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A SISTER'S LOVE
_A NOVEL_
BY W. HEIMBURG
TRANSLATED BY
MARGARET P. WATERMAN
CHICAGO:
M. A. DONOHUE & CO.
407-429 DEARBORN ST.
A SISTER'S LOVE.
CHAPTER I.
A severe storm had been raging all day, and now, in the approaching
twilight, seemed as if it would overleap all bounds in its wild
confusion. Straight from the North Sea, over the broad Lueneburg heath,
it came rushing along, and beat against the gray walls of the
manor-house, shook the great elms in the garden, tossed about the
bushes, and blew from the bare branches the last yellow leaf yet spared
them by the November frost.
The great castle-like building, inhabited for centuries by the Von
Hegewitz family, looked dismal and gloomy under the cloud-laden sky; in
almost spectral gloom it lay there, with its sharply pointed gables, its
round tower, and heavy buttresses supporting the walls.
If did not always look thus, this old manor-house; in summer it was very
picturesque behind its green trees, the golden sunshine lying on its
slate roof, the pointed gables sharply outlined against the blue sky,
and the gray walls, framed by huge, old oaks, reflected in the brown
water of the pond. Beside it lay the farm-buildings and the houses of
the village, whose shingled roofs emerged in their turn from the foliage
of the fruit-trees. Far out into the Mark country extended the view,
over fields of waving corn, over green meadows and purple heath, bounded
on the horizon by the dark line of a pine forest. A narrow strip of pine
woods, besides, lay to the north, extending nearly to the garden, and on
hot summer afternoons an almost intoxicating fragrance was wafted from
it toward the quiet house.
Within it was still a real, old-fashioned German house; for there were
dim corridors and deep niches, great vaulted rooms and large alcoves,
little staircases with steep steps worn by many feet, and curious low
vaulted doors. A flight of steps would lead quite unexpectedly from one
room into the next, and here and there a door, instead of leading out of
a room, opened, to one's surprise, into a huge closet. Then there were
cemented floors, and great beams dividing the ceilings, and the smallest
of window-panes. And yet where could more real comfort be found than in
such an old house, especially when a November storm is howling without,
and here indoors great fir logs are crackling in the gay-tiled stove?
And just now, down the stairs from the upper story, came an old lady,
looking as if comfort itself came with the green silk knitting-bag on
her arm, her large lace cap, and the brown silk shawl over her
shoulders. She might have been in the fifties, this small, spare figure,
and she limped. Fraeulein Rosamond von Hegewitz had limped all her life,
and yet a more contented nature than hers did not exist. She now turned
to the left and walked along the narrow corridor. This was her regular
evening walk, as she went to her nephew and niece in the sitting-room--a
dear old walk, which she had taken for years, since the time when the
children were little, and her brother and sister-in-law were still
alive; when twilight came she could no longer endure the solitude of
her spinster's room.
Just as she was about to lay her hand on the bright brass door-handle,
she perceived by the dim light of the hall-lamp a girl who was sobbing
gently, her coarse linen apron thrown over her face.
"What are you crying about, Marieken?" asked the old lady kindly, coming
back a step or two. The curly brown head was raised, and a young face,
bathed in tears and now red from embarrassment, looked up at Fraeulein
Rosamond.
"Ah, gracious Fraeulein, I am to leave," she stammered, "and I----"
"Why, what have you--?" The old lady got no further, for just then the
door was opened a little way and the clear, full tones of a youthful
feminine voice came out into the corridor.
"That is my last word, Maertensen; I will not suffer such things in my
house. She may thank God that I have noticed her folly in good season.
Only think of Louisa Keller!"
"God in heaven, Fraeulein!" the person accosted replied in defence,
almost weeping. "The lass has done nothing bad, and he is certainly a
respectable man. O Fraeulein, when one is young one knows too----"
"For shame, Maertensen!" This came vehemently. "You know what I have
said. Take your Marieken and go. I will have no frivolous maids in my
house!"
The door was now opened wide, and an old woman came out, her wrinkled
face red with excitement.
"Come, lass," she called to the girl, who had just put her apron over
her eyes again; "troubles don't last forever! She'll feel it herself
some day yet! Driving away my girl as if she had been stealing!" And
without greeting the old lady, she seized her daughter by the arm and
drew her away with her.
Rosamond von Hegewitz turned slowly to the door. A half-mocking,
half-earnest expression lay on the wise old face. "_Bon soir_, Anna
Maria!" said she, as she entered the brightly lighted sitting-room.
A girl rose from the chair before the massive secretary, went toward the
new-comer, and received her with that formality which at the beginning
of our century had not yet disappeared from the circle of gentle
families, pressing to her lips the outstretched hand with an expression
of deepest respect.
"Good evening, aunt; how are you feeling?"
It was the same rich voice that had spoken before, and, like it, could
belong only to such a fresh young creature. Anna Maria von Hegewitz was
just turned eighteen, and the whole charm of these eighteen years was
woven about her slender figure and the rosy face under her braids of
fair hair. In contradiction to this girlishness, a pair of deep gray
eyes looked out from beneath the white forehead, seriously, and with
almost a look of experience, which, with a peculiar self-conscious
expression about the mouth, lent a certain austerity to the face.
"Thank you, my dear, I am well," replied the old lady, seating herself
at the round table before the sofa, upon which were burning four candles
in shining brass candlesticks. "Don't let me interrupt you, _ma
mignonne_. I see I have broken in upon your writing; are you writing to
Klaus?"
"I have only been looking over the grain accounts, aunt; I shall be done
in a moment. I shall not write again to Klaus, for he must return day
after to-morrow at the latest. If you will excuse me a moment----"
"Oh, certainly, child. I will occupy myself alone meanwhile." The old
lady drew her knitting-work from the silk bag and began to work, at the
same time glancing dreamily about the large, warm, comfortable room.
She had known it thus long since; nothing in it had been altered since
her youth--the same deep arm-chairs around the table, the artistic
inlaid cupboards, even the dark, stamped leather wall-paper was still
the same, and the old rococo clock still ticked its low, swift
to-and-fro, as if it could not make the time pass quickly enough. And
there at the desk, where the young niece was sitting, her only brother
had worked and calculated, and at that sewing-table on the estrade at
the window had been the favorite seat of the sister-in-law who died so
young. But how little resemblance there was between mother and daughter!
The old lady looked over toward her again. The girl's lips moved, and
the slender hand passed slowly with the pencil down the row of figures
on the paper. "Makes five hundred and seventy-five thaler, twenty-three
groschen," she said, half-aloud. "Correct!
"Now, then, Aunt Rosamond, I am at your service." She extinguished the
candle, locked the writing-desk, and bringing a pretty spinning-wheel
from the corner, sat down near her aunt, and soon the little wheel was
gently humming, and the slender fingers drawing the finest of thread
from the shining flax. For a while the room was quiet, the silence
broken only by the howling of the storm and the crackling of the burning
log in the stove.
"Anna Maria," began the old lady at last, "you know I never interfere
with your arrangements, so pardon me if I ask why you send Marieken
away."
"She has a love affair with Gottlieb," replied the niece, shortly.
"I am sorry for that, Anna Maria; she was always a girl who respected
herself; ought you to act so severely?"
"She gives him her supper secretly, and runs about the garden with him
on pitch-dark nights. I will not have such actions in my house, and know
that Klaus would not approve of it either." The words sounded strangely
from the young lips.
"Yes, Anna Maria "--Rosamond von Hegewitz smiled "if you will judge
thus! These people have quite different sentiments from us, and--and you
cannot know, I suppose, if their views are honest?"
"That is nothing to me!" replied Anna Maria. "They _cannot_ marry,
because they are both as poor as church mice. What is to come of it? The
girl must leave; you surely see that, dear aunt?"
The old lady now laughed aloud. "One can see, Anna Maria, that you know
nothing yet of a real attachment, or you would not proceed in so
dictatorial a manner."
The slightest change came over the young face. "I _will_ not know it,
either!" she declared firmly, almost turning away.
"But, sweetheart," came from the old voice almost anxiously, "do you
think that it will always be so with you? You are eighteen years old--do
you think your heart will live on thus without ever feeling a passion?
And do you expect the same of your brother, Anna Maria? Klaus is still
so young----"
The little foot stopped on the treadle of the wheel, and the gray eyes
looked in amazement at the speaker.
"Don't you know then, aunt, that it is a long-established matter that
Klaus and I should always stay together? Klaus promised our mother on
her death-bed that he would never leave me. And I go away from Klaus?
Oh, sooner--sooner may the sky fall! Don't speak of such possibilities,
Aunt Rosamond. It is absurd even to think of."
"Pardon me, Anna Maria"--the words sounded almost solemn--"I was present
when your dying mother took from Klaus his promise never to leave you,
always to protect you. But at the same time to forbid him to love
another woman, a woman whom his heart might choose, she surely did not
intend!"
"Aunt Rosamond!" cried the girl, almost threateningly.
"No, my child, I repeat it, your mother was much too wise, much too
just, to wish such a thing; she was too happy in her own marriage to
wish her children--But, _mon Dieu_, I am exciting myself quite
uselessly; you have such a totally false conception of this promise."
"Klaus told me so himself, Aunt Rosamond," declared the girl, in a tone
which made contradiction impossible.
Aunt Rosamond was silent; she knew well that all talking would be vain,
and that nothing in the world could convince Anna Maria that any object
worthy of love beside her beloved brother could exist. "_Nous verrons,
ma petite_," thought she, "you will not be spared the experience
either!"
And now her thoughts wandered far back into the past, to the night when
Anna Maria was born. A terrible night! And as they passed on, there came
a day still more terrible; in the heavy wooden cradle, adorned with
crests, lay, indeed, the sweetly sleeping child, but the mother's eyes
had closed forever, not, however, without first looking, with a fervid,
anguished expression, at the little creature that must go through life
without a mother's love! And beside her bed had knelt a boy of fifteen,
who had to promise over and over again to love the little sister, and
protect and shield her.
How often had Aunt Rosamond told this to the child as she grew up; how
often described to her how she had been baptized by her mother's coffin,
how her brother had held her in his arms and pressed her so closely to
him, and wept so bitterly. Indeed, indeed, there was not another brother
like Klaus von Hegewitz, that Aunt Rosamond knew best of all.
She remembered how he had watched for nights at the child's bed when she
lay ill with measles; with what unwearied patience he had borne with her
whims, now even as then; how carefully he had marked out a course of
instruction and selected teachers for her, looked up lectures for her,
read and rode with her, and did everything that the most careful
parental love alone can do, and even more--much more! Indeed, Anna Maria
knew nothing of a parent's love; the father had always been a peculiar
person, especially so after the death of his wife: it almost seemed as
if he could not love the child whose life had cost a life. He was rarely
at home; half the year he lived in Berlin, coming back to the old
manor-house only at the hunting season. But never alone; he was always
accompanied by a young man, a Baron Stuermer, owner of the neighboring
estate of Dambitz, and two years older than Klaus.
It was a singular friendship which had existed between these two men.
Hegewitz, well on in the sixties, gloomy and unsociable, and from his
youth distrustful of every one, and not even amiable toward his own
children, was affable only to his friend, so much younger. To this
moment Aunt Rosamond distinctly remembered the pale, nobly-formed face
with the fiery brown eyes and the dark hair. How gratefully she
remembered him! He had been the only one who understood how to mediate
between father and son, the only one who, with admirable firmness, had
again and again led the struggling little girl to her father; and he did
all this out of that incomprehensible friendship. The two used to play
chess together late into the night; they rode and hunted together; and
still one other passion united them--they collected antiquities.
They searched the towns and villages for miles about for old carved
chests, clocks, porcelain, and pictures, and would dispute all night as
to whether a certain picture, bought at an auction, was by this or that
master, whether it was an original or a copy. They often remained away
for days on their excursions, and the treasures they won were then
artistically arranged in a tower-room--"a regular rag-shop," Aunt
Rosamond had once said in banter. "I only wonder they don't get me too
for this '_Collection Antique_.'" After the death of Hegewitz this
really valuable collection was found to be made over, by will, to Baron
Stuermer, "because Klaus did not understand such things." Stuermer
accepted the bequest, but he had it appraised by a person intelligent in
such matters, and paid the value to the heirs. Klaus von Hegewitz
refused to accept the sum, and so the two men agreed to found an
almshouse for the two villages of Buetze and Dambitz.
That had happened ten years ago, and the collecting furor of the old
gentleman had borne good results.
Soon after his death, Baron Stuermer went away on a journey; he had long
wished to travel, and had deferred his cherished plan only on his old
friend's account. His first goals had been Italy, Constantinople, and
Greece; he went to Egypt, he visited South America, Norway and Sweden,
and had travelled through Russia and the Caucasus. No one knew where he
was staying at present. He had written seldom of late years, at last not
at all; but his memory still lived in Buetze. Only Anna Maria no longer
spoke of him; indeed, she scarcely remembered him now: she was just
eight years old when he went away. Only this she still knew: that Uncle
Stuermer had often taken her by the hand and led her to her father, and
that at such times her heart had always beaten more quickly from fear.
Anna Maria had stood in real awe of her father, and when he died and was
buried, not a tear flowed from the child's eyes. Her entire affection
belonged to her brother, as she used to say, full of pride and love for
him.
Aunt Rosamond had never been able to exert the slightest influence over
the girl's independent character.
As soon as Anna Maria was confirmed, she hung the bunch of keys at her
belt, and took up the reins of housekeeping with an energy and
circumspection that aroused the admiration of all, and especially of the
old aunt, who was particularly struck by it, since she herself was a
tender, weak type of woman, to whom such energy in one of her own sex
could but seem incomprehensible.
Anna Maria spun on quietly as all these thoughts succeeded each other
behind the wrinkled brow of her companion. She could sit and spin thus
whole evenings, without saying a word; she was quite different from
other girls! She did not allow a bird or a flower in her room, nor did
she ever wear a flower or a ribbon as an ornament. And yet one could
scarcely imagine a more high-bred appearance than hers. Whether she were
walking, in her house dress, through kitchen and cellar, or receiving
guests in the drawing-room, as happened two or three times a year, she
lost nothing in comparison with other ladies and girls; on the contrary,
she had a certain superiority to them, and Aunt Rosamond would sometimes
say to herself: "The others are like geese beside _her_!"--"Yes, what
may happen here yet?" she asked herself with a sigh.
"A letter for the Fraeulein!" A youth of perhaps twenty-five years,
dressed in simple dark livery, handed Anna Maria a letter.
"From Klaus!" she cried joyfully, but held the letter in her hand
without opening it, and fixed her eyes upon the firm, resolute face of
the servant.
"Well, Gottlieb, what is the matter with you?" she asked. "You look as
if your wheat had been utterly ruined."
"Gracious Fraeulein," the youth replied, with hesitation yet firmly, "the
master will have to look about for some one else--I am going away at New
Year."
"Have you gone mad?" cried Anna Maria, frowning. "What is it here that
you object to?" She had risen and stepped up to the youth. "As for the
rest," she continued, "I can imagine why you have such folly in your
head. Because I have sent away Marieken Maertens, do you wish to go too?
Very well, I will not keep you; you may go; there are plenty of people
who would take your place. But if your father knew it he would turn in
his grave. Do you know how long your father served at Buetze?"
"Fifty-eight years, Fraeulein," replied the young fellow at once.
"Fifty-eight years! And his son runs away from the service in which his
father grew old and gray, after a frivolous girl! Very well, you shall
have your way; but mind, any one who once goes away from here--never
returns. You may go."
The servant's face grew deep red at the reproachful words of his young
mistress; he turned slowly to the door and left the room.
Anna Maria had meanwhile broken the great crested seal, and was reading.
"Klaus is coming day after to-morrow!" After reading awhile, now as
happy as a child, she cried to the old lady: "Just hear, Aunt Rosamond,
what else he writes. I will read it aloud.
"'I found my old Mattoni over his books as usual, but it seemed to me he
looked ill. I asked him about it, but he declared he was well. A
proposal to come and recuperate next summer in our beautiful country air
he dismissed with a shake of the head, "he had no time!" He is an
incorrigible bookworm.
"'But now here is something particularly interesting! Do you know whom I
met yesterday "Unter den Linden," sunburned and scarcely recognizable?
Edwin Stuermer! He was standing by a picture-store, and I beside him for
some time, without a suspicion of each other; we were looking at some
pretty water-colors by Heuselt. All at once a hand was laid on my arm,
and a familiar voice cried: "Upon my word, Klaus, if you had not
developed that fine beard, I should have recognized you sooner!"
"'I was exceedingly glad to see Edwin again, and rejoice still more at
the future prospect. The old vagabond is going to fold his wings at
last, and take care of his estate. He is coming shortly to Dambitz;
consequently we shall have a good friend again near us. As for the
rest, he wouldn't believe that you have become a young lady and no
longer wear long braids and short dresses.'"
Anna Maria stopped, and looked into the distance, as if recalling
something. "I don't know exactly now how he looked," she said. "He wore
a full black beard, didn't he, aunt, and must be very old now?"
"No indeed, _mon coeur_; he may be thirty-five at the most."
"That is certainly old, Aunt Rosamond!"
"That is the way young people judge," said the old lady, smiling.
"It may be, aunt," said Anna Maria, and put the letter in her pocket.
She had begun to spin again, when an old woman in a dazzlingly white
apron entered the room.
"Gracious Fraeulein," she began respectfully, yet familiarly, "Marieken
is off, and has made a great commotion in the house, and the eldest of
the Weber girls has just applied for the place, but she asks for twelve
thaler for wages and a jacket at Christmas!"
"Ten thaler, and Christmas according to the way she conducts herself,"
Anna Maria replied, without looking up.
The housekeeper disappeared, but returned after awhile.
"Eleven thaler and a jacket, Fraeulein; she will not come otherwise," she
reported. "You can surely give her that; she has no lover, and will
hardly get one, for she is already well on in years, and----"
Anna Maria drew a purse from her pocket, and laid an eight-groschen
piece on the table. "The advance-money, Brockelmann; do you know that
Gottlieb wishes to leave?"
"Oh, dear, yes, Fraeulein." The old woman was quite embarrassed. "I am
sorry; he doted upon the lass at one time, and at last--oh, heavens,
fraeulein, one has been young too, and if two people love each
other--see, Fraeulein, it is just as if one had drunk deadly hemlock. I
mean no offence, but you will know it yet some day, and, if God will,
may the handsomest and best man in the world come to Buetze and take you
home!"
The old woman had spoken affectingly, and looked at her young mistress
with brightening eyes. Only she would have dared to touch on this point.
She had been Anna Maria's nurse, and a remnant of tenderness toward her
was still hidden somewhere in the girl's heart.
"Brockelmann, you cannot keep from talking," she cried, serenely. "You
know I shall _never_ marry. What would the master do without me? Is
supper ready?"
"The master!" said the good woman, without regarding the last question.
"He ought to marry too! As if it were not high time for him; he will be
thirty-three years old at Martinmas!"