Read Ebook: A Sister's Love: A Novel by Heimburg W Waterman Margaret Payson Translator

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Ebook has 1695 lines and 93952 words, and 34 pages

"Fifty-eight years! And his son runs away from the service in which his father grew old and gray, after a frivolous girl! Very well, you shall have your way; but mind, any one who once goes away from here--never returns. You may go."

The servant's face grew deep red at the reproachful words of his young mistress; he turned slowly to the door and left the room.

Anna Maria had meanwhile broken the great crested seal, and was reading. "Klaus is coming day after to-morrow!" After reading awhile, now as happy as a child, she cried to the old lady: "Just hear, Aunt Rosamond, what else he writes. I will read it aloud.

"'I found my old Mattoni over his books as usual, but it seemed to me he looked ill. I asked him about it, but he declared he was well. A proposal to come and recuperate next summer in our beautiful country air he dismissed with a shake of the head, "he had no time!" He is an incorrigible bookworm.

"'But now here is something particularly interesting! Do you know whom I met yesterday "Unter den Linden," sunburned and scarcely recognizable? Edwin St?rmer! He was standing by a picture-store, and I beside him for some time, without a suspicion of each other; we were looking at some pretty water-colors by Heuselt. All at once a hand was laid on my arm, and a familiar voice cried: "Upon my word, Klaus, if you had not developed that fine beard, I should have recognized you sooner!"

"'I was exceedingly glad to see Edwin again, and rejoice still more at the future prospect. The old vagabond is going to fold his wings at last, and take care of his estate. He is coming shortly to Dambitz; consequently we shall have a good friend again near us. As for the rest, he wouldn't believe that you have become a young lady and no longer wear long braids and short dresses.'"

Anna Maria stopped, and looked into the distance, as if recalling something. "I don't know exactly now how he looked," she said. "He wore a full black beard, didn't he, aunt, and must be very old now?"

"That is certainly old, Aunt Rosamond!"

"That is the way young people judge," said the old lady, smiling.

"It may be, aunt," said Anna Maria, and put the letter in her pocket. She had begun to spin again, when an old woman in a dazzlingly white apron entered the room.

"Gracious Fr?ulein," she began respectfully, yet familiarly, "Marieken is off, and has made a great commotion in the house, and the eldest of the Weber girls has just applied for the place, but she asks for twelve thaler for wages and a jacket at Christmas!"

"Ten thaler, and Christmas according to the way she conducts herself," Anna Maria replied, without looking up.

The housekeeper disappeared, but returned after awhile.

Anna Maria drew a purse from her pocket, and laid an eight-groschen piece on the table. "The advance-money, Brockelmann; do you know that Gottlieb wishes to leave?"

"Oh, dear, yes, Fr?ulein." The old woman was quite embarrassed. "I am sorry; he doted upon the lass at one time, and at last--oh, heavens, fr?ulein, one has been young too, and if two people love each other--see, Fr?ulein, it is just as if one had drunk deadly hemlock. I mean no offence, but you will know it yet some day, and, if God will, may the handsomest and best man in the world come to B?tze and take you home!"

The old woman had spoken affectingly, and looked at her young mistress with brightening eyes. Only she would have dared to touch on this point. She had been Anna Maria's nurse, and a remnant of tenderness toward her was still hidden somewhere in the girl's heart.

"The master!" said the good woman, without regarding the last question. "He ought to marry too! As if it were not high time for him; he will be thirty-three years old at Martinmas!"

A few days afterward Edwin St?rmer came to B?tze. Anna Maria was standing just on the lower staircase landing, in the great stone-paved entrance-hall, a basket of red-cheeked apples on her arm, and Brockelmann stood near her with a candle in her hand. The unsteady light of the flickering candle fell on the immediate surroundings, and, like an old picture of Rembrandt's, the fair head of the girl stood out from the darkness of the wide hall. Round about her there was a great hue and cry; all the children of the village seemed to be collected there, and sang with a sort of scream, to a monotonous air, the old Martinmas ditty:

"Martins, martins, pretty things, With your little golden wings, To the Rhine now fly away, To-morrow is St. Martin's Day. Marieken, Marieken, open the door, Two poor rogues are standing before! Little summer, little summer, rose's leaf, City fair, Give us something, O maiden fair!"

They were just beginning a new song when the heavy entrance-door opened, and Baron St?rmer came in. Anna Maria did not see him at once, for, according to an old custom of St. Martin's Eve, she was throwing a handful of apples right among the little band, who pounced upon them with cries and shouts. Only when a man's head rose up straight before her, by the heavily carved banister, she glanced up, and looked into a pale face framed by dark hair and beard, and into a pair of shining brown eyes.

For an instant Anna Maria was startled, and a blush of embarrassment spread over her face; then she held out her hand to him and bade him welcome. Far from youthful was her manner of speaking and acting.

"Be still!" she called, in her ringing voice, to the noisy children; and as silence immediately ensued, she added, turning to St?rmer: "They are meeting me on important business, Herr von St?rmer, but I shall be ready to leave at once; will you go up to Klaus for awhile?"

He kept on looking at her, still holding her right hand; he had not heard what she said at all. With quick impatience, at length she withdrew her hand.

"Brockelmann, bring the candle here, and take the gentleman to my brother," she ordered; but then, as if changing her mind, she threw the whole basketful of apples at once among the children, who scrambled for them, screaming wildly. The baron made his way with difficulty through the groping throng to the stairs, where Anna Maria was now standing motionless, and with earnest gaze regarding the man who in her childhood had so often held her in his arms, and had so many a kind word for her.

Yes, it was he again; the slender figure of medium height, the dark face with the flashing eyes--and yet how different!

Anna Maria had to admit to herself that it was a handsome man who was coming up the steps just then; and old? She had to smile. "One sees quite differently with a child's eyes!" she said to herself. Was it not as if years were blotted out, and he was coming up as in the old times, to hold her fast by her braids and say, "Don't run so, Anna Maria"?

Silently up the stairs they went together, to the top, their steps re?choing from the walls.

It really seemed now to Anna Maria as if her childhood had returned, the sweet, remote childhood, with a thousand bright, innocent hours. Involuntarily she held out to him her slender hand, and he seized it quickly and forced the maiden to stand still. The sound of the children's shouting came indistinctly to them up here; there was no one beside them in the dim corridor.

Words of pleasure at seeing the friend of her childhood again trembled on Anna Maria's lips, but when she tried to speak the man's eyes met hers, and her mouth remained closed. Slowly, and still looking at her, he drew the slender hand to his lips; she allowed it as if in a dream, then hastily caught her hand away.

"May not kiss one's hand," he supplied, a smile flitting over his face. Anna Maria did not see it, having stepped forward into the sitting-room. "A visitor, Klaus!" she called into the room, which was still dark.

"Ah!" at once replied a man's voice. "St?rmer, is it you? Welcome, welcome! You find us quite in the dark. We were just talking of you, and of old times; were we not, Aunt Rosamond?"

A merry greeting followed, an invitation to supper was given and accepted, and Klaus von Hegewitz called for lights.

"It is ten years ago, St?rmer," finished Klaus.

"Truly!" assented St?rmer, "ten years!"

"Oh, but how happy we have been here," the old lady ran on. "Do you remember, St?rmer, how you carried me off once in the most festive manner, in a sleigh, and on the way the mad idea came to you to drive on past our godfather's, and then you landed us both so softly in the deepest snow-drift--me in my best dress, the green brocade, you know, that you always called my parrot's costume?"

"Yes, indeed, I have already had the honor, on the landing down-stairs," replied the baron.

"The honor? Heavens, how ceremonious! Did you hear, dear?" asked the brother. But no answer came. "Anna Maria!" he then called.

"She is not here," said Aunt Rosamond, groping about to find the way out of the room. "But it is really too dark here," she added.

"Why haven't you married, Hegewitz?" St?rmer asked abruptly.

"I might pass the question back to you," replied Klaus. "But let us leave that alone, St?rmer, I will tell you something about it another time." Klaus von Hegewitz had risen and stepped to the nearest window; for a while silence reigned in the quiet room. St?rmer regretted having touched upon a topic that evidently aroused painful emotions.

"Every one has his experiences, St?rmer, so why should we be spared?" Klaus turned around, beginning to speak again. "But it is overcome now. I do not think about it any more," he added. "Will you have another cigar?"

"Not think about it any more?" cried the baron, not hearing the last question. He laughed aloud. "At thirty-four? My dear Klaus, what will become of you, then, when Aunt Rosamond dies and Anna Maria marries?"

"Anna Maria? I haven't thought about that yet, St?rmer; she is still so young, and--although--But one can see that it is possible to live so: you give the best example!" Klaus was out of humor.

The baron did not reply. He soon turned the conversation to agricultural matters, and a discussion over esparcet and fodder was first interrupted by the announcement that supper was served.

Aunt Rosamond had, meanwhile, gone through the main hall and knocked at a door at the end of the passage. Anna Maria's voice called, "Come in!" She, too, was sitting in the dark, but she rose and lit a candle. The light illuminated her whole face. "Anna Maria, are you ill?" her aunt asked anxiously, and stepped nearer.

"Not exactly ill, aunt, but I have a headache."

"You have taken cold; why do you ride out in this sharp wind? You are both inconsiderate, you and Klaus! Show me your pulse--of course, on the gallop; go to bed, Anna Maria."

"After supper, aunt; what would Klaus say if I were not there?"

"But you are really looking badly, Anna Maria."

The young girl laughed, took her bunch of keys in her hand and thus compelled Aunt Rosamond to go with her. "Don't worry," she bade her, "and above all, don't say anything to Klaus. He might think it worse than it is."

"If that wasn't a remarkable company at table this evening," said Klaus von Hegewitz, as he re?ntered the sitting-room, after escorting Baron St?rmer down-stairs. "You, Anna Maria, did not say a word, and the conversation dragged along till it nearly died out; if Aunt Rosamond had not kept the thing up, why--really, it was peculiar. But how nice it is when we are by ourselves, isn't it, little sister?"

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