The Benefactress Part 33

Fraulein Kuhrauber followed her about, with a humble, dog-like affection, and seemed to want to tell her something, and never got further than dark utterances that perplexed her. Baroness Elmreich repulsed all her advances, carefully called her Miss Estcourt, and made acid comments on everything that was said and done. "I believe she dislikes me," thought Anna, puzzled. "I wonder why?" The baroness did; and the reason was simplicity itself. She disliked her because she was younger, prettier, richer, healthier than herself. For this she disliked her heartily; but with far greater heartiness did she dislike her because she knew she ought to be grateful to her. The baroness detested having to feel grateful--it is a detestation not confined to baronesses--and in this case the burden of the obligations she was under was so great that it was almost past endurance. And there was no escape.

She had been starving when Anna took her in, and she would starve again if Anna turned her out. She owed her everything; and what more natural, then, than to dislike her? The rarest of loves is the love of a debtor for his creditor.

At night, alone in her room, Anna would wonder at the day lived through, at the unsatisfactoriness of it, and the emptiness. When were they going to begin the better life, the soul to soul life she was waiting for? How busy they had all been, and what had they done? Why, nothing. A little aimless talking, a little aimless sewing, a little aimless walking about, a few letters to write that need not have been written, a newspaper to glance into that did not really interest anybody, meals in rapid succession, night, and oblivion. That was what was on the surface.

What was beneath the surface she could only guess at; for after a whole fortnight with the Chosen she was still confronted solely by surfaces.

In the hot forest, drowsy and aromatic, where the white b.u.t.terflies, like points of light among the shadows of the pine-trunks, fluttered up and down the unending avenues all day long, she wandered, during the afternoon hour when the Chosen napped, to the most out-of-the-way nooks she could find; and sitting on the moss where she could see some special bit of loveliness, some distant radiant meadow in the sunlight beyond the trees, some bush with its delicate green shower of budding leaves at the foot of a giant pine, some exquisite effect of blue and white between the branches so far above her head, she would ponder and ponder till she was weary.

There was no mistaking Karlchen's looks; she had not been a pretty girl for several seasons at home in vain. Karlchen meant to marry her. She, of course, did not mean to marry Karlchen, but that did not smooth any of the ruggedness out of the path she saw opening before her. She would have to endure the preliminary blandishments of the wooing, and when the wooing itself had reached the state of ripeness which would enable her to let him know plainly her own intentions, there would be a grievous number of scenes to be gone through with his mother. And then his mother would shake the Kleinwalde dust from her offended feet and go, and failure number one would be upon her. In the innermost recesses of her heart, offensive as Karlchen's wooing would certainly be, she thought that once it was over it would not have been a bad thing; for, since his visit, it was clear that Frau von Treumann was not the sort of inmate she had dreamed of for her home for the unhappy. Unhappy she had undoubtedly been, poor thing, but happy with Anna she would never be.

She had forgiven the first fibs the poor lady had told her, but she could not go on forgiving fibs for ever. All those elaborate untruths, written and spoken, about Karlchen's visit, how dreadful they were.

Surely, thought Anna, truthfulness was not only a lovely and a pleasant thing but it was absolutely indispensable as the basis to a real friendship. How could any soul approach another soul through a network of lies? And then more painful still--she confessed with shame that it was more painful to her even than the lies--Frau von Treumann evidently took her for a fool. Not merely for a person wanting in intelligence, or slow-witted, but for a downright fool. She must think so, or she would have taken more pains, at least some pains, to make her schemes a little less transparent. Anna hated herself for feeling mortified by this; but mortified she certainly was. Even a philosopher does not like to be honestly mistaken during an entire fortnight for a fool. Though he may smile, he will almost surely wince. Not being a philosopher, Anna winced and did not smile.

"I think," she said to Manske, when he came in one morning with a list of selected applications, "I think we will wait a little before choosing the other nine."

"The gracious one is not weary of well-doing?" he asked quickly.

"Oh no, not at all; I like well-doing," Anna said rather lamely, "but it is not quite--not quite as simple as it looks."

"I have found nine most deserving cases," he urged, "and later there may not be----"

"No, no," interrupted Anna, "we will wait. In the autumn, perhaps--not now. First I must make the ones who are here happy. You know," she said, smiling, "they came here to be made happy."

"Yes, truly I know it. And happy indeed must they be in this home, surrounded by all that makes life fair and desirable."

"One would think so," said Anna, musing. "It is pretty here, isn't it--it should be easy to be happy here,--yet I am not sure that they are."

"Not sure----?" Manske looked at her, startled.

"What do people--most people, ordinary people, need, to make them happy?" she asked wistfully. She was speaking to herself more than to him, and did not expect any very illuminating answer.

"The fear of the Lord," he replied promptly; which put an end to the conversation.

But besides her perplexities about the Chosen, Anna had other worries.

Dellwig had received the refusal to let him build the brick-kiln with such insolence, and had, in his anger, said such extraordinary things about Axel Lohm, that Anna had blazed out too, and had told him he must go. It had been an unpleasant scene, and she had come out from it white and trembling. She had intended to ask Axel to do the dismissing for her if she should ever definitely decide to send him away; but she had been overwhelmed by a sudden pa.s.sion of wrath at the man's intolerable insinuations--only half understood, but sounding for that reason worse than they were--and had done it herself. Since then she had not seen him. By the agreement her uncle had made with him, he was ent.i.tled to six months' notice, and would not leave until the winter, and she knew she could not continue to refuse to see him; but how she dreaded the next interview! And how uneasy she felt at the thought that the management of her estate was entirely in the hands of a man who must now be her enemy. Axel was equally anxious, when he heard what she had done.

It had to be done, of course; but he did not like Dellwig's looks when he met him. He asked Anna to allow him to ride round her place as often as he could, and she was grateful to him, for she knew that not only her own existence, but the existence of her poor friends, depended on the right cultivation of Kleinwalde. And she was so helpless. What creature on earth could be more helpless than an English girl in her position?

She left off reading Maeterlinck, borrowed books on farming from Axel, and eagerly studied them, learning by heart before breakfast long pages concerning the peculiarities of her two chief products, potatoes and pigs.

"He cannot do much harm," Axel a.s.sured her; "the potatoes, I see, are all in, and what can he do to the pigs? His own vanity would prevent his leaving the place in a bad state. I have heard of a good man--shall I have him down and interview him for you?"

"How kind you are," said Anna gratefully; indeed, he seemed to her to be a tower of strength.

"Anyone would do what they could to help a forlorn young lady in the straits you are in," he said, smiling at her.

"I don't feel like a forlorn young lady with you next door to help me out of the difficulties."

"People in these lonely country places learn to be neighbourly," he replied in his most measured tones.

He had not again spoken of the Chosen since his walk with her through the forest; and though he knew that Karlchen had been and gone he did not mention his name. Nor did Anna. The longer she lived with her sisters the less did she care to talk about them, especially to Axel. As for Frau von Treumann's plans, how could she ever tell him of those?

And just then Letty, the only being who was really satisfactory, became a cause to her of fresh perplexity. Letty had been strangely content with her German lessons from Herr Klutz. Every day she and Miss Leech set out without a murmur, and came back looking placid. They brought back little offerings from the parsonage, a bunch of narcissus, the first lilac, cakes baked by Frau Manske, always something. Anna took the flowers, and ate the cakes, and sent pleased messages in return. If she had been less preoccupied by Dellwig and the eccentricities of her three new friends, she would certainly have been struck by Letty's silence about her lessons, and would have questioned her. There was no grumbling after the first day, and no abuse of Schiller and the muses. Once Anna met Klutz walking through Kleinwalde, and asked him how the studies were progressing. "Colossal," was the reply, "the progress made is colossal."

And he crushed her rings into her fingers when she gave him her hand to shake, and blushed, and looked at her with eyes that he felt must burn into her soul. But Anna noticed neither his eyes nor his blush; for his eyes, whatever he might feel them to be doing, were not the kind that burn into souls, and he was a pale young man who, when he blushed, did it only in his ears. They certainly turned crimson as he crushed Anna's fingers, but she was not thinking of his ears.

"Frau Manske is too kind," she said, as the nosegays, at first intermittent, became things of daily occurrence. They grew bigger, too, every day, attaining such a girth at last that Letty could hardly carry them. "She must not plunder her garden like this."

"It is very full of flowers," said Miss Leech. "Really a wonderful display. The bunch is always ready, tied together and lying on the table when we arrive. I tried to tell her yesterday that you were afraid she was spoiling her garden, sending so much, but she did not seem to understand. She is showing me how to make those cakes you said you liked."

"I wish I had some of these in my garden," said Anna, laying her cheek against the posy of wallflowers Letty had just given her. There was nothing in her garden except gra.s.s and trees; Uncle Joachim had not been a man of flowers.

She took them up to her room, kissing them on the way, and put them in a jar on the window-sill; and it was not until two or three days later, when they began to fade, that she saw the corner of an envelope peeping out from among them. She pulled it out and opened it. It was addressed to _Ihr Hochwohlgeboren Fraulein Anna Estcourt_; and inside was a sheet of notepaper with a large red heart painted on it, mangled, and pierced by an arrow; and below it the following poem in a cramped, hardly readable writing:--

The earth am I, and thou the heaven, The ma.s.s am I, and thou the leaven, No other heaven do I want but thee, Oh Anna, Anna, Anna, pity me!

AUGUST KLUTZ, Kandidat.

In an instant Letty's unnatural cheerfulness about her lessons flashed across her. _What_ had they been doing, and where was Miss Leech, that such things could happen?

It was a very terrible, stern-browed aunt who met Letty that day on the stairs when she came home.

"Hullo, Aunt Anna, seen a ghost?" Letty inquired pleasantly; but her heart sank into her boots all the same as she followed her into her room.

"Look," said Anna, showing her the paper, "how could you do it? For of course you did it. Herr Klutz doesn't speak English."

"Doesn't he though--he gets on like anything. He sits up all night----"

"How is it that _this_ was possible?" interrupted Anna, striking the paper with her hand.

"It's pretty, isn't it," said Letty, faintly grinning. "The last line had to be changed a little. It isn't original, you know, except the Annas. I put in those. That footman mother got cheap because he had one finger too few sent it to Hilton on her birthday last year--she liked it awfully. The last line was 'Oh Hilton, Hilton, Hilton----'"

"_How_ came you to talk such hideous nonsense with Herr Klutz, and about me?"

"I didn't. He began. He talked about you the whole time, and started doing it the very first day Leechy cooked."

"Cooked?"

"She is always in the kitchen with Frau Manske. We brought you some of the cakes one day, and you seemed as pleased as anything."

"And instead of learning German you and he have been making up this sort of thing?"

Anna's voice and eyes frightened Letty. She shifted from one foot to the other and looked down sullenly. "What's the good of being angry?" she said, addressing the carpet; "it's only Mr. Jessup over again. Leechy wasn't angry with Mr. Jessup. She was frightfully pleased. She says it's the greatest compliment a person can pay anybody, going on about them like Herr Klutz does, and talking rot."

Anna stared at her, bewildered. "Mr. Jessup?" she repeated. "And do you mean to tell me that Miss Leech knows of this--this disgusting nonsense?" She held the mangled heart at arm's length, crushing it in her hand.

"I say, you'll spoil it. He worked at it for days. There weren't any paints red enough for the wound, and he had to go to Stralsund on purpose. He thought no end of it." And Letty, scared though she was, could not resist giggling a little.

"Do you mean to tell me that Miss Leech knows about this?" insisted Anna.

"Rather not. It's a secret. He made me promise faithfully never to tell a soul. Of course it doesn't matter talking to you, because you're one of the persons concerned. You can't be married, you know, without knowing about it, so I'm not breaking my promise talking to you----"

"Married? What unutterable rubbish have you got into your head?"

"That's what I said--or something like it. I said it was jolly rot. He said, 'What's rot?' I said 'That.'"