Under the friendly instructions of Dr. Krumm, whom he no longer regarded
as a possible rival, Charlie became a mighty hunter; and you may be sure
that he returned of an evening with sprigs of fir in his cap for the
bucks he had slain, Franziska was not the last to come forward and shake
hands with him and congratulate him, as is the custom in these primitive
parts. And then she was quite made one of the family when we sat down to
dinner in the long, low-roofed room; and nearly every evening, indeed,
Tita would have her to dine with us and play cards with us.
You may suppose, if these two young folk had any regard for each other,
those evenings in the inn must have been a pleasant time for them. There
were never two partners at whist who were so courteous to each other,
so charitable to each other’s blunders. Indeed, neither would ever admit
that the other blundered. Charlie used to make some frightful mistakes
occasionally that would have driven any other player mad; but you should
have seen the manner in which Franziska would explain that he had no
alternative but to take her king with his ace, that he could not know
this, and was right in chancing that. We played three-penny points, and
Charlie paid for himself and his partner, in spite of her entreaties.
Two of us found the game of whist a profitable thing.
One day a registered letter came for Charlie. He seized it, carried it
to a window, and then called Tita to him. Why need he have any secret
about it? It was nothing but a ring--a plain hoop with a row of rubies.
“Do you think she would take this thing?” he said, in a low voice.
“How can I tell?”
The young man blushed and stammered, and said:
“I don’t want you to ask her to take the ring, but to get to know
whether she would accept any present from me. And I would ask her myself
plainly, only you have been frightening me so much about being in a
hurry. And what am I to do? Three days hence we start.”
Tita looked down with a smile and said, rather timidly:
“I think if I were you I would speak to her myself--but very gently.”
We were going off that morning to a little lake some dozen miles off to
try for a jack or two. Franziska was coming with us. She was, indeed,
already outside, superintending the placing in the trap of our rods
and bags. When Charlie went out she said that everything was ready; and
presently our peasant driver cracked his whip, and away we went.
Charlie was a little grave, and could only reply to Tita’s fun with an
effort. Franziska was mostly anxious about the fishing, and hoped that
we might not go so far to find nothing.
We found few fish anyhow. The water was as still as glass, and as clear;
the pike that would have taken our spinning bits of metal must have
been very dull-eyed pike indeed. Tita sat at the bow of the long punt
reading, while our boatman steadily and slowly plied his single oar.
Franziska was for a time eagerly engaged in watching the progress of
our fishing, until even she got tired of the excitement of rolling in an
immense length of cord, only to find that our spinning bait had hooked a
bit of floating wood or weed. At length Charlie proposed that he should
go ashore and look out for a picturesque site for our picnic, and he
hinted that perhaps Miss Franziska might also like a short walk to
relieve the monotony of the sailing. Miss Franziska said she would be
very pleased to do that. We ran them in among the rushes, and put them
ashore, and then once more started on our laborious career.
Tita laid down her book. She was a little anxious. Sometimes you could
see Charlie and Franziska on the path by the side of the lake; at other
times the thick trees by the water’s side hid them.
The solitary oar dipped in the lake; the boat glided along the shores.
Tita took up her book again. The space of time that passed may be
inferred from the fact that, merely as an incident to it, we managed
to catch a chub of four pounds. When the excitement over this event had
passed, Tita said:
“We must go back to them. What do they mean by not coming on and telling
us? It is most silly of them.”
We went back by the same side of the lake, and we found both Franziska
and her companion seated on the bank at the precise spot where we had
left them. They said it was the best place for the picnic. They asked
for the hamper in a businesslike way. They pretended they had searched
the shores of the lake for miles.
And while Tita and Franziska are unpacking the things, and laying the
white cloth smoothly on the grass, and pulling out the bottles for
Charlie to cool in the lake, I observe that the younger of the two
ladies rather endeavours to keep her left hand out of sight. It is a
paltry piece of deception. Are we moles, and blinder than moles, that we
should continually be made the dupes of these women? I say to her:
“Franziska, what is the matter with your left hand?”
“Leave Franziska’s left hand alone,” says Tita, severely.
“My dear,” I reply, humbly, “I am afraid Franziska has hurt her left
hand.”
At this moment Charlie, having stuck the bottles among the reeds, comes
back, and, hearing our talk, he says, in a loud and audacious way:
“Oh, do you mean the ring? It’s a pretty little thing I had about me,
and Franziska has been good enough to accept it. You can show it to
them, Franziska.”
Of course he had it about him. Young men always do carry a stock of ruby
rings with them when they go fishing, to put in the noses of the fish. I
have observed it frequently.
Franziska looks timidly at Tita, and then she raises her hand, that
trembles a little. She is about to take the ring off to show it to us
when Charlie interposes:
“You needn’t take it off, Franziska.”
And with that, somehow, the girl slips away from among us, and Tita
is with her, and we don’t get a glimpse of either of them until the
solitude resounds with our cries for luncheon.
In due time Charlie returned to London, and to Surrey with us in very
good spirits. He used to come down very often to see us; and one evening
at dinner he disclosed the fact that he was going over to the Black
Forest in the following week, although the November nights were chill
just then.
“And how long do you remain?”
“A month,” he says.
“Madam,” I say to the small lady at the other end of the table, “a month
from now will bring us to the 4th of December. You have lost the bet
you made last Christmas morning; when will it please you to resign your
authority?”
“Oh, bother the bet,” says this unscrupulous person.
“But what do you mean?” says Charlie.
“Why,” I say to him, “she laid a wager last Christmas Day that you
would not be married within a year. And now you say you mean to bring
Franziska over on the 4th of December next. Isn’t it so?”
“Oh, no!” he says; “we don’t get married till the spring.”
You should have heard the burst of low, delightful laughter with which
Queen Tita welcomed this announcement. She had won her wager.