A Sister's Love Part 4

Meanwhile Anna Maria had gone quickly down-stairs and entered her brother's room. He was sitting at his desk, rummaging about in the drawers for the missing papers. Klaus von Hegewitz was exactly like other men in this respect, that he never could find anything, and grew so vexed in hunting, that from very irritation he found nothing. At the door stood the farm inspector and a little old man who was well known at Butze, Isaac Aron the Jew. He made a deep reverence to Anna Maria, and said contentedly: "Now matters will be brought into good shape; the gracious Fraulein knows the place of everything in the whole house."

Anna Maria paid no attention to this, but, going to the desk, confidently put her hand into a drawer, and gave a little packet of papers to her brother. "There, Klaus," said she, looking with a smile in his flushed face, "why did you not call me at once?"

The troubled face grew bright. "Upon my word, Anna Maria," he cried gayly, "these are stupid things; I have had that package in my hands twenty times at least. A thousand thanks! I say again and again, Anna Maria, what would become of me without you?"

The smile suddenly disappeared from her face, and she looked thoughtfully at the stately figure of her brother, who had stepped up to the men and was negotiating with them. The words fell on her ears as in a dream, and quite mechanically she took up her train and walked out of the room. As she was about to close the door, her brother called after her: "Anna Maria, shall I meet you by and by in the sitting-room? The gardener wants to talk with us about the new work in the wood."

She had no idea, as she stood outside, whether or not she had answered him; then she sat down in her room, and her eyes wandered about the familiar spot and rested at length on her brother's portrait. But she saw it not; in her mind was another picture, another man's head. The red-tiled roof of Dambitz Manor rose before her eyes, and over him and her the brown, budding branches of the linden-walk in the Dambitz garden fluttered and beat in the damp spring air, and at their feet long rows of snow-drops bloomed and shook their little white heads.

"Anna Maria," he had called her, "Anna Maria," as in her childhood. She started up, as if awakening from a long, deep dream. Ah, no! it was true; scarcely an hour ago he had spoken thus to her, and Anna Maria von Hegewitz had stood before him as if under a spell.

What else had he said? She knew no longer, only the words "Anna Maria"

sounded to her very soul; and as on that St. Martin's Eve she had put her hands in his, and he had drawn her close to him--only one short moment, she scarcely knew whether it were dream or reality. Then Klaus had come down the steps--"Klaus! ah, Heaven, Klaus!"

She leaned her head against the back of the sofa and closed her eyes.

She saw herself going away from the old house here. Could her foot cross the threshold? And she saw Klaus looking in the door-way, looking after her with his kind, true eyes, perhaps with tears in them. And there came to her all the words which she had so often spoken to him, caressingly: "_I will stay with you, Klaus, always, always!_" And now the strong girl began to weep; she scarcely knew what tears were, but now they gushed from her eyes with all the force of a shaken soul.

And yet above all this pain there hovered a feeling of infinite happiness, through the dark veil of sadness gleamed bright rays--the premonitions of a wonderful future, the suspicion that the life which she had led hitherto was hardly to be called living, because that one thing had been wanting which first consecrates and gives value to a happy life.

She rose and went up to her brother's portrait. "Klaus, dear Klaus, I cannot help it, indeed!" she whispered; and then she wandered about the room, a tender smile on her lips, and a laugh in her eyes.

The sound of the servants' supper-bell roused her from her dreams; she changed her riding-habit for a house-dress, but laid the snow-drops in the Bible on her writing-desk, and gave the little white blossoms a caressing touch before she took up her basket of keys to leave the room.

She was met on the way to the sitting-room by a fresh, curly-haired girl, carrying an armful of flas.h.i.+ng bra.s.s candlesticks, her black eyes almost as bright as the s.h.i.+ning metal.

"Well, Marieken," asked Anna Maria, "is the outfit ready?"

The brisk girl laughed all over her face. "Oh, not quite, Fraulein; but it is three weeks to Easter, and Gottlieb is painting the rooms now in our house, and the cabinet-maker is going to bring our things next week."

Anna Maria nodded kindly, but did not reply. Her thoughts were already again in Dambitz, wandering through the rooms of the castle. Most of them were still empty, but a time was doubtless coming for her too when the cabinet-maker would bring her things. And Anna Maria looked at the girl and smiled; she knew not why herself; it was from overflowing happiness. And Marieken laughed too--a perfect harmony of youth, hope, and happiness. Then the girl ran on with her candlesticks, and Anna Maria walked down the corridor, and in both hearts was the same suns.h.i.+ne. She must hurry, for Klaus would surely be waiting for her, he wanted to speak with her about the work in the garden.

Next to Klaus's room was a small room, where Anna Maria remembered to have put away in her portfolio of drawings the roughly sketched plan of the alterations, and as Klaus was not yet in the sitting-room she hurried back to get it.

It was almost dark, and she could but indistinctly discern the objects in the little room, which Klaus jokingly called his library because of a bookcase which found its place there. So the more distinctly came to her ears a hearty laugh from her brother, and, with the laugh, the sound of her own name.

"Anna Maria, do you say? My own aunt, it is perfectly ridiculous!"

"Laugh then, you unbeliever, you will soon be convinced of the truth of my conjecture. We women, especially we old maids, Klauschen, look at such things more sharply. Soon some one will come and carry away your darling, and then we too may sit here and have the dumps, my beloved boy! What will become of us?"

"_Some one_, aunt? You speak in riddles."

"Well, since you are so dreadfully smitten with blindness, _mon cher_, it is a Christian duty on my part to open your eyes. Do you not see the girl's entirely altered manner? Have you never--But to what purpose is all this? In short, Anna Maria loves Sturmer!"

Another hearty laugh interrupted the old lady. But Anna Maria, with closed eyes, leaned against the door-post; the ground seemed to give way beneath her feet.

"Kurt Sturmer? Uncle Sturmer? But, my dear aunt," cried the young man, "he might almost be her father!"

"Is that a hindrance, Klaus?"

"No! I don't believe it, however. Shall we bet?"

Anna Maria straightened up. She was on the point of going in and saying, "Why do you argue? I do love him--yes! a thousand times, yes!" But she stood still; her brother's voice sounded so strangely altered.

"Aunt Rosamond, I _cannot_ believe it!"

"Klaus! Have you not thought for a long time that it must happen some day?"

"Yes, yes! But--Ah! I have stood in fear of this hour, since the child is the only one to whom my heart clings; you do not know how much, perhaps, aunt!"

"Klaus,"--the old lady's voice was melting with tenderness--"my dear old lad, you are still young: why should there not be a happiness yet in store for you? I have often told you you ought to marry."

"Marry? You say that to me, aunt? and you know that I have been a wretched being for years, because----"

"But, Klaus, do you still think of that?" sounded the anxious voice of the aunt.

"Still?" he repeated ironically. "Am I not daily reminded of it? Do you think, because I live so peacefully now and can join in a laugh, because food and wine taste good to me--I see the tower of her family home whenever I go to the window, I see Anna Maria, I cannot pa.s.s that fatal spot in the garden without the words she then spoke reachoing in my soul. I know them by heart, aunt, I have called and whispered them for weeks in fever; and ever again her enchanting figure stands before my eyes, and that sweet, beseeching tone rings in my ears, as seductive as Satan himself: '_Put that obstinate, disagreeable child out of your house; she interferes with our happiness!_'"

He laughed scornfully. "And because I would not consent to that, and did not break a promise given to my dying mother, then--she cast me off like a garment that does not fit comfortably enough--then--then----"

"Klaus! Klaus! for G.o.d's sake!" The anxious voice of the old lady interrupted his speaking, which had risen to vehemence.

But in the little room lay Anna Maria on her knees, her head almost touching the floor. It had become still in the next room, except for the sound of rapid steps as the young man paced the floor.

"And now--yes, yes, it had to happen!" said he softly. "I am no egoist, certainly not, but it will be unspeakably hard for me to give her up.

Oh, yes, I shall see her often. I can ride over any minute; she will come to us too--certainly. But see, aunt--but I am a fool, really, a fool! It is the way of the world, and I do not understand why I did not see long ago that Sturmer is fond of Anna Maria; it is, indeed, so natural. How good it is that I am prepared; not the slightest shadow shall fall on Anna Maria's happiness. Your eyes ask that, Aunt Rose? No, be quiet, be quiet!"

Anna Maria remained motionless on the cold floor, leaning her head against the door-post. She no longer understood what they were saying in the next room; she kept hearing only that one dreadful speech: "Put the child out of the house; she interferes with our happiness!" His happiness! Klaus's happiness! She pa.s.sed her cold hand over her forehead, as if she must convince herself whether or not it was a dream.

No, no; she was awake, she could move her feet as well, she could walk out of the little room, along the corridor, to her own room.

Marieken was just coming along the pa.s.sage. Anna Maria stopped, and bade her say to Fraulein Rosamond that she was not coming to the table; she had a headache, and wanted to be alone that evening.

The girl looked in alarm at the pale face of her mistress. "Shall I call Brockelmann?" she asked anxiously.

Anna Maria made a negative gesture, and laid her hand on the door-k.n.o.b, and then turned her head. "Marieken!"

The girl came back.

"It is nothing--only go!" She then hastily turned away, and shut and bolted her door at once.

"She wishes to be alone with her thoughts," remarked Aunt Rosamond at the supper table, where she and Klaus sat, right and left of the absent one's place. Klaus did not reply at once, but looked at that place and said at length: "So it will always be, soon!" And the old lady nodded sadly; she knew not what to reply, and a secret anxiety about the future stole over her, since she had seen that Klaus still bore the old wound which he had received many years ago. She had supposed it healed long since.

The next morning Anna Maria went as usual, with her bunch of keys, through kitchen and cellar. She was pale, and her orders sounded shorter and less friendly than they had of late. Only to Klaus she gave a friendly smile, but it was forced, and her eyes had no share in it.

She looked over accounts with him for two hours, and, though he was distracted and restless, the results were perfectly correct. Aunt Rosamond alone was alarmed at the girl's appearance, but she did not venture to ask any questions. Anna Maria was as icily cold as often heretofore.

The next day, toward evening, Klaus came into Aunt Rosamond's room. The old lady had just hung up Felix Leonhard's portrait again, after carefully making fast the broken cord.

"Well, who was right, Aunt Rose?" he asked. He was standing beside her, and she saw that his face had grown very red, and that his whole being was stirred.