Hartmann pulled to the gate again and returned slowly to the house. He
stood at the entrance watching the two figures until they disappeared
down one of the park avenues.
"I thought, when you said no, you meant it, Ulric?"
The young man turned round and scowled at Martha standing by his side.
"What is it to you?" said he, roughly.
"To me? nothing. Don't frown like that, Ulric. You are angry with me
because I reminded my lady of the handkerchief; but it belonged to her,
and what could you do with that soft, white little thing? You could not
even touch it when you came home from work, and I am sure you have
looked at it often enough!"
There was a slight but unmistakable touch of irony in the girl's voice,
and Ulric must have noticed it, for he exclaimed hastily:
"Let me be! I will have none of your sneers and your spying. I tell
you, Martha"----
"Now, now, what is to do out there? Are you two quarrelling?"
interrupted the Manager, as he joined them at the door.
Ulric turned away with a muttered exclamation of anger, but he did not
seem inclined to continue the discussion. Martha, without answering her
uncle, hurried past him into the house.
"What is the matter with the girl?" asked the old man, looking after
her wonderingly, "and what were you two about? Have you been giving her
hard words again?"
Ulric threw himself sullenly down on the bench.
"I am not going to be taught what I should do or leave undone, least of
all by Martha."
"Well, well," said his father quietly, "she is very sure not to do
anything to vex _you_."
"Why should not she vex me as well as any one else?"
The Manager looked at his son and shrugged his shoulders.
"Why, boy, have you no eyes in your head, or will you not see it? It is
true, you never did care about the girls, and, after all, it is no
wonder if you understand nothing about them."
"What is there for me to understand?" asked Ulric, growing attentive.
His father took his pipe out of his mouth and blew a cloud of smoke
slowly into the air.
"That Martha cares for you," he answered laconically.
"Martha? For me?"
"I do believe he did not know it," said the Manager, in unfeigned
astonishment. "His old father has to tell him such a thing as that! But
that is the way when people fill their heads with all sorts of
nonsense, which only confuses them! Goodness knows, Ulric, it is time
you gave up all the other folly and took a good managing wife who would
bring you to a better way of thinking."
Ulric was still gazing over at the park, and his eyes were fixed and
gloomy as before.
"You are right, father," said he slowly. "It is time."
The old man nearly let his pipe fall in his surprise.
"My lad," he said, "that is the first reasonable word I have heard from
you. Have you come to your senses at last? Yes, it is time indeed. You
could have kept a wife long ago, and where could you find a prettier, a
better, or a cleverer than Martha? I need not tell you how happy it
would make me for you two to come together. Think it over, Ulric."
The young man sprang up and began pacing rapidly to and fro.
"Perhaps it would be best. There must be an end of this, there must! I
felt that to-day again ... and the sooner the better!"
"What has come to you? There must be an end of what?"
"Nothing, father, nothing. But you are right; when once I have a wife,
I shall know I belong to her, and my thoughts too. So you think Martha
cares for me?"
"Go in and ask her!" cried the Manager laughing. "Do you think that I
should have the girl in the house still if she cared for any one else!
She does not want for suitors. I know plenty who would be glad of her,
and there is Lawrence who has been trying to win her for ever so long,
he has never got her to say 'yes' yet. She will say it to-day for you,
if you choose; trust me for that."
Ulric listened with eager attention; but in spite of his father's
flattering assurance, there was not much joy or satisfaction to be seen
in his face. He looked as though he were trying forcibly to keep down
some rebellious feeling which would not let him make up his mind, and
there was something wild and almost convulsive in his manner, as, a
sudden determination burning up within him, he turned at last to the
old man and said:
"Well, if you think I shall not be refused, I ... I will go and speak
to Martha."
"Now, at once?" asked the Manager in surprise. "But, Ulric, a man
cannot go courting all in a minute like that, when a quarter of an hour
before he had no notion of such a thing. Think over the matter first."
Ulric moved impatiently. "What is the good of waiting? I must know
where I am. Let me go in, father."
The old man shook his head, but he was far too much afraid that
his son would repent him of his hasty resolve to offer any very
serious opposition. In the joy of his heart he cared little if the
long-wished-for union were brought about in a somewhat unusual manner.
He determined to stay quietly outside, so that the young people within
could settle the business at their ease, for he knew Ulric well enough
to be aware that any inopportune interference on his part would spoil
everything.
In the meantime the young man had crossed the passage rapidly, as if he
neither could nor would grant himself one moment for reflection. He
opened the door of the room they commonly used, and saw Martha sitting
at the table. Her hands, usually so busy, lay idle in her lap. She did
not look up as he entered, and seemed not to notice that he came and
stood quite close to her chair. He could see quite plainly that she had
been crying.
"Do you bear me ill-will, Martha, because I was out of temper just now?
I am sorry for it. Why do you look at me so?"
"Because it is the first time you ever were sorry for it. You never
cared before how I took your ill-temper. Let it be so still."
Her tone was cold and meant as a repulse, but Ulric did not allow
himself to be intimidated by it. His father's revelations must really
have had some powerful effect on his stubborn nature, for his voice was
unusually gentle as he replied.
"I know I am a great deal worse than the others, but I can't help it.
You must take me as I am; perhaps you will be able to make something
better of me."
At his first word the girl had looked up surprised, and she must have
seen something strange in his face, for she moved hastily as if to
rise. Ulric held her fast.
"Stay here, Martha, I want to talk to you. I want to ask you ... Well,
I am not one for many words, and between us they are not needed. We are
first cousins, we have lived together for years in the same house. You
know best whether you can care for me at all, and you must know too
that I have always been fond of you in spite of all our quarrels. Will
you be my wife, Martha?"
The wooing was abrupt, brusque and stormy, as became the suitor's
nature.
He drew a long breath, as if with these decisive words a weight had
fallen from him. Martha still sat motionless before him. Her blooming
colour had faded, had changed to a deep pallor, but she neither
trembled nor hesitated as she uttered a low half-stifled "No."
Ulric thought he had not heard aright. "You will not?"
"No, Ulric, I will not!" repeated the girl resolutely, though almost
under her breath.
The young man drew himself up offended.
"Well then, I might have spared my words. My father has been mistaken
and so have I. No offence, Martha."
Wounded in his pride by the curt refusal he had met with, he was about
to leave the room at once, but a look at Martha arrested him. She had
risen and was grasping the chair with both hands, as though needing its
support. No word of reply or of explanation came from her lips, but
they trembled so and there was such an expression of unspoken pain in
her white face that Ulric began to feel his father might be right after
all.
"I thought you cared for me, Martha," he said, with some slight
reproach in his tone.
She turned hastily from him and hid her face in her hands, but he
caught a sound like that of a sob repressed with difficulty.
"I might have known I was too savage, too rough for you. You are
afraid, you think I might grow worse after the marriage. You will have
a better husband in Lawrence. He will let you have your own way in
everything."
The girl shook her head and slowly turned her face to him again.
"I am not afraid of you, though you are often a bit rough and wild. I
know you can't help it, and I would have taken you as you were, ay,
gladly, perhaps! But I will not take you as you are now, Ulric, as you
have been ever since .... ever since the young mistress came home."
Ulric started, and a flaming blush spread over his face. He wished to
break out in wrath, to bid her be silent, but he could not bring his
lips to frame a syllable.
"Uncle thinks you care for no one because your head is taken up with
other things," continued Martha, more and more excitedly. "Yes, indeed,
quite other things! You have never given me a thought, and now you come
all at once and want me to be your wife. You want some one to help
drive away your thoughts, Ulric, don't you? and the first one who comes
is good enough for that. Even I am good enough for that! But things are
not so bad with me yet that I should be put to such a use. If I cared
for you more than for the whole world beside, if it were to cost me my
life to part from you, I would rather have Lawrence, I would rather
have any one now than you!"
This passionate outbreak, contrasting with the girl's usually quiet
demeanour, might have shown Ulric what deep root he had taken in her
heart. Perhaps he did feel it, but the cloud still rested on his brow
and the flush on his face grew deeper with every word. He gave her no
answer, but, as she now broke out into loud weeping, stood at her side
quite dumb, making no attempt to comfort or to calm her.
Some minutes passed in torturing silence. Martha lay with her head and
arms resting on the table. Nothing was to be heard but the sound of her
convulsive sobs and the monotonous ticking of the old clock against the
wall.
At length Ulric stooped down to her. His voice was not so hard as it
had been, but it was scarcely gentle; there was in it only a dull, low
sound of pain.
"Never mind, Martha. I thought it might be better if you would help me.
Perhaps it would only have been worse, and you are quite right not to
risk it with me. Let things be as they have always been between us
two."
He went without further leave-taking. On the threshold he stopped an
instant and looked back, but the girl did not raise her head, and he
went quickly out.
"Well?" said the Manager, eagerly, as he came forward to meet his son.
"Well?" he repeated more anxiously, for Ulric's face was not happy as
that of an affianced lover.
"It was of no good, father," said Ulric in a low voice. "Martha will
not have me."
"Will not have _you_?" cried the old man, as though the most astounding
news in the world were being announced to him.
"No, and don't tease her with a lot of questions and talk about it. She
knows well enough why she has refused me, and I know too, so there is
no use in a third person meddling with it. Now let me go, father, I
must get away."
He hurried past, evidently wishing to escape all further discussion.
The Manager grasped his pipe with both hands; he was almost inclined to
dash it to the ground, by way of giving vent to his vexation.
"Who can understand these women and their fancies? I could have staked
my head upon it that the girl was fond of him, and now she sends him
away with a No! and he ... I should not have thought he would have
taken it so much to heart. He looked quite scared, and he is tearing
along the road as if he were mad. But he will never explain it to me as
long as he lives, I know him well enough to be sure of that, and Martha
won't either."
The Manager went on pacing up and down the little garden, until
gradually his wrath sobered down to a more resigned state of feeling.
What could be done in the matter after all? They could not be tied
together by force if they did not wish to be so tied, and it was of no
use racking one's brains to discover why they did not wish it. With a
heavy sigh the old man bade farewell to his favourite scheme, now
hopelessly shipwrecked. These things cannot be forced!
He was still standing at the garden-gate, busy with his troubled
thoughts, when he saw the younger Herr Berkow coming down the road
which led past his cottage to the back of the park. Arthur seemed
better acquainted than his wife with the mode of ingress. He drew a key
from his pocket, destined, no doubt, to fit the lock which had so
recently been broken open.
The Manager bowed deeply and respectfully to the young heir as he went
by. With his usual scant sympathy, Arthur, hardly glancing aside at
him, gave a lofty negligent little nod by way of recognition, and was
passing on. A quiver of pain came into the old man's face, as he stood
there still holding his cap in his hand and looking after the other
with a mournful gaze which seemed to say, "So that's what you have
grown into!"
Either Arthur saw the look or it occurred to him all at once that the
old friend and playfellow of his childish years was there before him;
he stopped suddenly.
"Oh, it is you, Hartmann! How do you do?"
He stretched out his hand in his lazy, indifferent way, and seemed
rather surprised that it was not immediately grasped, but for years
such a favour had not been granted, and the Manager hesitated before
accepting it; when he did so at last, it was shily and with precaution,
as though fearing to hurt the delicate white hand by the touch of his
rough hard palm.
"Thank you, I am pretty well so far, Herr Arthur----I beg pardon, Herr
Berkow, I mean."
"Keep to the Arthur," said the young man, quietly. "You are more used
to it, and I would rather hear it from you than the other name. So you
are all right, Hartmann?"
"Well yes, thank God, Herr Arthur. I have as much as I want. There is a
bit of trouble and care in every house, and I am a little worried just
now about my children, but it can't be helped."
"About your children? I thought you had only one son."
"Quite right, my Ulric. But I have a niece in my house, too, Martha
Ewers."
"And she gives you trouble?"
"God forbid!" said the Manager, warmly. "The girl is as good as can be,
but I did think the two might have made a pair, she and Ulric"----
"And Ulric will not?" interrupted Arthur, with a strangely rapid glance
from the usually weary-looking eyes.
The old man shook his head.
"I don't know. Perhaps he did not really wish it, or perhaps he set
about it badly; any way, it is over between them. And that was just my
last hope, that he would get a good wife who would put some sensible
notions into his head."
It was odd that the miner's simple uninteresting family affairs did not
appear to "bore" the young man. He had not once yawned, as he was in
the habit of doing, when not obliged to place some restraint on
himself. His face even expressed a degree of interest as he asked:
"Are the notions he carries in his head at present the reverse of
sensible then?"
The Manager looked up rather consciously at the speaker, and then down
at the ground.
"Well, Herr Arthur, I need hardly tell you that. You must have heard
enough about Ulric!"
"Yes, I remember. My father spoke to me about it. Your son is not in
the good books of the gentlemen up there, Hartmann; very far from it."
The old man heaved a sigh.
"No, and I can't mend the matter. He will not listen to me, he never
has listened to me. He always would think for himself and have his own
way in everything. I let the boy learn a great deal more than the
others, more, perhaps, than was good for him. I thought he would get on
faster for it, and he is Deputy already, and will very likely be made
Overman some day, but all the trouble has come from the learning
though. He bothers himself about all sorts of stuff, and thinks he
knows better about everything; he sits up all night over his books, and
is just all in all with his mates. How he manages to take the lead
everywhere, I don't know; but even when he was quite a little lad, he
had them all under his thumb, and now it is worse than ever. What he
says, they believe blindfold; where he stands, they will all stand
together with him; and if he were to lead them into hell itself, they
would go, always supposing he marched first. But this is not at all as
it should be, particularly here on our works."
"Why here, particularly?" asked Arthur, drawing figures with the key on
the wooden gate, and apparently immersed in thought.
"Because the people here are too badly off," burst forth the Manager.
"Don't be angry, Herr Arthur, if I tell you so to your face. It is just
the truth. I can't complain myself, I have always had more than my
deserts, because your late mother was very fond of my wife--but the
others! They toil and trouble day after day, and yet they can scarcely
get bare necessaries for their wives and children. God knows they earn
their bread hardly, but we must all of us work, and most of them would
do it willingly enough, if they could only get their rights, as on the
other works. But here they are pressed and harried for every farthing
of their miserable wages, and the mines below are in such a state, that
each man says his prayers before going down, because he keeps thinking
that the whole concern will fall down some day and crush him. But there
is never any money for repairs, and when a poor fellow gets into
difficulties and distress, no money can ever be found to help him with
either, and all the time they have to look on while thousands upon
thousands are sent up to the city, in order that"----
The old man stopped suddenly, and clapped his hand over his indiscreet
mouth in mortal fear. He had gone on speaking in such a zealous haste,
that he had completely forgotten who it was that stood before him. The
hot flush which rose to the young man's face at his last words, brought
him back to a consciousness of what he was saying.
"Well?" asked Arthur, as he paused. "Go on. Hartmann, you see I am
listening."
"God bless me!" stammered the old man, in sad confusion. "I did not
mean that, I had quite forgotten"----
"Who spent the thousands? You need not make any apologies, Hartmann,
but speak out like a man what you were going to say to me. Or perhaps
you think I shall carry tales to my father?"
"No," said the Manager, heartily. "That you certainly won't do. You are
not like your father, such an imprudent word as that to him would have
lost me my place. Well, I was only going to say that all this makes bad
blood with the hands. Herr Arthur"--he stepped up nearer, with a look
of half-timid, half-trusting appeal, "if you would but take some
interest in these things! You are Herr Berkow's son, and you will
inherit all one of these days. No one has so much concern in it as
you."
"I?" said Arthur, with a bitterness which happily escaped his
unpractised hearer. "I understand nothing of your customs or of what is
necessary here on the works. It is, and always has been, all quite
strange to me."
The old man shook his head sorrowfully.
"Lord Almighty! what is there so much to understand? You need not study
all about machinery and the shafts for that. You only need to look at
the people and listen to them, as you are listening to me now. But
nobody will do that. If a man complains, he is sent away, and then they
say it is for insubordination; when a poor miner is dismissed on that
score he finds it hard to get another place. Herr Arthur, I tell you,
it is a crying shame, and that is what Ulric can't endure to see; it
eats his heart out, and, though I am always talking and preaching
against his notions, in point of fact he is right. Things can't go on
in this way, only the means he would use to bring about a change are
godless and sinful. They would bring him into trouble, and the others
with him. Herr Arthur,"--the salt tears stood in the Manager's eyes as,
without any hesitation now, he seized the young man's hand, still
resting on the gate,--"for God's sake, I implore you, don't let matters
go on like this. It can be good for no one, not even for Herr Berkow.
There are troubles and disputes now on all the works around, but when
once they break out with us, the Lord have mercy on us, for there will
be awful work!"
During the whole of this speech Arthur had stood silent, gazing
straight before him. Now he turned his eyes to the speaker and looked
fixedly and gravely at him.
"I will talk to my father about it," he said slowly; "you may rely upon
that, Hartmann."
The Manager let fall the hand he had grasped, and stepped back. Having
poured out his whole heart, he had expected some better result than
this poor promise.
Arthur drew himself up and prepared to go.
"One thing more, Hartmann. Your son saved my life not long ago, and he
has felt hurt, probably, at receiving no word of thanks. I do not
attach a great value to life in itself, and it may be, therefore, that
I did not estimate aright the service rendered. But I should have made
good my negligence, if"----the young heir frowned and his voice took a
sharper inflexion, "if your Ulric had not been the man he is. I have no
desire to find myself and my acknowledgments repulsed, as happened to
my messenger a short time back; but in spite of this, I would not be
thought ungrateful. Tell him I thank him, and as to the rest, I will
confer with my father on the subject. Good-bye."
He took the road leading to the park. The Manager looked after him
despondingly, and sighed heavily as he murmured: "God grant it may do
some good--but I hardly think it."