Charlie was not in such good spirits next morning. He was standing
outside the inn, in the sweet, resinous-scented air, watching Franziska
coming and going, with her bright face touched by the early sunlight,
and her frank and honest eyes lit up by a kindly look when she passed
us. His conscience began to smite him for claiming that fox.
We spent the day in fishing a stream some few miles distant from
Huferschingen, and Franziska accompanied us. What need to tell of our
success with the trout and the grayling, or of the beautiful weather,
or of the attentive and humble manner in which the unfortunate youth
addressed Franziska from time to time?
In the evening we drove back to Huferschingen. It was a still and
beautiful evening, with the silence of the twilight falling over the
lonely valleys and the miles upon miles of darkening pines. Charlie has
not much of a voice, but he made an effort to sing with Tita:
“The winds whistle cold and the stars glimmer red,
The sheep are in fold and the cattle in shed;”
and the fine old glee sounded fairly well as we drove through the
gathering gloom of the forest. But Tita sang, in her low, sweet fashion,
that Swedish bridal song that begins:
“Oh, welcome her so fair, with bright and flowing hair;
May Fate through life befriend her, love and smiles attend her;”
and though she sang quietly, just as if she were singing to herself, we
all listened with great attention, and with great gratitude too. When we
got out of Huferschingen, the stars were out over the dark stretches of
forest, and the windows of the quaint old inn were burning brightly.
“And have you enjoyed the amusement of the day?” says Miss Fahler,
rather shyly, to a certain young man who is emptying his creel of
fish. He drops the basket to turn round and look at her face and say
earnestly:
“I have never spent so delightful a day; but it wasn’t the fishing.”
Things were becoming serious.
And next morning Charlie got hold of Tita, and said to her, in rather a
shamefaced way:
“What am I to do about that fox? It was only a joke, you know; but if
Miss Fahler gets to hear of it, she’ll think it was rather shabby.”
It was always Miss Fahler now; a couple of days before it was Franziska.
“For my part,” says Tita, “I can’t understand why you did it. What
honour is there in shooting a fox?”
“But I wanted to give the skin to her.”
It was “her” by this time.
“Well, I think the best thing you can do is to go and tell her all about
it; and also to go and apologise to Dr. Krumm.”
Charlie started.
“I will go and tell her, certainly; but as for apologising to Krumm,
that is absurd!”
“As you please,” says Tita.
By-and-by Franziska--or rather Miss Fahler--came out of the small garden
and round by the front of the house.
“O Miss Fahler,” says Charlie, suddenly,--and with that she stops and
blushes slightly,--“I’ve got something to say to you. I am going to make
a confession. Don’t be frightened; it’s only about a fox--the fox that
was brought home the day before yesterday; Dr. Krumm shot that.”
“Indeed,” says Franziska, quite innocently, “I thought you shot it.”
“Well, I let them imagine so. It was only a joke.”
“But it is of no matter; there are many yellow foxes. Dr. Krumm can
shoot them at another time; he is always here. Perhaps you will shoot
one before you go.”
With that Franziska passed into the house, carrying her fruit with her.
Charlie was left to revolve her words in his mind. Dr. Krumm could shoot
foxes when he chose; he was always here. He, Charlie, on the contrary,
had to go away in little more than a fortnight. There was no Franziska
in England; no pleasant driving through great pine woods in the
gathering twilight; no shooting of yellow foxes, to be brought home in
triumph and presented to a beautiful and grateful young woman. Charlie
walked along the white road and overtook Tita, who had just sat down on
a little camp-stool, and got out the materials for taking a water-colour
sketch of the Huferschingen Valley. He sat down at her feet on the warm
grass.
“I suppose I sha’n’t interrupt your painting by talking to you?” he
says.
“Oh dear, no,” is the reply; and then he begins, in a somewhat
hesitating way, to ask indirect questions and drop hints and fish for
answers, just as if this small creature, who was busy with her sepias
and olive greens, did not see through all this transparent cunning.
At last she said to him, frankly:
“You want me to tell you whether Franziska would make a good wife for
you. She would make a good wife for any man. But then you seem to think
that I should intermeddle and negotiate and become a go-between. How
can I do that? My husband is always accusing me of trying to make up
matches; and you know that isn’t true.”
“I know it isn’t true,” says the hypocrite; “but you might only this
once. I believe all you say about this girl; I can see it for myself;
and when shall I ever have such a chance again?”
“But dear me!” says Tita, putting down the white palette for a moment,
“how can I believe you are in earnest? You have only known her three
days.”
“And that is quite enough,” says Charlie, boldly, “to let you find out
all you want to know about a girl if she is of the right sort. If she
isn’t you won’t find out in three years. Now look at Franziska; look at
the fine, intelligent face and the honest eyes; you can have no doubt
about her; and then I have all the guarantee of your long acquaintance
with her.”
“Oh,” says Tita, “that is all very well. Franziska is an excellent girl,
as I have told you often--frank, kind, well educated, and unselfish. But
you cannot have fallen in love with her in three days?”
“Why not?” says this blunt-spoken young man.
“Because it is ridiculous. If I meddle in the affair I should probably
find you had given up the fancy in other three days; or if you did marry
her and took her to England you would get to hate me because I alone
should know that you had married the niece of an innkeeper.”
“Well, I like that!” says he, with a flush in his face. “Do you think I
should care two straws whether my friends knew I had married the niece
of an innkeeper? I should show them Franziska. Wouldn’t that be enough?
An innkeeper’s niece! I wish the world had more of ‘em, if they’re like
Franziska.”
“And besides,” says Tita, “have you any notion as to how Franziska
herself would probably take this mad proposal?”
“No,” says the young man, humbly. “I wanted you to try and find out what
she thought about me; and if, in time something were said about this
proposal, you might put in a word or two, you know, just to--to give
her an idea, you know, that you don’t think it quite so mad, don’t you
know?”
“Give me your hand, Charlie,” says Tita, with a sudden burst of
kindness. “I’ll do what I can for you; for I know she’s a good girl, and
she will make a good wife to the man who marries her.”
You will observe that this promise was given by a lady who never, in any
circumstances whatsoever, seeks to make up matches, who never speculates
on possible combinations when she invites young people to her house in
Surrey, and who is profoundly indignant, indeed, when such a charge is
preferred against her. Had she not, on that former Christmas morning,
repudiated with scorn the suggestion that Charlie might marry before
another year had passed? Had she not, in her wild confidence, staked
on a wager that assumption of authority in her household and out of it
without which life would be a burden to her? Yet no sooner was the name
of Franziska mentioned, and no sooner had she been reminded that Charlie
was going with us to Huferschingen, than the nimble little brain set to
work. Oftentimes it has occurred to one dispassionate spectator of her
ways that this same Tita resembled the small object which, thrown into
a dish of some liquid chemical substance, suddenly produces a mass of
crystals. The constituents of those beautiful combinations, you see,
were there; but they wanted some little shock to hasten the slow
process of crystallisation. Now in our social circle we have continually
observed groups of young people floating about in an amorphous and
chaotic fashion--good for nothing but dawdling through dances, and
flirting, and carelessly separating again; but when you dropped Tita
among them, then you would see how rapidly this jellyfish sort of
existence was abolished--how the groups got broken up, and how the
sharp, businesslike relations of marriage were precipitated and made
permanent. But would she own to it? Never! She once went and married
her dearest friend to a Prussian officer; and now she declares he was a
selfish fellow to carry off the girl in that way, and rates him soundly
because he won’t bring her to stay with us more than three months out
of the twelve. There are some of us get quite enough of this Prussian
occupation of our territory.
“Well,” says Tita to this long English lad, who is lying sprawling on
the grass, “I can safely tell you this, that Franziska likes you very
well.”
He suddenly jumps up, and there is a great blush on his face.
“Has she said so?” he asks, eagerly.
“Oh yes! in a way. She thinks you are good-natured. She likes the
English generally. She asked me if that ring you wear was an engaged
ring.”
These disconnected sentences were dropped with a tantalising slowness
into Charlie’s eager ears.
“I must go and tell her directly that it is not,” said he; and he might
probably have gone off at once had not Tita restrained him.
“You must be a great deal more cautious than that if you wish to carry
off Franziska some day or other. If you were to ask her to marry you
now she would flatly refuse you, and very properly; for how could a
girl believe you were in earnest? But if you like, Charlie, I will say
something to her that will give her a hint; and if she cares for you at
all before you go away she won’t forget you. I wish I was as sure of you
as I am of her.”
“Oh I can answer for myself,” says the young man, with a becoming
bashfulness.
Tita was very happy and pleased all that day. There was an air of
mystery and importance about her. I knew what it meant; I had seen it
before.
Alas! poor Charlie!