"A few hours later a carriage drove into the court. I recognized
Stuermer's livery, and from my chamber window saw Brockelmann help out
the old actress, hardly with the haste of anticipation.
"'There, we really ought to have just such a sort of mother-in-law in
the house!' I whispered, and smiled bitterly; but tear after tear fell
on my lilac cap-strings. Like misfortune itself, the old woman came up
the steps. Ah! Klaus, Klaus, whither have you gone astray?' Our whole
family seemed to me unspeakably fallen in this moment, and I could do
nothing in the unfortunate affair, but only try to raise Susanna to us,
to keep her away from everything which might remind her of the folly, of
the frivolity of the sphere from which she sprang; again and again to
point out to her what a rich, fair lot had fallen to her; to make her
comprehend that the wife of a Hegewitz must also be a pattern of dignity
and noble womanhood. I should have much preferred to bundle Isabella
Pfannenschmidt into the carriage again, to send her to some place miles
away, and against my will I was going out of my door, when I heard her
slow, shuffling step in the hall.
"'Please, ma'm'selle, come into my room a minute before you go to
Susanna,' I said to her. Frankly confessed, I do not know myself why I
did it; but I felt instinctively that I must speak with her first,
before she learned the latest turn in Susanna's fate from her own lips.
"The small person came slowly over the threshold, looking at me
distrustfully. She seemed to me infinitely wretched in her rumpled
bonnet and threadbare silk cloak, her face yellower than ever, and
sunken, and she was somewhat bent, as if still suffering pain. She sat
down in the nearest chair, and looked at me with her sharp, sullen eyes.
I stood before her and tried to speak, yet no word passed my lips. All
the craft, all the low sentiments which flashed out of those small eyes
toward me reminded me anew of the sort of atmosphere in which Susanna
had grown up. I had been walking up and down the room with these
thoughts; now I took a seat opposite the old woman, who had silently
followed me with her eyes. I wanted to tell her that a great, great
happiness had befallen Susanna, and found no words for it. It seemed as
if I were choked.
"'I would like to inform you,' I began, hesitatingly, but I got no
farther, for Anna Maria came in. 'Dear aunt,' said she, 'I have to speak
with Isabella Pfannenschmidt a moment.' I drew a breath of relief, and
went into the adjoining room.
"Then I heard Anna Maria's sonorous voice. She spoke of a great piece of
good fortune that had come to Susanna, and said that she hoped Susanna
would reward so much love, such infinite trust, with all her powers, in
order to make the man happy who offered her a name, a home, and a heart.
"Tears came into my eyes again; there was something in Anna Maria's
voice that pained me infinitely. I pictured to myself the proud maiden
before the vagabond actress, to whom she was now speaking as to an
equal. That which I had considered impossible now happened, out of love
to her brother. Now I thought the old woman must break out in an ecstasy
of joy; I shuddered already at the thought of the theatrical
glorification in her darling's good fortune. Far from it; she spoke
quietly and coolly. I could not understand her, but it sounded like a
murmur of discontent.
"'I do not comprehend you,' Anna Maria said, now icily; 'if I have
rightly understood my brother's letter, Susanna gave her assent on the
evening when she fled to you. What? Is she, meanwhile, to have changed
her mind?'
"Again a murmur; then I heard disconnected words between the old woman's
sobs: 'Defence--true love--' and so forth. This homeless woman was as
pretentious as a ruling princess making arrangements to give her
daughter in marriage to a man of a lower class.
"Then I heard her leave the room. When I reentered Anna Maria was
standing at the window, her forehead pressed against the panes, her
clenched hand rested on the window-sill, and her lips were tightly
closed.
"'Anna Maria,' said I, 'this person must leave the house.'
"'Klaus may decide that,' she replied, gently; 'I have no longer any
voice in this matter.'
"'She is an arrogant thing!' I continued, in my wrath.
"Anna Maria turned. 'Ah, aunt,' said she, 'the old woman loves Susanna
like a mother, and such a relative naturally asks, in respect to the
most brilliant match: "Will it be for the child's happiness?" I ought
not to have taken it amiss; it was unjust in me.'
"I pressed her hand softly. Anna Maria's noble sentiments sprang forth
in her pain, like flowers after rain. God grant that she was right in
her excuse!
"Half an hour afterward, Isabella Pfannenschmidt came in with Susanna,
whose eyes were red with weeping, and hair dishevelled. Isabella led her
to Anna Maria, and Susanna made a motion as if to take her hand, but her
own fell to her side again, and so, for a moment, the two girls, so
unlike, stood opposite each other. Anna Maria had turned pale, to her
very lips; then she put her arm about Susanna's delicate shoulders, and
drew her to herself. But Susanna slid to the floor, and, sobbing,
embraced her knees; it seemed as if she wished to ask forgiveness for a
heavy offence, but not a word passed her lips. She only looked up at
Anna Maria, with an expression which I shall never forget my life long,
she seemed so true in those few moments. But before Anna Maria could
stoop to raise the girl, Isabella had already pulled her up with the
sharp, quick words: 'Susanna, be sensible!'
"Did the old woman consider prostration before the sister of the future
husband too much devotion, or did she fear that thereby her darling was
subordinating herself, once for all, to the sister's strict _regime_? I
could not decide at the time; I did not know till later that this moment
was a fearful crisis in Susanna's heart.
"The next three days passed quietly. Anna Maria had given Isabella a
little room next Susanna's, had told her Klaus's plans for his wedding;
and the old woman agreed to all the arrangements without a word of
opposition, but without showing any joy either. The sewing for the
trousseau was to be begun immediately after the harvest festival.
Isabella had arranged a cushion for lace-making, and under her thin,
skilful fingers grew filmy lace of the finest thread--'for the wedding
toilet!' she said softly to me.
"Susanna's manner was quite altered; she unsociably avoided not only our
company, but Isa's as well. Meanwhile the old woman seemed little
concerned that her darling ran about half the day in the wood and
garden, looked pale, and ate little or nothing, and now and then started
up impetuously from her quiet, absorbed state, looking about with
terrified eyes. 'That is the way with people in love,' she would say in
excuse, with a peculiar smile, if I worried about Susanna's pale looks.
"In a few days there came a letter from Klaus for Susanna. I went
up-stairs to give it to her. The first love-letter, a wonder in every
girl's life! With beating heart it is opened, read in the most secret
corner, kissed a thousand times, and kept forever. After long years
there still rises from such a yellow, crumpled paper a faint odor of
roses; a blush flits over the wrinkled cheeks, the dimmest eyes shine
once more in recollection of the hour when they first fell on those
lines. I was in quite a festive mood. What might not be enclosed in that
blue envelope? All the love, all the trust, all the true, noble
sentiment that could come only from such a heart as Klaus's! And all
this fell like a golden rain into the lap of the little vagabond girl.
"I opened her door and looked in. Isabella sat, making lace, at the open
window. Susanna lay on the sofa, her head buried in the cushions,
apparently dreaming. The golden autumn sun streamed in through the
trees, which were already becoming less shady, and played upon the
inlaid floor, and Susanna's little kitten, with a blue ribbon around its
neck, was jumping nimbly about after the bright, moving flecks.
"'Susanna, a letter from Klaus!' I cried, going to the sofa.
"She started up, and stared at me with frightened eyes, but she did not
reach out for the letter in eager haste; her little hand made rather an
averting gesture. Isabella, on the other hand, was standing beside me in
an instant. 'A letter from the lover, Susanna!' she cried, cheerfully.
'Well, well, before I would be so affected! Quick, take and read it!'
The words had a certain harsh sound, and Susanna seized the letter, took
her straw hat from the nearest chair, and slipped out of the door; but
it was not the joyous haste of anticipation, it looked rather like a
speedy escape from Isa's sharp eyes.
"'A strange child, Fraeulein Rosamond,' said the old woman, smiling and
shaking her head. 'She is different from others, God bless her!' Then
she began to rummage in Susanna's bureau, and brought out a little
portfolio, from which she took a sheet of gilt-edged paper, with a
bird-of-paradise with outstretched wings, sitting on a rose, on the
upper left-hand corner, and arranged blotter, pen, and ink-stand. 'She
will want to write immediately, when she has read the letter,' she
explained, 'and a first love-letter like that is not easy, for one dips
in the pen a hundred times, and still what one would like to say does
not come.'
"I went away with the thought that Susanna would know well enough what
to write. When the heart speaks, the pen is easily guided. Anna Maria
had a great deal to do on this day; the animals were to be killed for
the harvest festival. In the housekeeping rooms a restless activity
reigned. Marieken was required to help, as on all such occasions, and
Brockelmann had poured the flour to be used in cooking for the festival
into a great tray in the baking-room. Anna Maria was in the storeroom;
I found her sitting on a great sugar-firkin, with a slate in her hands;
at her feet lay the scales with different weights, and Brockelmann was
just bringing great bowls of raisins and sugar to be weighed for the
cakes. Anna Maria wore, as usual, her great white housekeeping apron
over her simple dress; her fair hair lay, smooth as a mirror, in
luxuriant plaits on her beautifully shaped head; her sleeves, being
pushed up a little, exposed her white arms; not a blemish on the whole
appearance, from the lace-trimmed mull kerchief about her shoulders to
the shapely foot in the little laced shoe. Would Susanna ever practise
household duties thus?
"Never! That princess, that will-o'-the-wisp, with the curly hair and
little, childish hands! But would Anna Maria remain here forever? Lost
in thought, I stood for a moment at the door of the cool cellar. Anna
Maria drew a line below her figures, laid the slate aside, and took up a
letter. 'From Klaus,' she said, as she caught sight of me. 'I will read
it by and by in my room.' On the table lay another letter, significantly
smaller than the first, and already opened. Anna Maria noticed that my
eyes rested on it a moment, questioningly.
"'Stuermer announces his coming to the harvest festival,' she explained,
bending forward quickly and putting something on the table. When she
raised her head again a slight flush still lay on her cheeks.
"'You have accepted, Anna Maria?'
"'Yes,' she said, quickly; 'I think it is only right to Klaus.'
"'Klaus has written to Susanna too,' said I; 'did you know it?'
"She quivered, noticeably. 'No,' she replied, 'but that must be.'
"'She has run, the Lord knows where, with her treasure,' I continued,
smiling; 'she will probably answer it to-day, too.'
"Anna Maria nodded. 'We will go up,' she said; 'I would like to read,
too.' We went through the busy kitchen and up the stairs. Anna Maria
went at once to her room, and I to the upper story, to seek my own room.
In the hall I stopped; the sound of Susanna's sobbing came to my ear,
and the indignant voice of the old woman:
"'For shame, Susanna!'
"'No, I cannot, I will not!' sobbed the girl.
"They had forgotten to latch the door; I slipped nearer, but did not
understand Isabella's hissing whisper, nevertheless.
"'No, no!' cried Susanna again, but with little resistance. Fresh
whispering, then a kiss. 'My little hare, my Susy, it may all be yet;
now the thing is, to put a good face on the bad game!' in genuine Berlin
speech. 'Now at it; you are brave!'
"An icy chill crept over me, even to my heart; I could not account for
it to myself. But I was in no mood then to open the door, and went to my
room with the consciousness that something wrong, something mysterious,
was going on over there.
"An hour later Isabella came to me with a letter. 'Here it is,' said she
proudly. 'Susanna is ready with her pen, she gets it from her father,
and all that she says in this is beautiful. It is a shame that you
haven't read it, Fraeulein; how pleased Klaus will be.'
"'Herr von Hegewitz!' I corrected, bluntly.
"'Pardon!' returned Isabella, 'the name came so easily to my lips; I
have heard it so often from Susanna that----'
"'Very well!' I interrupted. 'Now, to return to the letter; it almost
sounds as if you knew the contents. I hope Susanna does not conduct her
correspondence under your direction!'
"Isabella Pfannenschmidt grew crimson. 'Heaven forbid!' she said,
casting an angry glance at me. 'Susanna only spoke in a general way of
what she was going to write, to tell him how grateful she is and how
honored and how she loves him.'
"'I do not wish to know anything about it,' I replied, coldly. 'I only
expect of Susanna that she will not allow all that she has to say to-day
to her lover--something which, it seems to me, should be as sacred as a
prayer--to be desecrated by meddling eyes.'
"Isabella smiled in embarrassment; she evidently did not understand me.
'To whom can I give this letter,' she asked, 'to send it to the
post-office?'
"'Leave it here; I will see that it is put into the mail-bag,' I
replied. When I went down later, I found Susanna sitting motionless on a
bench in the garden. She seemed to be buried in a book; but her first
letter was already with a messenger, on the way to the city.
"Anna Maria had grown calmer than I expected; it seemed as if some great
force had carried her half over her sorrow about Klaus. She brought me
his letter at supper time; it contained warm expressions of thanks,
infinite love for his sister, permeated with rapture at the possession
of Susanna. The world seemed to him more beautiful than ever; he
pictured to himself such a wonderful future, with Susanna, with Anna
Maria. Again and again came a fervent, 'But how shall I thank you, Anna
Maria, for this, that you will love my little bride as a sister? I have
always known that we think an infinite deal of each other, and it seems
to me as if my love for you had become even greater! Anna Maria, how I
wish for you such a happiness as mine!' He added that he should be as
pleased as a child at the first lines from Susanna, that he had an
endless longing to come home, but, unfortunately, business made it
impossible; the fatigues of the journey he would think nothing of.
"Anna Maria silently folded the letter which I returned to her, and put
it in her pocket, 'Have you seen Susanna since she received her letter?'
she asked.
"'No, Anna Maria.'
"'How happy she must be, aunt!'
"'I find Susanna very quiet for an engaged girl,' I replied.
"'Yes,' she agreed. 'But I cannot describe to you how infinitely better
she pleases me; it is quieting to me that she does not take the matter
lightly.'"