Only a Girl Part 48

"Mother, let Regina attend to all that, and do you stay with us,"

Johannes entreated, with something of reproach in his tone. "Other things can be left until to-morrow."

"The silver at least must be attended to. And Fraulein von Hartwich is in great need of repose."

"I am so sorry to give you so much trouble," said Ernestine, really grieved.

"Oh, I a.s.sure you it is a pleasure!" With these brief words the Staatsrathin left the room.

Ernestine sat there pale and exhausted. Johannes took her hand.

"Patience, patience, Ernestine. She will soon--you will soon learn to know each other."

Ernestine silently shook her head. Her brow was clouded. "There is no home for me here!"

"Not yet, but it will become one!"

"No, never!"

Johannes compressed his lips. "Ernestine, you do not dream how you pain me!"

"Pain you, my friend? The only one who is kind to me! Oh, no, I will not,--I cannot!" And she leaned towards him with strong, almost childlike, emotion, and laid her hand upon his.

"When I see you thus," said Johannes, with a look of ardent love, "I ask myself whether you can be the same Ernestine who seeks to sacrifice the unfathomed treasure of her rich, overflowing heart to a phantom,--to a struggle that can never yield a thousandth part of the pleasure that she might create for herself and others. Oh G.o.d!" and he pressed his lips to Ernestine's hand, "every word that you said to-day stabbed me like a dagger. How was it possible for you to think and talk so, after that hour that we pa.s.sed together? Oh, lovely white rose that you are, you incline yourself towards me, but, when I would pluck and wear you, your thorns wound my hand!"

Ernestine laid her other hand upon his bowed head. "Dear--unspeakably dear--friend, have patience with me. If you could only put yourself in my place! In early childhood, when others are borne in the arms of love and petted and caressed, I was abused, scorned, neglected,--because--I was--a girl. Every cry of my soul, every thought of my mind, every feeling of my young heart, asked, 'Why am I so bitterly punished for not being a boy?' And in every wound that I received were planted the seeds of revenge,--revenge for myself and for my s.e.x,--and of burning ambition to rival those placed so far above me in the scale of creation. These feelings matured quickly in the glow of the indignation which I felt when I saw my s.e.x oppressed and repulsed whenever it strove to rise above its misery. They grew with my growth, strengthened with my physical and mental strength, and they filled my whole being, just as my veins and nerves run through my body. How can I live if you tear them thence?"

Johannes held her hand clasped in his, and listened attentively.

"It is," continued Ernestine, "as if my heart had frozen to ice just at the moment when the agonized cry, 'Why am I worth less than a boy?'

burst from me, and as if that question were congealed within it,--so that I can think and struggle only for the answer to that 'why?' Why are we subject to man? Why do we depend solely upon his magnanimity, and succ.u.mb miserably when he withholds it? The times when physical force ruled are past. Everything now depends upon whether the progress of woman is to be r.e.t.a.r.ded by world-old prejudices, or by positive mental inferiority on her part; and I shall never rest until science satisfies me upon this point."

"And do you not believe, Ernestine, that there is a third power subjecting the more delicate s.e.x to the stronger--a higher power than the right of the strongest--more effective than the power of the intellect,--the power of love?"

Ernestine looked at him with calm surprise. "I do not believe love can accomplish what reason fails to prove."

"Is that really so?" Johannes was silent for a moment, then walked to and fro with folded arms, and finally stopped before her. "You speak of a sentiment that you have no knowledge of. But of all my hopes that you have destroyed to-day in the bud, one there is that you cannot take from me. You will learn to know it!"

The Staatsrathin entered. "Fraulein von Hartwich, your room is ready for you. Will you allow me to conduct you thither?"

"Mother," cried Johannes, "do not be so cold and formal to Ernestine.

You cannot keep at such a distance one so near to me."

"I really cannot see wherein I have failed of my duty towards Fraulein von Hartwich,--we are as yet entire strangers to each other."

"You are right, Frau Staatsrathin," said Ernestine. "I am not so presuming as to expect more from you than you would accord to the merest stranger. I am very sorry to be obliged to accept even so much from you. I will go to my room, that I may not any longer keep you from your rest; but be a.s.sured I shall trespa.s.s upon your hospitality for a single night only."

She turned to Johannes, and, with a grateful look, offered him her hand.

"Good-night, kind sir."

"G.o.d guard your first slumbers beneath this roof!" said Johannes fervently, and it seemed as if the wish took the airy shape of her lost guardian angel, and hovered before her up the stairs to the cosy little room whither the Staatsrathin conducted her, and then, placing itself by the side of her snowy couch, fanned her burning brow with cooling wings.

"Mother," said Johannes gravely, when the Staatsrathin rejoined him, "to-day, for the first time in my life, you have been no mother to me!"

CHAPTER XI.

INHARMONIOUS CONTRASTS.

The morning sun streamed brightly through the white muslin curtains of Ernestine's windows, yet she still slept in peaceful and childlike slumber. For the first time for many years, she was not cheated of her repose by haste to go to her work. The guardian angel, that Johannes had invoked to her side, forbade even her uncle's ghost to knock at her door, and still kept faithful watch beside her bed. It seemed as if the whole house were aware of its sacred presence, for a quiet as of a church reigned among its inmates. They were all up, but, at the command of their head, every door was softly opened and shut, every footfall noiseless. Johannes knew how much need Ernestine had of repose, and he would not have her disturbed. He even controlled the throbbing of his own heart, that longed to bid her good-morning.

The sleeper drew calmly in with every breath the repose that surrounded her,--and what a blessing it was for the poor, wearied child!

The Staatsrathin had superintended the arrangement of the breakfast-table, and was seated with her work at the window. But her hands were dropped idly in her lap, and her eyes, red with weeping, were fixed sadly upon the flame of the spirit-lamp that had been burning for an hour beneath the coffee-urn.

"Do you not think I had better have fresh coffee prepared? this has been waiting so long," she said to her son as he entered the room.

"Just as you please, mother dear," said Johannes. "You know I understand nothing of such things."

The Staatsrathin rang for the servant. "Regina, take this coffee away and bring back the urn. I will boil some more."

The maid did as she was directed, with a sullen face. "'Tis a shame to waste such good coffee!" she muttered as she went out.

"It is very disagreeable, mother," observed Johannes, "to have Regina criticising all our arrangements. I do not like to have servants of that sort about me. If you cannot break her of it, pray send her away."

"She does her work well, and is thoroughly honest," replied the Staatsrathin.

"That may be, but there certainly are servants to be had who would do their duty more respectfully and good-humouredly. I do not like to have my comfort destroyed by sullen faces around me. I like to have people who render their service cheerfully."

"It is not very easy to find them."

"They must be sought until they are found," said Johannes, cutting short the conversation by opening and beginning to read his newspaper.

The Staatsrathin sighed, but said not a word.

Regina re-entered with the urn, and asked crossly, "Is the Fraulein not to be wakened yet?"

"No!" was Johannes's curt reply.

"Then the urn might as well be washed, if the coffee is not to be made until noon," she grumbled again, and left the room, closing the door with something of a slam.

"Now, mother, this really is too much. I cannot undertake the direction of the servant-maids, but I will not tolerate them when they are so insolent. Regina must conduct herself differently, or she goes!"

"You have suddenly grown very impatient with the girl," said his mother bitterly. "I hope you may always be as implicitly obeyed as you desire."

"I understand what you mean, mother, but it does not touch me. I desire only what is right,--obedience from the servants whom I hire, love from a wife who is my equal."