Axel kissed Anna’s right hand, which was, she knew, the custom; and immediately proceeded to kiss her other hand, which was not the custom at all. She was looking woebegone, with red eyelids and white cheeks; but a faint colour came into her face at this, for he did it with such unmistakable devotion that for the first time she wondered uneasily whether their pleasant friendship were not about to come to an end.
“Don’t be too kind,” she said, drawing her hands away and trying to smile. “I — I feel so stupid to-day, and want to cry dreadfully.”
“Well then, I should do it, and get it over.”
“I did do it, but I haven’t got it over.”
“Well, don’t think of it. How is the baroness?”
“Just the same. The doctor thinks it serious. And she has no constitution. She has not had enough of anything for years — not enough food, or clothes, or — or anything.”
She went quickly across to the coffee table to hide how much she wanted to cry. “Have some coffee,” she said with her back to him, moving the cups aimlessly about.
“Don’t forget,” said Axel, “that the poor lady’s past misery is over now and done with. Think what luck has come in her way at last. When she gets over this, here she is, safe with you, surrounded by love and care and tenderness — blessings not given to all of us.”
“But she doesn’t like love and care and tenderness. At least, if it comes from me. She dislikes me.”
Axel could not exclaim in surprise, for he was not surprised. The baroness had appeared to him to be so hopelessly sour; and how, he thought, shall the hopelessly sour love the preternaturally sweet? He looked therefore at Anna arranging the cups with restless, nervous fingers, and waited for more.
“Why do you say that?” she asked, still with her back to him.
“Say what?”
“That when she gets over this she will have all those nice things surrounding her. You told me when first she came, that if she really were the poor dancing woman’s sister I ought on no account to keep her here. Don’t you remember?”
“Quite well. But am I not right in supposing that you will keep her? You see, I know you better now than I did then.”
“If she liked being here — if it made her happy — I would keep her in defiance of the whole world.”
“But as it is —— ?”
She came to him with a cup of cold coffee in her hands. He took it, and stirred it mechanically.
“As it is,” she said, “she is very ill, and has to get well again before we begin to decide things. Perhaps,” she added, looking up at him wistfully, “this illness will change her?”
He shook his head. “I am afraid it won’t,” he said. “For a little while, perhaps — for a few weeks at first while she still remembers your nursing, and then — why, the old self over again.”
He put the untasted coffee down on the nearest table. “There is no getting away,” he said, coming back to her, “from one’s old self. That is why this work you have undertaken is so hopeless.”
“Hopeless?” she exclaimed in a startled voice. He was saying aloud what she had more than once almost — never quite — whispered in her heart of hearts.
“You ought to have begun with the baroness thirty years ago, to have had a chance of success.”
“Why, she was five years old then, and I am sure quite cheerful. And I wasn’t there at all.”
“Five ought really to be the average age of the Chosen. What is the use of picking out unhappy persons well on in life, and thinking you are going to make them happy? How can you make them be happy? If it had been possible to their natures they would have been so long ago, however poor they were. And they would not have been so poor or so unhappy if they had been willing to work. Work is such an admirable tonic. The princess works, and finds life very tolerable. You will never succeed with people like Frau von Treumann and the baroness. They belong to a class of persons that will grumble even in heaven. You could easily make those who are happy already still happier, for it is in them — the gratitude and appreciation for life and its blessings; but those of course are not the people you want to get at. You think I am preaching?” he asked abruptly.
“But are you not?”
“It is because I cannot stand by and watch you bruising yourself.”
“Oh,” said Anna, “you are a man, and can fight your way well enough through life. You are quite comfortable and prosperous. How can you sympathise with women like Else? Because she is not young you haven’t a feeling for her — only indifference. You talk of my bruising myself — you don’t mind her bruises. And if I were forty, how sure I am that you wouldn’t mind mine.”
“Yes, I would,” said Axel, with such conviction that she added quickly, “Well — I don’t want to talk about bruises.”
“I hope the baroness will soon get over the cruel ones that singularly brutal young man has inflicted. You agree with me that he is a singularly brutal young man?”
“Absolutely.”
“And I hope that when she is well again you will make her as happy as she is capable of being.”
“If I knew how!”
“Why, by letting her go away, and giving her enough to live on decently by herself. It would be quite the best course to take, both for you and for her.”
Anna looked down. “I have been thinking the same thing,” she said in a low voice; she felt as though she were hauling down her flag.
“Perhaps you will let me help.”
“Help?”
“Let me contribute. Why may I not be charitable too? If we join together it will be to her advantage. She need not know. And you are not a millionaire.”
“Nor are you,” said Anna, smiling up at him.
“We unfortunates who live by our potatoes are never millionaires. But still we can be charitable.”
“But why should you help the baroness? I found her out, and brought her here, and I am the only person responsible for her.”
“It will be much more costly than just having her here.”
“I don’t mind, if only she is happy. And I will not have you pay the cost of my experiments in philanthropy.”
“Is Frau von Treumann happy?” he asked abruptly.
“No,” said Anna, with a faint smile.
“Is Fräulein Kuhräuber happy?”
“No.”
“Tell me one thing more,” he said; “are you happy?”
Anna blushed. “That is a queer question,” she said. “Why should I not be happy?”
“But are you?”
She looked at him, hesitating. Then she said, in a very small voice, “No.”
Axel took two or three turns up and down the room. “I knew it,” he said; and added something in German under his breath about Weiber. “After this, you will not, I suppose, receive young Treumann again?” he asked, coming to a halt in front of her.
“Never again.”
“You have a difficult time before you, then, with his mother.”
Anna blushed. “I am afraid I have,” she admitted.
“You have a very difficult few weeks before you,” he said. “The baroness probably dangerously ill, and Frau von Treumann very angry with you. I know Princess Ludwig does all she can, but still you are alone — against odds.”
The odds, too, were greater than she knew. All day he had been officially engaged in making inquiries into the origin of the fire the night before, and every circumstance pointed to Klutz as the culprit. He had sent for Klutz, and Klutz, they said, had gone home. Then he sent a telegram after him, and his father replied that he was neither expecting his son nor was he ill. Klutz, then, had disappeared in order to avoid the consequences of what he had done; but it was only a question of days before the police brought him back again, and then he would tell the whole absurd story, and Pomerania would chuckle at Anna’s expense. The thought of this chuckling made Axel cold with rage.
He stood looking out of the window at the parched garden, the drooping lilac-bush
es, the hazy island across the water. The wind had dropped, and a gray film had drawn across the sky. At the bottom of the garden, under a chestnut-tree, Miss Leech was sewing, while Letty read aloud to her. The monotonous drone of Letty’s reading, interrupted by her loud complaints each time a mosquito stung her, reached Axel’s ears as he stood there in silence. A grim struggle was going on within him. He loved Anna with a passion that would no longer be hidden; and he knew that he must somehow hide it. He was so certain that she did not care about him. He was so certain that she would never dream of marrying him. And yet if ever a woman needed the protection of an all-enfolding love it was Anna at that moment “That child down there has made a pretty fair amount of mischief for a person of her age,” he burst out with a vehemence that startled Anna.
“What child?” she said, coming up behind him and looking over his shoulder.
He turned round quickly. The feeling that she was so close to him tore away the last shred of his self-control. “You know that I love you,” he said, his voice shaking with passion.
Her face in an instant was colourless. She stood quite still, almost touching him, as though she did not dare move. Her eyes were fixed on his with a frightened, fascinated look.
“You know it. You have known it a long time. Now what are you going to say to me?”
She looked at him without speaking or moving.
“Anna, what are you going to say to me?” he cried; and he caught up her hands and kissed them one after the other, hardly knowing what he did, beside himself with love of her.
She watched him helplessly. She felt faint and sick. She had had a miserable day, and was completely overwhelmed by this last misfortune. Her good friend Axel was gone, gone for ever. The pleasant friendship was done. In place of the friend she so much needed, of the friendship she had found so comforting, there was — this.
“Won’t you — won’t you let my hands go?” she said faintly. She did not know him again. Was it possible that this agony of love was for her? She knew herself so well, she knew so well what it was for which he was evidently going to break his heart. How wonderful, how pitiful beyond expression, that a good man like Axel should suffer anything because of her. And even in the midst of her fright and misery the thought would not be put from her that if she had happened to look like the baroness or Fräulein Kuhräuber, while inwardly remaining exactly as she was, he would not have broken his heart for her. “Oh, let me go — —” she whispered; and turned her head aside, and shut her eyes, unable to look any longer at the love and despair in his.
“But what are you going to say to me?”
“Oh, you know — you know — —”
“But you are so sorry always for people who suffer — —”
“Oh, stop — oh, stop!”
“No, I won’t stop; here have I been condemned to look on at you lavishing love on people who don’t want it, don’t like it, are wearied by it — who don’t know how precious it is, how priceless it is, and how I am hungering and thirsting — oh, starving, starving, for one drop of it — —” His voice shook, and he fell once more to covering her hands with kisses that seemed to scorch her soul.
This was very dreadful. Her soul had never been scorched before. Something must be done to stop him. She could not stand there with her eyes shut and her hands being kissed for ever. “Please let me go,” she entreated faintly; and in her helplessness began to cry.
He instantly released her, and she stood before him crying. What a horrible thing it was to lose her friend, to be forced to hurt him. “I never dreamt that you — that you — —” she wept.
“What, that I loved you?” he asked incredulously; but more gently, subdued by her deep distress. His face grew very hopeless. She was crying because she was sorry for him.
“I don’t know — I think I did dream that — lately — once or twice — but I never dreamt that it was so bad — that you were such a — such a — such a volcano. Oh, Axel, why are you a volcano?” she cried, looking up at him, the tears rolling down her cheeks. “Why have you spoilt everything? It was so nice before. We were such friends. And now — how can I be friends with a volcano?”
“Anna, if you make fun of me — —”
“Oh no, no — as though I would — as though I could do anything so unutterable. But don’t let us be tragic. Oh, don’t let us be tragic. You know my plans — you know my plans inside out, from beginning to end — how can I, how can I marry anybody?”
“Good God, those women — those women who are not happy, who have spoilt your happiness, they are to spoil mine now — ours, Anna?” He seized her arm as though he would wake her at all costs from a fatal sleep. “Do you mean to say that if it were not for those women you would be my wife?”
“Oh, if only you wouldn’t be tragic — —”
“Do you mean to say that is the reason?”
“Oh, isn’t it sufficient — —”
“No. If you cared for me it would be no reason at all.”
She cried bitterly. “But I don’t,” she sobbed. “Not like that — not in that way. It is atrocious of me not to — I know how good you are, how kind, how — how everything. And still I don’t. I don’t know why I don’t, but I don’t. Oh, Axel, I am so sorry — don’t look so wretched — I can’t bear it.”
“But what can it matter to you how I look if you don’t care about me?”
“Oh, oh,” sobbed Anna, wringing her hands.
He caught hold of her wrist. “See here, Anna. Look at me.”
But she would not look at him.
“Look at me. I don’t believe you know your own mind. I want to see into your eyes. They were always honest — look at me.”
But she would not look at him.
“Surely you will do that — only that — for me.”
“There isn’t anything to see,” she wept, “there really isn’t. It is dreadful of me, but I can’t help it.”
“Well, but look at me.”
“Oh, Axel, what is the use of looking at you?” she cried in despair; and pulled her handkerchief away and did it.
He searched her face for a moment in silence, as though he thought that if only he could read her soul he might understand it better than she did herself. Those dear eyes — they were full of pity, full of distress; but search as he might he could find nothing else.
He turned away without a word.
“Don’t, don’t be tragic,” she begged, anxiously following him a few steps. “If only you are not tragic we shall still be able to be friends — —”
But he did not look round.
A servant with a tray was outside coming in to take the coffee away. “Oh,” exclaimed Anna, seeing that it was impossible to hide her tear-stained face from the girl’s calm scrutiny, “oh, Johanna, the poor baroness — she is so ill — it is so dreadful — —” And she dropped into a chair and hid herself in the cushions, weeping hysterically with an abandonment of woe that betokened a quite extraordinary affection for the baroness.
“Gott, die arme Baronesse,” sympathised Johanna perfunctorily. To herself she remarked, “This very moment has the Miss refused to marry gnädiger Herr.”
CHAPTER XXIX
What Anna most longed for in the days that followed was a mother. “If I had a mother,” she thought, not once, but again and again, and her eyes had a wistful, starved look when she thought it, “if I only had a mother, a sweet mother all to myself, of my very own, I’d put my head on her dear shoulder and cry myself happy again. First I’d tell her everything, and she wouldn’t mind however silly it was, and she wouldn’t be tired however long it was, and she’d say ‘Little darling child, you are only a baby after all,’ and would scold me a little, and kiss me a great deal, and then I’d listen so comfortably, all the time with my face against her nice soft dress, and I would feel so safe and sure and wrapped round while she told me what to do next. It is lonely and cold and difficult without a mother.”
The house was in confusion. The barones
s had come out of her unconsciousness to delirium, and the doctors, knowing that she was not related to anyone there, talked openly of death. There were two doctors, now, and two nurses; and Anna insisted on nursing too, wearing herself out with all the more passion because she felt that it was of so little importance really to anyone whether the baroness lived or died.
They were all strangers, the people watching this frail fighter for life, and they watched with the indifference natural to strangers. Here was a middle-aged person who would probably die; if she died no one lost anything, and if she lived it did not matter either. The doctors and nurses, accustomed to these things, could not be expected to be interested in so profoundly uninteresting a case; Frau von Treumann observed once at least every day that it was schrecklich, and went on with her embroidery; Fräulein Kuhräuber cried a little when, on her way to her bedroom, she heard the baroness raving, but she cried easily, and the raving frightened her; the princess felt that death in this case would be a blessing; and Letty and Miss Leech avoided the house, and spent the burning days rambling in woods that teemed with prodigal, joyous life.
As for Anna, to see her in the sick-room was to suppose her the nearest and tenderest relative of the baroness; and yet the passion that possessed her was not love, but only an endless, unfathomable pity. “If she gets well, she shall never be unhappy again,” vowed Anna in those days when she thought she could hear Death’s footsteps on the stairs. “Here or somewhere else — anywhere she likes — she shall live and be happy. She will see that her poor sister has made no difference, except that there will be no shadow between us now.”
But what is the use of vowing? When June was in its second week the baroness slowly and hesitatingly turned the corner of her illness; and immediately the corner was turned and the exhaustion of turning it got over, she became fractious. “You will have a difficult time,” Axel had said on the day he spoilt their friendship; and it was true. The difficult time began after that corner was turned, and the farther the baroness drew away from it, the nearer she got to complete convalescence, the more difficult did life for Anna become. For it resumed the old course, and they all resumed their old selves, the same old selves, even to the shadow of an unmentioned Lolli between them, that Axel had said they would by no means get away from; but with this difference, that the peculiarities of both Frau von Treumann and the baroness were more pronounced than before, and that not one of the trio would speak to either of the other two.
Delphi Collected Works of Elizabeth von Arnim (Illustrated) Page 56
