Linda Tressel Part 5

"You had better, my dear," said Madame Staubach, seeming to awake from her sleep. "The air will do you good."

"Do, Linda," said Peter; and then he intended to be very gracious in what he added. "I will not say a word to tease you, but just take you out, and bring you back again."

"I am sure, it being the Sabbath, he would say nothing of his hopes to-day," said Madame Staubach.

"Not a word," said Peter, lifting up one hand in token of his positive a.s.surance.

But, even so a.s.sured, Linda would not go with him, and the town-clerk went off alone. Now, again, had come the time in which Linda could tell the tale. It must certainly be told now or never. Were she to tell it now she could easily explain why she had been silent so long; but were she not to tell it now, such explanation would ever afterwards be impossible. "Linda, dear, will you read to me," said her aunt. Then Linda took up the great Bible. "Turn to the eighth and ninth chapters of Isaiah, my child." Linda did as she was bidden, and read the two chapters indicated. After that, there was silence for a few minutes, and then the aunt spoke. "Linda, my child."

"Yes, aunt Charlotte."

"I do not think you would willingly be false to me." Then Linda turned away her face, and was silent. "It is not that the offence to me would be great, who am, as we all are, a poor weak misguided creature; but that the sin against the Lord is so great, seeing that He has placed me here as your guide and protector." Linda made no promise in answer to this, but even then she did not tell the tale.

How could she have told it at such a moment? But the tale must now go untold for ever!

CHAPTER V

A week pa.s.sed by, and Linda Tressel heard nothing of Ludovic, and began at last to hope that that terrible episode of the young man's visit to her might be allowed to be as though it had never been. A week pa.s.sed by, during every day of which Linda had feared and had half expected to hear some question from her aunt which would nearly crush her to the ground. But no such question had been asked, and, for aught that Linda knew, no one but she and Ludovic were aware of the wonderful jump that had been made out of the boat on to the island. And during this week little, almost nothing, was said to her in reference to the courtship of Peter Steinmarc. Peter himself spoke never a word; and Madame Staubach had merely said, in reference to certain pipes of tobacco which were smoked by the town-clerk in Madame Staubach's parlour, and which would heretofore have been smoked in the town-clerk's own room, that it was well that Peter should learn to make himself at home with them. Linda had said nothing in reply, but had sworn inwardly that she would never make herself at home with Peter Steinmarc.

In spite of the pipes of tobacco, Linda was beginning to hope that she might even yet escape from her double peril, and, perhaps, was beginning to have hope even beyond that, when she was suddenly shaken in her security by words which were spoken to her by f.a.n.n.y Heisse.

"Linda," said f.a.n.n.y, running over to the gate of Madame Staubach's house, very early on one bright summer morning, "Linda, it is to be to-morrow! And will you not come?"

"No, dear; we never go out here: we are so sad and solemn that we know nothing of gaiety."

"You need not be solemn unless you like it."

"I don't know but what I do like it, f.a.n.n.y; I have become so used to it that I am as grave as an owl."

"That comes of having an old lover, Linda."

"I have not got an old lover," said Linda, petulantly.

"You have got a young one, at any rate."

"What do you mean, f.a.n.n.y?"

"What do I mean? Just what I say. You know very well what I mean. Who was it jumped over the river that Sunday morning, my dear? I know all about it." Then there came across Linda's face a look of extreme pain,--a look of anguish; and f.a.n.n.y Heisse could see that her friend was greatly moved by what she had said. "You don't suppose that I shall tell any one," she added.

"I should not mind anything being told if all could be told," said Linda.

"But he did come,--did he not?" Linda merely nodded her head. "Yes; I knew that he came when your aunt was at church, and Tetchen was out, and Herr Steinmarc was out. Is it not a pity that he should be such a ne'er-do-well?"

"Do you think that I am a ne'er-do-well, f.a.n.n.y?"

"No indeed; but, Linda, I will tell you what I have always thought about young men. They are very nice, and all that; and when old croaking hunkses have told me that I should have nothing to say to them, I have always answered that I meant to have as much to say to them as possible; but it is like eating good things;--everybody likes eating good things, but one feels ashamed of doing it in secret."

This was a terrible blow to poor Linda. "But I don't like doing it,"

she answered. "It wasn't my fault. I did not bid him come."

"One never does bid them to come; I mean not till one has taken up with a fellow as a lover outright. Then you bid them, and sometimes they won't come for your bidding."

"I would have given anything in the world to have prevented his doing what he did. I never mean to speak to him again,--if I can help it."

"Oh, Linda!"

"I suppose you think I expected him, because I stayed at home alone?"

"Well,--I did think that possibly you expected something."

"I would have gone to church with my aunt though my head was splitting had I thought that Herr Valcarm would have come here while she was away."

"Mind I have not blamed you. It is a great shame to give a girl an old lover like Peter Steinmarc, and ask her to marry him. I wouldn't have married Peter Steinmarc for all the uncles and all the aunts in creation; nor yet for father,--though father would never have thought of such a thing. I think a girl should choose a lover for herself, though how she is to do so if she is to be kept moping at home always, I cannot tell. If I were treated as you are I think I should ask somebody to jump over the river to me."

"I have asked n.o.body. But, f.a.n.n.y, how did you know it?"

"A little bird saw him."

"But, f.a.n.n.y, do tell me."

"Max saw him get across the river with his own eyes." Max Bogen was the happy man who on the morrow was to make f.a.n.n.y Heisse his wife.

"Heavens and earth!"

"But, Linda, you need not be afraid of Max. Of all men in the world he is the very last to tell tales."

"f.a.n.n.y, if ever you whisper a word of this to any one, I will never speak to you again."

"Of course, I shall not whisper it."

"I cannot explain to you all about it,--how it would ruin me. I think I should kill myself outright if my aunt were to know it; and yet I did nothing wrong. I would not encourage a man to come to me in that way for all the world; but I could not help his coming. I got myself into the kitchen; but when I found that he was in the house I thought it would be better to open the door and speak to him."

"Very much better. I would have slapped his face. A lover should know when to come and when to stay away."

"I was ashamed to think that I did not dare to speak to him, and so I opened the door. I was very angry with him."

"But still, perhaps, you like him,--just a little; is not that true, Linda?"

"I do not know; but this I know, I do not want ever to see him again."

"Come, Linda; never is a long time."

"Let it be ever so long, what I say is true."

"The worst of Ludovic is that he is a ne'er-do-well. He spends more money than he earns, and he is one of those wild spirits who are always making up some plan of politics--who live with one foot inside the State prison, as it were. I like a lover to be gay, and all that; but it is not well to have one's young man carried off and locked up by the burgomasters. But, Linda, do not be unhappy. Be sure that I shall not tell; and as for Max Bogen, his tongue is not his own. I should like to hear him say a word about such a thing when I tell him to be silent."