"Nonsense! She was jealous--there is a little brown cousin in the house--"
"No, it was not that--she heard that before they were engaged he consulted an agent about her fortune. It is not so very unusual now-a-days."
"Ah, bah, no woman would run away for that!"
"That shows that you don"t know Gertrude Baumhagen very well. It is a fact that she has gone away."
Yes, it was a fact, and Gertrude sat in her lonely house like one buried alive in that ever gloomy room. She could no longer read; it seemed as if she slept with open eyes. Sometimes Johanna brought her her child, and the young wife"s eyes mechanically followed the little creature as it crept awkwardly over the floor or tried to raise itself by a chair, but she would not touch it even when it fell and cried.--Towards evening, however, the same unaccountable restlessness always came over her; then she walked hurriedly up and down the garden for a long time till she reached the top of the little hill; there she would remain for hours, gazing at the Thurmberg till her hair and dress were wet with dew.
"Believe me," she said to Johanna, "I shall be ill--here," and she pointed to her head.
"I do believe it," a.s.sented the other, "it is easy to make one"s self ill--"
It was a day at the end of July; a frightful sultry heat brooded over the earth, and the young wife suffered greatly from it even in her cool room. After dinner she lay motionless in her chair by the window; a severe headache tortured her as was so often the case lately.
Johanna placed her cupful of strong black coffee on the table and put the book beside it which had been opened at the same page for the last three days.
"Here is a letter too," she added.
Gertrude had acquired a great dread of letters lately. She overcame her aversion however and opened it. It was in Jenny"s pointed handwriting, and Jenny only wrote surface gossip; one glance at the letter would suffice. Two sheets fell out.
"It is a long time since we heard anything from you," she read, "so that we are very anxious about you--are you still in "Waldruhe?""
"I met Judge K. yesterday at a reception, the same who, in the celebrated divorce case of the Duke of P. with Countess Y., was the counsel of the latter. I asked him playfully if a woman could separate from her lord and master if she found that he had had more thought of her worldly goods than of herself, described the situation pretty plainly and spoke of a friend of mine who was in such a position. He replied, "Tell your friend she had better go quietly back to her husband, for she is sure to get the worst of it." His real expression was a much rougher one, for he is well known as a brute.
"Well, there you have the opinion of an authority in such matters. Make an end of the matter, for you may have so bitterly to repent a longer delay as you are quite unable to realize in your present magnificent scorn. If I am not much mistaken you really love him. Well, there are things--but it is hard to write about such things. Read the enclosed letter, which mamma sent me a few days ago. Perhaps you will guess what I wanted to say.
"I wish you had been with me in Paris or were here now in Baden-Baden.
You would see how we German women, with our thick-skinned housewifely virtues and our cobwebby romance, make our lives unnecessarily hard. I am convinced a French woman would hold her sides for laughing if she should hear the cause of your conjugal strife.
"Arthur is very amiable, and obeys at a word. He surprised me with a Paris dress for the reception yesterday. As soon as he gets out of our little nest he is like another man. Good-bye, don"t take this affair too tragically.
"YOUR SISTER."
Slowly the young wife took up the other letter; it was in Aunt Pauline"s pointed handwriting and was addressed to Mrs. Baumhagen.
"DEAREST OTTILIE:
"Everything here goes on as usual. I was at your house yesterday; Sophie is there and had a great moth-hunt yesterday. Your parrot had a bad eye but it is all right again now. I have heard nothing of Gertrude; she will let n.o.body in. I suppose you have heard from her.
There are all sorts of reports about Niendorf going about. Last evening my husband came home from the club--they say there is a cousin there who manages the house. Mr. Hanke has seen her in Linden"s carriage--very dark, rather original, and very much dressed. Well, of course, you know how people will talk, but I will not pour oil on the fire. I saw Linden too, once, and I hardly knew him; he was coming from the bank. The man"s hair is growing gray about the temples; he looked like another person, so--how shall I describe it--so run down."
Gertrude dropped the letter and then she sprang up--she shook and trembled in every limb.
With a powerful effort she forced herself to be calm and to be reasonable. What did she wish? She had separated from him forever. But her heart! her heart hurt her so all at once, and it beat so loudly in the deathly stillness which surrounded her that she thought she could hear it.
"Johanna!" she shrieked, but no one replied; she was probably out in the garden or in the kitchen at work.
And what good could she do her? "No, not that, only not that!"
She sat down again in her chair by the window and looked out among the trees. What would she not give if the woods and the hills would disappear so that she could look across into that house--into that room! "A gay little thing is that brown little girl," Johanna had said the other day. And Gertrude saw her in her mind"s eye tripping about the house, now in the garden-hall, now up the steps, those dear old worn-out steps. Tap, tap, now in the corridor, the high-heeled shoes tapped so firmly and daintily on the hard floor; and now at a brown door--his door.
Might she enter? Ah, his room, that dear old room! And Gertrude wrung her hands in bitter envy. "Go!" she cried, half-aloud, "go! That threshold is sacred--I--I crossed it on the happiest day of my life--on his arm!"
And she could see him sitting at his writing-table in his gray jacket and his high boots just as he had come in from the fields; his white forehead stood out in sharp contrast to his brown face. She had always liked that.
And gray hair on his temples? Ah, he had none a few weeks ago! And again a dainty little figure fluttered before her eyes going towards him. Ah, she would like to know that one thing--if he could ever forget her for another--for this girl perhaps? But of what use was all this?
She got up and went out of the room across the corridor to her father"s room. What her father had done thousands had done before him, and thousands would do it--a man need not live!
On the table by the bed stood the gla.s.s with his monogram, out of which he had drunk that dreadful potion. The servants had washed it and put it back there. She walked a few steps toward the window and started suddenly. Ah yes, it was only her image in the gla.s.s. She walked quickly up to the shining gla.s.s and looked in--there was a wonderful bluish shimmer in it and her face, pale as death, looked out at her from it. The deep shadows under the eyes spread far down on her cheeks.
Shuddering, she turned away; there was something ghostly about her own face.
And again she stood still and thought. What was left for her in life?
Everything was gone with him, everything!
"Mrs. Linden," said a voice behind her, "Judge Schmidt."
She nodded.
"In my room."
Ah, yes, she had forgotten that she had sent for him. He came to-day, and she had only written yesterday. But it was just as well, she must make a beginning.
She turned back again; let him wait, she could not go just yet. She went to the window and saw how the heavy leaden clouds were spreading over the sky; a storm was brewing in the west. Courage, now, courage!
When it was past the sun would shine again; sometimes a broken branch could not lift itself again. So much the better! There would be no more of this quiet, this deadly calm.
Only something to do--even if--
"Ma"am!" called the voice once more, and then she composed herself and went.
She knew him very well, the old gentleman who came towards her with a kind smile, but she could not speak a word to him. She could only wave her hand silently towards the nearest chair. He knew what the matter was, let him begin the dreadful conversation.
"You wish for my advice, Mrs. Linden, in this difficult matter?"
"Yes, I wish you to act for me," she said, looking past him into the corner of the room, "and I wish above all that Mr. Linden should be informed of the decision I have come to. I will leave him in possession of my whole fortune with the exception of this house, and the capital that is invested in my brother-in-law"s factory."
She said the words hurriedly, as if she had learned them by heart.
"Are you quite in earnest about it then?" asked the old man.
Her eyes blazed out at him.
"Do you think I would jest on such a sorrowful subject?"
"And you think your husband will agree?"
"It is _your_ affair, Mr. Schmidt, to arrange this."