For a long while Kitty wandered aimlessly in the park, through its quiet
leafy alleys to its most secret recesses. She did not wish, in her
present agitated state, to meet the observant eyes of the dean's widow;
she knew the old lady would question her, and if she confessed the cause
of her distress she would probably learn that her old friend also
desired her marriage with the councillor. Upon this point every one was
against her, Flora, Henriette, the doctor. Egotism ruled each and all
of them, she now comprehended. But she would not be imprisoned in the
gilded cage; she would escape them all. Her thoughts were full of
bitterness as she paused, wearily, before the ruin, which she had
reached in her walk. The sun was low in the heavens; its declining rays
bathed in purple and gold the clouds, the dark forest of firs in the
distance, and the encircling water on either side of the hill. The
mound, crowned with the tower, stood out from the glittering background
like a monument of black marble, and the group of chestnuts in full leaf
showed like a many-pointed silhouette, through which gleamed here and
there the glow of colour in the western sky.
The young girl gazed moodily at the picture across the water. There,
where the heavy silken curtains fell like a dark crimson blood-stain
behind the huge panes of glass, stood the detested safe. Hitherto she
had feared it, but to-day she hated those four iron walls that had
thrust her own individuality aside to stand in the stead of a girl
filled with youthful hopes and desires and a profound longing for the
true happiness of life. When lovers sued for her hand, their tender
glances were for the monster that dogged her steps; they wooed the
heiress in her. This was the attraction for Councillor von Roemer; the
wealthy man wished to be still wealthier. Certainly no worm gnawing at
the core of a delicious fruit could be more pernicious than this
ever-recurring torturing thought which Flora had wantonly cast into the
virgin soil of her sister's mind.
And below, at the foot of the tower, yawned the dark cave where the rich
man's costly wines seethed and sparkled in flasks and casks. Only
lately the councillor had taken the Frau President and his three
sisters-in-law through the cellar. He had just increased the precious
stock, and it was all ranged carefully in the huge vaults that burrowed
deep into the hill on all sides of the tower.
The air was cool and dry below there; the tiled floor shone as if
polished; not a grain of dust, not a cobweb, could be seen upon the
stone ribs of the mighty arches, and the glasses on the shelves, the
green for hock, the clear for champagne, were bright as crystal; it was
easy to see that no more care was expended on the drawing-rooms than
upon these subterranean halls. And where the finest wine was stored,
where only a faint glimmer of daylight pierced the vaulted gloom, in the
very darkest corner, stood the two barrels of historic gunpowder, in
such complete preservation that Kitty had lately declared with a laugh
that she was sure they must be renewed from time to time, like the
famous ink-spot at the Wartburg. She never liked this corner; she could
not understand how the rich man could endure it night and day beneath
his feet; and when her fancy conjured up the ghostly ancestress of the
Von Baumgartens gliding hither and thither with her gleaming torch, she
shuddered with horror.
Her gaze wandered over the blackened pile; one single spark alighting
there below, and the old tower, built for eternity though it seemed,
would burst asunder, and everything of price or value that human hands
had there treasured up would be dispersed abroad in atoms; those iron
walls would be broken down, and the papers, to which clung the curses of
the poor, be scattered to the winds.
She shrank from the thought, and yet thus her own personality might be
delivered from the golden mask that excited the greed of the avaricious.
Horrified at the picture of destruction which her imagination had
conjured up, she had covered her eyes with her hands, and now, letting
them drop, she looked up with a deep-drawn sigh into the golden air
above the tower, where Henriette's doves were wheeling, while before the
window in the steep wall, that bore upon its top the last remnants of
the stately colonnade, hung the thrush's cage belonging to the
councillor's servant. Rosemary and marigolds were blooming upon the
window-sill, from which drooped a green curtain of wild hop-vines. The
little bird was singing at the top of his voice, incited thereto by the
flapping of the doves' wings, while the deer had come noiselessly down
the grassy incline and were gazing across the water at the tall, slender
mortal whose fancies had been so terrible, so full of despair.
The deer and the doves knew her well,--the young girl used often to feed
them with crumbs and biscuit; but to-day she only took a silent leave of
them, although the doves were alighting on the grass on the other side
of the bridge, and the boldest of them were venturing across it, looking
for the accustomed food. Kitty walked along the bank of the stream, and
soon heard the merry voices of children mingling with the murmur of its
waters. The Frau Dean's little pupils were still at play in the garden,
and in spite of the girl's depression of spirits, in spite of her mental
suffering, the source of which she hardly understood herself, the sound
brought a sensation of pleasure to her soul. Those little creatures,
with their innocent eyes and happy hearts, did not love her as the
heiress; they did not even know of the existence of the iron safe; they
took gratefully their simple evening meal, and hardly asked whence it
came. To them she was the dear "Fraeulein Kitty," whose words of praise
they strove to win, to whose ear they confided the troubled confession
of childish wrong committed or childish injustice endured. Here at
least she was loved,--honestly loved for herself alone.
She hastened her steps; the nearer she drew to the house the more it
seemed to her that she was returning to her true home. The maid
appeared between the two poplars that stood on either side of the
bridge, and walked, basket on arm, towards the town to make her evening
purchases. She, too, was a faithful creature, whose services were not
all rendered merely for the sake of money; her good-natured, honest face
seemed to belong of right to the household in the modest house by the
river.
As Kitty crossed the bridge the children were not in sight: they were
playing behind the house; the watch-dog greeted her with a lazy flap of
his tail as he lay at the door of his kennel. He had long been her good
friend, and his character had undergone such a change for the better
that the yellow hen was allowed to parade the green within an inch of
his nose without molestation.
The house-door stood wide open, and, as the maid was absent, the dean's
widow was probably within. Kitty was just ascending the steps, when she
heard the doctor speaking in the hall. She stood as if rooted to the
spot.
"No, aunt; the noise wearies me. I have this constant trouble in my
head," he said. "If I have a moment to spend in this green retreat, I
wish to rest. I need rest,--rest!" Was that voice, trembling with
nervous impatience and suppressed pain, really his? "I know, aunt, that
what I ask of you is a sacrifice, but nevertheless I implore you to
suspend your classes during the few months of my remaining here. I will
gladly hire a room in town and engage a teacher for the time, so that
your pupils may not lose anything----"
"Oh, my dear Leo, you know you have only to speak the word," his aunt
interrupted him. "How could I suspect that my classes had suddenly
grown so wearisome to you? You shall never hear another sound from
them,--I will take care of that. I am sorry only on one
account,--Kitty----"
"Always that girl!" the doctor exclaimed, as if his aunt's gentle
mention of that name had destroyed the last remnant of his patience and
self-control. "You never think of me."
"Dear Leo, what do you mean? I verily believe you are jealous of your
old aunt's affection," the old lady said, in surprise.
He did not reply; the girl outside heard him advance to wards the
hall-door.
"My poor Kitty! It is impossible that her noiseless beneficence, her
kindly presence, should be disagreeable to any man on earth," his aunt
said, following him. "I have never seen a girl who combined such
childlike innocence with so much womanly dignity, such keenness of
intellect with such kindness of heart. I am irresistibly attracted by
her; and I cannot believe that my Leo can be so unjust as to deny merit
to any woman save to the one whom he adores as his future wife."
Kitty started; the doctor burst into a laugh, so bitter, so loud, that
she recoiled in terror. Involuntarily she turned to flee; no, she would
remain,--she was the cause of that scornful laugh,--she would hear how
the doctor would refute his aunt's good opinion of her, undeserved
though it were.
"You are wont to be keen-sighted, aunt, but here you fail lamentably,"
he said, pausing suddenly in his inharmonious laughter. "Let it go! I
shall not dispute what you say; why should I? I have but one request to
make of you: that until my departure we may be together as we have been
hitherto,--_alone_. You used to be content without other society than
mine; try to be so again during the few months of my stay here. I do
not wish to have any one coming and going."
"Not even Kitty?"
A sound as of an impatient stamp of the foot upon the sanded tiles of
the hall-floor reached the young girl's ears. "Good heavens, aunt, will
you force me to----" he exclaimed, angrily: the voice was hardly to be
recognized as his.
"God forbid, Leo! everything shall be as you wish," the old lady
interrupted him, terrified, and yet attempting no concealment of her
regret. "I will do all that I can to banish her as kindly as possible,
that she may not suffer more than is necessary. But how agitated you
are, Leo, and how your hand burns! You are ill. You are wearing
yourself out for your patients. At least you shall have repose here in
your own home rely upon it! Let me mix you a glass of lemonade."
He thanked her, but refused the proffered kindness. Kitty heard the
aunt go towards the kitchen, probably to arrange the evening meal, and
immediately afterwards the doctor appeared at the hall-door.