Nina Balatka Part 28

"I don't want to have anything to do with it," said Souchey, getting up from his stool and preparing to take his departure. Though he had been so keen after the sausage, he was above taking a bribe in such a matter as this.

"Stop, Souchey, stop. I didn't think that I should ever have to ask anything of you in vain."

Then she put her face very close to his, so that her lips touched his ear, and she laid her hand heavily upon his arm, and she was very confidential. Souchey listened to the whisper till his face grew longer and longer. "'Tis for her soul," said Lotta--"for her poor soul's sake.

When you can save her by raising your hand, would you let her be d.a.m.ned for ever?"

But she could exact no promise from Souchey except that he would keep faith with her, and that he would consider deeply the proposal made to him. Then there was a tender farewell between them, and Souchey returned to the Kleinseite.

CHAPTER XIII

For two days after this Nina heard nothing from the Jews' quarter, and in her terrible distress her heart almost became softened towards the man who had so deeply offended her. She began to tell herself, in the weariness of her sorrow, that men were different from women, and, of their nature, more suspicious; that no woman had a right to expect every virtue in her lover, and that no woman had less of such right than she herself, who had so little to give in return for all that Anton proposed to bestow upon her. She began to think that she could forgive him, even for his suspicion, if he would only come to be forgiven. But he came not, and it was only too plain to her that she could not be the first to go to him after what had pa.s.sed between them.

And then there fell another crushing sorrow upon her. Her father was ill--so ill that he was like to die. The doctor came to him--some son of Galen who had known the merchant in his prosperity--and, with kind a.s.surances, told Nina that her father, though he could pay nothing, should have whatever a.s.sistance medical attention could give him; but he said, at the same time, that medical attention could give no aid that would be of permanent service. The light had burned down in the socket, and must go out. The doctor took Nina by the hand, and put his own hand upon her soft tresses, and spoke kind words to console her.

And then he said that the sick man ought to take a few gla.s.ses of wine every day; and as he was going away, turned back again, and promised to send the wine from his own house. Nina thanked him, and plucked up something of her old spirit during his presence, and spoke to him as though she had no other care than that of her father's health; but as soon as the doctor was gone she thought again of her Jew lover. That her father should die was a great grief. But when she should be alone in the old house, with the corpse lying on the bed, would Anton Trendellsohn come to her then?

He did not come to her now, though he knew of her father's illness. She sent Souchey to the Jews' quarter to tell the sad news--not to him, but to old Trendellsohn. "For the sake of the property it is right that he should know," Nina said to herself, excusing to herself on this plea her weakness in sending any message to the house of Anton Trendellsohn till he should have come and asked her pardon. But even after this he came not. She listened to every footstep that entered the courtyard.

She could not keep herself from going to the window, and from looking into the square. Surely now, in her deep sorrow, in her solitude, he would come to her. He would come and say one word--that he did trust her, that he would trust her! But no; he came not at all; and the hours of the day and the night followed slowly and surely upon each other, as she sat by her father's bed watching the last quiver of the light in the socket.

But though Trendellsohn did not come himself, there came to her a messenger from the Jew's house--a messenger from the Jew's house, but not a messenger from Anton Trendellsohn. "Here is a girl from the-- Jew," said Souchey, whispering into her ear as she sat at her father's bedside--"one of themselves. Shall I tell her to go away, because he is so ill?" And Souchey pointed to his master's head on the pillow.

"She has got a basket, but she can leave that."

Nina, however, was by no means inclined to send the Jewess away, rightly guessing that the stranger was her friend Ruth. "Stop here, Souchey, and I will go to her," Nina said. "Do not leave him till I return. I will not be long." She would not have let a dog go without a word that had come from Anton's house or from Anton's presence. Perhaps he had written to her. If there were but a line to say, "Pardon me; I was wrong," everything might yet be right. But Ruth Jacobi was the bearer of no note from Anton, nor indeed had she come on her present message with her uncle's knowledge. She had put a heavy basket on the table, and now, running forward, took Nina by the hands, and kissed her.

"We have been so sorry, all of us, to hear of your father's illness,"

said Ruth.

"Father is very ill," said Nina. "He is dying."

"Nay, Nina; it may be that he is not dying. Life and death both are in the hands of G.o.d."

"Yes; it is in G.o.d's hands of course; but the doctor says that he will die."

"The doctors have no right to speak in that way," said Ruth, "for how can they know G.o.d's pleasure? It may be that he will recover."

"Yes; it may be," said Nina. "It is good of you to come to me, Ruth.

I am so glad you have come. Have you any--any--message?" If he would only ask to be forgiven through Ruth, or even if he had sent a word that might be taken to show that he wished to be forgiven, it should suffice.

"I have--brought--a few things in a basket," said Ruth, almost apologetically.

Then Nina lifted the basket. "You did not surely carry this through the streets?"

"I had Shadrach, our boy, with me. He carried it. It is not from me, exactly; though I have been so glad to come with it."

"And who sent it?" said Nina, quickly, with her fingers trembling on its lid. If Anton had thought to send anything to her, that anything should suffice.

"It was Rebecca Loth who thought of it, and who asked me to come," said Ruth.

Then Nina drew back her fingers as though they were burned, and walked away from the table with quick angry steps. "Why should Rebecca Loth send anything to me?" she said. "What is there in the basket?"

"She has written a little line. It is at the top. But she has asked me to say--"

"What has she asked you to say? Why should she say anything to me?"

"Nay, Nina; she is very good, and she loves you."

"I do not want her love."

"I am to say to you that she has heard of your distress, and she hopes that a girl like you will let a girl like her do what she can to comfort you."

"She cannot comfort me."

"She bade me say that if she were ill or in sorrow, there is no hand from which she would so gladly take comfort as from yours--for the sake, she said, of a mutual friend."

"I have no--friend," said Nina.

"Oh, Nina, am not I your friend? Do not I love you?"

"I do not know. If you do love me now, you must cease to love me. You are a Jewess, and I am a Christian, and we must live apart. You, at least, must live. I wish you would tell the boy that he may take back the basket."

"There are things in it for your father, Nina; and, Nina, surely you will read Rebecca's note?"

Then Ruth went to the basket, and from the top she took out Rebecca's letter, and gave it to Nina, and Nina read it. It was as follows:

I shall always regard you as very dear to me, because our hearts have been turned in the same way. It may not be perhaps that we shall know each other much at first; but I hope the days may come when we shall be much older than we are now, and that then we may meet and be able to talk of what has pa.s.sed without pain. I do not know why a Jewess and a Christian woman should not be friends.

I have sent a few things which may perhaps be of comfort to your father. In pity to me do not refuse them. They are such as one woman should send to another. And I have added a little trifle for your own use. At the present moment you are poor as to money, though so rich in the gifts which make men love. On my knees before you I ask you to accept from my hand what I send, and to think of me as one who would serve you in more things if it were possible.

Yours, if you will let me, affectionately, REBECCA.

I see when I look at them that the shoes will be too big.

She stood for a while apart from Ruth, with the open note in her hand, thinking whether or no she would accept the gifts which had been sent.

The words which Rebecca had written had softened her heart, especially those in which the Jewess had spoken openly to her of her poverty. "At the present moment you are poor as to money," the girl had said, and had said it as though such poverty were, after all, but a small thing in their relative positions one to another. That Nina should be loved, and Rebecca not loved, was a much greater thing. For her father's sake she would take the things sent--and for Rebecca's sake. She would take even the shoes, which she wanted so sorely. She remembered well, as she read the last word, how, when Rebecca had been with her, she herself had pointed to the poor broken slippers which she wore, not meaning to excite such compa.s.sion as had now been shown. Yes, she would accept it all--as one woman should take such things from another.

"You will not make Shadrach carry them back?" said Ruth, imploring her.

"But he--has he sent nothing?--not a word?" She would have thought herself to be utterly incapable, before Ruth had come, of showing so much weakness; but her reserve gave way as she admitted in her own heart the kindness of Rebecca, and she became conquered and humbled.

She was so terribly in want of his love at this moment! "And has he sent no word of a message to me?"

"I did not tell him that I was coming."

"But he knows--he knows that father is so ill."

"Yes; I suppose he has heard that, because Souchey came to the house.

But he has been out of temper with us all, and unhappy, for some days past. I know that he is unhappy when he is so harsh with us."