"Business indeed! Who transacts business on Christmas Eve?"
Hertha pictured him hurrying through the snowy stormy night towards the
domestic hearth, and saw him stuck fast in a snowdrift. Her heart was
nearly bursting with anxiety and pity. How her sentiments had changed
since early this morning, all because of a friendly word and a
Christmassy smile. She glided, with the pocket-book under her apron, to
a drawer, tossed Lizzie's photograph contemptuously into a corner, and
put grandmamma's in its place.
The clock struck seven. They were getting so excited now outside that
they were nearly forcing the doors open, and still there was no sound
of approaching sleigh-bells.
"It can't be helped," said grandmamma, wiping away her tears; "we must
celebrate Christmas without the master of the house."
"We ought to be used to it," remarked Johanna, in her bitter way.
Hertha almost hated her for saying it.
"But don't you see," replied poor grandmamma, beginning to cry again,
"how doubly painful and trying it is for me? Four Christmases he has
been away in America and God knows where else, and now, when he has
come home, he treats me like this."
"Just wait another quarter of an hour," implored Hertha; "it's the bad
weather, I am sure, that is keeping him away."
And they waited, not a quarter, but half an hour, and then the Mamselle
came in.
"I can't manage the people any longer," she announced. "The children
are crying, and the men say they'll go home."
"Come!" said grandmamma, resolutely; "we must begin without him."
The three who had decked the trees went to light them up, leaving the
cousins alone. A breathless stillness reigned in the house.
"Do you think," Elly asked, still playing with the fringe of the
table-cloth, "that I shall have any anonymous presents?"
Hertha shrugged her shoulders and disdained to reply. And then the bell
rang. Hertha felt the same eager anxiety as in childhood as with
trembling hands she gathered her presents together and took them to the
salon.
The folding doors were flung wide, and she was met by a flood of soft
light from hundreds of lighted tapers. The spacious room was filled
with the brilliance and fragrance of three giant fir-trees. One for the
family, one for the servants and tenants, and a third for the ragged
school. On long tables with spotless white cloths plate after plate was
ranged, and beside them were parcels of warm petticoats, shoes, caps,
comforters, and stockings, the knitting of which had occupied
grandmamma's busy hands all through the spring and hot summer days. For
the children, besides the useful garments and the sweets, were piles of
cheap tops, for, as grandmamma said, "we all must be young once."
In they poured by the opposite door with happy faces, and those of them
who had threatened to storm the entrance a few minutes ago were the
very ones who now sidled along the wall, too shy to approach the
tables. They let themselves, at last, be brought forward one by one,
and then eyed their property with sidelong glances as if they would
have to steal it before it could be really their own. Hertha had so
much to do in encouraging, explaining, and leading people to their
plates, that she had no time to think of her own presents.
Meanwhile the inmates of the steward's house, the two bailiffs, the
brewer, and the accountant, had made their appearance and drawn near
the family table.
"A merry Christmas, my dear sirs," said grandmamma, struggling bravely
with her tears. "My son is late. When he comes he will say more than I
can."
The long-legged brewer was full of apologies, what for, no one knew,
and Schumann seemed ill at ease. Hertha drew him aside.
"Honestly, Herr Schumann," she asked him, "do you think it possible
that he has met with an accident?"
"He may have," answered the good fellow; "he may have missed his way in
the storm and driven into a ditch, or something of the kind. But say
nought about it, little countess, or it will spoil the fun."
"Then won't you take any steps?" she inquired, choking back her
nervousness.
Yes, certainly, after the distribution, he would send out a search
party.
And with that she was obliged to be content for the present. Grandmamma
had a word of love and kindness for every one, in spite of her private
distress. With quiet tenderness she stroked Hertha's cheek and led her
to her table.
Hertha saw a stack of books and the flash of something gold, but her
eyes were too blind with unshed tears to see more. Johanna, with
chastened smiles, did the honours to her charges. She drew them up in a
line and bade them sing the two-part Christmas hymn, the practising of
which for the last two months had resounded daily through the glades of
the park.
All the little ones stood still and silently folded their hands. "Down
from heaven, I came to earth," roared the sharp screeching small voices
through the salon, happiness encouraging them to a mighty effort. Then
of a sudden the door was flung open and violently banged back in its
lock. Every one looked round, and the laboriously practised chorale
began to waver.
"Silence there," cried a threatening hoarse voice which instantly cut
short the singing.
Hertha's knees were quaking. She saw what happened while scarcely
daring to look.
With blood-shot eyes and copper-coloured face, covered from head to
foot with melting snow, he came across the floor, his heels ringing
sharply upon it, and every one withdrew into corners in awe and terror
at his approach.
"What mismanagement is this?" he thundered. "How comes it that
Christmas is being kept in my house and I not present? I have had to
climb over the wall like a burglar to get in at all. Out with you, you
hounds! _Canaille_, get to your sleighs and begone!"
"Heaven help us! He is drunk!" murmured grandmamma, and wrung her
hands.
Hertha threw her arms round her as if she would protect the old lady
from his fury.
Johanna now asserted herself. "No one has any right to disturb the
festival of Christmas," she said, measuring him with a scornful eye;
"not even the master of the house."
"Aye, the devil take your fine speeches," he shouted, staring
piercingly in her face with eyes full of hate. "If I tolerate your
psalm-singing over there, all the more strongly do I forbid it in my
own house. Now I wish to have quiet, do you understand?"
"Only too well," she replied, smiling to herself significantly. Then
she gathered up her train and moved away.
He strode up to his mother, who has sunk helplessly into an armchair,
and whose head seemed palsied with distress.
"Leave grandmamma alone!" Hertha cried, half out of her senses from
horror, and she covered the dear grief-stricken face protectingly with
her hands.
"Now, now," he muttered stupidly, and his blood-shot eyes were fixed
half absently on the little group. Slowly he seemed to become conscious
of what he was doing.
"Go away," exclaimed Hertha, trembling with anger; "you are behaving
like a wild beast."
He growled and grumbled to himself, then threw himself heavily on to a
chair on the back of which a _peignoir_ for Hertha had been
artistically arranged.
The room had gradually emptied. Some had stealthily seized their
plates, others had left their gifts in the lurch, hoping for a happier
opportunity of taking possession of them.
"Come, grandmamma," Hertha said; "you will, at least, be safe in your
own room."
He started up and then relapsed again into sullen brooding. Grandmamma
rose with Hertha's help.
"My son! My son!" she sighed softly, folding her hands over him.
He nodded and continued growling and muttering.
The old lady left the room on Hertha's arm, and Elly, who had been
hiding behind her table, trotted after them.
At the door Hertha looked round. There he still sat, utterly alone in
the vast empty salon, with its illuminated fir-trees and the long white
tables, and he was staring after them with an expression of such
heartrending and inconsolable wretchedness that Hertha, at the sight of
it, felt a cold shiver run through her. It seemed as if she were
looking into an abyss of human misery that would swallow her too.