CLARA TO THE RESCUE.
The afternoon was delightful, the setting sun glorious in the crimson
splendour of the west, but the elder members of the party driving home
to Linau through the warm summer air were scarcely in the mood to enjoy
it. Wangen was annoyed at what he declared to himself were groundless
suspicions of his beautiful wife; he tried to atone for them by
redoubled tenderness in his manner when he addressed her, and this very
tenderness irritated Bertha, in her consciousness of failure in her
first attempt to vary the monotony of her existence by what she assured
herself should be but an innocent flirtation,--merely a piece of
feminine vengeance upon the man who had so insulted her vanity in years
gone by. Clara, indeed, rattled away about the various delights of
Plagnitz, winding up her eulogium of its lord, however, with a heavy
sigh.
"If my darling Elise could but have been with us!" she exclaimed. "And
now she may never see it! Oh, Bertha, how could you be so unkind to
her? I know that it is all because of your bitter speeches that she is
going to leave us on Sunday. Why do you not love her? Why can we not
all be happy together?"
To this question Bertha deigned no reply, and Hugo said, rather
sadly,--
"I too, dearest Bertha, should have been glad to have kept Fraeulein
Elise with us. But perhaps she is right. You two are like fire and
water, and since she has so advantageous an offer, and can be so near
her poor mother, I have nothing to say, only I am greatly mistaken if
you do not wish for her many a time after she has left us."
"You know, Hugo, I cannot agree with you in your estimate of Elise. She
has always disliked me, and of course I see her from my point of view.
Before she came, everything that I did was right in your eyes; her
presence irritates me, and leads you to criticise and object to what I
do and say; in short, I cannot be sorry that she leaves us on Sunday."
The sun was just disappearing as Linau was reached. Hugo and Bertha
betook themselves to the balcony, and Clara went in search of her dear
Elise, guessing correctly where she should find her. At the farthest
end of the extensive garden at the back of the old manor-house of
Linau, just where it was separated from the road that divided it from
the meadows beyond by an old-fashioned picket-fence, there stood,
concealed among the luxuriant shrubbery, a shady arbour, which was
reached by a narrow pathway among the tall bushes bounding the garden
on one side. This arbour had formerly been a favourite retreat of old
Herr von Wangen; from it he could see far over his meadows and fields;
here he was wont to sit with his pipe and book through the long summer
hours, overlooking his people at work; and hence it had come to be
called 'the master's arbour.' After his death the shrubs and bushes
about it were allowed to grow more rankly, so as almost entirely to
conceal it, for his son did not like to sit here; he preferred to ride
out over his estate, to visit his labourers; and his young wife would
have thought it excessively tiresome to spend any time on a wooden
bench in this lonely spot, when she might be lounging in a luxurious
chair on her favourite balcony.
But for Elise this arbour was a delightful retreat,--she liked to teach
Clara here, sure of freedom from all interruption,--and here Clara
found her after the wonderful visit to Plagnitz. She was in the midst
of writing a long letter, and the child's presence might have been more
welcome at another time, but she responded affectionately to her
pupil's enthusiastic caress; not for the world would she have grieved,
by any show of a desire to be alone, the girl whom she had grown to
love dearly.
Clara's talkative gaiety, however, seemed to have exhausted itself upon
the homeward drive. She sat down beside her governess, and gazed
thoughtfully from the leafy opening of the window in the little arbour
abroad over the fields and meadows in the direction where in the unseen
distance lay Castle Plagnitz. She was silent for a long while, and
then, suddenly turning to Elise, she exclaimed,--
"You do not know how dearly I love you!"
"Oh, yes, I do, dear child; I know your warm little heart very well."
"But indeed you cannot dream how much I care for you. I did not know it
myself. And how can I bear to have you leave us forever on Sunday?"
"I must go, Clara."
"I suppose you must, for Bertha does not love you; she does not know
you. But, oh! Elise, why would you not let me tell Herr von Ernau that
you are here, and that you are going away on Sunday?"
"Clara!"
"Yes, Elise; it grieves me to the very heart that you have no
confidence in me. I am not such a child that I do not see and
understand a great deal more than you think I do. You might confide in
me."
"What could I confide in you, Clara?"
"You might have told me how much you cared for Herr von Ernau."
Elise blushed crimson and uttered another indignant "Clara!" but the
girl threw her arms around her, and, undeterred, continued, "Oh, your
blush betrays you! You need tell me nothing; I knew it all before. I
love you so much that I saw it in your dear, beautiful face,--in your
eyes. I knew it when you recognized him as he lay, pale and bleeding,
in the hall. I saw it in your happy look when Hugo told us that his
wound was not dangerous. And then I asked Hugo, and begged him to tell
me when he and you had known Herr von Ernau, and he told me all about
how he had been in disguise at Castle Osternau, and had given you
music-lessons. Oh, I know it all, and a great deal more!"
"Much more than it is right that you should," Elise said, gravely.
"No, just enough to let me show you that I am not such a child as you
think me, and that, at all events, I am old enough to have plans and
schemes of my own. I was very glad to go to Plagnitz to-day, and I
enjoyed my visit there very much."
"Clara, you did not forget----"
"No, you need not be anxious. I promised you that I would not even
mention your name, and I shall keep my promise, although I cannot see
why you made me give it. But I shall find some way to let Herr von
Ernau know that you are here without breaking my word. My mind is made
up, and I tell you so, because I never mean to deceive you."
"Clara, promise me, if you love me, to do nothing."
"Oh, it is just because I love you that I will make you no more
promises. I have learned wisdom."
From the manor-house came the clear tones of the bell ringing for the
evening meal.
"There goes the bell!" Clara exclaimed. "We must hurry to be in time. I
am glad we can stay here no longer, for I do not wish to say another
word. My mind is made up, and I feel much pleased with myself."
With a laugh she left the arbour and tripped along the path towards the
house. Elise slowly followed her; she needed a few moments of solitude
to evoke some order in the wild confusion of thought caused by Clara's
words. She trembled as she reflected upon the possibility of seeing
again him upon whom her mind had dwelt for four long years, and who had
occupied her thoughts ceaselessly during these last days and nights.
How she dreaded meeting him! and yet, in thinking of such a meeting, a
strange, sweet hope stirred within her which she herself refused to
recognize.