The dark figure had reached its goal, the river-bank; it leaned forward,--when two nervous, girlish hands clutched the black folds of her gown. "Mother!" shrieked Erika, in despair.
She turned round. "What do you want?" she said, harshly, almost cruelly, to her daughter. Then she shuddered violently, and burst into a convulsive sobbing which it seemed impossible to her to control.
Her daughter put her arm around her, nestled close to her, and kissed the tears from her cheeks. "Mother," she cried, tenderly, "darling mother!" and without another word she gently led the wretched woman away from the water. The mother made no resistance; she was mortally weary, and leaned heavily upon the slender girl of fourteen.
They slowly returned to the house. A white translucent mist was rising from the fields, and flying through it with drooping wings, so low that they almost stirred the gra.s.s, a flock of hoa.r.s.ely-croaking ravens pa.s.sed them by.
In the night Erika suddenly aroused from sleep, without knowing what had wakened her. She rubbed her eyes, and turned to sleep again, when just outside of her door she heard a voice exclaim, "Ah, G.o.d of heaven!" In an instant, barefooted and in her nightgown, she was in the corridor, where she saw the cook hurrying in the direction of her mother"s room. "What is the matter?" the girl cried, in terror. The cook looked round, shrugged her shoulders, and hurried on.
Erika would have followed her, but Strachinsky appeared at the turning of the corridor where the cook had vanished. He looked as if just roused from sleep; he had on a flowered dressing-gown, and carried a lighted candle. Beside him Minna walked, pale as ashes.
Strachinsky set the candlestick down upon a long low table in the pa.s.sage. "Have the horses harnessed immediately," he ordered, "and send the bailiff to K---- for the doctor."
"Will not the Herr Baron go himself? People are not always to be relied upon," said Minna, with a significant glance at the master of the house.
"Oh, no; the bailiff will attend to it perfectly, and then--you can understand that I do not wish to be away at this time from my wife, who will of course ask for me----" Minna"s eyes still being fixed upon him with a very strange expression in them, he added, snapping out his words in childish irritation, "And then--then--it is no business of yours, you stupid fool!" And, turning on his heel, he left her.
Minna shrugged her shoulders, and turned towards the staircase to give the necessary orders.
Neither she nor Strachinsky had noticed Erika. The girl ran to the nurse and plucked her by the sleeve. "Minna," she asked, in dread, "what is the matter? Is my mother ill?"
"Yes."
"What is the matter with her? Tell me, Minna! oh, tell me!"
But the nurse shook off her clasping hands. "Let me alone, child. I am in a hurry," she murmured.
Erika advanced a step, hesitated, and then returned to her room, where she found Miss Sophy in great distress, her head crowned with curl-papers, which she cut out of the _Modern Free Press_ every evening and which made her look half like Medusa and half like a porcupine.
"Where are you going?" she asked, seeing that Erika began to dress hurriedly. "To my mother; she is ill."
Miss Sophy gently detained her. "Do not go," she said, softly: "they would not let you in; you would only be in the way, now. Wait a little.
Your mother does not want you there." And she wagged her porcupine head with melancholy solemnity as she added, "I believe--I think you will perhaps have a little brother, or sister."
Erika stared at her. This it was, then!
Among the many sad experiences that were to fall to Erika"s lot there were none to equal the dull restlessness, the mortal dread mingled with a mysterious, inexpressible emotion, of these hours.
She went on dressing, striving only to be ready quickly, as one dresses when the next house is on fire. Then she seated herself opposite Miss Sophy, at a tottering round table upon which stood a guttering candle.
For a while all was silent; then there was a noise outside the door.
The girl sprang up and hurried out, to see a stout, elderly woman in a tall black cap, with the phlegmatic flabby face of a monk, going towards her mother"s room. Erika recognized her as the needy widow of a stone-mason; she was wont to doctor both men and cattle in the village.
Her name was Frau Jelinek. The scullery-maid who had brought her was just behind her.
They pa.s.sed Erika without heeding her, and the girl looked after them in a fresh access of dread.
Two hours pa.s.sed. Miss Sophy was asleep; Erika still waked and watched.
A light rain had begun to fall; the drops pattered against the window-panes.
Once more Erika arose and crept out into the corridor. Trembling in every limb, she stood at the door of the room through which her mother"s sleeping-apartment was reached. It was ajar, and light streamed through the crack. She looked in. Strachinsky was seated at a table, playing whist with three dummies. It had for some time past been his favourite occupation. A maid stood in a corner, arranging a pile of linen. Erika was about to address her, when Frau Jelinek, her black leathern bag on her arm, came out of her mother"s bedroom.
"May I not go to mamma,--just for a moment?" the girl asked, in an agitated whisper.
The bedroom door opened again, and Minna appeared. "Is it you, child?"
"Yes, yes," Erika made answer.
"Do not disturb your mother. Stay in your room till you are called,"
Minna said, authoritatively.
And from the room came the poor mother"s weary, gentle voice: "Go lie down, my child; don"t sit up any longer; go to bed, dear."
For a while Erika stood motionless; then she kissed the hard cold door that would not open to her, and went back to her room. She lay down on the bed, dressed as she was, and this time she fell asleep. On a sudden she sat upright. The candle on the table was still burning, and by its light she saw that Miss Sophy, who had been sleeping on the sofa, was sitting up, awake, and listening, with a startled air.
Erika hurried out; Minna met her in the corridor, and at the same moment a vehicle rattled into the courtyard.
"The doctor!" exclaimed Minna. "Thank G.o.d!"
The bailiff appeared on the staircase.
"Where is the doctor?"
"He was not at home," the man made answer.
"Did you not ask where he was and go after him?" Minna asked, impatiently.
"No," replied the bailiff, twirling his straw hat in his hands. "But I left word for him to come as soon as he got home."
"Fool!" Strachinsky, who had now come into the corridor, exclaimed, shaking his fist at the man. "You are dismissed," he added, grandiloquently. Then, turning to Minna, he said, "Good heavens, if I had a horse I could ride to K----."
Without heeding him, Minna hurried down the staircase, and a few moments later a carriage again left the court-yard.
Minna had herself gone for the doctor, before her departure beseeching Erika to keep quiet: she should be summoned as soon as it would be right for her to see her mother.
The girl obeyed, and sat in her room, rigid and motionless, at the table where the candle was burning down into the socket. At first, to shorten the time, she tried to knit, but the needles dropped from her fingers.
Miss Sophy sat opposite her, with elbows upon the table, and her head in her hands, listening.
In the distance there was a sound of wheels; it came nearer and nearer.
Thank G.o.d! It was Minna, and she brought the doctor. There was a hurried running to and fro, and then all was still, still as death.
The dawn crept in at the window. The flame of the candle burned red and dim. The rain had ceased, and through the misty window-panes could be seen a glimmer of white blossoms, and behind them a pale-blue sky in which the last stars were slowly fading.
Then the door opened, and Minna entered. "Come, Erika," she said, in a low voice.
Erika arose hastily. "Have I really a little brother?" she asked, anxiously.