The Strong City

by Taylor Caldwell

  It had begun to sleet. Emmi put up her big black umbrella, and took Irmgard’s arm. “It is not far,” she said, economically, “and we need not take the cars.”

  They walked fast through the gritty and murky streets. Emmi stared grimly ahead, silently and witheringly answering the employment-office female in her mind. Her features worked with her blasting emotions. She breathed stormily. She almost forgot the girl with her, and so did not see the sad mournfulness of Irmgard’s expression, the sudden drooping of her shoulders. But this passed, and Irmgard lifted her head and walked firmly and proudly. A look of resolution appeared about her mouth, and a gleam of steadfastness in her brilliant green eyes. She put aside all sorrowful and depressing thoughts with a distinct effort of her will. She expected nothing of life, and would not go down under its assaults.

  “On your Thursdays and Sundays, you will come to us,” said Emmi, at last, having demolished the employment lady in her mind.

  Irmgard smiled, without replying.

  “You must not be lonely,” said Emmi, severely.

  “I have never been lonely,” replied Irmgard, lifting her skirts over a puddle.

  Emmi grunted. “That is just the arrogance of the young, who feel so self-sufficient. Of course you will be lonely! But you must learn to control your feelings.”

  Irmgard smiled again, involuntarily. She knew by now that Emmi never controlled herself. She also knew that those who talked constantly of certain virtues never possessed them.

  “I always control myself,” she said, equably.

  Emmi gave her a sharp look, but Irmgard’s face was serene and unreadable. In fact, the slight skirmish between them had raised the girl’s spirits. A faint depression, like a dimple, appeared near one lip, and her eyes sparkled.

  “It will be all strange, and perhaps intolerable, to you for a while, this stranger’s house in a strange country,” said Emmi, with severity. “But you must not allow yourself to become depressed, or hopeless. You must reconcile yourself to situations and circumstances, and be courageous.”

  But you, thought Irmgard, with compassion, have never reconciled yourself. However, she merely inclined her head. Emmi, after delivering herself of these high sentiments, felt sternly exalted, and marched quicker, became more erect, stared sternly before her. She seemed to derive some inner stiffening for herself in her remarks to her niece. Like many people, she could obtain personal virtue in advising others.

  “You must never allow yourself to weaken,” added Emmi, feeling strong and formidable.

  “No, Aunt Emmi,” replied Irmgard, meekly, understanding the other with a sudden surge of sadness, comprehending her weaknesses.

  Emmi continued to march. Her black skirts swirled about her buttoned boots, like the cloak of a general. Her features became rigid. Her eyes flashed. Bugles seemed to accompany her. Her own heaviness of heart had vanished. She felt invincible. Irmgard, watching her, smiled sorrowfully. She walked a little behind, for Emmi’s sharp elbows poked her uncomfortably, and consequently the girl was more than a little damp when they approached the Schmidt mansion.

  Emmi had already begun to march up to the front entrance, when Irmgard caught her arm. “No, dear aunt. The servants’ entrance.”

  Emmi stopped, and glared. Then, flinging up her bonnetted head again, she led the way to the rear. They were admitted by the butler, who was surprised to see this grenadier of a middle-aged woman and so beautiful a young lady. Irmgard silently presented the card, which the butler carried away.

  The two women stood in a small dark entry before the back stairway. Emmi was breathing audibly again. She said: “You must never forget your manners, Irmgard, no matter the provocation. You must be submissive and obedient and silent. I hope you understand. You must not disgrace me.”

  “No,” said the girl, softly.

  The butler returned and said that Mrs. Schmidt would see the applicant.

  He led the way to the stairway. At the foot, Irmgard touched her aunt gently, and her eyes were pleading. “Aunt Emmi, I must go alone.”

  Emmi was outraged. She stood at the foot of the stairway, one foot planted on the first step. “Nonsense!” she said, loudly. “You are a raw girl. I must see the lady myself, and judge whether this is a proper place for you.”

  They spoke in German. The English butler paused halfway up the steps and looked down at them impatiently.

  “Moreover,” Emmi went on, “you do not know what to say. You will make no impression. I must talk for you.”

  “No,” said Irmgard, softly but firmly.

  The green eyes looked into the violent blue eyes. Emmi flushed a dark crimson. Her lean features, so dry and sharp, worked. This was intolerable!

  “I insist,” she said, more loudly than ever. “You will not get the position without me.”

  “I must learn to stand alone,” said Irmgard. She stood on the step and regarded her aunt with quiet resolution.

  Her words softened Emmi, made her irresolute. After all, she had been urging this very resolution upon the girl!

  “I am much offended,” she said, but she removed her foot from the step, and assumed an injured expression.

  “But, you would want me to do this alone, would you not?” urged Irmgard, shrewdly. “You would not want the lady to believe I am a weakling, who must be talked for, and explained?”

  “If the young person will accompany me,” said the butler, stiffly.

  Emmi drew a deep breath, and thrust her hands stiffly into her muff.

  “Go then, and do not blame me,” she said.

  She looked up into that young face, so pale, so smiling, so gentle, and a hand seemed to squeeze her lonely and desolate heart. She tried not to smile in return, and moved away, abruptly, taking a severe place near the door. Irmgard was overwhelmed with compassion, as she regarded that lean and lonely figure, so defenseless, and so assailed. Then, firming her lips, she went up the stairway in the butler’s wake.

  Irmgard’s impression was that this house, for all its splendor, was a dark, gloomy and dreary place, with its great echoing rooms and dim furniture, with its intense laden silence and dusky shadows. When she reached the second floor, and passed the mighty well of the curving staircase, she had a sudden impression of complete horror. She saw the light that came through the stained window on the landing, and it absurdly frightened her with its ghostly tints. There was a smell in this house, a hushed rank smell which was compounded of all the emotions of this dreadful place, and which she could not define. But her animal instinct sent a prickling along her spine. She could not go on for a moment or two. Her legs were, trembling under her long thick garments. Her breath seemed stopped in her throat. She looked about her wildly, and to her quickened imagination, every shut door along the great corridor seemed to harbor a terror and a threat, and a thick and sickening danger.

  She was alone. The butler had opened a door and had disappeared within it, thinking her at his heels. She was sweating slightly. Her whole skin was alive with a dull fear. There was no sound, only that dreadful waiting hush, broken only by distant booming echoes, as though the house stirred in itself. Her feet were sunken in the thick carpet. She smelled again that rank and choking smell. She looked over her shoulder in fright, saw the long spectral corridor behind her, and before her. She was seized with a nameless desire for complete flight. The darkness of the house loomed all about her, like gloomy chaos.

  She actually took a step, when she heard a faint but lovely sound. Some one was playing softly on a piano behind one of the doors, a phrase or two of Chopin, infinitely melancholy and infinitely grand, like a divine meditation. The heavy echoes of the house became stilled. The music flowed over them, like a flood of soft light. It was the grave voice of a friend, calling to her. She stood and listened. Chords rose and broke against the dark walls and the high lost ceilings, in radiant but mournful spray. Tears rose to Irmgard’s eyes, and her lips shook. A strange emotion struck her heart, almost like the passionate convulsion of love.
Never had she felt so lonely, nor so at peace.

  The butler reappeared. “If you will come this way,” he said, reprovingly, seeing her standing there in utter immobility in that immense and dusky hall.

  She went towards him. She was no longer afraid. She was sure, in some foolish way, that the person who was playing that music had known she was there, and had spoken to her. She was not alone.

  CHAPTER 15

  When Irmgard entered the gloomy, fetid and luxurious room of Mrs. Hans Schmidt, she was so far composed that she could see everything in one quick glance.

  She saw an abnormally thin dark woman with a sick face lying on a crimson velvet chaise-longue, her feet covered by a shawl. A white shawl was also about her compressed shoulders, above which her face was a death’s-head of suffering. Her black hair, heavily streaked with white, was curled, frizzed and banged, and pinned at the back in a heavy chignon. Near her, on a stool, and leaning forward the better to see by one dim lamp, was a young woman, sewing quietly and steadily. It was evident that she was the daughter of the older woman, for there was a marked resemblance between them, though the younger woman had a still and innocent sweetness of expression, and some pale and fragile prettiness. She wore a gray velvet dress, elaborately looped, draped and bustled, with a fringe of white lace at her throat, caught with a gold and diamond pin. Her thick dark hair was, like her mother’s, banged and frizzed and tortured, but it shone with a black lustre like satin. Near them, uncompromising, buxom and arrogant, stood another woman, fair, belligerent of expression, in a black silk dress covered by a black silk apron. At her belt was fastened a large bunch of keys. Her hands were folded primly on her abdomen, and as Irmgard entered, she looked at her hostilely, and with impudent appraisal. What she saw appeared to infuriate her, and she took a step towards the girl. The other women looked up, and seemed surprised and taken aback by Irmgard’s heroic appearance.

  “You are the girl who is come for the position?” asked the buxom woman, in a strongly accented and goading voice.

  “Come in, my dear,” said the sick lady on the chaise-longue. She smiled gently, and half extended an emaciated hand. The buxom woman, evidently an upper servant or housekeeper, glared at Irmgard.

  Irmgard quietly advanced into the room, full of strong serenity. She curtseyed with some awkwardness, and without a word, gave the sick lady her card, which the butler had returned to her. Mrs. Schmidt held the card in her faintly tremulous hands, but continued to regard Irmgard seriously.

  The buxom woman suddenly began to speak to Irmgard with great rapidity, in German.

  “You are a German? A raw girl, no doubt. What do you know of what is required here?”

  Her tone was bullying, and a little frightened. She covered her fear with bluster. Irmgard listened to the inflections and the words, and had difficulty in understanding. The woman spoke in Low Dutch, and a slight contempt stirred behind Irmgard’s calm green eyes.

  “Yes. I am from Bavaria,” she replied, politely. “I am not raw. I have taken care of invalids. My father was an invalid. I think I am competent.”

  The younger woman, who understood Irmgard’s cultured German perfectly, though only partially able to follow Matilda’s uncouth accents, smiled at the girl.

  “I am sure you are competent,” she said, with great soft kindness. “My mother is not well. I think you would serve her excellently.”

  Matilda glowered. She turned to Mrs. Schmidt and said loudly: “I know these girls from the Old Country! Girls like these, too. They think they are better than others. They know nothing.” She swung upon Irmgard again. Her heavy face was crimson with hatred, and her pale blue eyes squinted.

  “You will not do,” she said, with fury. “You will please go.”

  Mrs. Schmidt shrank, and pulled the shawl closer about her shoulders. She wet her dry and broken lips. It was evident that she had no courage to resist any one. But the young woman rose with a sudden quiet authority, and looked at the housekeeper.

  “My mother is the best judge of who is competent to attend her, Matilda,” she said, and under her soft voice there was a sharp edge of steel. She bent over Mrs. Schmidt. “Are you willing to try Irmgard, Mother?”

  Mrs. Schmidt’s upward look at her daughter was full of helpless and silent fear. Her lips moved, but no sound came from them. Ernestine smiled, touched her mother’s cheek, and looked at Irmgard.

  “It’s all right,” she said, gently. “We will try you, Irmgard.”

  But Matilda shouted violently, clenching her big fat hands, and regarding Ernestine with murderous fury: “Your father, the master, Miss Ernestine, told me I should care for things. I know what is best for your mother. This girl is not what is needed—”

  Ernestine gazed at her thoughtfully. Her small face paled, but her dark eyes were filled with unusual lightnings. Her soft pink lips curled with scorn and anger, and complete comprehension.

  “Matilda, you have received your morning orders from Mrs. Schmidt. If she has nothing more to say to you, please leave at once.”

  She was a small and delicate creature in her gray velvet, and she looked like a child beside the large stout German woman. But Irmgard saw that she was suddenly all tempered strength in this emergency. She and Matilda locked wills, and it was Matilda, at the last, who turned away, muttering savagely. She stamped to the door, opened it furiously, and then shut it behind her with a thunderous bang, which echoed all through the house.

  Ernestine, smiling to herself as though somewhat surprised and more than a little triumphant, sat down on her stool again near her mother. “I must really speak to Papa about her,” she said. “She has become impossible lately. And since he made her housekeeper, she believes she owns us body and soul.”

  Mrs. Schmidt spoke in her tremulous, dying voice, with great and nervous haste: “No, my dear! Don’t speak to him. You know how highly he regards Matilda! It will do no good. And—and,” and she wet her lips and her thin face flushed as though with inner shame and despair, “it will—do no one—any good, if Matilda is seriously annoyed. Perhaps it would have been best—”

  “Nonsense,” said Ernestine, with firm gentleness. She lifted her eyes and smiled at Irmgard. “You are just the person to take care of mother. I know. She needs some one like you. You will take the position?”

  “Ernestine,” protested Mrs. Schmidt feebly, inordinately frightened again.

  Irmgard hesitated. Her quick mind had grasped many things. She certainly did not wish to intrude herself into so unpleasant a household, where everything she had seen and heard confirmed her first repulsion. She had recognized Mrs. Schmidt as a great lady, though a weakling. She knew she lived in some mysterious state of chronic terror. The girl glanced quickly about the great, ill-smelling room, overburdened with its scent of sickness, cologne and danger. It was a horrible place, a horrible household! Her nostrils quivered, and her lips opened and flattened with aversion. And then she looked at Ernestine, and saw that the girl had a strange intent expression, full of silent pleading.

  “Yes,” she said at last, in her slow meticulous English, “if you wish.” A slow warmth gathered about her chilled heart, and the two young women smiled at each other, as though they had concluded a bargain between them.

  Mrs. Schmidt drew a long quivering breath of exhaustion and resignation. Then she smiled her sad, uncertain smile. Irmgard noticed that her sunken eyes were never still, but flickered and roved about like those of a hunted animal. Moreover, she had a habit of constantly moistening her cracked lips. Her facial muscles jerked and leaped, even when in repose. But her smile was sweet.

  “I hope you will be happy, my dear, with me,” she said, apologetically. “I—I am not very well, as you can see. There are very few days when I can rise at all. You will find me quite a burden, I am afraid.”

  Irmgard felt a deep pang of pity. “I will do my best, madam,” she said, very gravely.

  Then Ernestine laughed a little. “You mustn’t be afraid of Matilda. She is only o
ur housekeeper. But like so many—I mean, women of her kind, she is inclined to take her duties too seriously. She has only been housekeeper for a few days, and I think it has gone to her head. You mustn’t mind her. She is really excellent—”

  “Oh, very excellent!” said Mrs. Schmidt eagerly, and her eyes flickered about the room again, as though she were speaking for the benefit of a hostile and violent listener, of whom she was completely terrified.

  Ernestine rose. “Perhaps Irmgard would like to see her room, and hear about her duties,” she said. She led the way to a room off Mrs. Schmidt’s apartments, and Irmgard was pleased by the neat austerity of her new bedroom. Ernestine explained everything in a low economical voice, but all the time her shy and friendly eyes were fixed on Irmgard’s face. She said suddenly, in a tone of sorrowful but smiling envy: “You are so pretty!” And colored at the involuntary words.

  “Thank you, Miss Ernestine,” answered Irmgard, without smiling, but with a glance that softened the brilliance of her eyes.

  Ernestine sighed, and continued to gaze at the other woman. “You remind me of some one,” she said, almost inaudibly. “I can’t remember—” She colored again. “Your face—the way you stand, and turn your head. It is very strange.”

  There was a silence in the small closed room. Ernestine had lit a lamp on the table. It shone on the two young faces.

  “How old are you, Irmgard?”

  “I am almost twenty, fräulein.”

  “So young! I am eight years older than you.”

  Irmgard was surprised. She had thought Ernestine the same age as herself, for the other girl was so small, so immature of body and face.

  “I’ll be so glad to have you here!” exclaimed Ernestine, naïvely. Irmgard saw that her naïveté was one of her more outstanding characteristics, a naïveté that was so childlike that it could come only from a simple heart and mind unaccustomed to more sophisticated usages. “Mother needs some one like you, so healthy and calm.” She hesitated. “You must not let Matilda annoy you. She—she is really a detestable person, but—but my father likes her very much, and believes her exceptionally competent. I am afraid she will try you very much, but I think you can manage her. Don’t let her bully you. If you are too respectful to her, she will hate you, and make your life miserable.” She twisted her small hands, and the color quite left her face. “She makes mother’s life miserable. Part of your work will be to protect my mother against her.”