The Undying Past Part 15

All the morning Hertha carried about with her a sense of intolerable wrong. It was not till she heard Leo, after lunch, say to his mother, "The old uncle, by Jove! has been summarily dismissed," did she feel slightly comforted, and concluded that perhaps, after all, the world had not been made so comfortable for unpunished rogues as she had supposed. Her relations with the returned master of the house somewhat improved. He had addressed a few playful remarks to her at meals, and had taken her retorts with gay good humour. It looked as if he had quite forgotten that she had offended him. "He doesn't think I am grown up," she reflected bitterly. And the idea she had entertained the whole day of asking him formally for forgiveness was gradually abandoned.

It was after tea that he came to her, and in his usual lighthearted and lively manner said: "Now then, little one, if you like, we will do some accounts." She glowed under a swelling wave of pride. At last he had asked her, had felt himself forced to regard her management of certain departments as a serious matter. But she would not have been so proud if she had suspected that grandmamma had hinted to him that it would give her pleasure if he would go over her accounts with her. Her books were in beautiful order. Since yesterday morning she had longed to show him the blue octavo exercise-book, but had not had the courage to do so uninvited.

Now, sitting opposite him, she produced records of her heroic achievements, with flaming cheeks. She had reared and fattened twelve turkeys, and sold ten in Konigsberg; she had sent eighty chickens to the Munsterberg market, and got an average price of sixty-five pfennigs apiece for them. The sound eggs that were over had been bought at home by a dealer, so that no deduction had to be made for waste. A greater bargain still was in course of completion for unfattened geese, though some were to be stuffed for the sake of the liver, but the season had not come yet for that.

Then she pa.s.sed on to the vegetable department. Fresh vegetables were sent every Sat.u.r.day regularly to the market at Munsterberg, but it scarcely paid to compete with the peasant folk; still, in another direction, a great success had been scored. She got several dozen little baskets plaited from reeds, which a blind man made her for twopence each. These little baskets were daintily arranged with leaves, and filled, according to the season, with strawberries, cherries, and other fruit. The milk-boys offered them for sale in Munsterberg, and they had enjoyed quite a reputation. Three days later, all the little baskets were collected empty, but if any customers wished to keep basket as well as fruit they were to pay threepence more, and this extra penny helped to pay the old blind man.

Her face was radiant with zeal, her hair wild, and her hands trembled as she sat there calculating one sum of money after the other. She would have liked to demonstrate her success by showing him the figures, but no matter how she turned over the leaves, she could not find the total, and the columns swam before her in crazy confusion. And in the midst of her narration she had caught him looking at her with an inquiring, astonished gaze, and she felt a choking sensation of sheer joy in her throat; but she collected herself and proceeded further with her good tidings.

She had come now to the most important thing of all--the milk and the dairy produce. Here, of course, she had not been able to do as much as she wished, for these stupendous affairs came under Uncle Kutowski's management. However, she had got round Schumann, and worked him so effectually that he was willing to help her. The experiment of sending cream in bottles to Konigsberg had been a failure, but for slightly salted fresh b.u.t.ter a trade had been opened with Friedrich Graz in Berlin, which was doing first-cla.s.s business. This did not hinder the morning milk, according to old custom, being despatched by waggon to Munsterberg; and she felt bound to confess with pride that the popularity of the Halewitz fruit-baskets had increased considerably the daily demand for milk. She and the swineherd were at war as to how the b.u.t.ter-milk ought to be used. The Swiss cook at Stoltenhof had given her a famous receipt for making cheese of b.u.t.ter-milk. The Mamselle had made excellent use of it, yet all the leavings were demanded for the pigs, although they could very well be fed on the husks and refuse from the brewery. Hertha thought these claims preposterous, and hoped that Leo would see that the lion's share of the b.u.t.ter-milk were restored to its proper uses.

And now she had finished, and she laid the blue exercise-book down with modest satisfaction, and went back to grandmamma, who had been listening to her report, beaming with delight.

He followed her, and grasped her industrious little hand with a smile in which there was a gleam of almost paternal emotion.

"You are a plucky little girl," he said. "I am much obliged to you."

That was all. He might, at least, have said that he hoped she would go on and prosper.

She ran out to cool her hot cheeks in the shade of the limes. Her throat felt like lead from her strangled tears. She was depressed by the consciousness that her soul's elated triumph had been followed by a humiliation. She had expected something tremendous, unspeakable. What, she hardly knew herself. At any rate, she need not have been thanked so curtly, almost grudgingly.

Near the obelisk she came on Elly, exercising grandmamma's pug at the end of a blue ribbon, which was not in the least necessary.

She ran to meet Hertha with an air of great importance, saying a terrible misfortune had happened, and her whole future happiness was at stake. She really thought she should have to put an end to herself.

"What _is_ the matter?" asked Hertha.

It was this. Christian had reported that this morning a sealed letter addressed to her had been lying on Uncle Kutowski's table, and that now it had disappeared.

"Well, what harm is there in that?" asked Hertha. "You should never have had any secrets with that dreadful old man."

Elly blushed and stuttered. She had not exactly had secrets; it was only that uncle had been so obliging, and the last time she had met Kurt Brenckenberg he had promised that the song he had composed for her should be sent to her through Uncle Kutowski.

"If you will do such stupid things, Mouse," said Hertha, turning her back, "we can't go on being friends."

But Elly threw her arms around her from behind, and entreated and implored her to help her just this once. She would never do it again.

And when she had sealed this vow with a solemn kiss and shake of the hand, Hertha consented to do what she could in advising her.

First of all it seemed advisable to reconnoitre the spot where the letter had been seen in the morning.

Hertha made a short cut through bushes and hedge to the bailiff's house, and Elly, who despite her agitation had not let go of the fat pug, obediently followed.

The bailiff's house was deserted as usual at this hour, and in consequence locked up. The only way to get in was through an open window at the back.

Hertha, who could climb like a squirrel, took the lead and dragged the trembling Elly after her; the pug, who was in danger of being strangled by the blue ribbon, was left behind, and barked as if he were mad at his vanishing mistresses.

They found themselves in Schumann's room, which was filled with an odour of onions and lamp-oil, for the head-bailiff was a bachelor and catered for himself, leaving unspeakable messes simmering for hours on a petroleum cooking-stove.

Elly could scarcely stand for fright, and even Hertha's heart beat perceptibly quicker. Till this moment she had never shrunk timidly from the boldest adventures; but now that the master of Halewitz ruled his possessions again, everything wore a different aspect.

She penetrated further without looking to right or left. The door, which led to the uncle's deserted apartments, was wide open. Within a repulsive spectacle was revealed. In one corner the old sofa lay in ruins, the bedstead was turned up against the wall, the cupboard doors were flung back on their hinges, and in all the places which had been mercifully hidden by carpet and _bric-a-brac_, dirt was laid bare, for the old sloven had let it acc.u.mulate for years. Long-legged, hairy spiders sat in the corners, and disturbed silver-grey wood-lice ran out of the cracks in the floor.

On the table, where Christian had caught sight of the fatal letter, lay the cracked shaving-mirror, with the pig's bladder, and odds and ends of tobacco, and all sorts of papers; but the pa.s.sionately coveted envelope was nowhere to be seen.

Hertha searched the room with the thoroughness of a detective. She tore open the table drawer, threw herself on the floor to spy under bureau and wardrobe; she even shook the top-boots which stood ranged in a row against the wall covered with baize, but not a trace could she discover of the missing letter.

Between the windows, propped against the birchwood chest of drawers, there was an old bookcase, much scratched and ornamented with paintings. Hertha, after a fleeting glance, plucked up courage to examine it closer. Two rows of books stood or lay on the shelves, some of them bound, others in coloured-paper covers.

This, then, was the uncle's library that he had been in the habit of boasting was the most interesting in the world. "When you are particularly nice to me," he would say, "I will invite you to look through it." But there the matter had dropped, for Hertha had never felt inclined to be "particularly nice" to him. And nowhere was this celebrated library without lock or custodian, absolutely at her disposal, and hours might go by before one of the inmates of the house might surprise her--deep in its treasures. She was so delighted, that even the fatal letter was forgotten. Hertha with trembling fingers touched the paper covers, and, looking into the first that lay on the pile, read, "The Adventures of Queen Isabella; or, Secrets of the Court of Madrid"--a t.i.tle which excited her curiosity to the highest pitch.

As time was precious she began to read in the middle of the sentence on which she had chanced to open. Elly, who had been standing about, rather aimlessly crouched beside her, and tried to s.n.a.t.c.h a modest share of the forbidden book's splendours over her companion's shoulder.

It was all about a handsome young Don Alvarez, who, returning from a party late at night, is seized by masked ruffians, gagged and blindfolded, and dragged into a luxurious, mysterious, brilliantly lighted apartment, where from behind red satin curtains proceeded ravishing strains of sweet music from cymbals and flutes.

And when he at last dares to draw aside the curtain, what does he see?

A coffin, from the pall of which a skull, with two crossed skeleton legs, grins at him in scorn. Blood-red flames and incense rise to the ceiling, and a sepulchral voice speaks in the clouds.

"That is the coffin in which you will lie, in the same hour that you betray, by one word or look, what your eyes have seen, and your ears heard."

So the shuddering young soul was to keep what he had seen and heard a secret, till the end of time.

Hertha heard a bark, and as if waking out of a dream, saw Leo's figure, standing its full height, close beside her. The pug, who had evidently shown him the way, was at his heels.

The book fell from her hand. Don Alvarez sank into the night of oblivion from which he had sprung.

"What are you doing here, you burglars?" asked Leo in a laughing tone.

He was answered by silence.

"And how did you get in? Come, confess, Elly. The door was locked. How did you get in?"

Hertha felt an internal swooning; but defiance choked in her throat.

"You needn't rate Elly like that," she said, getting up; "as the door was locked, we naturally got through the window. There is nothing to be surprised at in that."

"Indeed?" he said. "Nothing to be surprised at! And what brings you here?"

"That we don't intend to tell," Hertha answered; "it is our concern alone."

"Now, we shall see about that," he said. "I am not going to argue with you, my dear Hertha; you are beyond discipline. But you, Elly, come here a minute."

And Elly, who had quite lost her presence of mind, regardless of a sign that Hertha made to her, divulged in stupid fear everything she should have kept to herself.

"A letter?" he inquired. "A letter from Uncle Kutowski to you?"

"Yes," she answered, crying.

He simply put his hand in his pocket and produced the letter. "Is that it?" he asked.