The Song Of Songs Part 34

She liked to busy herself with the gentle, good-natured folk. She visited the sick, and cared for the dest.i.tute. The girls seemed to her like poor sisters, who needed watching over; and as for the boys, why, they were a charge that G.o.d Himself had put into her keeping.

Miss von Schwertfeger looked askance at these kindly attentions. "The people belonging to the place," she said, "are beginning to complain that you prefer the immigrants to them. You would do well to take your walks in another direction."

Lilly remonstrated. Henceforth Miss von Schwertfeger kept close watch, and did not leave her side when the barn dwellings happened to be in seductive proximity.

Miss von Schwertfeger even converted Lilly to Protestantism.

Not in her soul. Heaven forefend!

"Love your Holy Virgin and your St. Joseph as much as you want to," she said, "but just remove that font and those little images from your bedside. As for going to church, you may drive to Krammen to attend ma.s.s on Sunday; of course you may; the colonel would not think of forbidding you to. But take my advice, dearest, and sit next to us in our pew. Do it for my sake, you won't regret it."

Lilly did not offer much resistance, and by way of reward received a small altar to keep in her room. When locked, it looked like a dainty jewel casket, but inside was the infant Jesus in the arms of the Madonna and--oh joy!--there was St. Joseph on the left leaf of the folding door, and St. Anne on the right leaf.

Lilly wept with delight.

Nevertheless she could not love the donor with all her heart and all her soul. No matter how often they sat together chatting confidentially, Lilly remained in solitude.

And in fear.

She did not dare even to eat her fill. As if to make up for Mrs.

Asmussen's long-forgotten mush, Lilly had developed a ravenous appet.i.te; but noticing Miss von Schwertfeger's apprehensive sidelooks at her heaped plate, she usually rose from table only half satisfied. To stay herself until the next meal she drew upon the treasures of the storeroom.

Old Maggie the cook, in whom she possessed a sworn ally, kept watch to warn Lilly of Miss von Schwertfeger's approach. Once, however, the omnipotent housekeeper caught her there, and Lilly dished up the excuse that she wanted to learn housekeeping; which declaration was received with condescending merriment.

Had it not been for old Maggie, Lilly would never have learned a single detail of the management of the large household, Miss von Schwertfeger studiously keeping her from regular activity of any sort, whether out of vainglory or consideration Lilly could not determine.

If Lilly wanted to help with a piece of work, it was done already, or she mustn't spoil her hands, or she might injure herself.

Her pa.s.sionate desire to learn horseback riding was also thwarted by Miss von Schwertfeger, who was always discovering signs of approaching motherhood, though they proved each time to be false.

Even playing on the piano was denied her. The yellow old instrument of torture, the keys of which resembled the decayed teeth of a smoker--just like the colonel's--was not to be replaced by a new piano until autumn, when they would go to Danzig to select one.

She thought of the times preceding her marriage, hardly more than half a year ago, as belonging to her long-vanished youth. She would have ridiculed one who had told her, youth still lay ahead of her nineteen years.

It was good that over there in the lodge a witness of her sweet, foolish past was living along in madcap thoughtlessness. This alone persuaded her that her maiden days had not been a mere dream, that she had not been a colonel's wife from the cradle upward.

In all this time she had met her merry friend only at Sunday dinners, when he played a comic role making his jerky reverences in his long frock coat.

Sometimes when standing on her balcony at twilight behind the foliage now closegrown, she saw him at his window in the lodge cutting capers with his wild little red fox of a dog. A feeling would then come over her that the only person who actually belonged to her in this alien world was yon light-haired good-for-nothing, who pursued all the maids on the demesne. Old Maggie told tales. At night he would ruin the toughest horses trying to get back from his secret excursions before dawn; and in his den behind closed shutters--

At this point Maggie lost her faculty of speech. The things that took place behind those closed shutters must have been dreadful.

CHAPTER XVII

One red August morning Lilly, sprinkled with dew from head to foot and clasping a bunch of dewy roses in both arms, entered the dining-room, where Anna von Schwertfeger, tall and thin in her greyish blue linen dress, was standing at the table smiling to herself.

It was not her manner, it was not her greeting; both were as usual. It was an intangible something which instantly caused Lilly to realize that an extraordinary event had occurred.

Katie, she noticed, who helped Ferdinand with the serving, had red eyelids and kept gnawing her lips while setting the table. Katie was of finer material than the average servant girl, her father having been a teacher, and was very pretty besides; owing to which qualities Miss von Schwertfeger had selected her as Lilly's special maid.

When Katie left the room, Lilly began to ask questions.

In reply Miss von Schwertfeger merely kissed her with redoubled tenderness, and observed:

"Why should you sully your pure young spirit with such ugly things? If certain people are bent upon breaking their necks, that's their business. We cannot help them."

"Breaking their necks--that must mean Walter von Prell," thought Lilly, and said aloud: "After all this is my home, and nothing that happens here in my future province"--she modestly said "future"--"ought to be kept from me."

Miss von Schwertfeger yielded to her arguments.

"It will be painful to you," she said, "because I know you like him."

"Him--whom?" queried Lilly, conscious of blushing.

"In fact all of us like him," continued Miss von Schwertfeger by way of mitigation, "the colonel most of all. So long as he confined himself to the rooms of the labourers' girls I winked my eyes, and begged the kitchen help not to annoy me with gossip about his adventures. But if he commits the outrage of breaking into the castle, it's time the matter ended."

"Why, what did he do?" asked Lilly, in fright.

"For some weeks past I noticed certain things which struck me as rather curious. In spots the vine on your balcony was withered--"

"On--my--" Seized with a wild suspicion Lilly stepped a pace nearer to Miss von Schwertfeger, and clutching her arm asked: "What has my balcony to do with Mr. von Prell, Miss Anna?"

Miss von Schwertfeger avoided Lilly's look.

"Calm yourself, my dear," she said, "calm yourself. Persons in my position have to keep their eyes wide open. That's what they are there for. I was simply acting for your protection, because anyone who does not know you as I do might come to the vile conclusion that if a man climbs up to your balcony--"

Lilly began to cry.

"It's so low, so low."

Miss von Schwertfeger drew her to the sofa and stroked her brow.

"I have gone through much worse things, dear child. At any rate, I wanted to get at the bottom of the affair, and although, I need not say, I hadn't the least suspicion of you"--she turned her eyes away again--"nevertheless I spent a few nights outside your door."

Lilly started. While she had been sleeping in innocent unconsciousness, someone had lurked in hiding close by--so fast was she held captive!

"And about one o'clock this morning I caught him in the act. Fancy! The dare-devil had the temerity to lean one of Haberland's ladders against your balcony--that was the cause of the broken, withered vines--and enter your sitting room through the gla.s.s door--gla.s.s doors, dearie, ought never be left open. He pa.s.sed your bedroom, and went to the corridor without seeing me, of course. Since Katie is the only person who sleeps on that side I charged her with it early this morning. She made no denials. I always act in such matters with the utmost mildness and reserve, and I told her she might give notice and leave on the first. But what shall we do about the young man? I know this is the one place where he can be brought to turn over a new leaf. Should the colonel dismiss him, all's over with him. And I have no right to conceal his conduct from the colonel. An affair that so nearly compromises his wife's honour--"

"What has my honour to do with Mr. von Prell if he runs after servant girls?" Lilly ventured to interject, hoping to improve his prospects a bit by playing the innocent.

Miss von Schwertfeger had just time enough to enlighten her innocence concerning all the evil results of Mr. von Prell's mad conduct, when the table began to quiver from the colonel's tread as he came tramping down the corridor.

"Don't say anything--not yet!" begged Lilly, and with that was hanging on the colonel's neck to hide her confusion.

The colonel noticed nothing amiss.