Linda Tressel Part 15

Max Bogen handed Linda over to his wife, and then disappeared. "Oh, Linda, what is it? Why are you here? Dear Linda." And then her old friend kissed her, and within half an hour the whole story had been told.

"Do you mean that she eloped with him from her aunt's house in the middle of the night?" asked Max, as soon as he was alone with his wife. "Of course she did," said f.a.n.n.y; "and so would I, had I been treated as she has been. It has all been the fault of that wicked old saint, her aunt." Then they put their heads together as to the steps that must be taken. f.a.n.n.y proposed that a letter should be at once sent to Madame Staubach, explaining plainly that Linda had run away from her marriage with Steinmarc, and stating that for the present she was safe and comfortable with her old friend. It could hardly be said that Linda a.s.sented to this, because she accepted all that was done for her as a child might accept it. But she knelt upon the floor with her head upon her friend's lap, kissing f.a.n.n.y's hands, and striving to murmur thanks. Oh, if they would leave her there for three days, so that she might recover something of her strength!

"They shall leave you for three weeks, Linda," said the other.

"Madame Staubach is not the Emperor, that she is to have her own way in everything. And as for Peter--"

"Pray, don't talk of him;--pray, do not," said Linda, shuddering.

But all this comfort was at an end about seven o'clock on that evening. The second train in the day from Nuremberg was due at Augsburg at six, and Max Bogen, though he said nothing on the subject to Linda, had thought it probable that some messenger from the former town might arrive in quest of Linda by that train. At seven there came another little carriage up to the door, and before her name could be announced, Madame Staubach was standing in f.a.n.n.y Bogen's parlour. "Oh, my child!" she said. "Oh, my child, may G.o.d in His mercy forgive my child!" Linda cowered in a corner of the sofa and did not speak.

"She hasn't done anything in the least wrong," said f.a.n.n.y; "nothing on earth. You were going to make her marry a man she hated, and so she came away. If father had done the same to me, I wouldn't have stayed an hour." Linda still cowered on the sofa, and was still speechless.

Madame Staubach, when she heard this defence of her niece, was hardly pushed to know in what way it was her duty to answer it. It would be very expedient, of course, that some story should be told for Linda which might save her from the ill report of all the world,--that some excuse should be made which might now, instantly, remove from Linda's name the blight which would make her otherwise to be a thing scorned, defamed, useless, and hideous; but the truth was the truth, and even to save her child from infamy Madame Staubach would not listen to a lie without refuting it. The punishment of Linda's infamy had been deserved, and it was right that it should be endured. Hereafter, as facts came to disclose themselves, it would be for Peter Steinmarc to say whether he would take such a woman for his wife; but whether he took her or whether he rejected her, it could not be well that Linda should be screened by a lie from any part of the punishment which she had deserved. Let her go seven times seven through the fire, if by such suffering there might yet be a chance for her poor desolate half-withered soul.

"Done nothing wrong, f.a.n.n.y Heisse!" said Madame Staubach, who, in spite of her great fatigue, was still standing in the middle of the room. "Do you say so, who have become the wife of an honest G.o.d-fearing man?"

But f.a.n.n.y was determined that she would not be put down in her own house by Madame Staubach. "It doesn't matter whose wife I am," she said, "and I am sure Max will say the same as I do. She hasn't done anything wrong. She made up her mind to come away because she wouldn't marry Peter Steinmarc. She came here in company with her own young man, as I used to come with Max. And as soon as she got here she sent word up to us, and here she is. If there's anything very wicked in that, I'm not religious enough to understand it. But I tell you what I can understand, Madame Staubach,--there is nothing on earth so horribly wicked as trying to make a girl marry a man whom she loathes, and hates, and detests, and abominates. There, Madame Staubach; that's what I've got to say; and now I hope you'll stop and have supper with Max and Linda and me."

Linda felt herself to be blus.h.i.+ng in the darkness of her corner as she heard this excuse for her conduct. No; she had not made the journey to Augsburg with Ludovic in such fas.h.i.+on as f.a.n.n.y had, perhaps more than once, travelled the same route with her present husband. f.a.n.n.y had not come by night, without her father's knowledge, had not escaped out of a window; nor had f.a.n.n.y come with any such purpose as had been hers. There was no salve to her conscience in all this, though she felt very grateful to her friend, who was fighting her battle for her.

"It is not right that I should argue the matter with you," said Madame Staubach, with some touch of true dignity. "Alas, I know that which I know. Perhaps you will allow me to say a word in privacy to this unfortunate child."

But Max Bogen had not paid his wife a false compliment for cleverness. She perceived at once that the longer this interview between the aunt and her niece could be delayed,--the longer that it could be delayed, now that they were in each other's company,--the lighter would be the storm on Linda's head when it did come. "After supper, Madame Staubach; Linda wants her supper; don't you, my pet?"

Linda answered nothing. She could not even look up, so as to meet the glance of her aunt's eyes. But f.a.n.n.y Bogen succeeded in arranging things after her own fas.h.i.+on. She would not leave the room, though in sooth her presence at the preparation of the supper might have been useful. It came to be understood that Madame Staubach was to sleep at the lawyer's house, and great changes were made in order that the aunt and niece might not be put in the same room. Early in the morning they were to return together to Nuremberg, and then Linda's short hour of comfort would be over.

She had hardly as yet spoken a word to her aunt when f.a.n.n.y left them in the carriage together. "There were three or four others there,"

said f.a.n.n.y to her husband, "and she won't have much said to her before she gets home."

"But when she is at home!" f.a.n.n.y only shrugged her shoulders. "The truth is, you know," said Max, "that it was not at all the proper sort of thing to do!"

"And who does the proper sort of thing?"

"You do, my dear."

"And wouldn't you have run away with me if father had wanted me to marry some nasty old fellow who cares for nothing but his pipe and his beer? If you hadn't, I'd never have spoken to you again."

"All the same," said Max, "it won't do her any good."

The journey home to Nuremberg was made almost in silence, and things had been so managed by f.a.n.n.y's craft that when the two women entered the red house hardly a word between them had been spoken as to the affairs of the previous day. Tetchen, as she saw them enter, cast a guilty glance on her young mistress, but said not a word. Linda herself, with a veil over her face which she had borrowed from her friend f.a.n.n.y, hurried up-stairs towards her own room. "Go into my chamber, Linda," said Madame Staubach, who followed her. Linda did as she was bid, went in, and stood by the side of her aunt's bed.

"Kneel down with me, Linda, and let us pray that the great gift of repentance may be given to us," said Madame Staubach. Then Linda knelt down, and hid her face upon the counterpane.

All her sins were recapitulated to her during that prayer. The whole heinousness of the thing which she had done was given in its full details, and the details were repeated more than once. It was acknowledged in that prayer that though G.o.d's grace might effect absolute pardon in the world to come, such a deed as that which had been done by this young woman was beyond the pale of pardon in this world. And the Giver of all mercy was specially asked so to make things clear to that poor sinful creature, that she might not be deluded into any idea that the thing which she had done could be justified. She was told in that prayer that she was impure, vile, unclean, and infamous. And yet she probably did not suffer from the prayer half so much as she would have suffered had the same things been said to her face to face across the table. And she recognised the truth of the prayer, and she was thankful that no allusion was made in it to Peter Steinmarc, and she endeavoured to acknowledge that her conduct was that which her aunt represented it to be in her strong language. When the prayer was over Madame Staubach stood before Linda for a while, and put her two hands on the girl's arms, and lightly kissed her brow. "Linda," she said, "with the Lord nothing is impossible; with the Lord it is never too late; with the Lord the punishment need never be unto death!" Linda, though she could utter no articulate word, acknowledged to herself that her aunt had been good to her, and almost forgot the evil things that her aunt had worked for her.

CHAPTER XIII

Linda Tressel, before she had gone to bed on that night which she had pa.s.sed at Augsburg, had written a short note which was to be delivered, if such delivery should be possible, to Ludovic Valcarm.

The condition of her lover had, of course, been an added trouble to those which were more especially her own. During the last three or four hours which she had pa.s.sed with him in the train her tenderness for him had been numbed by her own sufferings, and she had allowed herself for a while to think that he was not sufficiently alive to the great sacrifice she was making on his behalf. But when he was removed from her, and had been taken, as she well knew, to the prison of the city, something of the softness of her love returned to her, and she tried to persuade herself that she owed to him that duty which a wife would owe. When she spoke to f.a.n.n.y on the subject, she declared that even if it were possible to her she would not go back to Ludovic. "I see it differently now," she said; "and I see how bad it is." But, still,--though she declared that she was very firm in that resolve,--she did not like to be carried back to her old home without doing something, making some attempt, which might be at least a token to herself that she had not been heartless in regard to her lover. She wrote therefore with much difficulty the following few words, which f.a.n.n.y promised that her husband should endeavour to convey to the hands of Ludovic Valcarm:

DEAR LUDOVIC,--My aunt has come here for me, and takes me back to Nuremberg to-morrow. When you left me at the station I was too ill to go to the place you told me; so they sent to this house, and my dear, dear friend f.a.n.n.y Heisse got her husband to come for me, and I am in their house now. Then my aunt came, and she will take me home to-morrow. I am so unhappy that you should be in trouble!

I hope that my coming with you did not help to bring it about. As for me, I know it is best that I should go back, though I think that it will kill me. I was very wicked to come. I feel that now, and I know that even you will have ceased to respect me. Dear Ludovic, I hope that G.o.d will forgive us both. It will be better that we should never meet again, though the thought that it must be so is almost more than I can bear. I have always felt that I was different from other girls, and that there never could be any happiness for me in this world. G.o.d bless you, Ludovic. Think of me sometimes,--but never, never, try to come for me again.

L. T.

It had cost her an hour of hard toil to write this little letter, and when it was written she felt that it was cold, ungrateful, unloving,--very unlike the words which he would feel that he had a right to expect from her. Nevertheless, such as it was, she gave it to her friend f.a.n.n.y, with many injunctions that it might, if possible, be placed in the hands of Ludovic. And thus, as she told herself repeatedly on her way home, the romance of her life was over.

After all, the journey to Augsburg would have been serviceable to her,--would be serviceable although her character should be infamous for ever in the town that knew her,--if by that journey she would be saved from all further mention of the name of Peter Steinmarc. No disgrace would be so bad as the prospect of that marriage. Therefore, as she journeyed homeward, sitting opposite to her aunt, she endeavoured to console herself by reflecting that his suit to her would surely be at an end. Would it ever reach his dull heart that she had consented to destroy her own character, to undergo ill-repute and the scorn of all honest people, in order that she might not be forced into the horror of a marriage with him? Could he be made to understand that in her flight from Nuremberg her great motive had been to fly from him?

On the second morning after her return even this consolation was taken from her, and she learned from her aunt that she had not given up all hope in the direction of the town-clerk. On the first day after her return not a word was said to Linda about Peter, nor would she have had any notice of his presence in the house had she not heard his shoes creaking up and down the stairs. Nor was the name of Ludovic Valcarm so much as mentioned in her presence. Between Tetchen and her there was not a word pa.s.sed, unless such as were spoken in the presence of Madame Staubach. Linda found that she was hardly allowed to be for a moment out of her aunt's presence, and at this time she was unable not to be submissive. It seemed to her that her aunt was so good to her in not positively upbraiding her from morning to night, that it was impossible for her not to be altogether obedient in all things! She did not therefore even struggle to escape the long readings, and the longer prayers, and the austere severity of her aunt's presence. Except in prayer,--in prayers delivered out loud by the aunt in the niece's presence,--no direct mention was made of the great iniquity of which Linda had been guilty. Linda was called no heartrending name to her face; but she was required to join, and did join over and over again, in pet.i.tions to the throne of mercy "that the poor castaway might be received back again into the pale of those who were accepted." And at this time she would have been content to continue to live like this, to join in such prayers day after day, to have her own infamy continually brought forward as needing some special mercy, if by such means she might be allowed to live in tranquillity without sight or mention of Peter Steinmarc. But such tranquillity was not to be hers.

On the afternoon of the second day her aunt went out, leaving Linda alone in the house with Tetchen. Linda at once went to her chamber, and endeavoured to make herself busy among those possessions of her own which she had so lately thought that she was leaving for ever.

She took out her all, the articles of her wardrobe, all her little treasures, opened the sweet folds of her modest raiment and refolded them, weeping all the while as she thought of the wreck she had made of herself. But no; it was not she who had made the wreck. She had been ruined by the cruelty of that man whose step at this moment she heard beneath her. She clenched her fist, and pressed her little foot against the floor, as she thought of the injury which this man had done her. There was not enough of charity in her religion to induce her even to think that she would ever cease to hate him with all the vigour of her heart. Then Tetchen came to her, and told her that her aunt had returned and desired to see her. Linda instantly went down to the parlour. Up to this moment she was as a child in her aunt's hands.

"Sit down, Linda," said Madame Staubach, who had taken off her bonnet, and was already herself stiffly seated in her accustomed chair. "Sit down, my dear, while I speak to you." Linda sat down at some distance from her aunt, and awaited dumbly the speech that was to be made to her. "Linda," continued Madame Staubach, "I have been this afternoon to the house of your friend Herr Molk." Linda said nothing out loud, but she declared to herself that Herr Molk was no friend of hers. Friend indeed! Herr Molk had shown himself to be one of her bitterest enemies. "I thought it best to see him after what--has been done, especially as he had been with you when you were ill, before you went." Still Linda said nothing. What was there that she could possibly say? Madame Staubach paused, not expecting her niece to speak, but collecting her own thoughts and arranging her words. "And Peter Steinmarc was there also," said Madame Staubach.

Upon hearing this Linda's heart sank within her. Had all her sufferings, then, been for nothing? Had she pa.s.sed that terrible night, that terrible day, with no result that might be useful to her?

But even yet might there not be hope? Was it not possible that her aunt was about to communicate to her the fact that Peter Steinmarc declined to be bound by his engagement to her? She sighed deeply and almost sobbed, as she clasped her hands together. Her aunt observed it all, and then went on with her speech. "You will, I hope, have understood, Linda, that I have not wished to upbraid you."

"You have been very good, aunt Charlotte."

"But you must know that that which you have done is,--is,--is a thing altogether destructive of a young woman's name and character." Madame Staubach's voice, as she said this, was tremulous with the excess of her eagerness. If this were Peter Steinmarc's decision, Linda would bear it all without a complaint. She bowed her head in token that she accepted the disgrace of which her aunt had spoken. "Of course, Linda," continued Madame Staubach, "recovery from so lamentable a position is very difficult,--is almost impossible. I do not mean to say a word of what has been done. We believe,--that is, I believe, and Herr Molk, and Peter also believes it--"

"I don't care what Peter Steinmarc believes," exclaimed Linda, unable to hold her peace any longer.

"Linda, Linda, would you be a thing to be shuddered at, a woman without a name, a byword for shame for ever?" Madame Staubach had been interrupted in her statement as to the belief entertained in respect to Linda's journey by herself and her two colleagues, and did not recur to that special point in her narrative. When Linda made no answer to her last appeal, she broadly stated the conclusion to which she and her friends had come in consultation together in the panelled chamber of Herr Molk's house. "I may as well make the story short,"

she said. "Herr Molk has explained to Peter that things are not as bad as they have seemed to be." Every muscle and every fibre in Linda's body was convulsed when she heard this, and she shuddered and s.h.i.+vered so that she could hardly keep her seat upon her chair. "And Peter has declared that he will be satisfied if you will at once agree that the marriage shall take place on the thirtieth of the month. If you will do this, and will make him a promise that you will go nowhere without his sanction before that day, he will forget what has been done." Linda answered not a word, but burst into tears, and fell at her aunt's feet.

Madame Staubach was a woman who could bring herself to pardon any sin that had been committed,--that was done, and, as it were, accomplished,--hoping in all charity that it would be followed by repentance. Therefore she had forgiven, after a fas.h.i.+on, even the last tremendous trespa.s.s of which her niece had been guilty, and had contented herself with forcing Linda to listen to her prayers that repentance might be forthcoming. But she could forgive no fault, no conduct that seemed to herself to be in the slightest degree wrong, while it was in the course of action. She had abstained from all hard words against Linda, from all rebuke, since she had found that the young man was gone, and that her niece was willing to return to her home. But she would be prepared to exercise all the power which Linda's position had given her, to be as severe as the austerity of her nature would permit, if this girl should persist in her obstinacy. She regarded it as Linda's positive duty to submit to Peter Steinmarc as her husband. They had been betrothed with Linda's own consent. The banns had been already once called. She herself had asked for G.o.d's protection over them as man and wife. And then how much was there not due to Peter, who had consented, not without much difficult persuasion from Herr Molk, to take this soiled flower to his bosom, in spite of the darkness of the stain. "There will be no provoking difficulties made about the house?" Peter had said in a corner to the burgomaster. Then the burgomaster had undertaken that in the circ.u.mstances as they now existed, there should be no provoking difficulties. Herr Molk understood that Linda must give up something on receiving that position of an honest man's wife, which she was now hardly ent.i.tled to expect. Thus the bargain had been made, and Madame Staubach was of opinion that it was her first duty to see that it should not be again endangered by any obstinacy on behalf of Linda. Obstinate, indeed! How could she be obstinate after that which she had done? She had now fallen at her aunt's feet, was weeping, sobbing, praying for mercy. But Madame Staubach could have no mercy on the girl in this position. Such mercy would in itself be a sin. The sin done she could forgive; the sin a-doing must be crushed, and put down, and burnt out, and extinguished, let the agony coming from such process be as severe as might be. There could be no softness for Linda while Linda was obstinate. "I cannot suppose," she said, "that you mean to hesitate after what has taken place."

"Oh, aunt Charlotte! dear aunt Charlotte!"

"What is the meaning of this?"

"I don't love him. I can't love him. I will do anything else that you please. He may have the house if he wants it. I will promise;--promise never to go away again or to see anybody." But she might as well have addressed such prayers to a figure of stone.

On such a matter as this Madame Staubach could not be other than relentless. Even while Linda was kneeling at her feet convulsed with sobs, she told the poor girl, with all the severity of language which she could use, of the vileness of the iniquity of that night's proceedings. Linda had been false to her friend, false to her vows, false to her G.o.d, immodest, unclean, had sinned against all the laws by which women bind themselves together for good conduct,--had in fact become a castaway in very deed. There was nothing that a female could do more vile, more loathsome than that which Linda had done.

Madame Staubach believed that the time had come in which it would be wicked to spare, and she did not spare. Linda grovelled at her feet, and could only pray that G.o.d might take her to Himself at once. "He will never take you; never, never, never," said Madame Staubach; "Satan will have you for his own, and all my prayers will be of no avail."

There were two days such as this, and Linda was still alive and still bore it. On the third day, which was the fifth after her return from Augsburg, Herr Molk came to her, and at his own request was alone with her. He did not vituperate her as her aunt had done, nor did he express any special personal horror at her sin; but he insisted very plainly on the position which she had made for herself. "You see, my dear, the only thing for you is to be married out of hand at once, and then n.o.body will say anything about it. And what is the difference if he is a little old? girls forget to think about that after a month or two; and then, you see, it will put an end to all your troubles;--to all your troubles." Such were the arguments of Herr Molk; and it must be acknowledged that such arguments were not lacking in strength, nor were they altogether without truth. The little story of Linda's journey to Augsburg had been told throughout the city, and there were not wanting many who said that Peter Steinmarc must be a very good-natured man indeed, if, after all that had pa.s.sed, he would still accept Linda Tressel as his wife. "You should remember all that of course, my dear," said Herr Molk.

How was it possible that Linda should stand alone against such influence as had been brought to bear against her? She was quite alone, for she would not admit of any intimacy with Tetchen. She would hardly speak to the old woman. She was quite aware that Tetchen had arranged with Ludovic the manner of her elopement; and though she felt no anger with him, still she was angry with the servant whose duplicity had helped to bring about the present misery. Had she not fled with her lover she might then,--so she thought now,--have held her ground against her aunt and against Peter. As things had gone with her since, such obstinacy had become impossible to her. On the morning of the seventh day she bowed her head, and though she did not speak, she gave her aunt to understand that she had yielded. "We will begin to purchase what may be necessary to-morrow," said Madame Staubach.

But even now she had not made up her mind that she would in truth marry the man. She had simply found it again impossible to say that she would not do so. There was still a chance of escape. She might die, for instance! Or she might run away again. If she did that, surely the man would persecute her no further. Or at the last moment she might stolidly decline to move; she might refuse to stand on her legs before the altar. She might be as a dead thing even though she were alive,--as a thing dead and speechless. Oh! if she could only be without ears to hear those terrible words which her aunt would say to her! And then there came another scheme into her mind. She would make one great personal appeal to Steinmarc's feelings as a man.

If she implored him not to make her his wife, kneeling before him, submitting herself to him, preferring to him with all her earnestness this one great prayer, surely he would not persevere!

Hitherto, since her return from Augsburg, Peter had done very little to press his own suit. She had again had her hand placed in his since she had yielded, and had accepted as a present from him a great gla.s.s brooch which to her eyes was the ugliest thing in the guise of a trinket which the world of vanity had ever seen. She had not been a moment in his company without her aunt's presence, and there had not been the slightest allusion made by him to her elopement. Peter had considered that such allusion had better come after marriage when his power would, as he thought, be consolidated. He was surprised when he was told, early in the morning after that second hand-pledging, by Linda herself that she wanted to see him. Linda came to his door and made her request in person. Of course he was delighted to welcome his future bride to his own apartment, and begged her with as soft a smile as he could a.s.sume to seat herself in his own arm-chair. She took a humbler seat, however, and motioned to him to take that to which he was accustomed. He looked at her as he did so, and perceived that the very nature of her face was changed. She had lost the plumpness of her cheeks, she had lost the fresh colour of her youth, she had lost much of her prettiness. But her eyes were brighter than ever they had been, and there was something in their expression which almost made Peter uneasy. Though she had lost so much of her prettiness, he was not on that account moved to doubt the value of his matrimonial prize; but there did come across his mind an idea that those eyes might perhaps bring with them some discomfort into his household. "I am very glad to see you, Linda," he said. "It is very good of you to come to me here. Is there anything I can do for you?"