The Undying Past Part 75

"I can't manage the people any longer," she announced. "The children are crying, and the men say they'll go home."

"Come!" said grandmamma, resolutely; "we must begin without him."

The three who had decked the trees went to light them up, leaving the cousins alone. A breathless stillness reigned in the house.

"Do you think," Elly asked, still playing with the fringe of the table-cloth, "that I shall have any anonymous presents?"

Hertha shrugged her shoulders and disdained to reply. And then the bell rang. Hertha felt the same eager anxiety as in childhood as with trembling hands she gathered her presents together and took them to the salon.

The folding doors were flung wide, and she was met by a flood of soft light from hundreds of lighted tapers. The s.p.a.cious room was filled with the brilliance and fragrance of three giant fir-trees. One for the family, one for the servants and tenants, and a third for the ragged school. On long tables with spotless white cloths plate after plate was ranged, and beside them were parcels of warm petticoats, shoes, caps, comforters, and stockings, the knitting of which had occupied grandmamma's busy hands all through the spring and hot summer days. For the children, besides the useful garments and the sweets, were piles of cheap tops, for, as grandmamma said, "we all must be young once."

In they poured by the opposite door with happy faces, and those of them who had threatened to storm the entrance a few minutes ago were the very ones who now sidled along the wall, too shy to approach the tables. They let themselves, at last, be brought forward one by one, and then eyed their property with sidelong glances as if they would have to steal it before it could be really their own. Hertha had so much to do in encouraging, explaining, and leading people to their plates, that she had no time to think of her own presents.

Meanwhile the inmates of the steward's house, the two bailiffs, the brewer, and the accountant, had made their appearance and drawn near the family table.

"A merry Christmas, my dear sirs," said grandmamma, struggling bravely with her tears. "My son is late. When he comes he will say more than I can."

The long-legged brewer was full of apologies, what for, no one knew, and Schumann seemed ill at ease. Hertha drew him aside.

"Honestly, Herr Schumann," she asked him, "do you think it possible that he has met with an accident?"

"He may have," answered the good fellow; "he may have missed his way in the storm and driven into a ditch, or something of the kind. But say nought about it, little countess, or it will spoil the fun."

"Then won't you take any steps?" she inquired, choking back her nervousness.

Yes, certainly, after the distribution, he would send out a search party.

And with that she was obliged to be content for the present. Grandmamma had a word of love and kindness for every one, in spite of her private distress. With quiet tenderness she stroked Hertha's cheek and led her to her table.

Hertha saw a stack of books and the flash of something gold, but her eyes were too blind with unshed tears to see more. Johanna, with chastened smiles, did the honours to her charges. She drew them up in a line and bade them sing the two-part Christmas hymn, the practising of which for the last two months had resounded daily through the glades of the park.

All the little ones stood still and silently folded their hands. "Down from heaven, I came to earth," roared the sharp screeching small voices through the salon, happiness encouraging them to a mighty effort. Then of a sudden the door was flung open and violently banged back in its lock. Every one looked round, and the laboriously practised chorale began to waver.

"Silence there," cried a threatening hoa.r.s.e voice which instantly cut short the singing.

Hertha's knees were quaking. She saw what happened while scarcely daring to look.

With blood-shot eyes and copper-coloured face, covered from head to foot with melting snow, he came across the floor, his heels ringing sharply upon it, and every one withdrew into corners in awe and terror at his approach.

"What mismanagement is this?" he thundered. "How comes it that Christmas is being kept in my house and I not present? I have had to climb over the wall like a burglar to get in at all. Out with you, you hounds! _Canaille_, get to your sleighs and begone!"

"Heaven help us! He is drunk!" murmured grandmamma, and wrung her hands.

Hertha threw her arms round her as if she would protect the old lady from his fury.

Johanna now a.s.serted herself. "No one has any right to disturb the festival of Christmas," she said, measuring him with a scornful eye; "not even the master of the house."

"Aye, the devil take your fine speeches," he shouted, staring piercingly in her face with eyes full of hate. "If I tolerate your psalm-singing over there, all the more strongly do I forbid it in my own house. Now I wish to have quiet, do you understand?"

"Only too well," she replied, smiling to herself significantly. Then she gathered up her train and moved away.

He strode up to his mother, who has sunk helplessly into an armchair, and whose head seemed palsied with distress.

"Leave grandmamma alone!" Hertha cried, half out of her senses from horror, and she covered the dear grief-stricken face protectingly with her hands.

"Now, now," he muttered stupidly, and his blood-shot eyes were fixed half absently on the little group. Slowly he seemed to become conscious of what he was doing.

"Go away," exclaimed Hertha, trembling with anger; "you are behaving like a wild beast."

He growled and grumbled to himself, then threw himself heavily on to a chair on the back of which a _peignoir_ for Hertha had been artistically arranged.

The room had gradually emptied. Some had stealthily seized their plates, others had left their gifts in the lurch, hoping for a happier opportunity of taking possession of them.

"Come, grandmamma," Hertha said; "you will, at least, be safe in your own room."

He started up and then relapsed again into sullen brooding. Grandmamma rose with Hertha's help.

"My son! My son!" she sighed softly, folding her hands over him.

He nodded and continued growling and muttering.

The old lady left the room on Hertha's arm, and Elly, who had been hiding behind her table, trotted after them.

At the door Hertha looked round. There he still sat, utterly alone in the vast empty salon, with its illuminated fir-trees and the long white tables, and he was staring after them with an expression of such heartrending and inconsolable wretchedness that Hertha, at the sight of it, felt a cold shiver run through her. It seemed as if she were looking into an abyss of human misery that would swallow her too.

x.x.xII

On the afternoon of the second Christmas festival, the two friends met again, after a separation of nearly six weeks.

Ulrich, who had arrived home on Christmas Eve, waited a day to see if Leo would turn up; but when he neither came nor sent word, he started off to call on him.

He found him in his study, still arrayed in nightshirt and dressing-gown, reclining on the sofa, enveloped in clouds of smoke.

"What a sluggard you've become," cried Ulrich, with a laugh, but his heart sank at the sight of the waste of so much splendid vigour.

The entrance of his friend gave Leo a slight shock of alarm. But he suppressed it immediately, and rising, hurried to greet him.

Ulrich was aghast at the red, bloated appearance of Leo's face, and the puffiness of his eyes.

"What is the matter with you? Are you ill?" he inquired.

Leo answered, laughing, "It's simply laziness--an attack of laziness, that's all," and he gave his friend's hands a pressure that was nerveless and limp.

Ulrich said nothing, but continued to gaze searchingly at Leo's features in solicitous anxiety.