Chapter 14

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_ CHAPTER XIV

Peter Steinmarc, when he went into Madame Staubach's parlour, found that lady on her knees in prayer. He had entered the room without notice, having been urged to this unwonted impetuosity by the severity of the provocation which he had received. Madame Staubach raised her head; but when she saw him she did not rise. He stood there for some seconds looking at her, expecting her to get up and greet him; but when he found that such was not her purpose, he turned angrily on his heel, and went out of the house, up to his office in the town-hall. His services were not of much service to the city on that day,--neither on that day nor on the two following days. He was using all his mental faculties in endeavouring to decide what it might be best for him to do in the present emergency. The red house was a chattel of great value in Nuremberg,--a thing very desirable,--the possession of which Peter himself did desire with all his heart. But then, even in regard to the house, it was not to be arranged that Peter was to become the sole and immediate possessor of it on his marriage. Madame Staubach was to live there, and during her life the prize would be but a half-and-half possession. Madame Staubach was younger than himself; and though he had once thought of marrying her, he was not sure that he was now desirous of living in the same house with her for the remainder of his life. He had wished to marry Linda Tressel, because she was young, and was acknowledged to be a pretty girl; and he still wished to marry her, if not now for these reasons, still for others which were quite as potent. He wanted to be her master, to get the better of her, to punish her for her disdain of him, and to bring her to his feet. But he was not a man so carried away by anger or by a spirit of revenge as to be altogether indifferent to his own future happiness. There had already been some among his fellow-citizens, or perhaps citizenesses, kind enough to compliment him on his good-nature. He had been asked whether Linda Tressel had told him all about her little trip to Augsburg, and whether he intended to ask his cousin Ludovic Valcarm to come to his wedding. And now Linda herself had said things to him which made him doubt whether she was fit to be the wife of a man so respectable and so respected as himself. And were she to do those things which she threatened, where would he be then? All the town would laugh at him, and he would be reduced to live for the remainder of his days in the sole company of Madame Staubach as the result of his enterprise. He was sufficiently desirous of being revenged on Linda, but he was a cautious man, and began to think that he might buy even that pleasure too dear. He had been egged on to the marriage by Herr Molk and one or two others of the city pundits,--by the very men whose opposition he had feared when the idea of marrying Linda was first suggested to him. They had told him that Linda was all right, that the elopement had been in point of fact nothing. "Young girls will be young before they are settled," Herr Molk had said. Then the extreme desirability of the red house had been mentioned, and so Peter had been persuaded. But now, as the day drew near, and as Linda's words sounded in his ears, he hardly knew what to think of it. On the evening of the third day of his contemplation, he went again to his friend Herr Molk.

"Nonsense, Peter," said the magistrate; "you must go on now, and there is no reason why you should not. Is a man of your standing to be turned aside by a few idle words from a young girl?"

"But she told me-- You can't understand what she told me. She's been away with this young fellow once, and she said as much as that she'd go again."

"Pshaw! you haven't had to do with women as I have, or you would understand them better. Of course a young girl likes to have her little romance. But when a girl has been well brought up,--and there is no better bringing up than what Linda Tressel has had,--marriage steadies them directly. Think of the position you'll have in the city when the house belongs to yourself."

Peter, when he left the magistrate, was still tossed about by an infinity of doubts. If he should once take the girl as his wife, he could never unmarry himself again. He could not do so at least without trouble, disgrace, and ruinous expense. As for revenge, he thought that he might still have a certain amount of that pleasure in repudiating his promised spouse for her bad conduct, and in declaring to her aunt that he could not bring himself to make a wife of a woman who had first disgraced herself, and then absolutely taken glory in her disgrace. As he went along from Herr Molk's house towards the island, taking a somewhat long path by the Rothe Ross where he refreshed himself, and down the Carls Strasse, and by the Church of St. Lawrence, round which he walked twice, looking up to the tower for inspiration,--he told himself that circumstances had been most cruel to him. He complained bitterly of his misfortune. If he refused to marry Linda he must leave the red house altogether, and would, of course, be ridiculed for his attempt at matrimony; and if he did marry her-- Then, as far as he could see, there would be the very mischief. He pitied himself with an exceedingly strong compassion, because of the unmerited hardness of his position. It was very dark when he got to the narrow passage leading to the house along the river, and when there, in the narrowest and darkest part of the passage, whom should he meet coming from Madame Staubach's house,--coming from Linda's house, for the passage led from the red house only,--but Ludovic Valcarm his cousin?

"What, uncle Peter?" said Ludovic, assuming a name which he had sometimes used in old days when he had wished to be impertinent to his relative. Peter Steinmarc was too much taken aback to have any speech ready on the occasion. "You don't say a word to congratulate me on having escaped from the hands of the Philistines."

"What are you doing here?" said Peter.

"I've been to see my young woman," said Ludovic, who, as Peter imagined, was somewhat elated by strong drink.

"She is not your young woman," said Peter.

"She is not yours at any rate," said the other.

"She is mine if I like to take her," said Peter.

"We shall see about that. But here I am again, at any rate. The mischief take them for interfering old fools! When they had got me they had nothing to say against me."

"Pass on, and let me go by," said Peter.

"One word first, uncle Peter. Among you, you are treating that girl as cruelly as ever a girl was treated. You had better be warned by me, and leave off. If she were forced into a marriage with you, you would only disgrace yourself. I don't suppose you want to see her dead at your feet. Go on now, and think of what I have said to you." So Ludovic had been with her again! No; he, Peter Steinmarc, would not wed with one who was so abandoned. He would reject her;--would reject her that very night. But he would do so in a manner that should leave her very little cause for joy or triumph.

We must now go back for a while to Linda and her aunt. No detailed account of that meeting between Linda and Steinmarc, in Steinmarc's room, ever reached Madame Staubach's ears. That there had been an interview, and that Linda had asked Steinmarc to absolve her from her troth, the aunt did learn from the niece; and most angry she was when she learned it. She again pointed out to the sinner the terrible sin of which she was guilty in not submitting herself entirely, in not eradicating and casting out from her bosom all her human feelings, in not crushing herself, as it were, upon a wheel, in token of her repentance for what she had done. Sackcloth and ashes, in their material shape, were odious to the imagination of Madame Staubach, because they had a savour of Papacy, and implied that the poor sinner who bore them could do something towards his own salvation by his own works; but that moral sackcloth, and those ashes of the heart and mind, which she was ever prescribing to Linda, seemed to her to have none of this taint. And yet, in what is the difference? The school of religion to which Madame Staubach belonged was very like that early school of the Church of Rome in which material ashes were first used for the personal annoyance of the sinner. But the Church of Rome in Madame Staubach's day had, by the force of the human nature of its adherents, made its way back to the natural sympathies of mankind; whereas in Madame Staubach's school the austerity of self-punishment was still believed to be all in all. During the days of Steinmarc's meditation, Linda was prayed for and was preached to with an unflagging diligence which, at the end of that time, had almost brought the girl to madness. For Linda the worst circumstance of all was this, that she had never as yet brought herself to disbelieve her aunt's religious menaces. She had been so educated that what fixed belief she had on the subject at all was in accordance with her aunt's creed rather than against it. When she was alone, she would tell herself that it was her lot to undergo that eternal condemnation with which her aunt threatened her; though in telling herself so she would declare to herself also that whatever that punishment could be, her Creator, let Him be ever so relentless, could inflict nothing on her worse than that state of agony with which His creatures had tormented her in this world.

She was in this state when Tetchen crept up to her room, on that evening on which Peter had been with Herr Molk. "Fraulein," said Tetchen, "you are very unkind to me."

"Never mind," said Linda, not looking up into the woman's face.

"I have done everything in my power for you, as though you had been my own."

"I am not your own. I don't want you to do anything for me."

"I love you dearly, and I love him,--Ludovic. Have I not done everything in my power to save you from the man you hate?"

"You made me go off with him in the night, like a--like a--! Oh, Tetchen, was that treating me as though I had been your own? Would you have done that for your own child?"

"Why not,--if you are to be his wife?"

"Tetchen, you have made me hate you, and you have made me hate myself. If I had not done that, I should not be such a coward. Go away. I do not want to speak to you."

Then the old woman came close up to Linda, and stood for a moment leaning over her. Linda took no notice of her, but continued by a certain tremulous shaking of her knee to show how strongly she was moved. "My darling," said Tetchen, "why should you send away from you those who love you?"

"Nobody loves me," said Linda.

"I love you,--and Ludovic loves you."

"That is of no use,--of none at all. I do not wish to hear his name again. It was not his fault, but he has disgraced me. It was my own fault,--and yours."

"Linda, he is in the house now."

"Who--Ludovic?"

"Yes; Ludovic Valcarm."

"In the house? How did he escape?"

"They could do nothing to him. They let him go. They were obliged to let him go."

Then Linda got up from her seat, and stood for a minute with her eyes fixed upon the old woman's face, thinking what step she had better take. In the confusion of her mind, and in the state to which she had been reduced, there was no idea left with her that it might yet be possible that she would become the wife of Ludovic Valcarm, and live as such the life of a respectable woman. She had taught herself to acknowledge that her elopement with him had made that quite impossible;--that by what they had done they had both put themselves beyond the pale of such gentle mercy. Such evil had come to her from her secret interviews with this man who had become her lover almost without her own acquiescence, that she dreaded him even though she loved him. The remembrance of the night she had passed with him, partly in the warehouse and partly in the railway train, had nothing in it of the sweetness of love, to make her thoughts of it acceptable to her. This girl was so pure at heart, was by her own feelings so prone to virtue, that she looked back upon what she had done with abhorrence. Whether she had sinned or not, she hated what she had done as though it had been sinful; and now, when she was told that Ludovic Valcarm was again in the house, she recoiled from the idea of meeting him. On the former occasions of his coming to her, a choice had hardly been allowed to her whether she would see him or not. He had been with her before she had had time to fly from him. Now she had a moment for thought,--a moment in which she could ask herself whether it would be good for her to place herself again in his hands. She said that it would not be good, and she walked steadily down to her aunt's parlour. "Aunt Charlotte," she said, "Ludovic Valcarm is in the house."

"In this house,--again!" exclaimed Madame Staubach. Linda, having made her statement, said not a word further. Though she had felt herself compelled to turn informant against her lover, and by implication against Tetchen, her lover's accomplice, nevertheless she despised herself for what she was doing. She did not expect to soften her aunt by her conduct, or in any way to mitigate the rigour of her own sufferings. Her clandestine meetings with Ludovic had brought with them so much of pain and shame, that she had resolved almost by instinct to avoid another. But having taken this step to avoid it, she had nothing further to say or to do. "Where is the young man?" demanded Madame Staubach.

"Tetchen says that he is here, in the house," said Linda. Then Madame Staubach left the parlour, and crossed into the kitchen. There, standing close to the stove and warming himself, she found this terrible youth who had worked her so much trouble. It seemed to Madame Staubach that for months past she had been hearing of his having been constantly in and about the house, entering where he would and when he would, and in all those months she had never seen him. When last she had beheld him he had been to her simply a foolish idle youth with whom his elder cousin had been forced to quarrel. Since that, he had become to her a source of infinite terror. He had been described to her as one guilty of crimes which, much as she hated them, produced, even in her breast, a kind of respect for the criminal. He was a rebel of whom the magistrates were afraid. When in prison he had had means of escaping. When arrested at Nuremberg he would be the next day at Augsburg; when arrested at Augsburg he would be the next day at Nuremberg. He could get in and out of the roofs of houses, and could carry away with him a young maiden. These are deeds which always excite a certain degree of admiration in the female heart, and Madame Staubach, though she was a Baptist, was still a female. When, therefore, she found herself in the presence of Ludovic, she could not treat him with the indignant scorn with which she would have received him had he intruded upon her premises before her fears of him had been excited. "Why are you here, Ludovic Valcarm?" she said advancing hardly a step beyond the doorway. Ludovic looked up at her with his hand resting on the table. He was not drunk, but he had been drinking; his clothes were soiled; he was unwashed and dirty, and the appearance of the man was that of a vagabond. "Speak to me, and tell me why you are here," said Madame Staubach.

"I have come to look for my wife," said Ludovic.

"You have no wife;--at any rate you have none here."

"Linda Tressel is my true and lawful wife, and I have come to take her away with me. She went with me once, and now she will go again. Where is she? You're not going to keep her locked up. It's against the law to make a young woman a prisoner."

"My niece does not wish to see you;--does not intend to see you. Go away."

But he refused to go, and threatened her, alleging that Linda Tressel was of an age which allowed her to dispose as she pleased of her person and her property. Of course this was of no avail with Madame Staubach, who was determined that, whatever might happen, the young man should not force himself into Linda's presence. When Ludovic attempted to leave the kitchen, Madame Staubach stood in the doorway and called for Tetchen. The servant, who had perched herself on the landing, since Linda had entered the parlour, was down in a moment, and with various winks and little signs endeavoured to induce Valcarm to leave the house. "You had better go, or I shall call at once for my neighbour Jacob Heisse," said Madame Staubach. Then she did call, as lustily as she was able, though in vain. Upon this Ludovic, not knowing how to proceed, unable or unwilling to force his way further into the house in opposition to Madame Staubach, took his departure, and as he went met Peter Steinmarc in the passage at the back of Heisse's house. Madame Staubach was still in the kitchen asking questions of Tetchen which Tetchen did not answer with perfect truth, when Peter appeared among them. "Madame Staubach," he said, "that vagabond Ludovic Valcarm has just been here, in this house."

"He went away but a minute since," said Madame Staubach.

"Just so. That is exactly what I mean. This is a thing not to be borne,--not to be endured, and shows that your niece Linda is altogether beyond the reach of any good impressions."

"Peter Steinmarc!"

"Yes, that is all very well; of course I expect that you will take her part; although, with your high ideas of religion and all that sort of thing, it is almost unaccountable that you should do so. As far as I am concerned there must be an end of it. I am not going to make myself ridiculous to all Nuremberg by marrying a young woman who has no sense whatever of self-respect. I have overlooked a great deal too much already,--a great deal too much."

"But Linda has not seen the young man. It was she herself who told me that he was here."

"Ah, very well. I don't know anything about that. I saw him coming away from here, and it may be as well to tell you that I have made up my mind. Linda Tressel is not the sort of young woman that I took her to be, and I shall have nothing more to say to her."

"You are an old goose," said Tetchen.

"Hold your tongue," said Madame Staubach angrily to her servant. Though she was very indignant with Peter Steinmarc, still it would go much against the grain with her that the match should be broken off. She had resolved so firmly that this marriage was proper for all purposes, that she had almost come to look at it as though it were a thing ordained of God. Then, too, she remembered, even in this moment, that Peter Steinmarc had received great provocation. Her immediate object was to persuade him that nothing had been done to give him further provocation. No fault had been committed by Linda which had not already been made known to him and been condoned by him. But how was she to explain all this to him in privacy, while Tetchen was in the kitchen, and Linda was in the parlour opposite? "Peter, on my word as an honest truthful woman, Linda has been guilty of no further fault."

"She has been guilty of more than enough," said Peter.

"That may be said of all us guilty, frail, sinful human beings," rejoined Madame Staubach.

"I doubt whether there are any of us so bad as she is," said Peter.

"I wonder, madame, you can condescend to argue with him," said Tetchen; "as if all the world did not know that the fraulein is ten times too good for the like of him!"

"Hold your tongue," said Madame Staubach.

"And where is Miss Linda at the present moment?" demanded Peter. Madame Staubach hesitated for an instant before she answered, and then replied that Linda was in the parlour. It might seem, she thought, that there was some cause for secrecy if she made any concealment at the present moment. Then Peter made his way out of the kitchen and across the passage, and without any invitation entered the parlour. Madame Staubach followed him, and Tetchen followed also. It was unfortunate for Madame Staubach's plans that the meeting between Peter and Linda should take place in this way, but she could not help it. But she was already making up her mind to this,--that if Peter Steinmarc ill-treated her niece, she would bring all Nuremberg about his ears.

"Linda Tressel," he said;--and as he spoke, the impetuosity of indignation to which he had worked himself had not as yet subsided, and therefore he was full of courage;--"Linda Tressel, I find that that vagabond Ludovic Valcarm has again been here."

"He is no vagabond," said Linda, turning upon him with full as much indignation as his own.

"All the city knows him, and all the city knows you too. You are no better than you should be, and I wash my hands of you."

"Let it be so," said Linda; "and for such a blessing I will pardon you the unmanly cruelty of your words."

"But I will not pardon him," said Madame Staubach. "It is false; and if he dares to repeat such words, he shall rue them as long as he lives. Linda, this is to go for nothing,--for nothing. Perhaps it is not unnatural that he should have some suspicion." Poor Madame Staubach, agitated by divided feelings, hardly knew on which side to use her eloquence.

"I should think not indeed," said Peter, in triumph. "Unnatural! Ha! ha!"

"I will put his eyes out of him if he laughs like that," said Tetchen, looking as though she were ready to put her threat into execution upon the instant.

"Peter Steinmarc, you are mistaken in this," said Madame Staubach. "You had better let me see you in private."

"Mistaken, am I? Oh! am I mistaken in thinking that she was alone during the whole night with Ludovic? A man does not like such mistakes as that. I tell you that I have done with her,--done with her,--done with her! She is a bad piece. She does not ring sound. Madame Staubach, I respect you, and am sorry for you; but you know the truth as well as I do."

"Man," she said to him, "you are ungrateful, cruel, and unjust."

"Aunt Charlotte," said Linda, "he has done me the only favour that I could accept at his hands. It is true that I have done that which, had he been a man, would have prevented him from seeking to make me his wife. All that is true. I own it."

"There; you hear her, Madame Staubach."

"And you shall hear me by-and-by," said Madame Staubach.

"But it is no thought of that that has made him give me up," continued Linda. "He knows that he never could have got my hand. I told him that I would die first, and he has believed me. It is very well that he should give me up; but no one else, no other man alive, would have been base enough to have spoken to any woman as he has spoken to me."

"It is all very well for you to say so," said Peter.

"Aunt Charlotte, I hope I may never be asked to hear another word from his lips, or to speak another word to his ears." Then Linda escaped from the room, thinking as she went that God in His mercy had saved her at last. _

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