A TRUCE.
“DOES Mr. Rosenberg never spend his evenings at home?” asked Hamilton,
after having waited three weeks in expectation of becoming better
acquainted with him.
“Oh, no; what could he do at home?” asked his wife, seemingly surprised
at the question.
Hamilton was silent; he remembered that he had never seen Mr. Rosenberg
converse with his wife.
“He never drinks his beer or reads the papers at home,” she continued;
“but you can go out with him whenever you like—I wonder you do not, for
it is very natural that you should find it dull here when you cannot go
to the theatre.”
“I do not find it dull,” said Hamilton; “and I should not go so often to
the theatre if I had not heard that it was the best means to perfect
one’s self in a foreign language. By-the-by, I received a letter from my
father this morning, and he desires me forthwith to engage a German
master; he expects me to write German as well as English when I return
home, and says I should study German literature. I wished to have asked
Mr. Rosenberg to recommend me to someone, for as I am not quite a
beginner, I should like to have a person really capable of directing my
studies during the winter. One can read a good deal in six months when
the dictionary is no longer in requisition.”
“If you wish to study French, Hildegarde could give you instructions,
for she understands it thoroughly; but German has been rather neglected
in her education. I really think I must let her take lessons at the same
time with you.”
“I shall be very much obliged to you,” said Hildegarde, bestowing, for
the first time, a look of regard on her step-mother; “very much obliged
indeed.”
“That will be delightful,” said Hamilton, eagerly. “I have always
received my German lessons with my sister, and am particularly fond of
learning in company.”
“May I not learn too, mamma?” asked Crescenz, timidly.
“What for?” asked her mother, with a laugh. “Have you not already
secured a good husband, who is satisfied with you as you are? It would
be time and money thrown away, and you have enough to do preparing your
_trousseau_ at present. The workwoman comes to-morrow, and we must then
begin in earnest. As to Hildegarde, she has thrown away an opportunity
which I hope she may not hereafter regret. Husbands will not fall down
from heaven to be picked up just when she is in the humour to marry; she
must try in every way to improve herself now, as a time may come when
she may be obliged to give instruction. Life is precarious; if anything
should happen to your father——”
“My father!” exclaimed Hildegarde, anxiously. “Has he been complaining
lately? Do you fear a return of——”
“Your anxiety is unnecessary; he is at present perfectly well,” answered
her mother dryly. “I wish, when I am really suffering, you would
sometimes show a little of the attention and anxiety which you bestow at
times so unnecessarily on him; it would become you better, Hildegarde,
than the cold heartlessness which you evince for everything that
concerns me. Crescenz is quite different, and therefore I feel for her
as if she were my own child.”
“But, mamma,” said Crescenz, in a very low voice, “you are always kind
to me!”
“Am I not kind to Hildegarde?”
Crescenz blushed, stammered, and looked anxiously towards her sister.
“No,” said Hildegarde, courageously, “you are not kind to me; perhaps I
do not deserve it. I have no right to expect you to love me, but I have
a right to expect you to be just.”
“I was disposed to be more than just to you at first, Hildegarde, if you
allowed me. Mr. Hamilton shall be judge between us.”
“Excuse me,” said Hamilton, “I do not feel competent to give an opinion
on such a subject.”
“Chance has, however, placed you exactly in a position to act as umpire;
we must be satisfied with your decision, because we know you to be an
unbiassed looker-on. My step-daughters were with me but a few weeks
before I met you at Seon; since that time you have been constantly with
us. Hildegarde, shall I go on?”
Hildegarde murmured something about “strangers” and “family
dissensions.”
“Mr. Hamilton is no longer a stranger; and as to the dissensions, such
as they are, he has been a witness to them. For my part, I should like
to explain, but if you acknowledge that you have been unjustly and
unnecessarily prejudiced against me, I shall be silent.”
“Mr. Hamilton is not so unbiassed an arbitrator as you suppose,”
observed Hildegarde, looking up steadily while she leaned on the table.
Madame Rosenberg looked from one to the other with a puzzled air, until
Hildegarde added: “He will find it difficult not to lean to your side,
and take your part, even if he wished to be just, because he dislikes me
personally.”
“Another argument against you, Hildegarde!” cried Madame Rosenberg,
triumphantly. “Why should he dislike you more than another, if you were
not less amiable? Your own words condemn you!”
“Be it so,” said Hildegarde, with some emotion. “No one loves me
but—but—my father.”
“_I_ love you, Hildegarde,” whispered Crescenz, gently taking her
sister’s hand, and, at the same time, looking timidly towards her
step-mother, “I love you too.”
“I shall soon see _your_ affection decline; it cannot be otherwise,”
said Hildegarde, bending over her work to conceal the large tears which
stood in her eyes, ready to fall when she could permit them to do so
unperceived.
Madame Rosenberg was not a person of much observation, although
possessed of a good deal of common sense. She heard the words, and
answered to them. “Of course, when Crescenz marries, you cannot expect
any longer to be her first object; Major Stultz will, and ought to take
your place in her affections—it is the way of the world—the law of
nature!”
Hildegarde’s work dropped from her hands. Hamilton, who was sitting
beside her, picked it up; and as she stooped to take it from him, the
tears which he had been watching in stolen glances, now, to his infinite
dismay, fell slowly on his hand. He started, as if they had hurt him;
and then, under pretence of seeking a book, left the room, hoping to
find the discussion at an end on his return. He was mistaken; on again
opening the door, Madame Rosenberg was speaking with even more than
usual volubility. “The fact is, Hildegarde, you cannot pardon my being a
smith’s daughter; although I was a much better match for your father
than his first wife, with all her fine relations! What’s the use of
being a countess when one is penniless? Your mother had not even a
respectable _trousseau_—there is scarcely anything remaining to be given
to Crescenz; and you know yourself, your relations have been so unkind
that your father never intends to allow you to visit them; and I am
quite sure were you to meet them in the street they would look away to
avoid bowing to you. Take my advice, Hildegarde, forget that your mother
was a Countess Raimund, remember that your father is plain Franz
Rosenberg; and though your mother is a smith’s daughter, you ought not
to forget that many of the comforts of your home come from her, and the
produce of the much despised iron works. Cease to fancy yourself a
martyr to a cruel step mother; I might be a great deal worse than I am;
if you find me sometimes a little strict, it is only for your good, and
necessary, too, at your age! As to your refusal of the Major, I shall
never mention it again—he has not gone out of the family, you know; if
he had not proposed to Crescenz, I could not have got over the loss or
forgiven you so easily. You must endeavour to correct your irritability
of temper, and I am sure in time everyone will like you; even Mr.
Hamilton will overcome his dislike to you.”
Hildegarde’s varying colour showed how much she suffered during this
speech; and Hamilton was again on the point of leaving the room, when
Madame Rosenberg called out: “You need not run away again, we have
talked the matter out, and intend to be good friends in future, eh,
Hildegarde? Come here and give me a kiss to prove that you bear no
malice.”
Hildegarde put aside her work, approached her step-mother, and received
her hearty kiss with an evident effort at cordiality.
“May I hope to be included in this reconciliation?” asked Hamilton,
holding out his hand, with a smile.
Hildegarde pretended not to understand him; and again took her place at
the table.
“Hildegarde,” said her step-mother, “you may give your hand to Mr.
Hamilton—he is an Englishman, and will put no wrong construction on the
action. Captain Smith told me that shaking hands is a common English
custom, and means nothing more than kissing a lady’s hand here.”
“I should think it must mean a great deal less,” said Hamilton,
laughing, while Hildegarde, after a moment’s consideration, placed her
hand in his, and unreservedly returned his firm pressure.
“Ah! here comes the Major,” cried Madame Rosenberg, as a slight knock
was heard at the drawing-room door. “Come in, Major, and tell us what
you have been doing with yourself the whole afternoon; we expected you
to supper, and I should not be surprised if Crescenz were to scold you a
little for your unusual absence.”
“I cannot imagine Crescenz scolding me, even if I deserved it, which,
however, in this instance, is not the case,” said Major Stultz. “I have
spent the whole day in lodging-hunting. The sooner I am established the
better, as Crescenz must assist me to choose our furniture.”
“Why, what a hurry you are in,” said Madame Rosenberg, with evident
satisfaction. “Quite an ardent lover, I declare. However, I shall not be
behindhand in performing my part. The workwoman comes to-morrow, and
then we shall work our fingers to the bone, eh, Crescenz?”
Crescenz blushed, and smiled faintly.
“I should like very much to talk over the different lodgings with you,
Crescenz,” said Major Stultz, growing very red. “I have noted them for
that purpose in my pocket-book. That is,” he added, in a whisper, “if we
can go to another table.”
Madame Rosenberg heard the whisper, pushed a candle towards him, and
pointed to a card-table at the other end of the room. No sooner were
they established at it than she jingled her keys once or twice, as a
sort of tacit excuse, and then left the room.
Hamilton, who was, as usual, sitting near the stove, pretended to be
wholly occupied with a book; his eyes, nevertheless, wandered
perpetually over it, towards Hildegarde, who now began strangely to
interest him. As the door closed on her mother, her hands fell
listlessly on her lap, and by degrees became clasped round her knee,
while she gazed steadfastly on the floor for several minutes. She then
raised her head, and having looked at her sister for some time, turned
towards Hamilton, but so slowly that he was able to fix his eyes on his
book, although he coloured violently in doing so; he thought she must
perceive his confusion, and continued pertinaciously to read the words,
although they conveyed no idea whatever to his mind. When he had reached
the end of the page, he became curious to know whether or not she was
still looking at him, and, after a moment’s hesitation, he half turned
over the leaf, and at the same time raised his eyes without moving his
head; he had given himself unnecessary trouble to catch her glance—her
eyes met his with the most unconcerned expression possible, and though
he felt that he continued to blush, she either did not observe it, or
attributed it to the heat of the room.
“I wonder that you can sit so near the stove, and that you can read at
such a distance from the candle,” she observed, quietly.
“I am rather surprised at it myself,” answered Hamilton, pushing his
chair close to hers, so as to form a _tête-à-tête_.
“Perhaps if I snuff the candle you will be better able to read.” She
snuffed the candle out.
“Thank you,” said Hamilton, vainly attempting to repress a laugh; “I
have no doubt I shall be better able to read now. Perhaps you have done
this on purpose to make me feel that I ought to have snuffed the candle
myself.”
“Oh, no, indeed,” said Hildegarde, joining half unwillingly in the
laughter, “I happened to overhear something which Crescenz said, and
then I looked up and——”
Crescenz rose from her chair, looked at them for a moment, and then, in
a voice of ill-suppressed emotion, stammered out: “They—they—are
laughing at me—at us!”
“No, oh no!” cried Hildegarde, eagerly, taking up the extinguished
candle to light it. “No, indeed, Mr. Hamilton is laughing because I have
snuffed out the candle, and I am laughing I don’t know what for,” she
added with a sigh. “I am sure I never felt less inclined to be merry in
my life.”
Crescenz sat down again, but followed her sister with her eyes as she
turned to her place. Major Stultz in vain talked of his yellow sofa and
six chairs, and asked her whether he should buy a long or a round table
for her drawing-room; or proposed purchasing both, if she wished it. She
heard him not, for Hildegarde was again beside Hamilton, and he was
leaning on the arm of his chair, and looking at her as Crescenz had
never seen him look at anyone before.
“Crescenz! you do not hear a word I am saying,” exclaimed Major Stultz
at length. “Not one word! If you wish it, we can return to the other
table, and then you can watch your sister playing with the snuffers and
the wick of the candle at your leisure.”
Crescenz did not answer.
“Perhaps,” he continued, yielding to an unconquerable feeling of
jealousy, “perhaps I have mistaken the object of your attention—I do
believe you are admiring the bold black eyes of that long-legged English
boy!”
Crescenz blushed deeply and turned away.
This was stronger confirmation than he had expected, and he now
continued, in the low voice of suppressed anger: “I have long suspected
something of this kind, Crescenz—your mother desired me to say nothing
to you about it, as she imagined you too innocent to be capable of such
perfidy—I cannot, at my age, expect you to love me as I do you—but I did
imagine that in time I should gain your affection—if this be not
possible, tell me so at once, for I will not be made a fool of by you or
any one else!”
“I don’t understand you!” cried Crescenz, terrified at his constrained
manner and flushed face, “I don’t in the least understand you!”
“Then I will speak to your mother,” he cried, rising hastily, and
pushing back his chair with great violence. “She will understand me
quickly enough.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, don’t complain of me!” cried Crescenz
beseechingly, while the tears started to her eyes. “I will do anything
you please, and pay the greatest attention, if you will only promise not
to tell mamma.”
“Then you did understand me, and know what I was about to say to her?”
he asked, frowning.
“Oh, yes—you were going to tell her that I would not talk about the
furniture, and that I looked at Hildegarde playing with the
snuffers—and—Mr. Hamilton with his foot on the stove, instead of
listening to you!”
This speech was made with consummate cunning—a more common ingredient in
the composition of weak characters than is generally supposed. Major
Stultz’s manner had frightened Crescenz—she feared the anger of her
step-mother and the reproaches of her father, for she was essentially
timid, and the want of moral courage made her affect a simplicity which,
although in perfect keeping with her real character, was on the present
occasion mere acting, as she had perfectly understood Major Stultz’s
meaning. She could not have answered better; he was deceived, and while
wiping the perspiration from his crimson face, he begged her to forgive
his impatience, said that he had been guilty of entertaining odious
suspicions, and though Crescenz continued to blush while he spoke, and
would not raise her eyes from the table, he was too generous to distrust
her again, and attributed her subsequent embarrassment altogether to
timidity. Partly from a jealous recollection of the expression of
Hamilton’s eyes, partly from shame at her own duplicity and annoyance at
the unmerited praises now lavished on her by her lover, Crescenz began
to weep bitterly, and poor Major Stultz was obliged to talk a deal of
youthful nonsense in order to restore her equanimity, and induce her to
continue the interrupted conversation.
In the meantime, the unconscious cause of all the disturbance had
indulged in a long scrutiny of Hildegarde’s beautiful profile. She put
an end to it by turning to him, and saying with a glance at his book:
“You must have been reading French or English—our German letters at such
a distance from the light would have been illegible.”
“I have been reading Bulwer’s last novel. It is extremely interesting.”
“Indeed! I wish you would lend it to me before you send it back to the
library.”
“Is it possible you understand English, and have never spoken one word
to me!” exclaimed Hamilton.
“I do not see anything extraordinary in that,” replied Hildegarde,
smiling.
“You speak French so remarkably well, that I know you have a talent for
languages. I dare say you speak English perfectly!”
“I cannot speak a word.”
“You have not had enough practice, perhaps, but you understand it when
it is spoken.”
“Not a syllable.”
“Then may I ask you what you intend to do with this novel when I lend it
to you?”
“Read it from daybreak until seven o’clock, and at night as long as my
candle lasts,” replied Hildegarde, taking the book from him and looking
at the title page.
“If you can read that book, and understand it, you must be able to speak
a little,” observed Hamilton.
“I tell you I can neither speak nor understand English when it is
spoken, and yet I can read this novel, if you will lend it to me, quite
as well as if it were French or German.”
“You have had an odd kind of master!”
“I have had no master at all—mamma thought English an unnecessary study,
though I should have greatly preferred it to music. The master too was
expensive, so I was obliged to give up all hope of instruction; but I
had heard of some person who had learned to read and understand a
language perfectly without being able to pronounce a word, and who found
it very easy, when chance gave him an opportunity to learn the
pronunciation afterwards. I begged papa to buy me a grammar and
dictionary, borrowed all the English books I could get from my
school-fellows, learned them almost by heart from having read them so
often; and when the Baroness Z— lent me some English novels at Seon, I
scarcely missed my dictionary, which I had left in Munich.”
“What extraordinary perseverance!” exclaimed Hamilton, with undisguised
admiration.
“Mamma would call it obstinacy,” said Hildegarde quickly. “Nothing would
induce me to tell her that I had dared to learn English, after she had
refused to let me take lessons.”
“There is a great difference between obstinacy and perseverance,” said
Hamilton.
“The difference is sometimes difficult to define—my step-mother says I
am obstinate!”
“I really do think your organ of firmness must be tolerably well
developed,” said Hamilton, laughingly placing his hand on the top of her
head.
Hildegarde coloured, and hastily pushed back her chair—he saw she did
not understand him, but he was too lazy to explain. The thought passed
quickly through his mind, that it was odd his not as yet having met a
single person who understood or was interested about phrenology in
Germany—the country of Gall and Spurzheim!—while in England most people
had read Combe’s works, attended lectures on, or had at least heard
phrenology spoken of sufficiently to understand what he had just said.
“You can keep the book if you wish it,” he observed, in order to renew
the conversation.
“But you have not quite read it,” said Hildegarde, “and I can imagine
nothing more disagreeable than resigning a novel before one knows how it
ends. Perhaps other people do not feel the same degree of interest that
I do, but——”
“I have often sat up until four o’clock in the morning to read an
interesting novel,” said Hamilton.
“It must be very pleasant to have a light as long as one pleases at
night! Mamma is quite surprised when I ask for a candle oftener than
every three days, and then she always observes that sitting up at night
is very injurious to the health and eyes, and I get nothing but little
ends of candle for a fortnight afterwards.”
“I will give you as many candles as you can burn,” said Hamilton,
laughing.
“That was not what I meant,” said Hildegarde in great confusion. “I dare
say mamma is right. For in summer, though I only read in bed from
daylight until six o’clock, I have often felt terribly fatigued during
the day afterwards—I heard mamma tell papa, that if you were _her_ son,
she would go into your room every night at ten o’clock, and put out your
candles.”
“I do not exactly wish her to be my mother, for the sake of having a
living extinguisher, which I should consider rather a bore than
otherwise,” said Hamilton, “but if she were my mother, you would of
course be my sister, and I should have no objection to that
relationship.”
“Have you a sister?” asked Hildegarde, abruptly.
“Yes, an only sister, and I like her better than all my brothers put
together.”
“And do you not quarrel with her?”
“Never. She is my most intimate friend when I am at home, my principal
correspondent when I am abroad. She is the most amiable, the most
excellent of human beings!”
“Older? much older than you?” asked Hildegarde, with some appearance of
interest.
“Only a year or two,” replied Hamilton. “We learned French as children
together, and afterwards Italian and German. You will take her place
to-morrow or the day after, when we begin our studies, and if you wish
to learn to speak English, I am quite willing to assist you.”
“Oh, delightful!” cried Hildegarde, unconsciously moving her chair quite
close to his, and leaning her hand confidentially on the arm of it;
“delightful! that is exactly what I have long wished for; but,” she
added hesitatingly, “but I fear you will expect me to—to—that is, not
to——”
“What?” asked Hamilton, with a smile.
“Not to say what I think; or—or quarrel in future.”
“I made the offer unconditionally; we can fight our battles all the
same, whenever you feel disposed.”
“If that be the case,” said Hildegarde, apparently much relieved, “I
accept your offer, thankfully, and I hope I shall not give you much
trouble.”
“Suppose you take your first lesson now,” said Hamilton. “As you merely
require the pronunciation, let us begin with this book.” He laid it
before her as he spoke, and they both turned towards the table.
Hildegarde began at once to read, but with the most unintelligible
foreign accent he had ever heard. He used his utmost effort to suppress
his laughter, and did not venture to correct a single word. At the end
of the page she looked up rather surprised, and encountered Hamilton’s
eyes brilliant with suppressed mirth, while every other feature of his
face was drawn into a forced seriousness of expression, forming
altogether so extraordinary a distortion of countenance that she threw
herself back in her chair and burst into a fit of laughter.
“Why don’t you laugh out, if you feel inclined?” she asked, as Hamilton
half covered his face with his pocket-handkerchief.
“I really was afraid of offending you,” he replied.
“Oh! you never can offend me by laughing openly; it is only by speaking
ironically or sneering that you can annoy me, and make me feel almost
inclined at times to give you a box on the ear.”
“I give you leave to do so whenever you please,” said Hamilton; “but you
will incur a penalty of which I shall most certainly take advantage.”
“And what may that be?”
“If my lips may not explain otherwise than by words, they decline the
office.”
Hildegarde bent her face over her book, shaded her eyes, and remained
silent.
“Go on,” said Hamilton; “now that you have given me leave to laugh I
have lost all inclination.”
Hildegarde continued to read, looking up, however, at the end of every
sentence, and asking for the necessary corrections.
When Major Stultz stood up to take leave, he put an end to the first of
the English lessons, which were, however, continued with unfailing
regularity every day from that time forward. A young medical student,
recommended alike for his talent and poverty, was engaged to give German
lessons, and the drawing-room being found too subject to interruptions,
Hamilton’s sitting-room was converted into a study. The youthful
preceptor seemed to enjoy his pupil’s society, and often remained long
to discuss literary and philosophical subjects with Hamilton, and not
unfrequently to smoke a cigar, Hildegarde having had the complaisance to
profess to like the smell of tobacco when it was good.
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