The first grey shafts of dawn that shone through the curtains of the girls" bedroom were beginning to take a rosy hue. The starlings had begun to chatter outside the window, and the young swallows trilled softly in the eaves. A mighty volume of sound, coming from the courtyard, seemed for a moment to fill the whole universe with noise and unrest, and then, with three single resounding strokes, to come to an end.
While Elly slept on, with rounded cheek and right ear resting in the hollow of her hand, in undisturbed slumber, Hertha lay with wide-open eyes, holding the counterpane between her teeth, and let the clang of the call-bell, which generally used to hunt her out of bed at once, die on her ear.
She had not been able to go to sleep again after the night"s great event. Elly, when the first outbreak of joy was over, and after she had hazarded a few guesses as to what "presents" her brother had brought with him, had nestled her head down on the pillows peacefully, but Hertha had stayed in a sitting position, thinking and thinking without ceasing.
Often she had pictured to herself what this home-coming ought to be, and now it had happened quite differently from what she had expected.
Everything always did happen differently from what you expected. So much wisdom her young life had taught her long ago. It dated from the day when her beautiful mother had been carried away from her in her shroud.
Papa was dead too, and Hertha thanked G.o.d for that often. There was a hardness in her nature which made her lips snap together at the thought of him. Now she was living amongst strangers, and felt herself at home.
Her stepmother"s people had become her own.
Her guardian, satisfied that she was being well brought up at Halewitz, contented himself with the management of her fortune, and didn"t trouble himself about her. Mamma went her own way also, living a solitary life, seeing scarcely anybody but the poor people"s children, whom she gathered about her every day. Then there was grandmamma. Dear old granny, she scolded a good bit. She scolded in the morning and scolded in the evening, but her scolding was sheer love, and after all you ended by doing what you liked. And, of course, that was nothing wrong. On the contrary, you had an object in life, for which you planned and worked and fought; which was your last thought at night before going to sleep and seeing dream-pictures; for the sake of which you tumbled half blind out of bed when the morning bell sounded its first hard clanging notes. The dairy, the poultry-yard, and the vegetable garden. These were her little kingdom, over which she had ruled for more than a year now, since grandmamma had abdicated and given over the management of them to her. She hadn"t had to beg long, for it seemed only natural that the tired, lax fingers of the old lady should drop the reins and confide them to her strong brown paws. She was pa.s.sionately devoted to riding, yet the superb Lithuanian mare, which had once belonged to Leo, was now left at peace in the stable.
She could drive like a G.o.ddess, but for months she had not taken the four-in-hand ribbons between her fingers, for this reason more than anything else--that she had lost her pleasure in it.... Had she not plunged into a world of responsibility and cares? She looked back on her work with genuine pride. Now it was coming to an end, for _he_ had come home.
She had laid the foundation of what he to-day would sit in judgment upon. She jumped out of bed and slipped into her petticoats. As she pulled back one of the curtains she saw the garden stretched out before her in the rosy glow of early morning. Night still brooded in the heart of the dark limes, but on the lawn lay the ruddy-gold reflection of early sunlight. She opened a window-lattice softly and breathed in the cool dewy morning air. A little shiver ran down her naked arms. She then placed herself before the looking-gla.s.s, which stood between the two windows, and was hung with flowered chintz and ornamented with a gilded pine-cone, and as she combed her long chestnut-brown, rather coa.r.s.e hair, she subjected herself to a searching examination.
Never before had she been so unpleasantly alive to the thinness of her shoulders, and the undeveloped childish curves of her bosom, which were scarcely perceptible above the grey calico corset. Neither was the brown slender throat, on which her small quickly-turning, serpent-like head was posed so firmly and haughtily, at all to her taste to-day. Her arms were plentifully adorned with scars and scratches. They were without roundness, and the keen morning air had given them a goose-skin appearance.
"Simply hideous!" exclaimed Hertha. Then she hastily got into a scarlet blouse, which, in honour of the day, she fastened with a spray of sparkling garnets, and ended by thinking that she looked quite pa.s.sable.
As she opened the door into the corridor, her heart began to beat fast.
At any moment she might meet him.
The courtyard was busier than usual at this time of the morning, when she went to the stable for the milking. Excited little groups stood at the doors, and a groom or two were running up and down anxiously between the carriages, as if the threatened storm were already bursting over their heads.
She was on the point of entering the cow-shed, where the straining-tubs were already rattling, when a suddenly born sense of shame prevented her. Would it not look as if she, in her unbidden zeal, were pushing herself before him? But she suppressed the feeling as weakness. People must do their duty without looking to right or left.
The milkmaids" work was in full swing. The white streaks of milk shot with a hissing sound into the tilted pails. She walked down the line, and found that there was nothing for her to do. No one turned to look at her. It had always been her wish that no one should interrupt their work to bid her good morning.
To-day her inactivity made her feel somehow excessively foolish. If only some one would have beaten her cow so that she might thunder a rebuke, it would have been a relief. But all went on greased wheels; the udders were sprinkled with tepid water, the milking hands shone with cleanliness. Fortunately, a red brindle would not stand still, and stamped with its hind hoof at the pail. She fetched quickly a little bag of sand kept for the purpose, and laid on the restless animal"s back. As she did so, she looked nervously in the direction of the stable door. Suppose he was to come in now, she would be ready to sink into the earth. "Who are you?" he might ask. "The Mamselle?" "No; I am ... so and so." "And what brings you here?" he would ask further.
"Is this fit work for Countess Prachwitz?" In short, it would be altogether dreadful.
It seemed to her that a pretty Dutch cow with a clever deer-like head, that was one of her favourites, was seriously distended. She thought that while in the meadow it must have been allowed to graze on a patch of poisonous clover. She called the cowherd, reproved him, and charged him to keep his eye on the animal for the rest of the day. If necessary, he was to send for help, in order that the throat-syringe might be inserted.
While the white foamy steaming contents of the first pails were being poured into the milk-strainers, a voice suddenly was heard outside, the resonant tone of which made her blood freeze in her veins.
It was he! Since midnight that voice had rung in her ears, but the laugh which had given it a cheery sound then was absent from it now. It was he! In another moment, perhaps, he would be standing in the stable doorway.
She waited, clinging to a post and setting her teeth. But he did not come. He ordered a horse to be brought out, and his words of fault-finding and command darted hither and thither like lightning-flashes.
The milkmaids, too, heard the master"s voice. Some knew it, and those who didn"t could not be in a moment"s doubt as to whom it belonged.
They nudged each other with their elbows, and their faces expressed alarm.
When Hertha heard the sound of horse"s feet dying away beneath the courtyard gateway, she ventured to look out at the door. Of him she could not see much, but he was riding on her white mare. On her mare!
What joy!
She watched the measuring of the milk with an absent eye. One part of it went to Munsterberg in the milk-cart, a second portion came up to the house, a third was for the farm servants. The midday and evening milking supplied the cheese-makers. When all was finished, she stepped again into the morning air. The sun, which had risen above the haystacks, cast its fiery beams on the yard. Down by the pond, where the velvet bulrushes glistened with silvery dew, ducks were quacking.
The dogs struggled, straining on their chains, to get to her. She took no notice of them. She pa.s.sed the brewery, from which proceeded a stream of barm which filled the surrounding air with a cellar-like odour, and entered the open fields by the back gate. Here a few patches of wheat had been cut because they came handy to Uncle, but farther away the corn stood over-ripe with rotting ears.
In thought she followed Leo"s ride with an anxious conscience; as if she were to blame for all the mischief. He must have come by this spot and that, and found one as neglected as the other. Ground had been left from last winter unploughed. Oats had been sown too late; the clover was nearly overgrown by gra.s.s and weeds.
Amongst the stubble glittered a fine spangle of cobwebs, spreading a prescience of autumn over the flat stretches of land. A wild cat with head ducked forward was slinking along the furrows. Hertha was vexed that she hadn"t a gun with her so that she might singe the good-for-nothing"s fur.
Then gradually her zeal evaporated, and a gentle dreaminess stole over her. She saw him again us she had always seen him ever since grandmamma had begun to enchant her eyes by drawing his picture. Pale, melancholy, fiery-eyed, rushing in a frenzy of restlessness about foreign countries, tormented by the shade of the slain; hunted from pillar to post by nostalgia and vain longing for rest and peace.
For long she had believed herself chosen by Heaven to be his good angel. She was not exactly clear how and when this revelation had come to her. Perhaps it was when Elly told the story at school of his duel, of his detention in a fortress, and afterwards of his flight over sea.
This duel had been the first romance she had heard of in real life, at a time when she hardly knew that there was such a thing as romance.
Then afterwards grandmamma had taught her to hold her virgin heart in reserve for the far-away son.
And now he had come, and although she had not yet seen him face to face, one thing she was sure of, and that was that he did not resemble the picture of him she cherished in her heart Both his laughter yesterday and his severity to-day distressed her in an equal degree.
Her pale wandering hero could never have laughed like that, and such an expletive as "swinish lot" would certainly not have come from his lips.
A dull sense of disappointment slowly I overcame her, and heightened her fear of him.
And while she skirted the dewy plantation, she saw him in the far distance galloping over the fields on her mare. One minute he flashed in view like a brilliant phantom, the next he was hidden behind the sheaves. Schumann, the head bailiff, followed him on his roan at a respectful distance. Horse and rider resembled each other--they both looked discomfited and dejected.
Now and then Leo beckoned him to his side, as if demanding an account of something. Then he would leave him contemptuously behind again.
Hertha fancied she could see the pig-headed way in which the fellow with the sandy beard let the wrath of the returned master pour down on him.
She stood on tiptoe and craned her neck. Fury overwhelmed her, too, when some specially disgraceful piece of neglect came under surveillance. She whistled between her closed teeth, and flourished her fist in the air as if she held a riding-whip. As she did not wish to encounter him at any price, she took a sharp turn to the left towards an enclosed alder-marsh, where some young cattle were grazing. There she could hide till he had gone by.
She had her favourites amongst this humble herd too; and they used to come and thrust their muzzles on her shoulder to be caressed. She rubbed their woolly foreheads now, thinking of but one thing all the time. "He is here." Then suddenly she heard him coming. She started, and then crouched down behind a stumpy bush.
The mare champed under the stinging pressure of the curb. It walked as if it were stepping on gla.s.s.
"My poor animal, you are having a bad time of it," thought Hertha.
And then she looked at him. The peaked cap pushed back on the nape of his neck, his brow pouring with perspiration, the veins standing out in knots on his temples, his glance stern; thus he rode up to the fence. A tyrant, every inch of him!
Hertha did not see the fair glossy beard, the erect figure, and graceful seat, or any of the things which maidens are accustomed to take notice of in their cavaliers. She was too overcome by a paralyzing fear and growing defiance of one who was to be a greater power than herself.
He drew rein, and the tightly curbed horse shied at the wooden fence.
"What have we got there?" he inquired, in a grim voice of command.
Hertha began to tremble. Had his angry eyes discovered her behind the bushes? Was he going to treat her as a common trespa.s.ser on his property?
But his question concerned the bailiff, who came riding to his side.
"Bullocks--thirty-two head," he reported, with quite military precision.
"How old?"
"The youngest, one year; the oldest, a year and six months."
"And they have been left out over-night on the marsh?"
Schumann muttered a crushed "Yes."