The Benefactress

CHAPTER XX

The May that year in Northern Germany was the May of a poet's dream. The days were like a chain of pearls, increasing in beauty and preciousness as the chain lengthened. The lilacs flowered a fortnight earlier than in other years. The winds, so restless usually on those flat shores, seemed all asleep, and hardly stirred. About the middle of the month the moon was at the full, and the forest became enchanted ground. It was a time for love and lovers, for vows and kisses, for all pretty, happy, hopeful things. Only those farmers who were too old to love and vow, looked at their rye fields and grumbled because there was no rain.

Karlchen, arriving on the first Saturday of that blessed month, felt all disposed to love, if the Engländerin should turn out to be in the least degree lovable. He did not ask much of a young woman with a fortune, but he inwardly prayed that she might not be quite so ugly as wives with money sometimes are. He was a man used to having what he wanted, and had spent his own and his mother's money in getting it. There was a little bald patch on the top of his head, and there were many debts on his mind, and he was nearing the critical point in an officer's career, the turning of which is reserved exclusively for the efficient; and so he had three excellent reasons for desiring to marry. He had desired it, indeed, for some time, had attempted it often, and had not achieved it. The fathers of wealthy German girls knew the state of his finances with an exactitude that was unworthy; and they knew, besides, every one of his little weaknesses. As a result, they gave their daughters to other suitors. But here was a girl without a father, who knew nothing about him at all. There was, of course, some story in the background to account for her living in this way; but that was precisely what would make her glad of a husband who would relieve her of the necessity of building up the weaker parts of her reputation on a foundation of what Karlchen, when he saw the inmates of the house, rudely stigmatised as alte Schachteln. Reputations, he reflected, staring at Fräulein Kuhräuber, may be too dearly bought. Naturally she would prefer an easy-going husband, who would let her see life with all its fun, to this dreary and aimless existence.

The Treumanns, he thought, were in luck. What a burden his mother had been on him for the last five years! Miss Estcourt had relieved him of it. Now there were his debts, and she would relieve him of those; and the little entanglement she must have had at home would not matter in Germany, where no one knew anything about her, except that she was the highly respectable Joachim's niece. Anyway, he was perfectly willing to let bygones be bygones. He left his bag at the inn at Kleinwalde, an impossible place as he noted with pleasure, sent away his Droschke, and walked round to the house; but he did not see Anna. She kept out of the way till the evening, and he had ample time to be happy with his mother. When he did see her, he fell in love with her at once. He had quite a simple nature, composed wholly of instincts, and fell in love with an ease acquired by long practice. Anna's face and figure were far prettier than he had dared to hope. She was a beauty, he told himself with much satisfaction. Truly the Treumanns were in luck. He entirely forgot the rôle he was to play of loving son, and devoted himself, with his habitual artlessness, to her. Indeed, if he had not forgotten it, he and his mother were so little accustomed to displays of affection that they would have been but clumsy actors. There is a great difference between affectionate letters written quietly in one's room, and affectionate conversation that has to sound as though it welled up from one's heart. Nothing of the kind ever welled up from Karlchen's heart; and Anna noticed at once that there were no signs of unusual attachment between mother and son. Karlchen was not even commonly polite to his mother, nor did she seem to expect him to be. When she dropped her scissors, she had to pick them up for herself. When she lost her thimble, she hunted for it alone. When she wanted a footstool, she got up and fetched one from under his very nose. When she came into the room and looked about for a chair, it was Letty who offered her hers. Karlchen sat comfortably with his legs crossed, playing with the paper-knife he had taken out of the book Anna had been reading, and making himself pleasant. He had his mother's large black eyes, and very long thick black eyelashes of which he was proud, conscious that they rested becomingly on his cheeks when he looked down at the paper-knife. Letty was greatly struck by them, and inquired of Miss Leech in a whisper whether she had ever seen their like.

"Mr. Jessup had silken eyelashes too," replied Miss Leech dreamily.

"These aren't silk—they're cotton eyelashes," said Letty scornfully.

"My dear Letty," murmured Miss Leech.

Anna was at a disadvantage because of her imperfect German. She could not repress Karlchen when he was unduly kind as she would have done in English, and with his mother presiding, as it were, at their opening friendship, she did not like to begin by looking lofty. Luckily the princess was unusually chatty that evening. She sat next to Karlchen, and continually joined in the talk. She was cheerful amiability itself, and insisted upon being told all about those sons of her acquaintances who were in his regiment. When he half turned his back on her and dropped his voice to a rapid undertone, thereby making himself completely incomprehensible to Anna, the princess pleasantly advised him to speak very slowly and distinctly, for unless he did Miss Estcourt would certainly not understand. In a word, she took him under her wing whether he would or no, and persisted in her friendliness in spite of his mother's increasingly desperate efforts to draw her into conversation.

"Why do we not go out, dear Anna?" cried Frau von Treumann at last, unable to endure Princess Ludwig's behaviour any longer. "Look what a fine evening it is—and quite warm." And she who till then had gone about shutting windows, and had been unable to bear the least breath of air, herself opened the glass doors leading into the garden and went out.

But although they all followed her, nothing was gained by it. She could have stamped her foot with rage at the princess's conduct. Here was everything needful for the beginning of a successful courtship—starlight, a murmuring sea, warm air, fragrant bushes, a girl who looked like Love itself in the dusk in her pale beauty, a young man desiring nothing better than to be allowed to love her, and a mother only waiting to bless. But here too, unfortunately, was the princess.

She was quite appallingly sociable—"The spite of the woman!" thought Frau von Treumann, for what could it matter to her?—and remained fixed at Anna's side as they paced slowly up and down the grass, monopolising Karlchen's attention with her absurd questions about his brother officers. Anna walked between them, thinking of other things, holding up her trailing white dress with one hand, and with the other the edges of her blue cloak together at her neck. She was half a head taller than Karlchen, and so was his mother, who walked on his other side. Karlchen, becoming more and more enamoured the longer he walked, looked up at her through his eyelashes and told himself that the Treumanns were certainly in luck, for he had stumbled on a goddess.

"The grass is damp," cried Frau von Treumann, interrupting the endless questions. "My dear princess—your rheumatism—and I who so easily get colds. Come, we will go off the grass—we are not young enough to risk wet feet."

"I do not feel it," said the princess, "I have thick shoes. But you, dear Frau von Treumann, do not stay if you have fears."

"It is damp," said Anna, turning up the sole of her shoe. "Shall we go on to the path?"

On the path it was obvious that they must walk in couples. Arrived at its edge, the princess stopped and looked round with an urbane smile. "My dear child," she said to Anna, taking her arm, "we have been keeping Herr von Treumann from his mother regardless of his feelings. I beg you to pardon my thoughtlessness," she added, turning to him, "but my interest in hearing of my old friends' sons has made me quite forget that you took this long journey to be with your dear mother. We will not interrupt you further. Come, my dear, I wanted to ask you–" And she led Anna away, dropping her voice to a confidential questioning concerning the engaging of a new cook.

There was nothing to be done. The only crumb of comfort Karlchen obtained—but it was a big one—was a reluctantly given invitation, on his mother's vividly describing at the hour of parting the place where he was to spend the night, to remove his luggage from the inn to Anna's house, and to sleep there.

"You are too good, meine Gnädigste," he said, consoled by this for the tête-à-tête he had just had with his mother; "but if it in any way inconveniences you—we soldiers are used to roughing it–"

"But not like that, not like that, lieber Junge," interrupted his mother anxiously. "It is not fit for a dog, that inn, and I heard this very evening from the housemaid that one of the children there has the measles."

That quite settled it. Anna could not expose Karlchen to measles. Why did he not stay, as he had written he would, at Stralsund? As he was here, however, she could not let him fall a prey to measles, and she asked the princess to order a room to be got ready.

It is a proof of her solemnity on that first evening with Karlchen that when his mother, praising her beauty, mentioned her dimples as specially bewitching, he should have said, surprised, "What dimples?"

It is a proof, too, of the duplicity of mothers, that the very next day in church the princess, sitting opposite the innkeeper's rosy family, and counting its members between the verses of the hymn, should have found that not one was missing.

Karlchen left on Sunday evening after a not very successful visit. He had been to church, believing that it was expected of him, and had found to his disgust that Anna had gone for a walk. So there he sat, between his mother and Princess Ludwig, and extracted what consolation he could from a studied neglect of the outer forms of worship and an elaborate slumber during the sermon.

The morning, then, was wasted. At luncheon Anna was unapproachable. Karlchen was invited to sit next to his mother, and Anna was protected by Letty on the one hand and Fräulein Kuhräuber on the other, and she talked the whole time to Fräulein Kuhräuber.

"Who is Fräulein Kuhräuber?" he inquired irritably of his mother, when they found themselves alone together again in the afternoon.

"Well, you can see who she is, I should think," replied his mother equally irritably. "She is just Fräulein Kuhräuber, and nothing more."

"Anna talks to her more than to anyone," he said; she was already "Anna" to him, tout court.

"Yes. It is disgusting."

"It is very disgusting. It is not right that Treumanns should be forced to associate on equal terms with such a person."

"It is scandalous. But you will change all that."

Karlchen twisted up the ends of his moustache and looked down his nose. He often looked down his nose because of his eyelashes. He began to hum a tune, and felt happy again. Axel Lohm was right when he doubted whether there had ever been a permanently crushed Treumann.

"She has a strange assortment of alte Schachteln here," he said, after a pause during which his thoughts were rosy. "That Elmreich, now. What relation does she say she is to Arthur Elmreich?"

"The man who shot himself? Oh, she is no relation at all. At most a distant cousin."

"Na, na," was Karlchen's reply; a reply whose English equivalent would be a profoundly sceptical wink.

His mother looked at him, waiting for more.

"What do you really think–?" she began, and then stopped.

He stood before the glass readjusting his moustache into the regulation truculent upward twist. "Think?" he said. "You know Arthur's sister Lolli was engaged at the Wintergarten this winter. She was not much of a success. Too old. But she was down on the bills as Baroness Elmreich, and people went to see her because of that, and because of her brother."

"Oh—terrible," murmured Frau von Treumann.

"Well, I know her; and I shall ask her next time I see her if she has a sister."

"But this one has no relations living at all," said his mother, horrified at the bare suggestion that Lolli was the sister of a person with whom she ate her dinner every day.

"Na, na," said Karlchen.

"But my dear Karlchen, it is so unlikely—the baroness is the veriest pattern of primness. She has such very strict views about all such things—quite absurdly strict. She even had doubts, she told me, when first she came here, as to whether Anna were a fit companion for her."

Karlchen stopped twisting his moustache, and stared at his mother. Then he threw back his head and shrieked with laughter. He laughed so much that for some moments he could not speak. His mother's face, as she watched him without a smile, made him laugh still more. "Liebste Mama," he said at last, wiping his eyes, "it may of course not be true. It is just possible that it is not. But I feel sure it is true, for this Elmreich and the little Lolli are as alike as two peas. Anna not a fit companion for Lolli's sister! Ach Gott, ach Gott!" And he shrieked again.

"If it is true," said Frau von Treumann, drawing herself up to her full height, "it is my duty to tell Anna. I cannot stay under the same roof with such a woman. She must go."

"Take care," said her son, illumined by an unaccustomed ray of sapience, "take care, Mutti. It is not certain that Anna would send her away."

"What! if she knew about this—this Lolli, as you call her?"

Karlchen shook his head. "It is better not to begin with ultimatums," he said sagely. "If you say you cannot stay under the same roof with the Elmreich, and she does not after that go, why then you must. And that," he added, looking alarmed, "would be disastrous. No, no, leave it alone. In any case leave it alone till I have seen Lolli. I shall come down soon again, you may be sure. I wish we could get rid of the Penheim. Now that really would be a good thing. Think it over."

But Frau von Treumann felt that by no amount of thinking it over would they ever get rid of the Penheim.

"You do not like my Karlchen?" she said plaintively to Anna that evening, coming out into the dusky garden where she stood looking at the stars. Karlchen was well on his way to Berlin by that time.

"I am sure I should like him very much if I knew him," replied Anna, putting all the heartiness she could muster into her voice.

Frau von Treumann shook her head sadly. "But now? I see you do not like him now. You hardly spoke to him. He was hurt. A mother"—"Oh," thought Anna, "I am tired of mothers,"—"a mother always knows."

Her handkerchief came out. She had put one hand through Anna's arm, and with the other began to wipe her eyes. Anna watched her in silence.

"What? What? Tears? Do I see tears? Are we then missing our son so much?" exclaimed a cheery voice behind them. And there was the princess again.

"Serpent," thought Frau von Treumann; but what is the use of thinking serpent? She had to submit to being consoled all the same, while Anna walked away.

CHAPTER XXI

Anna seemed always to be walking away during the days that separated Karlchen's first visit from his second. Frau von Treumann noticed it with some uneasiness, and hoped that it was only her fancy. The girl had shown herself possessed of such an abnormally large and warm heart at first, had been so eager in her offers of affection, so enthusiastic, so sympathetic, so—well, absurd; was it possible that there was no warmth and no affection left over from those vast stores for such a good-looking, agreeable man as Karlchen? But she set such thoughts aside as ridiculous. Her son's simple doctrine from his fourteenth year on had been that all girls like all men. It had often been laid down by him in their talks together, and her own experience of girls had sufficiently proved its soundness. "The Penheim must have poisoned her mind against him," she decided at last, unable otherwise to explain the apathy with which Anna received any news of Karlchen. Was there ever such sheer spite? For what could it matter to a woman with no son of her own, who married Anna? Somebody would marry her, for certain, and the Penheim would lose her place; then why should it not be Karlchen?

The princess, however, most innocent of excellent women, had never spoken privately to Anna of Karlchen except once, when she inquired whether he were to have the best sheets on his bed, or the second best sheets; and Anna had replied, "The worst."

But if Frau von Treumann was uneasy about Anna, Anna was still more uneasy about Frau von Treumann. Whenever she could, she went away into the forest and tried to think things out. She objected very much to the feeling that life seemed somehow to be thickening round her—yet, after Karlchen's visit there it was. Each day there were fewer and fewer quiet pauses in the trivial bustle of existence; clear moments, like windows through which she caught glimpses of the serene tranquillity with which the real day, nature's day, the day she ought to have had, was passing. Frau von Treumann followed her about and talked to her of Karlchen. Fräulein Kuhräuber 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 butterflies, 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.