his eldest daughter, as I have said, was twenty-one years of age. His
second child, also a girl, was six years younger; and their third child,
a boy, had not been born till another similar interval had elapsed. He
was named Hatto after his uncle, and the two girls had been christened
Isa and Agnes. Such, in number and mode of life, was the family of the
Heines.
We English folk are apt to imagine that we are nearer akin to Germans
than to our other continental neighbours. This may be so in blood, but,
nevertheless, the difference in manners is so striking, that it could
hardly be enhanced. An Englishman moving himself off to a city in the
middle of Central America will find the customs to which he must adapt
himself less strange to him there, than he would in many a German town.
But in no degree of life is the difference more remarkable than among
unmarried but marriageable young women. It is not my purpose at the
present moment to attribute a superiority in this matter to either
nationality. Each has its own charm, its own excellence, its own
Heaven-given grace, whereby men are led up to purer thoughts and sweet
desires; and each may possibly have its own defect. I will not here
describe the excellence or defect of either; but will, if it be in my
power, say a word as to this difference. The German girl of
one-and-twenty,--our Isa’s age,--is more sedate, more womanly, more
meditative than her English sister. The world’s work is more in her
thoughts, and the world’s amusements less so. She probably knows less of
those things which women learn than the English girl, but that which she
does know is nearer to her hand for use. She is not so much accustomed
to society, but nevertheless she is more mistress of her own manner. She
is not taught to think so much of those things which flurry and disturb
the mind, and therefore she is seldom flurried and disturbed. To both of
them, love,--the idea of love,--must be the thought of all the most
absorbing; for is it not fated for them that the joys and sorrows of
their future life must depend upon it? But the idea of the German girl
is the more realistic, and the less romantic. Poetry and fiction she may
have read, though of the latter sparingly; but they will not have imbued
her with that hope for some transcendental paradise of affection which
so often fills and exalts the hearts of our daughters here at home. She
is moderate in her aspirations, requiring less excitement than an
English girl; and never forgetting the solid necessities of life,--as
they are so often forgotten here in England. In associating with young
men, an English girl will always remember that in each one she so meets
she may find an admirer whom she may possibly love, or an admirer whom
she may probably be called on to repel. She is ever conscious of the
fact of this position; and a romance is thus engendered which, if it may
at times be dangerous, is at any rate always charming. But the German
girl, in her simplicity, has no such consciousness. As you and I, my
reader, might probably become dear friends were we to meet and know each
other, so may the German girl learn to love the fair-haired youth with
whom chance has for a time associated her; but to her mind there occurs
no suggestive reason why it should be so,--no probability that the youth
may regard her in such light, because that chance has come to pass. She
can therefore give him her hand without trepidation, and talk with him
for half an hour, when called on to do so, as calmly as she might do
with his sister.
Such a one was Isa Heine at the time of which I am writing. We English,
in our passion for daily excitement, might call her phlegmatic, but we
should call her so unjustly. Life to her was a serious matter, of which
the daily duties and daily wants were sufficient to occupy her thoughts.
She was her mother’s companion, the instructress of both her brother and
her sister, and the charm of her father’s vacant hours. With such calls
upon her time, and so many realities around her, her imagination did not
teach her to look for joys beyond those of her present life and home.
When love and marriage should come to her, as come they probably might,
she would endeavour to attune herself to a new happiness and a new
sphere of duties. In the meantime she was contented to keep her mother’s
accounts, and look after her brother and sister up two pair of stairs in
the Ludwigs Strasse. But change would certainly come, we may prophesy;
for Isa Heine was a beautiful girl, tall and graceful, comely to the
eye, and fit in every way to be loved and cherished as the partner of a
man’s home.
I have said that an English clerk made a part of that small
establishment in the dingy banking-office in the Schrannen Platz, and I
must say a word or two of Herbert Onslow. In his early career he had not
been fortunate. His father, with means sufficiently moderate, and with a
family more than sufficiently large, had sent him to a public school at
which he had been very idle, and then to one of the universities, at
which he had run into debt, and had therefore left without a degree.
When this occurred, a family council of war had been held among the
Onslows, and it was decided that Herbert should be sent off to the
banking-house of Heines, at Munich, there being a cousinship between the
families, and some existing connections of business. It was, therefore,
so settled; and Herbert, willing enough to see the world,--as he
considered he should do by going to Munich,--started for his German
home, with injunctions, very tender from his mother, and very solemn
from his aggrieved father. But there was nothing bad at the heart about
young Onslow, and if the solemn father had well considered it, he might
perhaps have felt that those debts at Cambridge reflected more fault on
him than on his son. When Herbert arrived at Munich, his cousins, the
Heines,--far-away cousins though they were,--behaved kindly to him.
They established him at first in lodgings, where he was boarded with
many others, having heard somewhat of his early youth. But when Madame
Heine, at the end of twelve months, perceived that he was punctual at
the bank, and that his allowances, which, though moderate in England,
were handsome in Munich, carried him on without debt, she opened her
motherly arms and suggested to his mother and to himself, that he should
live with them. In this way he also was domiciled up two pairs of stairs
in the palatial residence in the Ludwigs Strasse.
But all this happened long ago. Isa Heine had been only seventeen when
her cousin had first come to Munich, and had made acquaintance with him
rather as a child than as a woman. And when, as she ripened into
womanhood, this young man came more closely among them, it did not
strike her that the change would affect her more powerfully than it
would the others. Her uncle and father, she knew, had approved of
Herbert at the bank; and Herbert had shown that he could be steady;
therefore he was to be taken into their family, paying his annual
subsidy, instead of being left with strangers at the boarding-house. All
this was very simple to her. She assisted in mending his linen, as she
did her father’s; she visited his room daily, as she visited all the
others; she took notice of his likings and dislikings as touching their
table arrangements,--but by no means such notice as she did of her
father’s; and without any flutter, inwardly in her imagination or
outwardly as regarded the world, she made him one of the family. So
things went on for a year,--nay, so things went on for two years with
her, after Herbert Onslow had come to the Ludwigs Strasse.
But the matter had been regarded in a very different light by Herbert
himself. When the proposition had been made to him, his first idea had
been that so close a connection with a girl so very pretty would be
delightful. He had blushed as he had given in his adhesion; but Madame
Heine, when she saw the blush, had attributed it to anything but the
true cause. When Isa had asked him as to his wants and wishes, he had
blushed again, but she had been as ignorant as her mother. The father
had merely stipulated that, as the young Englishman paid for his board,
he should have the full value of his money, so that Isa and Agnes gave
up their pretty front room, going into one that was inferior, and Hatto
was put to sleep in the little closet that had been papa’s own peculiar
property. But nobody complained of this, for it was understood that the
money was of service.
For the first year Herbert found that nothing especial happened. He
always fancied that he was in love with Isa, and wrote some poetry about
her. But the poetry was in English, and Isa could not read it, even had
he dared to show it to her. During the second year he went home to
England for three months, and by confessing a passion to one of his
sisters, really brought himself to feel one. He returned to Munich
resolved to tell Isa that the possibility of his remaining there
depended upon her acceptance of his heart; but for months he did not
find himself able to put his resolution in force. She was so sedate, so
womanly, so attentive as regarded cousinly friendship, and so cold as
regarded everything else, that he did not know how to speak to her. With
an English girl whom he had met three times at a ball, he might have
been much more able to make progress. He was alone with Isa frequently,
for neither father, mother, nor Isa herself objected to such communion;
but yet things so went between them that he could not take her by the
hand and tell her that he loved her. And thus the third year of his life
in Munich, and the second of his residence in the Ludwigs Strasse, went
by him. So the years went by, and Isa was now past twenty. To Herbert,
in his reveries, it seemed as though life, and the joys of life, were
slipping away from him. But no such feeling disturbed any of the Heines.
Life, of course, was slipping away; but then is it not the destiny of
man that life should slip away? Their wants were all satisfied, and for
them, that, together with their close family affection, was happiness
enough.
At last, however, Herbert so spoke, or so looked, that both Isa and her
mother that his heart was touched. He still declared to himself that he
had made no sign, and that he was an oaf, an ass, a coward, in that he
had not done so. But he had made some sign, and the sign had been read.
There was no secret,--no necessity for a secret on the subject between
the mother and daughter, but yet it was not spoken of all at once. There
was some little increase of caution between them as Herbert’s name was
mentioned, so that gradually each knew what the other thought; but for
weeks, that was all. Then at last the mother spoke out.
“Isa,” she said, “I think that Herbert Onslow is becoming attached to
you.”
“He has never said so, mamma.”
“No; I am sure he has not. Had he done so, you would have told me.
Nevertheless, is it not true?”
“Well, mamma, I cannot say. It may be so. Such an idea has occurred to
me, but I have abandoned it as needless. If he has anything to say he
will say it.”
“And if he were to speak, how should you answer him?”
“I should take time to think. I do not at all know what means he has for
a separate establishment.” Then the subject was dropped between them for
that time, and Isa, in her communications with her cousin, was somewhat
more reserved than she had been.
“Isa, are you in love with Herbert?” Agnes asked her, as they were
together in their room one night.
“In love with him? No; why should I be in love with him?”
“I think he is in love with you,” said Agnes.
“That is quite another thing,” said Isa, laughing. “But if so, he has
not taken me into his confidence. Perhaps he has you.”
“Oh no. He would not do that, I think. Not but what we are great
friends, and I love him dearly. Would it not be nice for you and him to
be betrothed?”
“That depends on many things, my dear.”
“Oh yes, I know. Perhaps he has not got money enough. But you could live
here, you know, and he has got some money, because he so often rides on
horseback.” And then the matter was dropped between the two sisters.
Herbert had given English lessons to the two girls, but the lessons had
been found tedious, and had dwindled away. Isa, nevertheless, had kept
up her exercises, duly translating German into English, and English into
German; and occasionally she had shown them to her cousin. Now, however,
she altogether gave over such showing of them, but, nevertheless, worked
at the task with more energy than before.
“Isa,” he said to her one day,--having with some difficulty found her
alone in the parlour, “Isa, why should not we go on with our English?”
“Because it is troublesome,--to you I mean.”
“Troublesome. Well; yes; it is troublesome. Nothing good is to be had
without trouble. But I should like it if you would not mind.”
“You know how sick you were of it before;--besides, I shall never be
able to speak it.”
“I shall not get sick of it now, Isa.”
“Oh yes you would;--in two days.”
“And I want you to speak it. I desire it especially.”
“Why especially?” asked Isa. And even she, with all her tranquillity of
demeanour, could hardly preserve her even tone and quiet look, as she
asked the necessary question.
“I will tell you why,” said Herbert; and as he spoke, he got up from his
seat, and took a step or two over towards her, where she was sitting
near the window. Isa, as she saw him, still continued her work, and
strove hard to give to the stitches all that attention which they
required. “I will tell you why I would wish you to talk my language.
Because I love you, Isa, and would have you for my wife,--if that be
possible.”
She still continued her work, and the stitches, if not quite as perfect
as usual, sufficed for their purpose.
“That is why I wish it. Now will you consent to learn from me again?”
“If I did, Herbert, that consent would include another.”
“Yes; certainly it would. That is what I intend. And now will you learn
from me again?”
“That is,--you mean to ask, will I marry you?”
“Will you love me? Can you learn to love me? Oh, Isa, I have thought of
this so long! But you have seemed so cold that I have not dared to
speak. Isa, can you love me?” And he sat himself close beside her. Now
that the ice was broken, he was quite prepared to become an ardent
lover,--if she would allow of such ardour. But as he sat down she rose.
“I cannot answer such a question on the sudden,” she said. “Give me till
to-morrow, Herbert, and then I will make you a reply;” whereupon she
left him, and he stood alone in the room, having done the deed on which
he had been meditating for the last two years. About half an hour
afterwards he met her on the stairs as he was going to his chamber. “May
I speak to your father about this,” he said, hardly stopping her as he
asked the question. “Oh yes; surely,” she answered; and then again they
parted. To him this last-accorded permission sounded as though it
carried with it more weight than it in truth possessed. In his own
country a reference to the lady’s father is taken as indicating a full
consent on the lady’s part, should the stern paterfamilias raise no
objection. But Isa had no such meaning. She had told him that she could
not give her answer till the morrow. If, however, he chose to consult
her father on the subject, she had no objection. It would probably be
necessary that she should discuss the whole matter in family conclave,
before she could bring herself to give any reply.
On that night, before he went to bed, he did speak to her father; and
Isa also, before she went to rest, spoke to her mother. It was singular
to him that there should appear to be so little privacy on the subject;
that there should be held to be so little necessity for a secret. Had he
made a suggestion that an extra room should be allotted to him at so
much per annum, the proposition could not have been discussed with
simpler ease. At last, after a three days’ debate, the matter ended
thus,--with by no means a sufficiency of romance for his taste. Isa had
agreed to become his betrothed if certain pecuniary conditions should or
could be fulfilled. It appeared now that Herbert’s father had promised
that some small modicum of capital should be forthcoming after a term of
years, and that Heine Brothers had agreed that the Englishman should
have a proportionate share in the bank when that promise should be
brought to bear. Let it not be supposed that Herbert would thus become a
millionaire. If all went well, the best would be that some three hundred
a year would accrue to him from the bank, instead of the quarter of that
income which he at present received. But three hundred a year goes a
long way at Munich, and Isa’s parents were willing that she should be
Herbert’s wife if such an income should be forthcoming.
But even of this there was much doubt. Application to Herbert’s father
could not be judiciously made for some months. The earliest period at
which, in accordance with old Hatto Heine’s agreement, young Onslow
might be admitted to the bank, was still distant by four years; and the
present moment was thought to be inopportune for applying to him for any
act of grace. Let them wait, said papa and mamma Heine,--at any rate
till New Year’s Day, then ten months distant. Isa quietly said that she
would wait till New Year’s Day. Herbert fretted, fumed, and declared
that he was ill-treated. But in the end he also agreed to wait. What
else could he do?
“But we shall see each other daily, and be close to each other,” he said
to Isa, looking tenderly into her eyes. “Yes,” she replied, “we shall
see each other daily--of course. But, Herbert----”
Herbert looked up at her and paused for her to go on.
“I have promised mamma that there shall be no change between us,--in our
manner to each other, I mean. We are not betrothed as yet, you know, and
perhaps we may never be so.”
“Isa!”
“It may not be possible, you know. And therefore we will go on as
before. Of course we shall see each other, and of course we shall be
friends.”
Herbert Onslow again fretted and again fumed, but he did not have his
way. He had looked forward to the ecstasies of a lover’s life, but very
few of those ecstasies were awarded to him. He rarely found himself
alone with Isa, and when he did do so, her coldness overawed him. He
could dare to scold her, and sometimes did do so, but he could not dare
to take the slightest liberty. Once, on that night when the qualified
consent of papa and mamma Heine had first been given, he had been
allowed to touch her lips with his own; but since that day there had
been for him no such delight as that. She would not even allow her hand
to remain in his. When they all passed their evenings together in the
beer-garden, she would studiously manage that his chair should not be
close to her own. Occasionally she would walk with him, but not more
frequently now than of yore. Very few, indeed, of a lover’s privileges
did he enjoy. And in this way the long year wore itself out, and Isa
Heine was one-and-twenty.
All those family details which had made it inexpedient to apply either
to old Hatto or to Herbert’s father before the end of the year need not
be specially explained. Old Hatto, who had by far the greater share in
the business, was a tyrant somewhat feared both by his brother and
sister-in-law; and the elder Onslow, as was known to them all, was a man
straitened in circumstances. But soon after New Year’s Day the
proposition was made in the Schrannen Platz, and the letter was written.
On this occasion Madame Heine went down to the bank, and together with
her husband, was closeted for an hour with old Hatto. Uncle Hatto’s
verdict was not favourable. As to the young people’s marriage, that was
his brother’s affair, not his. But as to the partnership, that was a
serious matter. Who ever heard of a partnership being given away merely
because a man wanted to marry? He would keep to his promise, and if the
stipulated moneys were forthcoming, Herbert Onslow should become a
partner,--in four years. Nor was the reply from England more favourable.
The alliance was regarded by all the Onslows very favourably. Nothing
could be nicer than such a marriage! They already knew dear Isa so well
by description! But as for the money,--that could not in any way be
forthcoming till the end of the stipulated period.
“And what shall we do?” said Herbert to Papa Heine.
“You must wait,” said he.
“For four years?” asked Herbert.
“You must wait,--as I did,” said Papa Heine. “I was forty before I could
marry.” Papa Heine, however, should not have forgotten to say that his
bride was only twenty, and that if he had waited, she had not.
“Isa,” Herbert said to her, when all this had been fully explained to
her, “what do you say now?”
“Of course it is all over,” said she, very calmly.
“Oh, Isa, is that your love?”
“No, Herbert, that is not my love; that is my discretion;” and she even
laughed with her mild low laughter, as she answered him. “You know you
are too impatient to wait four years, and what else therefore can I
say?”
“I wonder whether you love me?” said Herbert, with a grand look of
injured sentiment.
“Well; in your sense of the word I do not think I do. I do not love you
so that I need make every one around us unhappy because circumstances
forbid me to marry you. That sort of love would be baneful.”
“Ah no, you do not know what love means!”
“Not your boisterous, heartbreaking English love, Herbert. And, Herbert,
sometimes I think you had better go home and look for a bride there.
Though you fancy that you love me, in your heart you hardly approve of
me.”
“Fancy that I love you! Do you think, Isa, that a man can carry his
heart round to one customer after another as the huckster carries his
wares?”
“Yes; I think he can. I know that men do. What did your hero Waverley do
with his heart in that grand English novel which you gave me to read? I
am not Flora Mac Ivor, but you may find a Rose Bradwardine.”
“And you really wish me to do so?”
“Look here, Herbert. It is bad to boast, but I will make this boast. I
am so little selfish, that I desire above all that you should do that
which may make you most happy and contented. I will be quite frank with
you. I love you well enough to wait these four years with the hope of
becoming your wife when they are over. But you will think but little of
my love when I tell you that this waiting would not make me unhappy. I
should go on as I do now, and be contented.”
“Oh heavens!” sighed Herbert.
“But as I know that this would not suit you,--as I feel sure that such
delay would gall you every day, as I doubt whether it would not make
you sick of me long before the four years be over,--my advice is, that
we should let this matter drop.”
He now walked up to her and took her hand, and as he did so there was
something in his gait and look and tone of voice that stirred her heart
more sharply than it had yet been stirred. “And even that would not make
you unhappy,” he said.
She paused before she replied, leaving her hand in his, for he was
contented to hold it without peculiar pressure. “I will not say so,” she
replied. “But, Herbert, I think that you press me too hard. Is it not
enough that I leave you to be the arbiter of my destiny?”
“I would learn the very truth of your heart,” he replied.
“I cannot tell you that truth more plainly. Methinks I have told it too
plainly already. If you wish it, I will hold myself as engaged to
you,--to be married to you when those four years are past. But,
remember, I do not advise it. If you wish it, you shall have back your
troth. And that I think will be the wiser course.”
But neither alternative contented Herbert Onslow, and at the time he did
not resolve on either. He had some little present income from home, some
fifty pounds a year or so, and he would be satisfied to marry on that
and on his salary as a clerk; but to this papa and mamma Heine would not
consent;--neither would Isa.
“You are not a saving, close man,” she said to him when he boasted of
his economies. “No Englishmen are. You could not live comfortably in two
small rooms, and with bad dinners.”
“I do not care a straw about my dinners.”
“Not now that you are a lover, but you would do when you were a husband.
And you change your linen almost every day.”
“Bah!”
“Yes; bah, if you please. But I know what these things cost. You had
better go to England and fetch a rich wife. Then you will become a
partner at once, and Uncle Hatto won’t snub you. And you will be a grand
man, and have a horse to ride on.” Whereupon Herbert went away in
disgust. Nothing in all this made him so unhappy as the feeling that
Isa, under all their joint privations, would not be unhappy herself. As
far as he could see, all this made no difference in Isa.