"I HAVE LIVED AND LOVED."
"SO we will hang up the Polichinello that thy dear father sent thee from
afar, little Loisl; for who knows but thou and Heinrich, and I, thy
mother, may see him yet before the eve of Christmas, and while the snow
is on the ground. We will keep the tree here, near the window, and
should he come not, we will light it afresh every night that it may
shine a welcome to the dear father, and keep our hearts alive with
hope."
This is what I heard my dear mistress say when it wanted yet a week to
Christmas in the year 1871, and the master, her husband, was still there
with the Crown Prince before Paris along with his regiment. He was
ober-lieutenant, one of many going to fight against France, and ever
since the beginning, till after Sedan, after Domremy, after Metz, had
been with his men in the camp, and wherever there was much danger always
in the front. It was wonder to me how I had come to learn all about the
war and the campaign, but girl as I was (Lisba is but a child even now,
my dear mistress would say), I also had one dear to me--with the Red
Prince and the army before Orleans.
Herr postmaster Schwartz--ah! he came to talk to my mistress and to
bring letters to her from her brave husband, and I was sewing, or busy
in the room, and heard all--as he would stay in the kitchen on his way
out and tell us all about it--Bertha and me; and once he handed me a
letter.
Oh! how my hand trembled as I took it; how the Herr postmaster looked at
me through his horn spectacles and watched me, for he knew the writing!
it was his son's, the writing of Franz. And I felt the blood rush up hot
to my face, and the tears blind me as I placed in my bodice the little
letter that I dare not open while there were questioning eyes to ask:
"What is he to thee, Lisba, and what says he?"
Bertha knew. Bertha was yet more of a child than I, for she was two
years younger, but old was she in sentiment, and too often we would talk
together far into the night, but in whispers lest we should wake the
little ones, for Bertha slept next the great nursery, where our mistress
had also made her bed, and I would steal into her room to pore over the
map that the Herr postmaster had drawn with his pencil in the kitchen to
show where our armies had been, and where the cruel battles were fought.
In Alsace and to Lorraine, by Neiderbronn, at Weissenburg, at Woerth,
at Saarbruck, at Metz, at Sedan, "where," said Herr postmaster, "we have
received the sword of the Emperor Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, who is now
our prisoner in the Palace of the Habichtswald."
Then--ah! me, to think that they should be taken to the end of the
world--right into France, to Donchery, to Chalons. As near as
Strasbourg, as far as Rheims, and then on to Paris--or near it--at the
place called Nogent-sur-Marne; that is where our dear master, the
ober-lieutenant, was with the army of the Crown Prince; and we grieved
and waited, for he had had a wound, we heard, though now he was healed.
And the fighting went on, though hundreds of our brave men of the
troops--the landwehr, the reserve--were hurt, or maimed, or killed. And
many women wept over their knitting or their spinning; and the coming of
the holy Christmas time brought not peace, though the Herr postmaster
said the hungry war was now nearly over, but its jaws were not yet done
clinking, and would yet gnash many to death.
Franz! ah! he was with the Red Prince at Orleans, where they had fought
the French army of the Loire. Nor did Franz go alone, for there went
with him his best friend, his dutz brueder, Hofer, from Esmansdorff,
whither Franz had gone three years before to follow his trade of
cask-cooper and wheelwright, and there met Hofer, whose family were of
the Tyrolese Protestants that came from Zitterthal to find a refuge in
our land.
He came to Saueichenwald, to our village, this Hofer--a dark
well-looking man--not fair like Franz, nor with his broad chest and
clear blue eyes--but tall and quick, with crisp curling hair, and long
fingers. I have told him that he had hawk's eyes, for he could see the
birds on the trees, and if he had pleased, could have shot them with his
rifle, so far was his sight, so true his aim; but he hated to kill or
hurt any living thing, and loved best to play the fiddle when he was not
at work in his tan-yard. Yet now, he too was gone to the war, and was in
the midst of the slaying and burning. When first he came home with Franz
to Saueichenwald, I was afraid, for though I loved him not, but loved
Franz only, his eyes were ever fixed on me, and he came often to the
homestead; even when Franz came not he would be there in the yellow
sunshine of the autumn evening by the gate that led to the apple
orchard, or at the wicket, where Bertha and I used to stand after coming
from the dairy or the hen-house; nor was he unwelcome to the master, who
wondered at his shooting and leaping with a pole; nor to the dear
mistress, for whom he brought a work-box, all of beautifully carved
wood; nor to the little ones, Loisl and Heinrich, to whom he played the
fiddle, and whom he taught to dance or showed how the chamois is
hunted.
Often when I have stood with Bertha--for we always went together--at the
gate, he would come with his keen bright laugh and hawk's eyes, and leap
the wall that inclosed the dairy yard. Franz, too, had noticed how he
sought us, and one red evening when we were crossing the orchard, and
Hofer walked between us with an arm about each, Franz came in by the old
path from the wood on the other side, and stood there looking still and
grieved. Laughing ever, Hofer carried us both in to where Franz stood,
and with his long arms still about us caught him with a hand on each
wrist, and so stood we, two girls in the midst of two men's encircling
arms.
"Hof, is it that thou lov'st Lisba?" said Frank sternly; "if so, thou
doest not well."
"I both love her and do well, my brother," replied Hofer. "I love her
because I love thee, and in mine eyes she is thy wife. See thou then,"
and he held up his long right hand, "I am no brawler; but he who would
do her ill or move his tongue against her would have to reckon with me
as much as with thee, for she is thine and I am thine too, as thou art
mine, or what means the dagger scar in our arms that we both know of?"
Then taking me by the hand he leads me to Franz and kisses me gently on
the forehead, and even while I am putting the face of Franz from mine I
see that Hofer has stooped to kiss the poor child Bertha also, whose
hand is in his, but whose face is bowed down and red as the wild berry.
If I am a child, as my dear mistress says, then is Bertha but an infant,
and cannot know of love that should turn her cheek to flame and bring
bright tears into her eyes.
Ah me!--that evening--how we stood and watched the sun go down till the
night came, and with a dark blue shutter left only a long crevice where
the fire shone through; how we wandered back hand in hand, and parted
with a hasty "good-night" when we heard the church clock chime; and that
is not long ago, though it seems to have gone so far back; for next day
came the tidings of a levy for the army--men were wanted. Not one by
one, but altogether, the young and then the middle-aged were called out
to fight in France or to guard the frontier, and we--we were left (the
dear mistress said "we")--to wait and weep, and with only the Herr
postmaster, the father of Franz, to bring us news, and read to us the
stories of the battles, and bring to the dear mistress her letters. For
I had one letter and no more; and that told me that Franz and Hofer had
met in the same army of the Red Prince and were comrades, but not in the
same corps; but that once they came near together on the field, and in
the thick of the fight Franz had struck down a man's arm uplifted to
kill his brother.
It is easy to see how I came to learn so much of the war, and of the
places where it raged, for old Schwartz was proud of his knowledge, and
read to us and drew maps, and we had nothing else to talk about. The
village was very still, and people from the nearest town talked only of
the war and of those who had left them. Ours is a quiet place with
romantic scenes around it, and but just beyond the shadow of the giant
mountain Riesengebirge. We can see the blue profile of the Schneekoppe;
and there are those--the old ones--who still talk of the legends of
Rubezahl, the counter of turnips (the mountain spirit), who took all
kinds of disguises to punish avarice and cruelty, and to reward honesty
and help the poor. Among the poor went our dear mistress now, or they
came to her for sympathy; she who, like themselves, like all of us,
except brotherless young ones such as Bertha, grieved for a lover, or a
husband, or a brother, gone to the war. It was not likely to be a merry
Christmastide in Germanland, except that the news of victory, or of
fortresses taken, came and stirred the slow blood of the people who were
left. But we longed and prayed for peace--we women did at all
events--and with some there was scarcely heart to trim and deck the
Christmas-tree; to tell the children to prepare for the visit of the
Christ Kindlein on Christmas Eve, who would bring good gifts to the
good, but would leave the naughty to Pelsnichol to come and whip them
with his great birch. In some villages like ours an old man disguised
with a long beard and gown, and a great bag, would go about at
Christmastide to the houses where the people had expected him, and would
carry the gifts to the children, and would show others who were naughty
the birch, and give them nothing. But we had no Pelsnichol at our house,
only sweet talk about the child Christ, and the gifts of the wise men,
and of the love that should be among little ones--the love and the
heart-giving.
So the tree was decked, and placed in the window ready to light on
Christmas Eve, in the hope that it might be a sign of love and welcome.
And we were on the watch all day, and every night Bertha would go out
and sit upon the wall, looking out towards the road to the town, until
the light was no more seen in the belfry of the church, and the clock
chimed supper-time. I told not our dear mistress of this, for was it not
for Franz and the dear master that the child kept watch?--but I went not
myself to that outlook, though my heart stood still every time Bertha
returned, with her head bent down, and had seen no one coming. She had a
presentiment or fancy, she said, that the wanderer would return after
nightfall. I knew not,--I began to tell lies to myself that I cared
not,--and for this reason; I had long feared that the Herr postmaster
liked not me to be loved by his son; for behold he was postmaster, and
had been a builder of organs, and the dear master was godfather to
Franz, while I--well, I had nothing, but the dear mistress was my
godmother, and my father had been pastor of a village, and had taught me
some things before he died.
We are now but a few days to Christmas, when one night the old man comes
in with a letter for the dear mistress, at which she first sobs and
turns white, and then laughs and turns red. The dear master is wounded,
but is at the frontier, whither he had been sent, staying till he is
strong enough to come home; "but there," he writes, "I have had the luck
to fall into the hands of a good nurse, an old acquaintance, who will
bring me home."
"Ah! ha! that he could already come home," sighs the mistress.
"Loisl--Heinrich, thy dear father may yet be here before the tree is
lighted; and brings with him a nurse--who can she be, think'st thou,
Lisba?"
"I know not, unless it be one of the deaconesses who go to the
hospitals; but is it not possible, dear lady, that it is a comrade, a
surgeon of the army, an ambulance officer?"
"It is Hofer," cried Bertha, who was standing at the door of the big
kitchen, where we were listening to such parts of the letter as the
mistress pleased to read to us.
"Hofer! the lass has gone silly!" cries the Herr postmaster. "Hofer and
Franz are fighting with the army of the Loire, as the French call it,
and are who knows where. I have a letter here that reached me
yesterday, written some days ago, where Franz says--let me read it:"
(Here the old man pulls on his horn spectacles and opens a thin sheet of
paper.)
"Franz says:--'We are in quarters here at a tavern, but it has few
customers, and we are obliged to seek for what we need. It is, in fact,
almost an empty house, dismantled, half burnt, and with a good many shot
holes. Still we keep up our spirits. We have begun to hold our Christmas
already, for we have a long table and a few chairs, and somebody last
night found a great milk-pan in the half-ruined dairy of the inn, and,
having on hand a few bottles of very good red wine, we made a fine bowl
of _grog-au-vin_, with the aid of a wood fire and an old saucepan. In
came Hofer and gave us a toast and a song, and then they called on me,
and I gave them the old _Lied_, that thou hast so often played, and for
a toast, 'Fifine.' If Fifine had been there she would have been lying on
my shoulder, but since I rescued her from the teasing of a big
drum-major she has grown shy and doesn't like company; and though she
would soon be a pet with most of our men, keeps her love for me alone,
and would be a very charming companion if I had time to devote to her
pretty ways.' So you see Franz and Hofer are in France," says the old
man, taking off his spectacles.
My heart has grown cold and heavy all in a moment, and I have to lean on
the back of a chair for support.
"Who, then, is Fifine?" I ask, under my breath.
"Aha!" cries the Herr postmaster, "who, indeed? but what is it to thee?
I now, his father, might well ask; but there it is, no sooner does a
young honest fellow go out of Germany than he is thrown into the company
of these cats of Frenchwomen, and then--but I must say good-night.
Good-night, madam. Good-night, girls."
So he is gone, and the dear mistress and I look in each other's face,
and both cry "Oh!" but say no more.
So I go not to watch by the wall; but Bertha goes, and still she says it
is Hofer will bring the dear master home. The child, we say, is gone
silly with sitting on the wall in the cold, for sometimes she will come
in without her cloak; but yet we have not the heart to forbid her going
thither.
One, two, three, four days, and it is the blessed eve. We are all so
still, and our hearts are heavy, so we go about softly, as though some
one were sick or dead, when it is but our own hearts, or hopes, or
fancies, that seem dead. The dear little ones are quiet now, for we are
in the small room by the window, and as the last chime of sundown sounds
from the church, the candles on the Christmas-tree are lighted, and
shine on the pretty gifts that hang upon the branches. The dear mother
hugs the children to her heart; outside the twinkle and beaming of the
candles makes a short track of light upon the snow; the signal is all
a-glow. Will the wanderer return to-night? Where is Bertha? What is this
white-armed, loose-haired figure, flying up the path? Her hand is on the
door-latch, and as she stands there, wan and panting, she cries, "They
come! they come! The ox-wagon is now upon the hill. I saw it coming
through the snow, and the lantern shone upon the epaulette and the
buttons." She speaks and is gone, and we, the dear mistress and I, go to
the kitchen, where I stand, with a heart of lead and hands of ice.
There is a tramp of feet, a shout, the door bursts open--the dear
mistress is in her husband's arms--the little ones are clinging to him.
"Take care of my leg, darlings," he says; "the bone has not grown too
strong just yet, and I doubt if ever I shall bend the knee again. As to
Franz here, he, as you see, has his arm in a sling yet. He caught me up
in the wood, me and Hofer. Ah! that dear Hofer, he was in hospital, just
getting over a sabre cut in the cheek when I was taken there, and he has
been my good nurse ever since."
I am standing still, with downcast eyes, and there stands Franz staring
at me, with his one arm ready to take me to his heart.
"And where is Fifine?" say I, bursting into tears.
"Fifine--ah! I was near forgetting her," and he plunges his one hand
into the deep pocket of his military coat and pulls out a creature which
climbs to his shoulder, and there sits purring--a white fluffy cat with
pink eyes.
"Why, you little fool," cries old Herr postmaster as he comes behind me
and lifts me within reach of Franz, "didn't I say it was a cat of a
French woman?"
There is a light quick stride at the door--a loud joedel--a bright
laugh--and Hofer stoops his tall body and looks round. A cloud comes
over his face almost before he has greeted the dear mistress, and kissed
me on the cheek. "Where is Bertha?" he asks, and before we can answer
him he has darted out again, and we have scarcely lost the sound of his
rapid step before he is back among us, bearing the poor child in his
arms. We chafe her hands and feet, and warm and comfort her. Dear
Bertha, she had been so faithful watching there by the wall, and Hofer
had stopped behind to help up a fallen horse, and when he came not she
fainted and fell with cold and fear. But now we are all together in the
great kitchen, and supper is getting ready, and wine is on the table,
and the dear master and mistress are with their little ones at the
Christmas-tree, that makes a path of glory on the outer snow.
"Bertha, thou surely hast the second sight," says the old postmaster as
he looks at her. The colour comes again rose-red into her cheek as Hofer
draws her closer to his side.
"Yes," says she, "it is love that gives it. One has second sight when
one thinks no longer of one's self but of another."
------------------------------
It was Saturday afternoon, and our week's work was nearly over. On
Monday the great fancy fair was to be held, and the side-table in Miss
Grantley's pleasant parlour was covered with samples of all kinds of
needle-work, in lace, wool, crewel, applique, and on linen, satin,
velvet, silk, and cloth. There were handscreens, water-colour sketches,
embroidery, bead-work, and all kinds of dainty knick-knacks, and we
still had the finishing touches to put to some of our presents--still
had a few completing stitches to put to some of the plainer articles,
which were to make the back ground for the stall where Miss Grantley was
to be saleswoman.
When we came into the parlour she was not there. Saturday was a holiday,
so there had been no school in the morning, and we had gone on purpose
to finish our week's work for the fancy fair.
We had scarcely taken off our hats, and indeed most of us had stepped
outside the window into the garden when she came into the room. There
was a singularly radiant eager look in her face, her eyes shone bright
as though they had been washed with glad tears, and as she kissed us one
by one there was more than the usual impressiveness, or what the French
would call _effusion_ in her manner. Annie Bowers looked at her with a
quick inquiring glance, but said nothing. Marian Cooper, who had grown
as tall as Miss Grantley was herself, held her hand tight, and spoke in
a low tone, but loud enough for us all to hear as we had clustered
round. "What story have you to tell us this evening, Miss Grantley?
Something has happened. Is it a love story, dear? Are you going to tell
us that you have promised to be married?"
"No, indeed, I am not, for no such promise has been given; and there is
no love story of which I am the heroine, I assure you. For all that, I
have had a letter from a gentleman--a letter from my brother in
Australia--which may alter my plans for the future. My dear girls, my
dear friends and companions, I think you know that you are all very dear
to me, and I believe you love me too a little; but of course in a few
months at farthest most of you will leave me. You will have given up
school, but not, I hope, given up reading and as much work and study as
will keep you a good and useful place in the world. It is most likely
that some of you will be married before I am, for I shall remain here
for some time, and until I find a successor to take the school, and then
I intend to go to the other side of the world. Whether Mrs. Parmigan
will go with me I don't know. What I do know, and the only thing I can
think about at this moment, is the real sorrow I shall have in parting
with you all. But we should have to part in any case. The world of new
duties and of new interests would be opening to you even if I remained
here and grew old as the governess of Barton Vale. I should always
rejoice to hear of your happiness and sympathize with you in trouble;
but you would not be likely to be in a position to seek either my
sympathy or my counsel, for others would have the greater right and the
closer communion. But believe me, pray believe me when I tell you, that
as the next six months go by I shall dread our parting, though more than
half of you seven girls will have left me before that time arrives. Now,
my dears, let us have tea, and then I will read you my brother's letter,
for you are all my dear friends--my very closest friends to-night; and
that letter shall be my story. It's more of a man's story than a girl's,
but it is nearly all about a girl for all that."
It was not a very quiet tea-table, for we were all excited and talking
fast, as though that was the best way to keep from crying. It was not
till we had discussed Miss Grantley's intended voyage and made out quite
a romantic future for her that she opened her brother's letter, that we
might, as she said, hear what kind of fellow he was.
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