Gertrude's Marriage Part 30

"Ah, nonsense! Never mind that! This is the question now, will you have your wife back again or not?"

"Is that the condition on which my wife will return to me?"

"Why, of course. Oh, ta, ta! I am sure at least that she would come then."

"I am sorry, but I cannot do it," replied the young man, growing a shade paler. "It is not for me to beg pardon."

"You are an obstinate set, and that is all there is about it,"

thundered Uncle Henry. "We are glad that the scoundrel is dead, and now here we are in just the same place as we were before."

"The scoundrel's death is a very unfortunate event for me, uncle."

"You will not?" asked the old gentleman again.

"Ask her pardon--no!"

"Then good-bye!" And Uncle Henry put on his hat and hastily left the room and the house.

"Allow me to accompany you down," said Frank, following the little man, who jumped into the carriage as if he were fleeing from some one.

But before the horses started he bent forward and an expression of intense anxiety rested on his honest old face.

"See here, Frank," he whispered, "it is a foolish pride of yours.

Women have their little whims and caprices. It is true I never had a wife--thank Heaven for that!--but I know them very well for all that.

They have such ideas, they must all be wors.h.i.+pped, and the little one is particularly sharp about it. She is like her father, my good old Lebrecht, a little romantic--I always said the child read too much. Now do you be the wise one to give in. You have not been so hurt either, and--besides she is a charming little woman."

"As soon as Gertrude comes back everything shall be forgotten," replied Linden, shutting the carriage door.

"But she won't come so, my boy. Don't you know the Baumhagen obstinacy yet?" cried Uncle Henry in despair.

He shrugged his shoulders and stepped back.

"To Waldruhe!" shouted the old man angrily to the coachman, and away he went.

"My young gentleman is playing a dangerous game as injured innocence,"

he growled, pounding his cane on the bottom of the carriage. The nearer he came to the villa, the redder grew his angry round face. When he reached "Waldruhe" he did not have to go upstairs. Gertrude was in the park. She was standing at the end of a shady alley and perceiving her uncle she came towards him, in her simple white summer dress.

"Uncle," she gasped out, and two anxious eyes sought to read his face.

"Come," said the old man, taking her hand, "let us walk along this path. It will do me good. I shall have a stroke if I stand still. To make my story short, child--he will not."

"Uncle, what have you done?" cried Gertrude, a flush of mortification covering her face. "You have been to him?"

"'Yes,' I said, 'go and ask her forgiveness and everything will come right--women are like that!' and he--"

She pressed her hand on her heart.

"Uncle!" she cried.

"And he said: No! That would be owning a fault which he had not committed. There, my child! I have tried once more to play the part of peace-maker, but--now I wash my hands of it all. You must do it for yourselves now. Anger is bad for me, as you know, and I have had enough now to last me a month. Good-bye, Gertrude!"

"Good-bye, uncle, I thank you."

He had gone a few steps when the old egotist looked round once more.

She was leaning against the trunk of a beech-tree like one who has received a blow. Her eyes were cast down, a strange smile played about her mouth.

"Poor child!" he stammered out, taking his hat from his burning forehead, and then he went back to her.

"Come now, you must keep your spirits up," he said kindly. "Over there in Niendorf that black little monkey was making a _mai-trank_ for the judge who is going away. What do you say, Gertrude, shall we go and have some? Come, I will take you over quite quietly. You see we would go so softly into the dining-room, and I am not an egotist if you are not--one--two--three--in each others' arms--you will cry 'Frank!' he will say 'Gertrude!' and all will be forgotten. Gertrude, my good little Gertrude, do be reasonable. Is life so very blissful that one dares fling away the golden days of youth and happiness? Come, come, take my advice just this once."

He had grasped her slender wrist, but she freed herself hastily and her face grew rigid. "No, no, that is all over!" she said in a hard distinct tone.

CHAPTER XIX.

The summer had come; the yellowing grain waved in the soft breezes, and the cherry-trees in the orchards and along the high roads had all been robbed of their fruit. The sky was cloudless and the first grain had been harvested in Niendorf.

From the cities every one had fled to the watering-places or into the mountains. The corner-house in the market-place was shut up from top to bottom. Mrs. Baumhagen was in Switzerland, Mr. and Mrs. Fredericks in Baden-Baden. Uncle Henry had gone to Heligoland, because nowhere can one get such good breakfasts as on the dunes of that rocky island.

Only the two sat still in their nests; separated by a small extent of wood and meadow, they could not have been further apart if the ocean had rolled between. There was no crossing the gulf between them.

In Niendorf everything was irregular and in disorder. How should the little Adelaide know anything about the management of a farm? She was on her feet all day, she took a hundred unnecessary steps, and in the evening she complained that the two dainty little feet in the pointed high-heeled shoes hurt her so, and that the servants had no respect for her. Aunt Rosa was in a bad temper, for she found herself in her old age condemned to the life of a lady-in-waiting. Adelaide could not possibly dine alone with Linden, and she must always be there. So at twelve o'clock every day, the old lady put on her best cap, and sat, the picture of misery, opposite Linden, in Gertrude's vacant place. The meals were desperately melancholy. After awhile Adelaide also became silent, since she very rarely got any reply to her remarks. So they ate their dinner in silence and separated as soon as possible afterwards.

Frank, however, had work to do at least, he could not _always_ think and brood and look at the locked door which led into Gertrude's room.

That happened in the evening in his quiet room when little Adelaide was singing all manner of melancholy songs about love and longing down-stairs. And at midnight when it was quite quiet, when every one was asleep in the house and only some faint barking of a dog sounded from the tillage, he wandered up and down the room till the lamp grew dim and went out, and even then he did not stop.

He no longer expected her to come, though he had done so for days and weeks. At first he had gone to the very walls of her garden with a gnawing desire to see her; he would be there when she came out of the gate, and he would go to meet her at the very first step. In vain, she did not come.

Once the servants had seen him when his eyes were strangely red. "The master is crying for the mistress," was the report in the kitchen.

"Why doesn't he go and get her?" said the coachman, "I wouldn't cry a drop; I should know very well how to get back an obstinate wife,"

making an unmistakable gesture. "Brute!" cried the maids, and thereupon all the women turned their backs on him.

It was long since there had been such a harvest; the barns could scarcely contain all the grain. The fragrance of the hay came over from the meadows and mingled with that of the thousand roses in the garden; the great linden bloomed in the court-yard and a happy hen-mother led out to walk a legion of yellow little chickens.

In the stork's nest on the barn the young ones were growing apace; the homely old house lay almost buried in luxuriant greenery; the clematis climbed up to the windows and peeped in at the empty rooms, and the swallows which were building under the roof, went crying through the country and the city, "She has gone away from him! She has gone away from him!"

Yes, everybody knew the sad story by this time. Gertrude Baumhagen was separated from her husband. In the coffee parties one whispered to the other, people spoke of it at the cafes and at dinner-parties, and at the table d'hote in the hotel it was the standing topic of conversation. No one knew exactly why this had happened. There were a thousand reports of a most wonderful nature.

"He did something disagreeable about his wife's dowry--"

"She went away because he lifted his hand to strike her--"

"The mother-in-law made mischief between them--"