Gertrude awoke, just as the day began to dawn, from a deep dreamless
sleep. She was not ill, and she knew perfectly well what had happened
to her the evening before. She was lying on the sofa in Aunt Rosa's
room; above her smiled down the ancestress with the powdered hair, and
the whole wonderful rose-wreathed room was in the full glow of the
morning sunshine.
At the foot of the bed on a low footstool sat a young girl in a black
dress and a white apron; the dark head had fallen against the arm of
the sofa--Adelaide was sound asleep.
The young wife got up softly. Her drenched clothing had been taken off
the night before and her own dressing-gown put on; there was still a
large part of her wardrobe in Niendorf; she even found, her dainty
slippers standing before the sofa, which she was accustomed to put on
when she got up. She was very quick and very careful not to wake the
young girl. But as she softly opened the door, the sleeper sprang up,
and a pair of wondering dark eyes gazed up at Gertrude.
"Where are you going?" asked the clear voice.
Gertrude stopped, undecided.
"Mr. Linden went to bed so very late," continued Adelaide Strom; "he
sat here beside you till about an hour ago. You will not wake him? It
is not four o'clock yet."
A pair of firm little hands drew the young wife away from the door
towards the sofa, and in contradiction to the childish words a pair of
grave eyes looked at her, saying plainly, "Do what you will--I shall
not let you go."
Gertrude sat down again on the improvised bed and bit her lips till
they bled, but the young girl busied herself at a side-table, and
presently a fragrant odor of coffee filled the room.
"Here," she said, offering the young wife a cup of the hot beverage,
"take it, it will do you good. I made some coffee for Mr. Linden too,
in the night: only drink it quietly, it is _his_ cup and no one else
has ever touched it."
And as Gertrude made no reply and only held the cup in her trembling
hand without drinking, Adelaide continued without taking any
notice--"Ah, yesterday was a dreadful day. The frightful storm and that
dreadful thunderbolt, and the great barn was in flames in a moment, and
before any help came the other was burning, and it was with the
greatest difficulty the animals were saved. If Mr. Linden had not been
so calm and had so much presence of mind, it would have been frightful.
But he went into the horses' stable just as if the flames were not
darting in after him, and he put the harness on the horses and they
followed him out through the flames like lambs, though no one could get
them out before. And only think, when the uproar was the greatest, and
the fire was sending showers of sparks into the air, as if they were
rockets, something began to howl and cry so loud from the very top of
the barn, and we found it was Lora, the great St. Bernard dog, who had
puppies up there.
"And how that poor dumb creature did cry out for help! I could hear
from my window that no one would go up after her,--'Being a dog,' they
all said. And all at once I saw a ladder, and one--two--three--a figure
disappeared up there in the flames. What do you think, Mr. Linden
brought them all down, the old dog and her young ones--all of them."
The little girl's eyes sparkled with tears.
"But he has a mark of it on his arm to be sure," she added, "and
it was only a dog after all. What was it in comparison with a man's
life?--Aunt Rosa was so angry with him and said, when he came down here
pale and suffering with the pain, he might have lost his life. Then he
said that such a stupid thing as his life wasn't worth a straw! And
just as he had said it, Diana began to scratch so furiously at the
door, and he rushed out at such a rate that I thought the lightning
must have struck again, and as I ran out behind him, he had you already
in his well arm, and declared that he knew you would come."
Gertrude got up at this point, and walked to the door. But here she met
another obstacle. This was Aunt Rosa, who was just coming out of her
bedroom in the most astonishing morning array and the most enormous
white nightcap that a lady ever wore. She nodded to Gertrude, and laid
her small withered hand on her shoulder.
"The dear God always opens a way for the hard heart to soften," said
the ancient dame, "Yes, in hour of need, the heart has wings on which
it is lifted above all the petty foolishness of pride and perversity.
It was just before the closing of the door, too, my dear child, for
yesterday afternoon, after a certain man had had an interview with him,
I folded my hands and prayed to God to give him strength to bear the
blow--I was afraid he would never get over it."
Adelaide Strom now went softly out of the door and the old woman
remained standing before the young wife, and the tall form seemed
almost to shrink beneath her thin transparent hand. But neither spoke.
The eastern sky grew redder, and then the first rays of the sun played
on Gertrude's brown hair.
Suddenly she covered her face with her hands. "My happiness is over, I
can never be anything more to him!" she gasped.
"Say rather 'I _will_ never be anything more to him!'"
"Ah, and even if I would!" she cried, "I am so wretched!"
"He who will not do a thing willingly and gladly would do better to
leave it undone, and he who cares not to pray, should not fold his
hands." And Aunt Rosa turned away to the window, sat down in her easy
chair and took up her prayer-book. She left Gertrude to herself and
read her morning chapter half aloud.
The words struck the ear of the struggling girl with a wonderful force.
"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not
charity--" sounded through the room.
"Charity suffereth long and is kind; beareth all things, believeth all
things, hopeth all things, endureth all things."
Had she no charity then, no true love? Ah, faith--love--how should they
remain when one has been so cruelly deceived! And her house came back
to her mind, that sad, lonely house on the edge of the wood, and her
life in the last few weeks, so frightfully bare and desolate.
And--"charity beareth all things--" it said.
"Amen!" said Aunt Rosa, aloud. And Adelaide came in, and the young wife
suddenly felt her hands drawn down and through her tears she saw
Adelaide, smilingly unlocking the bunch of keys from her own belt and
holding it out to her.
"I kept things in order as well as I knew how," she said, "it is not in
the most perfect order I know, but you must not scold me."
She felt the keys put into her nerveless hand--had she not been bowed
down into the dust?
"Charity suffereth long and is kind; charity vaunteth not itself," said
something in her heart.
"I will forgive him," said the young wife aloud. But her face was pale
and rigid.
"Forgive, with _those_ eyes?" asked Aunt Rosa. "And for what? For
believing him less than an acknowledged--well, he is dead, God forgive
him--than a man who was a perfect stranger to you? No, my little woman,
take heart and go up to your Frank and--"
"_I_ go to _him_?" she cried in cutting tones,--"_I_?" The bunch of
keys fell clanging on the floor; with trembling hands she snatched up
the dress she had worn the day before, and took the purse out of the
pocket,--the purse which contained that fatal scrap of paper. For
awhile she held the piece of paper in her hand, then she gave it to the
old lady.
"I will not seem to you so childishly perverse," she said.
Aunt Rosa put on her glasses and read it. She started, and then a smile
spread over her face. In great confusion she looked into Gertrude's
face.
"Addie," she said, "you can bear witness that I have always been a most
orderly person my whole life long."
"Yes, auntie, the most envious person must allow you that virtue."
"And yet last Christmas it happened to me to mislay a letter. It was to
Linden from Wolff; for four whole days we searched for it. Let me see,
that was the twenty-second of December--the letter was lost, and on the
twenty-sixth, I happened to lift up my window-cushion and there was the
thing. No one could have been gladder than I. I stayed up till late at
night--Linden had gone to a party at the Baumhagens--and when at last
he came home I gave him the letter and he put it carelessly in his
pocket and said, 'Aunt Rosa, you shall hear it first, I have just been
getting engaged.' And in the joy of his heart he took me in his arms as
if I were still only eighteen. You see, and that"--she struck the bit
of paper with her right hand--"that is a scrap of the letter, my little
woman, and the date coincides exactly."
Gertrude was already by her side. "Is that true?" escaped from her
trembling lips.
The old lady nodded. "Perfectly true," she declared. "Ask Dora. She
searched for the letter with me, and thereby got a great knock on the
head when she was trying to move the wardrobe."
But Gertrude declined this. She stood for awhile in silence, her head
bent down, her color changing rapidly from red to white, then she moved
towards the door and in another moment she had disappeared.
Lightly she mounted the stairs, and the old worn boards seemed to
understand why the little feet stepped so carefully and did not as
usual, crack and snap.
It was still as death in the whole house; the corridor was still dusky
and the old pictures on the wall looked sleepily down on the young
wife. The tall clock kept on its solemn tick-tack, tick-tack. It
sounded so strangely in Gertrude's ears, as she stood hesitating before
the brown door and grasped the knob.
Tick-tack, tick-tack! How the time flies! One should not hesitate a
moment when one has a fault to repair--every minute is so much taken
from him--quick, quick!
Softly she opened the door and slipped in. She had drawn her dress
close about her, so the train should not rustle. Two large eyes gazed
anxiously out of the pale face round the room, which was glowing in the
morning sunshine. Now her heart seemed to stop beating for a moment,
now it throbbed wildly: there in the large chair--he had not gone to
bed, but sleep had overtaken him. There he sat, his wounded arm rested
on the arm of the chair, the other supported his head. He wore still
the soiled, singed coat he had on the day before, and ah, he looked so
pale, so changed!
The dog, which lay at his feet, lifted up his head and wagged his tail.
Then she went towards him. "Make way for me," she murmured, "_I_ must
take that place!"
And she knelt down before her husband, and taking the shrinking injured
hand put it to her lips.
"Gertrude, what are you doing?"
"Forgive me, Frank, forgive me?" she whispered, weeping, resisting his
endeavors to raise her.
"No, Frank, no, let me stay here, it should be so--"
"Forgive you? There is no question of that. Thank God you are here
again!"
But before she got up she tore a bit of paper into shreds, then she ran
to the window and opened her hand and they danced away in the air like
snowflakes. And when she turned back again she looked into his grave
eyes.
"What was that?" he asked, drawing her towards him.
She threw her arms round his neck and hid her streaming eyes on his
breast. They stood thus together at the open window, in the clear rays
of the morning sun. The twittering swallows flew past them over the
tops of the trees up into the blue sky.
"Back again! Back again!" was the burden of their song.
Gradually the house woke up. The little brunette laid the table in the
garden-hall.
"Two cups, two plates, and a bunch of roses in the middle--for the last
time," said she, "then she can do it for herself again."
Then she stood thinking for a moment.
"He doesn't in the least realize how fortunate he is to get such a
yielding, lamb-like wife as I am," she murmured. "To be sure, I _could_
not possibly fancy that he married me for my money."
She laughed a clear ringing laugh.
"I shall have a nice little trousseau if Aunt Rosa gets it."
And she opened the garden door and ran out into the green shrubbery.
The world was so beautiful, the sun so golden and Adelaide was so fond
of the little judge.
She was engaged, secretly engaged, for the good fellow would not come
before his friend in all his bridegroom's bliss, when his happiness was
so utterly shattered. So they had plighted their troth secretly--after
the bowl of _mai-trank_ on that last day. Aunt Rosa was no check
upon them, for she slept placidly in the corner of the sofa, and
Frank--Heaven alone knew when he had gone.
But now--she looked at her pretty little hands; yes, there were
ink-stains on them; she had sent off the news at once to Frankfort:
"Great fire, great anxiety, great reconciliation."
She found herself suddenly before a stout little man in a gray summer
overcoat and a white straw hat.
"Oh, ta, ta! little one, don't run over me!"
He was very cross, this good Uncle Henry.
"Pretty state of affairs! A man comes from Hamburg, travelling all
night, and hardly is he out of the train when some one comes: 'Mr.
Baumhagen, did you know there had been a great fire in Niendorf?' Tired
as a dog as I was, I must needs get into a carriage and drive out
here--a man can't sleep after such a piece of news as that. For mercy's
sake, you are smiling as if it was Christmas eve!"
"All the crops are burnt," announced Adelaide in as joyful a tone as if
she had said, "We have won a great prize."
"The poor fellow has ill-luck," muttered Uncle Henry. "Has some one
gone over to--" He would not speak her name--"to--well, to 'Waldruhe?'
Or has the announcement of the joyful news been left for me again?"
"No one has been there," replied Adelaide, mischievously.
Uncle Henry looked at her more sharply.
"Well, what's up then, you witch? Something has happened."
"I am engaged," burst out the happy little bride. Thank Heaven, that
she could tell it at last.
"You unhappy child!" cried Uncle Henry, by way of congratulation. But
she ran laughing away into the house.
"Breakfast is ready!" she cried from the terrace. "Coffee, tea, ham and
eggs."
The old gentleman, who was going out to view the wreck, turned sharply
round and followed her.
"It is true," he remarked, "I shall be better for having something to
eat, I am quite upset by the journey."
And Uncle Henry went puffing up the steps and grasped the door-knob.
Good Heavens!--did his eyes not deceive him? There sat Linden, his arm
in a sling, and beside him--surely he knew that thick brown knot of
hair and that slender figure which was bending, down to cut up his
meat. Now she raises her head and kisses him on the forehead before she
quietly resumes her own place.
"Angels and ministers of grace defend us! A man has only to take a
journey--!"
Uncle Henry drops the door-knob. He has such a queer sensation--he does
not like emotion--and he does not like to disturb other people. He
would gladly get out of the way if he could--perhaps he may manage it
yet.
But no. Gertrude herself opens the door.
"Uncle Henry," she said, pleadingly.
And he comes in and behaves exactly as if nothing had ever happened. It
is the purest selfishness on his part. Scenes don't agree with him.
"I wanted just to see how you were--you seem to have had a nice little
fire," he begins.
"Thank God! No lives were lost," said Linden, "and no cattle were
burnt; the crops are all destroyed, it is true; but in place of that a
new life has risen out of the ashes." And he held out his sound hand to
Gertrude.
"Oh, ta, ta!" murmured Uncle Henry, helping himself hurriedly to ham
and to butter. "I tell you, children, travelling is a great deal too
hard work, and if it were not for the lobsters in Heligoland and the
eel-soup in Hamburg, then--but, Gertrude, you are laughing and crying
at the same time! Well, well, I am glad to be home again; there is
nothing like home, after all, and with your permission, I will drink
this glass of good port wine to your health and to the peace and
prosperity of your household."