Linda Tressel Part 17

"I love you,--and Ludovic loves you."

"That is of no use,--of none at all. I do not wish to hear his name again. It was not his fault, but he has disgraced me. It was my own fault,--and yours."

"Linda, he is in the house now."

"Who--Ludovic?"

"Yes; Ludovic Valcarm."

"In the house? How did he escape?"

"They could do nothing to him. They let him go. They were obliged to let him go."

Then Linda got up from her seat, and stood for a minute with her eyes fixed upon the old woman's face, thinking what step she had better take. In the confusion of her mind, and in the state to which she had been reduced, there was no idea left with her that it might yet be possible that she would become the wife of Ludovic Valcarm, and live as such the life of a respectable woman. She had taught herself to acknowledge that her elopement with him had made that quite impossible;--that by what they had done they had both put themselves beyond the pale of such gentle mercy. Such evil had come to her from her secret interviews with this man who had become her lover almost without her own acquiescence, that she dreaded him even though she loved him. The remembrance of the night she had pa.s.sed with him, partly in the warehouse and partly in the railway train, had nothing in it of the sweetness of love, to make her thoughts of it acceptable to her. This girl was so pure at heart, was by her own feelings so p.r.o.ne to virtue, that she looked back upon what she had done with abhorrence. Whether she had sinned or not, she hated what she had done as though it had been sinful; and now, when she was told that Ludovic Valcarm was again in the house, she recoiled from the idea of meeting him. On the former occasions of his coming to her, a choice had hardly been allowed to her whether she would see him or not. He had been with her before she had had time to fly from him. Now she had a moment for thought,--a moment in which she could ask herself whether it would be good for her to place herself again in his hands.

She said that it would not be good, and she walked steadily down to her aunt's parlour. "Aunt Charlotte," she said, "Ludovic Valcarm is in the house."

"In this house,--again!" exclaimed Madame Staubach. Linda, having made her statement, said not a word further. Though she had felt herself compelled to turn informant against her lover, and by implication against Tetchen, her lover's accomplice, nevertheless she despised herself for what she was doing. She did not expect to soften her aunt by her conduct, or in any way to mitigate the rigour of her own sufferings. Her clandestine meetings with Ludovic had brought with them so much of pain and shame, that she had resolved almost by instinct to avoid another. But having taken this step to avoid it, she had nothing further to say or to do. "Where is the young man?"

demanded Madame Staubach.

"Tetchen says that he is here, in the house," said Linda. Then Madame Staubach left the parlour, and crossed into the kitchen. There, standing close to the stove and warming himself, she found this terrible youth who had worked her so much trouble. It seemed to Madame Staubach that for months past she had been hearing of his having been constantly in and about the house, entering where he would and when he would, and in all those months she had never seen him. When last she had beheld him he had been to her simply a foolish idle youth with whom his elder cousin had been forced to quarrel.

Since that, he had become to her a source of infinite terror. He had been described to her as one guilty of crimes which, much as she hated them, produced, even in her breast, a kind of respect for the criminal. He was a rebel of whom the magistrates were afraid. When in prison he had had means of escaping. When arrested at Nuremberg he would be the next day at Augsburg; when arrested at Augsburg he would be the next day at Nuremberg. He could get in and out of the roofs of houses, and could carry away with him a young maiden. These are deeds which always excite a certain degree of admiration in the female heart, and Madame Staubach, though she was a Baptist, was still a female. When, therefore, she found herself in the presence of Ludovic, she could not treat him with the indignant scorn with which she would have received him had he intruded upon her premises before her fears of him had been excited. "Why are you here, Ludovic Valcarm?" she said advancing hardly a step beyond the doorway.

Ludovic looked up at her with his hand resting on the table. He was not drunk, but he had been drinking; his clothes were soiled; he was unwashed and dirty, and the appearance of the man was that of a vagabond. "Speak to me, and tell me why you are here," said Madame Staubach.

"I have come to look for my wife," said Ludovic.

"You have no wife;--at any rate you have none here."

"Linda Tressel is my true and lawful wife, and I have come to take her away with me. She went with me once, and now she will go again.

Where is she? You're not going to keep her locked up. It's against the law to make a young woman a prisoner."

"My niece does not wish to see you;--does not intend to see you. Go away."

But he refused to go, and threatened her, alleging that Linda Tressel was of an age which allowed her to dispose as she pleased of her person and her property. Of course this was of no avail with Madame Staubach, who was determined that, whatever might happen, the young man should not force himself into Linda's presence. When Ludovic attempted to leave the kitchen, Madame Staubach stood in the doorway and called for Tetchen. The servant, who had perched herself on the landing, since Linda had entered the parlour, was down in a moment, and with various winks and little signs endeavoured to induce Valcarm to leave the house. "You had better go, or I shall call at once for my neighbour Jacob Heisse," said Madame Staubach. Then she did call, as l.u.s.tily as she was able, though in vain. Upon this Ludovic, not knowing how to proceed, unable or unwilling to force his way further into the house in opposition to Madame Staubach, took his departure, and as he went met Peter Steinmarc in the pa.s.sage at the back of Heisse's house. Madame Staubach was still in the kitchen asking questions of Tetchen which Tetchen did not answer with perfect truth, when Peter appeared among them. "Madame Staubach," he said, "that vagabond Ludovic Valcarm has just been here, in this house."

"He went away but a minute since," said Madame Staubach.

"Just so. That is exactly what I mean. This is a thing not to be borne,--not to be endured, and shows that your niece Linda is altogether beyond the reach of any good impressions."

"Peter Steinmarc!"

"Yes, that is all very well; of course I expect that you will take her part; although, with your high ideas of religion and all that sort of thing, it is almost unaccountable that you should do so. As far as I am concerned there must be an end of it. I am not going to make myself ridiculous to all Nuremberg by marrying a young woman who has no sense whatever of self-respect. I have overlooked a great deal too much already,--a great deal too much."

"But Linda has not seen the young man. It was she herself who told me that he was here."

"Ah, very well. I don't know anything about that. I saw him coming away from here, and it may be as well to tell you that I have made up my mind. Linda Tressel is not the sort of young woman that I took her to be, and I shall have nothing more to say to her."

"You are an old goose," said Tetchen.

"Hold your tongue," said Madame Staubach angrily to her servant.

Though she was very indignant with Peter Steinmarc, still it would go much against the grain with her that the match should be broken off.

She had resolved so firmly that this marriage was proper for all purposes, that she had almost come to look at it as though it were a thing ordained of G.o.d. Then, too, she remembered, even in this moment, that Peter Steinmarc had received great provocation. Her immediate object was to persuade him that nothing had been done to give him further provocation. No fault had been committed by Linda which had not already been made known to him and been condoned by him. But how was she to explain all this to him in privacy, while Tetchen was in the kitchen, and Linda was in the parlour opposite?

"Peter, on my word as an honest truthful woman, Linda has been guilty of no further fault."

"She has been guilty of more than enough," said Peter.

"That may be said of all us guilty, frail, sinful human beings,"

rejoined Madame Staubach.

"I doubt whether there are any of us so bad as she is," said Peter.

"I wonder, madame, you can condescend to argue with him," said Tetchen; "as if all the world did not know that the fraulein is ten times too good for the like of him!"

"Hold your tongue," said Madame Staubach.

"And where is Miss Linda at the present moment?" demanded Peter.

Madame Staubach hesitated for an instant before she answered, and then replied that Linda was in the parlour. It might seem, she thought, that there was some cause for secrecy if she made any concealment at the present moment. Then Peter made his way out of the kitchen and across the pa.s.sage, and without any invitation entered the parlour. Madame Staubach followed him, and Tetchen followed also.

It was unfortunate for Madame Staubach's plans that the meeting between Peter and Linda should take place in this way, but she could not help it. But she was already making up her mind to this,--that if Peter Steinmarc ill-treated her niece, she would bring all Nuremberg about his ears.

"Linda Tressel," he said;--and as he spoke, the impetuosity of indignation to which he had worked himself had not as yet subsided, and therefore he was full of courage;--"Linda Tressel, I find that that vagabond Ludovic Valcarm has again been here."

"He is no vagabond," said Linda, turning upon him with full as much indignation as his own.

"All the city knows him, and all the city knows you too. You are no better than you should be, and I wash my hands of you."

"Let it be so," said Linda; "and for such a blessing I will pardon you the unmanly cruelty of your words."

"But I will not pardon him," said Madame Staubach. "It is false; and if he dares to repeat such words, he shall rue them as long as he lives. Linda, this is to go for nothing,--for nothing. Perhaps it is not unnatural that he should have some suspicion." Poor Madame Staubach, agitated by divided feelings, hardly knew on which side to use her eloquence.

"I should think not indeed," said Peter, in triumph. "Unnatural! Ha!

ha!"

"I will put his eyes out of him if he laughs like that," said Tetchen, looking as though she were ready to put her threat into execution upon the instant.

"Peter Steinmarc, you are mistaken in this," said Madame Staubach.

"You had better let me see you in private."

"Mistaken, am I? Oh! am I mistaken in thinking that she was alone during the whole night with Ludovic? A man does not like such mistakes as that. I tell you that I have done with her,--done with her,--done with her! She is a bad piece. She does not ring sound.

Madame Staubach, I respect you, and am sorry for you; but you know the truth as well as I do."

"Man," she said to him, "you are ungrateful, cruel, and unjust."

"Aunt Charlotte," said Linda, "he has done me the only favour that I could accept at his hands. It is true that I have done that which, had he been a man, would have prevented him from seeking to make me his wife. All that is true. I own it."

"There; you hear her, Madame Staubach."

"And you shall hear me by-and-by," said Madame Staubach.

"But it is no thought of that that has made him give me up,"