she inquired, innocently.

He hesitated a moment.

"She seems rather excited and tired. I think something has happened to disturb her in the course of the day."

"Ah, indeed!" said Mrs. Fredericks. "Well, I will go and see her myself."

She pa.s.sed through the hall. The lamp was not yet lighted and in the darkness she stumbled over something and nearly fell. As she uttered a slight cry, Johanna hastened in with a light.

"Oh, I beg your pardon, ma'am, it is the young lady's trunk, who arrived about a quarter of an hour ago. Dora forgot to carry it to her room."

Jenny cast an angry glance at the modest box, ran up the stairs and knocked at her sister's door.

"It is I, Gertrude," she called out in her clear ringing voice. She heard light footsteps and the bolt was gently drawn back and the door opened.

"You, Jenny?" inquired Gertrude, just as Frank had said a few minutes before, "you, Jenny?"

It was almost dark in the room; Jenny could not see her sister's face.

"Why do you sit here in the dark, Gertrude? I beg of you tell me quick all that has happened. Mamma and I are dying of anxiety."

"You need have no anxiety," replied Gertrude. "It is all right."

"All right?" asked Jenny in surprise. "You cannot make me believe that, _He_ alone at the table and _you_ up here with your door locked--come confess, child, that you have not made it up."

"Please take a seat, Jenny," said the young wife, wearily.

Jenny sat down on the lounge, and Gertrude took up her position at the window again. It was still as death in the room and in the whole house.

"It would have been wiser if you had not married at all, Gertrude,"

began her sister, with a sigh.

"But, it can't be helped--you are tied fast--oh, yes! You must put up with everything, you must not even have an opinion of your own, I am quite ill too from the vexation I had last evening. At last I ran up to mamma. She was dreadfully frightened when she saw me standing before her bed in my night-dress. I cried all night long. This morning I waited. I thought he would come up for me, he was usually so remorseful--but he didn't come and as I was taking breakfast with mamma Sophie brought me a card from him in which he very coolly informed me that he had gone to Manchester for a fortnight. Well--I wish him a happy journey!"

Gertrude made no reply.

"You must not take it so dreadfully to heart, child," continued the young matron. "Good gracious, it is well it is no worse. All women have something to put up with and sometimes it is far worse than this."

"Have they?" asked Gertrude, in a low voice.

"Yes, of course!" cried Jenny, in surprise.

"Do you think a woman can take up her bundle and march off? Bah! Then no woman would stay with her husband a moment. No, no,--people get reconciled to one another and they just take the first opportunity to pay each other off. That is always great fun for me. Just you see, pet, how good Arthur will be when he comes back; for a whole month he will be the nicest husband in the world."

"That would be an impossibility for me," cried Gertrude, clearly and firmly. "To-day bitter as death, to-morrow fondly loving; it is simply shameful."

Jenny was silent.

"Good gracious," she said at length, yawning, "one is as good as the other! If I were to separate from Arthur,--who knows but I might get a worse one! For of course I should marry again, what else can a woman do? By the way, mamma spoke to the lawyer--he urgently advised her to hush up the matter as well as possible. Mamma thought differently, but Mr. Sneider declared--you see now, one _can't_ get away even if one wants to--that there were no grounds for a divorce, and I said to mamma too, 'Gertrude,' said I, 'leave him? Incredible! She is dead in love with the man. He might have murdered somebody, I really believe, and she would still find excuses for him.' Was I right?"

Gertrude suffered tortures. She wrung her hands in silence and her eyes were fixed on the dark sky above her in which the evening star was now sparkling with a greenish light. Jenny yawned again.

"Ah, just think," she continued, "you don't know what we quarrelled about, Arthur and I. He reproached me with spending too much on my dress; of course that was only a pretext to give vent to his ill temper--there were business letters very likely containing bad news. I replied that did not concern him, I did not inquire into his expenses.

Then he was cross and declared that I had tried in Nice to copy the dresses of the elegant French women. But it is not true, for I only bought two dresses there. Gracious, yes, they were rather dearer than if my dressmaker in Berlin had made them. Of course I said again, 'That is not your affair, for I pay for them.' Then he talked in a very moral strain about honorable women and German women who helped to increase the prosperity of a house. Other fortunes besides ours had been thrown away and when the truth was known it was always the fault of 'Madame.'

He found fault with mamma for making herself so ridiculous with her youthful costumes, and at last he declared we owed some duty to our future children--Heaven preserve me! I have had to give up my poor sweet little Walter, and I will have no more. The pain of losing him was too great; I should die of anxiety. In short, he played the part of a real provincial Philistine, and finally even that of Oth.e.l.lo, for he declared Col. von Brelow always had such a confidential air with me.