AN OLD FRIEND ONCE MORE.
A year and a half had passed since Johanna first went to live in
'Terrace-Cottage,' near the Kahlenberg Thor. It was the close of a gray
December day; she could not see to write any longer. She rose from the
table, and went to the window to read by the fading light, in a famous
South German periodical brought her by Dr. Wolf, a favourable criticism
of her book, which had recently appeared. As she read, she was both
pleased and grieved. Where were all those in whose hearts her own joy
might have found an echo?
But the next moment she raised her head, and brushed away her tears. Had
she not reason to be glad and grateful? "Indeed I have," she said to
herself. And as she gazed out in the twilight upon the gleaming expanse
of snow, she reviewed in spirit all that life had brought her here.
First of all there was a long series of apparently monotonous, but in
reality very beneficial, days of hard work, in which the joy and pain of
her creative fancy had worn away her heart-ache, until there had come an
hour which she never should forget.
It was in harvest; she was walking just after sunset beside a hedge-row.
White gossamers floated in the clear air; all around her there was
absolute silence. Suddenly a joyous note rang out from far above her. It
was a belated lark. She looked up, surprised, and in that very moment
she had the sudden consciousness of relief and freedom which had so long
been unknown to her. Since then she had been able to think of Otto,
without bitterness, as of an entire stranger. She still had a sense of
having lost something fair and sweet; but her inmost self was untouched,
her true life undisturbed.
Thus restored to mental health, she had learned to rejoice in her new
existence, in her work for its own sake, in her gradual improvement and
success, and the result which she achieved. Many an acknowledgment, many
a word of encouragement, many a kindly salutation, had reached her in
her solitude, and had given her the assurance that she had not written
in vain.
And how her very heart and soul had been fed by Lisbeth's love, and the
child's health and progress! When the terrible news had come from
Brussels, the little one had cried bitterly for her dear pretty mamma,
whom she should never see again. But childhood's tears are soon dried;
Lisbeth soon smiled through hers. Her new home became her world, and
every one in the house petted and loved the little orphan.
Johanna, however, was the dearest confidante of her childish heart, and
an evening walk with her through the silent fields, the hour of quiet
talk before she went to bed, the _tete-a-tete_ of the sisters at their
early breakfast, were Lisbeth's cherished enjoyments.
Johanna's hope that the child would be left solely to her care had been
fulfilled. Batti had written only once after his first outpouring of
despair and grief. He had then sent trunks full of expensive dresses,
etc., to be kept for Lisbeth; and since no word had come from him.
Johanna saw in the newspaper that he had passed the winter in Paris
instead of St. Petersburg, and that was all that she knew, and even more
than she wished to know, concerning him. She did not conceal from
herself for a moment the magnitude of the responsibility which thus
devolved upon her; but she felt strong and capable. She wrote upon her
blotting-book the homely old motto,--
"Do thou but begin the weaving,
God the yarn will aye be giving."
Thus far it had been given to her, and she would always heed Goethe's
admonition, "Go to work and help yourself for the present, and hope and
trust in God for the future."
And yet, in spite of all that she possessed, and most frequently when
she was vividly conscious of how much this was, she was tormented by a
painful sense of deprivation. Her intercourse with the members of the
household was most friendly. Dr. Wolf visited her frequently, was her
faithful adviser, brought her books and periodicals, intellectual food
of all kinds; but with increasing hunger she longed for Aunt Thekla's
maternal care, the society of her grandfather, and Ludwig's faithful,
honest affection.
She never allowed herself any indulgence in this species of
home-sickness; and now, as always when it attacked her, she strove to
distract her thoughts; she would call Lisbeth, who was playing with the
'little ones,' and she had just opened her own door to do so, when the
landing-door was hastily flung wide.
Involuntarily she stood still. The dogs barked, the door-bell rang
violently with the shock, and a man addressed a question to her from the
gathering darkness. She did not understand it, but she knew the voice.
"Ludwig!" she almost screamed, and the next moment she was clasped in
his arms.
And then came the 'little ones' with the dogs and a light, to see what
was the matter. Their shouts brought the rest of the family. There were
delight, surprise, tears, and laughter. Dear Dr. Werner was conducted to
the drawing-room in triumph, and there he sat beneath the hanging-lamp,
to be gazed at by all. How brown he had grown! and how much darker were
his hair and beard! His eyes, on the contrary, looked lighter. Sanna
asked if the Indian sun had not faded them a little.
How strange that he had been in India, and yet here he was in Hanover,
sitting at their little round table just as he had sat there three years
ago! Thus the 'little ones' chattered on, learning, in answer to their
questions, that he had just come from London, and was going to spend his
Christmas at Lindenbad, whilst the older sisters consulted as to what
should be served for supper in honour of their guest, and regretted that
this was their father's glee-club evening. The poor mother's thoughts
were filled with her lost darling, and Lisbeth stood in the background,
with her arm about Johanna's neck, eying with some suspicion this
stranger who called her sister 'Johanna' and seemed so glad to see her.
She would have remained at her post when Frau Rupprecht called her
children from the room to give the foster-brother and sister an
opportunity for a quiet talk, but Jetta carried her off without more
ado.
"At last!" cried Ludwig, holding out both hands to Johanna, and then
words seemed to fail him for what he wanted to say.
After a pause, Johanna asked, "Did you come to see me or the Rupprechts?
I mean, did you know that I was here?"
"Yes, I have known it for a few days," he replied; and he added, with a
gloomy air, and in his old harsh tone, "Bad enough it was to have to
hear it from strangers. Why did you never write to me?"
"I could not!"
"You could not!" he repeated, and his lips quivered. Neither spoke. How
they had longed for this meeting, and now----What still separated them?
Suddenly Ludwig laughed derisively: "A game of hide-and-seek. I sit,
absorbed in my work in London, supposing you married, and asking no
further questions, and Johann Leopold imagines I know everything from
yourself. And did you never write to Lindenbad?"
She shook her head. "My correspondence with Mathilde had languished for
a long time, and I do not like to complain," she said. He took her words
as a hint, and said, evasively, "Let me tell you how I discovered you.
On a visit to a patient--I do not practise usually, but I could not
refuse the urgent request of a few of my countrymen--I found her full of
delight in a German book which she had just read. She showed me the
title-page. The odd motto reminded me of you: 'Do thou but begin the
weaving, God the yarn will aye be giving.' Do you remember how we
quarrelled over it once? As I was recollecting this, I turned over the
leaves mechanically. I seemed to recognize your manner of speech, your
way of looking at men and things. Yes, there was Lindenbad, and even the
garden-gate from which we have so often watched the sunset with my
blessed mother. I took the book home with me, and read it steadily until
I had finished it--_I reading a woman's romance!_ And as I laid it aside
I said to myself, 'Either she wrote it, or there exists somewhere her
twin mind.' This was interesting psychologically. You can guess the
rest. Day before yesterday I received an answer from your publisher. And
now it is your turn to tell what you wish to. Only what you wish to," he
added, with some bitterness. "I know that the old right is no longer
mine, and I do not lay claim to it."
His last sentence hurt Johanna, and closed her heart and her lips. She
gave him only the outlines of all that she had passed through. Ludwig
supposed that it pained her too much to dwell upon it. Thus they still
played 'hide-and-seek' with each other, and when they were no longer
alone, Johanna scarcely knew whether to rejoice in their meeting again.
The next morning Ludwig was to leave Hanover: he was expected in
Lindenbad; but he came early to Terrace-Cottage, knocked at Johanna's
door, and found her alone.
"Now it is your turn to give an account of yourself," said Johanna,
after the first salutations. And he told her, in his old, familiar way,
of his travels, his researches, his work and its results. More than all
it seemed to delight him that he had lately been proffered a chair in a
German university. Johanna asked if he should accept it.
"I do not know; it depends," he replied, with some hesitation. "But
enough of myself. I think you are changed; it strikes me to-day, by
daylight, for the first time. You are pale, you look weary. Have you
been ill?"
She shook her head.
"Then you work too much, you take too little exercise." And, with a
glance toward her writing-table, he added, "How did you happen upon
authorship? I cannot understand it."
"Recollect how I always loved to 'make up' stories," Johanna replied.
"The love grew with my years. Thank God that it was so! My desire to go
upon the stage was only a misconception of my task."
"Task?" he repeated. "You do not believe that anything, save the force
of outward circumstances, drove you to write? Do not deceive
yourself----"
"Most assuredly I do believe it!" she interrupted him, and her eyes
sparkled with pleasure. "The longing for some little corner of the earth
in which I could plant my flowers was there long before necessity forced
me to labour; and then, when the crash came both in my outward and my
inner life, the talent which I possessed supplied the place of home and
friends and love, or rather, let me say, restored them to me; for all of
these that I had ever possessed came back to me in the creations of my
imagination."
Ludwig sat with downcast eyes, silent, his forehead contracted in a
frown.
"Do not look so stern!" Johanna said. "I am my father's daughter; and if
I have inherited only an atom of his grand artistic gift, I must receive
it as the one talent intrusted to me, and trade with it as did the
servant who was faithful in a few things."
Ludwig knew and loved the low, trembling tone in which the last words
were spoken. And her eyes, too, shone as in their old youthful days.
With a gentler expression he rejoined, "We'll say no more of that; it
really is in your blood. Opposition is useless. Only one question: What
did the Doenninghausens say to it?"
"They knew nothing about it," replied Johanna. "Sometimes, since my book
has been so well received, I have thought it might have pleased them."
Ludwig did not appear to have heard the last part of her reply. "Your
writing, then, was not the cause of your break with Otto?" he asked.
"No; Otto did not love me,--he never loved me,--I had proof of that,"
she replied. "Of course I tell this only to you. Grandpapa never would
forgive Otto."
"Otto, Otto, always Otto!" thought Ludwig, as he rose. "I must go," he
said; but when Johanna took the hand he held out to her, he seemed
absolutely unable to leave her. "Come with me to Lindenbad," he begged.
"That would be our best Christmas."
She shook her head. "Scarcely for your sister," she replied. "And what
would become of Lisbeth? I cannot leave her alone, and if I could
venture to take her such a journey in winter, she would feel strange and
lonely at Lindenbad, and would be still less welcome than I to Mathilde,
who is not fond of children."
Ludwig took up his hat. "Excuses of all kinds; I yield!" he said, in an
irritated tone. "Farewell. _Au revoir!_" And, with one more cordial
clasp of her hand, he was gone.
"Write to me!" Johanna begged. But the door closed quickly, and she
could not be sure that he had heard the words.
He certainly was in no hurry to fulfil her request. The Holy-tide came
and went, bringing her no word from him. Johanna took herself to task
for continuing to watch and to hope, and for her inability to rid
herself of the memories which seeing him again had aroused within her.
Wherever she was--in church, in the Rupprecht family circle, at her
writing-table--Lindenbad and Doenninghausen were always present to her.
And at last--Johanna could not avoid an impression that some subtile
psychological influence had been at work--she received a sign of life
from both places. The longed-for envelope from Lindenbad arrived,
enclosing a letter to Ludwig from Johann Leopold, to which the former
had only added a few lines. Johann Leopold wrote:
"DOeNNINGHAUSEN, December 23, 1876.
"MY DEAR FRIEND,--Although it has now been for some years my
custom to look to you for aid and counsel, I would spare you my
present application if I knew of any one to turn to in your
stead. Therefore I trust you will forgive me for alluding to
painful subjects, which we have hitherto avoided mentioning to
each other.
"I have just seen by the paper that the 'equestrian artist,'
Carlo Batti, has gone with his circus to St. Petersburg for the
winter. My cousin Otto recently procured a position there as an
officer in the Guards, and a fear lest a meeting between
Johanna and himself might give occasion to fresh scandal, and
that Johanna's connection with our family might be used anew as
an advertisement for the circus, leads me to write to you. I do
not wish to blame Johanna for what she did in the glow of her
first indignation; although I confess I thought hers a nobler
nature than it proved itself to be. She should not have
entirely forgotten all regard for our family, and especially
for her grandfather's personal feeling, and she must not do it
a second time. Will you represent this to her, my dear doctor?
You have more influence with the unfortunate girl than I have.
Also pray remind her that Waldemar, Otto's brother, with his
young wife, lives in St. Petersburg. I hope that it will need
only this reminder to induce Johanna, now that her first anger
is past, to spare us. If--which I can scarcely suppose
possible--you no longer have any intercourse with Johanna, and
do not know her address, it will, I should think, be enough to
direct your letter to Batti's circus, St. Petersburg.
"The post is just leaving, wherefore pray accept a hasty
farewell for the present from your sincere friend,
"J. L. VON DOeNNINGHAUSEN."
With this letter came a few lines from Ludwig, written in evident
agitation:
"DEAR JOHANNA,--Little as I am able from the scanty information
furnished me by you to understand the contents of the enclosed
letter, I gather from it that Herr O. v. D. has explained your
separation from him by a tissue of vile falsehoods. You will
instantly send me the requisite details, that I may acquaint
your relatives with his rascality. Do not imagine that you can
prevent me from doing so. I shall find means at any rate to
learn the truth. It is bad enough that you, for the sake of a
scoundrel, have suppressed it for so long."
This was not the salutation for which Johanna had longed, and yet in
these angry lines she found once more the faithful dictatorial friend of
her early girlhood, and a sensation of being protected, from which she
had long been debarred, took possession of her. He must not, indeed, be
allowed to interfere at Doenninghausen; but it did her good to know that
he was ready to do battle for her with his old fiery zeal.
Thus cheered, she sat down to reply to his note. She could not, however,
find words for just what she wished to say, and when she read over her
finished letter it seemed to her cold and insufficient; nevertheless, it
had to be sent immediately, lest Ludwig should be left to discover the
truth after his own fashion.
She wrote: "I thank you from my heart, my dear Ludwig, for your care for
me, and for all that you wish to do and would do in my interest, if you
were right in your suppositions. But you have misunderstood my
expressions, as well as Johann Leopold's letter. Otto is not to blame
for the report that I am become a rider in the circus, but Carlo Batti
himself, who hoped thus to force me to a career for which he thought I
had a talent. Probably the enclosed notice, which was written by a
friend of Batti's, has fallen into Johann Leopold's hands. Pray tell him
the real state of the case, and that I am not responsible for the false
statements of the newspaper. I pray you to forego all further
explanations; not that Otto may be spared, but for my grandfather's
sake, that he may be saved from fresh mortification and pain. Aunt
Thekla, who knows all about it, not only agrees with me in this view of
affairs, but desires that I should be silent to my grandfather as to the
true reason for my break with Otto. That I concealed it from you also
was the result--pray believe this--not of any regard for Otto, but of a
certain sense of shame, and of repugnance to discuss the affair. In my
own mind I am so entirely separated from Otto that even my memory of him
seems something quite apart from myself. I had hoped that you perceived
this at our last interview. Since you did not, I am glad of an
opportunity to tell you that it is so, for I long to have you understand
me thoroughly as in the dear old days. Were you perhaps led astray by
some expression of mine of home-sickness for my grandfather or
Doenninghausen? These are separations the pain of which I never shall
overcome. But I know that they are irrevocable, and I pray you also to
accept them as such. Write me that you do, and then tell me how you all
are, and whether you have concluded to remain in Germany. How glad I
shall be if you have!"
The letter was sent. Johanna reckoned up the time that must pass before
the answer to it could arrive. But days went by in anxious expectation,
and again she tried, in vain, to direct her thoughts into another
channel.
Waking and dreaming, her mind was occupied with Ludwig. "We must study
each other anew," she said to herself.