A SIEGESLIED
ALL the remaining force of winter had gathered itself together in the
snow-storm in which Miss Bradbury's party had left Crestville. When the
storm was over the sun came out with such warmth that the streets ran
in rivulets before the snow could be shoveled into carts, and people
paddled about in rubbers hardly high enough, but with furs swinging
well back on over-burdened shoulders.
Spring was anticipating the equinoxial date by nearly two weeks, and
more than the disturbance of spring unrest was in the air.
Miss Bradbury was eagerly pressing her claim to a home of her own,
a house which could be possible only as Mrs. Scollard consented to
share it with her, and which should take the place of Miss Keren's own
destroyed apartment and of the Patty-Pans.
"By and by Margery will be married," Miss Keren reminded her adopted
family. "When that day comes there won't be room in the Patty-Pans for
her to make the promises! And Happie must grow up into her own place
in the world, the place to which she was born. You can't entertain in
the Patty-Pans. I need you and you need me, Charlotte. I want you to
let me legally adopt Happie as my heir, and I want you to bring your
children into a house which shall be equally the home of us all. I
don't see how you _can_ hesitate! I could be happy as I never was in
all my life before. It has been my lifelong dream to share a home and
have a family--how _can_ you hesitate, Charlotte?"
But Mrs. Scollard hesitated. The advantages to her little brood were
so great in this arrangement, the consequences of the experiment's
ending badly, if thus it should end, would be so tragic, that she dared
not agree to the tempting proposal until she had weighed it long and
carefully.
While it pended, the unsettled feeling of spring made the Patty-Pans
its headquarters.
"I never felt so queer and upset in all my life!" Happie declared to
Gretta. "I feel as though I were a thin muslin gown hung out in a very
high wind by only one clothes pin--I can't tell what minute, nor where
I'm going to drop."
Gretta laughed. "As long as you see nothing but soft grass all around,
it doesn't matter much," she said.
There was no little excitement in the flat across the hall during these
days of untimely warmth. The Gordons had been to see Mrs. Jones-Dexter
by special invitation. Mrs. Gordon dreaded going on one ground, and
remembered the visit painfully on another. It had seemed formidable to
call on an aunt whom she had never known except by forbidding repute,
but it was almost worse to find that stern person crushed, pathetically
eager to make amends for the bitterness she had sown and fostered, and
to do for Ralph all that lay in her power. The boy stood to her less as
her grandnephew than as the legacy of little Serena, the "kind big boy"
in whose strong arms her frail life had ended.
Another visit had followed the first one, in which Mrs. Gordon and her
elder boy were bidden to meet Mrs. Jones-Dexter's lawyers, to receive
the principal which Mrs. Jones-Dexter had set aside for Serena's
maintenance. The interest of this money would enable Ralph to go
through college without a care as to his expenses, and next year he
would enter Columbia.
Ralph had been ready to face the self-denials, the effort of working
his way through the four years that lay ahead of him, but it was not
a little thing suddenly to be freed from this necessity. It meant a
great deal to the mother and to both boys, and the flat across from the
Patty-Pans was full of grateful excitement as the March days went by in
which these important happenings were perfecting.
Easter fell on an early date that year, and little Mrs. Stewart was
busy preparing for her spring exhibition. More than the languor of
spring was in the delicate little woman's eye and carriage. Lassitude
that was rather mental than bodily weariness was betrayed by her every
motion. She came oftener into the tea room in the morning and Margery
and she became great friends. The young girl's confident happiness
drew the older woman to her, and she won Margery to talk of her hopes
and plans. It was not hard for Margery to see that she listened to
them much as one reads and re-reads a poem that brings the tears which
comfort in their shedding.
Mrs. Stewart did not return Margery's confidences on her own young
romance by the story of her unhappy life, nor did she precisely
withhold such confidence. By a word here and there the girls learned
that the little dancing mistress with the lovely face and gracious
manners, was one of those pathetic creatures, a lady cut off from
her proper setting in life, deprived of the support that should have
been hers and without which she was peculiarly unfitted to exist.
Physically and instinctively Mrs. Stewart was ill-adapted to combat
the world. Margery knew without being told in so many words, that the
little dancing mistress' husband had been a German, an extraordinary
musician who had given up, for his art's sake, his family, which was
one among the lesser nobility of the Fatherland. But she knew also that
he had selfishly sacrificed to his music the frail American wife he had
married after coming to the United States, and that in some manner that
Margery did not understand, he had neglected her, been cruel to her,
and that his one child had died because the heart-broken mother could
not give him what he required.
Margery's heart went out to Mrs. Stewart more than ever when this story
had been learned piecemeal. She and Happie discussed it night after
night when they should have been asleep. Happie was enraged by it and
pointed out to Margery the dangers of marriage, but Margery wept over
it without so much indignation. She could not help pitying the man
who had been guilty of thus wronging such a lovable creature as Mrs.
Stewart. Both girls wondered, but never discovered, whether he were
alive or dead. Margery felt sure he must be dead, or he would have
returned, but Happie was equally certain that he was alive, basing her
opinion on the general feeling that an out-and-out wretch is likely to
be long for this world.
One thing was clear: if her husband had been a German Mrs. Stewart's
name could not be Stewart. What, then, was it? It was most interesting,
and rather exciting, to feel that they knew the heroine of a pathetic
story, a story that included an _incognita_ for its heroine!
In the meantime this heroine was preparing for the Eastertide
exhibition of her school. Little Serena's death cast a shade of
melancholy over the remaining weeks. Mistress and pupils alike, missed
and mourned the exquisite little child whose pretty ways had pervaded
every hour of the winter. Serena was to have danced the solo dance,
and now the honor was to be Penny's. Penny was beside herself with
delight. There hardly could have been a sharper contrast to ethereal
Serena than Penny was, Penny, all color and life and decision. She
danced well, with animation, gaiety, abandonment, to the pleasure of
the moment. Serena had danced like the milkweed silk to which Laura had
compared her, floatingly, dreamily, as if swayed by the breeze. Dear
little white Serena, who had floated away as softly as the milkweed
floats heavenward in the soft winds of September!
The tea room seemed to be more popular than it had been during the
winter, now that the warm days made people weary, ready to rest and to
sip tea on the slightest pretext. The girls were so much interested in
the preparations up-stairs that it was a trial to them to be kept from
slipping up to the rehearsals. Only Laura contrived to go, no matter
how busy they were in the tea room. It was Laura's way to do precisely
what she pleased, though the sky fell.
It was the Wednesday after Easter, and the exhibition was to be on
Friday afternoon. Polly and Penny were up-stairs with Mrs. Stewart,
having come down with the older girls that morning for the last
rehearsal of their dances. The tea room was unusually full for a
forenoon. Gretta and Happie were flying about, while Margery was
patiently discussing novels with a succession of people who wanted to
borrow--not merely a book from the shelves, but guidance from the Six
Maidens as to their choice. It was somewhat trying to be forced to meet
book talk so early in the morning, to match adjective with adjective,
and to respond interestedly to commonplaces. Margery acquitted herself
perfectly, but Happie caught her eye and nearly upset her with the
gleam in her own, as, passing, she heard a lady declare for modern
writers in preference to mid-Victorian novelists--"Thackeray and
Dickens were so tiresome!" she said.
Herr Lieder came in just then, and Happie surprised herself by hailing
him with sincere pleasure. He wore his great coat thrown far back
because of the heat, but he atoned for this by having his hat more than
ever drooping over his face. A look of gloom, beyond the ordinary, he
wore, and he went straight to the piano as if for that only he were
there.
Laura followed him, inevitably. He threw down hat and cloak tragically,
and seated himself without a morning salutation to his "little Clara
Schumann."
Bending over the keys he sat in silence for a few moments, then he
began to play Chopin's Marche Funèbre, played it as it is rarely
played, until the awful throbs of the first theme seemed to his hearers
like the suffocating beating of their own hearts.
As he ended his head fell forward again upon his breast, and Laura,
turning to him with her face as pale as emotion could make it, cried:
"Herr Lieder, Herr Lieder, don't play--like that!"
Hans Lieder glanced at her. "This is the third of April. Fourteen years
ago to-day my only child was born," he said.
"Is he dead?" Laura managed to ask.
"He is dead, through my own fault. Even Chopin could not express the
despair this day brings to me. I have no right to be here, but this
piano is so like my own, and I was so miserable that I rose up, and
came," said this strange man. His hands on the keys wandered into more
of Chopin's despairing music, and Laura did not venture to protest,
though it suffocated her with a sense of misery that she could not
understand.
Up-stairs little Mrs. Stewart was in despair of another sort. Again her
pianist had failed her. She knew no way out of her difficulty except
once more to appeal to Laura for help. She disliked to do this, knowing
that the little girl was needed in the tea room. Polly eagerly offered
her sister's aid, and volunteered to go down to fetch her, but Mrs.
Stewart said that if she must bother her dear little neighbors she
would go herself to explain matters, and so it came about that she went.
As she came lightly down the stairs the music of Herr Lieder's making
came towards her. At first she heard it indistinctly, but as she
proceeded it reached her ears plainly, and she stopped. Her hand
pressed her side and her lips parted.
"No one else ever played like that, played THAT like that!"
she murmured half aloud. With hardly a pause, as the Nocturne ended
Hans Lieder had passed into the Rondo of Beethoven's Sonata Pathétique.
The little dancing mistress groaned.
"Oh, I mustn't listen! It is the day that makes me imaginative. It is
the Herr Lieder of whom the children have told me! But I have never
been reminded of his playing before----" She shook herself together,
proceeded down the few remaining stairs, and went around to the rear
door that opened on the hall, entering the tea room by that way.
Her face was so ghastly white that Gretta, turning from the gas stove
on which she was making tea, set down the teapot she held and sprang
towards her.
"Mrs. Stewart! Are you sick?" she cried.
"No, not at all; only tired," replied Mrs. Stewart. "Gretta, are you
very busy here this morning? My pianist has not come, and I wanted to
beg Laura to take pity on me again. But if you can't spare her say so
honestly, and I'll slip back the way I came without speaking to Margery
or Hap---- Gretta, who is playing?"
She stopped herself so abruptly, turning, if possible, paler than
before as Herr Lieder drifted into a heart breaking little Russian
song, that Gretta was frightened.
"That is Herr Lieder, who plays for us sometimes, plays so
wonderfully," she said. "We are busy, Mrs. Stewart, but I am sure we
can get on very well without Laura. When Herr Lieder plays she is no
use anyway. Come through with me to the front, and speak to the girls."
Gretta led the way through "the portière that hung between the tea and
the room," as Happie had once said. She heard a sound like a sob that
was half a stifled cry, and turned to see Mrs. Stewart fallen back
against the wall, her hands clutching her throat, her wide eyes staring
at Herr Lieder with indescribable terror.
Gretta's little teapot fell to the floor with a crash as she sprang to
catch the swaying woman. But Mrs. Stewart was not swooning. She pushed
Gretta away with both hands as the girl came between her and the piano,
at which she still gazed with fixed, dilated eyes.
The breaking china and Gretta's exclamation as she turned back to Mrs.
Stewart, drew towards them every one's attention. Margery and Happie
hastened to Gretta's assistance and the ladies grouped about at the
different tables pushed back their chairs, or arose, ready to offer
help.
The stir reached Herr Lieder at the piano. He glanced over his shoulder
carelessly, not interested in tea room events. Margery was between him
and a clear sight of Mrs. Stewart, but as he turned away again Margery
moved to one side, and he hastily looked a second time at the little
dancing teacher standing motionless with her hands still clasping her
throat, her white face thrown into relief against the dark red curtain.
Herr Lieder leaped to his feet, overturning the piano stool. He,
too, stood motionless, staring at that white face which stared at
him. He began to shake in every muscle of his tall figure. Then one
long-fingered, thin hand reached out and clutched frightened Laura's
arm, though Herr Lieder's eyes did not waver from the eyes that held
them across the room. He twice tried to speak but failed. Then he
whispered hoarsely: "Wer ist--who is that?"
"Mrs. Stewart"--Laura had begun, when Mrs. Stewart sprang forward with
a cry that brought all to their feet and made them fall away to allow
her passage. "Gaspar!" she screamed, and fell fainting at the feet of
the mysterious Herr Lieder. The tall man stooped and tried to raise
her, but he was himself in too much need of support to accomplish it.
Gretta came to help him with her strong young arms, and several ladies
present, who were immensely excited at finding themselves witnesses to
a drama they did not understand, in turn helped Gretta, and between
them they got Mrs. Stewart into a great chair.
"Where am I to take her? We cannot stay here among so many," asked Herr
Lieder abruptly.
"Her own rooms are above this," said Happie. "But the children are
there for a rehearsal. I don't know----"
"She has her living rooms above that. Do you forget, Happie?"
suggested Margery. "We will carry her there. I will tell her pupils
that Mrs. Stewart has been suddenly taken ill, and dismiss them. Let us
get her up-stairs before she becomes conscious; it will be easier for
her. You are her husband, Herr Lieder?"
"You have guessed right, Miss Scollard. I am her husband who never
expected to see her face again--nor deserved to, nor deserved to! I
am Gaspar von Siegeslied." Herr Lieder turned away from Margery with
a groan, but he turned to little Mrs. Stewart as she lay unconscious
in the chair and took her up in his arms, the expression of his face
plainly declaring that if he had neither expected nor deserved to see
his wife again, he had hungrily longed to see her.
Margery and Gretta went with Herr Lieder--Herr von Siegeslied--to do
what they could for his wife, leaving Happie and Laura disturbed beyond
all possibility of tea room duties being properly attended to for the
rest of that morning.
It was more than an hour before Margery and Gretta came down. In
the meantime Polly and Penny had arrived, disappointed by Margery's
announcement that there was to be no rehearsal that day, and full of
eager questions as to Mrs. Stewart's sudden illness. "Because, Happie,
it really might make it seem as if the tea room had something unhealthy
in its tea," said Polly solemnly. "She came down here to get Laura to
play, and she was perfectly well. And then she came back too ill to
come back--I mean she had to send Margery to dismiss us. I hoped the
girls wouldn't think anything."
"I'll attend to that dark green lady," said Gretta when she and Margery
came back. "You let Margery tell you about it. It's more wonderful than
finding grandmother's will in the Bittenbender trunk! Polly will help
me. I suppose Laura will have to hear what Margery tells you."
"Come over in the corner, Hapsie and Laura," said Margery breathlessly.
"I must make it short, because there's so much to do here. Mrs.
Stewart--Mrs. von Siegeslied--is all right now; she won't be ill. Just
to think that this mysterious Hans Lieder has been coming and coming
here because that piano which Mrs. Stewart--his wife, I mean--left
here reminded him so much of his own! And it was his own! And he had
no idea what had become of her, and there she was right above his head
all this time! And to-day is their little boy's birthday, and she came
down--never came once before when he was here!--and they met. I never
can tell you just what happened when she came out of that swoon. It
was the loveliest, most painful scene--Gretta and I cried with them
both. But Herr Lieder is plainly as sorry as he can be for the wrong
he has done, and she is so glad to see him again that I don't believe
she knows he has ever done wrong--yes, she does! She knows it just
enough to rejoice more in his return! Women are like angels; they are
more glad of one sinner that repents than of ninety-nine who need no
repentance."
"Would you rather Robert were just reforming from something awful?"
inquired Happie.
"Girls like stainless heroes," retorted Margery with a tiny laugh.
"Wait till I'm a woman, Happie! No, I shall always be thankful for
Robert's goodness. But our dear little lady up-stairs is in ecstasy
at being able to forgive her husband, that's plain. Gretta and I felt
dreadfully at being present when Mrs. Stewart opened her eyes and
saw that her husband actually was there. She thought it could not be
true. But we need not have minded, for neither of them remembered us.
We sat and cried and held on to each other quite unnoticed. After a
while the two von Siegeslieds were able to talk rationally. Mr. von
Siegeslied told his wife that he had succeeded to the family estate
and title--he's a baron, it seems--because his elder brother was dead,
but that he had felt no desire to go to Germany. He had no heart,
he said, for life anywhere. But here where he had lost knowledge of
his wife, and where she must be, if she still lived, he would rather
linger. He had enough to maintain him, he said; his wants were few,
his tastes simple. But now that he had found her, he cried, he would
go back to Germany and live among his own people, resume his own name,
give her the place and the comforts that should have been hers. Then
he remembered us, and he turned to us with his face transfigured.
You never could imagine our mysterious and rather fearful Hans Lieder
looking like that! 'Margery!' he said. 'It has all come about through
your fortunate little tea room. There is no more a Hans Lieder to
play for you. In his stead behold the Herr Baron von Siegeslied. Is
it not suitable, little maid, that I should be resuming my own name
and that it means a _song of victory_? Soon there will be no Baron
von Siegeslied, either, to play for you, nor any longer your Mrs.
Stewart so bravely to fight her hard battle alone, teaching the little
ones on top of your heads.' He grew more German, Happie, as he grew
more excited. 'We are rich people now, little maid, and people of
consequence in the Fatherland. Will you allow us to wait on your mother
at your home to beg of her a great favor? I want her to lend me my
little Clara Schumann. She will trust her Laura to my wife, the best,
the saintliest, the sweetest of women! I want to take Laura with me to
Germany, into my own home, and I want to give her the musical education
that shall prepare her to use the talent God has given her."
Margery paused and looked at Laura who gazed at her blankly, silently
for a moment as if she could not understand. Then the color rushed to
her face and she began to tremble. "Me? Me to go to Germany? To study
music? He wants me?" she screamed.
"Hush-sh, sh!" whispered Margery laying her hand on Laura's arm to
quiet her, with her eyes on Happie's eyes questioningly. "Yes, dear, he
wants to take you away for a long, long time, to train you as he thinks
you should be trained. It is a serious proposition, but Mrs. Stew--von
Siegeslied is so lovely that perhaps mother will be willing. Isn't it
amazing, Happie? What do you say?"
Happy looked totally unable to say half she thought or felt. "I don't
believe Laura will ever be good for anything else," she said sincerely.
"And it is too good an offer to refuse--Mrs. Stewart being herself, and
a woman to whom mother would trust Laura."
"If I went," said Laura speaking rapidly and only half articulately in
her excitement, "I would do everything Mrs. von Siegeslied bade me, and
be far better than I was here to deserve it. Girls, you don't know what
it means! Don't let mamma say no! Beg for me to be allowed to go."