An innkeeper"s niece! I wish the world had more of "em, if they"re like Franziska."
"And besides," says t.i.ta, "have you any notion as to how Franziska herself would probably take this mad proposal?"
"No," says the young man, humbly. "I wanted you to try and find out what she thought about me; and if, in time something were said about this proposal, you might put in a word or two, you know, just to--to give her an idea, you know, that you don"t think it quite so mad, don"t you know?"
"Give me your hand, Charlie," says t.i.ta, with a sudden burst of kindness. "I"ll do what I can for you; for I know she"s a good girl, and she will make a good wife to the man who marries her."
You will observe that this promise was given by a lady who never, in any circ.u.mstances whatsoever, seeks to make up matches, who never speculates on possible combinations when she invites young people to her house in Surrey, and who is profoundly indignant, indeed, when such a charge is preferred against her. Had she not, on that former Christmas morning, repudiated with scorn the suggestion that Charlie might marry before another year had pa.s.sed? Had she not, in her wild confidence, staked on a wager that a.s.sumption of authority in her household and out of it without which life would be a burden to her? Yet no sooner was the name of Franziska mentioned, and no sooner had she been reminded that Charlie was going with us to Huferschingen, than the nimble little brain set to work. Oftentimes it has occurred to one dispa.s.sionate spectator of her ways that this same t.i.ta resembled the small object which, thrown into a dish of some liquid chemical substance, suddenly produces a ma.s.s of crystals. The const.i.tuents of those beautiful combinations, you see, were there; but they wanted some little shock to hasten the slow process of crystallisation. Now in our social circle we have continually observed groups of young people floating about in an amorphous and chaotic fashion--good for nothing but dawdling through dances, and flirting, and carelessly separating again; but when you dropped t.i.ta among them, then you would see how rapidly this jellyfish sort of existence was abolished--how the groups got broken up, and how the sharp, businesslike relations of marriage were precipitated and made permanent. But would she own to it? Never! She once went and married her dearest friend to a Prussian officer; and now she declares he was a selfish fellow to carry off the girl in that way, and rates him soundly because he won"t bring her to stay with us more than three months out of the twelve. There are some of us get quite enough of this Prussian occupation of our territory.
"Well," says t.i.ta to this long English lad, who is lying sprawling on the gra.s.s, "I can safely tell you this, that Franziska likes you very well."
He suddenly jumps up, and there is a great blush on his face.
"Has she said so?" he asks, eagerly.
"Oh yes! in a way. She thinks you are good-natured. She likes the English generally. She asked me if that ring you wear was an engaged ring."
These disconnected sentences were dropped with a tantalising slowness into Charlie"s eager ears.
"I must go and tell her directly that it is not," said he; and he might probably have gone off at once had not t.i.ta restrained him.
"You must be a great deal more cautious than that if you wish to carry off Franziska some day or other. If you were to ask her to marry you now she would flatly refuse you, and very properly; for how could a girl believe you were in earnest? But if you like, Charlie, I will say something to her that will give her a hint; and if she cares for you at all before you go away she won"t forget you. I wish I was as sure of you as I am of her."
"Oh I can answer for myself," says the young man, with a becoming bashfulness.
t.i.ta was very happy and pleased all that day. There was an air of mystery and importance about her. I knew what it meant; I had seen it before.
Alas! poor Charlie!
V--"GAB MIR EIN" RING DABEI"
Under the friendly instructions of Dr. Krumm, whom he no longer regarded as a possible rival, Charlie became a mighty hunter; and you may be sure that he returned of an evening with sprigs of fir in his cap for the bucks he had slain, Franziska was not the last to come forward and shake hands with him and congratulate him, as is the custom in these primitive parts. And then she was quite made one of the family when we sat down to dinner in the long, low-roofed room; and nearly every evening, indeed, t.i.ta would have her to dine with us and play cards with us.
You may suppose, if these two young folk had any regard for each other, those evenings in the inn must have been a pleasant time for them. There were never two partners at whist who were so courteous to each other, so charitable to each other"s blunders. Indeed, neither would ever admit that the other blundered. Charlie used to make some frightful mistakes occasionally that would have driven any other player mad; but you should have seen the manner in which Franziska would explain that he had no alternative but to take her king with his ace, that he could not know this, and was right in chancing that. We played three-penny points, and Charlie paid for himself and his partner, in spite of her entreaties.
Two of us found the game of whist a profitable thing.
One day a registered letter came for Charlie. He seized it, carried it to a window, and then called t.i.ta to him. Why need he have any secret about it? It was nothing but a ring--a plain hoop with a row of rubies.
"Do you think she would take this thing?" he said, in a low voice.
"How can I tell?"
The young man blushed and stammered, and said:
"I don"t want you to ask her to take the ring, but to get to know whether she would accept any present from me. And I would ask her myself plainly, only you have been frightening me so much about being in a hurry. And what am I to do? Three days hence we start."
t.i.ta looked down with a smile and said, rather timidly:
"I think if I were you I would speak to her myself--but very gently."
We were going off that morning to a little lake some dozen miles off to try for a jack or two. Franziska was coming with us. She was, indeed, already outside, superintending the placing in the trap of our rods and bags. When Charlie went out she said that everything was ready; and presently our peasant driver cracked his whip, and away we went.
Charlie was a little grave, and could only reply to t.i.ta"s fun with an effort. Franziska was mostly anxious about the fishing, and hoped that we might not go so far to find nothing.
We found few fish anyhow. The water was as still as gla.s.s, and as clear; the pike that would have taken our spinning bits of metal must have been very dull-eyed pike indeed. t.i.ta sat at the bow of the long punt reading, while our boatman steadily and slowly plied his single oar.
Franziska was for a time eagerly engaged in watching the progress of our fishing, until even she got tired of the excitement of rolling in an immense length of cord, only to find that our spinning bait had hooked a bit of floating wood or weed. At length Charlie proposed that he should go ash.o.r.e and look out for a picturesque site for our picnic, and he hinted that perhaps Miss Franziska might also like a short walk to relieve the monotony of the sailing. Miss Franziska said she would be very pleased to do that. We ran them in among the rushes, and put them ash.o.r.e, and then once more started on our laborious career.
t.i.ta laid down her book. She was a little anxious. Sometimes you could see Charlie and Franziska on the path by the side of the lake; at other times the thick trees by the water"s side hid them.
The solitary oar dipped in the lake; the boat glided along the sh.o.r.es.
t.i.ta took up her book again. The s.p.a.ce of time that pa.s.sed may be inferred from the fact that, merely as an incident to it, we managed to catch a chub of four pounds. When the excitement over this event had pa.s.sed, t.i.ta said:
"We must go back to them. What do they mean by not coming on and telling us? It is most silly of them."
We went back by the same side of the lake, and we found both Franziska and her companion seated on the bank at the precise spot where we had left them. They said it was the best place for the picnic. They asked for the hamper in a businesslike way. They pretended they had searched the sh.o.r.es of the lake for miles.
And while t.i.ta and Franziska are unpacking the things, and laying the white cloth smoothly on the gra.s.s, and pulling out the bottles for Charlie to cool in the lake, I observe that the younger of the two ladies rather endeavours to keep her left hand out of sight. It is a paltry piece of deception. Are we moles, and blinder than moles, that we should continually be made the dupes of these women? I say to her:
"Franziska, what is the matter with your left hand?"
"Leave Franziska"s left hand alone," says t.i.ta, severely.
"My dear," I reply, humbly, "I am afraid Franziska has hurt her left hand."
At this moment Charlie, having stuck the bottles among the reeds, comes back, and, hearing our talk, he says, in a loud and audacious way:
"Oh, do you mean the ring? It"s a pretty little thing I had about me, and Franziska has been good enough to accept it. You can show it to them, Franziska."
Of course he had it about him. Young men always do carry a stock of ruby rings with them when they go fishing, to put in the noses of the fish. I have observed it frequently.
Franziska looks timidly at t.i.ta, and then she raises her hand, that trembles a little. She is about to take the ring off to show it to us when Charlie interposes:
"You needn"t take it off, Franziska."
And with that, somehow, the girl slips away from among us, and t.i.ta is with her, and we don"t get a glimpse of either of them until the solitude resounds with our cries for luncheon.
In due time Charlie returned to London, and to Surrey with us in very good spirits. He used to come down very often to see us; and one evening at dinner he disclosed the fact that he was going over to the Black Forest in the following week, although the November nights were chill just then.
"And how long do you remain?"
"A month," he says.
"Madam," I say to the small lady at the other end of the table, "a month from now will bring us to the 4th of December. You have lost the bet you made last Christmas morning; when will it please you to resign your authority?"
"Oh, bother the bet," says this unscrupulous person.