In the afternoon the tempest which flying reports had presaged, as
sea-mews announce the coming storm, broke over the house. The legal
authorities had been expected since the early morning, and yet when they
made their appearance it was like an electric shock. They came too soon
for every one. The servants were engaged in moving the Frau President's
old-fashioned mahogany furniture, with its dusty and torn coverings,
from the garrets down into the hall; Flora's trunks were still awaiting
the tardy express-wagon; the cellars were still filled with the wine
that there had been no time to remove.
The Frau President proudly retired to her bedroom, refusing to see the
gentlemen; but, although they were perfectly respectful in demeanour,
they could not regard her nerves, but were obliged to ask if the
furniture of the room belonged to her, and, when answered in the
negative, to request her to remove to an adjoining empty cabinet, since
the room must be officially sealed up. In this small apartment the old
furniture was placed, the bed aired, and covered with the faded brown
silk coverlet which the Frau President had not seen for years, and which
caused her a shudder of disgust. Her maid arranged everything as
comfortably as possible, putting flowers upon the little mahogany table,
and bringing from the bedroom many a trifle that her spoiled mistress
had been accustomed to use; but the old lady never noticed the pains she
was taking: she sat by the window gazing towards the pavilion, the new
roof of which was just visible among the trees.
This dreaded and detested "dower-house" had grown into a fairy
habitation. Rich curtains hung at the windows; everything shone in
newness and beauty,--the smooth floors, the elegant furniture, the
frescoes, the chandeliers; even the kitchen was thoroughly fitted up,
down to the commonest iron spoon. This "bijou" was to have been hers as
long as she lived, and she had scorned it for fear lest it might exile
her from the society wont to gather at the councillor's. And now--and
now!
Meanwhile, Flora was contending for her possessions; but all her
arguments, even her appeal to the testimony of the servants, were in
vain. "Fraeulein Mangold," the officials courteously persisted, "might
reclaim her own afterwards, but at present everything must be placed
under seal." And for hours there was a passing to and fro, up and down
stairs. All the plants adorning the house were placed in the
conservatories, one key after another was turned in the lock, and every
open window was closed. It was dreary to mark the silence and darkness
that settled down wherever the officials had finished their work.
Amidst it all the servants grumbled openly about the wages due them; but
each one made ready to leave the house, where every comfort lay behind
lock and key, and where the flesh-pots no longer simmered on the fire.
The gardener alone remained, and was lodged in the servants' hall.
While this confusion reigned, the soul of the sick girl above-stairs
unfolded its wings to leave, calmly and peacefully, after the conflict
of years, the worn and weary body.
Henriette's room was unvisited by the officials; everything about the
dying girl was her own. Great pains were taken to avoid even a loud
footfall on the third floor, and nothing approached the parting soul
that could startle or annoy it. She looked through her window into the
rosy heavens; she watched the swallows, their white breasts and wings
looking like silver crosses floating among the pink evening clouds. On
the previous day, thin wreaths of vapour had still floated above the
ruin, and distant noises had troubled the sick girl's mind, causing it
to dwell painfully upon the terrible spot where the crashing walls had
buried beneath their fragments the "rash man" to whom, with all his
weaknesses, she had clung in sisterly affection. But at this solemn
evening hour, at the close of the day and of a brief mortal existence,
there was nothing to remind one of previous horrors.
The doctor sat by Henriette's bedside. He saw how the rapid finger of
death emphasized and sharpened each outline of the face, still informed
for a brief space of time with consciousness. The ebbing stream of life
moved her pulses in faint isolated throbs, like retreating waves
returning now and then to plash once more upon a deserted shore.
"Flora!" the dying girl whispered, with a speaking glance.
"Do you wish to see her?" he asked, making ready to go for her.
Henriette faintly shook her head. "You will not be vexed that I wish to
be alone with you and Kitty until----" She did not finish the sentence,
but plucked at the fading crimson vine-leaves upon the coverlet. "I
will spare her, and she will be grateful,"--there was a faint shade of
irony in her smile,--"she detests touching scenes. You will take her my
farewell, Leo."
The doctor silently inclined his head. By his side stood Kitty. Her
heart beat fast; her dying sister had no suspicion that the relations
upon which her mind was dwelling no longer existed. Should she learn
the truth? She glanced anxiously at the doctor's face: it was grave and
composed; no sudden and unexpected announcement should disturb the peace
of the departing soul, and for preparation there was no time.
Henriette's eyes wandered to the evening sky. "How exquisitely clear
and rosy! It must be a heavenly delight for the freed soul to bathe in
such splendour!" she whispered, fervently. "Will it ever be allowed to
look back here? I only want to look once, to see"--she turned her head
on the pillow with difficulty, and gazed, with eyes glowing for the
first time with unutterable love, full at Bruck--"if you are happy, Leo.
Then I care not how distant are the starry worlds to which I may be
borne." Even in this her last hour the poor girl could not bring
herself to say, "I must know you happy, or I shall not be content, for I
have loved you intensely with every fibre of my heart."
A transfiguring glow seemed to illumine the doctor's bowed head. "All
is well with me, Henriette," he said, with emotion. "I dare to hope
that I shall not pass a lonely and embittered life; nay, better still, I
know that even at the eleventh hour my dream of the true happiness of
existence will be fulfilled. Does that content you, my sister?" He
pressed his lips upon the small hand that was growing cold in his own.
"I thank you from my soul," he added.
A blush, faint and rosy as the evening sky, came and went upon the cheek
of the dying girl; her timid glance involuntarily sought her sister,
who, her hand leaning upon Bruck's chair, was evidently struggling to
control her grief. At sight of her Henriette's heart melted in pity and
sympathy.
"Look at my Kitty, Leo!" she said, imploringly, in a failing voice.
"Let me tell you of what has so often distressed and pained me. You
have always been so cold to her,--once harsh even to cruelty,--and yet
there is none to be compared to her. Leo, I have never understood your
prejudice against her. Be kind to her--befriend her----"
"To my latest breath! while life lasts!" he interrupted her, scarce able
to master his emotion.
"Then all is well! I know you will take care of her,--and my strong,
brave darling will stand between you and all annoyance----"
"Like a faithful sister, which from this moment I am," Kitty completed
the sentence, in a choking voice.
An ecstatic smile hovered about Henriette's mouth. She closed her eyes,
and did not see the shudder that shook her strong sister's frame as the
doctor held out his hand to her and she rejected it as if she had no
right to its mute pressure. The smile faded, and the dying girl
struggled for breath. "Say farewell to grandmamma. Now I would
rest,--ah, give me rest, Leo, I entreat!" she gasped.
"In ten minutes you will fall asleep, Henriette," he said, in a low,
soothing tone. He laid her hand upon the coverlet, and softly put his
arm beneath the pillow supporting her head; she lay like a child upon
his breast,--a happy death!
And before the ten minutes were passed she slept. The fluttering
vine-leaves at the window stirred, as if lightly touched, and the rosy
light in the sky, in which the parting soul had longed to bathe,
suddenly glowed to deepest crimson. The little tame bird perched upon
the window-sill as usual at sunset,--his soft twitter towards the waxen
face upon the pillow was heard for the last time,--and then these
windows also were closed, not to be opened until the councillor's house
had passed into stranger hands.
The Frau President came up to the room, bowed as with a sudden added
weight of the age she had so steadily tried to ignore. The white cloud
of tulle once more enveloped cheek and chin: no mourning should be worn
for a scoundrel, she said. She went to the bedside, and a spasm passed
over her features as she gazed upon the calm countenance of the dead.
"She is happy," she said, in a broken voice. "She has chosen the better
part,--she need not go into exile,--she is spared the bitter, bitter
struggle with poverty."
But Flora came and went without a word. She took no note of the two
faithful guardians at the bedside. She kissed her dead sister upon the
brow, and then walked with head erect to the door by which she had
entered. She paused, it is true, upon the threshold, but she never
turned either her eyes or her head towards where the doctor stood and
gravely delivered to her her sister's last message. She bent her head
almost imperceptibly in token that she heard what was said, and then
rustled down the stairs, to put on her bonnet and go to the nearest
hotel, where she had engaged lodgings for herself and her grandmother.
No one, not even the dead, was permitted to pass another night beneath
the criminal's roof.
And when, after nightfall, Henriette's form had been borne away to the
hall, where all, clad for the grave and heaped with flowers, await the
opening of their latest earthly portal, the last room on the third floor
was closed and locked, and the doctor and Kitty descended the stairs
together. Their steps echoed drearily through the silent, deserted
house. The lantern carried before them by the gardener shed abroad a
ghostly light over the lonely walls and passages, where so lately the
stream of life had flowed in luxurious evidence of what was after all
but a false, fleeting show of wealth.
The soft night air, as they walked along, was as balm to Kitty's burning
eyes. A clear, starry sky canopied the silent park, the single groups
of trees could be distinguished, and the mirror of the pond gleamed like
dull silver through a misty veil. The gravel crunched beneath their
tread, and from afar was heard the water of the weir, but not a leaf or
a twig stirred,--it was as quiet as it had been for hours in Henriette's
room. And therefore Kitty started in terror when the doctor's full deep
voice broke the silence. They had reached the leafy entrance of the
avenue, and he paused.
"I leave the capital in a few days, and I fear that, until then, you
will neither visit my aunt nor allow me to come to the mill," he said,
with both sorrow and eagerness in his tone. "I tell myself also that we
are walking together for the last time,--that is, for the present----"
"Forever!" she interrupted him, sadly but firmly.
"No, Kitty!" he said, as firmly. "It would be a separation forever if
your words spoken a few hours since could not be gainsaid. I do not
want a _sister_. Do you think a man can content himself with sisterly
letters when he is thirsting for loving words from beloved lips? But
no,--I did not mean to speak thus to-day. Only selfishness could betray
me into such entreaties while you are suffering as at present. One thing
I must say to you, however. This afternoon you had an interview which,
when I met you, had agitated you profoundly. You had been told what has
happened, and of course the whole odium that always attaches to the
sudden rupture of an engagement had been thrown upon me,--I saw that in
your face; and afterwards, when for love of Henriette you promised to be
a _sister_ to me, I _heard_ the power that evil whispers had gained over
you,--thank God, not for always! I know--I know that your clear, just
insight may be dimmed for a while; but this cannot last. Kitty, on that
terrible afternoon I was in my garden, and saw how, on the opposite
river-bank, a girl leaned her brow against a tree and wept bitterly."
Kitty turned as if to flee down the avenue, but Bruck had taken her hand
and held it in a firm grasp. "I saw before me the girl whom I was
longing to clasp in my arms. I had just been victorious in the last of
those self-conflicts from which I had suffered for months; victorious,
because I had liberated myself from false views of life and had admitted
that I should be a perjured traitor if I contracted a hated marriage
while my whole being was filled with an invincible passion. There stood
the one who was dearer to me than all else beside, and my heart leaped,
for her streaming eyes did not look towards my aunt's windows, but----"
He paused, and pressed the hand which he held to his lips, while she
leaned against the trunk of a linden, incapable of uttering a word.
"I cannot blame her who was to have been my wife; that matters have been
allowed to go so far is my fault,--mine only. I was weak enough, for
dread of what the world might say, to continue our engagement after I
had discovered, with shame and anguish, that I had been attracted by a
beautiful exterior animated by no qualities of mind or heart that did
not crumble to insignificance if subjected to the slightest test. This
discovery I made in the first weeks of our betrothal."
He was wrong; the qualities enshrined within that lovely form were not
insignificant. Flora's was a nature incredibly malicious. She had
known then of Bruck's love for her sister, of course from his own
confession. What a contemptible plot! Her victim had the ring in her
possession; she had bought it with a price; her word was pledged even
though Bruck should woo herself. The young girl's eyes wandered in
despair to the starry heavens. She knew that Flora would never release
her from her promise although she should implore her on her knees.
There would be no need even of Flora's eloquence to convince the world
that she was betrayed and deceived, the dupe of her younger sister, who
had lured her lover from her. That this was the colour she would give to
what had taken place was clear as the stars above. How they sparkled,
those shining worlds! To which of those golden orbs had the spirit of
her sister been borne upon the rosy evening air? Could she look back to
see how the happiness of the man whom she had loved would be wrecked?
"You do not speak, Kitty. Your silence rebukes me; I ought not to have
spoken to-day," he began again. "I will not press you further. I do
not ignore the fact that my desires will arouse a conflict within you:
you were not else the strictly just and honourable girl that you are;
but I know also that I shall attain the goal I so long for without
stormy arguments and entreaties. I will leave you time for
consideration and recovery from the grief that now fills your soul and
colours every thought and feeling. I go without the assurance that
alone can give me peace, but--I shall come again. And now we will go on
to the mill. Take my arm in full confidence that no brother could care
for you with less thought of self than fills my soul at this moment.
You might with equal tranquillity put yourself in charge of my aunt and
myself when we set out on our way to L----."
"I shall not return to Saxony," she said. She had placed her hand
within his arm, and they walked slowly along the avenue. The girl's
limbs seemed possessed with a mortal torpor that clutched at her
throbbing heart and deadened the voice that came so hard and cold from
her lips. "I found when I was last in Dresden that in my present state
of mind there is no help for me in incessant study or the performance of
my trifling household duties. I must have some occupation requiring
sustained absorbing labour day after day. Until a few days ago I
hesitated to express this need; I knew my first hint at such a thing
would arouse a storm of expostulation from my guardian. The heiress's
duty was all marked out for her, and consisted in spending her income as
brilliantly as possible. All that is past. The dreaded safe is no
longer in existence, or rather its paper contents were worthless before
it was destroyed. This I have been quite sure of, since Nanni whispered
to me this afternoon that everything was being sealed up. I am right,
my hundreds of thousands have vanished, have they not?"
"I hardly think anything can be saved----"
"But I still have my mill, and there I will stay. I shall, perhaps, lay
myself open to your serious disapproval when I tell you that from this
time I wish to attend to my affairs myself. It savours, perhaps, of
'women's rights' for a young girl to undertake the management of
business affairs and represent a firm in her own person."
"I am not so prejudiced; I advocate warmly such independence upon a
woman's part, and I know that you, with your force and energy, would do
well; but it is not your vocation, Kitty. Your place is at the head of
a happy home, not standing day after day reckoning up columns of figures
at a desk in a counting-room. Do not begin it! For at some future day
you will be carried off without a question as to the debit and credit in
your books, and terrible confusion might be the consequence."
If the light of the stars could only have illuminated the dark avenue,
the speaker would never have allowed the girl at his side to leave him,
so hopeless a despair was painted on her face; he would have taken her
in charge then and there, and wrung from her the thoughts that were
torturing her. But the darkness covered the terrible struggle that was
going on beside him, betrayed by no word or sign, not even a sigh, and
he ascribed the depression and discouragement which had made her voice
so dull and monotonous to the misery of the parting scene she had gone
through with her dead sister.
Now and then a pebble rattled from beneath their feet on the gravelled
road, and the rushing of the waters of the stream sounded loud and near
in the silence that followed the doctor's last words. The lindens of
the avenue retreated; the heavens stretched broadly above, and standing
clear against their sparkling depths were the two slim poplars that
flanked the wooden bridge.
At sight of them the doctor involuntarily pressed the girl's arm closer
to his side. "There, Kitty," he whispered; "there you used to look for
the first violets. I promised you you should do so in future, and I can
keep my word: I shall always spend my Easter holidays here."
Kitty pressed her clenched hand to her breast; she thought the violent
throbbing of her heart would suffocate her; and yet she asked, quietly,
"Will your aunt accompany you to L----?"
"Yes; she will undertake the care of my household so long as I am alone.
She sacrifices much to do so, and will be thankful to shake the dust of
the large city from her feet and return hither to her green country
home. I know that the brave, true heart for which I sue will not delay
her release too long," he added, in a tone of tender entreaty.
A light appeared twinkling from the mill window. Franz the miller had
been buried this afternoon, leaving behind him a widow and three
children. The roof that still sheltered them did not belong to them,
and the miller's small savings were not sufficient for their support.
Susy had been to the villa for a few moments to look after her mistress,
and had described to Kitty the despair of the poor wretches, and mourned
over "the topsy-turvy state of the business without any master."
The bow-window of the room in the lower story looking towards the park
was dark. The outline of the mill buildings rose black and shapeless
against the sky,--it all seemed lonely and deserted; the bark of the
watch-dog, who resented the approaching footsteps, sounded lost as in
some endless desert. The wheels were silent, and the huge room was so
empty and echoing that one might have fancied that, since the strong
human hand so lately working here had stiffened in death, each friendly
busy elf had pulled his cap over his peevish face and slipped away.
The doctor drew the young girl towards him before he opened the gate.
"I seem to be leading you into exile," he said, anxiously. "You ought
not to give me the pain of knowing you alone after this sad and weary
day. Come with me; my aunt will be only too happy to receive and take
care of you."
"No, no!" she said, hurriedly. "Do not think that I shall resign myself
to a passion of useless grief when I am alone. I have no time for it,
and I shall not do so. I must," and she pointed to the bow-window,
where the dim light of a lamp began to shine behind the chintz curtain,
"play the part of comforter there. Those four poor people are dependent
upon my energy and assistance."
"Dear, dear Kitty!" he said, clasping her right hand in both his own and
pressing it to his breast. "Go then in God's name! I should hold it a
crime to place one stone in the hard but sure path you have chosen
through your present suffering. Only remember that you are not yet quite
recovered. Do not make too great a demand upon your strength; and wear
the bandage upon your forehead for a few days longer. And now farewell:
at Easter, when the last wintry mist has flown, when the ice and snow
are thawed, when human hearts throb joyously,--at Easter I shall return.
Until then, think of one whose every thought is yours, and do not let
slander or mistrust come between us!"
"Never!" This one word came almost like a groan from her lips. She
withdrew the hand he pressed to his lips, and the gate in the wall
clanged to behind her. She took no step forward; leaning against the
cold damp wall, her face buried in her hands, she listened breathlessly
to his departing footsteps. What was death in comparison with the
tortures of this wildly-beating heart condemned to live? She listened
until the soft night air, brushing her cheek, brought no sound upon its
wings, and then, with tearless, weary eyes, she passed on into the
house, to enter upon her mission of comforter and protector.
Three days later, immediately after Henriette's burial, Doctor Bruck and
his aunt left the capital. Kitty had not seen the doctor again, but his
aunt had repeatedly passed an hour with her. The same day Flora left
also, accompanied by the Frau President. The old lady was to visit the
baths; and Flora went to Zuerich, where, report said, she was to devote
herself for a time to the study of medicine.