Gertrude's Marriage Part 21

"You look so miserable," groaned her mother.

"Then the sooner I get home the better."

"At least send back a messenger at once."

"Perhaps you think he beats me too?" she inquired, ironically, turning to go.

"Child! child!" cried Mrs. Baumhagen, stretching out her arms towards her, "be reasonable, don't be so blind where facts speak so loudly."

But she did not turn back. Calmly she took down her mantle from the hat-stand. Sophie gazed anxiously into the pale, still face of the young wife, who quite forgot to say a pleasant word to the old servant.

At the carriage-door stood Uncle Henry.

"Let me go with you, Gertrude," he entreated.

She shook her head.

"It is only out of pure selfishness, Gertrude," he continued. "If I don't know how it is going with you I shall be ill."

"No, uncle. We two require no one; we shall get on better alone."

"Don't break the staff at once, child," he said, gently,

"I do not need to do that, Uncle Henry."

He lifted his hat from his bald head. There was a reverent expression in his eyes.

"Good-bye, Gertrude, little Gertrude. If I had had my way, you would not have heard a word of it."

She bent her head gravely.

"It is best so, uncle."

Then she went back the way she had come.

The rain beat against the rattling panes and dashed against the leather top of the carriage, and they went so slowly. The young wife gazed out into the misty landscape. The splendor of the blossoms had vanished, the white petals were swimming in the pools in the streets.

"Oh, only one sunbeam!" she thought, the weather oppressed and weighed her down so.

Absurd! How could any one be so influenced by foolish gossip! Mamma always looked on the dark side of everything--and even if she always told the truth, she had been imposed upon by this story. Poor Frank!

Now there would be vexation--the first! She would tell him of it playfully--after dinner, when they were alone together, then she would say, "Frank, I must tell you something that will make you laugh. Just fancy, you have a very bitter enemy, and his revenge is so absurd, he declares"--she was smiling now herself--"Yes, that is the way it shall be."

She was just pa.s.sing the old watch tower. What was she thinking of as she pa.s.sed this place a few hours before? Oh yes--a crimson flush spread over her countenance--of the cradle in the attic. She could see the old cradle so plainly before her; two red roses were painted on one end, in the middle a golden star, and beneath it stood written: "Happy are they who are happy in their children."

She put her hand in her pocket and took out the note-book--the carriage was crawling so slowly up the hill--she could not remember it all yet, she must read the verses again.

It was a vision he had had of her kneeling before a cradle, singing a cradle-song about the father bringing something home to his son from the green wood.

She let the paper fall. She knew what song he meant--the old nursery song that she had been singing to her G.o.dchild when he had heard her from the window outside. He had told her about it and that in that moment he had come quite under her spell.

She pressed the book to her lips. Ah, how far beneath her seemed envy and spite! how powerless they seemed before the expectation of such happiness!

Just then a piece of paper fell down, a piece of blue writing-paper.

She picked it up; it was part of a letter on the blank side of which was written in Frank's handwriting:

"Half a hundred-weight gra.s.s-seed, mixed," with the address of a manufactory of farming utensils.

She turned it over, looked at it carelessly, then suddenly every trace of color left her face. She raised her eyes with a scared expression in them, then looked down again--yes, there it was!

"----Besides the above-mentioned property Miss Gertrude Baumhagen owns a villa near Bergedorf. A ma.s.sive building, splendidly furnished, with stables, gardener's house and a garden-lot of ten acres, partly wood, enclosed by a ma.s.sive wall.

"The property is recorded in the name of the young lady, being valued at twenty-four thousand dollars.

"For any further details I am quite at your service,

"Very respectfully yours,

"C. Wolff, Agent.

D. 21 Dec. 1882."

Gertrude tried to read it again, but her hand trembled so violently that the letters danced before her eyes. She had seen it, however, distinctly enough; it would not change read it as often as she might.

With pitiless certainty the conviction forced itself upon her: it is the truth, the horrible truth! and every word of his had been a lie.

She had been bought and sold like a piece of merchandise--she, _she_ had been caught in such a snare!

She had taken _that_ for love which had been only the commonest mercenary speculation.

Ah, the humiliation was nothing to the dreadful feeling that stole over her and chilled her to the heart--the pain of wounded pride and with it the old bitter perversity. She had not felt it lately, she had been good, happiness makes one so good--and now? and now?

CHAPTER XIII.

The carriage rolled quickly down the hill to Niendorf and stopped before the house. Half-unconsciously the young wife descended and stood in the rain on the steps of the veranda. It seemed to her as if she were here for the first time; the small windows, the gray old walls with the pointed roof--how ugly they were, how strange! All the flowers in the garden beaten down by the rain--the charm that love gives fled, only bare, sober, sad reality! and on the threshold crouched the demon of selfishness, of cold calculation.

She pa.s.sed through the garden hall and up the stairs to her room. In the corridor Johanna met her.

"The master went away in the carriage directly after breakfast," she announced. "He laid a note on your work-table, ma'am."

"I have a headache, Johanna, don't disturb me now," she said, faintly.

When she reached her own room she bolted first the door behind her and then that which opened into his room. And then she read the note.

"The barometer has risen and the judge insists on going up the Brocken, I go with him to Ille. I have something to do there and I shall not be very late home--Thine, FRANK."