CHAPTER XVIII

The philosopher tells us that, after the healing interval of sleep, we are prepared to meet each other every morning as G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses; so fresh, so strong, so l.u.s.ty, so serene, did he consider the newly-risen and the some-time separated must of necessity be. It is a pleasing belief; and Experience, that hopelessly prosaic governess who never gives us any holidays, very quickly disposes of it. For what is to become of the G.o.d-like mood if only one in a company possess it? The middle-aged and old, who abound in all companies, are seldom G.o.d-like, and are never so at breakfast.

The morning after the arrival of the Chosen, Anna woke up in the true Olympian temper. She had been brought back to the happy world of realities from the happy world of dreams by the sun of an unusually lovely April shining on her face. She had only to open her window to be convinced that all which she beheld was full of blessings. Just beneath her window on the gra.s.s was a double cherry tree in flower, an exquisite thing to look down on with the sunshine and the bees busy among its blossoms. The unreasoning joyfulness that invariably took possession of her heart whenever the weather was fine, filled it now with a rapture of hope and confidence. This world, this wonderful morning world that she saw and smelt from her window, was manifestly a place in which to be happy. Everything she saw was very good. Even the remembrance of Dellwig was transfigured in that clear light. And while she dressed she took herself seriously to task for the depression of the night before.

Depressed she had certainly been; and why? Simply because she was over-excited and over-tired, and her spirit was still so mortifyingly unable to rise superior to the weakness of her tiresome flesh. And to let herself be made wretched by Dellwig, merely because he talked loud and had convictions which she did not share! The G.o.d-like morning mood was strong upon her, and she contemplated her listless self of the previous evening, the self that had sat so long despondently thinking instead of going to bed, with contempt. These evening interviews with Dellwig, she reflected, were a mistake. He came at hours when she was least able to bear his wordiness and shouting, and it was the knowledge of his impending visit that made her irritable beforehand and ruffled the absolute serenity that she felt was alone appropriate in a house dedicated to love. But it was not only Dellwig and the brick-kiln that had depressed her; she had actually had doubts about her three new friends, doubts as to the receptivity of their souls, as to the capacity of their souls for returning love. At one awful moment she had even doubted whether they had souls at all, but had hastily blown out the candle at this point, extinguishing the doubt at the same time, smothering it beneath the bedclothes, and falling asleep at once, after the fashion of healthy young people.

Now, at the beginning of the new day, with all her misgivings healed by sleep, she thought calmly over the interview she had had with Frau von Treumann before supper; for it was that interview that had been the chief cause of her dejection. Frau von Treumann had told her an untruth, a quite obvious and absurd untruth in the face of the correspondence, as to the reason of her coming to Kleinwalde. She had said she had only come at the instigation of her son, who looked upon Anna as a deserving object of help. And Anna had been hurt, had been made miserable, by the paltriness of this fib. Her great desire was to reach her friends' souls quickly, to attain the beautiful intimacy in which the smallest fiction is unnecessary; and so little did Frau von Treumann understand her, that she had begun a friendship that was to be for life with an untruth that would not have misled a child. But see the effect of sleep and a gracious April morning. The very shabbiness and paltriness of the fib made Anna's heart yearn over the poor lady. Surely the pride that tried to hide its wounds with rags of such pitiful flimsiness was profoundly pathetic? With such pride, all false from Anna's point of view, but real and painful enough to its possessor, the necessity that drove her to accept Anna's offer must have been more cruel than necessity, always cruel, generally is. Her heart yearned over her friend as she dressed, and she felt that the weakness that must lie was a weakness greatly requiring love. For n.o.body, she argued, would ever lie unless driven to it by fear of some suffering. If, then, it made her happy, and made her life easier, let her think that Anna believed she had come for her sake.

What did it matter? No one was perfect, and many people were surprisingly pathetic.

Meanwhile the day was glorious, and she went downstairs with the springy step of hope. She was thinking exhilarating thoughts, thinking that there were to be no ripples of misgivings and misunderstandings on the clear surface of this first morning. They would all look into each others' candid eyes at breakfast, and read a mutual consciousness of interests henceforward to be shared, of happiness to be shared, of life to be shared,--the life of devoted and tender sisters.

The hall door stood open, and the house was full of the smell of April; the smell of new leaves budding, of old leaves rotting, of damp earth, pine needles, wet moss, and marshes. "Oh, the lovely, lovely morning!"

whispered Anna, running out on to the steps with outstretched arms and upturned face, as though she would have clasped all the beauty round and held it close. She drew in a long breath, and turned back into the house singing in an impa.s.sioned but half-suppressed voice the first verse of the Magnificat. The door leading to the kitchen opened, and to her surprise Baroness Elmreich emerged from those dark regions. The Magnificat broke off abruptly. Anna was surprised. Why the kitchen? The baroness saw her hostess's figure motionless against the light of the open door; but the light behind was strong and the hall was dark, and she thought it was Anna's back. Hoping that she had not been noticed she softly closed the door again and waited behind it till she could come out unseen.

Anna supposed that the princess must be showing her the servants'

quarters, and went into the breakfast room; but in it sat the princess, making coffee.

"There you are," said the princess heartily. "That is nice. Now we can drink our coffee comfortably together before the others come down. Have you been out? You smell of fresh air."

"Only a moment on the doorstep."

"Come, sit next to me. You have slept well, I can see. Notice the advantage of coming straight in to breakfast, and not running about the forest--you get here first, and so get the best cup of coffee."

"But it isn't proper for me to have the best," said Anna, smiling as she took the cup, "when I have guests here."

"Yes, it is--very proper indeed. Besides, you told me they were sisters."

"So they are. Has the baroness not been here?"

"No, she is still in bed."

"No, I saw her a moment ago. I thought you were with her."

"Oh, my dear--so early in the morning!" protested the princess. "When did I see her last? Less than nine hours ago. She followed me into my bedroom and talked much. I could not begin again with her the first thing in the morning, even to please you." And she looked at Anna very affectionately. "You were tired last night, were you not?" she continued. "Axel Lohm stayed so late, I think he wanted to speak to you.

But you went straight up to bed."

"I had seen him before he went in to you. He didn't want to speak to me.

He was consumed by curiosity about our new friends."

"Was he? He did not show much interest in them. He talked to me nearly all the time. He thought for a moment that he knew the baroness--at least, he stared at her at first and seemed surprised. But it turned out that she was only like someone he knew. She had evidently never seen him before. It is a great pleasure to me to talk to that young man," the princess went on, while Anna ate her toast.

"So it is to me," said Anna.

"I have met many people in my life, and have often wondered at the dearth of nice ones--how few there are that one likes to be with and wishes to see again and again. Axel is one of the few, decidedly."

"So he is," agreed Anna.

"There is goodness written on every line of his face."

"Oh, he has the kindest face. And so strong. I feel that if anything happened here, anything dreadful, that he would make it right again at once. He would mend us if we got smashed, and build us up again if we got burned, and protect us, this houseful of lone women, if ever anybody tried to run away with us." And Anna nodded rea.s.suringly at the princess, and took another piece of toast "That is how I feel about him," she said. "So agreeably certain, not only of his willingness to help, but of his power to do it." Talking about Axel she quite forgot the apparition of the baroness that she had just seen. He was so kind, so good, so strong. How much she admired strength of purpose, independence, the character that was determined to find its happiness in doing its best.

"If I had a daughter," said the princess, filling Anna's cup, "she should marry Axel Lohm."

"If _I_ had a daughter," said Anna, "she should marry him, so yours couldn't. I wouldn't even ask her if she liked it. I'd be so sure that it was a good thing for her that I'd just say: 'My dear, I have chosen my son-in-law. Get your hat, and come to church and marry him.' And there'd be an end of _that_."

The princess felt that it was an unprofitable employment, trying to help on Axel's cause. She could not but see what he thought of Anna; and after the touching manner of widows, was convinced of the superiority of marriage, as a means of real happiness for a woman, over any and every other form of occupation. Yet whenever she talked of him she was met by the same hearty agreement and frank enthusiasm, the very words being taken out of her mouth and her own praises of him doubled and trebled.

It was a promising friendship, but it was a singularly unpromising prelude to love.

"Please make some fresh coffee," begged Anna; "the others will be coming down soon, and must not have cold stuff." Her voice grew tender at the mere mention of "the others." For the princess and Axel, both of whom she liked so much, it never took on those tender tones, as the princess had already noted. There was nothing in either of them to appeal to that side of her nature, the tender, mother side, which is in all good women and most bad ones. They were her friends, staunch friends, she felt, and of course she liked and respected them; but they were st.u.r.dy, capable people, firmly planted on their own feet, able to battle successfully with life--as different as possible from these helpless ones who needed her, whom she had saved, to whom she was everything, between whom and want and sorrow she was fixed as a shield.

Two of the helpless ones came in at that moment, with frosty, early-morning faces. Anna put the vision she had seen at the kitchen door from her mind, and went to meet them with happy smiles and greetings. Frau von Treumann did her best to respond warmly, but it was very early to be enthusiastic, and at that hour of the day she was accustomed to being a little cross. Besides, she had had no coffee yet, and her hostess evidently had, and that made a great difference to one's sentiments. The baroness looked pinched and bloodless; she was as frigid as ever to Anna, said nothing about having seen her before, and seemed to want to be left alone. So that the mutual gazing into each other's eyes did not, after all, take place.

The princess waited to see that they had all they wanted, and then went out rattling her keys; and after an interval, during which Anna chattered cheerful and ungrammatical German, and the window was shut, and warming food eaten, Frau von Treumann became amiable and began to talk.

She drew from her pocket a letter and a photograph. "This is my son,"

she said. "I brought it down to show you. And I have had a long letter from him already. He never neglects his mother. Truly a good son is a source of joy."

"I suppose so," said Anna.

The baroness turned her eyes slowly round and fixed them on the photograph. "Aha," she thought, "the son again. Last night the son, this morning the son--always the son. The excellent Treumann loses no time."

"He is good-looking, my Karlchen, is he not?"

"Yes," said Anna. "It is a becoming uniform."

"Oh--becoming! He looks adorable in it. Especially on his horse. I would not let him be anything but a hussar because of the charming uniform.

And he suits it exactly--such a lightly built, graceful figure. _He_ never stumbles over people's feet. Herr von Lohm nearly crushed my poor foot last night. It was difficult not to scream. I never did admire those long men made by the meter, who seem as though they would go on for ever if there were no ceilings."

"He _is_ rather long," agreed Anna, smiling.

"Heartwhole," thought Frau von Treumann. "Tell me, dear Miss Estcourt----" she said, laying her hand on Anna's.

"Oh, don't call me Miss Estcourt."

"But what, then?"

"Oh, you must call me Anna. We are to be like sisters here--and you, too, please, call me Anna," she said, turning to the baroness.

"You are very good," said the baroness.

"Well, my little sister," said Frau von Treumann, smiling, "my baby sister----"

"Baby sister!" thought the baroness. "Excellent Treumann."

"--you know an old woman of my age could not really have a sister of yours."