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Benefactress

<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2> Anna put on her hat and went out to think it over. Fräulein Kuhräuber was apparently still asleep. Letty, accompanied by Miss Leech, had to go to Lohm parsonage for her first lesson with Herr Klutz, who had undertaken to teach her German. Frau von Treumann said she must write at once to Karlchen, and shut herself up to do it. The baroness was vague as to her intentions, and disappeared. So Anna started off by herself, crossed the road, and walked quickly away into the forest. "If it makes her so happy, then I am glad," she said to herself. "She is here to be happy; and if she wants Karlchen so badly, why then she must have him from time to time. I wonder why I don't like Karlchen." She walked quickly, with her eyes on the ground. The mood in which she sang magnificats had left her, nor did she look to see what the April morning was doing. Frau von Treumann had not been under her roof twenty-four hours, and already her son had been added—if only occasionally, still undoubtedly added—to the party. Suppose the baroness and Fräulein Kuhräuber should severally disclose an inability to live without being visited by some cherished relative? Suppose the other nine, the still Unchosen, should each turn out to have a relative waiting tragically in the background for permission to make repeated calls? And suppose these relatives should all be male? These were grave questions; so grave that she was quite at a loss how to answer them. And then she felt that somebody was looking at her; and raising her eyes, she saw Axel on the mossy path quite close to her. "So deep in thought?" he asked, smiling at her start. Anna wondered how it was that he so often went through the forest. Was it a short cut from Lohm to anywhere? She had met him three or four times lately, in quite out of the way parts. He seemed to ride through it and walk through it at all hours of the day. "How is your potato-planting getting on?" she asked involuntarily. She knew what a rush there was just then putting the potatoes in, for she did not drive every day about her fields in a cart without springs with Dellwig for nothing. Axel must have potatoes to plant too; why didn't he stay at home, then, and do it? "What a truly proper question for a country lady to ask," he said, looking amused. "You waste no time in conventional good mornings or asking how I do, but begin at once with potatoes. Well, I do not believe that you are really interested in mine, so I shall tell you nothing about them. You only want to remind me that I ought to be seeing them planted instead of walking about your woods." Anna smiled. "I believe I did mean something like that," she said. "Well, I am not so aimless as you suppose," he returned, walking by her side. "I have been looking at that place." "What place?" "Where Dellwig wants to build the brick-kiln." "Oh! What do you think of it?" "What I knew I would think of it. It is a fool's plan. The clay is the most wretched stuff. It has puzzled me, seeing how very poor it is, that he should be so eager to have the thing. I should have credited him with more sense." "He is quite absurdly keen on it. Last night I thought he would never stop persuading." "But you did not give in?" "Not an inch. I said I would ask you to look at it, and then he was simply rude. I do believe he will have to go. I don't really think we shall ever get on together. Certainly, as you say the clay is bad, I shall refuse to build a brick-kiln." Axel smiled at her energy. In the morning she was always determined about Dellwig. "You are very brave to-day," he said. "Last night you seemed afraid of him." "He comes when I am tired. I am not going to see him in the evening any more. It is too dreadful as a finish to a happy day." "It was a happy day, then, yesterday?" he asked quickly. "Yes—that is, it ought to have been, and probably would have been if—if I hadn't been tired." "But the others—the new arrivals—they must have been happy?" "Yes—oh yes—" said Anna, hesitating, "I think so. Fräulein Kuhräuber was, I am sure, at intervals. I think the other two would have been if they hadn't had a journey." "By the way, do you remember what I said yesterday about the Elmreichs?" "Yes, I do. You said horrid things." Her voice changed. "About a Baron Elmreich. But he had a sister who made a hash of her life. I saw her once or twice in Berlin. She was dancing at the Wintergarten, and under her own name." "Poor thing. But it doesn't interest me." "Don't get angry yet." "But it doesn't interest me. And why shouldn't she dance? I knew several people who ended by dancing at London Wintergartens." "You admit, then, that it is an end?" "It is hardly a beginning," conceded Anna. "She was so amazingly like your baroness would be if she painted and wore a wig——" "That you are convinced they must be sisters. Thank you. Now what do you suppose is the good of telling me that?" And she stood still and faced him, her eyes flashing. Do what he would, Axel could not help smiling at her wrath. It was the wrath of a mother whose child has been hurt by someone on purpose, "I wish," he said, "that you would not be so angry when I tell you things that might be important for you to know. If your baroness is really the sister of the dancing baroness——" "But she is not. She told me last night that she has no brothers and sisters. And she wrote it in the letters before she came. Do you think it is a praiseworthy occupation for a man, doing his best to find out disgraceful things about a very poor and very helpless woman?" "No, I do not," said Axel decidedly. "Under any other circumstances I would leave the poor lady to take her chance. But do consider," he said, following her, for she had begun to walk on quickly again, "do consider your unusual position. You are so young to be living away from your friends, and so young and inexperienced to be at the head of a home for homeless women—you ought to be quite extraordinarily particular about the antecedents of the people you take in. It would be most unpleasant if it got about that they were not respectable." "But they are respectable," said Anna, looking straight before her. "A sister who dances at the Wintergarten——" "Did I not tell you that she has no sister?" Axel shrugged his shoulders. "The resemblance is so striking that they might be twins," he said. "Then you think she says what is not true?" "How can I tell?" Anna stopped again and faced him. "Well, suppose it were true—suppose it is her sister, and she has tried to hide it—do you know how I should feel about it?" "Properly scandalised, I hope." "I should love her all the more. Oh, I should love her twice as much! Why, think of the misery and the shame—poor, poor little woman—trying to hide it all, bearing it all by herself—she must have loved her sister, she must have loved her brother. It isn't true, of course, but supposing it were, could you tell me any reason why I should turn my back on her?" She stood looking at him, her eyes full of angry tears. He did not answer. If that was the way she felt, what could he do? "I never understood," she went on passionately, "why the innocent should be punished. Do you suppose a woman would like her brother to cheat and then shoot himself? Or like her sister to go and dance? But if they do do these things, besides her own grief and horror, she is to be shunned by everybody as though she were infectious. Is that fair? Is that right? Is it in the least Christian?" "No, of course it is not. It is very hard and very ugly, but it is quite natural. An old woman in a strong position might take such a person up, perhaps, and comfort her and love her as you propose to do, but a young girl ought not to do anything of the sort." Anna turned away with a quick movement of impatience and walked on. "If you argue on the young girl basis," she said, "we shall never be able to talk about a single thing. When will you leave off about my young girlishness? In five years I shall be thirty—will you go on till I have reached that blessed age?" "I have no right to go on to you about anything," said Axel. "Precisely," said Anna. "But please remember that I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to your uncle, and make allowances for me if I am over-zealous in my anxiety to shield his niece from possible unpleasantness." "Then don't keep telling me I am too young to do good. It is ludicrous, considering my age, besides being dreadful. You will say that, I believe, till I am thirty or forty, and then when you can't decently say it any more, and I still want to do things, you'll say I'm old enough to know better." Axel laughed. Anna's dimples appeared for an instant, but vanished again. "Now," she said, "I am not going to talk about poor little Else any more. Let her distant relations dance till they are tired—it concerns nobody here at all." "Little Else?" "The baroness. Of course we shall call each other by our Christian names. We are sisters." "I see." "You don't see at all," she said, with a swift sideward glance at him. "My dear Miss Estcourt——" "If my plan succeeds it will certainly not be because I have been encouraged." "I think," he said with sudden warmth, "that the plan is beautiful, and could only have been made by a beautiful nature." "Oh?" ejaculated Anna, surprised. A flush of gratification came into her face. The heartiness of the tone surprised her even more than the words. She stood still to look at him. "It is a pity," she said softly, "that nearly always when we are together we get angry, for you can be so kind when you choose. Say nice things to me. Let us be happy. I love being happy." She held out her hand, smiling. He took it and gave it a hearty, matter of fact shake, and dropped it. It was very awkward, but he was struggling with an overpowering desire to take her in his arms and kiss her, and not let her go again till she had said she would marry him. It was exceedingly awkward, for he knew quite well that if he did so it would be the end of all things. He turned rather white, and thrust his hands deep into his pockets. "Yes, the plan is beautiful," he said cheerfully, "but very unpractical. And the nature that made it is, I am sure, beautiful, but of course quite as unpractical as the plan." And he smiled down at her, a broad, genial smile. "I know I don't set about things the right way," she said. "If only you wouldn't worry about the pasts of my poor friends and what their relations may have done in pre-historic times, you could help me so much." To his relief she began to walk on again. "Princess Ludwig is a sensible and experienced woman," he said, "and can help you in many ways that I cannot." "But she only looks at the praktische side of a question, and that is really only one side. I am too unpractical, I know, but she isn't unpractical enough. But I don't want to talk about her. What I wanted to say was, that once these poor ladies have been chosen and are here, the time for making inquiries is over, isn't it? As far as I am concerned, anyhow, it is. I shall never forsake them, never, never. So please don't try to tell me things about them—it doesn't change my feelings towards them, and only makes me angry with you. Which is a pity. I want to live at peace with my neighbour." "Well?" he said, as she paused. "That, I take it, is a prelude to something else." "Yes, it is. It's a prelude to Karlchen." "To Karlchen?" She looked at him, and laughed rather nervously. "I am afraid," she said, "that Karlchen is coming to stay with me." "And who, pray, is Karlchen?" "The only son of his mother, and she is a widow." He came to a standstill again. "What," he said, "Frau von Treumann has asked you to invite her son to Kleinwalde?" "She didn't actually ask, but she got a sad letter from him, and seemed to feel the separation so much, and cried about it, and so—and so I did." Axel was silent. "I don't yearn to see Karlchen," said Anna in rather a small voice. She could not help feeling that the invitation had been wrung from her. Axel bored a hole in the moss with his stick, and did not answer. "But naturally his poor mother clings to him, and he to her." Axel was intent on his hole and did not answer. "They are all the world to each other." Axel filled up his hole again, and pressed the moss carefully over it with his foot. Then he said, "I never yet heard of two Treumanns being all the world to each other." "You appear to have a down on the Treumanns." "Not in the least. I do not think they interest me enough. It is an East Prussian Junker family that has spread beyond its natural limits, and one meets them everywhere, and knows their characteristics. What is this young man? I do not remember having heard of him." "He is an officer at Rislar." "At Rislar? Those are the red hussars. Do you wish me to make inquiries about him?" "Oh, no. It's no use. His mother can't be happy without him, so he must come." "Then may I ask why, if I am not to help you in the matter, we are talking about him at all?" "I wanted to ask you whether—whether you think he will come often." "I should think," said Axel positively, "that he will come very often indeed." "Oh!" said Anna. They walked on in silence. "Have you considered," he said presently, "what you would do if your other—sisters want their relations asked down to stay with them? Christmas, for instance, is a time of general rejoicing, when the coldest hearts grow warm. Relations who have quarrelled all the year, seek each other out at Christmas and talk tearfully of ties of blood. And birthdays—will your twelve sisters be content to spend their twelve birthdays remote from all members of their family? Birthdays here are important days. There will be one a month now for you to celebrate at Kleinwalde." "I have not got farther than considering Karlchen," said Anna with some impatience. "A male Kuhräuber," said Axel musingly, swinging his stick and gazing up at the fleecy clouds floating over the pine tops, "a male Kuhräuber would be quite unlike anything you have yet seen." "There are no male Kuhräubers," said Anna. "At least," she added, correcting herself, "Fräulein Kuhräuber said so. She said she had no relations at all, but perhaps—perhaps she has forgotten some, and will remember them by and by. Oh, I wish they would tell me exactly how they stand, and not try to hide anything! I thought we had left nothing unexplained in the letters, but now Karlchen—it seems——" She stopped and bit her lip. She was actually on the verge of criticising, to Axel, the behaviour of her sisters. "Look," she said, catching sight of red roofs through the thinning trees, "isn't that Lohm? I have seen you home without knowing it." She held out her hand. "It isn't much good talking, is it?" she said, moved by a sudden impulse, and looking up at him with a slightly wistful smile. "How we talk and talk and never get any nearer anything or each other. Such an amount of explaining oneself, and all no use. I don't mean you and me especially—it is always so, with everyone and everywhere. It is very weird. Good-bye." But he held her hand and would not let her go. "No," he said, in a voice she did not know, "wait one moment. Why will you not let me really help you? Do you think you will ever achieve anything by shutting your eyes to what is true? Is it not better to face it, and then to do one's best—after that, knowing the truth? Why are you angry whenever I try to tell you the truth, or what I believe to be the truth about these ladies? You are certain to find it out for yourself one day. You force me to look on and see you being disappointed, and grieved, and perhaps cheated—anyhow your confidence abused—and you reduce our talks together to a sort of sparring match unworthy, quite unworthy of either of us——" He broke off abruptly and released her hand. The passion in his voice was unmistakable, and she was listening with astonished eyes. "I am lecturing you," he said in his usual even tones, "Forgive me for thinking that you are setting about your plan in a way that can never be successful. As you say, we talk and talk, and the more we talk the less do we understand each other. It is a foolish world, and a pre-eminently lonely one." He lifted his hat and turned away. Anna opened her lips to say something, but he was gone. She went home and meditated on volcanoes. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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