A Sister's Love Part 31

"It was a fearful moment; Susanna had cried out in pain as she fell, and Isa now held her in her arms and wailed. The girl's eyes were closed, but a narrow red stream was trickling down from her temple, staining the white lace of the bridal dress. A sort of numbness had come over us; even Isa grew silent, and with trembling hands dried the blood on Susanna's cheek.

"Anna Maria looked absently at the swooning girl; then suddenly, recollecting herself, she threw her hands over her face, and hastily turning around, left the room. I helped Isabella carry Susanna to the bed, and take off the unfortunate dress. It is still hanging in the wardrobe over there, just as we hung it up at that time, with the blood-stains on the white lace frill. Isa did not speak; she did all in a tearless rage. Now and then she kissed the girl's small hands, and dried the tears that were trickling, slowly and quietly, from under the dark lashes, over the young face.

"I did not speak either; what would there have been to say? I went away to look for Anna Maria as soon as I saw that Susanna was coming to herself, and left it to Isa to put the compresses on the wounded temple.

"I found Anna Maria in the sitting-room, in her chair, with her spinning-wheel before her, as on every evening, but her hands lay wearily in her lap, and her eyes were cast down. As I came nearer she started up and began to spin; her foot rested heavily on the frail treadle, her hands trembled nervously as they drew the threads, and her face was fearfully white and her lips tightly closed, as if no friendly word were ever to pa.s.s them again in the course of her life.

"'Anna Maria,' said I, stopping in front of her, 'what now?'

"She did not answer.

"'You have let yourself be carried away,' I continued. 'How will it be now between you and Klaus?'

"Again she made no reply, but the treadle of the spinning-wheel broke in two with a snap; she sprang up, and pushed back the stretchers. 'Leave me, leave me,' she begged, putting her hand to her forehead.

"'Write to Klaus; tell him he must come,' I advised. She sat down again, and leaned her head on her hand. 'I will bring you paper and ink, Anna Maria, or shall I write?'

"She shook her head. 'Do not torment me,' she wailed; 'I no longer know if I am in my senses; leave me alone!'

"I still lingered; she looked fearfully. Her face was so pale and distorted one could scarcely recognize the blooming, girlish countenance. 'Go,' she begged; it is the only thing that you can do for me.'

"I went; no doubt she was right. In such an hour it is torment even to breathe in the sight of others. But why did she not fly to her room? I turned around once more at the stairs; I wanted to ask her to drink a gla.s.s of lemonade, and go to bed. The sitting-room was dark, but through the crack of the door which led to Klaus's room came a ray of candle-light; she was in there.

"Two days had pa.s.sed since that evening, and Anna Maria continued to go about without speaking. At dinner she had sat at the table, but had eaten nothing, and she wandered about for hours through the garden, in rain and storm. Brockelmann insisted upon it, with tears, that I ought to send for the doctor, for her young lady was bent upon doing something which, she thought, pointed to the beginning of a disease of the mind.

Anna Maria was no longer like herself. Did she rue her violence, or did she fear seeing Klaus again? I knew not. She had not written to him. I intended to do so in the beginning, but then gave it up; he _must_ come, and the more time that elapsed, the calmer our hearts would be.

"Susanna sat by the window up-stairs, in her room, a white cloth bound about her forehead, and her eyes, weary and red with weeping, looked out upon the leafless garden. I had been to her room several times to speak with her as forbearingly as possible. I wished to set before her her own wrong, to tell her that a warm, almost idolatrous love for Klaus, and the fear that he might not be happy, had driven Anna Maria to an extreme. But here, too, I met with silent, obstinate resistance--that is, I received no answer, only that Isabella said to me, with a sparkle in her black eyes: 'She has been abused, and she has been pushed, my poor child!' Whether or not Susanna had written to Klaus I did not learn."

CHAPTER XVI.

"It was almost evening, on the 13th of November, as an extra post drove quickly into the court. 'Another visit!' was my first thought, so many people had been turned away in those days. 'You will fare no better,'

thought I; 'you will soon turn around and drive home.' But, no, the carriage stopped, and a gentleman swung himself out. My heart stood still from fear--Klaus! How came Klaus to-day?

"Should I hurry out to meet him? Prevent him from meeting Anna Maria?

Prepare him, forbearingly? But how? Could I speak of the conflict without mortally wounding him? It was too late already; I heard his step on the stairs; he was going up to Susanna first of all; he had probably been told that she was up-stairs. I stepped into the hall quite unconsciously, and at the same time Susanna's door opened, her light figure appeared on the threshold, then she flew toward the man who was standing there with outstretched arms. 'Klaus, Klaus! my dear Klaus!'

sounded in my ear, tender and exultant with joy. Oh, Anna Maria, if you were to speak to him with the tongue of an angel it would avail you nothing; it is too late!

"I saw Klaus press the slender figure to him, and saw her throw her arms about his neck, and again and again put up her lips to be kissed; and I heard her begin to sob, first gently, then more vehemently, and cry: 'Now all is well, all, now that you are here!' And she clung to him like a hunted deer.

"I stepped back softly; I still saw how Susanna drew him into her room, caressing him, and heard his deep, pa.s.sionate voice; then the door was closed behind them. 'Caught!' said I, softly, 'caught, like Tannhauser of old in the Horfelsberg!' And bitter tears ran from my old eyes as I went down-stairs to go to Anna Maria.

"Brockelmann came toward me in consternation. 'The master is here,' she called to me, 'but Anna Maria will not believe it.' I went into her room without knocking; she was sitting on the little sofa, her New Testament before her on the table. In the dying daylight her great blue eyes looked forth almost weirdly from the face worn with grief.

"'Klaus has come, my child,' I said, going up to her.

"She looked at me incredulously.

"'I have seen him, Anna Maria; it is true.'

"'Where is he, then?' she asked. 'Why does he not come to me?'

"'My dear child'--I took her hand--'Klaus is with Susanna.'

"She let her head drop. 'But then he will come,' she said; 'he must come, of course! He will want something to eat, and he will want to scold me. I wish he would tell me how bad I am, how unjustly I have acted, so that I might tell him everything, everything that lies so heavily on my heart. Perhaps, perhaps my voice may penetrate him once more, when he thinks of all that we have lived through in common, when he thinks how I love him!'

"I pressed her hand and sat down silently beside her; that sweet, clear 'Klaus, Klaus! my dear Klaus!' still rang in my ears, and then the sobbing. And now, if he should hear from her own lips why she wept? If he should lift the white cloth from her brow? The calmest man would become a tiger, and he was not calm, any more than Anna Maria--G.o.d help them! I trembled at the thought of those two standing face to face.

"And the darkness fell and concealed the objects in the room; before the windows the branches of the old elms swayed, ghost-like, in the wind, ever bending toward us, as if beckoning with their lean arms. And Anna Maria waited! At every sound in the house she started up--I thought I heard her heart beat--and each time she was deceived.

"At last, at last! That was his step on the stairs! She rose, all at once, to her full, proud height. 'Klaus,' she said, 'my brother Klaus!'--as if she must be encouraged in mentioning the entire, intimate, sacred relation in which they stand to each other--'my only brother!' In these few words lay the destiny of her whole life.

"The sound of Klaus's voice came in to us; it sounded as if he were giving various orders; now it came nearer in the hall, then the steps retreated, and at last reechoed the creaking of the front door.

"'He is going!' shrieked Anna Maria, 'he is going, and I have not seen him, and he has not asked for me!'

"'No, no, my child,' I sought to calm her, 'he is not going away, he cannot go; whither should he? Only be calm; he wants to speak to the bailiff, or to see about his baggage. Let me go, I will find out; and you--come, sit down quietly in your place. I will bring Klaus to you, I promise you.'

"It was an easy thing for me to lead her back from the door and push her to the sofa; the tall, strong girl seemed stunned by anxiety and weariness.

"I kissed her forehead and hurried out; Brockelmann was in the hall, coming toward me with rapid steps. She looked heated, and her white cap was all awry on her gray hair. She carried a lighted candle in one hand, and with the other quickly unfastened her great bunch of keys from her belt. The housemaid followed her with a basket of fire-wood.

"'Great heavens, gracious Fraulein,' said the old woman, when I asked, in surprise, the meaning of her haste; 'if I knew myself! The hall is to be heated and lighted; in an hour everything must be ready, and the dust-covers haven't been taken off for a whole year in there. I think the master has lost his head!' And with trembling hands she unlocked the folding-doors which led to the two rooms which, under the names of the 'Hall' and the 'Red Room,' had been, from my earliest youth, opened only on particularly important occasions. Here was formerly a.s.sembled, several times a year, a very aristocratic company, who, after a fine, stiff dinner-party, would close the evening with a dance; here had been held, for generations, the christening and wedding feasts of the Hegewitzes; here, too, had many a coffin stood, before it was carried out to the vault in the garden below.

"What did Klaus mean to do to-day? Involuntarily I followed Brockelmann into the hall; the candle lighted the great room but faintly; its feeble light made here and there a prismatic drop among the pendants of the crystal chandelier sparkle, and the gray-covered pieces of furniture stood about like ghosts. The old woman began to arrange things in the greatest haste, and under the hands of the maid the first feeble flame was soon flickering up in the fire-place. I beheld it as in a dream.

"'What, for G.o.d's sake, does this mean?' I asked again, oppressed.

"Brockelmann did not reply at once; she wanted to spread out the rug in front of the great sofa. 'Go, Sophie, the fire is burning now; Christopher may come in a quarter of an hour to light the candles.--They will surely last,' she added, with a glance at the half-burned candles in the chandelier and sconces.

"The girl went; the old woman stopped taking off the dust-covers. 'One experiences a great deal when one is old and gray, and nowhere are there stranger goings on than in this world!' said she, excitedly; 'but that anything like this should happen! Do you know, Fraulein, where he has gone, the master, without even having said "Good-day" to his sister? To Pastor Grune. And there up-stairs sits the old Isa, and has cut bare the little myrtle-tree which you gave to the--the strange young lady, so that it looks like a rod to beat naughty children with. And the young thing lies on the sofa, playing with her cat, and laughs out of her red eyes, and she laughs with all her white teeth, because things have gone so far at last. Gracious Fraulein, they have wept and lamented. If the master has lost his reason, I can understand it. Not an hour longer will they stay here in the house, the little one cried, where they were trodden under foot and scolded. And when the master sent for me he was holding her in his arms, and looked as pale as the plaster on the walls.

I must put things in order here as well as possible, said he, but quickly--in an hour, Fraulein; there will be no more disturbance to be made about it. And though the king himself were to come, in an hour they will be man and wife.'

"'Is it possible?' I stammered. 'Anna Maria--' My head whirled about like a mill-wheel. It was decided, then; Susanna was to be his wife!

"Klaus had been stirred up to the utmost extent; that his hasty decision proved. Of what use would it be if I were to go now to Anna Maria and say: 'Compose yourself, it is not to be altered now!' In her present state of mind she would throw herself at his feet and accuse Susanna, though he were already standing with her before the priest. In his pa.s.sion for this girl he would believe nothing of all this; he would require proofs. And proofs? Who would accuse her of infidelity? How could _she_ help it that Sturmer loved her? That she had wept and wrung her hands, was that anything positive? That Sturmer fancied himself loved by her, could that be made out a crime on her part? It would have been madness to excite Klaus further, to say to him now: 'Leave her; she will not make you happy.'

"With fixed gaze I followed the old woman about, and in restless anxiety saw her begin to light the candles beside the great mirror; their light was reflected from the polished gla.s.s and fell sparkling on the gilt frames of the family portraits; deep crimson color shone from the curtains and furniture, and a warm breath now came from the fire through the chilly air. Was it a reality?

"Then I started up. Anna Maria was still sitting alone and waiting; my place was with _her_. I found her in the dark, still in the same spot, and sat down beside her.

"'He has gone away,' she asked, 'has he not?'

"'No,' said I, 'he is coming back directly.'

"'To me?'