dear no! Madame Fontaine is Mr. Keller's new housekeeper.' 'Well?' mamma asked, 'and what did he say when he heard that?' 'He said nothing,' Joseph answered, 'and went away directly.''
'Was that all that passed between your mother and Joseph?'
'All,' Minna replied. 'My mother wouldn't even let me speak to her. I only tried to say a few words of sympathy—and I was told sharply to be silent. 'Don't interrupt me,' she said, 'I want to write a letter.''
'Did you see the letter?'
'Oh, no! But I was so anxious and uneasy that I did peep over her shoulder while she was writing the address.'
'Do you remember what it was?'
'I only saw the last word on it. The last word was 'Wurzburg.''
'Now you know as much as we do,' Fritz resumed. 'How does it strike you, David? And what do you advise?'
How could I advise? I could only draw my own conclusions privately. Madame Fontaine's movements were watched by somebody; possibly in the interests of the stranger who now held the promissory note. It was, of course, impossible for me to communicate this view of the circumstances to either of my two companions. I could only suggest a patient reliance on time, and the preservation of discreet silence on Minna's part, until her mother set the example of returning to the subject.
My vaguely-prudent counsels were, naturally enough, not to the taste of my young hearers. Fritz openly acknowledged that I had disappointed him; and Minna turned aside her head, with a look of reproach. Her quick perception had detected, in my look and manner, that I was keeping my thoughts to myself. Neither she nor Fritz made any objection to my leaving them, to return to the office before post-time. I wrote to Mr. Engelman before I left my desk that evening.
Recalling those memorable days of my early life, I remember that a strange and sinister depression pervaded our little household, from the time when Mr. Engelman left us.
In some mysterious way the bonds of sympathy, by which we had been hitherto more or less united, seemed to slacken and fall away. We lived on perfectly good terms with one another; but there was an unrecognized decrease of confidence among us, which I for one felt sometimes almost painfully. An unwholesome atmosphere of distrust enveloped us. Mr. Keller only believed, under reserve, that Madame Fontaine's persistent low spirits were really attributable, as she said, to nothing more important than nervous headaches. Fritz began to doubt whether Mr. Keller was really as well satisfied as he professed to be with the choice that his son had made of a portionless bride. Minna, observing that Fritz was occasionally rather more subdued and silent than usual, began to ask herself whether she was quite as dear to him, in the time of their prosperity, as in the time of their adversity. To sum up all, Madame Fontaine had her doubts of me—and I had my doubts (although she
From this degrading condition of dullness and distrust, we were roused, one morning, by the happy arrival of Mrs. Wagner, attended by her maid, her courier—and Jack Straw.
CHAPTER XXIII
Circumstances had obliged my aunt to perform the last stage of her journey to Frankfort by the night mail. She had only stopped at our house on her way to the hotel; being unwilling to trespass on the hospitality of her partners, while she was accompanied by such a half-witted fellow as Jack. Mr. Keller, however, refused even to hear of the head partner in the business being reduced to accept a mercenary welcome at an hotel. One whole side of the house, situated immediately over the offices, had been already put in order in anticipation of Mrs. Wagner's arrival. The luggage was then and there taken off the carriage; and my aunt was obliged, by all the laws of courtesy and good fellowship, to submit.
This information was communicated to me by Joseph, on my return from an early visit to one of our warehouses at the riverside. When I asked if I could see my aunt, I was informed that she had already retired to rest in her room, after the fatigue of a seven hours' journey by night.
'And where is Jack Straw?' I asked.
'Playing the devil already, sir, with the rules of the house,' Joseph answered.
Fritz's voice hailed me from the lower regions.
'Come down, David; here's something worth seeing!'
I descended at once to the servants' offices. There, crouched up in a corner of the cold stone corridor which formed the medium of communication between the kitchen and the stairs, I saw Jack Straw again—in the very position in which I had found him at Bedlam; excepting the prison, the chains, and the straw.
But for his prematurely gray hair and the strange yellow pallor of his complexion, I doubt if I should have recognized him again. He looked fat and happy; he was neatly and becomingly dressed, with a flower in his button- hole and rosettes on his shoes. In one word, so far as his costume was concerned, he might have been taken for a lady's page, dressed under the superintendence of his mistress herself.
'There he is!' said Fritz, 'and there he means to remain, till your aunt wakes and sends for him.'
'Upsetting the women servants, on their way to their work,' Joseph added, with an air of supreme disgust—'and freezing in that cold corner, when he might be sitting comfortably by the kitchen fire!'
Jack listened to this with an ironical expression of approval. 'That's very well said, Joseph,' he remarked. 'Come here; I want to speak to you. Do you see that bell?' He pointed to a row of bells running along the upper wall of the corridor, and singled out one of them which was numbered ten. 'They tell me that's the bell of Mistress's bedroom,' he resumed, still speaking of my aunt by the name which he had first given to her on the day when they met in the madhouse. 'Very well, Joseph! I don't want to be in anybody's way; but no person in the house must see that bell ring before me. Here I stay till Mistress rings—and then you will get rid of me; I shall move to the mat outside her door, and wait till she whistles for me. Now you may go. That's a poor half-witted creature,' he said as Joseph retired. 'Lord! what a lot of them there are in this world!' Fritz burst out laughing. 'I'm afraid you're another of them,' said Jack, looking at him with an expression of the sincerest compassion.
'Do you remember me?' I asked.
Jack nodded his head in a patronizing way. 'Oh, yes—Mistress has been talking of you. I know you both. You're David, and he's Fritz. All right! all right!'
