The Benefactress

Fräulein Kuhräuber was the one who stared least. If she caught Anna's eye her own drooped, whereas the eyes of the other two never wavered. She sat on the edge of her chair in a way made familiar to Anna by intercourse with Frau Manske, and whatever anybody said she nodded her head and murmured "Ja, eben." She was obviously ill at ease, and dropped the sugar-tongs when she was offered sugar with a loud clatter on to the varnished floor, nearly sweeping the cups off the table in her effort to pick them up again.

"Oh, do not mind," said Anna, "Letty will pick them up. They are stupid things—much too big for the sugar-basin."

"Ja, eben," said Fräulein Kuhräuber, sitting up and looking perturbed. The other two removed their eyes from Anna's face for a moment to stare at the Fräulein. The baroness, a small, fair person with hair arranged in those little flat curls called kiss-me-quicks on each cheek, and wide-open pale blue eyes, and a little mouth with no lips, or lips so thin that they were hardly visible, sat very still and straight, and had a way of moving her eyes round from one face to the other without at the same time moving her head. She was unmarried, and was probably about thirty-five, Anna thought, but she had always evaded questions in the correspondence about her age. Fräulein Kuhräuber was also thirty-five, and as large and blooming as the baroness was small and pale. Frau von Treumann was over fifty, and had had more sorrows, judging from her letters, than the other two. She sat nearest Anna, who every now and then laid her hand gently on hers and let it rest there a moment, in her determination to thaw all frost from the very beginning. "Oh, I quite forgot," she said cheerfully—the amount of cheerfulness she put into her voice made her laugh at herself—"I quite forgot to introduce you to each other."

"We did it at the station," said Frau von Treumann, "when we found ourselves all entering your carriage."

"The Elmreichs are connected with the Treumanns," observed the baroness.

"We are such a large family," said Frau von Treumann quickly, "that we are connected with nearly everybody."

The tone was cold, and there was a silence. Neither of them, apparently, was connected with Fräulein Kuhräuber, who buried her face in her cup, in which the tea-spoon remained while she drank, and heartily longed for connections.

But she had none. She was absolutely without relations except deceased ones. She had been an orphan since she was two, cared for by her one aunt till she was ten. The aunt died, and she found a refuge in an orphanage till she was sixteen, when she was told that she must earn her bread. She was a lazy girl even in those days, who liked eating her bread better than earning it. No more, however, being forthcoming in the orphanage, she went into a pastor's family as Stütze der Hausfrau. These Stütze, or supports, are common in middle-class German families, where they support the mistress of the house in all her manifold duties, cooking, baking, mending, ironing, teaching or amusing the children—being in short a comfort and blessing to harassed mothers. But Fräulein Kuhräuber had no talent whatever for comforting mothers, and she was quickly requested to leave the busy and populous parsonage; whereupon she entered upon the series of driftings lasting twenty years, which landed her, by a wonderful stroke of fortune, in Anna's arms.

When she saw the advertisement, her future was looking very black. She was, as usual, under notice to quit, and had no other place in view, and had saved nothing. It is true the advertisement only offered a home to women of good family; but she got over that difficulty by reflecting that her family was all in heaven, and that there could be no relations more respectable than angels. She wrote therefore in glowing terms of the paternal Kuhräuber, "gegenwärtig mit Gott," as she put it, expatiating on his intellect and gifts (he was a man of letters, she said), while he yet dwelt upon earth. Manske, with all his inquiries, could find out nothing about her except that she was, as she said, an orphan, poor, friendless, and struggling; and Anna, just then impatient of the objections the princess made to every applicant, quickly decided to accept this one, against whom not a word had been said. So Fräulein Kuhräuber, who had spent her life in shirking work, who was quite thriftless and improvident, who had never felt particularly unhappy, and whose father had been a postman, found herself being welcomed with an enthusiasm that astonished her to Anna's home, being smiled upon and patted, having beautiful things said to her, things the very opposite to those to which she had been used, things to the effect that she was now to rest herself for ever and to be sure and not do anything except just that which made her happiest.

It was very wonderful. It seemed much, much too good to be true. And the delight that filled her as she sat eating excellent cakes, and the discomfort she endured because of the stares of the other two women, and the consciousness that she had never learned how to behave in the society of persons with von before their names, produced such mingled feelings of ecstasy and fright in her bosom that it was quite natural she should drop the sugar-tongs, and upset the cream-jug, and choke over her coffee—all of which things she did, to Anna's distress, who suffered with her in her agitation, while the eyes of the other two watched each successive catastrophe with profoundest attention.

It was an uncomfortable half hour. "I am shy, and they are shy," Anna said to herself, apologising as it were for the undoubted flatness that prevailed. How could it be otherwise, she thought? Did she expect them to gush? Heaven forbid. Yet it was an important crisis in their lives, this passing for ever from neglect and loneliness to love, and she wondered vaguely that the obviously paramount feeling should be interest in the awkwardness of Fräulein Kuhräuber.

Her German faltered, and threatened to give out entirely. The inevitable pause came, and they could hear the sparrows quarrelling in the golden garden, and the creaking of a distant pump.

"How still it is," observed the baroness with a slight shiver.

"You have no farmyard near the house to make it more cheerful," said Frau von Treumann. "My father's house had the garden at the back, and the farmyard in the front, and one did not feel so cut off from everything. There was always something going on in the yard—always life and noises."

"Really?" said Anna; and again the pump and the sparrows became audible.

"The stillness is truly remarkable," observed the baroness again.

"Ja, eben," said Fräulein Kuhräuber.

"But it is beautiful, isn't it," said Anna, gazing out at the light on the water. "It is so restful, so soothing. Look what a lovely sunset there must be this evening. We can't see it from this side of the house, but look at the colour of the grass and the water."

"Ach—you are a friend of nature," said Frau von Treumann, turning her head for a brief moment towards the window, and then examining Anna's face. "I am also. There is nothing I like more than nature. Do you paint?"

"I wish I could."

"Ah, then you sing—or play?"

"I can do neither."

"So? But what have you here, then, in the way of distractions, of pastimes?"

"I don't think I have any," said Anna, smiling. "I have been very busy till now making things ready for you, and after this I shall just enjoy being alive."

Frau von Treumann looked puzzled for a moment. Then she said "Ach so."

There was another silence.

"Have some more coffee," said Anna, laying hold of the pot persuasively. She was feeling foolish, and had blushed stupidly after that Ach so.

"No, no," said Frau von Treumann, putting up a protesting hand, "you are very kind. Two cups are a limit beyond which voracity itself could not go. What do you say? You have had three? Oh, well, you are young, and young people can play tricks with their digestions with less danger than old ones."

At this speech Fräulein Kuhräuber's four cups became plainly written on her guilty face. The thought that she had been voracious at the very first meal was appalling to her. She hastily pushed away her half-empty cup—too hastily, for it upset, and in her effort to save it it fell on to the floor and was broken. "Ach, Herr Je!" she cried in her distress.

The other two looked at each other; the expression is an unusual one on the lips of gentle-women.

"Oh, it does not matter—really it does not," Anna hastened to assure her. "Don't pick it up—Letty will. The table is too small really. There is no room on it for anything."

"Ja, eben," said Fräulein Kuhräuber, greatly discomfited.

"You would like to go upstairs, I am sure," said Anna hurriedly, turning to the others. "You must be very tired," she added, looking at Frau von Treumann.

"I am," replied that lady, closing her eyes for a moment with a little smile expressive of patient endurance.

"Then we will go up. Come," she said, holding out her hand to Fräulein Kuhräuber. "No, no—let Letty pick up the pieces–" for the Fräulein, in her anxiety to repair the disaster, was about to sweep the remaining cups off the table with the sleeve of her cloak.

Anna drew her hand through her arm, and gave it a furtive and encouraging stroke. "I will go first and show you the way," she said over her shoulder to the others.

And so it came about that Frau von Treumann and Baroness Elmreich actually found themselves going through doors and up stairs behind a person called Kuhräuber. They exchanged glances again. Whatever might be their private objections to each other, they had one point already on which they agreed, for with equal heartiness they both disapproved of Fräulein Kuhräuber.

CHAPTER XV

As soon as Baroness Elmreich found herself alone in her bedroom, she proceeded to examine its contents with minute care. Supper, she had been told, was not till eight o'clock, and she had not much to unpack; so laying aside her hat and cloak, and glancing at the reflection of her little curls in the glass to see whether they were as they should be, she began her inspection of each separate article in her room, taking each one up and scrutinising it, holding the jars of hepaticas high above her head in order to see whether the price was marked underneath, untidying the bed to feel the quality of the sheets, poking the mattress to discover the nature of the stuffing, and investigating with special attention the embroidery on the pillow-cases. But everything was as dainty and as perfect as enthusiasm could make it. Nowhere, with her best endeavours, could she discover the signs she was looking for of cheapness and shabbiness in less noticeable things that would have helped her to understand her hostess. "This embroidery has cost at least two marks the meter," she said to herself, fingering it. "She must roll in money. And the wall-paper—how unpractical! It is so light that every mark will be seen. The flies alone will ruin it in a month."

She shrugged her shoulders, and smiled; strange to say, the thought of Anna's paper being spoiled pleased her.

Never had she been in a room the least like this one. If whitewash prevailed downstairs, and in Anna's special haunts, it had not been permitted to invade the bedrooms of the Chosen. Anna's reflections had led her to the conclusion that the lives of these ladies had till then probably been spent in bare places, and that they would accordingly feel as much pleasure in the contemplation of carpets, papered walls, and stuffed chairs, as she herself did in the severity of her whitewashed rooms after the lavishly upholstered years of her youth. But the daintiness and luxury only filled the baroness with doubts. She stood in the middle of it looking round her when she had finished her tour of inspection and had made guesses at the price of everything, and asked herself who this Miss Estcourt could be. Anna would have been considerably disappointed, and perhaps even moved to tears, if she had known that the room she thought so pretty struck the baroness, whose taste in furniture had not advanced beyond an appreciation for the dark and heavy hangings and walnut-wood tables of her more prosperous years, merely as odd. Odd, and very expensive. Where did the money come from for this reckless furnishing with stuffs and colours that were bound to show each stain? Her eye wandered along the shelves above the writing-table—hers was the Heine and Maeterlinck room—and she wondered what all the books were there for. She did not touch them as she had touched everything else, for except an occasional novel, and, more regularly, a journal beloved of German woman called the Gartenlaube, she never read.

On the writing-table lay a blotter, a pretty, embroidered thing that said as plainly as blotter could say that it had been chosen with immense care; and opening it she found notepaper and envelopes stamped with the Kleinwalde address and her own monogram. This was Anna's little special gift, a childish addition, the making of which had given her an absurd amount of pleasure. The happy idea, as she called it, had come to her one night when she lay awake thinking about her new friends and going through the familiar process of discovering their tastes by imagining herself in their place. "Sonderbar," was the baroness's comment; and she decided that the best thing she could do would be to ring the bell and endeavour to obtain private information about Miss Estcourt by means of a prolonged cross-examination of the housemaid.

She rang it, and then sat very straight and still on the sofa with her hands folded in her lap, and waited. Her soul was full of doubts. Who was this Miss, and where were the proofs that she was, as she had pretended, of good birth? That she was not so very pious was evident; for if she had been, some remark of a religious nature would inevitably have been forthcoming when she first welcomed them to her house. No such word, not the least approach to any such word, had been audible. There had not even been an allusion, a sigh, or an upward glance. Yet the pastor who had opened the correspondence had filled many pages with expatiations on her zeal after righteousness. And then she was so young. The baroness had expected to see an elderly person, or at least a person of the age of everybody else, which was her own age; but this was a mere girl, and a girl, too, who from the way she dressed, clearly thought herself pretty. Surely it was strange that so young a woman should be living here quite unattached, quite independent apparently of all control, with a great deal of money at her disposal, and only one little girl to give her a countenance? Suppose she were not a proper person at all, suppose she were an outcast from society, a being on whom her own countrypeople turned their backs? This desire to share her fortune with respectable ladies could only be explained in two ways: either she had been moved thereto by an enthusiastic piety of which not a trace had as yet appeared, or she was an improper person anxious to rebuild her reputation with the aid and countenance of the ladies of good family she had entrapped into her house.

The baroness stiffened as she sat. It was her brother who had cheated at cards and shot himself, and it was her sister of whom Axel Lohm had heard strange tales; and few people are more savagely proper than the still respectable relations of the demoralised. "The service in this house is very bad," she said aloud and irascibly, getting up to ring again. "No doubt she has trouble with her servants."

But there was a knock at the door while her hand was on the bell, and on her calling "Come in," instead of the servant her hostess appeared, dressed to the baroness's eye in a truly amazing and reprehensible fashion, and looking as cheerful as an innocent infant for whom no such thing as evil-doing exists. Also she seemed quite unconscious of her clothes and bare neck, nor did she offer to explain why she was arrayed as though she were going to a ball; and she stood a moment in the doorway trying to say something in German and pretending to laugh at her own ineffectual efforts, but really laughing, the baroness felt sure, in order to show that she had dimples; which were not, after all, very wonderful things to have—before she had grown so thin she almost had one herself.

"May I come in?" said Anna at last, giving up the other and more complicated speech.

"Bitte," said the baroness, with the smile the French call pincé.

"Has no one been to unpack your things?"

"I rang."

"And no one came? Oh, I shall scold Marie. It is the only thing I can do well in German. Can you speak English?"

"No."

"Nor understand it?"

"No."

"French?"

"No."

"Oh, well, you must be patient then with my bad German. When I am alone with anyone it goes better, but if there are many people listening I am nervous and can hardly speak at all. How glad I am that you are here!"

Anna's shyness, now that she was by herself with one of her forlorn ones, had vanished, and she prattled happily for some time, putting as many mistakes into her sentences as they would hold, before she became aware that the baroness's replies were monosyllabic, and that she was examining her from head to foot with so much attention that there was obviously none left over for the appreciation of her remarks.

This made her feel shy again. Clothes to her were such secondary considerations, things of so little importance. Susie had provided them, and she had put them on, and there it had ended; and when she found that it was her dress and not herself that was interesting the baroness, she longed to have the courage to say, "Don't waste time over it now—I'll send it to your room to-night, if you like, and you can look at it comfortably—only don't waste time now. I want to talk to you, to you who have suffered so much; I want to make friends with you quickly, to make you begin to be happy quickly; so don't let us waste the precious time thinking of clothes." But she had neither sufficient courage nor sufficient German.

She put out her hand rather timidly, and making an effort to bring her companion's thoughts back to the things that mattered, said, "I hope you will like living with me. I hope we shall be very happy together. I can't tell you how happy it makes me to think that you are safely here, and that you are going to stay with me always."

The baroness's hands were clasped in front of her, and they did not unclasp to meet Anna's; but at this speech she left off eyeing the dress, and began to ask questions. "You are very lonely, I can see," she said with another of the pinched smiles. "Have you then no relations? No one of your own family who will live with you? Will not your Frau Mama come to Germany?"

"My mother is dead."

"Ach—mine also. And the Herr Papa?"

"He is dead."

"Ach—mine also."

"I know, I know," said Anna, stroking the unresponsive hands—a trick of hers when she wanted to comfort that had often irritated Susie. "You told me how lonely you were in your letters. I lived with my brother and his wife till I came here. You have no brothers or sisters, I think you wrote."

"None," said the baroness with a rigid look.

"Well, I am going to be your sister, if you will let me."

"You are very good."

"Oh, I am not good, only so happy—I have everything in the world that I have ever wished to have, and now that you have come to share it all there is nothing more I can think of that I want."

"Ach," said the baroness. Then she added, "Have you no aunts, or cousins, who would come and stay with you?"

"Oh, heaps. But they are all well off and quite pleased, and they wouldn't like staying here with me at all."

"They would not like staying with you? How strange."

"Very strange," laughed Anna. "You see they don't know how pleasant I can be in my own house."

"And your friends—they too will not come?"

"I don't know if they would or not. I didn't ask them."

"You have no one, no one at all who would come and live with you so that you should not be so lonely?"

"But I am not lonely," said Anna, looking down at the little woman with a slightly amused expression, "and I don't in the least want to be lived with."

"Then why do you wish to fill your house with strangers?"

"Why?" repeated Anna, a puzzled look coming into her eyes. Had not the correspondence with the ultimately chosen been long? And were not all her reasons duly set forth therein? "Why, because I want you to have some of my nice things too."

"But not your own friends and relations?"

"They have everything they want."

There was a silence. Anna left off stroking the baroness's hands. She was thinking that this was a queer little person—outside, that is. Inside, of course, she was very different, poor little lonely thing; but her outer crust seemed thick; and she wondered how long it would take her to get through it to the soul that she was sure was sweet and lovable. She was also unable to repress a conviction that most people would call these questions rude.

But this train of thought was not one to be encouraged. "I am keeping you here talking," she said, resuming her first cheerfulness, "and your things are not unpacked yet. I shall go and scold Marie for not coming when you rang, and I'll send her to you." And she went out quickly, vexed with herself for feeling chilled, and left the baroness more full of doubts than ever.

When she had rebuked Marie, who looked gloomy, she tapped at Frau von Treumann's door. No one answered. She knocked again. No one answered. Then she opened the door softly and looked in.

These were precious moments, she felt, these first moments of being alone with each of her new friends, precious opportunities for breaking ice. It is true she had not been able to break much of the ice encasing the baroness, but she was determined not to be cast down by any of the little difficulties she was sure to encounter at first, and she looked into Frau von Treumann's room with fresh hope in her heart.

What, then, was her dismay to find that lady walking up and down with the long strides of extreme excitement, her face bathed in tears.

"Oh—what's the matter?" gasped Anna, shutting the door quickly and hurrying in.

Frau von Treumann had not heard the gentle taps, and when she saw her, started, and tried to hide her face in her handkerchief.

"Tell me what is the matter," begged Anna, her voice full of tenderness.

"Nichts, nichts," was the hasty reply. "I did not hear you knock–"

"Tell me what is the matter," begged Anna again, fairly putting her arms round the poor lady. "Our letters have said so much already—surely there is nothing you cannot tell me now? And if I can help you–"

Frau von Treumann freed herself by a hasty movement, and began to walk up and down again. "No, no, you can do nothing—you can do nothing," she said, and wept as she walked.

Anna watched her in consternation.

"See to what I have come—see to what I have come!" said the agitated lady under her breath but with passionate intensity, as she passed and repassed her dismayed hostess; "oh, to have fallen so low! oh, to have fallen so low!"

"So low?" echoed Anna, greatly concerned.

"At my age—I, a Treumann—I, a geborene Gräfin Ilmas-Kadenstein—to live on charity—to be a member of a charitable institution!"

"Institution? Charity? Oh no, no!" cried Anna. "It is a home here, and there is no charity in it from the attic to the cellar." And she went towards her with outstretched hands.

"A home! Yes, that is it," cried Frau von Treumann, waving her back, "it is a home, a charitable home!"

"No, not a home like that—a real home, my home, your home—ein Heim," Anna protested; but vainly, because the German word Heim and the English word "home" have little meaning in common.

"Ein Heim, ein Heim," repeated Frau von Treumann with extraordinary bitterness, "ein Frauenheim—yes, that is what it is, and everybody knows it."

"Everybody knows it?"

"How could I think," she said, wringing her hands, "how could I think when I decided to come here that the whole world was to be made acquainted with your plans? I thought they were to be kept private, that the world was to think we were your friends–"