SORROWFUL TIDINGS.
The next morning the doctor came early, and, true to his promise,
acted as scribe for Violet. Such a long letter as was despatched to
poor John, full of all the little scraps of news that Violet had been
treasuring up for ever so long, and a few leaves of the ivy which grew
up the side of the house and in at the window where she generally sat,
and one yellow feather which had dropped out of the canary bird's wing.
Violet felt quite elated when the letter was finished, and the doctor
himself carried it off to the post, leaving her smiling, with eyes
bright with pleasure and cheeks just a little flushed by the unusual
exertion.
When the doctor was gone she insisted on being lifted up and placed as
usual in the window. Evelina was surprised at the energy she showed
in all her movements, and the weary time of her dressing went on with
fewer sighs than usual.
It was not until she was actually seated in her old chair in the
embrasure that she seemed for the first time to realize the terrible
trouble that had come upon her friends in the house opposite. She had
been so busy thinking of her father and of the letter which was to go
to him, that she had not taken in all the sorrow that had fallen on the
town and its inhabitants; but she could not sit long at the window this
morning and not see or hear something of it. It seemed to her, after a
little time, that all the people in Edelsheim were weeping.
There were women standing at Madam Adler's door wringing their hands,
and others with aprons to their eyes sobbing. Many of them had slips of
paper in their hands which they gazed at every moment, and then burst
out crying afresh. Even the policeman, as he passed down the street
opposite, had tears in his eyes, and as he tried to smile up at her
window Violet saw how they fell on the breast of his coat.
"What are they all crying for in the street below?" she asked
plaintively, as Evelina came out of the inner room and sat down in the
window seat opposite her: "is Fritz's father so very, very ill, or what
is it?"
"It is not only for him they are weeping, poor creatures," cried
Evelina, gazing earnestly after the policeman, who was slowly pacing
down the street with his head bent upon his chest. "They have all
suffered, poor souls. There is not one in Edelsheim that has not lost a
friend, or a brother, a father, or a husband, or a lover. The regiment
was in the very front of the battle, and the men were mowed down like
grass; at least so the paper says."
"What paper?"
"The newspaper: but the doctor said thou wert on no account to see it;
indeed I ought not to speak to thee of such things at all, only one
must answer plain questions when they are put to one.--Oh, here comes
the little Ella and her brother; they are crossing the street, and they
will bring thee all the news."
Violet turned quickly round, for her eyes had been fixed with an
ever increasing horror on Evelina's face, and now she just caught a
glimpse of Ella's fair hair floating behind her as she passed under the
overhanging eaves of the window.
In a moment more both children had burst into the room, Ella a little
in advance of Fritz, who was quite breathless and red in his endeavours
to keep pace with her, and had his hand tightly locked in the gathers
of her dress, by which he vainly tried to hold her back.
"Hast thou heard, Violet?" cried Ella, her voice raised almost to a
scream as she endeavoured to be the first to tell the news,--"hast thou
heard that father has lost his leg, one whole leg? It is quite true:
first they shot it off, and then they cut it off, and now he is in the
hospital. And the policeman's son has both his arms shot off him; and
the father of the orange-girl is dead, and she was screaming all the
morning on the steps of the chapel, and no oranges in her basket at
all."
"Silence, you little dunderhead," cried Fritz, shaking Ella so
violently by her skirt that she was forced for a moment to pause and
resent his rudeness; "did not mother tell thee this morning that thou
wert not to frighten Violet with all these stories?"
"But are they true?" asked Violet eagerly.
"Yes, quite true," echoed Ella.
Violet still looked towards Fritz for confirmation.
"Yes, they are quite true," he said gravely; "but thy father is safe.
Mother said so; she had a telegram from him this morning."
"A telegram?"
"Well, yes. A message to say father was going on well, and to give thee
his love."
"His love," echoed Violet in a whisper.
"And loads and loads of people are dead," continued Ella, who had not
half exhausted her store of news; "and the little man who used to sell
the peppermint sticks has had his whole head blown off. His wife says
it is not a bit true, and she wanted to go off in a cart this morning
to look for him, only the doctor would not let her. Mother said the
poor woman's head was gone; so then, you see, they would neither of
them have heads, I suppose; and would not that be rather funny, Violet?"
Evelina tittered a little, and went into the next room to hide her
laughter; but Fritz grew very red, and said angrily, "The little
donkey! she does not know what she talks about, only picking up what
other people say."
"I don't pick up what other people say. I heard every word, and lots
more," rejoined Ella stoutly; but still she blushed at Fritz's reproof,
and shuffled her shoulders along the wall uneasily.
"And is thy father very sick? will he come home soon?" asked Violet,
whose face and lips had been gradually whitening as the children's talk
went on.
"Ah, that I cannot tell thee. Mother says it will be a long time before
he can move at all, and then he will have to get crutches."
"And must he always walk with crutches, always, always?" asked Violet,
whose mind was only gradually opening up to all the sadness of the
occasion.
"Yes, always," replied Fritz; "for, of course, he could not walk on one
leg."
"I can hop on one leg," observed Ella from the corner into which she
had been gradually retreating. "This morning, when I heard all about
father, I hopped six times up and down the kitchen and never put my
hand on anything."
"And can thy father never bake any more bread, nor stand any more at
the door in the evening and kiss hands up to me?"
"That I do not know. He will stand, perhaps, in the bakery and look on;
and then, thou knowest, he can have a chair put down in the doorway,
and he can see thee from there.--O Ella, canst thou not keep still?"
For Ella had now emerged from her corner near the stove, and with the
handle of the little stove-brush planted under her arm, was prancing
up and down the floor with one leg drawn up behind her and the other
coming down at intervals with tremendous thumps on the floor.
"Do keep still," cried Fritz again.
But Ella, who had sat all day long silent and miserable in the house
opposite, was now flushed with the excitement of freedom both of limb
and speech, and up and down the room she hopped and bounded with
glowing cheeks and flying hair, crying out, "See how I can hop!" until
at last the brush-stick slipped with a sudden jerk from under her arm,
and she came crash down on the floor on her face.
"Ha, ha! that comes from pretending to have only one leg," shouted
Fritz, half laughing himself at the catastrophe. But when he picked up
poor Ella and found that her lip was cut and swelled, and her little
fat elbow all scraped and bleeding, too, he carried her over in his
arms to a chair and kissed her a hundred times. It was all, however, of
no avail. Ella, it is true, made no sound whatever for a moment or two,
and Violet, quite terrified, leaned forward in her chair anxiously.
But Ella was only waiting to recover her breath: her nerves had been
strained to the highest pitch, poor child, and now with almost a
convulsive struggle a piercing cry burst forth, loud and long, and
terrifying to hear. Evelina came rushing out of the inner room, and
snatching the child from Fritz's arms, without listening to explanation
or remonstrance, she carried her down the stairs and quickly across the
street to her mother. Fritz sprang up to follow, but looking round at
Violet's pale face, he paused and hesitated.
"I will stay with thee till she comes back," he said comfortingly, and
he returned and stood by her side, though his lips and hands trembled
with the passion he strove to repress.
They could hear poor Ella's cries all the way up the stairs and long
after she entered the little sitting-room opposite. They saw her mother
take her upon her knee, and press her head against her bosom, and dry
her eyes softly with her handkerchief, and wipe the blood from her lip.
And then Fritz saw Evelina come out of the door again; but she did not
cross the street or look up at their window as he expected she would
do, but instead she walked for some distance along the narrow pavement
until she met the policeman, who was slowly returning on his beat.
"Pah!" cried Fritz, shooting out his lips with a motion of the
supremest contempt, "she is a sly old fox, and I hate her."
"Whom?" asked Violet, whose mind had wandered far away, and whose hand
was resting wearily on the cover of her mother's Bible.
"Evelina," cried Fritz stoutly; "she is a vain old chattering pea-hen."
"Ah no, thou must not say so, Fritz."
"Why not? she does not care one straw for thee."
"Yes, yes, she does; she has told me such lovely things."
"What about?"
"Ah, about a poor sick boy. It was not a fairy tale; it was quite
true. He was a poor little hunchback like me, and God gave him wings,
beautiful silver wings; and some one threw a stone at him, and all at
once he stretched out his wings, and angels came to meet him, and he
went right up to heaven;--and this story is true."
Fritz coloured violently and made no reply. He looked a moment into
Violet's eyes and then gazed nervously aside. Presently he came over to
her chair and put his arm round her neck.
"No, no, it is not true," he cried in a sudden anguish; "it must not be
true; I do not want thee to have wings. Thou must get well. I do not
want thee to die and go away and leave me."
"To die?" said Violet with a little gasp; "ah no, I do not want to die;
only mother said when I had wings I should have no more pain and no
more tears. And now thou art crying, Fritz, and I do not like to see
it."
"I cannot help crying," sobbed Fritz.
"Then thou hadst better take up thy cap and go away," said Evelina
somewhat sharply from the doorway; "we have had tears enough in this
room for one day."
Fritz rose up proudly and took his cap from the table at the foot of
the bed.
"And when thou talkest to the policeman next time," continued Evelina
in the same unpleasant tone, "thou mayest find some other subject more
interesting to him than to talk about me, and tell tales of--"
"I told no tales," cried Fritz hotly; "he asked me wert thou very good
to his little friend Violet, that was all."
"Well, and what didst thou say?"
"I said nothing; I did not answer him. I went into the house and shut
the door."
"That was the most unkind thing thou couldst have done. It was worse
than telling tales."
"I will be kinder next time," cried Fritz with a sudden spirit; "I will
tell him everything."
"Thou hast nothing to tell," screamed Evelina down the staircase.
"Ha, ha!" laughed Fritz; "ask the looking-glass,--it sees more of thee
than any one else."
"Little villain! he shall not see much more of us," said Evelina
angrily, as she shut the door and came back into the room. "The
children at Gützberg would not dare to speak to me like that; they
have better manners.--Wilt thou have thy dinner now?" she added more
quietly, as she caught the look of weary pain and deep distress on
Violet's face.
"No, thank you; I could not eat, I am so tired; please let me go back
to bed."
Evelina undressed the child in silence; she was not cross, but her
cheeks burned and she seemed engrossed in her own thoughts.
Violet was not long in bed before she fell asleep. She was very tired,
and she slept heavily. When she woke again the afternoon was almost
spent and the room was empty. She raised herself a little on her
pillows and looked about her. The door of the inner room was slightly
ajar, and she leaned forward to see if any one was there. She could
just catch a glimpse of Evelina's figure. She was standing opposite the
mirror and was trying something on her head.
"It is mother's hat," gasped Violet; "I see the blue ribbons."
At this moment Evelina turned round quickly, and catching a glimpse of
the child's face, she shut the door with a snap.