“Herr Elias, please take the letter off my bed,” said Rader sternly.
The old man picked it up with a sigh.
Rader spoke more calmly. “The letters from our father-in-law have never yet brought any good—you can deliver it yourself. I’ll announce you, Herr Elias.”
“Let an old man get his breath back, can’t you?” complained the old man. “There can’t be such a hurry about it, on Sunday afternoon.”
“Of course, so that the Rittmeister goes for a walk in the meantime, and I get the full force of his anger!” grumbled Rader.
“We’re worried over there about our grandchild,” said old Elias. “We haven’t seen Fraulein Violet in the Manor for five days.”
“Manor! It’s a mud hut, Herr Elias!”
“Is our little Vi ill?” asked the old man wheedlingly.
“We haven’t had the doctor here,” said Herr Rader.
“But what can she be doing? A young girl—and sitting in the house in such fine weather!”
“Your Manor is also a house—whether she sits there or here, it’s all the same!”
“So she really doesn’t go out at all—not even in the garden?” The old man got up.
“If you call this a garden, Herr Elias! … Does the letter concern the young Fraulein, then?”
“That I can’t say—but it’s possible.”
“Give it to me, Herr Elias, I’ll see to it.”
“You will give it to the Rittmeister?”
“I’ll see to it all right.… I’ll go upstairs at once.”
“I can tell the Geheimrat, then, that you have delivered it.”
“Yes, Herr Elias.”
Tap, tap, tap went the malacca cane, with old Elias, out into the sun; and tap, tap, tap went the servant Rader up to the first floor. But when he was about to knock at the door he heard steps and, looking up, saw the feet of Frau von Prackwitz coming down the stairs. So he held the letter somewhat behind him. “Madam!”
Frau von Prackwitz had two red patches under the eyes, as if she had just been crying. She spoke quite brightly, however. “Well, Hubert, what is it?”
“A letter has come from over there for the Rittmeister,” replied Rader, showing a corner of the letter.
“Yes? Why don’t you go in and deliver it, Hubert?”
“I’m just about to,” whispered Rader. “I’m braver than Herr Elias, who didn’t have the courage to deliver it. He even came into my room about it, a thing he’s never done before.”
Frau von Prackwitz became so thoughtful that a small wrinkle appeared between her eyebrows. Hubert showed nothing of the letter except a corner. From his room the Rittmeister burst forth. “What’s all this damned whispering and rustling outside my door? You know I can’t stand it! Oh, I’m sorry, Eva!”
“That’s all right, Achim. I have to discuss something with Hubert.”
The Rittmeister withdrew and his wife took Hubert over to one of the windows. “Well, give me the letter, Hubert,” she said.
“They’re very worried in the Manor about Fraulein Violet,” said Hubert bumptiously. “Herr Elias was only too eager to find out why the young Fraulein hasn’t been there for five days.”
“And what did you say, Hubert?”
“I, madam? I didn’t say anything!”
“Yes, you are good at that, Hubert,” affirmed Frau von Prackwitz bitterly. “You see how worried and distracted I am because of Violet. Won’t you really tell me who the unknown gentleman was, Hubert? I appeal to you!”
But one should not appeal to a blockhead for anything. “I don’t know of any unknown gentleman, madam.”
“No, of course not, because to
“Ah, madam,” said Hubert sullenly.
“What do you mean by ‘Ah, madam’?”
“Excuse me, here is the letter.”
“No, I want to know what you meant just now, Hubert!”
“It is just a manner of speaking, as it were.…”
“What is a manner of speaking? Hubert, I insist!”
“That we shall no longer be friends, madam,” said Hubert very fishily. “I’m just the servant, and you, madam, are Frau von Prackwitz—so there can’t be any talk of friendship.”
Frau von Prackwitz went crimson at this impertinence. In her confusion she seized the letter which the servant still held out to her, tore it open and read it. In the middle of her reading, however, she raised her head and said sharply: “Herr Rader! Either you are too stupid or too clever for a servant’s position—in either case I fear we shall soon separate.”
“Madam,” said Rader, also a little angry now, “in my references I am recommended by persons of very high rank. And at the training school I received the golden diploma.”
“I know, Hubert, I know. You are a pearl!”
“And if the Rittmeister wants me to leave, then I ask that I be told in time, so that I can give notice. It is always an obstacle in my profession, if I’ve been given notice.”
“All right,” said Frau von Prackwitz, glancing quickly through the short letter and looking at the figures in it without understanding them. “It shall be as you wish, Hubert. This,” she said in explanation, “is just an unimportant business letter, nothing about Fraulein Violet. Elias was probably a bit inquisitive on his own account.”
Hubert saw, however, that Frau von Prackwitz folded the letter several times and pushed it into a little pocket in her dress.
“If you see Herr von Studmann, Hubert, tell him to call in about seven, no, let’s say at a quarter to seven.” And with that she nodded curtly and went into the Rittmeister’s room.
Hubert remained in the passage for a moment longer, until he heard husband and wife talking. Then he crept up the stairs with extreme caution, so that no board should creak. He knocked softly on a door, once only, and entered quickly.
In the room Violet was sitting at a little table; a crumpled damp handkerchief and red patches on her face revealed that she, too, had been crying.
“Well?” she said, curious nevertheless. “Did Mamma put you through it as well, Hubert?”
“The young Fraulein shouldn’t be so careless when she’s eavesdropping,” rebuked Hubert. “I saw your foot the whole time on the top stair. And madam could also have seen it.”
“Ah, Hubert, poor Mamma! She’s just been crying here. Sometimes I’m terribly sorry for her, and I feel that I ought to be ashamed.…”
“There’s no use being ashamed, Fraulein,” said Hubert severely. “Either you live as the old people want you to—then you won’t need to be ashamed—or else you live as we young people think right, and then you really don’t need to be.”
Vi looked at him searchingly. “Sometimes I think, though, you’re a very bad man, Hubert, and that you have very bad plans,” she said, but rather cautiously, almost anxiously.
“What I am must be no concern of yours, Fraulein,” he said at once, as if he had thought it all out long ago. “And my plans are mine, after all. What you want, that’s your concern.”
“And what did Mamma want?”
“Just the usual questions about the unknown man. Your grandparents are also worried about you, Fraulein.”
“Oh, God, if they could only get me out of here! I can’t stand it any longer indoors. I shall weep myself to death! Was there really nothing in the tree again, Hubert?”
“No letter, no note!”
“When did you look, Hubert?”
“Just before serving coffee.”
