A Noble Name; or, Dönninghausen
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Week after week passed. The physician gave Johanna no hope. She had herself watched from day to day, and from hour to hour, the inexorable approach of the Destroyer, and when the last moment came, she had lived it over in thought a hundred times.
It was the gray dawn of a morning in November. She was sitting alone at her father's bedside. Helena was asleep upon a lounge in the next room, when Roderich once more opened his eyes, in which there was a last ray of consciousness; his lips moved, and when Johanna leaned over him, she heard him whisper, 'Helena.' His features were convulsed for an instant, and when Helena rushed into the room in answer to her low cry, it was too late. Her husband had breathed his last. His heart had ceased to beat.
Johanna closed his eyes and took her usual place beside him. She seemed paralyzed; she could not weep, she could not even think. Helena's noisy grief distressed her, but it seemed to reach her ear from some great distance, and soon died away altogether. Only two images remained in her memory from this terrible time, – the ideal beauty of her beloved dead as he lay in the coffin crowned with laurel, and the dreary aspect of the funeral cortége as it moved endlessly along the streets in the pouring rain, while the wind tore away from the hearse and whirled in air some of the flowers and wreaths with which it was bedecked.
It was Lisbeth who at last aroused Johanna from her lethargy. To spare the imaginative child the sad impression of her father's dying moments, she had been intrusted to the care of an actress friend, returning to her home only when the funeral was over. Helena rushed to her, clasped her in her arms, loaded her with caresses, declaring that she was all that was left her in life, all that she had to live for, and then turned away to receive a couple of her friends who had called to see her. They were all soon absorbed in an animated discussion of mourning gowns and Helena's broken heart, the impossibility of recovering from Roderich's loss, his widow's plans for the future, the intrigues of the Kronberg, and the inconceivable partiality of the manager for one so utterly without talent. The child felt herself forgotten, and left the room to look for her sister.
Johanna was not in her usual place at the work-table in Helena's dressing-room, nor was she in her own sleeping apartment. But when Lisbeth timidly entered her father's study, she found Johanna, looking pale and white in her black gown, still sitting by the window whence she had seen the funeral procession disappear. She sat in an arm-chair, her head leaning back, her arms hanging idly down, gazing into space with such an expression of dull anguish that the little girl was frightened.
"Johanna, dear Johanna, please do not be ill, do not die!" she cried, throwing her arms around her sister's neck; and these first tender words, the nestling close to her of the little one, dissolved the spell that had bound the poor girl, and she burst into tears.
Afterwards, when longing for sympathy, she went to her step-mother, Helena said in her coldest tone, —
"Has it really occurred to you to remember my existence? I think it was high time. Everything comes upon me, – it will kill me."
Not a word was said of all that Johanna had done during the long weeks of illness, and the gulf between Helena and herself widened.
The next morning Johanna was handed the card of Lieutenant Otto von Dönninghausen. She would gladly have refused to see him, but written in pencil upon the card was 'Commissioned by our grandfather,' and she could not deny herself to one so accredited.
In the drawing-room she found a tall, fair man, about thirty years old, whose military carriage betrayed the soldier in spite of his civilian's dress.
"Cousin Johanna?" he said, advancing towards her, while his bright, resolute blue eyes scanned her keenly. Then he held out his hand. "Forgive me for intruding at such a time," he continued. "Let me plead the right of kinship, and believe in the sincerity of my sympathy."
Johanna's eyes filled with tears. She mutely returned the pressure of his hand, and motioned him to a seat.
"Our grandfather has requested me to put this letter into your own hands," he began again when both were seated. "The commission was a welcome one to me; I take a sad satisfaction in assuring you personally of my sympathy. I have had the pleasure of seeing your father repeatedly upon the stage, and I never can forget him."
"I thank you," said Johanna, and for an instant her pale face glowed with the same fire which had distinguished her father. Her cousin's simple cordiality of tone did her good, inspired her with confidence, and yet she felt a timidity in his presence quite foreign to her.
"It is the result of the distressing consciousness of knowing nothing of my nearest relatives," she thought.
"Grandpapa requests you to come to him," the young man said, handing Johanna a sealed letter. "Do not be led astray by his manner of expression, which is probably as blunt and cold in this letter as it is in daily personal intercourse. There is much kindliness beneath his rough exterior. Our grandfather is a nobleman in the full sense of the word, with all the prejudice and narrowness of his class. You will soon understand and value him, and I hope soon to see you in Dönninghausen."
"Are you going back there again?" asked Johanna, trying to find something to say.
"Not now," he replied. "My regiment is stationed on the Rhine, and I am returning to it after having assisted last week in the celebration of my grandfather's birthday, on which occasion we are all wont to assemble at Dönninghausen."
"Who are all?" asked Johanna. "I know little, almost nothing, of my mother's family; she had become estranged from her kindred."
"Unfortunately," her cousin interposed, "I have but a faint remembrance of my aunt Agnes. I am the eldest son of her second brother, who was attached to our embassy in London."
"Was he not called Waldemar?" asked Johanna.
"You are right," the young man replied. "Grandpapa's eldest son, Johann Georg, was already dead when Aunt Agnes left her home. He left only one child, a son, Johann Leopold, who has been brought up in Dönninghausen, and lives there now. He has pursued various studies, and is the heir. I have a younger brother, named for our father, Waldemar; he has entered upon a diplomatic career. My two sisters, Hedwig and Hildegard, are married to two distant cousins belonging to the Wildenhayn-Oderbuchs. Finally, grandpapa's youngest son, Major Karl Anton, also dead, left one child, a daughter, young and beautiful and a widow of two years' standing. Her name is Magelone; her husband, Lieutenant von der Aue, who lived only eighteen months after their marriage, contrived in that time to run through all her property, and she now lives at Dönninghausen, under the chaperonage of our grand-aunt Thekla, grandpapa's unmarried sister. Let me add that Magelone is as clever as she is beautiful, as accomplished as she is amiable, and that she is especially desirous of welcoming Cousin Johanna to Dönninghausen."
"Me?" Johanna asked, blushing. "I cannot understand – "
"I will read the riddle for you," Otto interposed. "Do you not remember meeting two years ago, among the guests at Lindenbad, a certain Frau von Werth? She visits at Dönninghausen, and has told wonderful tales of you. I will spare your modesty further details."
He bowed with a smile, and again his sparkling eyes scanned her. Johanna coloured: she felt cheered and comforted. None among her father's friends had ever accorded her any degree of attention.
"I should like to know something of my grandfather," she began, after a pause; but, before she could go on, the door opened and Lisbeth came in.
"Johanna!" she exclaimed, startled, and stood still; but Johanna held out her hand, and the child flew to her side.
"My sister," she said, tenderly stroking the little one's fair curls.
"Sister?" Otto repeated, in a tone of surprise. "Oh, yes, I remember. Come, my little beauty, give me your hand," he said, with his winning smile.
But the child held Johanna's arm tight and looked at him with a little air of defiance. "No, I do not know you, and I do not want to know you," she said in a wayward tone.
"Darling, don't be naughty," Johanna whispered.
"Never mind," said her cousin; "the child is shy, and, besides, I must go." And he glanced at the clock as he arose.
Johanna also arose. "I am sorry," she said; "I had so much to ask – "
"And I, too, seem to have a thousand things to say," the young man rejoined. "I thought I should have seen much more of you, but when I arrived yesterday I found that the funeral had not yet taken place, and the hours were wasted which I hoped to have spent with you. I wish that I could at least have followed to the grave the man whom I so admired, but I was detained by pressing business."
How cordial was the tone in which he spoke! Johanna's eyes filled; how could she know that his 'pressing business' was a breakfast with some gay companions? Much moved, she held out her hand to her cousin. Otto pressed it to his lips.
"Au revoir in Dönninghausen!" he said, and went.
"Au revoir," she rejoined, half involuntarily; and, as the door closed behind his tall figure, she all but asked herself whether the events of the last half-hour had not been a dream. How could she feel thus nearly related to a man of whose existence she had been so short a time before unconscious? 'Strange force of kinship!' she said to herself.
Meanwhile, Lisbeth had seized upon the large envelope lying upon the table, and was trying to spell out the address.
"What a funny letter! Is it to you? Why is there no 'Fräulein' on it?" she asked, handing the letter to her sister, who observed for the first time that the envelope was addressed 'To my grand-daughter Johanna.'
She now remembered that letters from Dönninghausen to her mother had always been sent in an enclosure, and the address only of the envelope within had been written by her grandfather, and had always been 'To my daughter Agnes.' The Freiherr could not bring himself to write the hated name of the actor.
With a sigh, Johanna broke the seal and read:
"My dear Child, – Now that you are, as I learn, an orphan indeed, it seems to me a matter of course that you should come as soon as possible to your natural home, – that is, to my house. Write to me when you intend to start, that I may send you a suitable escort.
"Your affectionate grandfather,
"Johann Heinrich v. Dönninghausen."
Johanna's hands fell by her sides. Not one word of pity for her loss, of sympathy for the death of the famous artist, or of welcome for the unknown grandchild. No, she could never find a home in a house where her father's name was despised!
But then she recalled what her cousin Otto had said of her grandfather's noble nature, which his harsh exterior continually gainsaid. Perhaps it might be given to her to reconcile the old nobleman with her father's memory; and Magelone was there, witty and talented, and Cousin Otto made frequent visits to Dönninghausen. He would always pay to the dead the tribute of admiration which she coveted. Should she go? Her glance fell upon Lisbeth, sitting opposite her, her eyes fixed upon the ground, her little face sad with that look of misery which is so indescribably pathetic in a child. "No, I cannot leave my darling. What is Dönninghausen to me?" she said to herself, and clasped her sister in her arms.
Meanwhile, Otto had returned to his hotel, whence before leaving town he wrote to Magelone:
"Gracious Sovereign, – Your commands are obeyed. When I delivered our grandfather's letter I exercised in your behalf all the power of observation with which I am gifted, and can state, so far as can be learned in the limits of a brief interview, that the reality coincides with excellent Frau Werth's description. Our cousin is rather plain than pretty, but looks clever and distinguished, has quiet, pleasing manners, – in a word, she seems to me entirely presentable, and eminently adapted to indemnify you for the fatiguing society of your Knight of the Rueful Countenance.
"I seize this favourable opportunity for prostrating myself – only metaphorically, alas! – at the smallest feet in the world, and am, as ever, O fairest Magelone,
"Your cousin and slave,
"Otto."
CHAPTER IV
FUTURE PLANS DECIDED
Immediately after her father's death, Johanna had received an affectionate letter from Ludwig, and her grandfather's note was scarcely read before a second budget from Lindenbad brought her letters from each member of the Werner family.
Old Dr. Werner, after his own simple and cordial manner, begged Johanna to return to them. Mathilde assured her in choice phraseology that she should rejoice to welcome her dear foster-sister, who, she trusted, would not feel too deeply the change from the luxury and freedom from restraint which belonged to an artist's world, to a quiet, monotonous existence spent in devotion to duty. Ludwig, writing in his turn, feared lest he might have wounded her by his bluntness in their last interview, and offered, if for any reason she would avoid living beneath the same roof with him, to spend the winter in Weimar, where he could easily complete his work.
The advantage that the public library in Weimar would be to him would be an abundant motive to assign for this step, and he added: "What I shall do with myself afterwards I do not know. At all events, all idea of the Lindenbad idyl is relinquished. I pray you to acquaint me unreservedly with your wishes, and I assure you that you will delight us all by coming to us, and most of all your brother Ludwig."
"How good and kind he is!" Johanna said to herself. "It is a great pity that, with all his goodness and kindness, he should be so unattractive."
Otto's image rose in her memory in strong contrast, – the elegant ease of his bearing, his courtesy, which occasionally seemed more than mere courtesy, his fine figure and handsome face. Was her grandfather like him? And the beautiful Magelone, – did she really possess everything that he ascribed to her, – beauty, wit, talent, amiability? Perhaps he loved her.
"All are loved save myself," Johanna thought. "I have been here a whole year, and have won no single heart except that of my little sister, who would soon, after the fashion of a child, forget me were I to leave her. Ludwig's love I lost before I knew that I possessed it, and even the father whom I idolized had not a single thought for me in his last moments."
Her own sentiments, however, she vowed to herself, never should be influenced by this knowledge. As in a sanctuary, she would guard and cherish in her heart the memory of her father and of the lofty service he had rendered to art, and where could she better do this than here, where everything reminded her of him, where she inhaled, as it were, the aroma of his personality? The longer she reflected, the clearer was her conviction that she must stay where she was.
Nevertheless, she postponed answering her letter from day to day. She had but little time of her own. Since Helena was occupied from morning till night with friends of both sexes, Lisbeth was left to the care of her sister, whose busy hands were, moreover, occupied all day long in completing her step-mother's mourning wardrobe. In the evening, when the child had gone to bed and Helena's visitors had left her, it was Johanna's hard task to listen to the wailing and woe of this undisciplined, unregulated nature. After hours of such labour, she would go to her room thoroughly exhausted, and long after Helena was sleeping quietly the poor girl would toss to and fro in her bed, unable, from over-fatigue, to find any repose.
But one evening Helena made her appearance in her dressing-room with dry eyes and an air of important business. Johanna had just put Lisbeth to bed, and was again sitting at her sewing. Her step-mother went hither and thither, restlessly picked up this and that only to lay them down again, and said at last, with averted face, "Johanna, my friends say it is my duty – that is, that I owe it to you to speak seriously with you."
The young girl looked at her inquiringly.
"We – that is, I must arrange some plan for the future; and you – you told mo that your grandfather and Dr. Werner have both asked you to come to them. To which of them have you decided to go?"
Johanna's heart seemed to stand still. "Must I go away from here?" she gasped at last.
Helena turned sharply round towards her. "Dear Johanna, I had not supposed you could be so unreasonable," she said harshly. "Roderich left nothing but debts; and as for my supporting a step-daughter – "
"Not another word, please, mamma," Johanna interposed. "In my grief I have forgotten all else. The instant that I know that I am a burden to you my resolution is taken."
"How haughtily you speak!" Helena complained. "You must know how terribly hard it is for me to have to calculate thus. I had even deliberated whether, in view of your diligence and your care of Lisbeth, I might not as well keep you with me instead of paying Lina and a waiting-maid. But Hofrath Leuchtenberg said – and that decided me – that it would be of the greatest disadvantage to me in my career as an actress to be accompanied by a grown-up daughter."
She paused. Johanna replied by a mute inclination of her head.
"There might be a way found out of the difficulty," Helena continued. "If you would call me 'Helena,' Lisbeth could call you aunt, and the world would take you for Roderich's sister. You know I am only going to stay here where we are known until New Year. What do you think?"
"I thank you!" Johanna made answer. "We had all better be spared this farce; besides, you know I have no talent as an actress. The part of my father's sister and your waiting-maid would be too difficult for me to undertake."
With these words she arose and left the room. Helena cast a tearful look towards heaven. "Leuchtenberg is right," she thought; "Johanna is haughty, obstinate, and heartless. I shall be spared a thousand annoyances by her leaving me. I am only sorry for Lisbeth's sake. The dear little creature really loves her sister, and Johanna seemed to care for her. But it is plain now how much her affection was worth!"
Johanna passed a sleepless night, but when morning came her mind was made up; she arose and wrote immediately to Dönninghausen and to Lindenbad. Her last letter was to Ludwig, and was as follows:
"I have just thanked your father and Mathilde for the help they offered me, and have told them that I cannot accept it. Little as my father seemed to care for me, he always provided for me with a lavish hand; but he has left nothing, and it seems very unjust to burden your father with my maintenance when my grandfather offers me a home beneath his roof.
"This reason, however, excellent as it is, is not my only one. You offer to leave your father's house if I come to it. That alone would deter me. Finally, – you know I am given to selfishness – I dread living with Mathilde. No one knows better than I how excellent she is, how dutiful, self-sacrificing, and unpretending. But she is strict and literal to a degree that paralyzes and irritates me. Your mother, from whom Mathilde inherits all her good qualities, was, besides, kind and imaginative. Hers was the heart of a child so long as she lived. Your home without her – and, let me add, without you – could never be mine; and, since I resign it, I may as well go among entire strangers.
"If you would lighten my task, my dear Ludwig, remain the connecting link between my past and present. Let me inform you as to my life, and let me hear from you of your work, your plans for the future. However dissatisfied you may be with what I am now, it cannot affect the past, – I mean our childhood. Do you not remember how I always from the first sought and found protection with you from Mathilde's tyranny? It must always be so; a kind of instinct will always lead me to you whenever I need counsel and help, and I know that you will open to me when I knock.
"I have told my grandfather, who wrote to me a few days ago, that I am ready to go to him, and that I only wait for his directions with regard to my journey. To part from what is dear to me here – my father's grave and my little sister – will be hard; and, besides, I liked the atmosphere in which I lived. Not for the sake of society here; I knew no one intimately but my father and Lisbeth. But all this activity and effort in the interest of art, inartistic as its results sometimes might be, interested me, and gave me the sensation of being in my element.
"But no, – this is self-conceit, – it was not my element. The histrionic attempt to which I so confidently invited you proved that I do not belong to the elect. 'Devoid of talent as her mother' was my father's verdict with regard to me; and when I recall the terrible moment when I stood there, utterly incapable of giving expression to what I felt so vividly in my imagination, – oh, Ludwig, the anguish of that moment cannot be described in words!
"I would that this bitter, mortifying experience had really cured me; that is, had stifled my desire for the Paradise then closed upon me. But this is not so. During the long days and nights passed beside my dying father, I constantly struggled with the old longing.
"If I could make you comprehend all that this last year with my father has brought to me, you might, perhaps, understand me. In all his artistic performances I was beside him in spirit. The strongest chord that he struck, the gentlest harmony that he awakened, found an answering echo in my heart. When Desdemona, Ophelia, Klärchen seemed like puppets beside his Othello, Hamlet, Egmont, I knew just what they ought to be; every look, every motion of theirs as it should be, was as clear to my mind as was his own exquisite conception of his part.
"Was this an inborn gift of mine, inherited from my father? If so, diligent perseverance could have made my clumsy limbs and speech obedient to my will; but my father's expression, 'Devoid of talent as her mother,' paralyzes my courage, and filial affection bids me to try no further where he can no longer criticise my efforts. Perhaps the creative force which I thought I possessed was but the momentary impression of his genius. I might then have had some measure of success at his side, inspired by his spirit, – no great amount, it may be, – but we love the moon with its borrowed light, and my sun might have permitted me to reflect its brilliancy.
"But this career is ended, and there is nothing for me but to submit. Perhaps my new surroundings will lighten my task; perhaps I shall find at my grandfather's something to do which will give healthy occupation to my thoughts. And I shall be in the country again, in quiet seclusion. In a sketch-book of my mother's there is a pencil-drawing of Dönninghausen, which I used as a child to contemplate with secret longing. The castle, a huge, plain, two-storied pile, with a lofty roof and low bell-tower, stands half-way up the side of a mountain which is crowned with forests and overlooked by loftier ranges of mountains. Down in the valley is the village, with its little old church; a mountain stream winds through the meadows, and the road beside it ascends the mountain along its course and is lost in the forest. This road always bewitched me; it was the pathway to all kinds of adventures and wonders, – the entrance to a fairy world. So closely is this landscape interwoven with all my childish dreams, that I could go to Dönninghausen as to a home, if I could hope to learn to understand or to be understood by its inmates. Assuredly the best intentions, the most sincere effort, shall not be wanting on my part. I certainly do possess a certain talent, my only one, for adapting myself to the habits and social life of those with whom I am thrown. May it now stand me in stead!
"Farewell for the present. I hope you will read between the lines of this long letter the earnest desire to be understood by you of
"Yours,
"J."
CHAPTER V
AT DÖNNINGHAUSEN
In the large three-windowed morning-room of Castle Dönninghausen the old Freiherr was walking to and fro, smoking his long pipe, as was his custom always after breakfast, his huge, tawny dog Leo following, as ever, close at his master's heels. The sister of the lord of the castle sat prim and stately in her usual place by the window, knitting, while at a small table near the chimney-place Magelone and Johann Leopold were playing chess. The fire crackled, the old tall clock ticked, the needles in Aunt Thekla's busy hands clicked, and the Freiherr's footsteps fell regularly upon the rug that covered the floor. The morning was precisely like every one of its predecessors.