“I knew it,” said Klaus Heinrich, “I expected as much. Just what does happen.”
But Imma Spoelmann went on: “So there she was, destitute and helpless, and, since she had never learned to earn her own living, she was left alone to face want and hunger. And you must remember that life in the States is much harder and meaner than here in your country; also that the Countess has always been a gentle, sensitive creature, and has been cruelly treated for years. In a word, she was no fit subject for the impressions of life to which she was unceasingly exposed. And then the blessing fell to her.”
“What blessing? She told me about that too. What was the blessing, Miss Spoelmann?”
“The blessing consisted in a mental disturbance. At the crisis of her troubles something in her cracked—that’s the expression she used to me—so that she no longer needed to face life and to bring a clear, sober mind to bear upon it, but was permitted, so to speak, to let herself go, to relax the tension of her nerves and to drivel when she liked. In a word, the blessing was that she went wrong in her head.”
“Certainly I was under the impression,” said Klaus Heinrich, “that the Countess was letting herself go when she drivelled.”
“That’s how it is, Prince. She is quite conscious of drivelling, and often laughs as she does so, or lets her hearers understand that she doesn’t mean any harm by it. Her strangeness is a beneficent disorder, which she can control to a certain extent, and which she allows herself to indulge in. It is, if you prefer it, a want of—–”
“Of self-restraint,” said Klaus Heinrich, and looked down at his reins.
“Right, of self-restraint,” she repeated, and looked at him. “You don’t seem to approve of that want, Prince.”
“I consider as a general rule,” he answered quietly, “that it is not right to let oneself go and to make oneself at home, but that self-restraint should always be exercised, whatever the circumstances.”
“Your Highness’s doctrine,” she answered, “is a praiseworthy austerity.” Then she pouted, and, wagging her dark head in its three-cornered hat, she added in her broken voice: “I’ll tell you something, Highness, and please note it well. If your Eminence is not inclined to show a little sympathy and indulgence and mildness, I shall have to decline the pleasure of your distinguished company once and for all.”
He dropped his head, and they rode a while in silence.
“Won’t you go on to tell me how the Countess came to you?” he asked at last.
“No, I won’t,” she said, and looked straight in front of her. But he pressed her so pleadingly that she finished her story and said: “And although fifty other companions applied, my choice—for the choice rested with me—fell at once on her, I was so much taken with her at my first interview. She was odd, I could see that: but she was odd only from too rich an experience of misery and wickedness, that was clear in every word she said; and as for me, I had always been a little lonely and cut off, and absolutely without experience, except what I got at my University lectures.”
“Of course, you had always been a little lonely and cut off!” repeated Klaus Heinrich, with a ring of joy in his voice.
“That’s what I said. It was a dull, simple life in some ways that I led, and still lead, because it has not altered much, and is all much the same. There were parties with ‘lions’ and balls, and often a dash in a closed motor to the Opera House, where I sat in one of the little boxes above the stalls, so as to be well observed by everybody, for show, as we say. That was a necessary part of my position.”
“For show?”
“Yes, for show; I mean the duty of showing oneself off, of not raising walls against the public, but letting them come into the garden and walk on the lawn and gaze at the terrace, watching us at tea. My father, Mr. Spoelmann, disliked it intensely. But it was a necessary consequence of our position.”
“What did you usually do besides, Miss Spoelmann?”
“In the spring we went to our house in the Adirondacks and in the summer to our house at Newport-on-Sea. There were garden-parties of course, and battles of flowers and lawn-tennis tournaments, and we went for rides and drove four-in-hand or motored, and the people stood and gaped, because I was Samuel Spoelmann’s daughter. And many shouted rude remarks after me.”
“Rude remarks?”
“Yes, and they probably had reason to. At any rate it was something of a life in the limelight that we led, and one that invited discussion.”
“And between whiles,” he said, “you played in the breezes, didn’t you, or rather in a vacuum, where no dust came—–”
“That’s right. Your Highness is pleased to mock my excess of candour. But in view of all this you can guess how extraordinarily welcome the Countess was to me, when she came to see me in Fifth Avenue. She does not express herself very clearly, but rather in a mysterious sort of way, and the boundary line at which she begins to drivel is not always quite clearly apparent. But that only strikes me as right and instructive, as it gives a good idea of the boundlessness of misery and wickedness in the world. You envy me the Countess, don’t you?”
“Envy? H’m. You seem to assume, Miss Spoelmann, that I have never had my eyes opened.”
“Have you?”
“Once or twice, maybe. For instance, things have come to my ears about our lackeys, which you would scarcely dream of.”
“Are your lackeys so bad?”
“Bad? Good-for-nothing, that’s what they are. For one thing they play into each other’s hands, and scheme, and take bribes from the tradesmen—–”
“But, Prince, that’s comparatively harmless.”
“Yes, true, it’s nothing to compare with the way the Countess has had her eyes opened.”
They broke into a trot, and, leaving at the sign-post the gently rising and falling high-road, which they had followed through the pine-woods, turned into the sandy short cut, between high blackberry-covered banks, which led into the tufted meadow-land round the “Pheasantry.” Klaus Heinrich was at home in these parts: he stretched out his arm (the right one) to point out everything to his companions, though there was not much worth seeing. Yonder lay the Schloss, closed and silent, with its shingle-roof and its lightning-conductors on the edge of the wood. On one side was the pheasants’ enclosure, which gave the place its name, and on the other Stavenüter’s tea-garden, where he had sometimes sat with Raoul Ueberbein. The spring sun shone mildly over the damp meadow-land and shed a soft haze over the distant woods.
They reined in their horses in front of the tea-garden, and Imma Spoelman took stock of the prosaic country-house which rejoiced in the name of the “Pheasantry.”
“Your childhood,” she said with a pout, “does not seem to have been surrounded by much giddy splendour.”
“No,” he laughed, “there’s nothing to see in the Schloss. It’s the same inside as out. No comparison with Delphinenort, even before you restored it—–”
“Let’s put our horses up,” she said. “One must put one’s horses up on an expedition, mustn’t one, Countess? Dismount, Prince. I’m thirsty, and want to see what your friend Stavenüter has got to drink.”
There stood Herr Stavenüter in green apron and stockings, bowing and pressing his knitted cap to his chest with both hands, while he laughed till his gums showed.
“Royal Highness!” he said, with joy in his voice, “does your Royal Highness mean to honour me once again? And the young lady!” he added, with a tinge of deference in his voice; for he knew Samuel Spoelmann’s daughter quite well, and there had been in the whole Grand Duchy no more eager reader of the newspaper articles which coupled Prince Klaus Heinrich’s and Imma’s names together. He helped the Countess to dismount, while Klaus Heinrich, who was the first to the ground, devoted himself to Miss Spoelmann, and he called to a lad, who, with the Spoelmanns’ groom, took charge of the horses. Then followed the reception and welcome to which Klaus Heinrich was accustomed. He addressed a few formal questions in a reserved tone of voice to Herr
Stavenüter, graciously asked how he was and how his business prospered, and received the answers with nods and a show of real interest. Imma Spoelmann watched his artificial, cold demeanour with serious, searching eyes, while she swung her ridingwhip backwards and forwards.
“May I be so bold as to remind you that I am thirsty?” she said at last sharply and decisively, whereupon they walked into the garden and discussed whether they need go in to the coffee-room. Klaus Heinrich urged that it was still so damp under the trees; but Imma insisted on sitting outside, and herself chose one of the long narrow tables with benches on each side, which Herr Stavenüter hastened to cover with a white cloth.
“Lemonade!” he said. “That’s best for a thirst, and it’s sound stuff! no trash, Royal Highness, and you, ladies, but natural juice sweetened—there’s no better!”
Followed the driving-in of the glass balls in the necks of the bottles; and, while his distinguished guests tasted the drink, Herr Stavenüter dawdled a little longer at the table, meaning to serve them up a little gossip. He had long been a widower, and his three children, who in days gone by had sung here under the trees the song about common humanity, the while blowing their noses with their fingers, had now left him. The son was a soldier in the capital, one of the daughters had married a neighbouring farmer, the other, with a soul for higher things, had gone into service in the capital.
So Herr Stavenüter was in solitary control in this remote spot, in the three-fold capacity of farmer of the Schloss lands, caretaker of the Schloss, and head keeper of the “Pheasantry,” and was well content with his lot. Soon, if the weather permitted, the season for bicyclists and walkers would come round, when the garden was filled on Sundays. Then business hummed. Would not his Highness and the ladies like to take a peep at the “Pheasantry”?
Yes, they would, later; so Herr Stavenüter withdrew for the present, after placing a saucer of milk for Percival by the table.
The collie had been in some muddy water on the way, and looked horrible. His legs were thin with wet, and the white parts of his ragged coat covered with dirt. His gaping mouth was black to the throat from nuzzling for field-mice, and his dark red tongue hung dripping out of his mouth. He quickly lapped up his milk, and then lay with panting sides by his mistress’s feet, flat on his side, his head thrown back in an attitude of repose.
Klaus Heinrich declared it to be inexcusable for Imma to expose herself after her ride to the invidious springtime air without any wrap. “Take my cloak,” he said. “I really do not want it, I’m quite warm, and my coat is padded on the chest!” She would not hear of it; but he went on asking her so insistently that she consented, and let him lay his grey military coat with a major’s shoulder-straps round her shoulders. Then, resting her dark head in its three-cornered hat in the hollow of her hand, she watched him as, with arm outstretched towards the Schloss, he described to her the life he had once led there.
There, where the tall window opened on to the ground, had been the mess-room, then the school-room, and up above Klaus Heinrich’s room with the plaster torso on the stove. He told her too about Professor Kürtchen and his tactful way of instructing his pupils, about Captain Amelung’s widow, and the aristocratic “Pheasants,” who called everything “hog-wash,” and especially about Raoul Ueberbein, his friend, of whom Imma Spoelmann more than once asked him to tell her some more.
He told her about the doctor’s obscure origin, and about the money his parents paid to be quit of him; about the child in the marsh or bog, and the medal for saving life; about Ueberbein’s plucky and ambitious career, pursued in circumstances calling for resolution and action, which he used to call favourable circumstances, and about his friendship with Doctor Sammet, whom Imma knew. He described his by no means attractive appearance and readily owned to the attraction which he had exercised on him from the very beginning. He described his behaviour towards himself, Klaus Heinrich—that fatherly and jolly, blustering camaraderie which had distinguished him so sharply from everybody else—and gave Imma to the best of his ability an insight into his tutor’s views of life. Finally he expressed his concern that the doctor seemed not to enjoy any sort of popularity among his fellow-citizens.
“I can quite believe that,” said Imma.
He was surprised, and asked why.
“Because I’m convinced,” she said, wagging her head, “that your Ueberbein, for all his sparkling conversation, is an unhappy sort of creature. He may swagger about the place; but he lacks reserve, Prince, and that means that he will come to a bad end.”
Her words startled Klaus Heinrich, and made him thoughtful. Then turning to the Countess, who awoke with a smile out of a brown study, he said something complimentary about her riding, for which she thanked him gracefully. He said that anybody could see that she had learnt to ride as a child, and she confessed that riding lessons had formed a considerable part of her education. She spoke clearly and cheerfully; but gradually, almost imperceptibly, she began to wander into a strange story about a gallant ride which she had made as a lieutenant in the last manœuvres, and suddenly started talking about the dreadful wife of a sergeant in the Grenadiers, who had come into her room the previous night and scratched her breasts all over, meanwhile using language which she could not bring herself to repeat. Klaus Heinrich asked quietly whether she had not shut her door and windows.
“Of course, but anyone could break the glass!” she answered hastily, and turned pale in one cheek and red in the other. Klaus Heinrich nodded acquiescence, and, dropping his eyes, asked her quietly to let him call her “Frau Meier” now and then, a proposal which she gladly accepted, with a confidential smile and a far-away look which had something strangely attractive about it.
They got up to visit the “Pheasantry,” after Klaus Heinrich had taken back his cloak; and as they left the garden, Imma Spoelmann said: “Well done, Prince. You’re getting on,” a commendation which made him blush, indeed gave him far more pleasure than the most fulsome newspaper report of the valuable effect of his appearance at a ceremony which Councillor Schustermann could ever show him.
Herr Stavenüter escorted his guests into the palisaded enclosure in which six or seven families of pheasants led a comfortable, petted life. They watched the greedy, red-eyed, and stiff-tailed birds, inspected the hatching house, and looked on while Herr Stavenüter fed the pheasants under a big solitary fig-tree for their benefit. Klaus Heinrich thanked him warmly for all that he had shown them, Imma Spoelmann regarding him the while with her big, searching eyes. Then they mounted at the gate of the tea-garden and rode off homewards with Percival barking and pirouetting under the horses’ noses.
But their ride home was destined to give Klaus Heinrich, in the course of his conversation with Imma Spoelmann, yet another significant indication of her real nature and character, a direct revelation of certain sides of her personality which gave him food for much thought.
For soon after they had left the bramble-hedged by-way and joined the high-road, Klaus Heinrich reverted to a subject which had been just touched on at his first visit to Delphinenort during the conversation at tea, and had not ceased to exercise him ever since.
“May I,” he said, “ask you one question, Miss Spoelmann? You need not answer it if you don’t want to.”
“I’ll see about that,” she answered.
“Four weeks ago,” he began, “when I first had the pleasure of a talk with your father, Mr. Spoelmann, I asked him a question which he answered so curtly and abruptly that I could not help feeling that my question had been indiscreet or a false step.”
“What was it?”
“I asked him whether he had not found it hard to leave America.”
“There you are, Prince, there’s another question which is worthy of you, a typical Prince-question. If you had had a little more training in the use of your reasoning powers you would have known without asking that if my father had not been ready and glad to leave America, he most assuredly would not have left it.”
&nb
sp; “Very probably you are right; forgive me, I don’t think enough. But if my question was nothing worse than a want of thought, I shall be quite content, Can you assure me that that is the case?”
“No, Prince, I’m afraid I cannot,” she said, and looked at him suddenly with her big black eyes.
“Then what has want of thought to do with it? Do please explain. I ask you in the name of our friendship.”
“Are we friends?”
“I hoped so,” he said pleadingly.
“Well, well, patience! I didn’t know it, but I’m quite ready to learn it. But to return to my father, he really did lose his temper at your question—he has a quick temper, and has plenty of occasion to practise losing it. The fact is that public opinion and sentiment were not over-friendly to us in America. There’s such a lot of scheming over there—I may mention that I am not posted in the details, but there was a strong political movement towards setting the crowd, the common people, you know, against us. The result was legislation and restrictions which made my father’s life over there a burden to him. You know of course, Prince, that it was not he who made us what we are, but my redoubtable grandfather with his Paradise nugget and Blockhead Farm. My father could not help it, he was born to his destiny, and it was no gratification to him, because he is naturally shy and sensitive, and would much have preferred to have lived for playing the organ and collecting glass. I really believe that the hatred which was the result of the scheming against us, so that sometimes the people hurled abuse after me when I motored past them—that the hatred quite probably brought on his stone in the kidneys; it’s more than possible.”
“I am cordially attached to your father,” said Klaus Heinrich with emphasis.
“I should have made that, Prince, a condition of our becoming friends. But there was another point which made things worse, and made our position over there still more difficult, and that was our origin.”